9. The Treaty of Jeddah

Conquest of Mecca

In the wake of the tragedy of the end of the office of the Ottoman Caliphate, a Caliphate Congress was convened in Cairo in May 1926 by the Ulama from al-Azhar. A month later, from June–July 1926, Rashid Rida was a prominent delegate and organizer of another Pan-Islamic Congress, this time convened by Ibn Saud, during the Hajj season. As Ibn Saud had been proclaimed king the previous January, breaching his promise to involve the wider Muslim world in determining the political future of the region, he was seeking to gain international Islamic recognition of the Saudi rule of Hijaz and to counter the reputation of extreme sectarianism associated with the Ikhwan henchmen.[1] A leading light at the congress was the Grand Mufti of Palestine, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini, marking the consolidation of the alliance between pan-Islamists and the leaders of the new Wahhabi state [2] According to Kramer:

 

So began the modern transformation by which the Saudis were to shed their association with schismatic fanaticism, and become for many Muslims the sole keepers of the orthodox flame.[3]

 

The congress idea was a continuation of the plan first devised by Wilfred Scawen Blunt and promoted in al-Manar, whose editor Rashid Rida played a leading role in the event. As explained by Martin Kramer, in Islam Assembled. The Advent of the Muslim Congresses, the congress is originally a Western idea, and:

 

So it happened that the congress idea first emerged as a challenge to the authority of the Ottoman caliphate. The transmitters of this derivative idea, to the extent that their identities can be established, were men unsympathetic to the Ottoman state, and the original association with dissent much affected the idea’s subsequent reception. The congress was first advocated not to buttress established authority and enforce established belief, but to topple a perceived edifice of despotism and religious obscurantism. It began as a radical solution for those dissatisfied with the Muslim political and doctrinal order, a solution so against the prevalent grain that its first proponents were not—perhaps could not have been—Muslims.[4]

 

Muslims around the world were deeply concerned that the Wahhabis would continue their destruction of Islamic tradition and its holy sites. Despite their fears, on April 21, 1925, the mausoleums and domes at Al-Baqi in Medina were once again levelled and so were indicators of the exact location of the resting places of Muhammad’s family members and descendants. Portions of the famed Qasida al-Burda, the thirteenth century ode written in praise of Muhammad by the Sufi poet Imam al-Busiri (1212 – 1294), inscribed over Muhammad’s tomb, were painted over. The Maqamat in the Masjid al-Haram (“Great Mosque of Mecca”) in the Mataf area, used by the Imams to lead prayers for the four Madhabs, were destroyed to purportedly unify the prayer times and make more space available for the Hajj pilgrims.[5] Among specific sites targeted at this time were the graves of the Martyrs of the Battle of Uhud, including the grave of the Muhammad’s uncle, the renowned Hamza ibn Abdul Muttalib (c. 568 – 625), one of his most beloved supporters. Also destroyed were the Mosque of Fatimah Al Zahraa, dedicated to Mohammad’s daughter, as well as the Mosque of the Two Lighthouses (Manaratayn) and also the Qubbat Al-Thanaya, the cupola built as the burial place of Mohammad’s incisor tooth, which was broken from a blow received during the Battle of Uhud. In Medina, the Mashrubat Umm Ibrahim, the home of Mohammad’s Egyptian wife Mariah and the birthplace of their son Ibrahim, as well as the adjacent burial site of Hamida al-Barbariyya, mother of Musa al-Kadhim, were destroyed during this time. The site was paved over and is today part of the massive marble esplanade beside the Mosque. The government-appointed permanent scholarly committee of Saudi Arabia has ordered the demolition of such structures in a series of Islamic rulings noting excessive veneration leading to Shirk (idolatry).[6]

As the Saudi conquests progressed, Rida received a growing number of letters from readers of al-Manar expressing concern about the Wahhabis and their seizure of the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina. When one reader wrote to ask whether or not the Ikhwan had destroyed the enclosure in which the tomb of the Prophet is found as well as the green dome on top of it, Rida responded that he considered the question preposterous and not worthy of an answer, but he nonetheless assured that the Ikhwan had probably not razed anything around, or on top of, the Prophet’s tomb. While Rida often acknowledged the existence of Ghulat (‘fanatics”) among the Wahhabis, but he attempted to downplay their importance by stressing that Ibn Saud was a reasonable man. After the Ikhwan had notoriously captured and plundered the city of Taif in 1924, killing hundreds of civilians in the process, Rida, although he expressed regret, argued that such actions happened in all wars and were generally the result of unintentional mistakes. Once most of the Saudi military conquests were complete and as soon as Ibn Saud decided to disband the Ikhwan, Rida supported their elimination.[7]

