Perhaps it is symptomatic of a more bellicose temper in Islam that the last few years have witnessed the rapid spread of two new puritan, fanatic movements—the Ikhwan and the Salafîya. The Ikhwan movement began obscurely about ten years ago in inner Arabia—the Nejd. It is a direct outgrowth of Wahabism, from which it differs in no essential respect. So rapid has been Ikhwanism's progress that it to-day absolutely dominates the entire Nejd, and it is headed by desert Arabia's most powerful chieftain, Bin Saud, a descendant of the Saud who headed the Wahabi movement a hundred years ago. The fanaticism of the Ikhwans is said to be extraordinary, while their programme is the old Wahabi dream of a puritan conversion of the whole Islamic world.[69] As for the Salafî movement, it started in India even more obscurely than Ikhwanism did in Arabia, but during the past few years it has spread widely through Islam. Like Ikhwanism, it is puritanical and fanatical in spirit, its adherents being found especially among dervish organizations.[70] Such phenomena, taken with everything else, do not augur well for the peace of the East.
So much for Pan-Islamism's religious and political sides. Now let us glance at its commercial and industrial aspects—at what may be called economic Pan-Islamism.
Economic Pan-Islamism is the direct result of the permeation of Western ideas. Half a century ago the Moslem world was economically still in the Middle Ages. The provisions of the sheriat, or Moslem canon law, such as the prohibition of interest rendered economic life in the modern sense impossible. What little trade and industry did exist was largely in the hands of native Christians or Jews. Furthermore, the whole economic life of the East was being disorganized by the aggressive competition of the West. Europe's political conquest of the Moslem world was, in fact, paralleled by an economic conquest even more complete. Everywhere percolated the flood of cheap, abundant European machine-made goods, while close behind came European capital, temptingly offering itself in return for loans and concessions which, once granted, paved the way for European political domination.
Yet in economics as in politics the very completeness of Europe's triumph provoked resistance. Angered and alarmed by Western exploitation, Islam frankly recognized its economic inferiority and sought to escape from its subjection. Far-sighted Moslems began casting about for a modus vivendi with modern life that would put Islam economically abreast of the times. Western methods were studied and copied. The prohibitions of the sheriat were evaded or quietly ignored.
The upshot has been a marked evolution toward Western economic standards. This evolution is of course still in its early stages, and is most noticeable in lands most exposed to Western influences like India, Egypt, and Algeria. Yet everywhere in the Moslem world the trend is the same. The details of this economic transformation will be discussed in the chapter devoted to economic change. What we are here concerned with is its Pan-Islamic aspect. And that aspect is very strong. Nowhere does Islam's innate solidarity come out better than in the economic field. The religious, cultural, and customary ties which bind Moslem to Moslem enable Mohammedans to feel more or less at home in every part of the Islamic world, while Western methods of transit and communication enable Mohammedans to travel and keep in touch as they never could before. New types of Moslems—wholesale merchants, steamship owners, business men, bankers, even factory industrialists and brokers—are rapidly evolving; types which would have been simply unthinkable a century, or even half a century, ago.
And these new men understand each other perfectly. Bound together both by the ties of Islamic fraternity and by the pressure of Western competition, they co-ordinate their efforts much more easily than politicals have succeeded in doing. Here liberals, Pan-Islamists, and nationalists can meet on common ground. Here is no question of political conspiracies, revolts, or holy wars, challenging the armed might of Europe and risking bloody repression or blind reaction. On the contrary, here is merely a working together of fellow Moslems for economic ends by business methods which the West cannot declare unlawful and dare not repress.
What, then, is the specific programme of economic Pan-Islamism? It is easily stated: the wealth of Islam for Moslems. The profits of trade and industry for Moslem instead of Christian hands. The eviction of Western capital by Moslem capital. Above all, the breaking of Europe's grip on Islam's natural resources by the termination of concessions in lands, mines, forests, railways, custom-houses, by which the wealth of Islamic lands is to-day drained away to foreign shores.
Such are the aspirations of economic Pan-Islamism. They are wholly modern concepts, the outgrowth of those Western ideas whose influence upon the Moslem world I shall now discuss.[71]
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Islam has not only won much ground in India, Brahmanism's homeland, but has also converted virtually the entire populations of the great islands of Java and Sumatra, where Brahmanism was formerly ascendant.