The eviction of the Turks from Constantinople, which the British wished for but which they dared not carry into effect, does not thwart the scheme of the Turkish Nationalists; it can only bring about a reaction of the Moslem populations against foreign intervention, and thus strengthen the Pan-Turanian movement. Though this movement cannot carry out all its aims, the eviction of the Turks obviously must urge those populations to constitute a State based both on the community of religion and the community of race of its various elements, and from which all alien ethnic elements would be expelled—viz., Slavs, Armenians, Greeks, and Arabs, who were all an inherent source of weakness to the Turkish Empire. This new State would include Anatolia, Russian Azerbaïjan, and Persian Azerbaïjan, the Russian territories in Central Asia—viz., Russian Turkistan, Khiva, Bokhara—the whole of the region of the Steppes; and towards it the Tatar populations of the Volga, Afghanistan, and Chinese Turkistan would necessarily be attracted.
As to the Arabs, the Turks have never been able to gain their friendship, though they have done their best to do so, and have drawn but little profit from the money squandered plentifully in their vast deserts. And the Russians have always stood in the way of an understanding between Turkey and the Arabian territories, because it would have benefited the cause of Islam and therefore would have hindered both their own designs on the territories of Asia Minor and the ambitions of the Orthodox Church. Yet to the Turks as well as the Arabs—and even to the Europeans—it would be a great advantage not to injure the understanding and goodwill that Islam engenders among these peoples, since its creed has both a religious and a political aspect.
The maintenance of this Islamic union has been wrongly called—in the disparaging sense of the word—Pan-Islamism. Yet its ideal has nothing in common with such doctrines as those of Pan-Germanism, Pan-Slavism, Pan-Americanism, Pan-Polism, Pan-Hellenism, etc., which are all imperialistic doctrines aiming at territorial conquests by military or economic means, and also by the diffusion of their own religious creeds and the extension of the influence of their Churches. While Pan-Germanism aims at the hegemony of the world; while Pan-Americanism wants to control the whole of America; while Pan-Slavism wishes to gather together all the Slavonic elements—which is defensible—but also means to supplant the old civilisation of Western Europe, which it considers as “rotten,” and to renovate the world; while Pan-Polism, which has not such ambitious aims, merely seeks, like Pan-Hellenism, to conquer wider territories in order to restore Greater Poland or Greater Greece—Islam, which does not try to make any proselytes, has no other ambition than to group all Moslem elements according to the commandments of the Koran. Yet, Islam having both a political and a religious purpose, a Pan-Islamic concept might be defensible, and would be legitimate from the Moslem point of view, whereas it cannot be so from the Christian point of view. Pan-Catholicism, on the contrary, is an impossible thing, because Christianity does not imply a political doctrine, and is distinct from temporal power—though such a doctrine has sometimes been advocated. For in the doctrine of monarchy, especially in France, religion has always been held merely as a help, a support, and the monarch, though he has often been a defender of the Faith, has never looked upon his power as dependent on the Papacy or bound up with it. Islam, however, does not want to assert itself in, and give birth to, a huge political movement—a Pan-Islamic movement in the imperialistic sense of the word—aiming at constituting a huge theocratic State, including all the 300 million Moslems who are now living. But there is between all Moslems a deep moral solidarity, a mighty religious bond which accounts for their sympathetic feeling towards Turkey, and owing to which even the Moslem inhabitants of countries which have lost their independence still earnestly defend and jealously maintain the privileges and dignity of the Caliph.
So it is a mistake to speak of the ambitious designs of Islam, and the mistake has been made wilfully. Those who profess such an opinion are Pan-Slavic Russians who want to deceive public opinion in the world as to their true intent, and thus prepare for territorial annexations, because Pan-Slavism is the enemy of Islamism. As this Pan-Slavism has always been, and is still more than ever, a danger to Europe, it is the interest of the latter, in order to defend its civilisation, not to fight against Islamism, but even to support it. This necessity has been understood by many Catholics who have always been favourable to Turkey and by the Mussulmans, which accounts for the long friendly intercourse between Moslems and Catholics, and the Moslems’ tolerance toward the devotees of a religion which, on the whole, is in complete contradiction to their own faith. On the other hand, Islam appears as counterbalancing Protestantism in the East, and it seems the future of thought and morality and of any culture would be endangered if the 60 million Indian Moslems and the 220 million Indian Brahminists, Buddhists, and the members of other sects ever listened to Mr. Lloyd George and were connected with Protestantism.
Moreover, King Hussein, in the course of the audience that he granted in July, 1920, to Prince Ruffo, the leader of the Italian mission to Arabia, before his departure, after saying that the Moslem world resented the hostile attitude of the Powers towards the Sultan of Constantinople, declared that the Moslems are not actuated by any feeling of conquest or proselytism, but simply claim the right to preserve their independence.
Footnotes:
[36] Hayassdan, July 6, 1915; No. 25.
[37] We are the more anxious to correct these figures as in 1916, at a time when it was difficult to control them, we gave about the same figures in a note to the Société d’Anthropologie as to the demographic consequences of the war. We then relied upon the documents that had just been published and on the statements of the Rev. Harold Buxton.
[38] Le Mouvement pan-russe et les Allogènes (Paris, 1919).
[39] The Times, March 15, 1920.