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Further up the Persian Gulf missionaries have long been established on the islands of Bahrein, which are under British protection. Continuing our journey eastward, we can dismiss the Shiahs of Persia as outside our pan-Islamic calculations, for their pilgrim-centre is at Kerbela, some twenty odd miles west of the Euphrates and the site of ancient Babylon.
Hence, they are mostly extreme "Nationalists," while they are also deep in Pan-Islamic reactionary schemes. Indeed, we often witness the strange spectacle of atheists posing as Moslem fanatics and affecting a truly dervish zeal. Mr. Bukhsh well describes this type when he writes: "I know a gentleman, a Mohammedan by profession, who owes his success in life to his faith.
In the development of Islamic spirit to pan-Islamic unity it would find new strength; and towards this end in the early eighties, while he was yet comparatively young, with intelligence unclouded and courage sufficient, Abdul Hamid patiently set himself. In Asia, naturally sympathetic to autocracy, and the home of the faith of his fathers, he set on foot a pan-Islamic propaganda.
So that when she put her question, not only was she not ignored, but each one felt it a serious thing for anybody to be so late that Mrs. Graham Townley instead of button-holing some one with, 'What, now, should you say is the extent of the Pan-Islamic influence in Egypt? should be reduced to asking, 'Who are we waiting for?
Naturally I was on the qui vive for signs of pan-Islamic activity on the enemy's side, and I questioned my little Syrian very closely to ascertain how far the movement was used as a driving force among the troops engaged against us. He, personally, had rather a grievance on the subject, for the Indian Moslems who took him had reproached him bitterly for fighting on the wrong side.
We have also seen how it exacerbated Moslem fear and hatred of the West. And the West was already feared and hated for many reasons. In the preceding chapter we traced the growth of the Pan-Islamic movement, and in subsequent chapters we shall trace the development of Oriental nationalism.
In negotiating with Mustapha Kemal, France undoubtedly hopes to get him to throw over the Arabs. But this is scarcely thinkable. The whole trend of events betokens an increasing solidarity of the Near Eastern peoples against Western political control. A most remarkable portent in this direction is the Pan-Islamic conference held at Sivas early in 1921.
No secret diplomacy could establish a better entente or a stronger federation than what this open and non-governmental treaty between Islam and India has established. The Indian support of the Khilafat has, as if by a magic wand, converted what Was once the Pan-Islamic terror for Europe into a solid wall of friendship and defence for India. Every nation like every individual is born free.
Constantinople and Cairo were the centres of this Pan-Islamic movement, which, aiming at the closer union of all Moslems in Asia, Europe, and Africa around the Sultan, threatened to embarrass Great Britain, France, and Russia.
To be sure, the Indian Moslems were also affected by the general spirit of unrest which was sweeping over the East. They too felt a quickened sense of self-consciousness. But, being a minority in India, their feelings took the form, not of territorial "patriotism," but of those more diffused sentiments, Pan-Islamism and Pan-Islamic nationalism, which we have already discussed.
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