PROCEEDINGS OF THE 
 ENTRAL ASIAN SOCIETY 
 
 PAN-ISLAMISM 
 
 HV 
 
 VALENTINE CHIROL 
 
 November 14, 1906 
 
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 LONDON 
 CENTRAL ASL\N SOCIETY, 22, ALBEMAR] 
 
 1906
 
 SRLF 
 URL 
 
 Pic^'' Hirc^s'^f 
 
 PAN-ISLAMISM 
 
 We often speak — rather light-heartedly — of the British Empire 
 as, amongst other things, the greatest Mahomedan power in the 
 world, and unquestionably no sovereign counts amongst his 
 subjects so many millions of Mahomedans as King Edward. 
 The total number of Mahomedans in the world is approximately 
 estimated at some 250,000,000. Of these barely one-tenth 
 own direct allegiance to the Sultan of Turkey, whereas there 
 are no less than sixty-two millions within the frontiers of our 
 Indian Empire, and millions more are to be found scattered 
 about our possessions and protectorates in Malaya, and in 
 Eastern, Central, and Western Africa, whilst in Egypt and the 
 Sudan we have assumed responsibility for another twelve mil- 
 lion followers of the Prophet. This is unquestionably a factor 
 of the very greatest importance in considering the interests and 
 the future of the British Empire, for in the East religion is still 
 a force more potent than any other ; and in this, as in many 
 other respects, the East stands much where Europe stood in 
 the Middle Ages. Both in Egypt and in India we have recently 
 had reminders — which have come as a surprise to many of us 
 — that Islam especially still represents an elemental force with 
 which British statesmanship may have seriously to reckon. 
 From this point of view I thought it might be of some interest 
 to collect a few notes concerning the history and growth of the 
 movement which is now known as Pan-Islamism, in connection 
 more particularly with its influence upon India. 
 
 It is just thirty years since the present Sulan Abdul Hamid 
 came to the throne of Turkey. His Empire then seemed to be 
 on the point of dissolution. His treasury was bankrupt. His 
 Christian provinces were in revolt. Within two years a vic- 
 torious Russian army was encamped at the gates of his capital. 
 He himself was deemed to be a mere puppet in the hands of 
 the powerful bureaucratic oligarchy which, after a succession 
 of Palace conspiracies, had placed him upon the throne. We 
 may reprobate the ruthlessness of his methods, but we cannot 
 
 A
 
 2 PAN-ISLAMISM 
 
 refuse our admiration to the consummate ability, the resource- 
 fulness and the inflexibility of purpose with which Abdul Hamid 
 — certainly one of the most striking figures of our times — faced 
 so desperate a situation, and applied himself with mingled daring 
 and cunning to the two-fold task of restoring the despotic 
 power of the Sultanate at home, and of seeking compensation 
 for the curtailment of his temporal dominions by reviving and 
 extending throughout the Mahomedan world the spiritual 
 authority to which he lays claim as heir to the Khalifate of 
 Islam. With regard to his domestic policy, all I need say is 
 that, however severely we may condemn it according to our 
 own standards, it has been from his point of view eminently 
 successful. The old oligarchy, which under his predecessors 
 ruled Turkey from the Sublime Porte, has been swept away, 
 and though Abdul Hamid never issues forth from his well- 
 guarded Palace of Yeldiz Kiosk, the Sultan's will is the only 
 law which to-day governs the Turkish Empire unto its uttermost 
 limits. What I propose to deal with this afternoon is the 
 influence which Abdul Hamid exercises, and projects far be- 
 yond the immediate frontiers of the Turkish Empire, as the 
 Khalif whose spiritual supremacy is proclaimed every week in 
 the Khutbeh, or Friday prayer, which is read in all the mosques 
 of Sunni Mahomedans within his dominions, and in many 
 mosques beyond them. This prayer runs as follows : 
 
 O Allah, Mercifully help the "Just Khalifs " {i.e., Abu-Bekr, Omar, Osman 
 and Ali) and the Imams Mehdi {i.e., the descendants of Ah) who have ad- 
 ministered justly and equitably. O Allah, strengthen and assist Thy Slave 
 and Khalif, the Most powerful Sultan, the Most Glorious Khan, the Shadow 
 of Allah on Earth, the Lord of the Kings of the Arabs and the Ajems, the 
 Servant of the Twain Holy Places, the Sultan and Son of a Sultan, SULTAN 
 el Ghazi, Abdul Hamid Khan, Son of the Sultan el Ghazi Abdul Mejid 
 Khan, Son of the Sultan el Ghazi Mahmoud Khan. 
 
 May Allah preserve his Khalifate and strengthen with Justice his Sultanate, 
 and may His benefits and favours be showered upon the whole world up to 
 the end of All Times. Amen. 
 
 In theory it is tasy enough to dispute the claims of the 
 Turkish Sultans to the Khalifate. The title of Khalif, it will be 
 remembered, was that assumed by the immediate successors of 
 Mahomed as vicegerents of the Prophet. In the earliest days 
 of Islam the succession of the Khalifate give rise to the first 
 great Mahomedan schism — a schism which has been perpetuated 
 to the present day, between Sunnis and Shiahs, Persia being 
 now the one important Mussulman power that represents the 
 latter sect. It was undoubtedly held by the early doctors of 
 Mussulman law that the Khalif himself must belong to the Arab 
 tribe of EI Koreish, and that he must be elected by the sul^rages 
 of the whole Mussulman community. But the process of
 
 PAN-ISLAMISM 3 
 
 •election soon became a mere formality, and practically fell into 
 desuetude long before the Khalifate had passed out of Arab 
 hands. It became merely an honorific title, which was indeed 
 at one time borne simultaneously by the independent rulers of 
 different portions of the Mussulman world in Baghdad, Cairo, 
 and Cordova. 
 
 The claim of the Turkish Sultans to the Khalifate dates only 
 from the sixteenth century, and arises out of the conquest 
 of Egypt, where the fugitive descend ints of the Abasside 
 Khalifs who had formerly reigned in Baghdad were allowed 
 to retain a shadowy authority, which lent to the turbulent 
 Mameluke rulers of Cairo a certain spiritual prestige. The 
 story is worth recalling, for the spirit in which Selim I. com- 
 passed the conquest of Egypt would seem to have inspired in 
 no small measure the latest of his successors on the Ottoman 
 throne. The authority of the Egyptian Mamelukes extended, 
 at the beginning of the sixteenth century, over the whole of 
 Syria and Arabia to the valley of the Euphrates. But in 15 12 
 Ihere came to the throne of Turkey, in the person of Selim I., 
 a Sultan who combined with the devouring ambition of his 
 ancestors a novel tendency towards philosophic mysticism, and 
 a curious craving for spiritual illumination. Poet, philosopher, 
 and theologian, as well as conqueror, he was the first Ottoman 
 Sultan to conceive the idea that the most powerful of Moha- 
 medan princes might well claim to be also the paramount 
 prince of Islam and the vicegerent of the Prophet. The first 
 war waged by him was in the nature of a religious war. It 
 was waged against Shah Ismail of Persia ; it began with a 
 wholesale massacre of Shiahs throughout Selim's dominions, 
 and it ended with the complete overthrow of the Persian army 
 at Tchaldiran, not to the wonted Turkish war-cry of " Padishah, 
 Padishah," but to the essentially Mahomedan war-cry of 
 " Allah, Allah." Selim's armies continued their career of 
 conquest through Kurdistan into Mesopotamia, and thus ulti- 
 mately came into direct collision with the forces of the Egyptian 
 Mameluke Sultans in the Euphrates valley. Selim himself had 
 by that time returned to Adrianople, and the various incidents 
 related by Turkish historians throw an interesting light upon 
 the frame of mind which determined his expedition to Egypt. 
 The possession of the holy places of Arabia had already fired 
 Selim's imagination, and all his courtiers harped upon this 
 theme. His Vizier, Ahmed Pasha, who was all for war, taunted 
 Selim with the story of how in his youth he had been a prisoner 
 in Cairo in the hands of Kait Bey, and how the latter had 
 boasted that the power of Egypt would always close the road 
 to Mecca and Medina against the Turkish hordes. Selim's 
 
