28. Young Ottomans

Union d’Orient and Progress

According to a Bahai historian, after Shah Nasser ad-Din banned his Faramosh Khaneh and expelled him from Persian, Malkam asked for refuge with Bahaullah. The latter refused, but facilitated his safe journey to Istanbul.[1] According to the Qajar prince Imam Qoli Mirza Imad al-Dawla, governor of Kirmanshah:

 

The scoundrel (haramzáda) Mirza Malkum was sent from Baghdad to Istanbul… but the main mischief comes from Mirza Husayn ‘Ali [Bahaullah], the Babi scoundrel (haramzáda) who as yet has not received retribution… This malicious rascal is the most important and most urgent matter…[2]

 

The Constitution of the Ottoman Empire, which was in effect from 1876 to 1878, was written during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, in a period known as the First Constitutional Era, by members of the Young Ottomans—modelled on Mazzini’s Young movements—particularly Midhat Pasha (1822 – 1883), who was part of a Masonic network that connected Malkam Khan’s Faramosh Khaneh, the Grand Orient of France and the Carbonari. Midhat Pasha, who was a friend of Arminius Vambery, was known to be a Jew who concealed the truth of his religion in order to succeed in assuming important Ottoman states such as the State of Syria.[3]  With their capture of India in 1757, the British were focused on preserving the safety of the trade routes, both at sea and on land. As the Ottoman Empire lay on the junction of these routes, Britain was compelled not only to prevent the incursion of other powers into the region, but also to uphold the political sovereignty of the declining Ottoman Empire, to maintain the balance of power in the Concert of Europe. Therefore, Anglo-Ottoman cooperation, which started with Napoleon’s attack on Egypt in 1798, continued to during 1839-41 against Mohammed Ali, as well as the Crimean War, fought from 1853 to 1856, between the Russian Empire and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, Britain, and Sardinia-Piedmont, led by the Carbonari, Count of Cavour, operating under orders from Victor Emmanuel II.[4]

After the banning of Faramosh Khaneh, Iranian Masonic activity continued outside the country, primarily in London and Paris, but also, to quite a substantial degree, in Istanbul.[5] As noted by Thierry Zarcone, among the Ottomans the occult sciences were not cultivated only in heterodox circles, that is, the Batiniyya, but also among the orthodox Sufi orders, and by Sufi Shaykhs at the service of the Ottoman dynasty.[6] Among the Ottomans, the expressions “ulum-i hafiye” (“secret sciences”) or “ulum-i garibe” (“strange sciences”)  were still in use in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries along with that of “occult sciences,” borrowed from Europe.[7] These included alchemy, amulet or talismans, astrology and geomancy.[8] The one practice fiercely proscribed by Islam, though cultivated in some Sufi heterodox circles only and in folk Islam, is the evocation of the spirits (Jinn) in order to heal the sick or to find the stolen objects, a practice linked to pre-Islamic animism, and particularly to Central Asian shamanism. As far as orthodox acceptance of occultism, an office of Müneccimbaşi (“chief astrologer and astronomer”) existed at the Ottoman Palace since the fifteenth century and up to the end of the Empire. Abdul Hamid II had his personal Sufi shaykh from the Shadhiliyya Sufi Order who was a spiritual guide, as well as a talisman-maker and a seer performing geomancy. Also, the Sultans had long supported a tradition of writing official Falnama (“oracular books”), sections at the end of Quran manuscripts used for fortune-telling based on a grid, many being attributed to the Imam Jafar Sadiq. The interpretation of dreams is performed in general by almost all the Sufi shaykhs, as well as the making of talismans, which bear not only geometrical figures, numbers and Arabic letters, but also various Sufi symbols and motifs.[9]

The idea that Freemasonry is the equivalent of any one of various Tarikah, notes Zarcone, is an old one and was first suggested at the beginning of the eighteenth century.[10] Several European and Ottoman Freemasons were convinced that the Sufi brotherhoods were an Eastern equivalent of the Masonic fraternities, and after the Masonic rituals were translated in Turkish, the term “rite” as in the “Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite,” was replaced by Tarikah, the traditional name for a Sufi order or brotherhood.[11] John Porter Brown (1814 – 1872), a diplomat who served at the American Legation in Istanbul and served as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Egypt in 1864, published a pioneering analysis, The Darvishes or Oriental Spiritualism in 1868, and admitted to finding it “rather strange that the Dervishes of the Bektashi Order consider themselves quite the same as the Freemasons, and are disposed to fraternize with them.”[12] Porter Brown was also a renowned interpreter and Sufi who believed that Sufism and Freemasonry had common origins in pagan cults, Hermeticism, and medieval alchemy.[13] As summarized by Barbara de Poli:

