9. ABolition of the Caliphate

Republic of Turkey

Some claim that a letter sent to Kemal Atatürk by Syed Ameer Ali—who co-founded the All-India Muslim League (AIML) with the Aga Khan III—about the Caliph’s role ultimately contributed the decision to abolish the office.[1] In 1914, the outbreak of World War I created a dilemma for the new political leaders, Talaat Pasha, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Turkey, and the Dönmeh Mehmed Cavid in particular, and they sided with Germany and the Central Powers, believing that they were the stronger. This decision caused the eventual downfall of the Young Turks Government. Following Ottoman defeat in World War I in 1918, CUP leaders escaped into exile in Europe. Many CUP members were court-martialed and imprisoned in war-crimes trials with support from the Allied powers. In 1923, after establishing the Republic of Turkey, the movement merged into the Republican People’s Party (CHP), and Atatürk was elected the republic’s first president. The Caliphate was abolished on March 3, 1924 by decree of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. Deceptively, the document published by the Turkish National Assembly to explain its decision to abolish the Caliphate relied mainly on the Sharia, quoting Hadith and religious sources to justify their ruling. The decision led to an outbreak of a passionate intellectual debate across the Islamic world about the meaning and role of the Caliphate.

On November 24, 1923, three Istanbul papers published the contents of a leaked letter from Syed Ameer Ali and Aga Khan III, sent on behalf of the Khilafat Movement, to Mustafa İsmet İnönü (1884 – 1973), the Turkish Prime Minister and Atatürk’s right-hand man.[2] In the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, İnönü had served as the first chief of the General Staff from 1922 to 1924 for the regular Turkish army, during which he commanded forces during the First and Second Battles of İnönü. He was also chief negotiator in the Mudanya and Lausanne conferences for the Turkish government, successfully negotiating away the Treaty of Sèvres for the Treaty of Lausanne which provided for the independence of the Republic of Turkey.

Like Atatürk, İnönü was a former member of the CUP. İnönü declared in 1925: “Our duty is to make all those living in the Turkish fatherland into Turks. We will cut out and discard all those minorities who oppose Turks and Turkism.”[3] As the government used the sectarian background of the two signatories to discredit the letter in the eyes of the Turkish public, the great majority of whom were Sunni Muslims, Atatürk launched an attack on the office of the Caliph. Under what was Turkey’s new nationalist government, however, Syed Ameer Ali and the Aga Khan III’s letter was construed as foreign intervention and a threat to state security. On Atatürk’s initiative, the National Assembly abolished the Caliphate on March 3, 1924.[4] Abdulmejid was sent into exile along with the remaining members of the Ottoman House.

In 1922, the Turkish national movement, with considerable support from the Soviets, won major military victories against an invading Greeks and consolidated its international position, despite Britain’s alliance with Greece. Their success in liberating themselves from European domination was greeted enthusiastically among many Arab countries, who looked at Turkish independence as the first step toward their own, and supported closer ties to the Turks. The Turks, in turn, were also open to continued cooperation. In late 1922, it was reported in the Arab press, for example, that “[Mustafa] Kemal Pasha favored the creation of an Arab Government to include all the Arab countries which were formerly part of the Turkish Empire, to work with the Turkish Government in regard to questions of military, financial, and foreign policy in a manner similar to that which obtained in Austro-Hungary before the war.”[5] When the Turkish Nationalists finally triumphed in 1922, they stripped Sultan Mehmed VI of his position and abolished the sultanate, retaining the Caliphate as an exclusively ceremonial office. They appointed another member of the Ottoman dynasty, Abdulmejid II (1868 – 1944), as Caliph in Istanbul, and moved the center of state from Istanbul to Ankara. However, on March 3, 1924, six months after the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman Caliphate was abolished, the Ottoman dynasty was deposed and Abdulmejid II expelled from Turkey.

