View source for Fedayeen

{{Short description|Arabic term for irregular militia troops}}
{{Redirect|Fidai|the Palestinian national anthem|Fida'i}}
{{Distinguish|Armenian fedayi}}
{{More citations needed|date=September 2007}}
'''Fedayeen''' ({{langx|ar|فدائيون}} ''fidāʻiyyūn'' {{IPA|ar|fɪ.daːʔɪj.juːn}} "self-sacrificers"){{Ref|A|[a]}}<ref name=Rea>{{cite book|title=The Arab-Israeli Conflict |author=Tony Rea and John Wright |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1993 |page=[https://archive.org/details/arabisraeliconfl0000reat/page/43 43] |isbn=978-0-19-917170-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/arabisraeliconfl0000reat/page/43}}</ref> is an [[Arabic language|Arabic]] term used to refer to various military groups willing to sacrifice themselves for a larger campaign or leader.

==Etymology==

"Fidayun" is the plural of "fidayi" ({{langx|ar|فدائي}} ''fidāʻiyy'' {{IPA|ar|fɪ.daːʔijj}})), meaning "one who redeems/sacrifices themselves".<ref name=Rea/><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=hsJPK0PIJpH&b=886017&ct=1181593|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120427125233/http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=hsJPK0PIJpH&b=886017&ct=1181593|url-status=dead|title=Middle East Glossary - The Israel Project: FEDAYEE|archivedate=April 27, 2012}}</ref>

==Medieval usage==
===Order of Assassins===

[[Hassan-i-Sabbah]] (c. 1050–1124),<ref>{{cite book|last=Frischauer|first=Willi|title=The Aga Khans|date=1970|publisher=The Bodley Head|isbn=0-370-01304-2|page=40|chapter=Chapter II}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Daftary|first1=Farhad|last2=Ali-de-Unzaga|first2=Omar|title=Hasan Sabbah|url=http://iis.ac.uk/encyclopaedia-articles/hasan-sabbah|access-date=2018-02-05|publisher=The Institute of Ismaili Studies}}</ref> who founded the [[Order of Assassins]] in [[Persia]] and [[Syria]], used the term to refer to his fanatical devotees. ''Fidāʼīyīn'' is the plural of ''fidāʼī'', which means "sacrifice." It is widely understood as "those willing to sacrifice themselves for God".

==Modern usage==
=== Armenia ===
{{main article|Armenian fedayi}}{{See also|List of Armenian massacres|Destroyed Armenian churches in Turkey}}
[[File:Andranik hat.png|thumb|172px|General [[Andranik Ozanian]], wearing his uniform and medals with a [[papakha]] hat.]]'''''Fedayi''''' also known as the '''Armenian irregular units''' or '''Armenian militia''', were [[Armenians|Armenian]] civilians who voluntarily left their families to form self-defense units in reaction to the mass murder of Armenians and the pillage of Armenian villages by criminals, [[Turkish people|Turkish]] and [[Kurds|Kurdish]] gangs, Ottoman forces, and [[Hamidiye (cavalry)|Hamidian guards]] between the 19th and early 20th centuries. Their ultimate goal was to gain Armenian autonomy ([[Armenakan Party|Armenakans]]) or independence ([[Dashnak|Dashnaks]], [[Hunchak|Hunchaks]]) depending on their ideology. Some of the key Fedayi figures also participated in the [[Iranian Constitutional Revolution]] that commenced during the same period, upon agreement of the [[Armenian Revolutionary Federation|ARF]] leaders.<ref name="Rea2">{{cite book |author=Tony Rea and John Wright |url=https://archive.org/details/arabisraeliconfl0000reat/page/43 |title=''The Arab-Israeli Conflict'' |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1993 |isbn=019917170X |page=[https://archive.org/details/arabisraeliconfl0000reat/page/43 43]}}</ref> 

At the onset of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenians of Artsakh began forming small detachments of volunteers and often self-described themselves as ''[[Armenian fedayi|Fedayeen]]'', inheriting the name of the fighters who actively resisted the Ottoman Empire in the final decades of the nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth centuries. The Fedayeen during this period worked against attempts by the [[Ministry of Internal Affairs (Soviet Union)|Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD)]] and [[OMON]] units of the [[Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic|Azerbaijan SSR]] to [[Operation Ring|ethnically cleanse the region of Armenians.]]  

