From Napoleon to Eden: Franco-British Perfidy in The Middle East



Overview

For long The West has manipulated the Arab World, Ottoman Turkey and its transition into modern Turkey and Iran.

Franz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth) and Edward Said (Orientalism) exposed the hypocrisy of Europe's so-called Civilising Mission in the Middle East.

Dante and other literati had demonised Islam while the Protestant evangelists would combine this mission with their Biblical belief in a Second Coming (of Christ), a prequel to the creation of Israel.

Napoleon's brief sojourn did bring with it the values of the French Enlightenment, but promises of independence during the First World War were as hollow as the Oslo Peace Accords arguably were during the 1990s.

Britain and France deceived the Arabs during the 1956 Suez Crisis and Britain's commitment to democracy was belied by the ousting of Mosaddegh in 1953 in favour of the Shah.

Programme details

Course starts Monday 29 September 2025

This is an in-person course which requires your attendance at the weekly meetings in Oxford on Mondays, 10.30am-12.30pm.

Week 1: Dante, Wycliffe and Western perceptions of Islam

Week 2: Napoleon, Egypt and La Mission Civilisatrice

Week 3: France, Algeria and the Sufi warrior The Emir Qader

Week 4: Dreyfus, Herzl, Protestant evangelism and The Rapture

Week 5: Faysal, Lawrence, Hogarth and The Arab Revolt

Week 6: Sykes-Picot, The Balfour Declaration and the British and French Mandates

Week 7: The Young Turks and Ataturk

Week 8: The Yishuv, the Shoah and the creation of Israel/ the Nakba through the eyes of Prof. Israel Shahak and the "The new historians", Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim and Norman Finkelstein 

week 9: From Ibn Saud to MBS: the Wahhabi conundrum

Week 10: The British under every stone: Mosadegh, the Shah and MI5

Digital Certification

Academic credit

Credit Accumulation Transfer Scheme (CATS Points)

Please note, students who do not register for assessment and accreditation during the enrolment process will not be able to do so after the course has begun. If you wish to gain credit from completing this course you must register to do so before the course starts.

Only those who have registered for assessment and accreditation will be awarded CATS points for completing work to the required standard. Please note that assignments are not graded but are marked either pass or fail.

Learn more about the Credit Accumulation Transfer Scheme.

If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education at the Department you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee for assessment and accreditation.

Digital certificate of completion 

Students who are registered for assessment and accreditation and pass their final assignment will also be eligible for a digital Certificate of Completion. Information on how to access the digital certificate will be emailed to you after the end of the course. The certificate will show your name, the course title and the dates of the course attended. You will be able to download the certificate and share it on social media if you choose to do so.

Fees

Description Costs
Course fee (with no assessment) £300.00
Assessment and Accreditation fee £60.00

Funding

If you are in receipt of a UK state benefit, you are a full-time student in the UK or a student on a low income, you may be eligible for a reduction of 50% of tuition fees. See details of our concessionary fees for short courses.

 

Tutor

Mr Trevor Mostyn Mostyn

Trevor Mostyn read Arabic with Persian at Edinburgh University, spending one year at the American University in Cairo and one year at The Middle East Centre at Oxford. Later he taught at Algiers University, then travelled throughout the Middle East as a publisher and then set up and ran the Med Media Programme (media projects between the then 12 EU countries and the 12 Mediterranean non-member countries) for the European Union. He has published 8 books on the region, lectured on ships and written for many newspapers. He teaches Islamic Studies at Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education.

Course aims

To clarify two counter-arguments; Europe's claim that it delivered a Civilising Mission to a backward Middle East contrasted with Arab perception of white, colonial manipulation. 

To help students understand the level of hurt felt by many Arabs, Iranians and Turks over their treatment by the Western world since the 19th century. Broken promises to the Arabs during the First World War, the perfidious Suez Crisis, the demonisation of Mosadegh, Iran's democratically-elected leader, and the creation of Israel were the historic backdrop to more recent events, the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq and the devastation of Gaza in 2024.

Teaching methods

Detailed advance notes on each subject will be emailed to students each week before the course and will also be printed out each Monday.

Questions will be strongly encouraged at ten-minute intervals.

A list of suggested essay titles will be provided.

There will be a number of impromptu quizzes. 

Powerpoint presentations will include photographs, maps, documents and some music. 

Learning outcomes

By the end of the course students will have been given the opportunity to have learnt how to:

  • understand the reactions of Arabs, Turks and Iranians to the colonial period;
  • be able to discuss objectively controversial subjects such as the Israel-Palestine narrative and the Armenian question in Turkey;
  • understand the implications of the Sunni-Shia divide;
  • understand the relationship between Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Assessment methods

Only those students who have registered for assessment and accreditation, in advance of the course start date, can submit coursework/assignments for assessment.

Assessment

The assessment will be a summative essay of 1500 words. Students will also have the opportunity to submit a formative assessment of 500 words during the course.

 

Application

How to enrol

Please use the 'Book now' button on this page. Alternatively, please complete an enrolment form.

How to register for accreditation and assessment

To be able to submit coursework and to earn credit (CATS points) for this course, if you wish to do so, you will need to register and pay an additional £60 fee. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online. 

Students who do not register for CATS points during the enrolment process will not be able to do so after the course has begun.

If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education at the Department you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee.

Level and demands

The Department's Weekly Classes are taught at FHEQ Level 4, ie first year undergraduate level, and you will be expected to engage in a significant amount of private study in preparation for the classes. This may take the form, for instance, of reading and analysing set texts, responding to questions or tasks, or preparing work to present in class.

Terms & conditions for applicants and students

Information on financial support