On January 8, 1926, the leading figures in Mecca, Medina and Jeddah proclaimed Ibn Saud the King of Hijaz, and the Bayaa (pledge of allegiance) ceremony was held in the Great Mosque of Mecca. On May 20, 1927, the British government signed the Treaty of Jeddah, which abolished the Darin protection agreement, and recognized the independence of the Hijaz and Najd, with Ibn Saud as their ruler. It was signed on behalf of the United Kingdom by Gilbert Clayton. By that time, Ibn Saud’s forces had overrun most of the central Arabian Peninsula, but the alliance with the Ikhwan collapsed when Ibn Saud forbade further raiding.

On August 27, 1926, the Sentinel, published in Chicago, describing itself as “a weekly newspaper devoted to Jewish interests,” in an article titled “Discovers Jewish Tribe in Central Arabia,” reported that, according to Missim Tager, who was the son of the Chief Rabbi of Damascus, and secretary to the Wahhabi envoy to Syria, a Jewish tribe named Khaybar was closely allied to Ibn Saud.[8] The Jews of Khaybar were a prominent Jewish community north of the city of Medina. The Jews of Khaybar conspired against Mohammed and his followers, culminating in the Battle of Khaybar and their eventual expulsion from the region. Nevertheless, the Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela, writing in the twelfth century, reported the existence of a Jewish community living in Khayar.[9] According to the Sentinel, the tribe, which numbered 60,000 and included 30,000 armed men, gained their livelihood by cattle breeding and raiding. During the Wahbabis’ war against the Hashimite dynasty, the Khayar tribe was closely allied with Ibn Saud, supplying him valuable assistance. Several of the lieutenants of Ibn Saud were members of the Jewish tribe. The treasurer of Ibn Saud’s kingdom was a Jew from Khayar named Mordecai.[10]

 

Cairo Caliphate Congress 

The Cairo Caliphate conference was scheduled under the presidency of the Shaykh al-Azhar, Muhammad al-Jizawi (1874 – 1927). In March 1924, immediately after the abolition of the Caliphate, Jizawi formed the Greater Committee for Religious Knowledge in direct response to the collapse of the Caliphate, which adopted the following resolution:

 

Whereas the Caliphate in Islam implies general control of the spiritual and temporal affairs of Islam; Whereas the Turkish Government deprived the Caliph Abdulmejid II of his temporal powers, thereby disqualifying him from becoming Caliph in the sense that Islam required; seeing that in principal the Caliph is destined to be the representative of the Prophet, safeguarding everything concerning Islam, which necessarily means the Caliph should be subject of respect, veneration and obedience; and whereas the Caliph Abdulmejid II no longer possesses such qualifications and has not even the power to live in his native land; now therefore it has been decided to convene an Islamic conference in which all Muslim nations shall be represented in order to consider who should be appointed Caliph…[11]

 

King Fuad I (1868 – 1936), was behind the meeting since he thought of himself as the most suitable candidate for the caliphate.[12] Fuad was the ninth ruler of Egypt and Sudan from the Muhammad Ali dynasty, become Sultan in 1917, succeeding his elder brother Hussein Kamel. He replaced the title of Sultan with King when the United Kingdom unilaterally declared Egyptian independence in 1922. Fuad, who was granted extensive powers with the 1923 Constitution, made frequent use of his right to dissolve Parliament. During his reign, cabinets were dismissed at royal will, and parliaments never lasted for their full four-year term but were instead dissolved by decree.[13] While King Fuad I saw himself as more deserving to claim the title of Caliphate, leading Ulama, many of whom were associated with his bid, believed that only the leaders of al-Azhar could settle the question. However, aware that they could not impose their will on the world Muslim community, the Azharis decided to organize a pan-Islamic congress to decide on the future of the Caliphate, and a preparatory committee was set up in October 1924. Originally, the congress was scheduled to meet in March 1925, but opposition to the idea within and outside Egypt resulted in further delays.[14]

