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Far from it. On the contrary, they are ceaselessly at work with the spiritual arms of teaching, discipline, and conversion. The Sennussi programme is the welding, first, of Moslem Africa and, later, of the whole Moslem world into the revived "Imâmât" of Islam's early days; into a great theocracy, embracing all True Believers in other words, Pan-Islamism.
So much for Pan-Islamism's religious and political sides. Now let us glance at its commercial and industrial aspects at what may be called economic Pan-Islamism. Economic Pan-Islamism is the direct result of the permeation of Western ideas. Half a century ago the Moslem world was economically still in the Middle Ages.
We should, however, remember that Moslem nationalism and Pan-Islamism, whatever their internal differences, tend to unite against the external pressure of European domination and equally desire Islam's liberation from European political control. Remembering these facts, let us survey the present condition of the Pan-Islamic movement.
As a leading Indian Moslem liberal, The Aga Khan, remarks: "There is a right and legitimate Pan-Islamism to which every sincere and believing Mohammedan belongs that is, the theory of the spiritual brotherhood and unity of the children of the Prophet. The real spiritual and cultural unity of Islam must ever grow, for to the follower of the Prophet it is the foundation of the life and the soul."
"Of course, at present, the bond of Pan-Islamism is composed of tenuous and dispersed strands. But Western aggression might easily unite those strands into a solid whole, bringing about a general war". In the decades which have elapsed since Vambéry wrote those lines the situation has become much more tense.
There had been widespread organisation against us, and the serpent's eggs of sedition and revolt had been hatched in centres scattered all over the eastern hemisphere, but their venomous progeny had been crushed before they became formidable. As a world-force this band of pan-Islamism had failed because it had been invoked by the wrong people for a wrong purpose.
The real leaders of modern Pan-Islamism either gave Abdul Hamid a merely qualified allegiance or were, like El Sennussi, definitely hostile. This was not realized in Europe, which came to fear Abdul Hamid as a sort of Mohammedan pope.
"You throw your friends on the midden," he said bitterly, and departed to establish a modus vivendi on his own account with the Turks. The situation at Aden has had a marked effect in bolstering up the Turkish campaign of spurious pan-Islamism, and those of us who have been dealing with chiefs in other parts of Arabia have met it at every turn.
Here is no question of political conspiracies, revolts, or holy wars, challenging the armed might of Europe and risking bloody repression or blind reaction. On the contrary, here is merely a working together of fellow Moslems for economic ends by business methods which the West cannot declare unlawful and dare not repress. What, then, is the specific programme of economic Pan-Islamism?
Lastly, we should remember that these nationalist movements were more or less interwoven with the non-national movement of Pan-Islamism, and with those "second-stage," "racial" nationalist movements which we shall now consider.
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