 

Democratic Caliphate

Rida’s al-Manar generally looked upon favorably on the end of the Ottoman sultanate.[6] At first, Rida hailed the triumph of the Turkish nationalist movement, considering it proof of the failure of “the British Crusader policy of eradicating all independent Muslim power in the world.”[7] Rida celebrated the Turkish achievements using the phrase “the Turkish Kemalist tigers” to describe the victorious Turkish army.[8] Rida also argued that deposing the Sultan was legitimate on the grounds that he collaborated with a foreign invaders.[9] As well, Rida regarded the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara as representatives of the Ahl al-Hall wa’l-Aqd, a term that refers to the legal scholars who were responsible for selecting the most qualified person to be caliph on behalf of the Muslim community.[10] Although Rida referred to this new Caliphate as a “mistake,” he nevertheless urged all Muslims to continue their support for the Turkish nationalists, since it was “they who were fighting Europe’s designs for ending all Muslim mulk (political power) in the world.”[11] Rida also proposed that abolishing the Sultanate and putting a new Turkish ceremonial Caliphate in its place was actually a political maneuver by the Turkish nationalists to reduce British opposition toward them and encourage the Russians to increase their support for Turkey’s independence.[12]

It was during the winter of 1922-23, just after Turkey had abolished the Sultanate, that Rida wrote his Al-Khilafa aw al-Imama al-ʿUzma (“The Caliphate or the Supreme Imamate”), initially serialized in al-Manar. The book became the first substantial Islamic scholarly treatise of the twentieth century which elucidated the theological basis of a Caliph and advocated the religious obligation of establishing a pan-Islamic supra-state.[13] Rida recalled the Ijma (scholarly consensus) on the necessity of the Caliphate by referring back to the works of Ibn Taymiyyah and Mawardi:

 

The Salaf (pious ancestors) of the Ummah were in consensus, and the Sunnis, as well as the masses of the other sects that the position of the imam—that is, the appointing him as trustee over the ummah, is obligatory for Muslims according to the Shariah… the position of the caliph is a fard kifayah (an obligation contingent upon sufficiency) and that those who are obliged to fill it are the Ahl al-Hall wa’l-Aqd in the Ummah.[14]

 

However, Rida distinguished between the preferred “ideal caliphate,” which prevailed among the Rashidun Khilfah in the first generations of Islam, and the later “caliphate or imamate of necessity,” such as the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs and the “caliphate of tyranny or conquest,” as in the case of the Ottoman Empire. According to Rida:

 

…the difference between this Khilafah—the familiar Khilafah of “domination” and what came before it when both of them being permissible due to necessity is that the first issues from the Ahl al-Hall wa’l-Aqd by their choice of one who represents those who have lost some of the requisite conditions… whereas the second is an assailant of the Khilafah by force of tribalism, not by the choice of the Ahl al-Hall wa’l-Aqd…[15]

 

Rida’s proposed Caliphate would advocate the core themes of the Arab Salafiyya movement and would implement Salafist doctrines in its territories. Rida asserted that the absence of Caliphate and Islamic rule was equivalent to the state of Jahiliyya (pre-Islamic pagan ignorance). Rida stressed the Caliph should be a Mujtahid and from the Quraysh tribe, also advocating the principle of Arab superiority in faith, arguing that Islam attained its glory under Arab leadership and hence, Imamate (leadership) should be returned to the Arabs. The Caliph should be elected the supreme head, whose role was to govern by supervising the application of Sharia, through co-operation with the Ulama by engaging in a revival of Ijtihad. Rida emphasized the role of civil government and consultative and democratic rule through the Ahl al-Hall wa’l-Aqd who would apply the principle of consultation (Shura) to choose the caliph and lead the Ummah. Rida added that the revived Ahl al-Hall wa’l-Aqd times should include not only Ulama but, but should reflect all sectors of modern Islamic society, including prominent merchants and agriculturalists, managers of companies and public works, leaders of political parties, distinguished writers, physicians, and lawyers, elected along democratic lines.[16]

