Visions of Islamic Unity: A Comparison of Djemal al-Sharq ... · Visions Of Islamic Unity 463 Die...

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Die Welt des Islams 54 (2014) 460-482© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2014 | doi 10.1163/15700607-05434P07

Die Welt des Islams 54 (2014) 460-482

ISSN 0043-2539 (print version) ISSN 1570-0607 (online version) WDI3

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Visions of Islamic Unity: A Comparison of Djemal Pasha’s al-Sharq and Sharīf Ḥusayn’s al-Qibla Periodicals

M. Talha ÇiçekIstanbul

[email protected]

Abstract

During the First World War, the Ottomans undertook a pan-Islamism propaganda cam-paign through the newspaper al-Sharq (published by Djemal Pasha in Damascus) to motivate its Arab subjects to support the Ottoman struggle against the Entente powers. To this end, many articles and news items appeared in al-Sharq to inspire Muslim unity around the figure of the caliph. Unity was presented as a crucial part of saving Muslims; disasters were predicted should the Ottoman Empire fall to the ‘infidels’. Sharīf Ḥusayn and his followers were explicitly or implicitly accused of splitting the umma and render-ing the Ḥijāz and the remainder of independent Muslim territories vulnerable to British and other European imperialists. In 1916, Sharīf Ḥusayn launched a revolt in Mecca against the Ottoman Caliph and established a periodical, al-Qibla, to target the same audience. In al-Qibla, Ḥusayn presented the Committee of Union and Progress as amoral and irreligious usurpers of the caliph’s authority, and therefore undeserving of allegiance. In this article I analyse the discourse of the two competing sides by examin-ing their propaganda on issues such as loyalty to the caliph, the unity of the Muslims and the formation of alliances with the Great Powers. I argue that Islam shaped the propaganda battle between the Ottomans and the sharīf to a greater extent than did Arabism or Turkism.

Keywords

World War One – Ottoman propaganda – sharīfian propaganda – al-Sharq – al-Qibla – the ‘Arab’ Revolt – Djemal Pasha

461Visions Of Islamic Unity


With the Ottoman entrance into the First World War, the cooperation between the Muslim umma and the caliph against the ‘enemies’ of the Ottomans be-came the focus of Ottoman propaganda toward Muslims in the empire and those beyond it. Immediately after the Ottoman declaration of war against the Entente powers, the caliph proclaimed jihād against his enemies and called on all Muslims – theoretically under his authority to side with ‘their leader’ to fight against the ‘infidels’.1

The Ottoman rulers developed a new propaganda discourse to implement the policy of jihād. The nations under Ottoman rule – particularly the Arab peoples – were called to jihād with the argument that if they became indepen-dent of Ottoman rule, they would be colonised by the Entente and thereby ‘exposed to great misery’. The Arabs inside and outside the Ottoman lands were of fundamental importance for the success of this plan because the Arabs represented the majority of the population of the Ottoman Empire and given their geopolitical and religious importance, were the natural targets of Otto-man propaganda.

For the actualisation of these plans, Djemal Pasha, minister of the navy and one of the most prominent leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), was appointed to the Syrian provinces (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Western Arabia) as governor general and the commander-in-chief of the Otto-man Fourth Army, over which he was given extraordinary authority.2 The Ottomans believed that by means of pan-Islamist propaganda, the people of Greater Syria would develop a heightened political consciousness and sense of loyalty to the caliph. In order to bring this about, immediately after his arrival in Syria, Djemal established a university (Ṣalāḥaddīn-i Ayyūbī Külliyesi) to ed-ucate pan-Islamist scholars. These scholars were to propagate the importance of Muslim unity through loyalty to the caliph, who, as leader of all Muslims, would protect them from the yoke of the ‘infidels’ inside and outside the Otto-man lands.3 The publication of the Arabic newspaper, al-Sharq, which I exam-ine here in more detail, was also an attempt to realise these ideals.

While the Ottoman government promoted the unity of the Muslims, in June 1916, Sharīf Ḥusayn, the amīr of Mecca, allied with the Entente powers and re-

1 For an analysis of the Ottoman entrance into the war, see Mustafa Aksakal, Ottoman Road to War in 1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

2 For a study on Djemal Pasha’s governorate in Syria, see M. Talha Çiçek, War and State Formation in Syria: Cemal Pasha’s Governorate during World War I (London: Routledge, 2014).

3 A detailed study has been made of this university. See Martin Strohmeier, Al-Kulliya as-Ṣalāḥiya in Jerusalem: Arabismus, Osmanismus und Panislamismus im Ersten Weltkrieg (Stuttgart: Kommissionsverlag Franz Steiner, 1991).

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belled against the Ottoman Empire. The sharīf thus became the main target of pan-Islamist Ottoman propaganda for the Arabs. It is believed that his rebel-lion was partly motivated by fear that his influence and authority in the Ḥijāz would be undermined by the Unionist policies of centralisation.

During the Great War, Djemal Pasha focused on weakening the Arab elite of Greater Syria who were opposed to policies of Ottoman centralisation; Djemal Pasha’s campaign culminated in the hanging of many of the elites who were accused of planning to secede Syria from the empire. As an influential leader, the sharīf was anxious to avoid the fate of these elites, and this led him to look for British support for his rebellion.4

Instigating a rebellion during the Ottoman jihād placed the sharīf in a diffi-cult position, one which had to be justified in the eyes of Arabs and Muslims. The Ottomans, as leaders of the Muslim umma, charged him with treason. The sharīf justified his rebellion on the grounds that the ‘faithless’ Unionists had usurped the caliph’s power and abandoned the sharīʿa – he only later claimed it as an emancipation of the Arabs from the ‘Ottoman yoke’.5 At the time, he declared that the rebellion was to save Islam from the Unionists. To defend his position against the Ottoman propaganda that he ‘betrayed’ the Muslim umma by rebelling against the caliph, the sharīf published a periodical called al-Qibla in Mecca.

Although the existing literature analyses the sharīfian revolt from several perspectives, the sharīf ’s movement – and the justifications that he used to legitimise this rebellion – have not been properly situated in the context of the Ottoman political discourse of the period and there is no analysis on Sharīf Ḥusayn’s periodical al-Qibla. In addition to Hasan Kayalı’s analysis that the sharīf ’s rebellion was motivated by self-interest and internal power struggles, Ernst Dawn demonstrates that the sharīf was indifferent to Arab nationalism and in fact addressed his proclamations to the Muslim world in terms of an

4 The problems between the CUP and the sharīf have been analysed in Hasan Kayalı’s cel-ebrated book: Arabs and Young Turks (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), pp. 144–174, 181–185; for a study on the Unionist plans to topple off the sharīf, see: M. Talha Çiçek, ‘İttihatçılar ve Şerif Hüseyin: Mekke İsyanı’nın Nedenleri Üzerine Bir Değerlen-dirme’, Tarih ve Toplum 16 (2013), pp. 41–57.

5 For a study assessing Sharīf Ḥusayn as an Arab nationalist leader, see George Antonius, The Arab Awakening (Beirut: Khayat’s Book Cooperative, 1955 [1938]). As I discuss in detail below, prominent Arab nationalists allied with the sharīf; however, the sharīf himself was not a nationalist. For the sharīf ’s ideological background, see C. Ernest Dawn, ‘The Amir of Mecca al-Husayn ibn-‘Alī and the Origin of the Arab Revolt’, in C. Ernest Dawn, From Ottomanism to Arabism: Essays on the Origins of Arab Nationalism (Urbana: University of Illionis Press, 1973), chapter 1.