 A2
 
 4 PAN-ISLAMISM 
 
 chief secretary impressed upon him that in Cairo, both actually 
 and metaphorically, must be sought the keys of the Holy 
 Places. His Master of the Ceremonies dreamt opportunely 
 that the four disciples of the Prophet appeared to him waving 
 victorious standards. This supernatural lead Selim was bound 
 to follow, and he set forth in person to take command of the 
 expedition in June 1516. The octogenarian Mameluke Sultan 
 of Egypt, Kans Ghaury, had in the meantime collected the 
 flower of his forces near Aleppo, at Merjdabik, near the reputed 
 tomb of David. His defeat was as complete as had been Shah 
 Ismail's, and Selim held a triumphal entry into Aleppo, where 
 for the first time at the Friday service in the Mosque, the title 
 of Protector of the Holy Places was added to the other titles 
 of the Ottoman Sultan. Such was Selim's delight that, follow- 
 ing the example of the Prophet, who bestowed his own coat 
 on Kaab Ibn Soheir for a poem of homage and good tidings, 
 the Sultan took off the costly robe he was wearing and placed 
 it on the shoulders of the officiating divine. At Damascus, 
 where Selim paused for some weeks in his victorious progress 
 towards Egypt, he spent, we are told, most of his time within 
 the precincts of the wonderful Mosque of St. John, discoursing 
 with learned doctors of Mohamedan law, and from the greatest 
 of them. Sheikh Mohamed of Bedakshan, who had preached 
 before him on the duties and responsibilities of the Kalifate, he 
 implored and received a solemn blessing on his undertakings. 
 Marching southward along the coast, Selim turned aside for a 
 few days to make a pious pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which is still, 
 next to Mecca and Medina, the holiest city in the eyes of the 
 Mahomedans. He reached Cairo early in 15 17. The Mame- 
 luke Sultans of Egypt and their followers were destroyed root 
 and branch, but the last scion of the Abbasside Khalifs, El 
 Muttawwakil, was not only spared but treated with the utmost 
 show of deference. Having formally transferred to Selim the 
 somewhat shadowy title he himself possessed to the Vicegerency 
 of the Prophet, he was carried back with the conqueror to 
 Constantinople, and together with him what was, perhaps, still 
 more valuable, the famous Bordah or mantle of the Prophet, 
 which had been for centuries the most cherished heirloom of the 
 Abbassides. Whether, according to Mohamedan law, Muttaw- 
 wakil was competent to convey to Selim a good title to the 
 Kalifate is no doubt a moot point, but possession is nine points 
 of the law in the East as in the West, perhaps even more so 
 in the East. In Cairo, as had been foretold to him, Selim re- 
 ceived from Mohamed Abdul Barakat, the thirty-fourth Grand 
 Sherif of Mecca, through the hands of his son and special 
 envoy, the keys of the sacred Kaaba, the immemorial shrine of
 
 PAN-ISLAAIISM $ 
 
 Islam, and the title already conferred upon him at Aleppo, of 
 Servant of the Holy Places, thus received practical confirma- 
 tion. Before leaving Cairo Selim took care to discharge his 
 new responsibilities by making elaborate provisions for the de- 
 spatch, under his auspices, of the annual pilgrims' caravan to- 
 Mecca, which had been hitherto one of the privileges of the 
 rulers of Egypt, and the presents which accompanied it for 
 the people of Mecca and Medina were on a scale of lavish 
 munificence well calculated to secure their loyalty. 
 
 From that day to thisnone of Selim's successorshas allowed the 
 title to lapse. In the heyday of their military power, it is true, 
 the Sultans were content to rely upon the keenness of their 
 scimitar rather than upon spiritual power. The first Sultan 
 who attempted to make capital out of his authority as Khalif 
 in support of his temporal policy seems to have been Mustapha 
 III., and it is interesting to note that this new departure 
 coincides almost exactly with the first attempt of a great 
 European Power to interfere in the internal affairs of 
 Turkey as the champion of the Christian subject races. 
 Catherine II. had sent Admiral Orloff into the Mediterranean 
 during the recent war with Turkey in order to induce the 
 Greek populations of the Morea and Magnesia to rise against 
 their oppressors. During the peace negotiations at Fokshani 
 in 1772, one of the conditions demanded by Russia was the 
 recognition by Turkey of the independence of the Crimean 
 Tartars. To this demand Sultan Mustapha replied by a non 
 possiunus based upon his duties as Khalif. He declared formally 
 that to him as Khalif belonged spiritual supremacy over all 
 Sunni Mussulmans, and that if he did not fully exercise that 
 supremacy over India, Bokhara, Morocco, and other countries 
 whose rulers were Sunni Mussulmans, this was due merely to 
 material difficulties of distance, but that he would be neglecting 
 his duties as Khalif if he agreed to surrender the Tartars to the 
 dominion of a Christian Power. This interesting claim proved, 
 however, of little avail against Catherine's big battalions, and 
 the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainaidji, on the contrary, introduced 
 a new principle of which the subsequent application in a far 
 more extended form has repeatedly affected and still largely 
 governs the relations between Turkey and the rest of Europe, 
 for it recognised the right of the Russian Ambassador at Con- 
 stantinople to intervene with the Porte on behalf of the Sultan's 
 Christian subjects in the Danubian provinces. 
 
 Perhaps because Mustapha's appeal to his authority as Khalif 
 failed so lamentably on that occasion, the Khalifate dropped 
 into the background, as far as Europe was concerned, for 
 another century. Indeed, after the Crimean War and the
 
 6 PAN-ISLAMISM 
 
 Treaty of Paris, when Turkey was admitted into the comity of 
 European nations, her chief anxiety was, at least as far as out- 
 ward forms were concerned, to merge the Oriental in the 
 Occidental, and in international documents we find even the 
 title of Sultan transmuted into the westernised designation of 
 Emperor of the Ottomans. Abdul Hamid, however, is a keen 
 student of the history of his own country, and it may well be 
 Mustapha's claim which first inspired him to revive for his own 
 benefit the pretensions of his less successful ancestor. Certain 
 it is that for the last five and twenty years his policy both 
 within and without his immediate dominions has been more 
 and more closely bound up with his claim to the spiritual 
 headship of Islam. Although it was to British intervention 
 that Abdul Hamid mainly owed the mitigation of the harsh 
 terms of peace imposed upon him by Russia in the Treaty of 
 Saint Stephano, the relations of friendliness between this country 
 and Turkey which followed the Berlin Congress were not of 
 long duration. With the advent of Mr. Gladstone's adminis- 
 tration in 1880 Great Britain assumed the lead in a policy of 
 suasion and even of coercion, which though not in itself by any 
 means antagonistic to the real interests of Turkey, frequently 
 wore an outward aspect of hostility to the Sultan and to his 
 Mahomedan subjects in the exclusive interests of his Christian 
 subjects. In the eyes of Mahomedans, at least, the action of 
 the European Concert, headed by England, often assumed the 
 aspect of a religious crusade directed against the ascendency of 
 the ruling Moslem race in Turkey. It is not unnatural that in 
 these circumstances the Sultan should have been led to conceive 
 a counter policy by which the forces of Islam should be brought 
 together and organised for the purpose of resistance to the 
 pressure of Christendom. Equally excusable was it that as to 
 England had fallen the lead in bringing the pressure of 
 Christendom to bear upon Turkey, the Sultan should have seen 
 in a Mussulman revival possibilities of effective reprisals against 
 that European Power which of all others had the largest 
 Mahomedan element to reckon with in its own dominions. 
 
 It was during the complications which led to the British 
 occupation of Egypt that Yeldish Kiosk appears to have become 
 the seat of an organised propaganda on behalf of what has 
 come to be known as Pan-Islamism. That was five and twenty 
 years ago, and the channels through which Pan-Islamism 
 works are so tortuous, its ramifications so subtle, that its slow 
 and steady progress attracted but little attention except from 
 those who know something of the East, and who were generally 
 jeered at for their pains as visionaries and alarmists — until the 
 events of the last twelve months in Egypt revealed as in a
 
 PANMSLAMISM 7 
 
 sudden blaze of light the activity of forces which we had ignored 
 with our usual self-complacency because they are difficult to re- 
 concile with our own conception of the fitness of things. Whilst 
 Europe had been vainly protesting and demonstrating against 
 Armenian and Macedonian atrocities, and European diplomacy 
 at Constantinople had been reduced to impotency by its own 
 intestinal jealousies, emissaries had been constantly passing to 
 and fro between Yeldiz Kiosk and Mahomedan centres through- 
 out the Eastern world, spreading the fame of the ever- victorious 
 Khalif, who had drowned rebellion at home in rivers of infidel 
 blood and stubbornly defied the wrath of the Powers. Had 
 not the mightiest of all the potentates of Christendom, the great 
 War Lord of Germany, humbly travelled to Constantinople to 
 do homage to the Padishah, and openly proclaimed himself at 
 Damascus, " the devoted friend of the 300,000,000 Mussulmans 
 who own His Majesty the Sultan Abdul Hamid to be their 
 Khalif?" Surely the sword of Islam had sprung once more 
 from the scabbard in which it had too long rusted. The word 
 prestige is deprecated nowadays in humanitarian quarters as 
 redolent of obsolete militarism and alien barbarism ; but in the 
 East it has lost none of its potency, and Wiroughout the East, 
 wherever Mahomedans congregate, in the porches of Mosques, 
 in the bazaars of crowded cities, in wild mountain fastnesses, in 
 the tents of the wandering nomads, in the great religious fairs, 
 and above all, at that world-centre of Mussulman pilgrimage 
 under the shadow of the Kaabah of Mecca, the name of Abdul 
 Hamid has been sedulously magnified for the last quarter of a 
 century with the results which we are now for the first time 
 beginning to realise. 
 