The term has also been used to refer to members of the Armenian militant group [[Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia|ASALA]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781351155564 |title=Insurgent Terrorism |date=2017-11-30 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/9781351155564 |isbn=978-1-351-15556-4 |editor-last=Cromer |editor-first=Gerald}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Atanesian |first=Grigor |date=2016-08-05 |title=Armenia After the Crackdown: Old-Time Warriors Ready to Take a Stand |url=https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2016/08/05/many-more-ready-to-take-a-stand-after-armenia-crackdown-a54873 |access-date=2024-02-19 |website=The Moscow Times |language=en}}</ref>

===Ottoman Empire and Turkey===
The [[Committee of Union and Progress]] conducted assassination campaigns and called its assassins "fedai", which originated from "feda," deriving from the first letters of "filiyas elenikis desmos anton" meaning "this is the tie of Greek friendship".<ref name=":0">{{cite book |last1=Göçek |first1=Fatma Müge |author1-link=Fatma Müge Göçek |title=Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present and Collective Violence Against the Armenians, 1789–2009 |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-933420-9  |language=en|page=195}}</ref> However, "feda" also means sacrifice in Turkish, representing the term's evolution which came to represent those who swore allegiance to CUP.<ref name=":0" /> Within the context of [[History of Turkey|Turkish history]], the term ''fedailer'' is often associated with the [[Decline and modernization of the Ottoman Empire|Late Ottoman]] or [[One-party period of the Republic of Turkey|Early Republican]] irregular forces, known as: [[Kuva-yi Milliye]].<ref>http://www.yumuktepe.com/kurtulus-savasinda-icel-dort-ve-besinci-bolum/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224155402/https://www.yumuktepe.com/kurtulus-savasinda-icel-dort-ve-besinci-bolum/ |date=2021-02-24 }} KURTULUŞ SAVAŞINDA İÇEL – DÖRT VE BEŞİNCİ BÖLÜM</ref> Those most committed [[Committee of Union and Progress|Unionists]] who would enforce the Central Committee's regime were also known as ''fedailer''.

===Egypt===
During the 1940s, groups of Egyptian civilians formed ''fedayeen'' groups to contest the [[History of Egypt under the British|British occupation of Egypt]], which by then was limited to the region against the [[Suez Canal]]. [[United Kingdom|British]] forces had established numerous military outposts around the canal zone, which many Egyptians viewed as a violation of their national sovereignty. This opposition was not supported by the [[Government of Egypt|Egyptian government]] pre-1951, though these ''fedayeen'' groups held broad support among the general public in Egypt.{{Citation needed|date=July 2013}}

In 1951, the Egyptian government started supporting the fedyaeen. Attacks "mobs of "irregular self-sacrificers, or fedayeen", some "armed by the [[Muslim Brotherhood]]", attacked British military outposts located in the Suez Canal Zone. In the same year, the government started to support the attacks.<ref name="WawroFedayeen">{{cite book|last1=Wawro|first1=Geoffrey|title=Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East|date=2010|publisher=Penguin|isbn=978-1101197684}}</ref>

===Eritrea===
Known by the same name, they operated inside the capital city, [[Asmara]], during the last 15–20 years of the armed struggle in [[Eritrea]] against the [[Government of Ethiopia|Ethiopian government]]. They operated secretly and eliminated people who were considered dangerous to the [[Eritrean War of Independence|struggle to gain Eritrean independence]], which lasted from 1961 to 1991.{{Citation needed|date=October 2014}}

===Iran===
Two very different groups used the name Fedayeen in recent [[History of Iran|Iranian history]]. The ''[[Fadayan-e Islam]]'' has been described as "one of the first real [[Islamic fundamentalist]] organizations in the [[Muslim world]]". It was founded by [[Navab Safavi]] in 1946 for the purpose of demanding strict application of the sharia and assassinating those it believed to be [[Apostasy in Islam|apostates]] and enemies of Islam.<ref>Abrahamian, Ervand, ''A Modern History Of Iran'', Cambridge University Press, 2008, p.116</ref> After several successful assassinations it was suppressed in 1956 and several leading members were executed.

A [[Marxism|Marxist]]-leaning activist group known as the Fedayeen (Fedayân in Persian language) was founded in 1971 and based in [[Tehran]]. Operating between 1971 and 1983, the Fedayeen carried out a number of political assassinations in the course of the struggle against the [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi|Shah of Iran]], after which the group was suppressed.

