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The present Caliphal house is unconnected in blood with the old traditional line of "successors;" and even with the Turks themselves inspires little modern reverence. Moreover, the actual incumbent of the office is thought to be not even a true Ottoman, being the offspring of the Seraglio rather than of known parents; Abd el Hamid's sole title to spiritual consideration is his official name.
Cashiered in 1912, he served Enver Pasha in Tripoli, became an officer of Abdul Hamid's bodyguard, and afterwards a Major of the Baghdad Gendarmerie. Long before November, 1914, he had busily plotted for a rising in Egypt and the diffusion of German propaganda all over the Sudan.
It is difficult to gain accurate information as to Abd el Hamid's character and religious opinions, but I believe it may be safely asserted that he represents in these latter the extremest Hanefite views. In youth he was, for a prince, a serious man, showing a taste for learning, especially for geography and history; and though not an alem he has some knowledge of his religion.
The complaints and remonstrances of the persecuted were answered with redoubled persecution, with violence, and with massacre, and soon serious revolts broke out in all parts of the Empire. The Young Turks followed faithfully in Abdul Hamid's footsteps. However, Abdul Hamid was clever enough always to play off one nationality or race against the other.
Tunis then specially boasted her independence of the Porte, and all but the Hanefite rulers of the sea-coast towns of Africa would have scouted the idea of fighting for the Turk. Now the Malekites themselves, the puritans of Kerwan, are moving at Abd el Hamid's nod. He would seem, too, to be stirring with some success in Egypt, and Indian Mussulmans are praying for him publicly in their mosques.
And from Constantinople there went forth swarms of picked emissaries, bearing to the most distant parts of Islam the Caliph's message of hope and impending deliverance from the menace of infidel rule. Abdul Hamid's Pan-Islamic propaganda went on uninterruptedly for nearly thirty years. Precisely what this propaganda accomplished is very difficult to estimate.
The Redif, the second line, had received hardly more training, thanks to the disorganization of Abdul Hamid's last years and of the first years of the new order, than the Mustafuz, the third and last line. Armament, auxiliary services, and the like had been disorganized preparatory to a scheme for thorough reorganization, which had been carried, as yet, but a very little way.
Despite the partial successes of Abdul Hamid's efforts, a considerable section of his Arab subjects remained unreconciled, and toward the close of the nineteenth century a fresh stirring of Arab nationalist discontent made its appearance. Relentlessly persecuted by the Turkish authorities, the Arab nationalist agitators, mostly Syrians, went into exile.
The year before and during that year had occurred the Bulgarian atrocities and massacres, and the word 'massacre' lingered and made music in Abdul Hamid's brain. He said it over to himself and dwelt upon it, and meditated on the nature and possibilities of massacre.
Some of the leading Indian Mahomedans had indeed openly disputed Sultan Abdul Hamid's claim to the Khalifate of Islam when he first tried at the end of the last century to import his Pan-Islamic propaganda into India.
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