I.

'slam Ass eThe Advent of t h e4 11 1 1 1 1 '

rnar

MARTIN KRAMER

ISLAMASSEMBLED

The Advent of the Muslim Congresses

MARTIN KRAMER

New York Columbia University Press 1 9 8 6

F I VE

HOLY WARThe Wartime Initiatives

N THE EVE of the war, one or another proposal for a Muslim0congress must have been familiar to the well-read Muslim who followedthe Turkish, Arabic, or Persian press. Then, in November 1914, fi vefatwas were issued in Istanbul calling upon Muslims everywhere to joina war of faith against the Entente powers. The latwas were immediatelyfollowed by a proclamation of holy war (beyanname-i cihad) issued overSultan Mehmed V Resad's imperial seal. "Gather about the lofty throneof the sultanate, as if of one heart, and cleave to the feet of the exaltedthrone of the caliphate. Know that the state is today at war with thegovernments of Russia, France and England, which are its mortal ene-mies. Remember that he who summons you to this great holy war isthe caliph of your noble Prophet." The consequence was to dampenreformist expectations of a congress before the cessation of hostilities,but also to create a fl uid situation that opened new possibilities forpolitical action.

The Committee of Union and Progress returned to an emphasis uponthe intrinsic authority of the caliphate, a message transmitted throughthe traditional means of the emissary. A further organizational mod-ernization was effected: The establishment of a centralized special force,the Telcilat-1 Mahsusd represented a structural improvement over thedisorganized recruitment and dispatch of Hamidian emissaries. Underthe general direction of Enver Pasa, one of the Committee triumvirs,Tq1ci1at-1 Mahsusa agents were sent on a series of missions to disseminatethe November proclamations both in Ottoman provinces and in Muslimterritories under enemy control. Most of these agents were either Turk-ish- or Arabic-speaking military men. Ottoman military missions or-ganized the Sanusi resistance against the Italians in Cyrenaica, and suc-cessfully encouraged the Sanusis to launch an assault against the Britishin Egypt from the Western Desert. They raised and levied irregulars inthe Fertile Crescent, and competed for the allegiance of tribes in Arabia.Among the more ambitious missions was one composed of an Ottomanstaff colonel and an assistant, who both arrived in Afghanistan in June

56 H O L Y WAR

1916. There, among the Afr idis who controlled the Khyber Pass andexercised great influence among the neighboring frontier tribes, theyunfurled a flag which they claimed had been blessed by the caliph, anddrew about four hundred men to their service. On the opposite end ofthe Muslim world, members of an Ottoman mission based in Spaincrossed into Morocco and served with Raysuni and cAbd al-Malik inthe resistance against the French.2 The primacy accorded the Ottoman state by other Sunni Mus limstates from the sixteenth century was a consequence of Ottoman mil-itary superiority, related in particular to the Ottoman role as diffusorof firearms and bulwark against Europe. But the twentieth-century Ot-toman military missions were not effective, and the arms which theywere capable of delivering to peripheral regions were not sufficient tomove men to action against modernized adversaries. Perhaps the op-erations against the Italians in Cyrenaica were the most successful. Thoseagainst the British from the Western Desert failed. The political workin the Arabic-speaking provinces was effective, but could not withstandthe military alliance of Allied arms and the desert strike force of Arabautonomists, nationalists and brigands who joined the revolt of Husaynibn cAli, Sharif of Mecca. The Ottoman mission to Khyber was drivenout when it failed to offer material assistance along with its message,and the many Arabs in the mission to Morocco began to plan fl ight toAmerica when they learned of the execution of Arab nationalists byOttoman military authorities in Syria. There were many other suchmissions, few of which were marked by success. The only region inwhich there were large-scale popular uprisings coinciding with the jihadappeal was French West Africa, in territories worked not by Ottomanmissions but by Transsaharan Sanusi emissaries. These disturbances, onthe order of revolts in some parts, were eventually suppressed by co-ordinated Anglo-French military action, and left no apparent impressionin Istanbul.3 I t s o o n b e ca m e c le ar that Mu sl ims beyond the Ottoman

Empire, however attached to the Ottoman caliphate, would not wagewar in adverse circumstances, and without logistical support.

Yet a second approach to stirring support for the Ottoman cause wasthe creation of societies in Europe, where the war had thrown activeMuslims of various origins and nationalities together. The exiled Egyp-tian nationalist Muhammad Farid described this activity at length in hispolitical diaries. Before the war, he himself founded a Geneva-basedgroup entitled the Society for the Progress of Islam: "During my stayin Geneva at this time, I met some Muslims, among them Turks andothers, and I tried to fi nd a bond greater than the differences in theirnationalities (ajnas). I invited about fi fteen of them to a banquet on

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Muharram 10, 1331 [December 19, 1912], and we agreed to found theSociety for the Progress of Islam, and to publish a newspaper on itsbehalf."

This Society, which included non-Muslim members, fell into abey-ance along with its newspaper, but was resuscitated with Ottomansubventions upon the approach of war, through an agreement withEnver Pasa. Before and during the war, Muhammad Farid organizedsimilar banquets of notable Muslims on the feast of cid al-Adha, and oneyear used the occasion to address Muslim prisoners of war who hadfought in Russian ranks. At the banquet which followed, he advocateda more formal technique: " I spoke of the pilgrimage from a political,economic, and social perspective. Shaykh [cAbd al-cAziz] Shawish spokeon the religious and historical dimensions. a t the end of my speech,I spoke of the need to use the annual pilgrimage as a Muslim congress(ml?tamar islami), to strengthen the bonds of unity between Muslims, sothat we might realize political unity between the Ottoman state andother Muslim peoples. T h e event was a great success."4 But at no point during the war did Ottoman authorities plan some-thing as diffi cult under wartime circumstances, and unprecedented un-der any conditions, as the organization of a Muslim congress. There wassome expectation that they would. In the middle of 1916, an agent inthe employ of British Intelligence overheard five or six "eminent" Egyp-tian ulama in conversation at the entrance to al-Azhar:

They were maintaining that the movement of the Sherif [Husayn] is apolit ical device arranged between the Sherif and the Turkish Government,to deceive the Brit ish, by an apparent loyalty. T h e Allies were to bedeceived, and the pilgrims were to arrive f rom Egypt, India and elsewhere.Mecca would then be made the meet ing place of a Mos lem congress,which would arrange a general union of Islam and a declaration of a HolyWar in all Chris t ian-controlled countries.5

The rumor was far from the mark, for the revolt of the Sharif Husaynwas not a device, and the barriers which separated the Muslims of Egyptand India from Ottoman territory during wartime were nearly insur-mountable.

