The recent capture of 15 British sailors by Iranian Naval forces has highlighted the issue of boundaries and territories within the Islamic world and beyond. Leaving aside the very valid question as to why foreign British forces should even have been in the area, Iraqi or Iranian, the dispute centred on the claim and counter claims of whether British naval vessels had been in Iraqi waters or had strayed into Iranian territory.

Iran captured these military personnel in the Shatt al Arab region, claiming that the British were in Iranian waters whilst the British maintained that they were in Iraqi waters. The UK Ministry of Defence later produced detailed maps to aid their version of events and strengthen their claim that their personnel were arrested in Iraqi waters. To add to the confusion, Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, highlighted that no maritime border had ever been set between Iran and Iraq. As the former head of the UK’s Foreign Office maritime section, Murray said that there is no agreed boundary in the Northern Gulf, either between Iran and Iraq or between Iraq and Kuwait. The Iran-Iraq border had been agreed inside the Shatt al-Arab waterway, because there it is also the land border. But that agreement does not extend beyond the low tide line of the coast. Even that very limited agreement is arguably no longer in force. Since it was reached in 1975, a war has been fought over it, and ten-year reviews – necessary because waters and sandbanks in this region move about dramatically – have never been carried out.

The wider issue that this episode has provoked is the contentious issue of land and water boundaries and their subsequent disputes within the Muslim world. The current borders that exist today are invariably relics of the waterways, dividing lines and territories drawn up by western colonial nations-principally Britain and France- in the 19th and early 20th Century. In drawing up these demarcations, the colonial powers had a number of very clear objectives. Firstly, these borders were drawn up in a way that would ensure Muslims would be locked into fighting with each other on a regular basis. Secondly, it was hoped, that the attention given to resolving and reclaiming these disputes would divert attention and pre-occupy the Muslim Ummah from thinking about the devious role the colonialists played in dividing Muslims from one another.  Thirdly, by concentrating on these border issues it would ultimately exhaust all the time and effort of Muslims from unifying as One Ummah again and feel resigned to living as numerous states and statelets.

The boundaries that were drawn up by the British colonial office and its French counterpart deliberately ran through ethnic and tribal areas, splitting families and villages apart into different nations via artificial borders. Naturally there would be turmoil as people sought to come back together again. In turn these borders and the desire to identify with a piece of land rather than Islam alone have helped to give rise to nationalistic sentiments and keep the Ummah divided along Saudi, Iraqi, Pakistani, Arab, Persian, Kurdish and African lines. Many nations today have their borders shaped in a manner that clearly shows they have been drawn with the help of a pencil and a measuring scale, rather than with the will of the people.

This is why so many conflicts have taken place and still exist in the Muslim world today. Examples of these are numerous. You have the Kurds being divided among four different states; Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq. They have been kept busy with the false hope of their own nation by western powers ever since Britain occupied Iraq in 1917 and the prospect of Kurdistan continually arises to disunite Muslims of the region. In the Sub-continent, the borders were divided in 1947 in such a way as to result in a relatively weak East and West Pakistan. Nationalism and separation were then instigated to further separate the Muslims of the area. Iran and Iraq waged an almost 10 year war with each other starting in 1980 over the very same Shatt al Arab disputed waterway in which the British sailors were caught. Iraq’s claims over Kuwait can be traced back to the carve up of the Middle East after World War 1. Other long lasting boundary disputes can be seen in the Levant and Kashmir.

These false borders have not only have allowed the Ummah to be consumed by nationalism, but they have also allowed foreign colonial powers to interfere with the affairs of the Muslims. The creation of Israel is perhaps the greatest example of colonial interference. An artificial state was created in the heart of the Muslim world and sustained by the West with the aid of treacherous rulers it placed in neighbouring lands. For decades, Israel has provided a pretext for colonial nations such as Britain and America to interfere with the affairs of the Muslims. It helps to justify the American and Western presence in the region, under the guise of helping to solve the Palestinian issue.

The irony of Britain in dispute over naval boundaries will not have been lost on the Muslim world. However, what is required today is for Muslims globally to abandon any remaining allegiance or loyalty they had to petty land or territories claims and transcend the artificial and illegitimate borders that have been placed amongst us to keep the Ummah weak and divided.