In 1979 the [[Iranian People's Fedâi Guerrillas]] split from the [[Organization of Iranian People's Fedaian (Majority)]].

===Iraq===
{{Main|Fedayeen Saddam}}
Beginning in 1995, [[Ba'athist Iraq|Iraq]] established a [[paramilitary]] group known as the [[Fedayeen Saddam]], loyal to the [[Ba'athist Iraq]]i government of [[Saddam Hussein]]. The name was chosen to imply a connection with the Palestinian Fedayeen.<ref>{{cite book|last=Seddon |first=David |title=A Political and Economic Dictionary of the Middle East |date=11 January 2013 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=buyrxARN_H0C&pg=PT165 |page=165|publisher=Taylor and Francis|isbn=9781135355616 }}</ref> In July 2003, personnel records for the Fedayeen organization in Iraq were discovered in the basement of the former Fedayeen headquarters in east [[Baghdad]] near the [[Rasheed Air Base]]. At the time of the discovery, the [[Assyrian Democratic Movement]] occupied the building; after an extensive cataloging process, an operation was conducted in Baghdad resulting in several individuals being detained.

===Palestine===
<!-- This section is linked from [[Black September (group)]] -->
{{Main article|Palestinian fedayeen|}}[[Palestinian fedayeen]] are militants of a nationalist orientation from among the [[Palestinian people]]. The fedayeen made efforts to infiltrate territory in [[Israel]] in order to strike military<ref name=MFA0>{{cite web|url=http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+before+2000/Which+Came+First-+Terrorism+or+Occupation+-+Major.htm
| title=Which Came First- Terrorism or Occupation - Major Arab Terrorist Attacks against Israelis Prior to the 1967 Six-Day War | date=31 March 2002 | publisher=Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs }}</ref> as well as civilian<ref>{{cite book|last1=Stein|first1=Leslie|title=The Making of Modern Israel; 1948-1967|date=2014|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|pages=171–172}}</ref><ref name="Israel; A History">{{cite book|last1=Shapira|first1=Anita|title=Israel; A History|page=271|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nh9okmg63ssC&q=%22nahal+oz%22++%22Moshe+dayan%22+++yearning+for+peace&pg=PA271|access-date=23 September 2014|isbn=9781611683530|year=2012}}</ref><ref name="Gaza: A History">{{cite book|last1=Filiu|first1=Jean-Pierre|title=Gaza: A History|date=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=92}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Aloni|first1=Udi|title=Samson the Non-European|journal=Studies in Gender and Sexuality|date=2011|volume=12| issue = 2|pages=124–133|doi=10.1080/15240657.2011.559441|s2cid=143362550}}</ref><ref>[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Kn1lAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8okNAAAAIBAJ&pg=4875,2798629 Four Killed In Ambush] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200219223254/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Kn1lAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8okNAAAAIBAJ&pg=4875,2798629 |date=2020-02-19 }}, [[Vancouver Sun]]</ref><ref name="Israeli Counterterrorism">{{cite book|last1=Byman|first1=Daniel|title=A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism|date=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/highpricetriumph0000byma/page/22 22]|url=https://archive.org/details/highpricetriumph0000byma|url-access=registration|access-date=14 October 2014|isbn=9780199831746}}</ref><ref name=morris>Benny Morris, ''The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited'', [[Cambridge University Press]], Cambridge, England, 2004, provides the most up-to-date breakdown of the reasons for the flight</ref> targets in the aftermath of the [[1948 Arab–Israeli War]]. Some groups of fedayeen find their origin among the refugee camps of the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. In these camps the fedayeen would find common cause between each other and the local population, such as in Lebanon. This also enabled them to blend in between the civilians and wage a [[Guerrilla warfare|guerilla war]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Khayyat |first=Munira |url= |title=A Landscape of War |date=2022-11-22 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-39000-3 |pages=40 |language=en |doi=10.2307/j.ctv2zp50qx}}</ref> 

Members of these groups were living in the [[Gaza Strip]] and the [[West Bank]] or in neighboring [[Lebanon]] and [[Syria]].<ref name="HR" /> The presence of these groups in these countries would however draw attention of the Israeli military which used heavy tactics to flush them out. They also did this in order to turn the civilian population against them, this was successful in the case of south Lebanon.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Khayyat |first=Munira |url= |title=A Landscape of War |date=2022-11-22 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-39000-3 |pages=40-41 |language=en |doi=10.2307/j.ctv2zp50qx}}</ref>