But the unorthodox premise of this rumor was that a new falwa, orproclamation, sanctioned by a collective body, would have a greatereffect than the appeal already issued in the autumn of 1914 by theseyhillislam. It was this belief that had produced the inspirational pro-clamation to "Muslim soldiers" by ten ulama in December 1914, eachof whom came from a different lanc1.6 A n d t h e r e i s s o m e e v i d e n c e t h a t ,

perhaps at German urging, the Committee of Union and Progress con-

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sidered the reissuance of the original jihad appeal as a collective in-strument. The first suggestion dates from September 1916, when a num-ber of Muslims allegedly were assembled in Berlin at the instance ofan obscure German 'orientalist' and Enver Pasa. Named among theparticipants were a number of Afghan, Iranian, Central Asian and NorthAfrican Muslims who had been involved in political work in Berlin.Foremos t among t h e m were Mu h a mma d Far id and Shay k h ' A b d a l -cAziz Shawish.7 T h e i r p r i n c ip a l r e s ol u t io n u rg ed the O tt om an seyh-

illis laill Musa Kazim Efendi, to issue a new set of jihad fat-was, but thistim,T! the u'ocaments were to be collective works. "These fat-was," said aFrench r c-b o r t , be e l ab o ra t ed by the S ey hi il is la m, along with a

go thering of various ulama representing those diverse religious com-munities bound to the caliphate. They are to be united on the occasionof the next mawhd, at the imperial palace of Topkapi, wherein are pre-served the relics of the Prophet, and [there] they will come to an un-derstanding."8 T h i s r e s o lu t i o n w as not e f fe c te d , for it was repeated in

the winter of 1916-17, by a similar assembly of Ottoman and exiledMuslims convened in Istanbul. Among the resolutions of this gathering,which reportedly was held at German suggestion, was an invitation tothe Ottoman s eyh i l l i s l a m t o p u b l is h a n ew j i ha d f at wa , in the hope "that

support of an extraordinary council would produce [a] stronger impres-sion than [did] the first such fetva."9 A n d y e t t h e O t t o m a n s e y h t i l i s la m ,

Musa Kazim, although widely known for his political activism, issuedno further fatwa, and no council or assembly was organized in his sup-por t.10 T o have fol lowed this advice would have implied that the original

fatwa and sultan-caliph's beyanname-i cihad were not binding or had failed.To have conceded that other means might have succeeded where thesehad not would have been an admission with radical implications.

It was even necessary for committed Mus lim sympathizers of theOttoman state, discouraged by the progress of the war, to pursue theseattempts to convene Muslims not in the Ottoman capital but in theneutral capitals of Europe. There the idea was not welcomed by theprospective hosts either. Muhammad Farid participated in such an at-tempt: " In early October [1917], a group representing Muslim peoplessubject to France, England, and Russia, arrived in Stockholm with theaim of convening a Mus lim congress to demand the rights of theirpeoples." Participants came from the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Tripol-itania, Tunis, Algeria, Morocco, Turkistan, and India. Among them againwere cAbd al-cAziz Shawish and Muhammad Farid himself. "The gov-ernment did not permit us to meet and speak publicly, as it was pre-serving neutrality." Only an ad hoc gathering, under the auspices ofthe Mayor of Stockholm, was permitted." The war thus yielded no great

HOLY WAR 5 9

Muslim congress under Ottoman auspices, for the idea was apparentlyregarded as fraught with risk in the midst of a holy war waged in aconservative idiom.

Yet there were some radicals prepared to break with that conservatism.cUbayd-Allah Sindhi ( 1 8 7 2-1 9 4 4 ) w a s b o r n t o S i k h p a r e n ts i n t h e d i s t ri c t

of Sialkot, northeast of Lahore.'2 H e fl e d h o m e t o e m b r a c e I s l am a t t h e

age of sixteen, and found shelter from his relations in Sindh, with thehead of a Sufi order to whom he became a disciple. Two years after hisconversion, cUbayd-Allah entered the Deoband Dar al-cUlum, then themost politicized center of traditional religious learning in Muslim India,to study under the illustrious scholar and Sarparast of Deoband, Mah-mud al-Hasan [Shaykh al-Hind].13 U n d e r i n s t r u c t i o n s f r o m h i s m e n t or ,

cUbayd-Allah began to engage in clandestine political activity. In 1915,the acolyte was ordered to proceed secretly to Afghanistan, to urge theAfghan amir to attempt to drive the British from India. In Kabul,cUbayd-Allah joined forces with an Ottoman-German mission, and hebecame a minister in the shadow "Provisional Government of India."14He also engaged in a variety of political and propagandistic activitiesdesigned t o arouse the Afghans t o war and thwar t the emer-gence of a German-Hindu entente inimical to Muslim interests.15One of the pursuits was particularly innovative. In the summer of1916, cUbayd-Allah wrote a series of letters on yellow silk to Mahmudal-Hasan, in which he outlined a new structural approach to the uni-fication of the Muslim wor ld.16 c U b a y d -A l l a h a d v o c a t ed a h i e r a r ch i c a l

league not unlike that attributed to Afghani and sketched by Kawakibi."This is a special Islamic society based on military principles," cUbayd-Allah wrote in one of the silk letters. "Its fi rst object is to create analliance among Islamic kings." cUbayd-Allah then gave full details onthe projected membership of this secret society, which he entitled al-funud al-Rabbanlyya, freely rendered by British authorities as the Armyof God.