 Amongst the concrete facts which demonstrate the earnest- 
 ness and thoroughness of Abdul Hamid's Pan-Islamic policy, 
 none is more remarkable and significant than the construction 
 of the Hejaz Railway, which will ultimately link up the seat 
 of his temporal power as Sultan at Constantinople with the seat 
 of his spiritual power as Khalif at Mecca. A very full and 
 valuable description of this railway was contributed in August 
 last to Petennanns Mittheilungeit, the well-known German mag- 
 azine of geography and exploration, by General Auler Pasha, 
 a Prussian officer of Engineers in the service of the Sultan. 
 The following details are borrowed from it. The railway, which 
 starts from Damascus and follows in the main the old pilgrim 
 road to Mecca, was begun in 190 1, and before the end of the 
 year reached Deraa, whence a branch line of about 100 
 miles now connects with Haiffa on the Mediterranean. In 
 1904 it reached Ma'an, which was used as a military base for 
 the despatch of troops to Akabah and Tabah during the Turco-
 
 8 PAN-ISLAMIS:\I 
 
 Egyptian controversy last spring. It has now reached Tebuk, 
 which is half-way between Damascus and Medina, and next 
 year it will reach Medain-Salih, a very important strategic 
 point in connection with Nejd and Central Arabia. The total 
 length of the line from Damascus to Mecca will be about iioo 
 miles, of which 435 miles have been opened to traffic. The 
 rate of construction, which is increasing, now averages about 
 100 miles a year, and the railway is expected to reach Medina 
 in 19 10, and Mecca about three years later. The cost is esti- 
 mated at a little more than ;^3000 a mile, or altogether 
 perhaps four millions sterling, including the branch from 
 Deraa to Haiffa, and the prolongation from Mecca to Jeddah 
 on the Red Sea — an extraordinarily small sum, considering the 
 engineering difficulties and the still greater difficulties of trans- 
 port and supply in a region which is almost entirely desert and 
 waterless. The explanation is that no financial provision has 
 to be made either for the acquisition of land or for the pay- 
 ment of labour. The land is the Sultan's, and the labour 
 is supplied by the troops. Three battalions of infantry, each 
 1000 strong ; two railway battalions, each 1200 strong ; one 
 company of Pioneers, and a detachment of the Telegraph 
 Service Corps have been furnished by the Fifth Army Corps 
 from Damascus, and recently two more infantry battalions 
 from the Sixth Army Corps have been ordered up from 
 Baghdad. A German engineer-inchief, Meissner Pasha, with 
 about a dozen German, Austrian and Swiss engineers, is in 
 charge of the railway works, under the supreme direction of 
 Field-Marshal Kiazim Pasha. 
 
 To General Auler's technical report, General von der Goltz, 
 the very distinguished officer of the German General Staff who 
 for so many years presided over the reorganisation of the 
 Turkish army, has written a most instructive preface, of which 
 the following is a summary : 
 
 The world at large hardly heard of the Hejaz Railway until on September i 
 1904, H.M. the Sultan Abdul Hamid, on the anniversary of his accession to 
 the throne, caused the opening of the line as far as the little town of jMaan, in 
 a remote southern corner of Syria, to be celebrated with a pomp and ceremony 
 of which the echo resounded throughout the Mahomedan world. . . . To-day 
 a considerable portion of the line is already completed, and the work of con- 
 struction is being pushed on with an energy which shows not only what Turkey 
 is capable of doing when the Sultan has proclaimed his will, but also how 
 powerful is the religious sentiment of Islam. Contributions to the Hejaz 
 Railway constitute a deed of piety, and that word has lost none of its magic in 
 the East. 
 
 The railway, covering a distance of about iioo miles, follows for the most 
 part the old caravan route over which thousands and thousands of pious I\Ius- 
 sulmans have braved the tedium and dangers of the long journey in order to 
 accompany the yearly offerings of the Sultan to the Holy Places. This journey
 
 PAN-ISLAMISM 9 
 
 •will ultimately take only five days, and vast numbers of his subjects from 
 Europe and from Asia Minor will be able, as never before, to achieve their 
 hearts' desire and perform their devotions on the spot where the Prophet him- 
 self lived and died. To the elder generation this must sound as a fairy talCi 
 and the Sultan could hardly have conceived an undertaking better calculated 
 to enhance his prestige amongst all the peoples of Islam. By the time the 
 railway reaches the gates of Mecca, it will undoubtedly be linked up from 
 Damascus, via Aleppo, with the Anatolian system and the Baghdad line, and 
 there will thus be an unbroken iron road from Constantinople to the Sacred 
 City. 
 
 Abdul Hamid's rule is inspired with the steady unswerving purpose of 
 bringing into closer and mightier cohesion the whole Mahomedan world under 
 his sceptre, or, at least, under his influence. Of late years his efforts have 
 been directed specially to Arabia, where the acknowledgment of Turkish 
 supremacy has made great strides, though in the land of Yemen, the ancient 
 Arabia Felix, the struggle has yet to be fiercely fought out. The policy of the 
 Sultan, directed to what may be called internal conquests, which shall com- 
 pensate him in the Islamic world for the losses suffered on the fringe of his 
 Empire under the pressure of Christendom, will receive a mighty impulse from 
 the opening of the railway to the Holy Places. The remoteness of the southern 
 provinces of his dominions has been a serious cause of military weakness in 
 the past. But all this will be altered when railways reach from Constantinople 
 to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Turkey will then regain, as it were, a 
 new lease of youth and vigour. 
 
 So far General von der Goltz. There are other aspects of 
 the policy embodied in the Hejaz Railway upon which he 
 does not dwell though they are clearly present to his mind. 
 At present the Sultan's position in Arabia, much as he has 
 already done to consolidate it, depends very largely upon 
 British good-will. The vast majority of the forces which he 
 has poured into Arabia, and especially into the Yemen, where 
 a ten years' campaign has not yet broken the stubborn re- 
 sistance of the tribes, have been transported by sea. Men 
 as well as supplies and warlike stores of every description 
 have to be sent across the Mediterranean through the Suez 
 Canal and down the Red Sea. What that means with our 
 command of the sea and our dominant position in Egypt, I 
 need not point out. The completion of the Hejaz Railway 
 will in a large measure relieve the Sultan from the galling 
 dependence upon friendly relations with Great Britain which 
 the maintenance of his main line of communications with 
 Arabia now necessitates. 
 
 It is not, however, only as a means of securing continuous 
 land communication between Constantinople and the Holy 
 Places that the construction of the Hejaz Railway will 
 strengthen the strategic position of Turkey in Arabia. The 
 existence of practically independent principalities in Central 
 Arabia such as that which Ibn-el-Rashid carved out for himself
 
 lo PAN-ISLAMISM 
 
 in Nejd, has from time to time been a severe thorn in the- 
 flesh to the Sultans. Next year, as we have already seen, 
 the Hej.iz Railway will reach Medain Salih, and as that 
 place is about the best jumping-j^round for Nejd via Teyna, 
 the arrival of railhead there must vastly strengthen the 
 Turkish position throughout Central and South-Eastern 
 Arabia, right down to the Persian Gulf. We have only to 
 remember the large share which our own prote'gd, the Sheikh 
 of Koweyt, has played during the last few years in the 
 struggle for power between the descendants of the old 
 Wahibi Emirs and the successors of Muhammed Ibn-el* 
 Rashid, in order to realise how severely the establish- 
 ment of Turkish supremacy in the Gebel Shammar might 
 press upon our allies along the Arabian shores of the 
 Persian Gulf. I had an opportimity of discussing this 
 question a few years ago with the Sheikh of Koweyt himself, 
 whose friendly relations with the Indian Government had 
 given deep umbrage to Turkey. In fact Turkish troops had 
 moved out from Bassorah and Baghdad, and the presence of 
 British ships had alone averted the aggressive intervention of 
 the Turks. Nevertheless, Sheikh Mubarak professed to enter- 
 tain little apprehension with regard to Turkish aggression 
 from that quarter, but laid great stress upon the necessity for 
 him of keeping his communications open with Arabia, and of 
 securing the independence cf Nejd from Turkish control by 
 retaining it in possession of his Wahabi friends. 
 
 Nor is it only in connection with our own position in the 
 Persian Gulf that the consolidation of Turkish power in the 
 Arabian Peninsula may directly affect British interests. The 
 history of India within relatively recent times offers a very 
 striking example of the influence which events in Arabia can 
 exercise upon the Mahomedan population of India. One 
 of the most important religious movements amongst Indian 
 Mahomedans under British rule was the direct result of the 
 great Mahomedan revival in Arabia towards the end of the 
 eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, known 
 as Wahabism, after its founder, Mohammed Wahab, of Nejd, 
 That movement, it will be remembered, swept over the whole 
 of Arabia, and for a time wrested even the Holy Places from 
 the power of the Sultans, who had to call in the aid of 
 Mehemet AH, the great Pasha of Egypt, to stamp it out 
 by sheer force. One of Wahab's disciples, Seyyid Ahmad 
 Shah of Bareilly, introduced his doctrines into India in 
 1826, and preached a holy war against the Sikh confederacy, 
 which was then supreme in the Northern Punjab. Notwith- 
 standing the enthusiasm with which his teachings were
 
 PAN-ISLAMISM ir 
 
 welcomed, the movement in that part of India proved 
 abortive, but some of its adherents established themselves 
 permanently both In the North-West and in the Western 
 districts of Bengal, where they made their headquarters at 
 Patna. From the latter place, especially, they sent out emis- 
 saries all over India, and notably into Eastern Bengal, where 
 Hajji Sharnet Ullah, who had himself been at Mecca and 
 come into personal contact with Wahab, became an active 
 missionary of the new doctrine. He made a large number of 
 converts, especially amongst the lower classes, and both he 
 and his son after him, waged successful war against the 
 Hindu superstitions which had continued to maintain their 
 hold over the followers of the Prophet. Their proceedings 
 were often lawless and brought them frequently into conflict 
 with the British authorities. But they undoubtedly gave a 
 powerful impetus to Mahomedan feeling throughout Eastern 
 Bengal, and also in Behar. 
 