 

Analysing such ancient Bektashi texts as Menaakıb-i-Haacı Bektash-i Veli by Haci Bektaș and the Saltuk-name by Ebü’l Hayr-i Rumi, one can find traces of animism (e.g. cults of nature, worship of hills, trees, rocks, stones), shamanism (e.g. magical practices, healing, clairvoyance, control over fire and the forces of nature, the capacity of bringing the dead back to life, ceremonies in which both sexes took part); Iranian and Far Eastern traditions (e.g. metempsychosis, incarnation, transformation in- to animals, the theory of the four elements, the cult of fire) as well as Judeo-Christian traditions (ascent to the sky, transformation of water into blood, sending calamities against human beings, reproducing food in large quantities, fecundation by the spirit, opening the seas or rivers to cross them, walking on water).[14] The Bektashiyya also received elements from the Hurufiyya order, the founder of which, Fadl Allah, had developed a doctrine based on a kabbalistic combination of letters, before declaring himself a divine manifestation, greater than the Prophet, and being executed as a heretic in 1394.[15]

 

Two decades before the introduction of Freemasonry in the Ottoman Empire, a French society called the l’Ordre de la Grappe (“Order of the Grape”) was established in Istanbul and was soon regarded as a Sufi brotherhood by the locals. Hyacinthe Chobaut, a former librarian at the Library of Avignon, views the Order of the Grape and the Orders of the Boisson and the Méduse, as “pre-masonic societies,” as they shared many practices in common with Freemasonry.[16] The Order of the Grape was established in the Provencal city of Arles in 1693, and its members were called dipnosophistes or “Drinking philosophers.” The Order of the Grape was open to both men and women, held dinners, and indulged in food, wine and drinking. Several official publications of the Order survive. The Journal des dipnosophistes de la Grappe, for example, mentioned the Philosopher’s Stone, the Round Table of King Arthur, and the names of Nostradamus and the famous alchemist Nicolas Flamel.[17] From their journals we learn that the Order of the Grape was established in Istanbul in the Galata district in 1702. French merchants, particularly from Marseille, lived and worked in the district. In September, the Marseille section of the Order called “loge de Marseille” received a report concerning an event which occurred in the Istanbul section. A Dutch merchant criticized the order and officially asked the Sultan to forbid the group, which he denounced as a gathering of “drunkards and corrupters.” The representative of the Order of the Grape in Istanbul, Brother Lamorabaquin, who held the rank of “Great Prior of Galata,” apparently ensured the order’s protection by convincing Muslim Ulama and the Sultan that there was no contradistinction between the principles and practices of the Order, and the religion of Islam, despite its use of wine. Indeed, the author of the report which was sent to the lodge of Marseille, wrote that:

 

The Order was well reputed at Constantinople because a seheik [shaykh, i.e. a Sufi master] had decided three months earlier to settle in the Galata quarter as he wanted to regularly attend the meetings of the Chapter of the Order. This seheik was so impressed by the working of the Order that he was preaching in the major mosques of Constantinople that the brothers of the Grape, established a short time ago in the Galata district (a place founded by the Gauls), were the genuine druids (Druydes) from whence came the dervishes (Dervichs) of Turkey, and that we must consider them as people beyond reproach…[18]

 