The association was to have three "patrons": Mehmed V Read, theOttoman sultan-caliph; Ahmad, Qajar shah of Iran; and Habiballah,amir of Afghanistan. Below them served a dozen "field marshals": EnverPa§a, the Young Turk triumvir; the Ottoman heir apparent; the OttomanGrand Vizier; the ex-Khedive 'Abbas HiImi; the Sharif of Mecca; theN a3ib al -Sal tanah at Kabul; the Mucin al-Saltanah at Kabul; the Nizam

of Hyderabad; the Nawab of Rampur; the Nawab of Bahawalpur; andthe Reis al-Mujahidin, that is, the leader of the remnant of that colonyestablished by Sayyid Ahmad Shahid [Brewli] in the previous century

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astride the Afghan frontier. These had continued to maintain with bel-ligerence that India was dar al-harb.17 N u m e r o u s a d d i t i o n a l o f fi c e r s o f

lesser rank followed. Named, among others, were Shaykh cAbd al-cAzizShawish; Abul Kalam Azad, Meccan-born son of a charismatic pir ,himself a Calcutta journalist interned by the British from 1916 to 1920;and Muhammad cAli, a journalist originally from Rampur, interned from1915 to 1919 by the British in India along with his brother, Shawkat.These later became the leading figures in the Khilafat movement.cUbayd-Allah awarded himself the rank of commissioner of Kabul. Theimplication was that this organization would continue to function oncethe war was over, although cUbayd-Allah proposed no specific modeof operation alongside his list of members.

The Army of God was portrayed by cUbayd-Allah as though it ex-isted. It was, in fact, nearly as fictitious as Afghani and cAbduh's society,al-cLirwa al-wathad and Kawakibi's society, timm al-qurd "Mos t of thepersons designated for these high commands cannot have been consultedas to their appointments," concluded the Sedition [Rowlatt] Committee'sreport.18 B u t t he r am bl in gs of cUbayd -A ll ah 's imagination were not

random. His preference for Afghan and Indian Muslims in his selectionof field marshals, an inclination even more pronounced in his choice ofcandidates for the lower ranks, evidenced a distortion of perspectivesimilar to Kawakibi's, with a difference. In cUbayd-Allah's lens, Indiaand Afghanistan, rather than Arabia and the Fertile Crescent, were inclearest focus.

But of more interest was the nature of authority as understood in thesilk letters. Here was a chain of command in which the arrangement ofthe links was uncoventional in the extreme. clibayd-Allah diminishedthe Ottoman caliphate's significance in his scheme. In his selection ofpatrons, the Ottoman caliph emerged as simply one triumvir. This shiftof emphasis was made explicit when clibayd-Allah proposed the Armyof God's administrative centers. "General headquarters" was located byclibayd-Allah not at the seat of the caliphate but in Madina, whereMahmud al-Hasan had established himself after the outbreak of thewar. He designated three "secondary centers": Istanbul (for promotingthe war in Europe and Africa), Teheran (for Central Asia), and Kabul(for India). This multiplic ity of Muslim centers, and the attendant rel-egation of Istanbul to the second rank, reflected a dissatisfaction withthe role of the Ottoman caliph and Istanbul as points of convergenceand emanation, for in Kabul, clibayd-Allah was confronted with theinability of the Ottoman state to supply arms and dispatch aid for thedefense of Muslims elsewhere. The silk letters of cUbayd-Allah Sindhiadvocated a realignment of center and periphery in Islam. They did not

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argue for the institutionalization of contractual authority in a congress,but did propose a diffusion, among several persons in association, ofthe intrinsic authority once personified in the Ottoman sultan-caliph.

Finally it must be said that the attempt to disseminate this programled only to its exposure. Once the letters fell into the hands of BritishIntelligence officers, those Indian Muslims listed by clibayd-Allah werecompromised, and the ineffectual network was rolled up by the policein a sweep of arrests. As a consequence of the Arab rising in the Hijaz,Mahmud al-Hasan himself was arrested and interned at Malta.19 T h ewar closed without clibayd-Allah having fulfi lled his mission, and hedecided that Afghanistan was not a congenial setting for further activity.It was at this point that the syncretic strand in his religious beliefsmanifested itself most clearly. He left Kabul for Moscow in late 1922,proceeded to Ankara in 1923, and then established himself in Istanbul,where he remained for some three years.2° T h e r e h e w a s p r o f o u n d l y

influenced by the secularization of the Turkish state, and advocated thegeneralization of this process (which he called Europeanism) throughall Islam, favoring such controversial reforms as the romanization ofArabic-based alphabets and the adoption of full Western attire. Hearrived in Mecca three years later, and there, in the late 1930s, he dictatedhis ( N e m commentary, Ilham al-rahman. In this work, he advanced theuncoventional premise that all Muslims were as caliphs, and advocatedthe establishment of a Muslim central association (jamclyya markaziyya),whose members would chose and depose an elected caliph of all cal-iphs.2' c l ib ay d-A ll ah was permitted to return to India in 1939, after a

quarter of a century of exile, by which time he had embraced beliefsthat earned him denunciation by certain ulama as an unbeliever. It seemsnot unlikely that a foretaste of his intellectual radicalization was hisproposal of a Muslim alliance structured around not a caliph but anassociation, at a time when the primacy of the Ottoman caliphate wasan article of faith among Indian Muslims.

