In China, likewise, the nineteenth century witnessed an extraordinary development of Moslem energy. Islam had reached China in very early times, brought in by Arab traders and bands of Arab mercenary soldiers. Despite centuries of intermarriage with Chinese women, their descendants still differ perceptibly from the general Chinese population, and regard themselves as a separate and superior people. The Chinese Mohammedans are mainly concentrated in the southern province of Yunnan and the inland provinces beyond. Besides these racially Chinese Moslems, another centre of Mohammedan population is found in the Chinese dependency of Eastern or Chinese Turkestan, inhabited by Turkish stocks and conquered by the Chinese only in the eighteenth century. Until comparatively recent times the Chinese Moslems were well treated, but gradually their proud-spirited attitude alarmed the Chinese Government, which withdrew their privileges and persecuted them. Early in the nineteenth century the breath of the Mohammedan Revival reached China, as it did every other part of the Moslem world, and the Chinese Mohammedans, inflamed by resurgent fanaticism, began a series of revolts culminating in the great rebellions which took place about the year 1870, both in Yunnan and in Eastern Turkestan. As usual, these fanaticized Moslems displayed fierce fighting power. The Turkestan rebels found an able leader, one Yakub Beg, and for some years both Turkestan and Yunnan were virtually independent. To many European observers at that time it looked as though the rebels might join hands, erect a permanent Mohammedan state in western China, and even overrun the whole empire. The fame of Yakub Beg spread through the Moslem world, the Sultan of Turkey honouring him with the high title of Commander of the Faithful. After years of bitter fighting, accompanied by frightful massacres, the Chinese Government subdued the rebels. The Chinese Moslems, greatly reduced in numbers, have not yet recovered their former strength; but their spirit is still unbroken, and to-day they number fully 10,000,000. Thus, Chinese Islam, despite its setbacks, is a factor to be reckoned with in the future.[40]
The above instances do not exhaust the list of Islam's activities during the past century. In India, for example, Islam has continued to gain ground rapidly, while in the Dutch Indies it is the same story.[41] European domination actually favours rather than retards the spread of Islam, for the Moslem finds in Western improvements, like the railroad, the post-office, and the printing-press, useful adjuncts to Islamic propaganda.
Let us now consider the second originating centre of modern Pan-Islamism—the movement especially associated with the personality of Djemal-ed-Din.
Seyid Djemal-ed-Din el-Afghani was born early in the nineteenth century at Asadabad, near Hamadan, in Persia, albeit, as his name shows, he was of Afghan rather than Iranian descent, while his title "Seyid," meaning descendant of the Prophet, implies a strain of Arab blood. Endowed with a keen intelligence, great personal magnetism, and abounding vigour, Djemal-ed-Din had a stormy and chequered career. He was a great traveller, knowing intimately not only most of the Moslem world but western Europe as well. From these travels, supplemented by wide reading, he gained a notable fund of information which he employed effectively in his manifold activities. A born propagandist, Djemal-ed-Din attracted wide attention, and wherever he went in Islam his strong personality started an intellectual ferment. Unlike El Sennussi, he concerned himself very little with theology, devoting himself to politics. Djemal-ed-Din was the first Mohammedan who fully grasped the impending peril of Western domination, and he devoted his life to warning the Islamic world of the danger and attempting to elaborate measures of defence. By European colonial authorities he was soon singled out as a dangerous agitator. The English, in particular, feared and persecuted him. Imprisoned for a while in India, he went to Egypt about 1880, and had a hand in the anti-European movement of Arabi Pasha. When the English occupied Egypt in 1882 they promptly expelled Djemal, who continued his wanderings, finally reaching Constantinople. Here he found a generous patron in Abdul-Hamid, then evolving his Pan-Islamic policy. Naturally, the Sultan was enchanted with Djemal, and promptly made him the head of his Pan-Islamic propaganda bureau. In fact, it is probable that the success of the Sultan's Pan-Islamic policy was largely due to Djemal's ability and zeal. Djemal died in 1896 at an advanced age, active to the last.
Djemal-ed-Din's teachings may be summarized as follows:
"The Christian world, despite its internal differences of race and nationality, is, as against the East and especially as against Islam, united for the destruction of all Mohammedan states.
"The Crusades still subsist, as well as the fanatical spirit of Peter the Hermit. At heart, Christendom still regards Islam with fanatical hatred and contempt. This is shown in many ways, as in international law, before which Moslem nations are not treated as the equals of Christian nations.
"Christian governments excuse the attacks and humiliations inflicted upon Moslem states by citing the latter's backward and barbarous condition; yet these same governments stifle by a thousand means, even by war, every attempted effort of reform and revival in Moslem lands.
"Hatred of Islam is common to all Christian peoples, not merely to some of them, and the result of this spirit is a tacit, persistent effort for Islam's destruction.
"Every Moslem feeling and aspiration is caricatured and calumniated by Christendom. 'The Europeans call in the Orient "fanaticism" what at home they call "nationalism" and "patriotism." And what in the West they call "self-respect," "pride," "national honour," in the East they call "chauvinism." What in the West they esteem as national sentiment, in the East they consider xenophobia.'[42]