Ibn Saud by Barbara Bray

Author:Barbara Bray
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2012-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

‘Calif Out’

‘Calif Out’ read the headline above the article in Time Magazine.

On March 3rd 1924 Ataturk, the new charismatic nationalist leader of Turkey, and the Turkish National Assembly abolished the Caliphate and sent the Caliph and his family into exile. Henceforth Turkey was to be a secular state. As The Times of London commented in its leader two days later: ‘Of all the vast changes wrought by the war … no single change is more striking to the imagination than this and few, perhaps may prove so important in their ultimate results.’1

Two days later Sharif Husayn proclaimed himself Caliph, the leader of the world’s Muslims – all 220 million of them. He founded his claim on the fact that his family were descendants of The Prophet and more than a thousand years earlier had been Caliphs. By proclaiming himself Caliph, Husayn hoped to boost his authority and prestige, both in the Hijaz and abroad. But his claim had the diametrically opposite effect. Although his sons dutifully proclaimed their loyalty to him as the new Caliph and that of their subjects in the new mandated states over which they ruled, millions of other Muslims all around the Muslim world were outraged. No man had the right to proclaim himself Caliph, least of all, perhaps, Husayn, who had proved himself an appallingly bad guardian of the Holy Places. Corruption and bribery were rife throughout his state and government. He had imposed ever higher taxes on his own subjects and on the pilgrims who came to the Hijaz to make the Hajj. Far from protecting the pilgrim routes he had allowed robbers to prey upon them with impunity. He had allowed all kinds of extortionists and crooks free play among them, turning a blind eye when they fleeced the pilgrims for food and accommodation. He did not provide even the most basic sanitation or medical services for the pilgrims. On top of which Husayn had become ever more vain and unreasonable. Even his sons were now tiring of his interference in their affairs, of the way he treated them as his vassals, issuing them with orders and telling them what policies to pursue in the countries over which they ruled. The British too, were becoming weary of him, of his waywardness, vanity and unreasonable demands. He steadfastly refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles even after the British had sent T. E. Lawrence to reason with him, his grounds being that Syria had not been handed to him and his sons but had been passed over to French control and that Palestine had been made a British mandate. Another problem for the British was that, as the rulers of millions of Muslim subjects, especially in Egypt, the Indian subcontinent and the Far East, they were now finding their continued support for Husayn a growing liability.

Nowhere was Husayn’s assumption of the Caliphate more resented than in Najd, among the Wahhabis and by Ibn Saud. The Ikhwan above all were incensed. In this, in

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.