Thus, the Caliphate would supposedly become a means for achieving an Islamic Renaissance, and rid Muslims of the polytheistic influences of Sufism. Rida identified two major internal enemies to his revolutionary project: hizb al-mutafarnijin (the Europeanized party), or the modernists who borrowed heavily from Western influences, and hizb hashawiyyat al-fuqaha’ al-jdmidin (the party of the reactionary jurists), represented by the Sufi clergy who clung to Taqlid and adherence to the four Madhabs. Islamic Renaissance was to be spearheaded instead by the hizb al-islah al-islami al-mu’tadil (moderate party of Islamic reform), an avant-guard class of Salafi Ulama who would employ Ijtihad to address the rising challenges of the modern Islamic World.[17]

 

Syrian-Palestinian Congress 

Rida also exploited the Palestinian cause to rally opposition to Sharif Hussein in favor of Ibn Saud.[18] As noted by Uriya Shavit in “Zionism as told by Rashid Rida,” while he had been a vocal critic of Zionism prior to World War I, “ironically, Rida’s interest in Zionism and in the fate of Palestine waned in 1914–28.”[19] Rida focused his efforts on two fronts: advocacy for Syrian independence, and support for Ibn Saud and his goal of establishing the third Saudi Kingdom. Although events in Palestine were reported in al-Manar,  not once were they highlighted as a lead story, nor did the journal’s language convey any sense of urgency. Readers during that period would not have learned that Jews were entering the country en masse and that the foundations of a state were being established. “Nor could they have gained the impression that Zionists were a threat to the existence of the Muslims in Palestine, or that Islam attributed special religious importance to Palestine or to a specific part of the country.”[20]

The Palestinian cause had been relegated in Rida’s writing to an issue of secondary importance. An example was Rida’s article on the deliberations of the Syrian-Palestinian Congress, of which he was vice-chairman. The Congress, which followed the Syrian National Congress of 1919, was dominated by Cairo-based Syrian nationalists like himself, who established the Party of Syrian Unity (Hizb al- Ittihad al-Suri) in Egypt. It assembled in Geneva in June 1921 to advocate against the ratification by the League of Nations of the mandates over Palestine and Syria. While the Congress was intended to speak on behalf of both Syrians and Palestinians, Rida and the Syrian members were more concerned with events in French-controlled Syria and Lebanon, leading to tensions with the Palestinians. Nevertheless, the Congress concluded in September 1921 with a joint statement calling for independence and of their right to unite of Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, and annulment of the Balfour Declaration.[21]

Rida’s report on the Syrian-Palestinian Congress mentioned that the Palestinian members of the Congress were the ones who had requested that it be named Syrian-Palestinian, rather than Syrian, due to their concern that dependency on the political fate of Syria could harm their cause. He also mentioned the concern expressed by the Syrian members that the Palestinians would not join a call to put an end to the mandates. His report did not fail to mention that Sharif Hussein had assisted the British conquest of Palestine. Yet the underlying objective of this warning was not to call for action, but to denounce Sharif Hussein and his family and praise the Saudis. Rida portrayed Hussein’s family as supporters of those who were seeking to implement the “satanic plan” to deprive the Palestinians of their land, in other words, the British and the Zionists.[22]

In 1924, in a Quranic exegesis, Rida suggested that God had promised the land of Palestine to both the descendants of both sons of Abraham, the Israelites and the Arab. The promises were honored for both Israelites and Arabs when they acted righteously, but when they sinned they were punished and the land was taken from them. Rida’s conclusion, therefore, was that Palestine had been taken away from both the Jews and the Arabs for a reason. Now that the British, “the most skilled among nations” in inciting conflicts between peoples, had gained control over the land and were manipulating the Jews and the Arabs to fight one another, the righteous among those two nations would prevail as commanded by the laws of God.[23]

 

Pilgrimage Congress

A series of tentative initiatives, between 1921 to 1924, were unsuccessful in organizing the anticipated congress in Mecca during the Hajj season. Hashimite sponsorship for a congress was not well received among influential Muslims, who held Hussein responsible for dividing the Muslim world through his failed revolt. An important defection from his cause was that of Rashid Rida, whose journal al-Manar had previously supported the idea of a Qurashi Caliphate in Mecca, through the serialization of Kawakibi’s Umm Al Qura. In 1916, Rida performed the Hajj, and was well received by the Sharif Hussein, who granted him an annual subsidy along with a large gift. By 1924, however, Rida was describing Hussein’s movement as “vile and despicable.”[24]

