Sinuous relations: Portugal and the Arab world, 1950-1973

Abstract

In the last decades of Portuguese colonialism, policies destined to Muslim populations of Guinea and Mozambique turned from hostility to a strategy of seduction, with the aim of promoting a “Portuguese Islam” and using some Islamic groups in the struggle against nationalist African movements. Such a transition included a transnational dimension, as some actors within the Portuguese administration wanted to intervene in a larger strategic space known as the “Islamic world”. This article tries to analyze that intervention, focusing on its geopolitical thought and its diplomatic fulfillment, particularly in what concerns the relations with the Arab countries.