Islamist discourse. Dawn, however, does not substantively investigate the rea-sons behind this position and does not focus on al-Qibla.6

The sharīf ’s ambitions for the caliphate have been more fairly analysed in the existing academic studies based on British documents. Following the Great War, he negotiated with both the secular leaders of the new Turkey and the last sultan Wāḥid al-Dīn to transfer the caliphate to him.7 He declared himself caliph a week later that the caliphate was abolished by the new regime of Tur-key.8 In addition, the British plans to replace the Ottoman sultan with an Arab caliph and thus to take the caliphate back for the Arabs is also known in the literature. In the years preceding the war, the caliphate was seen by Great Brit-ain as a potential danger to its imperial rule, because of the caliph’s spiritual and political claims over all Muslims, including those in British colonies.9 As a result of these mutual concerns, taking back the caliphate for the Arabs had become the most important aim of British and the sharīfian policies regarding the Ottoman caliphate. However, the British side did not want to be seen as the protector of the Arab caliph, and sought to solve this question with the agree-ment of the Muslims. According to the British authorities,“any proposal as re-gards an Arab Khalīfa [sic.] should come from the Arabs themselves.”10 To that end, when the sharīf revolted against the Ottoman rule, the British showed a

6 Dawn, ‘The ‘Amir of Mecca’, pp. 1–53.7 For an analysis of the sharīf ’s aspirations for the caliphate, see Joshua Teitelbaum, The

Rise and Fall of the Hashimite Kingdom of Arabia (London: Hurst & Company, 2001), pp. 226–248.

8 The sharīf was paid homage as caliph on 11 March 1924, only a week later that the caliph-ate was abolished. For details, see the memoires of King ʿAbdullāh of Jordan: Kral Abdullah, Biz Osmanlı’ya Neden İsyan Ettik? (İstanbul: Klasik Yayınları, 2006), pp. 187ff.

9 For an analysis of the British approach to the Ottoman Caliphate, see: Tufan Buzpınar, ‘The Question of Caliphate under the Ottoman Sultans’, in Ottoman Reform and Muslim Regeneration, Itzchak Weismann and Fruma Zachs (eds.) (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005), pp. 17–36.

10 TNA [The National Archives, henceforth TNA], FO [Foreign Office, henceforth FO] 371/ 2480, Clayton to Grey, Cairo, 3 January 1915; for the discussions of the British officials regarding the issue of the Arab Caliphate, see: TNA, FO 371/2482, Grey to McMahon, London, 14 April 1915; TNA, FO 371/2480, Holderness to FO, London, 15 January 1915: The French side expressed the opinion that the new caliph should not have paved the way for the passion to a strong caliph among the Muslims and should not have provoked the sentiment of unity among them: MAEE [Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères et Europeennes, henceforth MAEE], Guerre 1914–1918, 868/Turquie, Syrie et Palestine, Defrance to MAE, Cairo, 15 March 1915; for a study on the negotiations between Sharīf Ḥusayn and the Kemalist leaders regarding transfer of the Caliphate to the Arabs, see: Joshua Teitelbaum, ‘‘Taking Back’ the Caliphate: Sharīf Ḥusayn Ibn ʿAlī, Mustafa Kemal and the Ottoman Caliphate’, WI 40 (2000), pp. 412–424.

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maximum effort for the reconciliation of all the tribal dynasties, including the Rashīdis, around Sharīf Ḥusayn against the Ottoman caliphate. By this way, the Ottoman jihād propaganda would be seriously injured. But due to the prob-lems between these tribal leaders and the sharīf, the British project had failed and taken aside.11 On the other hand, as will be seen below, due to the Ottoman proclamation of the Holy War, the sharīf had to conceal his desire for the ca-liphate of not being treated as ‘traitor’ in the Muslim World. The sharīf and British failure in the issue of the transfer of the caliphate to the Arabs can be considered as the success of the Ottoman jihād propaganda.

It is also misleading to view the propaganda wars between the sharīf and the Ottomans as a struggle between the two nations, the Arabs and the Turks, or between the Arab nationalists and the Ottoman rulers based on the Islamic unity. Furthermore, it was not signalled the transition from the imperial to the national order in the region.12 Analyzing the discourse of two periodicals, Wil-liam L. Cleveland concludes that al-Qibla’s perspective was the ‘Arab perspec-tives on the regional issues of the time’ which effectively silenced by the Ottoman government.13 However, as recently demonstrated by Salim Tamari, during the war period, some influential Arabists supported Djemal Pasha in Syria and defended their ideal Ottoman state against the ‘separatists’ in their publications.14 As will be seen below, the prominent authors of al-Sharq were the prominent Arabists, too. Therefore, it is not right to assume this propa-ganda struggle as a nationalist competition based on the discourse of the Is-lamic unity between the Arabists and the Ottomanist Turks and the “Arab” and ‘Ottoman’ or ‘Turk’ are not appropriate categories for these periodicals. Re-garding the aims of the periodicals, Cleveland also disregards the broader con-text of the Great War and assumes it as a battle between the Ottomans and the sharīf.

11 For the details of the suggestions see: TNA, FO 371/3057, General, Basra to FO, Basra, 9 July 1916; for details of the reasons of the disagreement between the two chiefs: TNA, FO 371/3057, Cox to FO, Basra, 5 June 1917.

12 I have demonstrated in my book on Djemal Pasha’s Governorate in Syria that the sharīf and his followers considered giving an end to their movements and agree with the Ottoman authorities in 1917 and 1918: Çiçek, War and State Formation in Syria, pp. 63ff.

13 William L. Cleveland, ‘The Role of Islam as Political Ideology in the First World War’, in National and International Politics in the Middle East, Edward Ingram (ed.) (London: Frank Cass, 1986), p. 85.

14 Salim Tamari, ‘A Scientific Expedition to Gallipoli: The Syrian-Palestinian Intelligentsia and the Ottoman Campaign against the Arab Separatism’, Jerusalem Quarterly 56/57 (2013–2014), pp. 6–28.



In this article I argue that the struggle between the Ottomans and the sharīf was not only a military conflict but an ideological battle for the hearts and minds of the Arabs of Syria and Arabia as well as Egypt, and that Islam and the struggle between the Central Powers and the Entente shaped this battle much more than Arabism or Turkism did. In this respect, I compare the propaganda discourse of the sharīf ’s periodical with that of Djemal Pasha’s al-Sharq, by focusing on subjects that reoccur with great frequency in the articles and news items of each periodical. The bulk of the articles that appeared in al-Sharq presented Sharīf Ḥusayn as splitting the umma and opening up the Ḥijāz and the remainder of independent Muslim territory to British and other European imperialists. In al-Qibla, the CUP was presented as usurpers of the caliph’s au-thority, un-Islamic, and thus undeserving of allegiance.

‘Awakening the Muslims and Arabs’: An Assessment of the Objectives

Before assessing the discourses of the two sides, an analysis of the objectives of these periodicals will facilitate our understanding of the arguments brought forward in these organs and the policies advocated. Interpreting the publica-tion of al-Sharq as only a struggle of Djemal Pasha against the Arabists, Cleve-land argues that the aim of al-Sharq was ‘a concerted effort by the Ottoman government to appeal to Arab sensibilities’.15 However, the aim of the newspa-per is much broader than that. According to Djemal Pasha, the foundation of al-Sharq was a significant step in the struggle against the domestic and foreign ‘enemies’ of Islam because it provided an outlet to express the ideology of pan-Islamism – for Muslim cooperation inside and outside the Ottoman state. Al-Qibla targeted the same audience as Sharīf Ḥusayn’s potential followers.

Initially, when al-Sharq was established, there was a plan to call it al-Islām, but as there is no trace of a periodical in Syria published at this time under the name al-Islām, we presume that the name was changed to al-Sharq.16 Al-Baʿth

15 Cleveland, Role of Islam, p. 90.16 Artuç, Cemal Paşa, pp. 290f.; Artuç claims that Djemal established two separate newspa-

pers in Syria – al-Sharq and al-Islām, but in his memoirs, the chief author of al-Sharq, Shakīb Arslān, only refers to al-Sharq newspaper, indeed he never mentions al-Islam. Shakīb Arslān, Sīra Ẓātiyya (Beirut: Dār al-Ṭalīʿa, 1969), pp. 169f. Another writer for al-Sharq, Kurd ʿAlī, gives the name of the newspaper that von Oppenheim intended to pub-lish as al-Sharq; he does not mention al-Islām (Kurd ʿAlī, Mudhakkirāt, p. 149). All these considerations indicate that initially the newspaper was to be published with the name al-Islām, but that later the name was changed to al-Sharq.

