Pan

"Pan - ISLAMISM. -One of the results of the World War was to bring into new prominence, in connexion with Turkey and the Middle East, the movement known as Pan-Islamism, for uniting the peoples who profess the Mahommedan religion under one banner. The history of Pan-Islamism from 1910 onwards is analyzed below.

1. Before the Italian War.-The proclamation of the Ottoman Constitution in 1908 seemed to cut at the root of Pan-Islamism, since the idea of the former was to substitute for preexisting religious and national divisions an Ottoman nationality, wherein the different communities of the empire should equally share. Writers of the year 1909 show many reasons why the " Young Turks" could never favour Pan-Islamism, which indeed they had officially repudiated. It was pointed out that the more conservative Moslem nations of Africa would never approve a Sultan in whose eyes all creeds were to be equal. By 1910 it was realized that this prospect was chimerical; Tal`at Bey, Minister of the Interior, in a speech delivered at Salonika on Aug. 6 of that year at a private meeting of the Committee of Union and Progress, asserted that, though according to the Constitution all Ottoman subjects were equal before the law, such an order of things was clearly impossible; this equality was in defiance of the Shari`ah (religious code), and the Christians themselves had no desire to become Ottomans. At the Salonika Congress of 1911 a definite scheme of Pan-Islamic propaganda was adopted, and it was resolved that a congress of delegates from all the Moslem countries of the world ought to meet annually in Constantinople to discuss questions of interest to all Moslems. Emissaries appear to have been actually sent out during these years to win or to confirm adherents to the Ottoman Caliph wherever Moslems were subject to Europeans, even to remote parts of Africa, including Morocco; others worked among the Moslems of China. These missions seem to have been fairly effective, as a Pan-Islamic writer asserts that the khutbah (Friday sermon) continued to be pronounced in the name of the Ottoman Caliph in Tunis in spite of French objection; and that when, in 1912, a republic was proclaimed in China the Chinese Moslems signified their adhesion on condition that the rights of the Ottoman Caliph were not infringed thereby.

Attempts were also made to deal with the old difficulty which had confronted Pan-Islamism, the schism between Sunnah and Shi`ah. Early in 1911 a letter was published by a number of Ottoman and Persian jurists assembled at Nejef, asserting that there was no difference of principle between the two sects and urging cooperation between the two empires, Persia being at that time, it was supposed, menaced by England and Russia. The Agha Khan, head of a sect so heretical that `Abdul Hamid II. had declined to admit him to an audience, made a tour in India to advocate the claims of a Moslem university. Articles advocating union appeared in various Sunni and Shi`i journals; indeed, the Moslem press as a whole was Pan-Islamic.

Nevertheless, as early as 1910 prominence had been given to a new antithesis, which may be said to have ultimately wrecked the schemes for reunion of the Moslem communities. In that year the Constantinople journal Iqdam, an organ of the Committee, adopted a tone unfriendly to the Arabs, whom it charged with readiness to sell their honour for gold-an accusation vehemently resented in the Arabic-speaking countries. But in fact the seeds of dissension between the Turkish and Arab elements in the Ottoman Empire had been sown in the Constitution, in Art. 68, par. io of which it is enacted that after the expiration of a period of four years a condition of eligibility to the Chamber of Deputies shall be ability to read and write Turkish. This rule definitely aimed at making Turkish the language of the empire; and in the resolutions in favour of Pan-Islamic propaganda the encouragement of the study of Turkish was recommended. The true Pan-Islamic view was that Arabic should be the common language of Islam; some, indeed, suggested that the empire should be bilingual, with Turkish for its secular and Arabic for its religious language; in any case, that every Moslem should learn Arabic in addition to any idiom which happened to be his mother tongue. Journals were started in the Turkish and Arabic interests respectively; the latter were represented in Constantinople by one called at first Sirat Mustagim, afterwards Sabil al-Rashad. The Committee of Union and Progress more and more inclined to the Turkish side and to the substitution of Pan-Turanianism for the Ottoman nationality. In the races subject to the Russian Empire and speaking different varieties of Turkish they found their natural allies; and for these the Ottoman literature could count as classical, being in any case far superior to anything of their own. This policy of Turkification involved the Committee in wars in Albania, the Hauran and S. Arabia; they planned treating the Arab parts of the empire as colonies, to be ruled from Constantinople without the right of sending deputies to the Chamber; and they were charged with the design of disarming all Moslems in the empire except the Turks, and with advocating neglect of the ritual of Islam. Where military exercises interfered with religious the latter were to give way; devout officers were, it is said, dismissed and replaced by free-thinkers.

