This part of the display has made as little permanent impression in the Moslim world as Saladin himself; and German scientists at that time shook their heads when they heard of it. But now these words suddenly are at a premium: Grothe and Becker give their interpretations of them, and the Turks have been so energetically reminded of them that Nazim-bey quoted them in his address to the German ambassador and that the Sultan by mistake borrowed from them the oftentimes corrected, at any rate very antiquated, census-figures of his manifesto.
Till recently Becker, “through ignorance,” as he now avers, has “considered this emphasizing of the Caliph-title by Germany as a mistake”; but now, after Prince von Bülow’s explanations in Deutschland unter Kaiser Wilhelm II., he joyfully discovers in it the first powerful expression of “a conscious German Islâm-policy” and the proof “that German policy has from the first taken Islâm into account as an international factor.” Becker’s scientific conscience, in this conversion and in his defence of the adoption of the Caliphate among the factors of international politics, is not so untroubled as that of Grothe, who does not seem to feel at all the grotesqueness of this Islâm-policy. At any rate, Becker says that he does not wish to be considered as having expressed an opinion on the relation between Turkey and Germany; that he restricts himself to stating the fact that such a relation exists; that, as a matter of fact, millions of dissatisfied Mohammedan subjects of European nations expect their salvation from Turkey, and that the hour has struck for Germany to make use of this mood.
Salvation from Turkey! The country of which Martin Hartmann quite recently said that “the exclusion of the Islamic-Turkish rule from Europe is drawing near”; and that “she [Turkey] should have been already long ago threatened with being placed under guardianship”; or again: “thus will only come more quickly that which will have to come sometime, anyway: the lapsing of political power from the hands of dying Turkdom”; from Turkey, which, according to Becker, must be re-created and under the energetic direction of Germany be transformed into a modern civilized state, a thing which a few years ago he declared to be feasible only if the Caliphate-idea were either entirely abandoned or emphasized as little as possible!
How is it that Turkey suddenly is considered able to do that which until recently had been put aside as nonsense; how is it that now they recommend as useful to Turkey what, such a short time ago, was considered a source of certain ruin? When, in his Ultimatum des Panislamismus Hartmann scourged the agitators who wished to give to the Turkish-Italian conflict the character of a religious war, he at the same time gave the sharpest criticism imaginable of Germany’s present attempt to revive the dying mediæval fanaticism of the Mohammedan world. “Turkey can only exclaim: Heaven protect me against my friends!”—so he then justly said. What may not Turkey exclaim now that her best friend is exciting her to religious war, and presently turns over to her the Mohammedan prisoners who fought against Germany, in order to submit them to a politico-religious conversion cure?
We can only attribute all this to the lamentable upsetting of the balance, even in the intellectual atmosphere, of what we used to call the civilized world. For in normal times we know that the Germans are far too sensible and logical to digest the enormous nonsense that a thing which in general would be considered as a shame for mankind and a catastrophe for Turkey can become good and commendable as soon as Germany places herself behind or beside the Crescent. We do not know what will be the issue of many of the present terrible happenings; but this, I think, I may already now foretell with certainty, that within a not very long time a number of German writings will testify that also in Germany indignation has been aroused by the despicable game that is being played with the Caliphate and the holy war.
It would be risky, now that the facts will so speedily speak their incontrovertible language, to try to foretell in how far the attempt to light the blaze of a Mohammedan religious war on a large scale, and thereby to cause endless confusion in international relations, has a chance to succeed. Hartmann formerly denied the possibility with full conviction: “... as soon,” said he, “as the representatives of the various Islamic groups confer together about common measures, the enormous differences in ethnical, economic, and intellectual tendencies among the two hundred million Mohammedans show themselves!” Becker, who formerly called “the solidarity of Islâm a phantom,” says now: “The great war which reveals and decides so much, will also bring the proof as to whether the often-discussed international solidarity of Islâm is a real factor or a delusion.”
It is certain that if Germany persists in her present “Islâm-policy” there will be no lack of all sorts of measures destined to put before the Mohammedan public the history of the origins of that policy and the new relation of vassal in which the re-created Sultan-Caliph finds himself with regard to Germany. But against a Commander of the Faithful, himself under an unbelieving Commander, even Mohammedans of the old stamp, who otherwise might have been duped by the comedy, will have serious objections. The main basis of the claim of the Ottoman sultans was their sword; not a sword that would be drawn and sheathed at the order of an unbelieving “ally.”
Fortunately, we need not worry with regard to our Dutch-Indian Mohammedan population. They adopted Islâm when the Turkish Empire had already come into existence, but without Turkey’s noticing it; and they have never had any contact with the Crescent. The Sultan of Rûm, as they call the Great Lord of Constantinople, has remained a legendary creature for them. To be sure, the panislamistic idea has penetrated into the East-Indian Archipelago, but it has found little favourable ground. The large mass of the lower classes remains untouched, and the majority of the higher classes is entirely immune against this politico-religious mixture of deceit and nonsense. And we have good reason to believe that this immunity will constantly spread. For if Germany has quite recently inaugurated her “conscious Islâm-policy” with the above-described displays, we have already had for a few years longer our conscious educational policy towards the native population which history has entrusted to our care; and against that, Caliphate and holy war and other mediæval iniquities are fortunately powerless. If we only unshakably adhere to our centuries-old guarantee of complete religious liberty for our Mohammedans, and at the same time continue to pursue our educational policy at a constantly increased pace, we shall never have to fear the peculiar sort of “intellectual weapons” which now for the first time are put into circulation with the trade-mark “made in Germany.” Still, we keep hoping in the interest of humanity that Germany will before long withdraw the new product from the market.