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(The Resurrection) was also among the names proposed for the newspaper. This name is noteworthy, given that the objective of the jihād was the libera-tion of the Ottomans from the pressure of the Western powers.17

Al-Sharq was intended by Djemal ‘to be the best newspaper distributed in Syria’.18 According to the Austrian consul in Damascus, the periodical aimed at ‘advocating the Young Turks’ idea of the state in Arabic’. This meant, the consul explained, that the aim of the periodical was to save Greater Syria from foreign influence and transform its political relations, and thus enable the Ottomani-sation of Syria. Moreover, the periodical also demonstrated the government’s good will toward Arabs and the Arabic language.19 The aims of the periodical were declared in similar terms in its original program, when it was planned to be called al-Islām:

[…] Our enemies have been particularly struggling to spread (icrā) poi-sonous rumours in Syria and to turn some ill-wishers [in Syria] into instruments of these vicious (alçakça) lies. The newspaper will demon-strate with full power (bütün kuvvetiyle) their true nature and eliminate misunderstandings. […] [The periodical] will strive to awaken and strengthen the patriotism of the Syrians and their youth. Providing the people with the details of the glorious (büyük) civilisational past of the Muslims (İslamların), it will invite them not to forget their gratitude (haẓ) and personalities (nafs). […] Up to now, […] the wealth of the country has been used by foreigners. Al-Islām will concentrate on disseminating the idea of using the wealth of the country by our subjects.20

The first issue of the newspaper was published on 4 April 1916,21 and celebrated with an opening ceremony held in Damascus on 26 March 1916. Djemal Pasha attended the ceremony, accompanied by the military and civil authorities in Syria as well as the prominent religious clergy and notables of the city. The opening prayer for the newspaper was made by the muftī of Damascus.22

17 ATASE [Askeri Tarih ve Stratejik Etüt Dairesi, henceforth ATASE] Arşivi, Kls. 531, Ds. 843–2078, undated.

18 BOA [Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivleri, henceforth BOA], DH.ŞFR [Dahiliye Şifre Kalemi, henceforth DH.ŞFR], 517/17, Djemal to Talat, Damascus, 9 Nisan 1332 [22 April 1916].

19 Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv, Vienna, PA 38/369, Ranzi to Burian, Damascus, 1 May 1916.20 ATASE Arşivi, Kls. 531, Ds. 2078, Fih. 2–15, 2–29, in Ömer Osman Umar, ‘Cemal Paşa’nın

Suriye’de Arap Milliyetçilerine Karşı Neşrettiği El-İslam Gazetesi ve Programı’, Askeri Tarih Bülteni, 2000/49, pp. 133f.

21 Josef Ilyas, Taṭawwur al-ṣaḥāfat al-sūriyā fī miʾat ʿām (1865–1965) (Beirut: Dār al-Niḍāl, 1976), p. 309.

22 Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv, Vienna, PA 38/369, Ranzi to Burian, ‘Gründung eines neuen



Al-Qibla’s objectives were essentially the same as those of al-Sharq. It was designed to raise the awareness of the Arabs and Muslims to the Unionists’ threat to Islam. Where the Ottomans stressed the British threat to the indepen-dence of Muslims, the sharīf, in accord with British propaganda, highlighted the ‘bad intentions’ of the Germans. The co-editor of the periodical, Fuʾād al-Khaṭīb, described the aims of the periodical as follows, in a report to the British Arab Bureau in Cairo in which he requested permission for its publication: ‘[To provide] a clear explanation about the standing of the Turks and the position of the Unionists towards Islam, after their recent evolution. […]’ and ‘the proc-lamation of the plan in the whole Arabian peninsula […]’23

According to al-Khaṭīb’s plan, al-Qibla would also be circulated in the Arab countries still under Ottoman rule.24 As these plans were in accord with the aims of the British authorities in their struggle against Ottoman pan-Islamist propaganda, the al-Qibla initiative was fully supported by the British govern-ment.25

The prominent authors of these two newspapers were leading Arab intel-lectuals who shared similar educational backgrounds; both demanded a great-er influence for Arabs and Arab culture within the Ottoman administration. They were the elites of the post-Ottoman Arab states and worked together from time to time for the cause of the unity of the Arab nation. The Arabists26 who sided with the Ottomans, supported its centralisation policies in the Great War, and rejected the promise of independence by Great Britain prove that nationalist aspirations did not, by definition, contradict the idea of a strong imperial body.

arabischen Propagandablattes ‘Esch Schark’’, Şam, 1 Mayıs 1916. In the beginning Shakīb Arslān was to be the editor of the newspaper, but Djemal opposed his appointment because of his Druze origins and ʿAlī Ḥikmat Nāḥid Bey was appointed instead; ATASE Arşivi, Kls. 272, Ds. 1120, undated.

23 TNA, FO 882/14, Fuʾād al-Khaṭīb to the Arab bureau, Cairo, 19 July 1916.24 TNA, FO 882/14, Fuʾād al-Khaṭīb to the Arab bureau, Cairo, 19 July 1916.25 Ibid.; Cleveland totally disregards the similarity between the sharīfian and British poli-

cies. Yet Hussein’s propaganda overlapped with the British policies regarding the Arabs. Therefore, al-Qibla was a part of the Entente propaganda regarding the Arabs and Muslims, too. Cleveland, Role of Islam, p. 91.

26 By the term ‘Arabist’ I refer to those who advocated for a greater influence for the Arab language and culture in the Ottoman modernisation projects in the period preceding World War One. Some Arabists, like Fuʾād al-Khaṭīb and Muḥībb al-Dīn al-Khaṭīb, defended a decentralised Ottoman state and participated in the decentralist Ottoman opposition parties like al-Lāmarkaziyya, while others, like Kurd ʿAlī, did not participate in Arabist organisations, rather they focused on the protection of the Arab culture and lan-guage. Arabism is an early form of Arab nationalism. For a similar use, see Kayalı, Arabs and Young Turks, p. 10.

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On one hand, in compliance with the pan-Islamist approach of al-Sharq, the outstanding anti-imperialist Ottoman-Arab authors, Muḥammad Kurd ʿAlī and Shakīb Arslān, were selected as prominent authors of al-Sharq newspaper because they held an influential place in Arab intellectual circles during the Ottoman period. Although Shakīb Arslān was a difficult figure to define,27 Kurd ʿAlī was clearly an Arabist. Both were concerned that a distinct Arab identity should be protected during the modernisation of the Ottoman Empire’s bu-reaucracy. However, they strongly believed that the Arabs must remain under Ottoman rule, in order to ensure that they would be protected against the inva-sion of the imperialist powers. Because of this attitude and in spite of Djemal Pasha’s despotic rule in Syria, they supported the Ottoman policy of Islamic unity during the First World War.28

On the other hand, the founders of al-Qibla, Muḥibb al-Dīn al-Khaṭīb and Fuʾād al-Khaṭīb, were also prominent Arabists who had enthusiastically de-fended the decentralisation of the Ottoman administration before the war. With the beginning of the First World War, they allied with Great Britain with the hope of gaining the autonomy – or independence – of the Arab people. After the Meccan revolt, they went to Mecca to publish al-Qibla newspaper to promote the sharīf ’s movement in the Arab and Muslim world.29 As leading members of the Arabist societies founded to defend a decentralised Ottoman state, they believed that every effort should be made to decentralise the empire, even if this meant utilising the support of foreign powers. They stated that the protection of Arab culture and language and the development of Arab lands could only be achieved with the decentralisation of the Ottoman

27 Although Shakīb Arslān did not take part in the Arabist societies of the Second Constitutional period, many remarks in his memoirs demonstrate that he attributed great importance to the protection of the Arab culture and language. For details, see Shakīb Arslān, Sīra.

