Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 6, 2025
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.
On February 24, 1917, Kut was wrested from the Turks again; on March 11 they lost Baghdad; on November 7 their Beersheba-Gaza front was shattered, and Jerusalem fell on December 9. The Turks had drawn the blade of jihad from its pan-Islamic scabbard in vain; its German trade-mark was plainly stamped on it.
Pan-Arabism has not been as intellectually developed as Pan-Turanism, though its general trend is so similar that its doctrines need not be discussed in detail. One important difference between the two movements is that Pan-Arabism is much more religious and Pan-Islamic in character, the Arabs regarding themselves as "The Chosen People" divinely predestined to dominate the whole Islamic world.
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.
Yet Mahdism, by its very nature, could effect nothing constructive or permanent. It was a mere straw fire; flaring up fiercely here and there, then dying down, leaving the disillusioned masses more discouraged and apathetic than before. Now all this was recognized by the wiser supporters of the Pan-Islamic idea.
Furthermore, as I have already said, Pan-Arabism is interwoven with the non-racial concepts of Pan-Islamism and "Pan-Islamic Nationalism." This latter concept may seem a rather grotesque contradiction of terms. So it may be to us Westerners. But it is not necessarily so to Eastern minds.
So much for the strength of the pan-Islamic movement. Now let us consider its weak points. To begin with, the gross abuse of pan-Islam by interested parties for non-spiritual ends during the War has done the genuine movement harm.
I presuppose that Christians or Moslems who read this book have got beyond the stage of calling each other pagans or kafirs, and it will have served its purpose if it brings about a friendlier feeling between the two great militant creeds whose adherents have confronted together many a stricken field. Most people have heard of the pan-Islamic movement, especially during the War.
In this larger sense he succeeded; albeit not so much from his position as caliph as because he incarnated the growing fear and hatred of the West. Thus we may conclude that Abdul Hamid's Pan-Islamic propaganda did produce profound and lasting effects which will have to be seriously reckoned with. The Young-Turk revolution of 1908 greatly complicated the situation.
Moslem resentment at European dominance has increased, has been reinforced by nationalistic aspirations almost unknown during the last century, and possesses methods of highly efficient propaganda. For example, the Pan-Islamic press, to which Vambéry refers, has developed in truly extraordinary fashion. In 1900 there were in the whole Islamic world not more than 200 propagandist journals.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking