Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Helen Chapin Metz, The Persian Gulf 

States: A Country Study (Washington, D.C.: Federal 

Division, Library of Congress, 1994); Rosemarie Said 

Zahlan, The Making of the Modern Gulf States: Kuwait, 

Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman

(London: Unwin Hyman, 1989).

Gulf Wars

Between 1980 and the present (2008), the Persian 

Gulf region was subject to three major conflicts 

that pitted country against country, Muslim against 

Muslim, and Muslims against the U

nited

  s

tates

, 

Great Britain, and their allies. Although religion was 

not the cause for these conflicts, it nonetheless was 

an important factor. The conflicts, in turn, affected 

the ways in which religion was used by the various 

parties involved to serve their short- and long-term 

strategies and policy objectives. In addition, compe-

tition for control of the world’s largest 

oil

 fields was 

a key element in each of the conflicts.

ThE IrAN-IrAQ WAr OF 1980–1988

This, the first of the modern Gulf wars, began on 

September 22, 1980, when Iraqi forces invaded 

i

ran

 by crossing the Shatt al-Arab waterway into 

southwestern Iran. A major cause of the conflict 

was a long-standing dispute between the two 

nations over control of this vital waterway, which 

is used for transporting oil to global markets 

via the Persian Gulf. i

raq

 had been obliged by a 

United Nations resolution in 1975 to share the 

waterway jointly with Iran, a development that 

s

addam

  h

Usayn

 (d. 2006), Iraq’s president, saw 

as an insult to his country’s sovereignty. Another 

area of contention was Iraq’s historic claim to the 

Iranian province of Khuzistan (also known as 

Arabistan), where there was a large population 

of Arabs whom Iraq felt needed its protection. In 

1980, Husayn perceived that the overthrow of the 

Pahlavi monarchy in 1979 by an Islamic revolu-

tion led by Ayatollah r

Uhollah

  k

homeini

 (d. 

1989), the charismatic Shii leader, had left Iran’s 

defenses weak and in disarray. Husayn concluded 

that this was a situation he could exploit to make 

Iraq the dominant power in the Persian Gulf. At 

the same time, Husayn was angered by efforts 

undertaken by Iranian agents to stir up resistance 

against his government among Iraqi Shia, the 

country’s majority population, who live in the 

southern part of the country, where many of Iraq’s 

oil fields are located.

Religion was used in the war to win popular 

support domestically and appeal to the wider 

Muslim community. After initial losses on the 

battlefield, Iranian forces rallied, with the back-

ing of thousands of youthful volunteers called 

the Basij, who were encouraged to become holy 

martyrs by dying for their country in imitation of 

Imam Husayn, the heroic grandson of Muham-

mad who perished in the battle of k

arbala

 in 

680 fighting the forces of tyranny and injustice. 

By 1982, Iran had regained much of the terri-

tory initially lost to the Iraqi offensive. Saddam 

Husayn, on the other hand, attempted to mobilize 

Iraqi patriotism by recalling the Battle of Qadisi-

yya (ca. 636), in which Arab Muslim armies were 

thought to have decisively defeated the Sassanian 

Persian army, opening all of Iran to conquest. He