To some extent this split was retarded by European aggression, which may be said to have culminated in 1911. The interference of Great Britain and Russia in Persia and the French scheme for governing Morocco as a protectorate had made it clear that Turkey was the only Islamic state which could compete with the European Powers on anything like equal terms. The Italian attack on Tripoli in Sept. of that year evoked widespread sympathy with Turkey among the Islamic communities. The Javanese press, e.g., made no secret of its desire to see Turkey triumph, and the Mahommedan press of Egypt warmly espoused the side of Turkey. At a meeting held in Kabul the Amir of Afghanistan took part in a demonstration in favour of the Turks, and in India money was collected for their assistance. Care, indeed, had been taken by Italy to avoid all appearance of an attack on Islam itself, and the Pope himself warned Christian soldiers against considering the campaign as a crusade; but to the Moslem, Christian and European are not very clearly distinguished, and it was plausibly argued that Europe was not now satisfied with protecting Christians within the Ottoman Empire, but had resolved on partitioning that empire among non-Moslem Powers. In proclamations issued in Constantinople the Sultan whose dominions were thus attacked was described as the legitimate ruler of 300 million Moslems (swelled by some journalist to 400 million), and a demand was raised for the restoration of his arbitrary powers.

This war, which broke out in Oct. 1912, demonstrated the military weakness of Turkey, though the recovery of Adrianople after the Armistice was greeted with telegrams of congratulation from all parts of the Moslem world. Clearly, however, up to this point Pan-Islamism had failed in its original design, that of arresting the progress of European aggression and eventually restoring Islamic rule in Asia and Africa. It had, however, aroused fairly general sympathy with Turkey and perhaps brought home to many Moslems the idea that someone claiming to be their Caliph existed. Subscriptions to the national defence fund of the Ottoman Empire flowed in from various quarters; owing to the efforts of a deputy of the Duma, Tas-pula `Abdul Jalil Oghlu, the Moslems of Samarkand sent a handsome subscription in Aug. 1913; and in Bosnia, which had quite lately formed part of the empire, the opinion was said to be general that the ruin of Turkey would be an immense disaster from the religious point of view. From this region, too, sums of money were sent to the Red Crescent and the national defence fund. In Ma y the Moslems of Delhi sent the sum of fi,600 to the Ottoman Minister of Finance for the housing of immigrants who had lost their homes in the recent war. Subscriptions were also promised from Java and the Malay States. The talk about the need for union between Moslems was renewed in the Moslem press throughout the world; notably in the Habl al-Matin, a Pan-Islamic journal in the Persian language published in Calcutta; and societies with the object of either spreading Islam or producing unity among Moslems were founded in different regions; e.g. a jam t iyyat al-ittifaq, "Society of Concord," founded in Muscat, a khariji state. An anjuman- i-himaya-i-Islam, " Society for the Defence of Islam," of Auckland, California, is also mentioned.

The language used by journalists caused some apprehension to the European governments responsible for great numbers of Moslems, and complaints were made that in the Islamic territories of Russia the charge of Pan-Islamism was easily leveled and resulted in frustrating the efforts that were being made for spreading education. The Islamic reactionaries, who dreaded the modern learning, obtained the imprisonment of modernist teachers by informing the authorities that the latter were engaged in Pan-Islamic propaganda. Any Moslem who took in the journals of Cairo or Constantinople, or had studied in either of those cities, was suspected of pursuing these schemes. On the other hand, the plan pursued by the imperial government in its scheme for enforced education was the Russification of all its subjects. One member of the Duina, Sadr ad Din Maqsudoff, had some years before defended his co-religionists from the charge of PanIslamism which the Moslem schemes for education had incurred; while claiming that the Russian Moslems were loyal to the Government, he maintained that their nationality was Islam.

In Syria and Mesopotamia nationalism at this time was developing, and Pan-Islamism making little way.

Two works issued in Constantinople in the year 1913 illustrate the ideas of Moslem publicists on the phase which the question had now assumed.

One of these is the Ittihad al-Islam (" Unity of Islam " or " PanIslamism ") of Jalal Nuri Bey, of sufficient importance to be translated into Arabic in 1920, seven years after its first appearance. In the face of the weakness displayed by Turkey in her last wars it was no longer advisable to demand a general uprising of Islamic peoples to free themselves from European oppression; hence the author, while anticipating yet further defeats and losses, substitutes for a plan of cooperation a vague hope, to which Moslems should cling. This hope is not confined to proceedings in Islamic areas.

He hopes that China and Japan will become cordial friends and so prevent the further spread of European domination in Asia; and thinks that the republican Government of China will be better for the Moslems there than the imperial Government had been. He thinks that the Arabic-speaking people of Africa and Asia will one day form a single state, without indicating what the relation of that state to the Ottoman Empire is to be; the older Pan-Islamism had on the whole favoured "decentralization," i.e., a confederation of Moslem countries under Ottoman hegemony. He advises the English to bestow on their Asiatic possessions the status of Canada or Australia, as in that case the inhabitants will cooperate cordially against their enemies.

