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PAN-ISLAMISM


may be the truth of this as a theory, it is confirmed neither by ancient nor by modern practice. Some writers, in general favour- able to Islam, speak of dissension and civil war as unavoidable in Moslem communities; and doubtless this has led to that loss of political power which gave rise to the Pan-Islamic movement.

The work called Qaum Jadid (" The New Nation "), by Ubaid- alla Efendi, formerly member for Aidin, and at one time editor of an anti-Arabian journal in Arabic, which appeared about the same time, perhaps in the main advocated the same ideas, only it was far more outspoken. It demanded that every Moslem should give half his wealth to the Ottoman treasury in order to enable it to muster forces capable of recovering its lost provinces; anyone who declined to make this sacrifice was to be considered an apostate. Its idea of Islam was somewhat loose there was no occasion to study Arabic, as the Friday sermon might be de- livered in Turkish, and the Qur'an and other sacred books might be translated. The Sacred War was a duty incumbent on all Moslems, and such of them as lived contentedly under non- Moslem rulers were apostates, for by pleasing unbelievers they offended God. All Moslems in Ottoman countries who failed to enlist under the banner of the party of Union and Progress were to be regarded as apostates; as such the Albanians were to be branded. To follow the ritual prescribed in the books of the orthodox jurists was unlawful, for the new school had de- duced five principles from the Qur'an. These were: i, reason; 2, the Moslem formula of faith; 3, good character; 4, the duty of fighting with person and wealth; 5, that of striving to furnish the requisites of war by uniting under the banner of the Caliph.

Little could in fact be hoped from attempts to rouse men to make great sacrifices in the cause of Islam when all which consti- tutes Islam to the ordinary believer is abandoned; and Mr. Wy- man Bury, in his acute analysis of the causes which militate against Pan-Islamism, gives the first place to the contempt shown by the Turks for the ordinances which Islam holds sacred. " Even before the war," he says, " Yemen Arabs talked of Turks and Mos- lems, a distinctly damning discrimination." The Turkish procliv- ity towards European dress and civilization, which he regards as another source of weakness, is scarcely to be distinguished from this, though the antithesis between civilization and its absence is to be found in other Moslem countries; and the Pan-Islamic encouragement of education as Europeans understand it, while in appearance rendering the movement formidable, has also rendered it suspect to large multitudes who would gladly emulate the ancient Islamic heroes. For the Islamic cult, which is thus so altered as to be unrecognizable, the Pan-Turanians endeavour to substitute a national ideal with a set of heroes, largely pagan, who are to displace the Prophet's family and the Four Pious Caliphs as objects of general reverence. This disrespect is nat- urally resented by Arab and other non-Turkish Moslems.

The former of the works described is far more characteristic than the latter of the general tone of Pan-Islamic journalism. It is full of accusations against the European Powers in control of Islamic territories, charging them with oppressing the Moslems, depriving them of elementary human rights, sowing dissension among them, and the like; yet rarely able to bring evidence jus- tifying these charges, and compelled to ignore the fact that the Moslems prosper far more in countries protected by Europeans than where they are left to themselves. Its great hero is the Ottoman Sultan Selim I., whose chief title to fame is that he fought against and overthrew another Islamic sultanate, that of Egypt, and forcibly incorporated various Islamic countries in the Ottoman Empire. In places it is asserted that the unity of Is- lam is an undeniable fact wherewith Europe is confronted; in others, that the troubles of Islam are all due to its divisions. Hence the vagueness of both aim and method which character- ized the earlier Pan-Islamism is conspicuous in this statement; and many a prophecy is uttered with regard to the future of European states which the years following its publication have falsified. To the latter work the term Pan-Islamism can scarcely be applied. Its programme is indeed clear enough a general revolt of all Moslems against their European rulers in order to swell the armies of the Ottomans, the Ottomans meanwhile

practically abandoning Islam. The summing-up of the situation in Arabia by Mr. Wyman Bury in 1914 would hold good of many other Islamic lands: " The Arab still acknowledges the Sultan as Caliph, but repudiates the Ottoman Government and all its works." Some Moslems of Java threatened to abandon the khutbah to the Sultan if the ideas of the Turkish extremists materialized. And indeed Pan-Islamism at this stage contained no practical formula which any but Turks would adopt.

4. Pan-Islamism during the World War (/p/^-ip/S). Shortly after the Turkish Empire entered the war on the side of the German alliance the Grand Mufti declared & jihad, summoning all Moslems to arms in defence of their faith. General Liman von Sanders asserts that this call was absolutely without response ; the reason, he holds, being that the pretext was obviously false, inasmuch as Turkey was itself in alliance with non-Moslem Powers and, indeed, fighting for their benefit and under their command. He quotes an Itajian minister for the statement that the call was absolutely neglected by the Moslems of Tripoli. Further, the French Government issued a counterblast in a collection of expressions of loyalty from Moslem authorities of the French African Empire (Collection de la Revue du Monde Musulman, 1915, 1916, called Le Salut au Drapeau, in the Eng- lish edition Honour to the Flag), wherein all Moslems are called upon to fight for France. The call seems to have been issued half-heartedly, even within the Ottoman dominions. When the official at the Mosque of Damascus had to proclaim the Sacred War from its pulpit, seeing a group of German officers among the congregation he said: " I am ordered to proclaim jihad. A. jihad is, as you know, a Holy War to protect our Holy Places against infidels. This being so, what are those infidel pigs doing in our mosque ? " This story is told by Mr. Wyman Bury (Pan-Islam, 1919, p. 81), who adds: " Those who forged the blade of this counterfeit jihad could not temper it in the flame of religious fervour, and it shattered against the shield of religious tolerance and good faith."

Doubtless the most serious blow which the unity of Islam re- ceived during the war was the entry into it of the Sherif of Mecca on the British side in 1916. The Sherif in his proclamations (published in his organ, the Qihla, and reprinted in the Manar, vol. xix.) made it clear that his quarrel was not with the Ottoman Empire, but only with the Party of Union and Progress, who had reproduced the worst atrocities of the Umayyads by firing at the House of God and slaughtering worshippers. As, however, this party represented the Ottoman Government, this act produced a definite division in Islam which is unlikely ever to be repaired. Uncertain as the sense to be attached to the title Caliph has or- dinarily been, the idea has on the whole prevailed that he should have control of the sanctuaries and the access to them; there seems no means of devising a formula which should combine a Turkish Caliphate with an independent Hejaz. On the other hand, the removal of Turkish rule from Arabia, to which the events which followed the secession of the Hcjaz led, has done little or nothing to realize the dream of Jalal Nuri of an empire embracing all the speakers of Arabic. The establishment of the Hejaz kingdom probably on the whole accentuated the sectarian differences which were already rife in the peninsula. A mission was indeed sent by the Emperor of Morocco to the Sherif of Mecca to congratulate him on his assertion of independence; but the legal authority who accompanied it gave it as his opinion that where Islamic countries were at a great distance from each other there was no objection to their being subject to different Imams; Morocco had at no time recognized the Eastern Cali- phate, in whosesoever possession it happened to be; the indepen- dence of the Sherif therefore in no way affected the Moroccan Caliphate. Moreover, the history of Islam attested the frequent coexistence of numerous Caliphs (Revue du Monde Musulman, xxxiv., 1917-8, p. 140). The rise of this new power in the sanc- tuaries was not therefore to furnish a new principle of unity for Islam; it only helped to get rid of that round which the old Pan- Islamic ideas had been grouped.

In lieu of this there is some Pan-Arabian agitation; such at least is the purpose of a violent diatribe reprinted in the Manar