Radical notions o f religio-political authority won converts evenamong the ulama of Istanbul during the war. At the very epicenter ofthe jihad, there were those who sought not simply to issue a collectivefalwa, but to remold the caliphate in a fashion wholly out of harmonywith tradition. Here, for the first time since Kawakibi's LImm al-gura andMehmed Murad's brief proposal of 1911, the idea of a congress as anelectoral college for the caliphate reappeared. In the summer of 1915, agroup of Istanbul ulama informed the former dragoman of the Russianembassy, just before his expulsion, that they were considering the cre-ation of a provisional caliphate, in the event that Istanbul fell, andobtaining for him "a portion of Constantinople or the city of Damascus

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as a residence with independent sovereignty rights in a limited areasimilar to the Vatican."22 T h e c a l i p h , i n t h e a c c o un t o f S ir M ar k S y ke s ,

was then to be elected:

Their idea as to the election of the Caliph was, that after a general peacewas established in the world, a body of persons composed of represen-tatives of various schools and peoples throughout the Moslem Worldshould be formed, and that they should proceed to elect a Caliph fromamong the descendants of the Prophet's family. That on a Caliph's deathhis successor should be elected from the same source. In this they considerthat they comply with the Islamic theory o f the Caliph being of theKaraysh [sic] and meeting with the approval of Islam.23

This proposal was identical in all essentials to Kawakibi's, with themutation that the caliphate was to remain in Istanbul or be transferredto Damascus, a city still held by the Ottoman army in the summer of1915. Of the precise authors of this revolutionary approach we unfor-tunately know nothing. Sykes simply portrayed them as representing"the views of the majority" of Istanbul ulama, but an India Officeundersecretary called them "a small group a n x i o u s to pick up sometrifle from the wreckage of empire, but without troops or any solidparty behind thern."24 A g a i n , n o t h i ng c a me o f t he i d ea , but it was

significant that the notion of a Vaticanized, contractual caliphate, drawnfrom Quraysh, had made inroads among Istanbul ulama at all, partic-ularly so soon after the issuing of the jihad fatwa.

But the most forward advocates of a radically altered caliphate wereat work in Cairo. There, a circle of British intelligence officers anddiplomats responsible for drawing Muslim support to the prosecutionof the war against the Ottoman Empire resuscitated the concept of aMeccan Qurashi counter-caliphate. Sir Mark Sykes wished " if possibleto stimulate an Arab demand for the Caliphate of the Sherif [Husayn],"as part of a policy " to back the Arabic-speaking peoples against theTurkish Government on one consistent and logical plane."25 R o n a l dStorrs took the same position, arguing that " it will presumably be notdisagreeable to Great Britain to have the strongest spiritual in the handsof the weakest temporal power," and urged "that nothing remotelyresembling an obstacle should be placed between the Sherif and hisambition."26 I n a n o te w r it t en in O ct ob er 1914, Lord K it chener , appar-

antly on no greater authority than his own, had written to the SharifHusayn that " i t may be that an Arab of true race w ill assume the

HOLY WAR 6 3

Khalifate at Mecca or Medina and so good may come by the help ofGod out of all the evil that is now occurring." Whether or not the SharifHusayn developed an interest in the caliphate only in response to Kitch-ener's suggestion is the subject of a continuing debate.27 B u t i s s e e m sprobable that Husayn's son cAbdallah, who was instrumental in thenegotiations preparatory to the Arab Revolt, showed some initiative inseeking British support for his father's ascent to the caliphate.

There were two approaches by which Great Britain could pursue thisobjective. The first was set forth in a memorandum by Sayyid 'Ali al-Mirghani, in response to a request by Sir Reginald Wingate, BritishGovernor General of the Sudan. Sayyid 'Ali was head of the Mirgha-niyya/Khatmiyya religious order, one of the Sudan's two great confra-ternities, and he played a central role in Sudanese politics until his death.Sayyid cAli earlier had written that the Sharif Husayn was "the mostsuitable man for this dignified position" of caliph, and added that Hu-sayn "is a man very closely related to the Prophet and highly honouredby all Mohammedans, a fact which should give him the necessary prec-edence due to the honour of the pos ition."28Covert British action, not election, was the only certain means to thisend: " I f Great Britain was left alone to work secretly in the matter,"wrote Sayyid cAll, "it will not be very difficult to keep the whole schemehidden from the general Mohammedan public, and when the result isattained the whole Mohammedan world will rejoice at having at lastobtained the r ightful Khalifa of Koreishite descent." This the Britishcould effect by assuring, through their largesse, Husayn's ascendancethroughout Arabia; then, " i f the question of the Khalifate is decidedby the majority of the Arabs in Arabia, there will be hardly any difficultywith the Mohammedans in other countries."29 D i f f e r e n c e s o f o p i n i o nwere unlikely:

If t he Emir becomes st rong enough in t he Hedjaz and other Arabiancountries whic h wi l l eventually come under his rule or are likely to beunder his authority , this great edifice wi l l then become complete. Thenew Emir wi l l then be acknowledged by the Moslems of Egypt, India,the Sudan, the western parts, such as Algeria and Tunisia, and other partsof the World. I t may happen that a few of the Mohammedan placesoutside Arabia may refuse to acknowledge the new Khalif , but this wouldbe of no great importance as long as he is acknowledged by the majorityof the Mohammedans. A general and universal acknowledgement of theKhalif may not be forthcoming, but it is sufficient to obtain the consentof the majority of the Mohammedans .3°Following a series of secret measures, the Muslim world would be pre-

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sented with an accomplished fact. His solution was the absolute an-tithesis of the congress technique, and for that reason was much favoredin the Foreign Office.