Prior to Israel's seizure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the [[Six-Day War]], these areas, originally destined for a Palestinian state, were under Jordanian and Egyptian occupation, respectively. After Israel's [[Operation Black Arrow]] in 1955, the Palestinian fedayeen were incorporated into an Egyptian army unit.<ref name="HR">Haya Regev, Dr. Avigail Oren, The operations in the 1950s, University of Tel Aviv, 1995</ref><ref name="JBG">[[John Bagot Glubb|Glubb, John Bagot]]. ''A Soldier with the Arabs''. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1957. p. 289.</ref><ref name="MFA1">[http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts+About+Israel/Israel+in+Maps/1948-1967-+Major+Terror+Attacks.htm 1948-1967- Major Terror Attacks] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180822045847/http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts+About+Israel/Israel+in+Maps/1948-1967-+Major+Terror+Attacks.htm |date=2018-08-22 }}. Mfa.gov.il. Retrieved on 2010-09-29.</ref><ref name="MFA2">[http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+before+2000/Which+Came+First-+Terrorism+or+Occupation+-+Major.htm Which Came First- Terrorism or Occupation – Major] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181101124846/http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+before+2000/Which+Came+First-+Terrorism+or+Occupation+-+Major.htm |date=2018-11-01 }}. Mfa.gov.il. Retrieved on 2010-09-29.</ref><ref name="JAFI1">[http://jafi.org/JewishAgency/English/Jewish+Education/Compelling+Content/Jewish+Time/Festivals+and+Memorial+Days/Remembrance+Day/Background.htm Remembrance Day Background] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141024000815/http://jafi.org/JewishAgency/English/Jewish+Education/Compelling+Content/Jewish+Time/Festivals+and+Memorial+Days/Remembrance+Day/Background.htm |date=2014-10-24 }}. jafi.org (2005-05-15). Retrieved on 2012-05-09.</ref><ref name="JAFI2">[http://jafi.org/NR/exeres/86314008-E729-4282-AD78-8B0C0E24B36B Fedayeen Attacks 1951–1956] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150715032057/http://jafi.org/NR/exeres/86314008-E729-4282-AD78-8B0C0E24B36B |date=2015-07-15 }}. jafi.org (2005-05-15). Retrieved on 2012-05-09.</ref><ref name="ADL">[http://www.adl.org/ISRAEL/Record/sinai.asp The 1956 Sinai Campaign] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071016201124/http://www.adl.org/ISRAEL/Record/sinai.asp |date=2007-10-16 }}. Adl.org. Retrieved on 2010-09-29.</ref> In the year 1969 the [[Cairo Agreement (1969)|Cairo Agreement]] was signed which sanctioned Lebanon an battlefield. This agreement was important since it sanctioned the use of South-Lebanon as a battlefield. Since the area was now a battlefield the [[Palestinian fedayeen]] could now use it as base of operations against the Israeli forces.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Khayyat |first=Munira |url= |title=A Landscape of War |date=2022-11-22 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-39000-3 |pages=45 |language=en |doi=10.2307/j.ctv2zp50qx}}</ref>

During this time (1948 – c. 1980), the word entered international usage and was frequently used in the Arab media as a synonym for great militancy.{{citation needed|date=April 2017}} In the Israeli Hebrew press of this time the term was associated with [[terrorism]].<ref name=MFA0/> Since the mid-1960s and the rise of more organized and specific militant groups, such as the [[Palestine Liberation Organization]], the word has fallen out of usage, but not in the historical context.

==See also==
* [[Arab–Israeli conflict]]
* [[Mujahideen]]
* [[Palestinian political violence]]

== Explanatory notes ==
{{refbegin}}
{{note|A|note A}}Derives from the word {{lang|ar|فداء}} ''fidāʼ'', which means [[wikt:redemption|redemption]]. Literally, someone who redeems himself by risking or sacrificing his life. The pronunciation varies for the first vowel, for example {{IPA|arz|feˈdæːʔ, feˈdæːʔi|IPA}}, hence the transcription difference.{{refend}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wiktionary}}
* Armenian Fedayeen: [http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Armenian_History#A_New_Political_Climate Armenian History]

[[Category:Arab ethnic groups]]
[[Category:Arabic words and phrases]]
[[Category:Islamic terrorism]]