 Before proceeding, however, to the consideration of the 
 effect which the growth of Abdul Hamid's prestige as a leader 
 of Islam has produced upon the Mahomedans of India, I want 
 to draw your attention to a very significant movement which has 
 been going on in Persia, the one country where the Shiah form 
 of Islam is supreme. One would have imagined that the bitter 
 hatred which has subsisted for thirteen centuries between 
 Shiahs and Sunnis would have rendered Persia inaccessible to 
 the Pan-Islamic propaganda of a Sunni Sultan, though the 
 possession by Turkey of the Holy Places of Arabia, to which 
 the duty of pilgrimage is imposed on both Shiahs and Sunnis, 
 and also of the shrines more peculiarly sacred to the Shiahs — 
 such as Kerbela and Meshed Ali, in the valley of the Euphrates 
 — necessarily confers upon the Sultans a prestige which the 
 Persians are compelled to recognise, and in various treaties 
 concluded between Sultan and Shah, the former's title of 
 " Protector of the Holy Places " is duly recognised. But the 
 danger to which the independence of Persia, like that of Turkey^ 
 has been exposed by the growing pressure of the Western 
 Powers has unquestionably been used with no little effect of 
 recent years by the missionaries of the Sultan to bring home 
 to the people of Persia the expediency of sinking sectarian 
 differences in the common cause of Islam. The unpopularity 
 of the present Shah amongst the clergy of Persia, who have 
 openly charged him with selling his country to the infidel, 
 is so great that on several occasions the protests against his 
 misgovernment have taken the form of threats to appeal to the 
 protection of the Sultan, even if such protection were to involve 
 a reconciliation with Sunnism. About two years ago the
 
 li PAN-ISLAMISM 
 
 Mujtehids, or High Priests, of Kerbela were stated to have 
 openly threatened the Shah with excommunication for his sub- 
 serviency to an infidel power, and even these high ecclesiastics, 
 whose fortunes would seem to be indissolubly bound up with 
 Shiism, did not hesitate to hint that the time was at hand when 
 Shiahs as well as Sunnis would be compelled to take refuge 
 under the sheltering aegis of the one great Mahomedan 
 Sovereign who had proved himself to be the providential pro- 
 lector of Islam. 
 
 It would be still more interesting to have some really trust- 
 worthy data respecting the presence of Pan-Islamic influences 
 in Afghanistan, the only survivor to-day, but a survivor full 
 of vitality, of the independent Mahomedan States of Central 
 -Asia. But so rigidly is Afghanistan closed against foreign 
 intercourse, in spite of our Treaty relations with the Ameer, 
 that our information in regard to the present condition of 
 affairs is altogether scanty, and scantiest of all in regard to the 
 relations between the Afghans and the Sultan. The only occa- 
 sion upon which Abdul Hamid is known to have exerted his 
 influence by an official mission to Kabul was at the time of the 
 last Afghan War, when our own relations with Turkey still 
 retained the cordial character they had acquired at the Berlin 
 Congress. The Sultan's influence was then exercised towards 
 the restoration of peace between Afghanistan and India. 
 Shortly- afterwards, however, the wind shifted at Yeldiz, and 
 Abdul Hamid sent his former envoy at Kabul to be Turkish 
 Consul-General at Bombay, where the first agency was estab- 
 lished for distributing items of news concerning Islam and the 
 Khalif amongst the Mahomedans of the North-West Frontier 
 and Afghanistan, That Afghan Chiefs and Mollahs on their 
 way to and from Mecca are frequent visitors to Yeldiz Kiosk, 
 we know, and some of them are no doubt the bearers of 
 political messages between the Sultan and the Ameer, whilst 
 they all carry back with them to Afghanistan stories, which 
 lose nothing in the telling, of Abdul Hamid's munificence, and 
 of the glories of Islambol — the Persian and Afghan corruption 
 of Stambul — which thus acquires the meaning, "where Islam 
 is plentiful." 
 
 It is certainly worth noting that a growing amount of interest 
 has been manifested of late years in the fate of Turkey, and in 
 British policy towards the Sultan, amongst the border tribes of 
 the North-West Frontier, which are in close contact with and 
 to some extent under the influence of the Ameer. It is generally 
 admitted that the excitement and enthusiasm caused by 
 the victories of the Turkish armies over Christian Greece in 
 the spring of 1897 had a good deal to do with the aggressive
 
 PAN-ISLAMISM 13 
 
 turbulence of the tribes which led to the Tirah campaign in 
 the autumn of the same year. Last winter I happened to be 
 at Peshawar at the time when the annual jirgahs or meetings 
 between the frontier tribesmen and the British political officers 
 of the frontier take place, and I was struck with the very keen 
 interest which they displayed in our relations with Turkey. 
 The naval demonstration, in which we naturally took a leading 
 part, was being then carried on in connection with the Mace- 
 donian question, and the tribesmen made no secret of the 
 disfavour with which they viewed our co-operation in the 
 coercion of Turkey. They had been taught to look upon it 
 solely as an act of hostility towards Islam, and they were not 
 at all inclined to listen to any attempt to discriminate between 
 the Sultan as a temporal ruler and the Khalif as the spiritual 
 head of Islam. 
 
 The question of paramount importance to us, however, is 
 whether and to what extent Pan-Islamism has reached the 
 great masses of our Indian Mahomedans, who number roughly 
 one-fifth of the whole population of our Indian Empire, and of 
 whom the vast majority are Sunnis^ like the Turks. 
 
 It is not infrequently contended that in spite of their large 
 
 numbers, the Mahomedans of India do not represent a really 
 
 cohesive force, because they comprise several dissident sects, 
 
 and consist very largely of the descendants of converts upon 
 
 whom their religion sits very lightly. There is no doubt some 
 
 truth in this contention, and to a certain extent Islam may be 
 
 said never to have entirely prevailed over the more ancient 
 
 influences of Hinduism. Witness the extent to which caste 
 
 feeling has preserved its hold upon Indian Mahomedans, though 
 
 the fundamental conception of caste is absolutely at variance 
 
 with the democratic principles of the founder of Islam. Again, 
 
 it may be urged that, as a large number of Indians were won 
 
 over to Islam by the prospect of relief from the social disabilities 
 
 imposed upon them by the caste system peculiar to Hinduism, 
 
 they represent a lower social stratum than the Hindus. This 
 
 also is true up to a certain point. But on the other hand, it 
 
 must be remembered that if many of the converts to Islam 
 
 were drawn from the low caste Hindus, a very considerable 
 
 number were also drawn from classes influential by their wealth 
 
 and by ^heir position in every respect except in that of caste. 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten that amongst the ruling chiefs of 
 
 India, a good many are themselves Mahomedans, including the 
 
 most powerful of all, the Nizam of Hyderabad, who rightly 
 
 prides himself on being the premier-Prince of the Indian 
 
 Empire. Another argument often used is that after all the 
 
 Mussulmans only form a majority of the population in a few
 
 14 PANMSLAiMISM 
 
 provinces, such as Eastern Bengal, the Punjab and the North- 
 west Frontier. But against this fact may be set off the other 
 and perhaps more important fact that there is scarcely a single 
 province in which they are not represented, and that their 
 strength lies chiefly in the large towns where public opinion is 
 much more articulate than in the rural districts. They have, 
 above all, and not only in that part of India which was the seat 
 of the Moghul Empire, the prestige which attaches all over the 
 East to a race which has been a ruling race. At various periods 
 during the thousand years which have elapsed since Islam was 
 first imported into India from Arabia and Mesopotamia, Maho- 
 medan dynasties have reigned and flourished in almost every 
 part of the peninsula, and there is scarcely a Hindu whose 
 ancestors have not at one time or another bowed their knee 
 to a Mahomedan ruler. On the whole a careful analysis 
 of the various elements which make up the Mussulman 
 population of India to-day would, I think, show that the 
 Mahomedans occupy a position which cannot be measured 
 merely by their numbers. During the last twenty years 
 there has unquestionably been a growing feeling amongst 
 them all over India that the maintenance of Turkish power 
 and independence is a great Mahomedan interest, in which 
 all Mahomedans are concerned. Amidst the decay of all 
 other Mahomedan States Turkey remains in their eyes the one 
 Powder which represents the traditions of militant Islam. As 
 an influential and liberal-minded Mahomedan remarked to 
 me, if Turkey viere to disappear, the Mahomedans would 
 become like unto the Jews — a mere religious sect whose king- 
 dom was gone. It is an unfortunate circumstance that the 
 Sultan's policy should have produced so many causes of con- 
 flict with England, many of them connected with issues to 
 which the Sultan's emissaries could easily give a sectarian 
 colouring. The public meetings held last year by the Maho- 
 medans in many of the chief Mahomedan centres of India to 
 protest against the coercion of Turkey in connection with 
 Macedonian affairs, were symptomatic of the growth of a feel- 
 ing which had already become manifest years ago when Lord 
 Salisbury denounced the Sultan himself as the author of the 
 Armenian massacres, and with still less reserve when in the 
 following year Abdul Hamid had once more on European 
 battlefields victoriously wielded " the sword of Islam," though 
 only against so puny a foe as Greece. Even more symptoma- 
 tic is it that in this very year, just after the acute crisis which 
 nearly ended in open hostilities between Great Britain and 
 Turkey, the Sultan's name-day has been celebrated by the 
 Mahomedans in many parts of India with conspicuous and
 
