The fall of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War led to the fact that the Islamic world, with the exception of republican Turkey, the Shah’s Iran, and stagnant Afghanistan, was controlled by the European Great Powers, namely Great Britain and France, in the form of colonies, protectorates, and the League of Nations’ mandates. This development was reminiscent of the fate of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, after whose collapse Central Europe became an unstable area, over which the Great Powers fought.