But as the 1920s unfolded, Hussein increasingly began to cast himself not only as an Arab spokesman, but as a Muslim leader as well. Then, immediately following the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate in March 1924, Sharif Hussein’s followers proclaimed him Caliph. In July 1924, a meeting was held in Mecca that his organizers entitled the Pilgrimage Congress. The annual congress was to devote itself to the promotion of mutual awareness among Muslims, but asserted that Arab unity was to be the nucleus (nawah) of Muslim unity. Missing from the charter, as well, was any mention of the Caliphate. According to a Jeddah source, a bloc of congress participants resisted every attempt on the part of Sharif Hussein to gain their recognition of his Caliphate.[25]

The resistance was the work of Abdelaziz Thâalbi (1874 – 1944), a journalist and activist of Tunisian birth who reappeared often in subsequent Muslim congresses. Thâalbi studied at the University of Ez-Zitouna in Tunis, where he became learned in Salafism. After he graduated in 1895, Thâalbi began publishing a religious journal, Sabil al-Rashid (“the proper path”), which was suspended in 1897 by the French. Thâalbi left Tunisia, travelling in Libya, Egypt, and India. He spent at least two years in Egypt, allegedly joining the circle of Afghani and Abduh.[26] In 1904, after having returned to Tunis, he was taken to court, accused of cursing Abdul-Qadir Gilani and calling the Quran an “obsolete book out of step with the progress of our age.”[27] He was defended by the French newspapers and condemned by the Arabic ones, and was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to two months in prison.[28] After his release, he co-wrote with his defense lawyer, César Benattar, a Gallicized Tunisian Jew, a controversial book entitled L‘esprit liberal du Coran (“the liberal spirit of the Quran”), which claimed:

 

…through a literal, rational, scientific, liberal, and faithful interpretation of the Quran and hadiths the Muslim people will recover their past intellectual greatness, and with the civilizing influence of the French, the descendants of those that proclaimed the principles of the French Revolution, Muslims minds, freed at last of all superstitions and prejudices, will be able to one day contribute, in collaboration with their Protectors, to the global civilization.[29]

 

Though the Pilgrimage Congress was a failure, the congregants nevertheless decided to reconvene annually, and resolved to establish a permanent secretariat. By the next pilgrimage season, however, Ibn Saud’s Ikhwan henchmen had overrun Mecca and opened their campaign of eradicating all traces of Hashimite rule. Betrayed once again, Sharif Hussein’s foolish dream of an Arab Caliphate evaporated. Sharif Hussein and his family vacated Mecca for Amman to stay with his son King Abdullah of Jordan. The day after Sharif Hussein’s departure, four Ikhwan appeared at the gates of the city, dressed in Ihram, the attire for the Hajj pilgrimage. On the instructions of Ibn Saud, they proclaimed the safety and security of all “who surrendered to God and Abdulaziz [Ibn Saud].”[30] The inhabitants welcomed the Ikhwan as purifiers of Islam, and there was no carnage. However, the Ikhwan set about their task of “purifying” the city, destroying tombs, ornamental mosques, and shrines. They also destroyed all representations of human form and confiscated and burned all musical instruments. Two days later, on October 13, 1924, Ibn Saud himself dressed in Ihram, sacred state which a Muslim must enter to perform the Hajj, and rode into the city, ending 700 years of Hashemite rule.[31]