 PAN-ISLAMISM 15 
 
 unexampled fervour. In India, too, as in other parts of 
 the Mahomedan world, the Hejaz Railway has been used 
 by Abdul Hamid as a splendid advertisement for the virtues 
 of Khalifate, and a part of its cost has been defrayed by Indian 
 contributions. 
 
 In what light exactly the Mahomedans of India view the 
 Sultan's claim to the Khalifate is a point of no slight interest. 
 In many mosques his name appears to be used in the Friday 
 prayers, but excellent authorities assure us that this does not 
 imply anything more than a mark of respect and reverence 
 for a great Mussulman sovereign. The most interesting pro- 
 nouncement on this subject is that which was made a few 
 months ago at the time of the Anglo-Turkish differences by 
 Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk, tke Hon. Secretary of the Mahomedan 
 Anglo-Oriental Club at Aligarh, who has been since the death 
 of Sir Seyyid Ahmad the foremost leader of enlightened Maho- 
 medan opinion. The Nawab gave it as his opinion that if 
 the Indian Moslems speak of the Sultan as Khalif, they do so 
 by way of honouring the greatest Mahomedan king of our 
 time, whose position is rendered still more important by his 
 being servant of the sacred places and the Kaaba. " The 
 term," he added, " is on no account to be taken to mean that 
 Indian Moslems regard him as their ruler in any way, or con- 
 sider his orders to be binding on them." Quoting from 
 authoritative works on the subject of the rights and duties of 
 the Khalif, the Nawab said it was impossible, having regard to 
 the duties set forth, for any man of even common under- 
 standing to think that the Sultan is the Khalif of the Indian 
 Mussulmans in the real sense of the term, or that they are in 
 any matter bound by their religion to obey him. They are 
 the subjects of the King-Emperor, and owe their allegiance 
 i.0 him alone. 
 
 It does not, however, follow [he continued] that the Indian Mussulmans 
 have no love for the Sultan of Turkey, or that they do not care for the safety 
 of the Turkish Empire. On the contrary, they all wish with one heart for 
 the stability of Turkish rule, and earnestly pray God that friendly relations 
 between Great Britain and the Porte may be firmly established. Those of us 
 [he said in conclusion] who say they care nothing for the Sultan and for 
 Turkey are either cringing flatterers of the British Government, whom the 
 Government will assuredly never credit, or they have no love for religion. 
 Loyalty towards our Government does not exclude the idea of sympathy 
 with one's co-religionists. Those who think that the two are exclusive of 
 each other are ignorant both of their religious duties and of their political 
 relations. 
 
 Another Indian Mahomedan of repute, Hajji Muhammed 
 Ismail Khan, of Dataoli, late member of the Legislative Council 
 of the United Provinces, has recently published a letter on the
 
 i6 PAN-ISLAMISM 
 
 same subject, and on much the same lines, which, however,, 
 contains a noteworthy admission that goes considerably further 
 than the Nawab's letter. For he acknowledges in so many 
 words that " there are certain Mahomedans in India who have 
 a greater love and reverence for the Sultan than is legitimate, 
 or than should really exist. They consider him as a necessary 
 part of their religion," Without wishing to exaggerate the 
 importance of these and other utterances, one cannot but infer 
 from them that the influence which Abdul Hamid is beginning 
 to exercise as the Khalif of Islam over the minds of Indian 
 Mahomedans is causing amongst the more loyal and enlightened 
 section of the Mahomedan community in India a certain 
 measure of apprehension, and that they feel that the time has 
 come openly to discountenance its growth. 
 
 This is a matter which deserves very close and serious con- 
 sideration at the hands of our rulers, especially at a time when 
 the Mahomedans of India are, rightly or wrongly, disposed to 
 believe that their interests no longer receive from the Supreme 
 Government the same impartial treatment to which they had 
 been hitherto accustomed. I do not wish to enter upon con- 
 troversial questions which have lately been raised in regard to 
 British administration in India, but the fact remains that recent 
 events have produced upon the minds of not a few Indian 
 Mahomedans the impression that their rights as a minority 
 have been sacrificed, and are likely to be still further sacrificed 
 in the future, to the claims of the Hindu majority, and merely, 
 in their opinion, because the Hiudu majority has had recourse 
 to methods of agitation which the Indian Mahomedans have 
 not hitherto considered to be compatible with their deep sense 
 of loyalty towards the British Raj. Their resentment is all the 
 greater in that whatever the antagonism between Christianity 
 and Islam, they have hitherto always believed that there was 
 a certain community of religious thought between Moslems 
 and Christians, which cannot exist between either us or 
 them and the Hindus. We are, like them, as they term it^ 
 " ahl-el-kitab," people of the Book, that is to say, that we have 
 in common with them a belief in revealed Scriptures, and the 
 Koran to them is only a later revelation which has superseded, 
 but has not destroyed, the sanctity attaching to the Old and New 
 Testament. Above all, they share with us, as they contend, the 
 common ground of a belief in the Unity of God, which should 
 draw us more closelyto wards them than we can possibly be drawn 
 towards the idolatrous polytheism or pantheism of the Hindus. 
 To these religious considerations are now added political con- 
 siderations no less weighty, for they rightly contrast the large 
 part which the Mahomedan races of India have borne in the
 
 PAN-ISLAMISM 17 
 
 defence of the British Raj with the disloyal agitation of many 
 Hindus, and especially of the noisiest section, the Bengalis, who 
 have, to say the least, never been conspicuous for the martial 
 qualities which the Mahomedans have so often displayed shoulder 
 to shoulder with ourselves. Amongst the younger generation 
 of Mahomedans there is a certain feeling of impatience which 
 cannot be safely ignored. It is finding vent at the present 
 moment in the proposal to establish Mahomedan organisations 
 which shall be as effective for the furtherance of Mahomedan 
 interests as the Indian National Congress is conceived to have 
 been in the furtherance of Hindu interests. Though the 
 Mahomedans may be perfectly sincere at present in protesting 
 that they have no intention of adopting Hindu methods of 
 agitation, one cannot feel quite confident as to what they may 
 do in the future. Should the expectations of the Mahomedans 
 be disappointed, the tendency of these new Mahomedan organi- 
 sations might well be to seek at least the moral support of their 
 co-religionists beyond the frontier of India, and that is a 
 tendency which Pan- Islamic propagandists would not fail to 
 encourage. 
 
 One word in conclusion to deprecate exaggerated appre- 
 hensions. It may well be that Pan-Islamism in its present 
 form will not survive the remarkable ruler to whose energy 
 and ability its inception and growth are mainly due. One 
 feature which is in many ways reassuring is that it has 
 achieved greater popularity outside than inside of Turkey 
 proper. None know better than the best class of Turks what 
 Abdul Hamid's policy has cost them, and none deplore more 
 deeply the estrangement of British friendship. So long as 
 Abdul Hamid steers the same course as in the past, all that 
 this country can probably do is to avoid as far as possible 
 any action which can be construed into deliberate hostility to 
 Islam or injustice to our Mahomedan subjects, and especially to 
 our Indian Mahomedans, whose splendid qualities and militant 
 loyalty constitute perhaps the greatest of our Imperial assets in 
 India. But whenever a reial change takes place at Constantinople, 
 whether it be in Abdul Hamid's lifetime, or more probably when 
 he is gathered in due course to his forefathers, it may be hoped 
 that whatever British Government is in power will take the 
 earliest opportunity of showing in the face of the Mahomedan 
 world that British policy is inspired by no settled antagonism 
 to Turkey, but on the contrary is prepared to respect and 
 even to support the legitimate exercise of both the temporal 
 and the spiritual authority of the Sultanate, so long as, on the 
 other hand, these are not employed to subserve purposes of 
 hostility to the British Empire.
 