In the matter of the sectarian divisions of Islam, which from the first have rendered Pan-Islamism impracticable, this writer's method is to some extent drastic: the minor sects in the Ottoman Empire (i.e. probably the Zeidis, Isma'ilis, Nuseiris, etc.) should be wiped out. In the case of the more important Shi`ah sect his advice is that the Moslem should forget that he is a Sunni or a Shi t i and remember only that he is a Moslem. This probably means that the Shin's, who are in a minority, should abandon their system in favour of the other.

While asserting the superiority of Islam morally to Christianity as practised in Europe, he is anxious that European science should be adopted and its methods assimilated; and he advises the adoption of the distinction between the civil and the religious code, to the unification of which he attributes the decadence of Islam. Education should, he holds, be taken out of the hands of religious authorities and be secularized; thus mediaeval scholasticism will be abolished. What concerns the conscience should be left to religion, whereas commercial affairs should be regulated by codes which admit of improvement. These doctrines are so unorthodox that his Arabic translator has occasionally to register a protest. They look like Pan-Islamism with the Islam omitted.

This writer repeatedly speaks of the Moslems as a nation of 300 million individuals attached to each other by a bond of unique strength; indeed, the phrase Union of Islam is, he thinks, tautologous, as the word Islam of itself implies union. Whatever may be the truth of this as a theory, it is confirmed neither by ancient nor by modern practice. Some writers, in general favourable 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 Ubaidalla 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 delivered 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 nonMoslem 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 deduced five principles from the Qur'an. These were: 1, 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 constitutes Islam to the ordinary believer is abandoned; and Mr. Wyman 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 Moslems, a distinctly damning discrimination." The Turkish proclivity 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 naturally 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 justifying 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 characterized 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 (1914-1918). - Shortly after the Turkish Empire entered the war on the side of the German alliance the Grand Mufti declared a 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 Italian 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 English 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 received 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 Qibla, 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 ordinarily 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 Hejaz 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 Caliphate, in whosesoever possession it happened to be; the independence 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 sanctuaries was not therefore to furnish a new principle of unity for Islam; it only helped to get rid of that round which the old PanIslamic 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 for August 1919 from an Arabic newspaper appearing in Brazil called Suriyyah al-Jadidah (" New Syria "), for the preceding May, wherein the author urges the Arabs to unite and emulate the exploits of the early heroes of Islam. Apparently he contemplates an Arab federation, to be governed by an assembly which is to meet at one of " the great Arabian cities," with home rule for the separate states. This orator names the Turks with the English and the French among the oppressors of the Arabs, whence his proposed confederation is evidently not intended to include any who are not Arabs by race or adoption; and indeed he traces the servitude of the Arabs to the practice of the Abbasid Caliphs, who relied on Persian and Turkish retainers in lieu of depending on Arab forces exclusively. In addition to this he traces their downfall to the personal ambition of the Arabs, each one of whom aspires to be chief. Probably this is in the main intended as anti-French propaganda; but it would seem that quite early in the war some persons had aimed at establishing a union between the various states in Arabia itself, to be extended into the neighbouring countries with a view to resist the enforced Turkification with which they were threatened. It failed to materialize because the Sherif of Mecca had reasons for refusing to join it, and the course of the war by no means tended to allay divisions between the states of Arabia; indeed, in July 1918 the King of the Hejaz issued a proclamation declaring the Wahabis infidels and urging his subjects to resist them with force. This conflict " wounded the heart of every Arab who desired the unity of his race and every Moslem who disliked discord between his co-religionists." The attempts that have been made during these years in other Islamic countries to propagate the idea of a Moslem union seem to have been ordinarily similar to those which preceded the Ottoman Constitution. They consist largely in the encouragement of education, and the founding of societies and journals whose purpose is to keep the Moslems together, and to maintain some sort of relations with their co-religionists in other parts of the world. Certain countries, indeed, appear to have been outside the reach of such efforts; and there are some wherein if attempted they have been unsuccessful. The general result of the war would seem to be to show that the Pan-Islamic idea was doomed to disappointment from the first. The European Powers against whom it was directed - England, France, Russia and afterwards Italy - received during the course of it great proofs of loyalty and attachment from their Moslem subjects; and even if we do not take every protestation at its face value, it seems clear that there was little sense of unity with the Turks on the ground of common religion on the part of these populations, in which, on the contrary, the sense of patriotism to the empires within which they are incorporated had been developed. The proclamation of a jihad with no response shows that the time for the employment of that instrument has passed, if indeed it was ever effective; the insertion of the Ottoman Sultan's name in the khutbah of so many peoples, to whom he was unknown, no more made him their real ruler in this century than that of an Abbasid in the 10th or 1 5th century secured for the Caliph any real power. Possibly the call attracted attention to the nature of and qualifications for the Caliphate, a subject which the Ottomans were imprudent in bringing to the forefront.

This is not, indeed, the view of some Moslems in India, who have established an All-India Caliphate Committee, with a series of publications on the Question of the Caliphate. The first of this series contains the presidential address of " Maulana AbulKalam," purporting to have been delivered at the provincial Caliphate Conference held in Calcutta Feb. 28 and 29, 1920. This treatise presents the most bellicose aspect of Pan-Islamism, and differs little from the Qausn J adid described above. The jihad, according to it, is the primary duty of the Moslem; if the Turks are apt to be lax in their ritual, it must be remembered that for centuries they alone maintained the jihad, at a time when the Indian Moslems were enjoying peace and security. An endeavour is made to show that ever since the time of Sultan Selim I. the Caliphate of the Ottoman Sultan has been generally recognized. It is argued that there can be only one Caliph, and that it is the duty of every Moslem to be his obedient subject; and in particular to aid him in repelling invasions by unbelievers of Islamic territory and expelling them where they are already in possession; Islamic territory would appear to include the whole inhabited world. At the least the author claims that Arabia, Palestine and Iraq are the property of the Ottoman Sultan, which must be restored to him if the sentiments of the Moslems are not to be wounded. The Indian Caliphate Delegation sent to London went so far as to demand the cession of all the European lands which the Ottomans had ever occupied.

Ideas of this sort - not always carried to these lengths - are expressed by various authors and journalists in India, few of whose names are known in Europe. The best known of those who are claimed as advocates of them is probably the poet and philosopher. Mohammed Iqbal, M.A., Ph.D. See this writer's Secrets of the Self, transl. R. A. Nicholson, London, 1920.

5. After the War. To what extent we can speak of Pan-Islamism since the Armistice is not clear. On the one hand it is evident that the occupation of Constantinople by foreign forces and the reduction of the Ottoman Empire to a comparatively small area have produced a feeling of depression among the Islamic peoples, who can no longer look with confidence to a great Islamic Power as the natural leader in some scheme for the recovery of hegemony in Asia and Africa; on the other hand, the feud between Sunnah and Shi`ah shows no signs of healing, and though an Arabian Caliphate may not yet have been formally proclaimed, the severance of the Arabs from the Turks appears to have been definitely concluded. Even within the Ottoman system there is at this moment a schism, since the authority in power at Angora acts independently of the Caliph of Constantinople, and appears to rely on Turanian support, so far as it obtains any from Islamic peoples; while its endeavour to obtain support from Bolshevism is calculated to wound the sentiment of orthodox Islam, which is far removed from the principles of that system. Further, it would appear that the tendency of recent events has been to emphasize nationalism, and create a desire in the various Arabic-speaking countries for complete independence rather than for absorption in an Islamic empire, even on the condition of decentralization, which was the catchword of the old Pan-Islamism. A Pan-Islamic tendency may perhaps be found in the Indian Caliphate agitation, but, even if it be taken at its face value, it is clear that it is making demands for the Ottoman Caliph which his former subjects do not back, and many who have made sacrifices for this idea have found no encouragement from Islamic rulers who at one time were supposed to recognize this title.

Conjectures are indeed at times put forward concerning the existence of agencies organizing simultaneous outbreaks in different Islamic countries against their European protectors; such may certainly exist, but the results hitherto achieved indicate little in the way of cooperation or clearness of aim; and indeed `Abdul Hamid II., who gave some encouragement to the Pan-Islamic idea, which was that Turkey should lead a jihad against the European possessors of Islamic countries, does not appear himself to have entertained such a project, though he thought the fear of it might help him in checking European interference with his internal government. The governments which have followed have probably hoped for greater results, but have obtained very much less, being unable either to maintain the independence of Moslem states outside their empire or to preserve the integrity of that empire itself. It would seem then that Pan-Islamism, should it again acquire importance, must seek some other point d'appui than the Ottoman Empire; but only the future can tell whether such a point d'appui will be found.

Authorities. - Revue du Monde Musulman (1911-1919); alManar (Cairene monthly) (1328-1J38 A.H.); G. Wyman Bury, Arabia Infelix (London, 1915) and Pan-Islam (1919); R. Pinon, L'Europe et la Jeune Turquie (Paris, 1911). (D. S. M.*)