28 Shakīb Arslān advocated strengthening central Ottoman control in the Arab provinces, and this may have prevented an increase in European influence in these lands. For an analysis of Shakīb Arslān’s arguments against the Arab decentralists, see Abdurrahman Atçıl, ‘Decentralization, Islamism and Ottoman Sovereignty in the Arab Lands before 1914: Shakīb Arslān’s Polemic against the Decentralization Party’, WI 53 (2013), pp. 26–49. Although he was opposed to Ottoman centralisation, Kurd ʿAlī also insisted on the conti-nuity of the Ottoman administration, mainly because of the imperialist threat of occupa-tion. For the intellectual life of Kurd ʿAlī, see Rainer Hermann, Kulturkrise und konservative Erneuerung: Muḥammad Kurd ʿAlī (1876–1953) und das geistige Leben in Damascus zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1990), pp. 124–137.

29 Teitelbaum, Rise and Fall, p. 106.



ad ministration; Ottoman centralisation, they said, would destroy the Arab identity.30

Al-Sharq: Loyalty to the Caliph or Colonisation by the Western States

From the time of Sultan ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, loyalty to the caliph was the most im-portant component of pan-Islamist ideology. The publishers of al-Sharq ac-cordingly reserved a prominent place in its issues to demonstrate the importance of this loyalty for the emancipation of the Muslims from the west-ern threat of colonisation. Sharīf Ḥusayn and other leaders and communities who sided with Great Britain in the war were harshly criticised in the articles published in al-Sharq because they posed a threat to the Ottoman project of Muslim unity. For example, one editorial article specified the requirements for the maintenance of Islam’s independence as the protection of the ‘Qurʾān’ and the ‘Ḥaramayn al-Sharīfayn’ (the two holy sanctuaries, Mecca and Medina) and ‘the Ottoman caliphate’. The British alliance with the sharīf, the author claimed, would lead to the destruction of these protections, and the only way to save Muslims from European colonisation was to unite around the Ottoman caliph.31 The sharīf ’s rebellion against the caliph and alliance with Great Brit-ain, according to this argument, harmed all Muslims and put at risk the holy lands of the Ḥijāz. According to the editor of the newspaper, everyone who supported the sharīf, whether Syrian or Iraqi, was contributing to this danger-ous division of the Muslims.32 By publishing such articles, al-Sharq aimed to strengthen the cooperation of the Arabs under Ottoman rule and decrease the sympathy of non-Ottoman Muslims towards the sharīf.

As part of the same policy, the Ottoman Arabs were implicitly threatened, in the event of the destruction of Ottoman rule, by British occupation. It was ob-vious, the editor claimed, that ‘Ḥusayn has allied with the British, French and Italians in order to [bring about] the partition of the Arab lands (li-taqsīm al-bilād al-ʿArabiyya baynahā) by these states’. He alleged that the immediate con-sequence of this alliance after the sharīf ’s rebellion would be British domination over the Kaʿba. In the same article, as in many articles published in al-Sharq, it

30 Eliezer Tauber, The Emergence of the Arab Movements (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 44–48, 237.

31 Al-Sharq, ‘Ahl Ṭarablus al-gharb wa-Itāliyā’, no. 465, 5 Tashrīn-i Thānī 1333 [5 November 1917].

32 Al-Sharq, ‘al-Sharīf al- Ḥusayn’, no. 431, 22 Eylül 1333 [22 September 1917].

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was emphasised that the British did not accept the caliphate of the Ottoman sultan because of their enmity to Muslim unity and that their intention – to make the sharīf the caliph of the Muslims – was in fact a plan to disrupt the unity of the Muslims.33

To the same end, the ‘miserable situation’ of the Muslim leaders who changed sides during the war was described in the issues of al-Sharq. For in-stance, in an article on the leaders who were allied with the British and Russian states, al-Sharq explained that ʿAbd al-Razzāq Bey Badirkhānī, who changed sides during the war and supported Russia, ultimately fled from ‘Russian atroc-ities’ and returned to the Ottoman capital. Ṭālib Bey al-Naqīb was described as another case in point. While fighting for the Ottomans in Basra, he had gone over to the British side. According to the newspaper, following his alliance with the British, Ṭālib Bey was sent to India. However, after being informed about the British ‘atrocities’ against the Muslims in Basra, he felt remorse and fled to Istanbul via Switzerland. Likewise, the public in Basra was said to want to re-turn to Ottoman rule. Finally, the article touched upon Sharīf Ḥusayn’s situa-tion and claimed that he could not operate as freely as he had in the past, under Ottoman rule. His alliance with the British, according to the newspaper, would soon bring his rule in Mecca to an end.34

An unsigned editorial article addressed to the Bedouins argued in a similar way that those who changed sides in favour of the sharīf were no different from him. The Bedouin tribes in east Jordan who allied with the sharīf toward the end of the war were described as ‘accursed’ (hālikūn) people who tried to divide the Ottoman motherland (al-waṭan al-ʿuthmānī). The newspaper stressed that these ‘traitors’ had ‘betrayed’ the Lord (Allāh), his Prophet, the

33 Al-Sharq, ‘al-Sharīf al- Ḥusayn’, no. 431, 22 Eylül 1333 [22 September 1917]; for a similar article (untitled) that appeared in the newspaper on the general amnesty for military deserters, see al-Sharq, no. 478, 22 Tashrīn-i Thānī 1333 [22 November 1917].

34 Al-Sharq, Ibra li-l-muʿtabarīn’, no. 456, 25 Tashrīn-i Awwal 1333 [25 October 1917]; many articles in the newspaper focus on the condition of Russia after the revolution of 1917. The aim of these articles was presumably to show the advantage of the Central Powers in the war and to motivate the audience of the newspaper to support the war. For some exam-ples, see al-Sharq, ‘Jumhūriyya Rūsiya’, no. 434, 25 Eylül 1333 [25 September 1917]; al-Sharq, ‘Mawqif Krinski’, no. 447, 14 Tashrīn-i Awwal 1333 [14 October 1917]; al-Sharq, ‘Rūsiya l-thāniya’, no. 474, 15 Tashrīn-i Thānī 1333 [15 November 1917]; al-Sharq, ‘Firār Krinski’, no. 470, 11 Tashrīn-i Thānī 1333 [15 November 1917]; al-Sharq, ‘Lanīn wa-Nūbal’, no. 544, 6 Shubāṭ 1334 [6 February 1918]; al-Sharq, ‘al-Jumhuriyya al-Rūsiya’, no. 546, 9 Shubāṭ 1334 [9 February 1918]; al-Sharq, ‘al-Wizāra al-Rūsiya wa-l-ṣulḥ’, no. 448, 16 Tashrīn-i Awwal 1333 [16 October 1917]; al-Sharq, ‘Raʾy Rūsī’, no. 463, 3 Tashrīn-i Thānī 1333 [3 November 1917].



Ottoman motherland (al-waṭan al-ʿuthmānī), Arab nationalism (al-qawmiyya al-ʿarabiyya) and Muslim society (al-jāmīʿa al-Islāmiyya) by supporting the sharīf ’s movement. While condemning the ‘traitors’, in an effort to maintain morale in Syria and to emphasise the success of the Ottoman policy of Muslim unity, the author stressed that the traitors were small in number. In the same article, it was noted that other prominent tribal leaders defended their moth-erland alongside the Ottoman state against Great Britain. It claimed that those from the tribes (ʿurbān) who died in Sinai while defending Mecca and Medina, Jerusalem, Syria and Palestine had ascended to heaven. The editorial noted the support of the Bedouin tribes for Ottoman troops in Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Ye-men and Arabia and informed the Arabs that the great majority of their nation had sided with the Ottomans.35

Like the sharīf and his supporters in Syria, Ḥusayn Kāmil, newly selected by the British as sultan of Egypt (taking the place of the former khedive ʿAbbās Ḥilmī II), was severely criticised, accused of dividing the Muslim umma and condemned for treason against the world’s Muslims and their caliph in col-laboration with the caliph’s enemies, i.e., Great Britain. He was depicted by al-Sharq as the ‘false khedive’. His successor, Fuʾād, was exposed to the same accusations and condemned for serving Britain’s plans to divide Muslims. Ac-cording to the newspaper, Fuʾād established a university in Egypt (al-Madrasat al-Jāmiʿat al-Miṣriyya), with the goal of educating Arabs to oppose the Otto-man caliph.36 In the periodical’s reports and articles about British policy and the sharīf, many references are made to the ‘treason’ and ‘separatism’ of the khedive and the government of Egypt. The critics of the sharīf and the khedive targeted them because they were potential alternatives to the Ottoman caliph – thus they had to be eliminated and support for their positions in the Muslim world undermined. As we see in the examples from al-Qibla, this impelled the sharīf into a defensive posture.