 DISCUSSION 
 
 The Chairman: You will agree with me that Mr. Chirol has dealt 
 with this^ far-reaching subject in what may be regarded as a masterly 
 fashion. To us it is an all-important subject, for as Mr. Chirol has 
 pointed out, the King is ruler over more than half the Mahomedan world, 
 and more than one-fourth of the vast population of India, with its varying 
 religions and races, are Mahomedans. Another point mentioned by 
 Mr. Chirol which I wish to emphasize, is that in the Native Army of 
 India we have a large number of Mahomedans j they form, indeed, a very 
 important part of that bulwark of the British Empire. Of course, as in all 
 religious communities, there is more than one school of thought among 
 our Mahomedan fellow-subjects. There is the old school and the new 
 school — the old school keeping to the traditions of the past with unvarying 
 rigidity, and the new school inclined to the assimilation of Western ideas. 
 But there is one thing on which the Indian Mussulmans as a body are 
 agreed — at least, that is my strong belief. They do not desire that we 
 should transplant Western institutions to India, to an Oriental soil which 
 is not capable of properly fertilizing them. As Mr. Morley remarked in 
 his Budget speech, to think that we can transplant British institutions to a 
 country like India is a ludicrous and fantastic dream. But I do say there 
 are many directions in which we can endeavour to fulfil the loyal and just 
 aspirations of the Indian Mahomedans. They do not yearn for Western 
 institutions, whatever other communities may do, but they do desire to 
 have an adequate share in providing the personnel of the administrative 
 machinery of the country. They desire to be adequately represented on 
 such bodies as the district boards, the municipalities, the provincial 
 councils, and the supreme Legislative Council of the Indian Empire. 
 Mr. Chirol has gone over a wide field which it would be impossible for 
 me to attempt to traverse, but I hope we shall have representative points 
 of view brought forward in the discussion. 
 
 Sir Lepel Griffin ; As the Chairman has invited me to open the 
 discussion I will not, of course, decline to do so. But I would like to 
 assure Mr. Chirol that his lecture, so far as my view-point is concerned, 
 does away with all possibility of criticism. From the first word to the last 
 
 19
 
 20 
 
 ^ scarcely heard a single sentence with which I am not in full agreement 
 (hear, hear). I think he has put a question of vital moment to our 
 Empire before us very wisely, and, above all, moderately. Moderation is 
 the word which should apply to discussions on such topics more than any 
 other. There is no doubt to-day a great revival of Islam in all parts of 
 the world. But if this movement be looked upon with sympathy and 
 generosity by the British Government and the English people, there will 
 be in it no danger to the British Empire. Indeed, I think the tendency 
 will be in the reverse direction. The strong feeling of religious fanaticism 
 (I do not use that word in any harsh manner) always specially pronounced 
 amongst the less civilized people, becomes weaker when spread over 
 a larger civilized area. In all evolution of nations, as well as of other 
 things, you proceed from the simpler to the more complex — from the 
 homogeneous to the heterogeneous. And civilization certainly has this 
 beneficent effect of smoothing asperities and inducing a liberal spirit, the 
 effect which the old tag of our Latin grammars impressed upon us : 
 " Emollit mores nee sinit esse feros. " 
 
 That is the principal thing I wished to say ; but, secondly, I would 
 express my sense of the grave mistake that was made by two great leaders 
 of the English people — Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury — when they, in 
 the most public and emphatic manner, withdrew from Turkey the 
 protection and support of England, declaring that we had put our money 
 on the wrong horse. That was a grave and almost fatal mistake, and the 
 consequences of it have not yet been fully realized. I believe that, seeing 
 how many millions of fellow Mahomedan subjects are included in the 
 Empire, we should frankly recognise the difficulties which beset the 
 Turkish and other Mussulman Governments, and that we should not 
 criticise their methods too harshly, nor interfere too closely with their 
 internal affairs. There are many nations in the world whose Governments 
 are not very energetic or very wise, besides those of the Mahomedan 
 States. Let us look more at home, and consider that in our Indian 
 Empire and Army the Mahomedans are the strength of our right arm, and 
 that by our sympathetic attitude we may maintain them in an attitude of 
 warm friendship towards us. It ought not to be forgotten that the 
 progress of Mahomedan learning in all parts of the world during the last 
 thirty years has been most remarkable, and in this is the best and most 
 notable revival of Islam. I see here now three distinguished Mahomedan 
 gentlemen — Mr. Ameer Ali, late Justice of the principal High Court in 
 India ; Major Syed Hassan, formerly of the Indian ^Medical Service ; and 
 Mr. Yusuf Ali, one of our Indian Civil Servants, who is just as intelligent 
 and more eloquent than most Englishmen in that Service. In a com- 
 munity which can produce such men there is no lack of ability and no 
 lack of loyalty. I need only add my hearty thanks to Mr. Chirol for his 
 most excellent lecture, which everyone who knows India and the East will 
 thoroughly appreciate and read with interest (cheers). 
 
 Mr. Ameer Ali : I have listened with great interest to the 
 admirable lecture which has just been delivered, and with no little 
 admiration for the gift of eloquence by which it was marked. The subject
 
 21 
 
 is a very large one, and it is impossible in the time at my disposal to enter 
 into any detailed criticism. Certain remarks, however, suggest themselves 
 to me which may assist the meeting in judging the full significance of the 
 observations which have fallen from the leained lecturer. I may be 
 allowed at the outset to make one personal observation. I do not belong 
 to the Sunni sect, and therefore what I may say as to the claim of the 
 Sultan of Turkey to the Khalifate may at least be regarded as being the 
 opinion of a wholly disinterested person. The lecturer has traversed a 
 very large area, partly historical and pardy dealing with the religious and 
 social conditions of Mussulmans in different parts of the world. In 
 his historical survey, the learned lecturer omitted to mention that, whilst 
 the holy cities of Islam and the relics of the Prophet were in the possession 
 of the Khalifs of Baghdad, the Ommeyade sovereigns of Spain never put 
 forward a claim to the title of Khalif. It was only in the ninth century 
 of the Christian era, when Abdul Rahman III. came to the throne and 
 found that the Abbaside Khalifs had lost possession of the holy cities, 
 that he assumed the designation of Commander of the Faithful. As 
 regards the title of the Fatimites, most people who have studied Moslem 
 history know how it arose. The lecturer has shown with considerable 
 lucidity, with regard to the claim of the Ottoman sovereigns, how Selim I. 
 acquired the title upon the renunciation of the last Khalif of Cairo in his 
 favour. From that time onward the Ottoman claim has been recognised 
 by the bulk of the Sunni world, and most of the ruling Princes and Chiefs 
 of Central and Western Asia. The lecturer is no doubt aware that the 
 Khan of Khiva bears the title, conferred upon the Khans by one of the 
 predecessors of Sultan Abdul Hamid, of Cup Bearer to the Khalif. Other 
 titles, similarly conferred, are borne by other Asiatic rulers. I do not 
 think the learned lecturer is correct, and I say so with all respect, in 
 attributing to the Sultan Abdul Hamid an active part in the propaganda 
 which is supposed by many Westerns to have been set on foot in different 
 parts of the Mahomedan world hostile to non-Moslem forces. If there is 
 any feeling growing in the Mahomedan world in favour of union to assert 
 the rights of Mahomedans against repression or attacks from without, it is 
 due entirely to the extraneous cause of the pressure which is being put 
 upon them by what are called the civilized Powers of Europe in their own 
 interests. It is only natural that the Mahomedans of Algeria, of Morocco, 
 and other parts of Africa, of Arabia, and of Central Asia, should object 
 to be " civilized " at the point of the sword and the bayonet. No one will 
 accuse me of being a reactionary. Those who know me know that my 
 sympathies are entirely on the side of progress and development, and that 
 I am as loyal a subject of Great Britain as any Englishman or Indian can 
 possibly be (cheers). But I cannot overlook the fact that in the name of 
 civilization and Western progress, a great deal has been done which has 
 been most harmful to the healthy development of Mahomedan countries, 
 and which has inspired those Mahomedan nations which still maintain 
 their independence with distrust and distaste for European progress. Look 
 at Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Austrians allege in their favour the 
 construction of roads and hospitals; but of one thing there can be on
 