It is reported that the first lodge known to be founded on the Ottoman soil is the İskenderun Lodge in Aleppo chartered by the Grand Lodge of Scotland in 1748, but it was outlawed by Sultan Mahmud I (1696 – 1754), who had come under pressure from his own Christian subjects and the Ulama, after Pope Clement XII had excommuned the order ten years earlier.[19] In 1751, the British Consul in Aleppo, Alexander Drumond (d. 1769), who was a former head of a Masonic lodge in Scotland and then living in Alexandretta, founded a lodge under the patronage of the Grand Lodge of Scotland.[20] Later in 1764, Dionysios Menasse was appointed District Grand Master for Asiatic Turkey and Armenia.[21] In the last decade of the eighteenth century, Nakshidil Sultan (1761 – 1817), the cousin Napoleon’s wife Josephine was the step-mother and counsellor in the foreign policy of Sultan Selim III (1761 – 1808). Under her influence, lodges from different obediences prospered in the Empire. However, in 1826, her son, Sultan Mahmut II (1785 – 1839) abolished the Janissaries corps to replace it with a modern army and outlawed the Sufi order of the Bektashis to which they all belonged. As Freemasonry was regarded in the Ottoman Empire as a “kind of Bektashism,” it was also closed and known Freemasons were sent into exile.[22] It has been claimed that Grand Vizier Mustafa Reshit Pasha (1800 – 1858), who had promulgated the Reform Edict of 1839, had been initiated into Freemasonry while he was Ambassador to London.[23] After 1839, with his unofficial permission, Freemasonry had a slow revival in Turkey. The arrival of British, French and Piemontise expeditionary forces and diplomats in Istanbul and Izmir in 1856 led to an explosion of lodges under different obediences. In 1856, Captain Atkinson, an Irish officer in the 47th British Regiment, claiming to possess an Irish warrant, created three lodges in Izmir and then “The Grand Lodge of the Ancient and Honourable Fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons of Turkey.”[24]

Concern over irregular Masons, initiated by Atkinson, joining English and French lodges, caused Grand Master Lord Zetland (1795 – 1873) to order the foundation of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Turkey, in Istanbul, the first Provincial Grand Master being the British Ambassador, the Earl of Lytton. The consecration ceremony took place on June 24, 1862, in the British Embassy.[25] In 1861, the founder and then first Sovereign Commander of the Scottish Rite in Turkey, preceding John Porter Brown, was Prince Halim Pasha, the son of Mohammed Ali of Egypt, and the brother of Khedive Said Pasha, and former Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Egypt and of the District Grand Lodge of the same country. In 1869, this Supreme Council was recognized by the Supreme Council, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, in Charleston, South Carolina—the purported base of the Palladian Rite—then headed by Albert Pike.[26]

In 1862, Malkam arrived in Istanbul, ready to take advantage of his Masonic contacts, chief among whom was a fellow-reform minded politician and member of his Faramosh Khaneh, the Persian Ambassador, Mirza Hosein Khan Sepahsalar (1828 – 1881), who soon obtained a royal pardon for him.[27] Malkam, along with Hosein Khan, belonged to the Union d’Orient, founded in 1862 in Istanbul and affiliated to the Grand Orient de France. In Istanbul, a number of prominent Iranian politicians and reformers joined Masonic lodges, with the Union d’Orient and Progress being the preferred choice. The Union d’Orient lodge had begun recruiting Christian and Jewish members but, by the late 1860s, it also was accepting Muslim officials and military officers, and even some Ulama, eventually serving as a “Moslem Masonic lobby.”[28] Hosein Khan had also been initiated in the Sincère Amitié lodge of Paris. In 1860, he was promoted to the rank of Master of the Sincère Amitié, and in 1874 was awarded the Rose-Croix, a highly prestigious honor, at the Union d’Orient in Istanbul.[29]

Once cleared, Malkam settled in Istanbul as a newly appointed special council to Hosein Khan, maintaining close ties with fellow Masons. Two Ottoman statesmen, Mehmed Fuad Pasha—for whom Vambery worked as secretary—and Mehmed Ali Pasha (1815 – 1871), both members of the Union de l’Orient and Progress, and who occupied the posts of Foreign Affairs and Grand Vizier alternately for the entire period Malkam’s stay in Istanbul, collaborated closely with both Malkam and Hosein Khan, and, reportedly, enlisted their help in formulating the far-reaching reforms adopted by the reigning Sultan.[30] Ali Pasha is best known for his role in the Treaty of Paris of 1856, and his collaboration with his colleague Fuad Pasha as the architects of the Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856, which made Jews and Christians equal to Muslims under law and established the secular conception of “Ottomanism” as the basis for a political loyalty for all subjects of the empire.[31]

 