In October 1924, faced with imminent Wahhabi conquest, the notables of Mecca and Jeddah had induced Hussein to abdicate in favor of his son Ali (1879 – 1935), who renounced all Hashimite claims to the Caliphate. Hussein himself fled to Aqaba, and later settled in Cyprus. After Hussein’s abdication, Faisal pressed the idea even more desperately, with plans to appeal for the participation of King Fuad I of Egypt, the Nawab of Rampur, the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Amir of Afghanistan, the regent of Iran, Shaykh Ahmad al-Sanusi, and Egyptian, Indian, and Southeast Asian Muslim organizations. However, by mid-October, Saudi forces entered Mecca. Ali had no greater ambition than survival. He even promised to an Egyptian mediation mission that he would recognize King Fuad of Egypt as Caliph, if only the Egyptians would extend to him that aid which he thought necessary to beat back Ibn Saud. The appeal failed, and in December 1925, Jeddah fell to Ibn Saud’s warriors, ending the fifty-year bid by the Sharifs of Mecca for Muslim primacy.[32]

 


[1] in C. Bennett. “Amir ‘Ali,” p. 64.

[2] Basheer Nafi. “The Abolition of the caliphate: causes and consequences.” The Different aspects of Islamic culture, V. 6, Pt. I: Islam in the World Today; Retrospective of the Evolution of Islam and the Muslim World. UNESCO. pp. 183–192., pp. 185–186; Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000260326

[3] David Baer. The Dönme.

[4] Basheer Nafi. “The Abolition of the caliphate: causes and consequences.” The Different aspects of Islamic culture, v. 6, pt. I: Islam in the World Today; Retrospective of the Evolution of Islam and the Muslim World. (UNESCO, 2016), pp. 183–192, p. 183.

[5] Cited in Haddad. “Arab Religious Nationalism in the Colonial Era,” p. 272.

[6] Dr. Hilal Livaoglu Mengüc. “Ottoman Caliphate in the Egyptian Press: Examples from Al-Ahram, Al-Muqattam and Al-Manar.” History Studies, 10: 9 (December, 2018), p. 183.

[7] “Zafaral-turkbi’l yunan.” al-Manar, 23 (November 19, 1922), pp. 713-14; cited in Haddad. “Arab Religious Nationalism in the Colonial Era,” p. 272.

[8] Ibid., pp. 714-17; cited in Ibid.

[9] Ibid., pp. 718-19; cited Ibid.

[10] Ibid., pp. 718; cited in Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., p. 270; cited in Ibid., p. 273.

[13] Basheer Nafi. “The Abolition of the caliphate: causes and consequences.” The Different aspects of Islamic culture, Vol. 6, Pt. I: Islam in the World Today; Retrospective of the Evolution of Islam and the Muslim World. (UNESCO, 2016), pp. 188..

[14] Sayyid Rashid Rida. “al-Khilafah aw al-Imamah al-‘Uzma.”

[15] Ibid.

[16] Rida. Tafsiral-Qur’an al-hakim, 2nd ed., 15 vols. (Beirut: Dar al-ma’rifah, n.d.), 5: 181; cited in Haddad. “Arab Religious Nationalism in the Colonial Era,” p. 274.

[17] Haddad. “Arab Religious Nationalism in the Colonial Era,” p. 275–276.

[18] Shavit. “Zionism as told by Rashid Rida,” p. 32–33.

[19] Ibid., p. 32–33.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid., p. 33.

[22] Ibid., p. 34.

[23] “Tafsir al-Qur’an al-hakim.” al-Manar, 25: 4 (July 2, 1924), pp. 345; cited in Shavit. “Zionism as told by Rashid Rida,” p. 36.

[24] Al-Manar (July 1924), 25(5): 390; cited in Kramer. Islam Assembling, p. 82.

[25] Kellar El Menouar, Algerian subject and Gerant du consulat de France (Jidda), dispatch of August 4, 1924, AFC, carton 71, file 13/4; cited in Kramer. Islam Assembling, p. 84.

[26] Arnold H. Green. The Tunisian Ulama 1873–1915: Social structure and response to ideological currents (Brill Archive, 1978), pp. 185–186.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid.

[30] William Powell. Saudi Arabia and Its Royal Family (L. Stuart, 1982), p. 69.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Kramer. Islam Assembling, p. 85.

Divide & Conquer