From the outset, the India Office disagreed, and thought it useless ifnot dangerous to encourage the Sharif's ambitions. Muslims elsewherehad shown their contempt for his rebellious action against the Ottomanstate, and the chances of Husayn's being acknowledged as caliph evenwithin Arabia were not good. Through Sir Percy Cox, British PoliticalResident in the Persian Gulf, it was learned that Ibn Sacud and otherArabian potentates had no intention of recognizing Husayn since, inArabia, "no one cared in the least who called himself Caliph, and [IbnSaud] reminded me that the Wahabis did not recognize any caliph afterthe fi rst four ."" The India Office had reached equally inauspiciousconclusions about the state of Muslim opinion in India: "So far as canbe judged by the reports received from India & by the vernacular pressextracts there is no weakening whatever in the religious loyalty of IndianMoslems to the Sultan."32 I n t h e I n d i a O f fi c e , t h e re t h en d e v el o p ed t he

idea that Britain should recognize a Meccan caliphate only upon rec-ommendation by wider Muslim opinion. The Office urged that Husaynbe told that "he must consult his co-religionists as to whether he s[houl]clproclaim himself Khalif a,"33 a l t h o u g h n o i n d i c a t io n w a s g i ve n as to h ow .

In the midst of this exchange, Shaykh Mustafa al-Maraghi providedan answer, in a memorandum on the caliphate written for Wingate.34Shaykh Maraghi ( 1 8 8 1-1 9 4 5 ) w a s a f o r m e r p u p i l o f M u h am m a d c Ab -

duh's from Upper Egypt, who served as chief religious judge of theSudan from 1908 to 1919.35 I n A u g u s t 1 9 1 5 , f r o m h i s p o st i n K h a rt o u m,

Shaykh Maraghi elaborated a detailed proposal for a Muslim congress.He began by stating that, unless Britain took some positive step to

give Muslims brighter hope concerning the caliphate, sympathy for theOttoman caliphate would remain widespread. But were Britain to takea clear line in favor of the unification of the Muslim world on thisquestion, the ill would fi nd its cure.

This done, Great Britain could then announce to the Mohammedans anddeclare that she expects them to unite together and hold a general meetingto discuss the question of the Khalifate. Such an announcement on thepart of England will tend to create a new feeling of confidence in thehearts of the Moslems and their minds will be stimulated everywhere toconsider and decide the weighty and important matter that has beenthrown on their shoulders and which affects the future prospects of theirexistence and faith.

No doubt such a new development in ideas will be, at the outstart,only local in various parts. In other words every country wil l start to

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discuss the matter independently of the others. It is most important toexplain in this declaration that Great Britain has no idea whatever ofinterfering in any way in the matter or of using her influence to affectthe decision of the Mohammedans. Subsequently, Great Britain shouldfacilitate the passage of delegates from one place to another with theobject of uniting the Mohammedans with each other and arriving at anunderstanding with regard to the choice of the place where the conferenceshould be held to choose the Khalifa.

Reliance upon Great Britain was Shaykh Maraghi's solution to the lo-gistical problems of mobilization which had obstructed previous con-gress proposals. But internal organization and the congress agenda wereto be the responsibility of representative Muslim delegates, who wouldoperate in relative secrecy.

I do not mean that the conference should be open to the general public,but these delegates will prepare the minds of the public for the greatevent and induce every respectable community to delegate representativesto attend the conference to assist in the choice of the Khalifa and torepresent them. When these delegates are assembled they will also del-egate a number o f them to represent every country or district in theGeneral Conference. These are only the preliminary principles which haveto be considered and worked out in detail.

The next passage revealed a number of close parallels to Limm al-qura.The proposal evidenced the same interest in the establishment of amodern organizational structure, and a fixed procedure for the selectionof caliph. Dur ing his days at al-Azhar, Shaykh Maraghi, as one ofcAbduh's students, almost certainly read Umm al-qura as serialized in al-Manar, i f not in book form. The influence was readily apparent. ButShaykh Maraghi went even further in the prerogatives conferred to hiscongress:

When the delegates are assembled from the various quarters at the ap-pointed place for the conference, they will draw up rules which will haveto be adopted by the conference—such as nominating the President, thehours of meeting, the system of collecting the votes, &c. These rules willbe called the "Internal Rules of the Conference." When all this is done,the delegates will have to discuss and give their decision on the followingpoints:—

1. The town or city which should be chosen as the seat of the Khalifa.2. The qualities and qualifications which the Khalifa should possess.3. The system to be invariably adopted in future in the choice of the

Khalifa.4. Whether the Khalifate should be confined to a certain family and

follow the known rules of heritage or be on a strictly elective basis. Should

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it be decided that the appointment should be according to the law ofheredity, would it be necessary to make a permanent law which wil lsupersede the elective system or to maintain this system in the samehouse and family?

5. Who shall have the right to vote.6. What should be the system of administering the provinces which

are under the rule of the Khalifa?7. What should be the relations of the Mohammedans who are subjects

to foreign and non-Moslem powers?8. What should constitute the civil and religious rights of the Khalifa?

These are the different points which are considered to be of vital im-portance and which require to be discussed and decided. There is littledoubt that at this conference various other matters wil l come up fordiscussion. When all these matters are decided and settled the Khalifawill then be chosen and the Mohammedans will pay homage to him andtake the oath of allegiance, and thus the duty of this great and historicalMohammedan conference will come to an end.

Certainly no proposal since Limm al-qura was as far-reaching as this.Maraghi observed that, " if a scheme on these principles could be carriedinto effect, it would be the greatest event ever known in the annals ofMohammedan history and the question of the 'Khalifa' will be put ona proper and solid footing such as w ill never be overthrown by thetempests of ambition." Congress and caliphate were thus bound up asone by Shaykh Maraghi, as two institutions in symbiosis. But ShaykhMaraghi went further than Kawakibi, in disregarding all prior claimsto intrinsic authority, unless confirmed by the contractual authorityvested in the congress. It was as if the historical institution, and thevast corpus of doctrine surrounding it, had never existed.