In the same context, al-Sharq focused on the ‘atrocities’ of the imperial states against the Muslims under their rule – Muslims who had been under Ottoman rule before being colonised by Great Britain, Russia or France. The newspaper claimed that these the countries longed for Ottoman rule after

35 Al-Sharq, ‘al-Uṣāt al-khāliqūn’, no. 459, 29 Tashrīn-i Awwal 1333 [29 October 1917]. In another article, the loyalty and service of the Druze of Hawran to the government in spite of the agitations of the foreign powers were praised: al-Sharq, ‘Khidamāt al-ḥawrāniyyīn al-mashkūra fī l-ḥarb al-ḥāḍirat wa-iqbāl al-ḥukūma al-saniyya ʿalayhim’, no. 460, 30 Tashrīn-i Awwal 1333 [30 September 1917].

36 Al-Sharq, ‘al-Khidiv al-kādhib’, no. 449, 17 Tashrīn-i Awwal 1333 [17 October 1917].

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experiencing the ‘atrocities’ of the imperialists.37 Similarly, in another article, the newspaper reported on British ‘scandals’ (faḍāʾiḥ) and ‘atrocities’, and re-ferred to a book published in London on the ‘illegalities’ of the British excava-tions in Egypt.38

By contrast, the alliance of the caliph with Germany constituted the most crucial problem of legitimacy for the Ottoman jihād during the war, especially for the Arab population. For this reason, al-Sharq devoted a great numbers of articles to justifying this alliance. In an article on the visit from the German emperor, the newspaper claimed that Germany had allied with the caliph in his struggle against the ‘infidels’ and emphasised that the emperor was the pro-tector of Ottoman and non-Ottoman Muslims. The author of the same article noted that the emperor had expressed his friendship (ṣadīḳ) to 300 million Muslims in his visit to Syria twenty years earlier.39

In the same regard, the historicity of relations between the two states was also emphasised in al-Sharq, in order to legitimise the Ottoman-German alli-ance within the scope of Islam. The editors of the periodical published a series of articles analysing the history of the relations between the Ottoman and Ger-man empires. The first article focused on the reign of Aḥmed III. Although it stressed that relations between the two states were friendly, the only detail given as evidence of this was the German emperor’s camel purchase from the Ottoman sultan.40 The second article examined commercial and political rela-tions as well as military alliances between the two states in the 18th century and referred to the correspondence between the Ottoman sultan and the German emperor. The author stressed Prussian support for the Ottoman army in its war with Russia during the rule of Muṣṭafā III.41 In the next article, al-Sharq quoted from correspondence between Muṣṭafā III and the Prussian King Friedrich, in which each expressed friendly sentiments. It is worth noting that the sovereignty of the Ottoman sultan over Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Greater Syria, Iraq and Egypt was emphasised with quotations from the letter of the German king.42 Another article reported on German assistance to the Ottoman Empire and argued that Germany was the only state in Europe that

37 Ibid.38 Al-Sharq, ‘Faḍāʾiḥ fī Miṣr’, no. 451, 30 Tashrīn-i Awwal 1333 [30 October 1917].39 Al-Sharq, ‘Ḍayf al-khalīfa’, no. 450, 18 Tashrīn-i Awwal 1333 [18 October 1917].40 Al-Sharq, ‘Almāniyā wa-l-ʿuthmāniyyūn: al-ʿalāqāt baynahumā mundhu l-qadīm –1’,

no. 444, 11 Tashrīn-i Awwal 1333 [11 October 1917].41 Al-Sharq, ‘Almāniyā wa-l-ʿuthmāniyyūn: al-ʿalāqāt baynahumā mundhu l-qadīm –2’,

no. 447, 15 Tashrīn-i Awwal 1333 [15 October 1917].42 Al-Sharq, ‘Almāniyā wa-l-ʿuthmāniyyūn: al-ʿalāqāt baynahumā mundhu l-qadīm –3’,

no. 452, 21 Tashrīn-i Awwal 1333 [21 October 1917].



supported the full independence of the Ottoman Empire. In this way, the au-thor communicated to its readers that Germany, unlike the Entente states, was not a threat to the independence of the Ottoman Empire and the unity of the Muslims.43

It is difficult to estimate the social impact of al-Sharq’s propaganda on Syria, though it should be noted that the Syrians did not undertake any rebellions against the Ottoman authority throughout the Great War, in spite of the ex-treme hardships of the period – most of which resulted from famine and epi-demics. This quiescence can be interpreted as a success of the pan-Islamist propaganda of the periodical under study.

Al-Qibla: The CUP as Turkist, Irreligious Usurpers (mutaghallibe) of the Caliph’s Authority

In reply to the Ottoman condemnations, Sharīf Ḥusayn used the periodical al-Qibla to justify his rebellion against the Ottoman government. First and fore-most, the news and reports in the sharīf ’s periodical emphasised the ‘un-Islamic’ activities of the Unionists and did not directly target the caliph. In spite of the intensity of the articles on the ‘un-Islamic’ and ‘Turkifying’ activi-ties of the CUP, there are scarcely any condemnations of the Ottoman caliph-ate itself. Second in accordance with the aim of its establishment, as noted earlier, al-Qibla stressed that the sharīf ’s movement was not a rebellion against the unity of Muslims, but a protest against the policies of the Ṭūrāniyyūn (the Turkists), that, it stated, would ultimately cause the division of the umma. The periodical gave the message that, rather than the sharīf ’s revolt, it was the Unionists’ un-Islamic activities and their Turkism that prevented a real unity of Muslims. These condemnations against the sharīf were mainly circulated in the Ottoman Arab lands and to an extent in Egypt; thus it is clear that the sharīf ’s core audience were the Arabs under Ottoman rule and the Egyptians, who were inclined to think that the amīr of Mecca splitted the umma.

In one of its early issues al-Qibla published a proclamation by the ʿulamāʾ of Mecca – something similar to a fatwā – to explain the sharīf ’s actions to the Arabs and Muslims. The proclamation clearly addressed those Muslims who accused the sharīf of being a traitor to the caliph. According to the Meccan

43 Al-Sharq, ‘al-Dawla al-ʿuthmāniyya wa-Almāniyā’, no. 549, 12 Şubat 1334 [12 February 1918]. For other articles on Germany with similar themes, see al-Sharq, ‘Aʿmāl al-almān al-ḥarbiyya’, no. 464, 4 Tashrīn-i Thānī 1333 [4 November 1917]; al-Sharq, ‘Ṣaḥāfiyyūna wa-Almāniyā’, no. 436, 1 Tashrīn-i Awwal 1333 [1 October 1917].

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ʿulamāʾ, the Unionists had prevailed over the Ottoman Empire and restricted the actions of the caliph. Clearly they had violated the rules of the sharia, to which the caliph was bound to adhere. This band, ‘the usurpers of Osman’s house’, had rebelled against the rules of the Lord. They employed women in state offices, such as the post office and the treasury. The mission of the caliph as the ruler was to give Islamic order to Muslim society and prevent ‘un-Islam-ic’ activities. But they claimed, it had become apparent that the Ottoman ca-liph was unable to stop the Unionists and thus, according to the sharīʿa, he had forfeited his right to be caliph. They cited the first caliph, Abū Bakr, to legiti-mise their arguments. According to the ʿulamāʾ, Abū Bakr warned his society with the following words: ‘Obey me as long as I obey God and His Prophet, but if I disobey God you are not required to obey me.’ Therefore, they argued, the sharīf ’s actions were necessary under the sharīʿa, since the Ottoman caliph could not act according to his own will and the Unionists that had dominated (taghallub) him had transgressed the rules of the Lord.44

It was purported that, because he was anxious about the ‘un-Islamic’ activi-ties of the Unionists, the sharīf took action to implement Islam in his land and that of the Arabs. Therefore, the ʿulamāʾ advised that ‘our brethren in religion (according to God’s command) should not commit the serious crime of believ-ing everything that falls on their ears, or of building conclusions on mere sup-positions and imagination’.45 The fatwā did not proclaim the sharīf as the caliph of the Muslims, but assigned this task to the Muslim world. It clearly stated, however, that the sharīf was the Muslim king (mālik) who was obedient to the sharīʿa. Finally, it is worth noting that, in contrast to traditional fatwās, the text of this proclamation did not amount to a religious obligation for Mus-lims to support the sharīf ’s movement.46 By mentioning the un-Islamic activi-ties of the CUP, al-Qibla aimed to demonstrate that those who encouraged Muslims to cooperate against the Entente powers were indeed not true follow-ers of the sharīʿa. Therefore, they should not be supported and they would not able to realise the unity of the Muslims.

