Global Intellectual History by Moyn Samuel; Sartori Andrew;

Author:Moyn, Samuel; Sartori, Andrew;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2013-05-08T04:00:00+00:00

Saving the Ottoman Empire or Doing Justice to the Muslim World

The political demands associated with the idea of a Muslim World exhibited all the complexities of identity politics, religious hermeneutics, and imperial rivalries. For the broader Muslim public sphere, Pan-Islamism was a symbol of the demand for equality and dignity to be recovered from the injustice and humiliation of Western imperialism. Both the demands for political autonomy and the search for justice were closely tied to the notion of regaining dignity by establishing racial and civilizational equality with the Christian West.

The Ottoman Empire, however, was more interested in its sovereignty and legitimacy as an empire that included non-Muslim populations. What especially frustrated the reformist Ottoman elite was that although they were not allowed to use their Muslim credentials in international affairs, European empires would often intervene in Ottoman domestic affairs or use force under the pretext of protecting the rights and privileges of the Ottoman Empire’s Christian subjects. And while Ottomans were told that they could not rule over Christian subjects, more and more Muslims were coming under the rule of Christian empires.

A Pan-Islamic identity on a global scale was as much an opportunity as a burden and a problem for the Ottoman Empire. Ideally, being the model for the rest of the Muslim societies gave prestige to the Ottoman elite. But it also brought further suspicion and hostility in the eyes of their European imperial counterparts, as well as additional responsibilities. Moreover, the Ottoman government could not officially give up its claim to the loyalty of its Christian populations, and a Pan-Islamic identity would contradict such a claim.

Meanwhile, from the 1880s to the 1920s, the prestige of the Ottoman caliphate reached a global peak, beyond the intentions and policies of the Ottoman government. A new, racialized notion of the Muslim world increased the caliphate’s religious significance, despite the powerful arguments against the theological validity of the Ottoman claim to the Sunni caliphate since the publication of William Blunt’s Future of Islam in 1883.34 The pro-Ottoman camp decisively won this intellectual argument to the extent that by World War I, the legitimacy of the Ottoman caliphate was rarely questioned.35

The pro–Ottoman Muslim intellectuals’ battle with British Prime Minister William Gladstone illustrates the complexity of their intellectual argument. Gladstone’s hostile remarks about Muslims and Turks, such as calling them an “anti-human specimen of humanity,” reflected both a larger European sentiment about “infidel Muslims” and a more refined European Orientalist discourse on Muslim inferiority.36 The tensions between the “rights” of minorities and the legitimacy of an empire in international law can best be seen in Gladstone’s accusation that the Ottoman Muslim rulers were committing atrocities against the empire’s Christian populations in the Balkans. Here, the evangelical Gladstone appeared as a champion of human rights (in the form of rights for Christians minorities in Bulgaria), and the Ottoman rulers appeared to defend the rights of imperial sovereignty and international law. Indian Muslim intellectuals consistently emphasized that in reality, since 1839, Christian subjects of the

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