The Future of Islam

by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

The present leaders of the Arabs are but local heroes, and as yet they have achieved nothing which can command respect. In Tripoli there is indeed a saint of very high pretensions, one known as the Sheykh Es Snusi, who has a large religious following, and who has promised to come forward shortly as the Móhdy or guide expected by a large section of the Sunite as well as the Shiite Mussulmans. Next year he will attain the age of forty (the legal age of a prophet), and he may be expected to take a prominent part in any general movement that may then be on foot. But as yet we know nothing of him but his name and the fact of his sanctity, which is of Wahhabite type. Moreover, even supposing all that may be supposed of a possible success, there yet lies Egypt and the Suez Canal between the Barbary State and Mecca, so that I think we may be justified in these days of steam fleets and electric cables and European concerts, if we treat North Western Africa as out of probable calculations in considering the future of the Caliphate. It is remarkable that the Sultan of Morocco has taken as yet no apparent part in the religious movement of modern Barbary.

The Mussulman princes of India hold a very similar position. Opposed as they soon may be, indeed must be if the unintelligent English policy of the last twenty years be persevered in, to an European Government in arms, they will have the chance of making themselves a leading position in the eyes of Islam; and should a Mohammedan empire arise once more at Delhi or Hyderabad, India would certainly become par excellence the Dar el Islam. It would then be by far the richest and most populous of Mohammedan states, and able to outbid any other with the surrah it could send to Mecca.

The Wakaf property in India at the present day is supposed to be as valuable as that in the Ottoman empire, and it would then become a source of patronage with the Government, instead of being privately remitted as now. If money alone could buy the Caliphate, a successful leader of revolt against the English in India might dictate his terms to Islam. But again the insuperable obstacle intervenes of distance and the sea. Mussulman India could never give that protection to Mecca that Islam needs, and could not assert its sovereignty anywhere but at home, in arms. Even this is assuming, as in the case of Barbary, an enormous postulate—success.

Neither India, then, nor Western Africa can reasonably be expected to supply that substitute for the House of Othman which we need. A more apparent and in the opinion of some a likely candidate for the Caliphate succession may be looked for in the Viceregal family of Egypt. Mohammed Towfik, if he were a man of genius like his grandfather, or if, honest man as he is, he plays his cards with success, might in a few years become an important rival at Mecca to the Sultan. To say nothing of its traditional connection with the Caliphate, Egypt has the more modern recollection of Mehemet Ali to urge upon the Hejazi in its favour as the protecting State of Islam.

Mehemet Ali's name and that of his successor Ibrahim Pasha, if not precisely popular, are at least respected at Mecca; and the latter possesses a great title to Sunite gratitude in having destroyed the Wahhabite empire in 1818. I have mentioned Mehemet Ali's ambition; and a similar ambition would seem to have occurred to Ismaïl, the late Khedive. He, in the plenitude of his financial power, is stated to have expended large sums of money in subsidising the Sherifs with a view to possible contingencies at Constantinople. But unfortunately for him the opening of the Suez Canal, on which he had counted for securing him the support of Europe, proved the precise instrument of ruin for his scheme.

The Porte in 1871, scenting danger to its own Caliphal pretensions from this quarter, occupied the Red Sea in force, reinforced its garrisons in Jeddah and Yembo, advanced to Taïf, and threw a large army into Yemen. This was alone made possible by the Canal, and Ismaïl to his chagrin found himself "hoist with his own petard." Mohammed Towfik, therefore, would have some excuse in family tradition if he indulged occasionally in dreams of a similar nature. His connection with Mecca is at the present day second only to that of Constantinople; the Egyptian Khedivieh line of steamers ply constantly between Suez and Jeddah; and the Haj the Khedive sends to Mecca, including as it does most of the Mogrebbin pilgrims, is more numerous than the Sultan's. He maintains intimate relations with one at least of the great Sherifal families, and sends a Mahmal yearly with an important surrah to Medina. Mohammed Towfik also has the deserved reputation of being a sincere Mussulman and an honest man, and it is certain that a large section of true liberal opinion looks to him as the worthiest supporter of its views. With all this I doubt if he be big enough a man to aspire as yet with success to Abd el Hamid's succession.

The present Viceroy's financial position, though we may hope sounder in its base, is not so immediately powerful as his father's; and much ready money will be required by an aspirant to the Caliphate. His fighting power, too, is small, and he would have to proclaim himself in arms. Moreover—and this I fear will remain an insuperable difficulty—he is hampered with the control of Europe. Islam would hardly obey another Caliph who was himself obedient to Christendom; and the same causes which have ruined the House of Othman, would also ruin him. A Caliph, as things stand, cannot legally govern, except by the old canon law of the Sheriat, and though a lapsus from strict observance may be tolerated in an ordinary prince, or even in a well established Caliph, a new Caliph putting forward a new claim would be more strictly bound. How could Mohammed Towfik's necessity to Islam be reconciled to his necessity to Europe? Between the two stools he hardly could avert a fall.[15]

Unless, then, some unexpected religious hero should appear in Eastern Asia, of which as yet there is no sign, we are driven to Arabia for a solution of the difficulty where to establish a Mussulman theocracy, and to the Sherifal family of Mecca itself for a new dynasty.

The family of the Sherifs has this vast advantage over any other possible competitor to the supreme title of Islam, that it is of the acknowledged blood of that tribe of Koreysh which Mohammed himself designated as his heirs. Amongst many other passages of authority which bear upon the rights of the Koreysh the following seem to me the most explicit and the best worth quoting: "The prophet," says a tradition of Omm Hani, daughter of Abutaleb, "exalted the Koreysh by conferring on them seven prerogatives: the first, the Nebbuwat (the fact that they had given birth to a prophet); the second, the Khalafat (the succession); the third, the Hejabat (the guardianship of the Kaaba); the fourth, the Sikayat (the right of supplying water to the Haj); the fifth, the Refadat (the right of entertaining the Haj); the sixth, the Nedwat (the right of counsel, government); and the seventh, the Lewa (possession of the banner, with the right of proclaiming war)." The prophet also, according to another tradition, said, "As long as there remains one man of the Koreysh, so long shall that man be my successor;" and as to the Arab race, "If the Arab race falls Islam shall fall." All the world knows these things, and to the popular mind, especially, the Sherif is already far more truly the representative of spiritual rank than any Sultan or Caliph is.

The vast populations of Southern and Eastern Asia send out their pilgrims, not to Constantinople but to Mecca, and it is the Sherif whom they find there supreme. The Turkish Government in Hejaz holds a comparatively insignificant position, and the Sultan's representative at Jeddah is hardly more than servant to the Prince of Mecca. It is he who is the descendant of their prophet, not the other, and though the learned may make distinctions in favour of the Caliph the Haj only hears of the Sherif. Even at Constantinople, by immemorial custom, the Sultan rises to receive members of the sacred family; and at Mecca it is commonly said that should a Sultan make the Haj in person he would be received by the Grand Sherif as an inferior. The Sherifal family, then, is surrounded with a halo of religious prestige which would make their acquisition of the supreme temporal title appear natural to all but the races who have been in subjection to the Ottomans; and were a man of real ability to appear amongst them he would, in the crisis we have foreseen, be sure to find an almost universal following.