What led him to so radical a position? Maraghi's motives in all thiswere never clarified, but it seems likely that, having established himselfin something of an advisory capacity on Islamic issues to Wingate, heanticipated an important role in the organization of the proposed con-gress. There is further evidence that Shaykh Maraghi hoped at this timefor the emergence of an Egyptian caliphate from Egypt's ruling house,which would explain his failure to mention the issue of Qurashi de-scent.36 W er e h is royal patron, Sultan Husayn Kamil, to emerge as caliph

from this congress, Egypt's role in Islam would be much enhanced, aswould Shaykh Maraghf s. That such a man could aspire to so central atask evidenced how thoroughly the authority of the Ottoman caliphatehad been eroded by war.

Unfortunately for Shaykh Maraghi, the Cairo circle of British poli-cymakers thought the proposition unrealistic, for as early as May 1915,the British High Commissioner to Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, had

HOLY WAR 67

written that "any change of Caliphate in [the] immediate future is, inmy opinion, more likely to come about by individual action of a can-didate than through previous manifestations of Moslem opinion." Heconceded that the ascent of the Sharif Husayn to the caliphate appeareddesirable, but argued that "any attempt to influence Moslem opinionwould be obviously harmful."37 A s w a s c l e a r f r o m t h e c a s e o f t h e G a s-

prinskii initiative, planned for British-controlled territory, Britain woulddo nothing to impede a Muslim congress, but neither was she preparedto do for the Muslims that which they had been hitherto unable toachieve themselves.

As the war drew to a close, and the Ottoman Empire was reducedpiecemeal to its Turkish-speaking core, none of the specific wartimeproposals appeared to have the least chance of realization. But fromthese initiatives, it was evident that their Muslim authors, no less thanthe victorious Allies, saw the possibility of gain in the collapse of Ot-toman authority, and were full of ideas about alternatives to the as-cendancy of the Ottoman sultan-caliph. The Ottoman obstacle was nowremoved. The war, in challenging the widespread veneration of theOttoman state and the sultan-caliph as competent defenders of Islam,brought to the surface a latent struggle for succession to Muslim pri-macy.

In November 1918, the crisis experienced by other Muslim empires,and by the outlying provinces of the last great Muslim empire, fi nallyoverwhelmed the capital city of the Ottoman Empire. With the occu-pation of Istanbul by victorious Allied armies, rule at the seat of theMuslim caliphate passed to the military administration set up by theoccupying powers. In a similar crisis, in an earlier era, the caliph or oneof his heirs might have fled the invaders to settle on another shore, andthere would have reconstituted his caliphate on fi rmly Muslim soil. Butthose few Muslim shores that were not patrolled by foreigners wereunprepared to welcome so troublesome an exile, so that the Ottomansultan-caliph chose to remain in his occupied city and, when later ex-pelled, to select as his place of refuge a European resort. The issue ofpolitical and religious authority in Islam, already probed by unconven-tional thinkers, thus was thrown wide open to impassioned debate andcalculated negotiation.

In these conditions of stress and disorientation, the idea of the Muslimcongress shed its radical associations, and emerged transformed. Forsome, it appeared as an instrument to galvanize Muslim opinion for therestoration to the Ottoman sultan-caliph of his lost prerogatives. Thenew technique of the congress, in some relationship with the established

68 HOLY WAR

institution of the Ottoman caliphate, might restore a semblance of thefamiliar order. Among those who thought the Ottoman caliphate beyondredemption, the congress idea circulated as the hammer for the forgingof a new caliphate to rise from the ruins of empire, as Blunt had predictedwould happen following "the last overwhelming catastrophe of Con-stantinople." For those who doubted the claims of any caliphate, thecongress was seen as compensation for the loss of an institution onceconsidered essential to political order, but which was no longer suitedto modern circumstances and the pressing need for reform.

HO L Y W A R

Young Turks: Prelude to Revolution, 27- 28,38- 51; Ser if Mardin, fi n Tarklerin siyasi fikirleri 1895-1908, 49- 92.

46. Thi s was a refl ection of Young Tur k pol icy by w hi ch the appointed Seyhil l istamwas used to offset the tradi tional author i ty of the dynastic sul tan-cal iph. For a Musl imcr itique of this pol icy, see Henr i Laoust, Le califat dans la doctrine de Rashid Rida, 236-7.

47. M ehm ed Murad, Tath Smeller Act Hakikatler, 19.48. "Secret Decisions of the Annual Congress of the Central Committee of Union and

Progress," F0371/1263, fi le 51124. A vi r tual ly identical text appeared i n The Times, De-cember 27,1911. This was not among the publ ic resolutions of the congress as given byX, "Doctr ines et programmes des partis pol i tiques ottomans," 152-58; and Tank Z. Tunaya,Tarkiyede siyast, partiler, 1859-1952, 212-14.

49. See the biographies of Shaykh Shawish by Anwar al - j indi , ' Abd l a w i s h , andSalim ' Abd al -Nabi Qunaybi r , ' Abd al-'Aziz lawish, 1872-1929.

50. ' Abd al - 'Aziz Shawish, a l - i s l a m i , 11-16, quote on p. 12.51. Ibid., 19-20.52. H e was accompanied by Shakib Arslan, w ho descr ibed the opening of the Dar al-

Funun at M adina i n his Simi dhaHyya, 112-15.

5. HOLY WAR

205

1. Ceride-i ilmiyye (Istanbul) (Muharrem 1333), 1(7): 462. The text of the fa/was, in Turkish,Arabic, Persian, Tatar , and Urdu, appears here on pp. 437-53; that of the beyanname, i nall fi ve languages, on pp. 454-80. For the sur rounding circumstances, see Geoffrey Lewis,"The Ottom an Proclamation of j i had i n 1914," 164; Phi l ip H . Stoddard, " The Ottom anGovernment and the Arabs, 1911 to 1918," 23-31; and Hikmet Bayur , Tiirk t a r i h i ,3(1): 317- 34. For the m any issues sur rounding the j i had them e i n m odem times, seeRudol f Peters, Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History.