Proodos Lodge 

As Mangol Baya noted, “We know that throughout the period between 1876-l908, Ottoman Freemasons formed the most effective organizations of opposition to the traditional socio-political order.”[32] Two European orders in particular, the Carbonari and the Freemasons, inspired Ottoman secret societies with their ideology and political ambitions. The Carbonari infiltrated the Ottoman Empire through successive waves of Italian refugees, exiles from Mazzini’s Young Italy, and Italian immigrants seeking shelter following the uprisings of 1820–1821 and the Revolutions of 1848. These Italian groups established secret orders in Istanbul and Izmir and spread the ideals of the Risorgimento.[33] Among the Italian groups were Garibaldi, who stayed in Istanbul from 1828 until 1831, and Adriano Lemmi—who would supposedly succeed Mazzini in the leadership of the Palladian Rite—and followed Garibaldi as Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy.[34]

A group of intellectuals began a secret society called the Patriotic Alliance in Istanbul in 1865, which criticized Ali Pasha and Fuad Pasha for subservience to the European Powers and for ruling autocratically.[35] In 1867, Mustafa Fazil Pasha (1830 – 1875) met with the young intellectuals to form the Young Ottoman Society, which decided to publish its newspaper, the Muhbir, from London to avoid censorship.[36] Fazil Pasha was an Ottoman-Egyptian prince of ethnic Albanian descent belonging to the Mohammed Ali Dynasty founded by his grandfather Mohammed Ali Pasha. In 1863, Prince Mustafa became the heir apparent to his brother Ismail Pasha, but in 1866, the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Aziz changed the law so that the succession became by a direct male line of the reigning Khedive instead of passing from brother to brother. In protest, Mustafa Fazil Pasha left Egypt for Paris, where he patronized the Young Ottomans opposition against the Sultan.[37]

The Young Ottomans, who were formed in 1865, drew their inspiration from the Carbonari societies founded by Mazzini, like Young Europe, Italy, Spain and Poland.[38] Influenced by Montesquieu, Rousseau and the French Revolution, the Young Ottomans advocated for a constitutional, parliamentary government. The organization was forbidden and its members exiled in 1867. About a year later, in June of 1868, another expatriate liberal newspaper was begun by Namik Kemal (1840 – 1888), a Young Ottoman and member of the Union d’Orient. The leading figures of the Young Ottomans like Midhat Pasha, Ziya Pasha, Namik Kemal, Ali Suavi Bey, Sinasi Bey, Ibra him Hakki Pasha, Sadullah Pasha, Ali Haydar Bey, Ali Sefkati Bey, Cemaleddin Afgani Bey, Tunuslu Hayrettin Pasha and Ahmet Vefik Pasha, were Freemasons inducted into the ranks of the lodges Proodos lodge and Envar-i Sarkiye, the first Masonic lodge conducting its affairs in the Turkish language in Istanbul.[39] Malkam Khan was also a member of the “Proodos” or “Progress” lodge in Istanbul, founded in 1868, which met at the Hachopoulos Han, connected with the Grand Orient of Greece. In December 1873, at a meeting of the “Proodos” lodge, the Worshipful Master Cleanti Scalieri, a fellow member of the Union d’Orient, stated ceremonially: “Yes, illustrious Brothers, it is up to you to kindle anew in Persia, homeland of the Zoroasters [sic], the torch of this philosophy to which we fondly refer the origin of our order.”[40]

In 1873, however, Sultan Abul Hamid II banished several Young Ottomans to provincial prisons, partly because of their close links with the heir apparent Murad V. The Ottoman state exiled Namik Kemal to Cyprus, Ebüzziya Tevfik to Rhodes, and Nuri Bey and Hakki Efendi to Acre. During their exile, they interacted with the Bahais.[41] In Cyprus, Namik Kemal had more contact with Azalis than with Bahais, though he developed a friendship with the Bahai Mishkin Qalam (1826 – 1912), one of the nineteen Apostles of Bahaullah, whom the Ottomans had sent to the island with the Azalis.[42] One of Namik Kemal’s closest companions in exile was Shaykh Ahmet Efendi, who had adopted Babism or the Bahai faith in his Cyprus exile. Shaykh Ahmet Efendi was a hero of the Kuleli Incident, an attempted coup carried out by a group called the Society of Martyrs tried to assassinated Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1859. It is considered the first known political regicide attempt in Ottoman history.[43] By 1876, the year of his release, Namik Kemal was forced to deny rumors circulating in Istanbul that he had become a “Babi.”[44]

 