 22 
 
 doubt — in their wake have followed drinking and immorality. The same 
 spectacle presents itself in other parts of the Moslem world brought under 
 European influence. In the eyes of the Mahomedans, civilization coupled 
 wiih the casino, the cafi c/iantant. State -recognised immorality, and 
 absinthe drinking does not carry great advantages ; and it is very natural 
 in these circumstances that Mahomedan countries should object to the 
 introduction of European authority in their lands. We can perhaps 
 understand their feeling, even though the advocates of civilization may 
 consider it somewhat out of date ; but it must not be put down to 
 fanaticism, or to Pan-Islamism, which to certain minds connotes the same 
 idea. The psychology of fanaticism is a complex thing, and must be 
 reserved for discussion on some other occasions. But one observation I 
 must make. Fanaticism may be racial as well as religious. Racial 
 fanaticism is to my mind worse than religious fanaticism, but when the 
 two co-exist, instances of which are abundant, the result is deplorable. 
 Is it not the case that too often when the scions of civilized races leave 
 their homes for other lands, they carry with them a racial fanaticism, 
 which, when superadded to religious fanaticism, sometimes works out in 
 ways that cannot be regarded with satisfaction by enlightened people in 
 the West ? So much will perhaps be admitted in favour of Islam that it 
 has no place for racial fanaticism. The Prophet proclaimed from the 
 Mount of Arafat in his last Sermon that all Moslems were brothers. That 
 dictum has never been fully carried into practice by Mahomedans. But 
 I for one should welcome the consummation of Mahomedans in different 
 parts of the world looking upon each other as a brotherhood (hear, hear). 
 Pan-Islamism is a hybrid expression, and I find some difficulty in grasping 
 its meaning. If it means that the Moslems are awakening to that sense 
 of cohesion which has long been in existence in Christendom, then thete 
 is no fault to be found with it. But if it is suggested that the word implies 
 a combination of Mahomedans in an aggressive sense — in the sense of 
 hostility to other peoples — then I deny its existence absolutely. I know 
 the Mahomedans of India as well as any man can possibly do ; I have 
 my hand upon the pulse of the whole Mahomedan community of Northern 
 India — at any rate, so that I can speak on this matter with some degree 
 of authority. I say that there is no such movement amongst the 
 Mahomedans of India promoted by emissaries of the Sultan, as has been 
 suggested, f( r the purpose of creating any feeling against the established 
 goverment of the country. I have never come across a single emissary 
 of the Sultan in any part of India. There are a few Turks in Bombay 
 and Calcutta, and occasionally one or two may be found travelling in 
 Northern India ; but to regard them as emissaries of the Sultan is a 
 mistake. The Mahomedans of India, as my friend the Nawab Moohsin- 
 ul-Mulk pointed out in the article to which reference has been made, have 
 a natural respect for the greatest Sovereign belonging to their own religion, 
 who holds possession of their most sacred cities, and who is the depositary 
 of the relics of the Prophet. These things, in the eyes of the vast Sunni 
 community, give him the title to be regarded as the inheritor of the 
 Prophet's position, as the spiritual guide of the Sunni world. Beyond tliat
 
 23 
 
 there is no Pan-Islamic movement in India, and to suggest that on 
 account of attachment to the Sultan the Mahomedans there are likely to 
 foster any ill-feeling towards the British Government is an absolute 
 mistake. If the British Government does become unpopular amongst 
 the Mahomedans, it will be the fault of the British Government itself 
 (hear, hear). It will be from want of sympathy with their aspirations. 
 The Mahomedans of India wish to take their rightful place as loyal 
 subjects of the British crown — a loyalty they have displayed in many ways 
 during the last twenty-five years. I may remark in passing that the 
 so-called Wahabi movement in India, to which Mr. Chirol alluded, was 
 a totally different thing to the Wahabi movement in Arabia. It was not 
 Wahabiism but Favaziism. Of course, Mahomedans generally have 
 sympathy with the people of Arabia, the Prophet's own country. They 
 naturally take great interest in the Hedjaz Railway. But anyone looking 
 at the railway without any religious or political prejudice must approve of 
 its construction on humanitarian grounds. Its construction will be of the 
 greatest advantage to pilgrims from all parts of the Moslem world, for it 
 will save them from the delays, privations, and dangers to which they are 
 now exposed in the absence of rapid means of communication between 
 the coast and the holy cities. I cannot believe that British statesmen 
 have such limited conceptions as to think that the railway is intended to 
 be in any way prejudicial to British interests. Although not mystlf 
 acknowledging the spiritual headship of the vSultan of Turkey, I sincerely 
 hope that he will be able to consolidate his power in Arabia, and will use 
 that power in the development of its resources. 
 
 I cannot claim to be an admirer of Sultan Abdul Hamid. For one 
 thing, I think he might have given more impetus to the constitutional 
 development of his Empire, and directed more attention to the strength- 
 ening of its naval and military resources ; that he might have done much 
 more to promote literature and arts. But in keeping in view his failure 
 in these respects we must not lose sight of the difficulties under which he 
 has laboured. For the last two hundred years Turkey has been called 
 upon every (juarter of a century to fight for its existence. Can any other 
 nation show the vitality she has exhibited in the face of all her troubles? 
 As Sir Lepel Griffin has shown, it was a mistake which is recognised as 
 such in e\ery part of India for Great Britain to throw over Turkey and 
 leave her to her own resources. If the influence of the British Govern- 
 ment in Turkey had been maintained, the course of history in that land 
 would have been very different, and in all probability reform and improve- 
 ment would have been achieved long ago. (Hear, hear.) 
 
 Mr. G. de Wesselitsky : I wish to speak of a revival among my 
 fellow subjects of the Russian Empire who belong to the Mussulman 
 faith. It is a revival, not of Pan-Islamism — I have never seen amongst 
 them, or heard of, a Pan-Islamic propaganda — but a revival of Mussulman 
 feeling, a desire for organization for the advancement of their interests. 
 It is true that in Transcaucasia Tartars were lately in racial feuds with 
 Armenians, from causes which are not clear to me. But with that 
 unfortunate exception the Mahomedans throughout the Russian Empire,
 
 24 
 
 whether locally in a minority or in a majority, have shown themselves 
 most law-abiding, patient, temperate and industrious, second in all this 
 only to the Russian Old Believers. There is a literary Pan-Turkism, an 
 attempt to create a literary language for all the Mussulmans of Russia of 
 Turco-'l'artar race common to them with the Turks of the Ottoman Empire, 
 and there is a liberal party amongst them. They are taking keen interest 
 in Parliamentary government, and are the first of their co-religionaries in 
 the whole world who are enfranchised and given full political rights. No 
 disabilities are imposed upon the Mahoniedans, no difference being made 
 between them and their Christian neighbours. There are many laws 
 made against the Jews, but none against the Mahomedans. There are 
 many Moslem officers and some generals in the Russian army, and also 
 in the civil service. Only recently the Assistant of the Viceroy of the 
 Caucasus, the head of the civil administration there, was a Mussulman. 
 Mussulmans were represented in the first Russian Duma, and they are 
 just now taking part in the elections for the new Duma. I can only say 
 that I hope that my country will persevere in her wise treatment of the 
 Mussulman population. I do net speak in any spirit of undue pride. 
 But we in Russia have been so unwise in many other respects that I am 
 desirous of emphasizing the fact that in this respect, at least, our policy 
 has been wise. In the circumstances I have detailed the Mussulmans are 
 good Russian patriots, and there is not the slightest sign in their press or 
 elsewhere that they have been susceptible to any foreign propaganda of 
 the kind spoken of by Mr. Chirol ; and he^e I would like to express my 
 agreement with the most able lecture we have heard. It seems to me 
 that Pan-Islamism might become a very real danger if Mussulmans felt 
 themselves unfairly treated by Christians. But in the measure that 
 Christian Governments treat their Mussulman subjects with justice and 
 grant them equal rights, that danger will disappear, and the Mahomedans 
 will take their place in working for the general good. (Cheers). 
 
 Professor T. W. Arnold: I think that the term "Pan-Islamism" 
 is somewhat of a misnomer ; there is really no movement of the kind that 
 has been described to us that embraces the Muhammadan world as a 
 whole. It is important to remember that whole sections of the Muham- 
 madan world are outside the influence of the Ottoman claims. Take 
 Morocco, for example ; there is no recognition of those claims there, for 
 Morocco has its own Khalifah. Again, there is the case of Persia. No 
 Persian Shiah would ever accept the Sultan as Khalifiah. Though in a 
 minority, the Shiahs of India are a considerable body, and they also would 
 repudiate the Ottoman claims. The Musalmans of China are also to 
 be left out of account in counting the forces of pro-Turkish Pan-Islamism. 
 As to Afghanistan, I have had a great deal to do with Afghan officials, 
 being brought into somewhat intimate intercourse with some of them, 
 and there has never been the slightest indication in their conversation 
 that they accept the claims of Abdul Hamid. And there is a point in 
 this connection with which the lecturer dealt only cursorily — namely, the 
 well-known Hadith, which is accepted as authoritative by all Sunnis, which 
 says that the K ilifah must belong to the tribe of the Qurai^h. This
 