2. O n effor ts i n the Ottom an provinces, see Stoddard, " Ottom an Government." O nthe special effor ts devoted to w inning the suppor t of Shi ' i ulama, see Werner Ende, " Iraqin W or ld W ar I: The Turks, the Germans, and the Shicite Muj tahids' Cal l for Jihad." Forthe mission to Khyber , see Lal Baha, "Acti v i ti es o f Turkish Agents i n Khyber dur i ngWor ld W ar I," and Ludw i g W . Adamec, Afghanistan, 1900-1923: A Diplomatic History, 96-100. For the mission to Morocco, see Edm und Burke, "Moroccan Resistance, Pan-Islamand German W ar Strategy, 1914-1918," 457-61.

3. See j ide Osuntokun, "Niger ia's Colonial Government and the Islamic Insurgency inFrench W est Afr ica, 1914-1918." On the role of the Sanusi order in the Tuareg upr isingof 1916-17, see F inn Fuglestad, "Les revoltes des Touareg du N iger (1916-17) ." For aview o f the Tuareg r evol t as an autonom ous development, see Andr e Bourgeot, "Lesechanges transsahariens, la Senusiya et les revoltes twareg de 1916-17."

4. For accounts of these endeavors, see M uham m ad Farid, Awraq Muhammad Sar a 85,101,117- 18,147,219- 20,232- 33,261. In 1915, Far id publ ished a pamphlet i n which hemade expl ici t the aims o f the Society for the Progress o f Islam. A n Ottom an victor ywould " tr ul y be complete onl y upon the l iberation not merely of Egypt, but of the Ni leVal ley as far as the equator , i n order to dr ive England from the Red Sea and prepare, i fnot accomplish, the r ui n of her Indi an empire." Egypt and the Sudan w oul d for m thefirst pi l lar of an "Islamic confederation." The var ious M usl im peoples w i thi n the con-federation would enjoy autonomy, on the pattern of mul ti l ingual and mul tinational Switz-erland. See Marc Trefzger, Die nationale Bewegung Agypiens vor 1928 im Spiegel der Schweizerischen011entlichkeit, 56-57.

5. Arab Bulletin (Cairo) (June 30,1916) , no. 7, p. 5, i n U P&S/10/657.

206 H O L Y W A R

6. Tunis, Egypt, Alger ia, Marrakesh, the Sudan, India, the Caucasus, Bukhara, Teheran,and Afghanistan. For a translation of the Arabic text, see Welt des Islams, o.s. 3(2): 121-25.

7. O n thei r activi ties i n Ber l in dur i ng the w ar years, see M uham m ad Far id, AwraqMuhammad [arid, passim; and Lothar Rathmann, "Agypten im Exil (1914-1918)—Patr iotenoder Kol laborateure des deutschen Imper ial ismus?" O n the N or th Afr i cans i n Ber l i ndur ing the same per iod, see Bechir Tl i l i , " La Grande Guerre et les questions tunisiennes:le groupement de la Revue du Maghreb (1916-1918)", and Peter Heine, "Sal ih ash-Shar i fat-Tunisi , a N or th Afr i can National ist i n Ber l in dur ing the First W or ld W ar ."

8. Foreign M inistr y to Defrance (Cairo), October 28 and November 8, 1916, i n AFC,carton 536, fi le 166/5.

9. Si r George Buchanan (Petrograd), telegram o f January 30, 1917, i n F0371/3048,23979/23979/W 44. Based on information suppl ied by the Russian government.

10. O n M usa Kazan, see Abdi l l kadi r Al tunsu, Osmanli 4eyhiilislamlari, 233-37. For hispan-Islamic activities, see Bayur , Tiirk inkircibt tarihi, 2(4): 377:84.

11. Far id, Awraa Muhammad [ar id, 379; Thiebaut (Stockholm), dispatch o f October 6,1917, AFC, car ton 533, fi le 166/1.

13. Ziya-ul -Hasan Faruqi, The Deoband School and the Demand for Pakistan, 56-60. For thebackground, see Barbara Daly Metcal f, Islamic Renewal in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900.

14. The Niedermayer-Hentig expedi tion. For tw o accounts based on German archivalsources, see Renate Vogel , Die Persien- und Afghan istanexpedition Oskar Ritter v. Niedermayers1915/16; and Adamec, Afghanistan, 1900-1923, 83-96.

15. See Zafer Hasan Aybek, "Ubayd- Al l ah Sindhi in Afghanistan" ; Mohammed Fahim,"Afghanistan and W or ld W ar I" ; and cUbayd-Al lah' s ow n memoirs, Kabul min sat sal.

16. I have used the transl i terated and translated texts of the Urdu letters which appearin C . E. W . Sands, Report on the Silk Letter Conspiracy Case, appendi x A (composed by theCriminal Intel l igence Offi ce) . A copy of this repor t is i n L/P&S/10/663.

17. O n the revival of the M uj ahi di n dur ing the war , see Lal Baha, " T he Activi ties ofthe Mujahicfin, 1900-1936," 99-110.

18. Government of India, Sedition Committee Report, 1918, 178.19. H usayn Ahm ad M adani , Safarnama-yi Shaykh al-Hind, Thi s account, w hi ch covers

M ahm ud al-Hasan's arrest i n the Hi jaz and his depor tation to Mal ta via Cairo, is one ofseveral U r du sources that have much to say about the Ottom an conduct of the war, andhave yet to be studied systematically for that purpose.