First Constitutional Era

Namik Kemal was influential in the formation of the Young Ottomans and their struggle for governmental reform in the Ottoman Empire during the late Tanzimat period, which would lead to the First Constitutional Era in the Empire in 1876.[45] In 1876, the Young Ottomans briefly seized power, temporarily installing Abdul Aziz’s nephew, Sultan Murad V (1840 – 1904). In 1872, Murad became the first member of the Ottoman dynasty to become a member of the of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Turkey, when he was initiated into the Proodos lodge in Istanbul.[46] Upon his accession, Murad V took steps to enact the Constitution and other related reforms. The first steps in the implementation of these policies were undertaken by Scalieri, who was assisted by Louis Aimable (1837 – 1897), then a lawyer in Istanbul and later mayor of Paris, by certain A. Holinsk, a former diplomat, by Midhat Pasha, by Sir H.G. Elliot (1817 – 1907) then British ambassador in Istanbul, and by Malkam Khan.[47]

When Vambery’s friend, the reformer Midhat Pasha, came from a family who consisted of well-established Muslim scholars who seem to have been professed Bektashis.[48] Midhat Pasha was known to be a secret Jew who concealed the truth of his religion in order to succeed in assuming important Ottoman states such as the State of Syria.[49] He was part of a governing elite who believed the Empire was in a crisis and a dire need of reform. In July 1872, he had been appointed Grand Vizier by Abdul Aziz, though was removed in August. During the First Constitutional Era, in 1876, he co-founded the Ottoman Parliament, and was the author of the Constitution of the Ottoman Empire, the first and only constitution of the Empire.[50]

However, in August 1876, securing a sanction by Shaykh ul-Islam of Murad’s dethronement, as well as a promise from Murad’s younger half-brother Abdul Hamid II to proclaim a constitution, Midhat Pasha and the Ottoman government deposed Murad on the grounds of mental illness, after only 3 months in power. Two months after the failure of their first attempt, another coup plot took place, this time carried out by Cleanthi Scalieri, and a certain Aziz Bey. Scalieri plotted a bloody but unsuccessful kidnapping of Murad V from the Ciragan Palace, to restore him on the throne.[51] The plot was also uncovered, and Scalieri and some of the leaders escaped while others were caught, tried and sentenced to terms in prison.[52] Scalieri fled Istanbul to Piraeus by an Italian ship rented by several of his Greek and Italian Mason friends.[53]

The Young Ottomans had their defining moment when Sultan Abdul Hamid II, in an attempt to appease the Great Powers, had appointed Midhat Pasha—who was characterized by some as one who “always wished to follow English advice” [54]—as Grand Vizier and reluctantly promulgated the Ottoman constitution of 1876, the first attempt at a constitution in the Ottoman Empire, ushering in the First Constitutional Era.[55] The Ulama countered that, although consultation (shura) was indeed enjoined in two Quranic verses, it applied only to Muslims, and consequently, a constitutional regime that led to a parliament with non-Muslim would violate Islamic law. The constitutionalists, headed by Midhat Pasha, rejected such claims, and maintained that the only way to impede the imposition of pro-Christian reforms by the Great Powers was to implement a constitution that would make all subjects into equal citizens before the law. Rebuffing the critique from the Ulama, they asserted that both the constitution and the parliament would be in full accordance with Islamic law. The constitution was modeled on the liberal Belgian Constitution of 1831, which served as a basis for many constitutions adopted in former Ottoman domains, but was adapted to suit Ottoman conditions.[56]

Abdul Hamid had appointed Midhat Pasha in the midst of the Constantinople Conference, convened December 23, 1876 until January 20, 1877 to diffuse an international crisis. With the British fearing Russian military intervention following the beginning of the Herzegovinian Uprising in 1875 and the April Uprising in April 1876, the Great Powers proposed an international conference to discuss the Eastern Question. The Great Powers agreed on a project for political reforms in Bosnia and in the Ottoman territories with a majority-Bulgarian population. When, on January 18, 1877, an Ottoman Grand Council rejected the proposed reforms, the stage was set for a new Russo-Ottoman war, begun on April 24, 1877, which was a disaster for the Ottomans. The Russian-led coalition won the war, pushing the Ottomans back all the way to the gates of Istanbul, leading to the intervention of the Western European great powers. As a result, Russia succeeded in claiming provinces in the Caucasus, namely Kars and Batum, and also annexed the Budjak region.