It stated that since the caliph was misdirected, his direction must be cor-rected by the Muslims, and as a Muslim amīr, the sharīf took over this mission. An article in al-Qibla cited the report that one day the caliph ʿUmar asked the Muslims in a mosque what they would do if he, as their ruler, twisted the

44 Al-Qibla, ‘Khiṭāb ilā l-ʿālam al-Islāmī min ʿulamāʾ Makka al-mukarrama’, no. 27, 20 Muḥarram 1335 [16 November 1916]; for the English translation, see TNA, FO 882/14, ‘Proclamation’, undated.

45 Ibid.46 Ibid.



commandments of God. In response, one Muslim stood up and declared, ‘If you twist the commandments of God, I will correct you by sword.’47 By utilising this example, al-Qibla presented the sharīf ’s position as identical to that of the Companions of the Prophet who had warned the caliph ʿUmar when he went astray.

As part of the sharīfian propaganda of ‘anti-Unionism’, articles in al-Qibla harshly criticised the slow and steady secularising character of the Ottoman state; these changes began with the proclamation of the constitution. The re-form of the empire’s governmental system in general and the Unionists’ under-takings in this direction in particular were described as a ‘violation of the rules determined by the Lord’. Many articles were published in the issues of al-Qibla to prove these claims. An editorial article cited the Qurʾān as declaring that God had ‘neglected nothing in the book’ (6:38). It then explains that with the implementation of the Ottoman constitution, the Ḳānūn-ı Esāsī (the basic law), the essential reference point for Ottoman law was no longer the Qurʾān. Therefore, the Ottomans had strayed from the path of God. Following this, with reference to the Qurʾān, al-Qibla announced that the Ottoman rulers had abandoned the true religion, since ‘whoever does not judge by what Allāh has revealed – then it is those who are the disbelievers (kāfir)’, ‘who are corrupt (fāsiḳ)’, and ‘who are wrongdoers (ẓālim)’ (5:44, 45, 47).48

The Ottoman administrative centralisation policies in the Arab provinces were another Unionist policy criticised by al-Qibla as an obstacle to the real unity of the Muslim umma. The centralisation – a term generally used as a synonym for Turkification – brought tribulations to the Muslim umma. Ac-cording to an editorial article, the Unionist rulers tried to centralise the empire under the Turkist ideology, ‘which would cause the separation of the provinces composed of different nations from the empire.’ In this regard, presumably to influence the Syrian Arabs, the deportation of members of the Arab decen-tralisation party (al-Lāmarkaziyya) was cited as an example of a ‘traitorous’ (khidāʿa) act that had contributed to the dissolution of the empire.49

Ottoman rule and the resulting Muslim unity was, historically, based on a decentralised model of administration. Al-Qibla emphasised this in its first is-sue and explained that, until the end of the 19th century, Ottoman rule in the

47 Al-Qibla, ‘Wa-min aḥsan qawl mimman daʿā ilā Allāh’, no. 122, 5 Muḥarram 1336 [21 October 1917].

48 Al-Qibla, ‘Mā faraṭnā fī l-kitāb min shayʾ’, no. 101, 18 Shawwāl 1335 [7 August 1917].49 Al-Qibla, ‘al-Zabzaba al-Ṭūrāniyyūn’, no. 117, 17 Dhū l-Ḥijja 1335 [4 October 1917]; interest-

ingly, Djemal Pasha deported those Arabists claiming that they were ‘traitors’ to the Ottoman Empire.

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southern Arab provinces, beginning with the Ḥijāz, allowed the Arabs to rule themselves in almost complete independence from the central government, and this had contributed to the strength of the Ottoman Empire. However, with the beginning of centralisation, the Ottoman rulers had tried both to in-crease the Turkish presence in the Arab provinces and to limit the Arabs’ par-ticipation in the administration of the provinces. Furthermore, the Unionist leaders had begun to Turkify the empire to the disadvantage of Arab language and culture. The Unionists ignored the demands of the Arab leaders and intel-lectuals in Syria and Iraq for reforms to grant more privileges to the Arabs and their language and culture. As the ‘leader’ of the Arabs, the sharīf had revolted against the Unionists to protect the Arabs and their culture.50 According to al-Qibla, it was impossible to unite the Muslim nations without respecting their culture and language. Thus the role of Islam occupied an important place in al-Qibla’s Arabism – in fact, its Arabism was a part of the newspaper’s Islamist discourse. Furthermore, al-Qibla authors claimed, the Turkish culture could not unite the Ottomans and Muslims because of its civilisational backward-ness. Al-Qibla claimed, with reference to a German author who worked in Aleppo, that among the Armenians, Arabs, Greeks and Jews, the Turks were ‘the least civilised’ and ‘least clever’ nation of the empire. They were a minority relative to the Arabs, and since the Turks were not as civilised as the other eth-nic and religious groups of the empire, they had to use coercive measures against other groups. In this context the Armenian deportations and the atroc-ities against the Syrians were cited as evidence.51

50 Al-Qibla, ‘al-Nahḍa al-ʿarabiyya – 1’, no. 1, 15 Shawwāl 1334 [15 August 1916]; for the second part of the article, see al-Qibla, ‘Ḥawla l-nahḍa al-ʿarabiyya fī l-Ḥijāz’, no. 2, 18 Shawwāl 1334 [15 August 1916]; for similar articles that appeared in the newspaper, see al-Qibla, ‘Ḥubb li-l-turk wa-bughẓ li-l-ʿarab’, no. 162, 28 Jumādā l-Ūlā 1336 [11 March 1918]; al-Qibla, ‘al-Mughwāl al-ittiḥād li-maḥw al-Islām wa-saḥq al-ʿarab’, no. 40, 7 Rabīʿ al-Awwal 1335 [1 January 1917].

51 Al-Qibla, ‘Waṣf al-anāṣir al-ʿuthmāniyya’, no. 106, 5 Dhū l-Qaʿda 1335 [23 August 1917]; for similar evaluations with reference to Cenghiz of Munghol as an inspiration for the Unionists, see al-Qibla, ‘al-Rūḥ al-Ṭūrāniyya’, no. 49, 8 Rabīʿ al-Thānī 1335 [1 February 1917]. Similarly, in the eyes of Ottoman Arabs, Istanbul was considered more backward than Arab cities. In a recent study on the Ottoman Arab’s perception of their empire, it was clear that the Arab intellectuals who compared Istanbul with provincial Arab capitals such as Cairo and Beirut saw the Arab cities as more developed than the imperial capital. For details, see Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, ‘Ottoman Arabs in Istanbul, 1860–1914: Perceptions of Empire, Experiences of the Ahmad Fāris al-Shidyāq, Muḥammad Rashīd Ridā and Jirjī Zaydān’, in Imperial Geographies in Byzantine and Ottoman Space, Sahar Bazzaz, Yota Batsaki and Dimiter Angelow (eds.) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), pp. 159–182.