20. Detlev H. Khal id, " ' U bayd- Al l ah Sindhi i n Tur key."21. ' U bayd- Al l ah Sindi , Ilham al-rahman fi tafsir al-Qur'an, 298-300.22. Br i tish Minister (Sofia) to Director of M i l i tary Operations, June 28, 1915, L/P&S/

10/523, i tem 2433.23. Sykes (Nish) telegram to Directory of M i l i tary Operations, June 29, 1915, L/P&S/

10/523, i tem 2673.24. T . Holdemess, m inute of July 3, 1915, U P&S/10/523, i tem 2433.25. Sykes memorandum on Pol icy i n the M iddle East, par t one, October 28, 1915, i n

U P&S/10/525, reg. no. 4524.26. Ronald Storrs, "N ote on Khal i fate," M ay 20, 1915, i n F0141/587, 545/2.27. See the exchange i n International Journal of Middle East Studies ( August 1979) , 10(3):

420-26.28. Translation o f Al i M or ghani memorandum on the Cal iphate, Khar toum , M ay 6,

1915, i n Hardinge Papers, Cambr idge Universi ty Library, 72: 58.29. Translation of Sidi Al i Morghani memorandum on the Cal iphate, August 12, 1915,

in W ingate (Khar toum) dispatch of August 14, 1915, U P&S/10/523, i tem 3225.30. Translation of Al i Morghani ' s memorandum on the Cal iphate, Khar toum, M ay 6,

1915, i n Hardinge Papers, Cambr idge Universi ty Library, 72: 58.

BETWEEN BOLSHEVI SM A N D I SLAM 2 0 7

31. Percy Cox (at sea) to A. H . Grant, December 27,1915, L/P&S/10/525, i tem 754.32. M i nute o f A. Hi r tzel , January 4, 1915, t o letter fr om Under-Secretary o f State,

Foreign Offi ce, January 4,1915, U P&S/10/523.33. For the debate on the need for "consent of his co-rel igionists," see m inute by A.

Hirtzel, October 27,1915, U P&S/10/523, no. 3935.34. Translation of a note addressed to W ingate, by Shaykh Mohammed M ustafa [al -

Maraghi], Gr and Kadi o f the Sudan, Khar toum , Augus t 18, 1915, i n Hardinge Papers,Cambridge Universi ty Library, 72: 387-89.

35. O n ' Abduh and Maraghi , see Anw ar al - Iindi , al-Imam al-Maraghi, 38-47.36. El ie Kedour ie, " Egypt and the Cal iphate, 1915- 52," 179-81; al though for a br i ef

time, Shaykh Maraghi had favored the Shar i f Husayn' s candidacy. See Kedour ie, In theAnglo-Arab Labyrinth, 23.

37. M cM ahon (Cairo), dispatch of M ay 14,1915, L/P&S/10/523, i tem 2074.

6. BET W EEN BOLSH EVISM A N D ISLAM

1. O n Enver and thi s per iod o f his career, see D . A . Rustow, "Enwer Pasha"; PaulDumont, "La fascination du bolchevisme: Enver pacha et le par ti des soviets populaires";A. A . Cruickshank, " The Young Tur k Chal lenge i n Postwar Tur key" ; and Azade-AyseRorlich, "Fel low Travellers: Enver Pasha and the Bolshevik Government 1918-1920."

2. Kazim Karabekir, Istiklül Harbimizde: Enver Pasa ve Ittihat Terakki Er/cam.3. Al i Fuat Cebesoy, Moskova Hattralari.4. As studied by Sevket Stireyya Aydemir , Makedonya Van ortaasya'ya; Enver Pasa, 1914-1922.

5. For Radek's descr iption of the meeting, see E. H . Carr, "Radek's 'Poli tical Salon' i nBerlin 1919," 419-20.

6. There he joined Cemal Pasa, the other tr iumvir , w ho had commanded the Ottom anarmies in Syria and Palestine, and Hali l Pasa, Enver's uncle, former commander of Ottomanforces i n Iraq, and victor of Kut. Enver was also met in Moscow by H aa Sarni, the mostrenowned war time Ottom an agent. Haci Sami spent the war years under cover i n Indiaand Central Asia, and Enver came to rely increasingly upon his advice. For one of HaciSami's reports, see Karabekir , Istiklal Harbimizde: Enver Pap, 5 7 -.6 4 .

7. Enver to Mustafa Kemal, August 26,1920, in Karabekir , Jstiklal Harbimizde; Enver Pap,22-23; Dum ont, " La fascination du bolschevisme," 148. On August 6,1920, Indian Khi -lafat leader M uham m ad ' Al i met Talat i n Switzer land.

8. The text of the charter is provided by Karabekir , Istiklul Harbimizde: Enver Pap, 123-25. T he resolutions of the Ber l in gather ing are given i n a summary for m by Cebesoy,Moskova Hatiralari, 224-25.

9. For a l ist of expenditures, see Aydemir , Makedonya Wan ortaasya'ya, 551-52.10. Cebesoy, Moskova Hatiralari, 230.11. Karabekir , Istiklal Harbimizde: Enver Pap, 151,153, for texts.12. A photograph of eleven assembled Musl im delegates at Moscow, including Enver,

Fahri, and Shakib, appears i n Aydemi r , Makedonya'dan ortaasya'ya, 587.13. Ibid., 586-88. Shakib ArsIan makes no mention of the congress i n his recollection

of this visi t, but simply wr i tes that he joined Enver i n Moscow for a m onth to satisfyhis cur iosi ty about the Soviet Union. See ArsIan, Sira dhatlyya, 265.

14. Protokoll des III. Kongresses der Kommunistischen Internationale, 103-10.15. For this development, see Stephen W hi te, "Communism and the East: The Baku

Congress, 1920."16. On this early chapter in Soviet-Turkish relations, see Paul Dumont, "L' axe Moscou-