The first Ottoman parliament, the General Assembly of the Ottoman Empire, was convened on the brink of war, from March 19, 1877, to June 28, 1877, and only convened once more before being finally being dissolved by Abdul Hamid II, exploiting his constitutional right to do so on February 13, 1878. Abdul Hamid II had dismissed Midhat Pasha and banished him from the empire, effectively ending the first constitutional era and marking a return to centralization of power under the Sultan.[57] Midhat’s popularity in Europe, coupled with British pressure, led Abdul Hamid to allow him to return from exile, and he arrived in Crete on 6 September 1878.[58] When Midhat Pasha became governor of Syria in 1878-80, he called Abdul Baha to Beirut for a meeting.[59] Abdul Baha followed the Egyptian constitutionalist press, such as the newspaper Misr and penned a letter to Afghani, writing, “I read your splendid article printed in the newspaper Misr, which refuted some English newspapers. I found your replies in accord with prevailing reality, and your eloquence aided by brilliant proof. Then I came across a treatise by Midhat Pasa, the contents of which support your correct and magnificent article. So, I wanted to send it along to you.”[60]

 

Sharif of Mecca 

Sharif Hussein (1854 – 1931), who was later responsible for contributing to the downfall of the Ottoman Empire by instigating the Arab Revolt in 1916 with the assistance of the British, was involved in deceitful conspiracy that resulted in the execution of Midhat Pasha. Hussein was born in Istanbul to the Aouni or junior branch of succession from the Prophet Mohammed, but, as the result of political scheming, six of his ancestors had recently held the office of Emir of Mecca despite the existence of the Zaidi, or senior branch. In 1827, Hussein’s grandfather, Mohammed bin Abd al-Mu’in (1767 – 1858) was appointed Sharif by Mohammed Ali Pasha, the Ottoman ruler of Egypt, becoming the first Sharif of the Aouni branch and ending the centuries-long dominance of the Zaidi. He reigned until 1851, when he was replaced by Sharif Abd al-Muttalib ibn Ghalib (1790 — 1886). After being deposed, Mohammed bin Abd al-Mu’in sent his family and sons, to reside in the Istanbul. It was there, to his eldest son Sharif Ali bin Mohammed, that Sharif Hussein was born.

Mohammed bin Abd al-Mu’in was appointed Sharif of Mecca a second time in 1856. When he died in 1858, he was replaced by his brother, Abd Allah Pasha ibn Mohammed. When it was discovered in 1876 that Abd Allah was planning a revolt, he was deposed by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, and replaced by his brother, Hussein bin Muhammed. However, in 1880, intrigues began again, and Hussein bin Muhammed was stabbed by an assassin, and died the parlor of the consulate of the British, with whom he was suspected of conspiring. This time, the Sultan removed the Aouni line and reappointed Abd al-Muttalib ibn Ghalib. The young Hussein bin Ali, with his cousin Ali and his uncle Abd al-Ilah Pasha (1845 – 1908), went to Istanbul to attempt to exercise some political pressure, but the Sultan’s network of spies discovered that they had been visiting various foreign missions, particularly the British embassy. Sultan Abdul Hamid II issued the warning stating, “if Sharifs Abdillah, Ali and Hussein wish to keep on good terms with me, they should fish in healthier waters.”[61]

On May 17, 1881, after only a few months at his post as governor of Syria, Abd al-Muttalib ibn Ghalib’s friend, Midhat Pasha was arrested. The Minister of Justice, Ahmed Cevdet Pasha (1822 – 1895), brought him to Istanbul, where he was convicted of the murder of Sultan Abdul Aziz, and sentenced to death. However the execution was commuted to life imprisonment in Taif in Hijaz. It was reported that, soon after his arrival, Abd al-Muttalib ibn Ghalib received a message from Istanbul demanding Midhat’s death from “an accident.”[62] Due to his friendship with Midhat Pasha, Abd al-Muttalib refused to comply with the order.