To support its argument that decentralisation contributed to Muslim unity, al-Qibla’s editors quoted an article from al-Mukattam, an Egyptian newspaper; the article praised the ideas of the prominent decentralist Prince Sabahaddīn, who advocated the reorganisation of the empire along decentralist lines.52 Likewise, in another article, Midḥat Pasha and his reforms were praised for their decentralist aspects. Midḥat Pasha was described in the article as the shaykh of freedom (shaykh al-aḥrār). According to the article, ʿAli Kemal Bey (the son of Midḥat Pasha) stated that his father had promulgated the constitu-tion ‘to put an end to the disunity of the umma and the continuous bad luck [of the empire]’. Midḥat Pasha’s constitution ‘was an opportunity [for the unity of the empire]’, but afterwards ‘this opportunity was missed by later politicians due to their own domestic and international political considerations’. The pol-icies of the Turkists after their rise to power ‘ruined (maḥw) the Islamist feel-ings (al-ḥiss al-Islāmī)’ that were generated by the policies of Midḥat Pasha.53

In addition to general criticisms of the character of the Ottoman reforms and their implementation as causes that prevented real unity among Muslims, al-Qibla made specific assessments of the Unionist government’s ‘un-Islamic’ activities in order to prove that the sharīf had been ‘Islamically’ correct to rebel against the Unionist government. For instance, the authors of the sharīf ’s peri-odical criticised the Unionists in Istanbul for appointing women to govern-ment posts,54 such as the post, telegraph and telephone offices, instead of using Greek and Armenian officials. Similarly, a report was published accusing the Unionists of issuing an order for women to unveil their faces. Due to the public reaction to this order, the police director in Istanbul was compelled to repeal it and declare that it had been issued by low-ranking officials. According to al-Qibla, however, it was actually an order from high-ranking officials, i.e., a government order, and Ottoman leaders backed down because of the negative popular reaction.55 In the same way, al-Qibla criticised the CUP for translating the Qurʾān into Turkish. According to its authors, it was an unlawful innova-tion (bidʿa) to translate the holy book from Arabic. Instead of translations, the author proposed that Turks be taught Arabic so they could understand the

52 Al-Qibla, ‘Wa-hal yuṣliḥ al-ʿaṭṭār mā afsada al-dahr’, no. 118, 21 Dhū l-Ḥijja 1335 [8 October 1917].

53 Al-Qibla, ‘Wa-lā atamannā al-sharr wa-l-sharr ṭarīqī –1’, no. 119, 24 Dhū l-Ḥijja 1335 [11 October 1917]; for the second part of the article, see al-Qibla, ‘Wa-lā atamannā al-sharr wa-l-sharr ṭarīqī –2’, no. 120, 28 Dhū l-Ḥijja 1335 [15 October 1917].

54 Al-Qibla, ‘Taʿyīn al-nisāʾ fī ḥukūmat al-āsitāna’, no. 101, 18 Shawwāl 1335 [7 August 1917].55 Al-Qibla, ‘Nisāʾ al-āsitāna’, no. 113, 30 Dhū l-Qaʿda 1335 [17 September 1917]; for a similar

article, see al-Qibla, ‘Najma jadīda fī ṭanbūr al-ṭaysh al-nisāʾ al-turkiyyāt fī l-jaysh’, no. 160, 21 Jumādā l-Ūlā 1336 [4 March 1918].

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Qurʾān.56 With these articles and news items, the sharīf ’s newspaper advocat-ed that the Unionist regime that invited the Muslims to join the war on the side of the caliph were not Islamically qualified to lead a movement of Muslim unity. According to al-Qibla, Sharīf Ḥusayn had taken on the mission of cor-recting these ‘un-Islamic’ practices rather than allowing the disintegration of Muslim unity. The sharīfian revolt had been organised to raise the light of the Lord (rafʿ al-manār al-khudā). In recent years, the Ottoman sultans had failed to protect the Ottoman state from disintegration and their actions had di-verged from the principles of Islam. Furthermore, al-Qibla claimed, the Ger-mans had appointed many of those in governmental posts in the empire. It would be of no benefit to Muslims to simply worry about these dangers (khaṭr), rather something had to be done to change them. Therefore, the sharīf had re-belled to put an end to all these problems for the Arabs and Muslims.57

When an article in al-Sharq accused the sharīf of acting in a manner that was contrary to this mission, the response from al-Qibla was harsh. In an arti-cle published in al-Sharq, the British troops attacking Syria and their ally Sharīf Ḥusayn, who had ‘invaded’ Mecca, were compared to the ‘owners of the ele-phant’ (aṣḥāb al-fīl), a group that, as narrated in the Qurʾān, had tried to cap-ture the Kaʿba with an army supported by elephants. According to the Qurʾān, because of their attack, the elephant owners had been defeated by their Lord. Al-Qibla answered these accusations with a long article by a Syrian, Haqqi Bey al-Azm, who argued that the greatest disasters the Syrians faced had been caused by the atrocities of Enver, Djemal and Talat; he then implied that the example was more appropriate to the situation of the Ottoman army in Syria. The author of the al-Sharq article was described by al-Azm as al-khaṭīb al-dajjāl (the orator of the Antichrist) and a ‘liar’. Al-Azm described the victories of the sharīf ’s troops under the command of Fayṣal and ʿAbdullāh in the north and east of the Ḥijāz and implied that the analogy offered by al-Sharq was not appropriate to the sharīf, since he was victorious against the Ottomans, and had not been defeated by the Lord.58

Although al-Qibla directed very harsh criticisms towards the CUP govern-ment and the Ottoman path of modernisation, the language of the newspaper was extremely careful. The reports and articles in the newspaper generally re-ferred to the empire as ‘Turkiyā’ and the Unionist government as the ‘Turkist government’ (al-ḥukūmat al-Ṭūrāniyya) or ‘the brigand state’ (al-ḥukumat

56 Al-Qibla, ‘Ṭarīq al-Qurʾān’, no. 6, 3 Dhū l-Qaʿda 1334 [1 September 1916].57 Al-Qibla, ‘Mawqif al-ʿarab baʿd nahḍat al-Ḥijāz’, no. 2, 18 Shawwāl 1334 [15 August 1916].58 Al-Qibla, ‘ʿAjāʾib wa-gharāʾib’, no. 102, 21 Shawwāl 1335 [10 August 1917].



al-mutaghālliba) instead of ‘the Ottoman Empire’, ‘the Ottomans’, or ‘the Otto-man state’. This was intended to stress the Turkist ideology of the contempo-rary Unionist government.59 In contrast, when reference was made to the historical empire, they used terms such as ‘the Ottoman land’ (al-bilād al-ʿuthmāniyya)60 or ‘the Ottoman motherland’ (al-mamlakat al-ʿuthmāniyya). Similarly, the Ottoman sultans were mentioned in the newspaper with great respect, as in the honorific ‘ʿAlī ʿUthmān al-Kirām’ (the noble Ottoman family).61 It can be concluded that the term ‘Ottoman’ was used to refer to a positive history, while criticism was directed toward the Turkist government of the CUP.

Besides its criticism of Ottoman policies of modernisation and centralisa-tion, the sharīfian propaganda harshly denounced the alliance with Germany. This was designed to decrease the support of the Arabs to the Ottoman Empire and undermine the Ottoman propaganda of pan-Islamism. This criticism, fur-ther contributed to the sharīf ’s discourse condemning the CUP as ‘irreligious, amoral and undeserving of allegiance’.

According to the authors of al-Qibla, the CUP government had allowed the Germans to invade Ottoman lands. In one of its reports, the author refers to a book published in Greece on the war and describes how the Ottoman lands had been penetrated by the Germans. According to quotations from this book cited by al-Qibla, the Unionists were influenced by Germany and, in spite of the vigorous efforts of Great Britain to ensure the empire’s neutrality, they chose to side with Germany. The report also states that the war preparations in the Ottoman lands were conducted under the command of German officers. The report also mentions so-called concessions given to the Germans in the Ottoman territories, such as the right to build hotels, coffee houses, and the-atres and to operate commercial ships. In this way, the newspaper implied that the Ottoman Empire had been almost colonised by Germany.62 The message was clear: the Muslim character of the Ottoman Empire had become German

59 For some examples, see al-Qibla, ‘Akhbār min Sūriyā’, no. 119, 24 Dhū l-Ḥijja 1335 [11 October 1917]; al-Qibla, ‘Waqʿat al-nahḍa al-ʿarabiyya fī l-āsitāna’, no. 122, 5 Muḥar-ram 1336 [21 October 1917]; al-Qibla, ‘Ḥukūmat al-mutaghallibīn’, no. 54, 26 Rabīʿ al-Thānī 1335 [19 February 1917]; al-Qibla, ‘Ams wa-l-yawm: Kalima bi-munāsabat khuṭba li-Ṭalʿat Bek’, no. 60, 17 Jumādā l-Ūlā 1335 [12 March 1917].

