United States or Zambia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


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.

Pan-Islamism, which in its broadest sense is the feeling of solidarity between all "True Believers," is as old as the Prophet, when Mohammed and his few followers were bound together by the tie of faith against their pagan compatriots who sought their destruction.

The French conquest of Algeria, the Russian acquisition of Transcaucasia, and the English mastery of virtually all India, convinced thoughtful Moslems everywhere that Islam was in deadly peril of falling under Western domination. It was at this time that Pan-Islamism assumed that essentially anti-Western character which it has ever since retained.

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.

Thus the dream of what is called Pan-islamism may yet be fulfilled, though in another form from that in which it is now presented to the faithful by Abd el Hamid and the Ulema of Constantinople.

Pan-Islamism has been tremendously stimulated by Western pressure, especially by the late war and the recent peace settlements. However, Pan-Islamism must not be considered as merely a defensive political reaction against external aggression.

Now, Korea and Morocco did not vitally concern us. The Bagdad Railway and the Kaiser's court to Pan-Islamism were definite threats to our existence as an Empire. Finally, the development of the German Navy and the growth of a furiously anti-British propaganda threatened the long and vulnerable East Coast of Great Britain.

Later on we shall examine more fully the activities of these gentry in the chapters devoted to Pan-Islamism and Nationalism. What I desire to emphasize here is their pernicious influence on the prospects of a genuine Mohammedan reformation as visualized by the true reformers whom I have described.

Here at the opening of the nineteenth century, arose the Wahabi movement for the reform of Islam, which presently kindled the far-flung "Mohammedan Revival," which in its turn begat the movement known as "Pan-Islamism."

Even to-day most Western observers seem to think that Pan-Islamism centres in the caliphate, and we see European publicists hopefully discussing whether the caliphate's retention by the discredited Turkish sultans, its transference to the Shereef of Mecca, or its total suppression, will best clip Pan-Islam's wings. This, however, is a distinctly short-sighted view.