Hussein then conspired with Osman Nuri Pasha (1832 – 1900), the military commander and Vali in Hijaz, to convince Abd al-Muttalib’s Keeper of the Seal to seal a blank piece of paper to which was later added a letter incriminating Abd al-Muttalib of having requested the British to place the Haramain under their protection. Under the Sultan’s authority, Osman Pasha surrounded Abd al-Muttalib’s residence in Taif, demanded his resignation and imprisoned him. On the night of July 26, 1883, Midhat Pasha was strangled to death. According to rumors, Osman was bribed to depose Abd al-Muttalib by Abd al-Ilah Pasha, who then appointed him his successor.[63] In 1882, Sultan Abdul Hamid II overturned the appointment and instead appointed Abd al-Ilah’s brother Awn al-Rafiq (1841 – 1905) as Emir and Sharif of Mecca. In 1883, Abd al-Ilah moved to Istanbul where in 1883 he was awarded the rank of Vizier and appointed to the Council of State. After Awn al-Rafiq’s death in 1905, Abd al-Ilah was rejected for the Emirate in favor of his nephew Ali Pasha ibn Abd Allah, who served as Emir and Grand Sharif of Mecca from 1905 until he was deposed in the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. Hussein was appointed grand sharif by official decree of the sultan Abdul Hamid II in November 1908.

 


[1]  Necati Alkan. Dissent and Heterodoxy in the Late Ottoman Empire: Reformers, Babis and Baha’is (Gorgias Press, 2010), p. 129.

[2] Letter of Dhu’l-Hijja 1278/May 1862. p. 130; cited in Alkan. Dissent and Heterodoxy in the Late Ottoman Empire, p. 130.

[3] Necati Alkan. “The Young Turks and the Baháʼís in Palestine.” In Yuval Ben-Bassat & Eyal Ginio (eds.). Late Ottoman Palestine: The Period of Young Turk Rule (I.B.Tauris, 2011), p. 262.

[4] Mim Kemal Oke. “Professor Arminus Vambery and Anglo-Ottoman Relations (1887-1907).” Turkish Studies Association Bulletin, 9: 2 (September, 1985), p. 15.

[5] “FREEMASONRY ii. In the Qajar Period.” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

[6] Zarcone. “Occultism in an Islamic Context,” p. 157.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Thierry Zarcone. “French Pre-Masonic Fraternities, Freemasonry and Dervish Orders in the Muslim World.” Andreas Önnerfors & Dorothe Sommer (eds.). Freemasonry and Fraternalism in the Middle East (University of Sheffield, 2008), p. 15.

[11] Ibid., p. 30.

[12] Emanuela Locci. “History of Freemasonry in Egypt since the 19th Century.” Dosario. Retrieved from https://www.freemasonryresearchforumqsa.com/elocci-freemasonry-in-egypt.php; Mehmet Sabeheddin. “The Masons and the Moors” New Dawn, 86 (September-October, 2004). Retrieved from https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/secret-history/the-masons-and-the-moors

[13] John Porter Brown. The Dervishes; cited in Robert Dannin. Black Pilgrimage to Islam (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 44.

[14] Thierry Zarcone. Mystiques, philosophes, pp. 5-8; 61-72; 87-118; cited in De Poli. Freemansonry and the Orient, p. 60.

[15] De Poli. Freemansonry and the Orient, p. 60.

[16] H. Chobaut, “Les Débuts de la Franc-maçonnerie à Avignon (1737-1751),” Mémoires de l’Académie de Vaucluse (1924): p. 150-151; cited in Zarcone. “French Pre-Masonic Fraternities, Freemasonry and Dervish Orders in the Muslim World,” p. 18.

[17] Journal des Dipnosophistes de la Grappe (Theline [Arles]: 1705, pp. 4; cited in Zarcone. “French Pre-Masonic Fraternities, Freemasonry and Dervish Orders in the Muslim World,” p. 21.

[18] Le Journal. Nouvelles de la Grappe (January 11, 1703): p. 1-2; cited in Zarcone. “French Pre-Masonic Fraternities, Freemasonry and Dervish Orders in the Muslim World,” p. 20.

[19] Bob Nairn. “Freemasonry in Turkey.” World of Freemasonry (extract). Retrieved from https://linfordresearch.info/fordownload/World%20of%20Fmy/Nairn%20Turkey.pdf; Celil Layiktez. “The History of Freemasonry in Turkey.” Masonic Magazine of the Grand Lodge of Turkey (April 4, 2001). Retrieved from http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/layiktez.html

[20] Dorothe Summer. Freemasonry in the Ottoman Empire (London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2015), p. 10.