It was in the midst of this contentious debate that the Azhari judge of Sharia court, Shaykh Ali Abdel Raziq (1888 – 1966) published his controversial book al-Islam wa-usul al-Hukm (“Islam and the Fundamentals of Governance”). Abdel Raziq, who had attended Oxford University, became a scholar and jurist at Al-Azhar. He argued that the Caliphate was not a religious institution, and that neither Islamic historical precedents nor the Sharia precluded Muslims from developing different forms of government. One of the most significant contributions to the debate was Rida’s Al-Khilafa aw al-Imama al-ʿUzma (“The Caliphate or the Supreme Imamate”), regarded as the major counter-argument to both the Turkish view and that of Abdel Raziq.[15]

The congress was organized officially under the initiative of Shaykh al-Azhar, but was very much under the supervision of his personal secretary and president of the higher council of Azhar ulama, Shaykh Muhammad Faraj al-Minyawi. Planning the congress alongside him were Rashid Rida, who had recently described his vision of an elected Caliphate, published in 1922.[16] According to Rida, who served on the preparatory subcommittee for invitations, sectarian differences were to be disregarded, and welcome were Wahhabis, Ibadis, Zaydi and Twelver Shiahs, and even the Aga Khan of the Ismailis.[17] To select worthy participants from North Africa and Syria a secret appeal was made to Henri Gaillard, ambassador in Cairo for France, which ruled Algeria, Tunisia, and Syria. In Gaillard’s opinion, France stood to benefit from compliance with the request, because if French authorities did not provide a list of names, the selection process “risks being guided by those Syrian and North African elements in Cairo or Alexandria who are the least favorable to France.”[18]

But when the congress was finally assembled on May 13, 1926, after two years of the first preparations and hundreds of invitations, only 39 delegates attended, most of whom were Egyptians. Opposition to the congress from countries such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, or colonial administrations in occupied Muslim countries, contributed to a disappointing outcome. The al-Azhar committee put their hopes in India, and the Khilafat Movement. As for the conference itself, according to the report written by the Central Khilafat Committee delegation the grand meeting, in which 67 delegates from 15 different countries, regions, and organizations were present, was largely a failure. None of the thirty-nine delegates at the Caliphate Congress represented the governments of the Arab and Muslim world that had emerged by at the time. Conspicuously absent were representatives from India, Persia, Afghanistan, Turkey, or Algeria. One Shiah religious representative went so far as to suggest that Egypt was not an appropriate venue for the meeting because it was under British control. The Egyptians countered that Najaf in Iraq, the proposed alternative, was also under a British mandate. British authorities in Egypt grew frustrated with the lobbying for the meeting. Unenthusiastic about the meeting, they thought it advisable that Iran should not participate, and the organizers were reprimanded for the endeavor.[19]

As the leaders of the Caliphate Congress were suspicious of Egypt, when it appeared in late March 1924 that the Azhar Ulama would proclaim Fuad Caliph, Shaukat Ali urged caution on Saad Zaghlul—Afghani’s former Masonic brother in the Eastern Star lodge, now the newly installed Egyptian Prime Minister—expressing the hope that Egyptian Ulama “do not intend any hasty action regarding future of khilafate.” The Khilafat Committee had hoped to persuade Turkey to appoint a Turk to the position and, failing that, the “future of khilafate should be left to be settled by proposed world muslim conference.”[20] Zaghlul, who initially wavered on the question of an Egyptian Caliph, decided against seeking the title for an Egyptian ruler.[21]

The failure of the organizers to secure broad participation led to them modifying the agenda to exclude the actual selection of a Caliph, and the congress finally only met to declare that the Caliphate was still possible.[22] The proceedings themselves were published serially in Arabic by Rida, in Urdu translation by the Indian Muslim activist and organizer Inayatullah Khan Mashriqi (1888 – 1963), and in French translation by Achille Sékaly. As a young man, because of his father’s position Mashriqi came into contact with a range of well-known luminaries including Afghani, the Syed Ahmad Khan, and Shibli Nomani, who had invited Rashi Rida to the Nadwat al-Ulama in Lucknow.[23] In 1907, Mashriqi moved to England, where he matriculated at Christ’s College, Cambridge. An theistic evolutionist, who accepted some of Darwin’s ideas, Mashriqi declared that the science of religions was essentially the science of collective evolution of mankind, that all prophets came to unite.[24] In 1924, Mashriqi completed the first volume of Tazkirah, a commentary on the Quran in the light of science, which was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1925.[25] On the basis of the proceedings, as translated by Sékaly, a number of contemporary observers wrote secondary studies, including the Arnold Toynbee.[26]