60 For some examples, see al-Qibla, ‘al-Zabzaba al-Ṭūrāniyyūn’, no. 117, 17 Dhū l-Ḥijja 1335 [4 October 1917]; al-Qibla, ‘Shikāʾ al-ʿuthmāniyyīn bi-ḥukūmatihim’, no. 59, 14 Jumādā l-Ūlā 1335 [8 March 1917]

61 Al-Qibla, ‘Kalima al-mujrada’, no. 1, 15 Shawwāl 1334 [15 August 1916].62 Al-Qibla, ‘Baʿḍ al-akhbār al-turkiyyā’, no. 111, 23 Dhū l-Qaʿda 1335 [10 September 1917]

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by virtue of the influence of the German culture among the Turks. Further-more, in this very newspaper were reports that, as part of an alleged agreement between Germany and the Turks, Turkish boys and girls would be sent to Ger-many for education and would stay with German families and adopt German culture.63

According to al-Qibla, the Germans were enemies of Islam who were toying with (yuqāmir) the Muslim state, i.e., the Ottoman Empire. Because a substan-tial portion of countries vulnerable to colonisation had already been seized by the other great powers (France, Italy and Great Britain), Germany had ap-proached the Ottomans in search of colonies.64 Al-Qibla authors argued that the Germans believed themselves to be the most developed nation and the leader of other industrial societies. The Asians and Africans were in the lowest phase of the progression towards industrialisation. The Germans thought of other nations as guarantees that they would have access to slaves for their own survival.65 Thus the sharīf and his followers presented the Germans as the en-emies, as a potential colonial force with plans to colonise the Ottoman Empire. The Unionists were presented as having enabled the conquest of the Ottoman motherland (al-mamlakat al-ʿuthmāniyya) by the Germans and allowed them to turn these lands into a part of Germany. Germany had designs to colonise (istawlā) the Muslim countries. It had shown its true colours long before, dat-ing back to the reign of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, with its investments in the Ottoman and Arab lands. The Arab rebellion under the leadership of the sharīf was therefore undertaken to protect themselves and other Muslims.66 Because many Mus-lims knew what Germany intended, when the Ottomans declared their

63 Al-Qibla, ‘Almāniyā wa-aṭfāl al-atrāq’, no. 1, 15 Shawwāl 1334 [15 August 1916].64 Al-Qibla, ‘al-Almān yuqāmirūn bi-l-muslimīn’, no. 7, 7 Dhū l-Qaʿda 1334 [5 September

1916]; for articles with similar content, see al-Qibla, ‘Turkiyā wa-aṣḥābuhā’, no. 45, 23 Rabīʿ al-Awwal 1335 [16 January 1917]; al-Qibla, ‘Mukhālib al-almān’, no. 48, 5 Rabīʿ al-Thānī 1335 [29 January 1917]; al-Qibla, ‘Li-mādhā qāmat al-dunyā ʿalā almāniyā’, no. 55, 29 Rabīʿ al-Thānī 1335 [22 February 1917].

65 Al-Qibla, ‘al-Mabādiʾ al-almāniyā’, no. 47, 1 Rabīʿ al-Thānī 1335 [25 January 1917];66 Al-Qibla, ‘Naḥnu wa-aʿdāʾunā’, no. 2, 18 Shawwāl 1334 [15 August 1916]; for reports and arti-

cles with similar content, see al-Qibla, ‘Saṭw al-Almānī ʿalā l-āthār al-ʿarab’, no. 25, 13 Muḥarram 1335 [9 November 1916]; al-Qibla, ‘al-Almān fī Turkiyā’, no. 26, 17 Muḥarram 1335 [13 November 1916]; al-Qibla, ‘al-Iḥtilāl al-Almānī fī Turkiyā’, no. 28, 24 Muḥarram 1335 [20 November 1916]; al-Qibla, ‘Turkiyā bayna l-muttafiqīn wa-l-khulafāʾ’, no. 37, 25 Ṣafar 1335 [21 December 1916]; al-Qibla, ‘al-Almān wa-l-Afghān’, no. 40, 7 Rabīʿ al-Awwal 1335 [1 January 1917]; al-Qibla, ‘Kitāb almānī jadīd’, no. 41, 20 Rabīʿ al-Awwal 1335 [14 January 1917]; al-Qibla, ‘Dasāʾis al-almān fī sharq’, no. 53, 22 Rabīʿ al-Thānī 1335 [15 February 1917]; al-Qibla, ‘Dasāʾis Almāniyā fī Turkiyā’, no. 75, 12 Rajab 1335 [4 May 1917].



alliance with Germany and called for the support of all Muslims with their declaration of jihād against the Entente powers, Muslims in India, North Africa and Egypt did not respond and remained loyal to their colonisers.67

The sharīf ’s periodical al-Qibla harshly criticised al-Sharq’s claims that Ḥusayn had accepted British rule and enabled the British invasion of the holy places of Islam in Mecca. One article claimed that the sharīf had only made an alliance with the British. Al-Qibla confirmed that the sharīf had accepted Brit-ish assistance, but only as a loan, as in the case of the Tsar of Russia, who had borrowed four million [pounds?] from Great Britain. The sharīf was fully inde-pendent from British rule and was struggling against the Unionists, who had strayed from the path of God.68 It is worth noting that the number of such ar-ticles appearing in al-Qibla was very small.

Conclusion

Throughout the First World War, the Ottomans used the ideal of Muslim unity in their periodicals to motivate the Muslim population to the jihād declared by the caliph against the Entente states. According to al-Sharq, the main compo-nent of the Ottoman propaganda of pan-Islamism was loyalty to the caliph and the struggle against the threat of colonisation; thus those who allied with the Entente powers were accused of betraying the cause of Muslim unity. In this regard, Sharīf Ḥusayn and his supporters were the primary target of the Otto-man propaganda. Given the tranquillity of Syria during the war and the scar-city of support for the Meccan revolt, al-Sharq’s propaganda seemed to have been successful in Syria. Yet the British did not become successful in their plan to transfer the caliphate to the sharīf. But the Ottomans were not alone in us-ing Muslim unity for propaganda purposes. Sharīf Ḥusayn of Mecca, who, by 1915, had allied with the Entente powers and rebelled against the Unionist rule for fear of being eliminated by the CUP government (like the Arabist ‘martyrs’ of Syria), produced an intensive ‘anti-Ottoman’ Islamist propaganda. His pri-mary aim was to justify, in the Ottoman Arab lands, his movement, which emerged just as the Ottoman caliph declared jihād against the sharīf ’s new al-lies. Instead of targeting the caliph directly, the sharīf reaffirmed his loyalty to the caliph and harshly criticised the CUP, in spite of his enthusiasm towards

67 Al-Qibla, ‘al-Muslimūn wa-l-ḥarb al-ḥāḍira’, no. 99, 11 Shawwāl 1335 [31 July 1917].68 Al-Qibla, ‘Wa-min aḥsan qawl mimman daʿā ilā Allāh’, no. 122, 5 Muḥarram 1336

[21 October 1917].

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the title of the caliph. Al-Qibla articles show that the caliph was separated, in a sense, from the Unionists, who were portrayed as the force that had trans-formed the empire into an ‘un-Islamic’ structure and deprived the caliph of his means of applying Islamic laws in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman alliance with Germany intensified this transformation and endangered the unity of the Muslims. Therefore, the sharīf argued, it was legitimate – and even obligatory – for Muslim leaders like the sharīf to rebel against the Unionist ‘usurpers’.

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