"The Crusades still subsist, as well as the fanatical spirit of Peter the Hermit. At heart, Christendom still regards Islam with fanatical hatred and contempt. This is shown in many ways, as in international law, before which Moslem nations are not treated as the equals of Christian nations.
"Christian governments excuse the attacks and humiliations inflicted upon Moslem states by citing the latter's backward and barbarous condition; yet these same governments stifle by a thousand means, even by war, every attempted effort of reform and revival in Moslem lands.
"Hatred of Islam is common to all Christian peoples, not merely to some of them, and the result of this spirit is a tacit, persistent effort for Islam's destruction.
"Every Moslem feeling and aspiration is caricatured and calumniated by Christendom. 'The Europeans call in the Orient "fanaticism" what at home they call "nationalism" and "patriotism." And what in the West they call "self-respect," "pride," "national honour," in the East they call "chauvinism." What in the West they esteem as national sentiment, in the East they consider xenophobia.'[42]
"From all this, it is plain that the whole Moslem world must unite in a great defensive alliance, to preserve itself from destruction; and, to do this, it must acquire the technique of Western progress and learn the secrets of European power."
Such, in brief, are the teachings of Djemal-ed-Din, propagated with eloquence and authority for many years. Given the state of mingled fear and hatred of Western encroachment that was steadily spreading throughout the Moslem world, it is easy to see how great Djemal's influence must have been. And of course Djemal was not alone in his preaching. Other influential Moslems were agitating along much the same lines as early as the middle of the nineteenth century. One of these pioneers was the Turkish notable Aali Pasha, who was said to remark: "What we want is rather an increase of fanaticism than a diminution of it."[43] Arminius Vambéry, the eminent Hungarian Oriental scholar, states that shortly after the Crimean War he was present at a militant Pan-Islamic gathering, attended by emissaries from far parts of the Moslem world, held at Aali Pasha's palace.[44]
Such were the foundations upon which Sultan Abdul Hamid built his ambitious Pan-Islamic structure. Abdul Hamid is one of the strangest personalities of modern times. A man of unusual intelligence, his mind was yet warped by strange twists which went to the verge of insanity. Nursing ambitious, grandiose projects, he tried to carry them out by dark and tortuous methods which, though often cleverly Macchiavellian, were sometimes absurdly puerile. An autocrat by nature, he strove to keep the smallest decisions dependent on his arbitrary will, albeit he was frequently guided by clever sycophants who knew how to play upon his superstitions and his prejudices.
Abdul Hamid ascended the throne in 1876 under very difficult circumstances. The country was on the verge of a disastrous Russian war, while the government was in the hands of statesmen who were endeavouring to transform Turkey into a modern state and who had introduced all sorts of Western political innovations, including a parliament. Abdul Hamid, however, soon changed all this. Taking advantage of the confusion which marked the close of the Russian war, he abolished parliament and made himself as absolute a despot as any of his ancestors had ever been. Secure in his autocratic power, Abdul Hamid now began to evolve his own peculiar policy, which, from the first, had a distinctly Pan-Islamic trend[45]. Unlike his immediate predecessors, Abdul Hamid determined to use his position as caliph for far-reaching political ends. Emphasizing his spiritual headship of the Mohammedan world rather than his political headship of the Turkish state, he endeavoured to win the active support of all Moslems and, by that support, to intimidate European Powers who might be formulating aggressive measures against the Ottoman Empire. Before long Abdul Hamid had built up an elaborate Pan-Islamic propaganda organization, working mainly by secretive, tortuous methods. Constantinople became the Mecca of all the fanatics and anti-Western agitators like Djemal-ed-Din. 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. In the first place, it was cut short, and to some extent reversed, by the Young-Turk resolution of 1908 which drove Abdul Hamid from the throne. It certainly was never put to the test of a war between Turkey and a first-class European Power. This is what renders any theoretical appraisal so inconclusive. Abdul Hamid did succeed in gaining the respectful acknowledgment of his spiritual authority by most Moslem princes and notables, and he certainly won the pious veneration of the Moslem masses. In the most distant regions men came to regard the mighty Caliph in Stambul as, in very truth, the Defender of the Faith, and to consider his empire as the bulwark of Islam. On the other hand, it is a far cry from pious enthusiasm to practical performance. Furthermore, Abdul Hamid did not succeed in winning over powerful Pan-Islamic leaders like El Sennussi, who suspected his motives and questioned his judgment; while Moslem liberals everywhere disliked him for his despotic, reactionary, inefficient rule. It is thus a very debatable question whether, if Abdul Hamid had ever called upon the Moslem world for armed assistance in a "holy war," he would have been generally supported.
Yet Abdul Hamid undoubtedly furthered the general spread of Pan-Islamic sentiment throughout the Moslem world. 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. It was soon followed by the Persian revolution and by kindred symptoms in other parts of the East. These events brought into sudden prominence new forces, such as constitutionalism, nationalism, and even social unrest, which had long been obscurely germinating in Islam but which had been previously denied expression. We shall later consider these new forces in detail. The point to be here noted is their complicating effect on the Pan-Islamic movement. Pan-Islamism was, in fact, cross-cut and deflected from its previous course, and a period of confusion and mental uncertainty supervened.
This interim period was short. By 1912 Pan-Islamism had recovered its poise and was moving forward once more. The reason was renewed pressure from the West. In 1911 came Italy's barefaced raid on Turkey's African dependency of Tripoli, while in 1912 the allied Christian Balkan states attacked Turkey in the Balkan War, which sheared away Turkey's European provinces to the very walls of Constantinople and left her crippled and discredited. Moreover, in those same fateful years Russia and England strangled the Persian revolution, while France, as a result of the Agadir crisis, closed her grip on Morocco. Thus, in a scant two years, the Moslem world had suffered at European hands assaults not only unprecedented in gravity but, in Moslem eyes, quite without provocation.
The effect upon Islam was tremendous. A flood of mingled despair and rage swept the Moslem world from end to end. And, of course, the Pan-Islamic implication was obvious. This was precisely what Pan-Islam's agitators had been preaching for fifty years—the Crusade of the West for Islam's destruction. What could be better confirmation of the warnings of Djemal-ed-Din?
The results were soon seen. In Tripoli, where Turks and Arabs had been on the worst of terms, both races clasped hands in a sudden access of Pan-Islamic fervour, and the Italian invaders were met with a fanatical fury that roused Islam to wild applause and inspired Western observers with grave disquietude. "Why has Italy found 'defenceless' Tripoli such a hornets' nest?" queried Gabriel Hanotaux, a former French minister of foreign affairs. "It is because she has to do, not merely with Turkey, but with Islam as well. Italy has set the ball rolling—so much the worse for her—and for us all."[46] The Anglo-Russian man-handling of Persia likewise roused much wrathful comment throughout Islam,[47] while the impending extinction of Moroccan independence at French hands was discussed with mournful indignation.
But with the coming of the Balkan War the wrath of Islam knew no bounds. From China to the Congo, pious Moslems watched with bated breath the swaying battle-lines in the far-off Balkans, and when the news of Turkish disaster came, Islam's