 25 
 
 tradition presents a great difficulty for those journals and speakers in 
 India and elsewhere which uphold the claims of the Sultan of Turkey. 
 I remember an occasion, some years ago, when I was sitting with Sir 
 Syed Ahmed, with Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk, and with Moulvi Shibli, the 
 secretary of the Nadwat-ul-Ulamj, one of the most remarkable movements 
 of our day amongst Muhammadan theologians in India. They were 
 discussing this very question, and they agreed that there was not a single 
 Indian Sunni Maulavi who would dare, as a religious teacher, to say that 
 Indian Muhammadans might reject this tradition. The tradition is found 
 in Al Bukhari's great collection, and I am told that the Turkish Govern- 
 ment refuses to admit into the country any edition of it that includes this 
 obnoxious tradition. The Indian Maulavis say that the movement for recog- 
 nising the Sultan as Khalifah is largely promoted by journalists who are not 
 theologians. This state of affairs is important and noteworthy. It means 
 that as soon as in the Sunni community this question of the Khalifate is 
 discussed, there must always arise a theological controversy as to how to 
 dispose of this authoritative tradition. There is another consideration. 
 We have in London representatives of most of the Muhammadan popula- 
 tions of the world. There are hundreds of Indians, there are Arabs, there 
 are Persians, there are men from Algiers, from the African East Coast, 
 from South A'rica, and from Morocco, We have in London a Pan- 
 Islamic Society which has existed for some years. And what is that 
 Society ? I do not know whether even its existence is known in this 
 gathering. It practically consists of one individual. (Laughter.) If there 
 were a real Pan-Islamic movement this Society would have numbers, 
 influence, and power; but it is practically unknown. And even if we 
 accept the claim of the Sultan to be regarded as Khalifah, it is not neces- 
 sarily a matter to excite alarm, because, as was pointed out by Mr. Ameer 
 Ali, that claim has been recognised in Central Asia for centuries, as is 
 indicated in the titles of the Ameer of Bokhara, the Ameer of Khiva, and 
 other potentates. It is not unnatural that the smaller Muhammadan 
 powers should look to the headship of the Sultan, just as the barbarian 
 States looked to Rome, even in the days of her decline, as the head of 
 at least a theoretically united comity. But such sentimental recognition 
 by no means implies any real political relations or united action of any 
 kind. I mention these considerations to show that the Pan-Islamic 
 movement is to some extent a li'nited one. (Hear, hear.) 
 
 Major Syed Hassan, I. M.S. : The lecturer has placed before 
 you the generally-received view of a movement which it is the 
 fashion to call the " Pan - Islamic " movement or revival. This move- 
 ment is supposed to be the result of an outburst of fanaticism, 
 inherent in the Mussulman religion and carefully fostered and en- 
 couraged by the Sultan of Turkey, with a view to combine all the 
 Mahomedan communities of the world into a formidable opposition to 
 the interests of the great European powers — that in fact the movement is 
 based on religious hatred and directed against Christianity and Christian 
 civilization. I am glad the speakers who have preceded me have not sub- 
 scribed to this doctrine. I ask you to take a much broader view of this
 
 26 
 
 question ; and with your permission, I will lay before you certain proposi- 
 tions, which I hope to be able to prove on the evidence of well-known 
 and indisputable facts. I do not deny the existence of a movement of 
 some sort, but that movement is not confined to Mussulman countries, and 
 I maintain that it is not a fanatical movement directed against Christianity 
 or the Christian nations, in fact it is not a religious movement at all. Nor 
 is it a racial movement directed against Europeans as such. It has no 
 relation whatever to the religious faith or the nationality of the rulers of 
 a country or to that of its inhabitants. What, then, is the nature of this 
 movement or revival of which we have heard so much of late ? Well, we 
 find that there are certain definite and constant conditions under which 
 alone it is found to exist. Where these conditions are absent it cannot 
 live ; where they are present it does not fail to flourish. The degree of 
 vitality it acquires and the extent to which it thrives are in direct ratio to 
 the degree of intensity with which the conditions referred to prevail. And 
 these conditions may be summed up in the two words — Injustice and 
 Obscurantism. Under injustice I include political injustice, judicial in- 
 justice (if I may use such an expression) and social injustice — this last 
 referring to all that concerns the personal relations of man to man. 
 
 Now, I will illustrate my points by taking first some Mussulman 
 countries. In India there are sixty-two millions of Mahomedans, and 
 yet there the movement known as " Pan-Islamism " is conspicuous by its 
 absence. Why? Because British rule in India, that is to say a Christian 
 rule, is founded on justice. It does care and provide for the intellectual 
 and moral advancement of the people (cheers). It is not absorbed in the 
 mere pursuit of selfish and mercenary aims. Let us take Persia next, and 
 here we find the same movement exacting from a sovereign of the same 
 religious faith and nationality as the people themselves and from an 
 absolute monarch, the rudiments of a constitution, which under favourable 
 circumstances may become the nucleus of a Parliamentary system. In 
 Turkey, again, the so-called " Pan-Islamic " movement is found to exist in 
 an acute form, though not so much on the surface, and is perhaps destined 
 to play an important part in the future development of that unfortunate 
 country. There we find it directed not against Christians, but against the 
 Commander of the Faithful himself and against his regime. In Algeria 
 and in Morocco, specially in the latter, the same movement is directed 
 both against the Mussulman ruler and against the foreign invaders, and for 
 similar reasons. 
 
 I will now instance some non-Moslem countries, and we will take 
 China first. Here we find the same phenomenon existing in a Buddhist 
 country, and we might just as well call it " Pan-Buddhism." Here also it 
 has been directed partly against the foreigners, and partly against the effete 
 and antiquated regime of the country itself, and has resulted in a feverish 
 anxiety for reform. Lastly, we will find the same movement actually 
 among the Christian native communities of South Africa, directed against 
 a Christian rule. There it is known as the Ethiopian Church movement, 
 but there is no reason whatsoever why, by analogy it should not be called 
 " Pan-Christianism." 
 
 It is evident therefore that the so-called " Pan-Islamic" movement is a
 
 27 
 
 universal movement, which has nothing whatsoever to do with religious 
 animosity or bigotry. It is merely a reawakening of the backward races 
 of the world to a sense of their rights and liberties. It is directed against 
 any incubus whatsoever that would suppress or retard as long as possible 
 their moral and intellectual progress. It is, in one word, the revolt of 
 man against Injustice and Obscurantism. It is aimed against all forms of 
 injustice, under any regime whatsoever, be it native or foreign, Moslem or 
 Christian. The movement is a popular one and is the outcome of the 
 needs and wants actually felt in the present stage of evolution of these 
 backward races — the need for greater liberty, greater activity, more educa- 
 tion and greater share in the management of their own affairs. 
 
 Now, one word as to the remedy. So far as the European Powers are 
 concerned, the first thing is for them to realize that their economic 
 interests are not so intimately bound up with their political domination 
 as is generally imagined. As a matter of fact, the reverse is often the 
 case. Only one Power seems to have realized this fundamental truth, and 
 that is Germany. Without sacrificing the bones of a single Pomeranian 
 Hussar, she has established for herself an absolutely privileged position in 
 the Moslem world. Her commerce is increasing by leaps and bounds, 
 and she is well on the way to monopolize many markets. More than this, 
 she has come to be looked up to by all Mussulman communities as a sort 
 of protector or patron of their governments and institutions. The lesson 
 for the Powers is, therefore, to make their domination of the backward 
 races as light as circumstances will permit, to avoid all irritating and 
 unnecessary interference with their affairs, and any line of conduct that 
 is likely to be galling to the people or humiliating to their own native 
 rulers. Further, by a course of unswerving justice and attention to the 
 educational requirements of the people, to show them that where they 
 have of necessity to supplant the local despotisms, they substitute some- 
 thing that is worth having, even at the loss of national pride and national 
 independence. If they do all this and base their domination on the good- 
 will of the people, they will find that their economic interests will thrive 
 to an extent of which they have no conception (cheers). 
 
 Mr. Chirol, being called upon to reply, said he would detain them 
 with very few words, and added : I would express a large measure of 
 approval of the interesting remarks of Mr. Ameer AH. I quite think that 
 if we were to talk over the matter we should find that, after all, we were 
 not very far apart in our points of view. The last speaker has covered so 
 very wide a sphere that I am afraid I cannot possibly follow him now. 
 He means, I presume, that there is a very general tendency towards 
 revival, a very general ferment in the Mussulman world, as well as in 
 other great communities all over the world. What I wished to j)oint out 
 was that advantage is being taken of this ferment in the Mussulman world 
 for purposes which, in reality, have nothing to do with the religious merits 
 or, indeed, the ethical merits of the Islamic faith. Movements for reform 
 of the kind Major Syed Hassan has indicated come "from below"; they are 
 popular movements, and arc not organized and directed " from above," as
 
 28 
 
 is the Pan-Islamic movement, in the form to which I addressed myself 
 (hear, hear). 
 
 The Chairman : We have listened to an admirable lecture, and we 
 have received a great many valuable observations and much information 
 from the various speakers who have addressed us. Not only because the 
 discussion has been somewhat protracted, but because I think it would be 
 presumptuous to attempt to offer any formal conclusions to you, I shall 
 refrain from putting such opinions as I possess into definite shape at this 
 hour. But there is one point I should like to mention that was brought 
 out by Professor Arnold. I have always understood that the fact that the 
 Sultan of Turkey does not belong to the Khoresh tribe is an insuperable 
 bar to his spiritual headship of Islam. However that may be, the subject 
 which Mr. Chirol has dealt with is one of the deepest interest and 
 importance, and what has been said this afternoon will give us cause for 
 reflection. Indeed, to lay down definite conclusions on the somewhat 
 conflicting evidence before us, would require much patient investigation 
 and consideration. I will now only ask you to accord to Mr. Chirol a 
 hearty vote of thanks for his able, instructive and informing paper 
 (cheers). 
 
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