[21] Bob Nairn. “Freemasonry in Turkey.” World of Freemasonry (extract). Retrieved from https://linfordresearch.info/fordownload/World%20of%20Fmy/Nairn%20Turkey.pdf

[22] Celil Layiktez. “The History of Freemasonry in Turkey.” Masonic Magazine of the Grand Lodge of Turkey (April 4, 2001). Retrieved from http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/layiktez.html

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Baya. “Freemasonry and the Constitutional Revolution in Iran: 1905-1911,” p. 120.

[28] Ibid., p. 114.

[29] Ibid., p. 114.

[30] Ibid., p. 114.

[31] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 5.

[32] Baya. “Freemasonry and the Constitutional Revolution in Iran: 1905-1911,” p. 114.

[33] Banu Turnaoğlu. “The Intellectual Origins of Turkish Radical Republicanism.” In Bruno Leipold (ed., et al). Radical Republicanism: Recovering the Tradition's Popular Heritage (Oxford University Press, 2020), p. 198.

[34] Veronica Musardo. Secret Connections in Constantinople (Istanbul: Libra Kitapçılık ve Yayıncılık, 2015), p. 77; cited in Turnaoğlu. “The Intellectual Origins of Turkish Radical Republicanism,” p. 198.

[35] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 6.

[36] Ibid., p. 10.

[37] Erik J. Zürcher. Turkey: A Modern History (I.B.Tauris, 2004), p. 69.

[38] Turnaoğlu. “The Intellectual Origins of Turkish Radical Republicanism,” p. 199.

[39] Ozan Arslan & Cinar Enzo. “The Rebirth of the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress in Macedonia through the Italian Freemasonry.” Oriente Moderno, Nuova serie, Anno 24 (85), Nr. 1 (2005), p. 102.

[40] Algar. “An Introduction to the History of Freemasonry in Iran,” p. 286.

[41] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 7.

[42] Ibid., p. 11.

[43] Florian Riedler. “A sheikh and an officer: the Society of Martyrs and the Kuleli incident.” in Opposition and Legitimacy in the Ottoman Empire (Routledge, 2010).

[44] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 11.

[45] Gábor Ágoston & Bruce Alan Masters. Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire (Infobase Publishing, (January 1, 2009), p. 417.

[46] “Hür ve Kabul Edilmiş Masonlar Büyük Locası Derneği.” (in Turkish). (April 13, 2014). Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20140413150805/http://162.243.49.51/web/03_turkiye.html; Constantin Svolopoulos. “L’initiation de Murad V à la franc-maçonnerie par C. Scalieri. Aux origines du mouvement libéral en Turquie.” Balkan Studies, V (1980), pp. 29.

[47] Pollatos. Elliniku Tektonismu, pp.52-53; cited in M. Şükrü Hanioglü. “Notes on the Young Turks and the Freemasons, 1875-1908.” Middle Eastern Studies, 25: 2 (1989), p. 187.

[48] M. Th. Houtsma. E.J. Brill’s First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936 (BRILL, 1993). p. 481.

[49] Alkan. “The Young Turks and the Baháʼís in Palestine,” p. 262.

[50] Tilmann J. Röder. “The Separation of Powers: Historical and Comparative Perspectives.” In: Grote & Röder. Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries (Oxford University Press 2011).

[51] Celil Layiktez. “The History of Freemasonry in Turkey.” Mandate Lodge No. 4258 ( April 9, 2001). Retrieved from http://www.mandatelodge.org/historyofturkey.html

[52] Şerif Arif Mardin. “Libertarian Movements in the Ottoman Empire 1878-1895.” Middle East Journal, 16: 2 (1962), p. 171.

[53] Pollatos. Elliniku Tektonismu, pp.52-53; cited in Hanioglü. “Notes on the Young Turks and the Freemasons, 1875-1908,” p. 187.

[54] M. Şükrü Hanioğlu. A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire (Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 116–117.

[55] Caroline Finkel. Osman’s Dream: the Story of the Ottoman Empire (Basic Books, 2006), p. 489-490.

[56] Hanioğlu. A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire, p. 116–117.

[57] Ibid., p. 121.

[58] C. E. Bosworth. The Encyclopaedia of Islam (E.J. Brill, 1980), p. 1034

[59] Cole. “Iranian Millenarianism and Democratic Thought in the 19th Century,” p. 11.

[60] Ibid., p. 12.

[61] Randall Baker. King Husain and the Kingdom of Hejaz (The Oleander Press, 1979), p. 7.

[62] Ibid., p. 8.

[63] Ibid., p. 9.

Divide & Conquer