In later years, various memoirs and published letters of participants were produced. Rashid Rida discussed the details of the congress with in his published letters to friend Shakib Arslan.[27] A son of Shaykh Mohammed al-Ahmadi al-Zawahiri (1887 – 1944), who was a leading Egyptian participant and later Shaykh al-Azhar, published his father’s recollections concerning the event.[28] Shaykh Zawahiri was the grandfather of Ayman al-Zawahiri (1951 – 2022), the Egyptian-born pan-Islamist militant and doctor who served as the second-in-command of al-Qaeda to Osama bin Laden, and who is best known for being one of the main architects of 9/11 terrorist attacks.[29]

 

Meccan Congress

Zawahiri also participated as chief of the Egyptian delegation the subsequent congress in Mecca In June–July 1926, called by Ibn Saud.[30] Of the unofficial participants Zawahiri was most impressed with were the representatives of the Indian Khilafat Committee, led by two brothers, Muhammad and Shaukat Ali. They were originally supportive of Ibn Saud in his war against Husayn of Mecca, whose Arab revolt they had regarded as treasonous. They initially placed some hope in Ibn Saud, but as they saw the political developments in the Hijaz transpire, they became disappointed with him as well.[31] Ibn Saud’s more vocal opponents were absent from the congress. King Faisal was invited, but refused take part in any gathering organized by his arch rival.[32] Ibn Saud had informed the participants that they were to avoid discussing the policies of not only his own, but of any state. To avoid any charge of interference, Ibn Saud himself did not attend the congress.[33] Ibn Saud also lent financial support for al-Husseini’s participation.[34] However, no significant resolutions were passed at the subsequent congress in Mecca organized by Ibn Saud, and no additional congresses were held in the city due to the deep doctrinal, and political differences across the Muslim world.[35]

When rumors began to circulate about the financial support he was receiving from Ibn Saud, as well as the Egyptian consul and British vice consul, Rida, who was most prominent delegate present in a private capacity, wrote a lengthy defensive polemic on patronage.[36] After the congress, Rida’s ever-shifting political outlook continued to be evident. The final stage of Rida’s anti-Semitism, after 1928, was in response to the conflict sparked over the Jews’ right to pray near the Wailing Wall, which he described as a religious war between the Jews, the British, and Islam, and intensified his attacks against world Jewry, and confidently asserted that Muslims would prevail and that Zionism would ultimately be defeated.[37] On August 23, 1929, there erupted the most widespread Arab riots since the start of the British Mandate, in which 133 Jews were killed, mostly in Jerusalem and Hebron. The events took place almost a year after the Palestinians had first protested that the Jews were trying to change the status of the Wailing Wall, which was part of the al-Aqsa compound, and days later thousands of Jews had gathered near the wall and marched in Tel Aviv, chanting “The wall is ours.”[38] “The tensions leading to the riots, and their ultimate outbreak, a defining event in the Palestinian-Zionist conflict, marked the fifth and final evolution in al-Manar’s conceptualization of Zionism as a threat,” explained Shavit.[39]

In response to these events, Zionism became a primary concern in al-Manar. During that period, Rida became actively opposed to Zionism as a writer, as well as an activist and public speaker. Responding to the growing conflict in Palestine, al-Manar no longer depicted the situation as a struggle between religiously motivated Jews and a weak local Palestinian population faced with extinction. The idea of a religious war, mentioned only briefly two decades earlier, and then ignored, resurfaced now as the main basis of his analysis. In this struggle, Rida perceived the British support of the Jews as part of Britain’s “ambitious” but duplicitous plan to subordinate the Arab nation and impose British rule on the Arabian Peninsula and the three holiest shrines—in Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. In this endeavor, the ultimate goal of the Jews was the destruction of al-Aqsa, the third holiest shrine in Islam, and its replacement with the Third Temple.[40]

 


[1] Kramer. Muslims Assembled, p. 108.

[2] “History.” World Muslim Congress (Motamar al-Alam al-Islami). Retrieved from http://www.motamaralalamalislami.org/history.html; Gilbert Achcar. The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2009), p. 108.

[3] Kramer. Muslims Assembled, p. 108.

[4] Kramer. Islam Assembled, p. 10.

[5] “Maqamat of the Four Imams.” Madain Project. Retrieved from https://madainproject.com/maqamat_of_the_four_imams

[6] “Fatwas of the Permanent Committee.” Official KSA Rulings. Retrieved from http://aliftaweb.org/English/Pages/FatwasPermanentCommittee.aspx?cultStr=en&View=Tree&NodeID=8510&PageNo=1&BookID=7

[7] Lauzière. The Making of Salafism, p. 66–67.

[8] “Discovers Jewish Tribe in Central Arabia.” The Sentinel (August 27, 1926). Retrieved from http://www.idaillinois.org/digital/api/collection/p16614coll14/id/21734/download

[9] Marcus Nathan Adler (ed.) The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (London: Oxford University Press, 1907), pp. 47-49.

[10] “Discovers Jewish Tribe in Central Arabia.” The Sentinel.

[11] “The Caliphate.” The Times Issue, 43612 (March 28, 1924).

[12] James Piscatori. “Imagining Pan-Islam: Religious Activism and Political Utopias: Elie Kedourie Memorial Lecture.” in P. J. Marshall (ed.). Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 131, 2004 Lectures (London, 2005; online edn, British Academy Scholarship Online, 31 Jan. 2012), p. 428.

[13] Ahmed Abdalla. The Student Movement and National Politics in Egypt, 1923–1973 (American University in Cairo Press, 2008), pp. 4–5.

[14] 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.

[15] Ibid., p. 188.

[16] Kramer. Islam Assembled, p. 88.

[17] Ibid., p. 91.

[18] Ibid.

[19] James Piscatori. “Imagining Pan-Islam: Religious Activism and Political Utopias: Elie Kedourie Memorial Lecture.” in P. J. Marshall (ed.). Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 131, 2004 Lectures (London, 2005; online edn, British Academy Scholarship Online, 31 Jan. 2012), p. 428.

[20] Kramer. Islam Assembled, p. 93.

[21] Ibid., p. 90.

[22] Kramer. Islam Assembled, p. 86.

[23] Nasim Yousaf. Pakistan’s Freedom & Allama Mashriqi; Statements, Letters, Chronology of Khaksar Tehrik (Movement), Period: Mashriqi’s Birth to 1947, p. 3.

[24] S. Shabbir Hussain (ed.). God, Man, and Universe (Akhuwat Publications, Rawalpindi, 1980).

[25] Majid Sheikh. “Harking Back: Cost of ignoring a man like Mashriqi.” DAWN.COM (August 17, 2014). Retrieved from http://www.dawn.com/news/1125878

[26] Kramer. Islam Assembled, p. 87.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Youssef H. Aboul-Enein (March 2004). “Ayman Al-Zawahiri: The Ideologue of Modern Islamic Militancy.” Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. p. 1. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20200114224007/https://media.defense.gov/2019/Apr/11/2002115486/-1/-1/0/21AYMANALZAWAHIRI.PDF

[30] Kramer. Islam Assembled, p. 108.

[31] Kramer. Islam Assembled, p. 108.

[32] Kramer. Islam Assembled, p. 111.

[33] Kramer. Islam Assembled, p. 112.

[34] Kramer. Islam Assembled, p. 120.

[35] Martin Kramer. “Congresses.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), vol. 1, pp. 308-11.

[36] Kramer. Islam Assembled, p. 108.

[37] Shavit. “Zionism as told by Rashid Rida,” p. 24.

[38] Morris. Righteous Victims, 111–17; cited in Shavit. “Zionism as told by Rashid Rida,” p. 36.

[39] Shavit. “Zionism as told by Rashid Rida,” p. 36.

[40] “Fath al-yahud li-bab al-fitna fi al-Quds” (The Jews open the door to turmoil in Jerusalem). al-Manar, 29: 6 (October 1928), pp. 414–16; cited in Shavit. “Zionism as told by Rashid Rida,” p. 37.

Divide & Conquer