Daily Times, Pakistan
Sept 1 2014
Putting the Ottoman Caliphate into perspective — II
The Ottoman Caliphate became the symbol of Muslim power in a world
increasingly dominated by Christian Europe. At no stage did the
Ottomans or earlier Arab caliphs claim sacerdotal authority comparable
to the Pope
At one stage in history, the Ottoman Empire was the biggest land-based
empire in the world spread over three continents, Asia (Middle East
and central Asia), Africa (North Africa minus Morocco) and Europe
(Eastern Europe including the Caucasus). Although Muslims, or rather
Sunni Muslims, were a privileged group, the various Christian sects
and Jews were, in accordance with the Quranic recognition of them as
“people of the book”, granted substantial communal autonomy under the
millet system. The protection tax, jizya, was charged from them. When
the Jews were driven out of Spain in 1492 they found sanctuary in
Ottoman territories. In 1992, their descendants in Israel held a
special 500-year ceremony to remember that. For centuries, such a
system provided peace and security to all Ottoman subjects though
neither Muslims nor non-Muslims enjoyed modern-type citizenship
rights.
There was a downside to Ottoman policies, however. They used to raid
Christian villages in the Caucasus to capture boys of tender age who
were then separated from their families and groomed at special
isolated military institutions to become personal bodyguards of the
sultan. They were known as janussaris (jaan-nisaaris or loyal help).
Like all Muslim or Islamic states, the Ottoman Empire remained a
military-feudal institution deriving its wealth essentially from
conquest while trade and commerce remained neglected. The sultans were
despots and a harem culture evolved under their patronage. Once
conquests came to a standstill and reverses set in, the systemic
imbalance between the economic base and political superstructure
entered an insoluble contradiction that, from the 19th century
onwards, set in irreversible decay and decline.
For the Ottomans the need to invoke the status of caliph arose in 1774
when Czarina Catherine of Russia asserted her role as the
representative of Orthodox Christians living in Ottoman territories.
For centuries these two empires had been embroiled in warfare in
Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and their domains had
been expanding and contracting depending on who had the upper hand.
The ulema (clergy) decided that the sultan should claim the status of
caliph to represent the interests of Muslims living in Russian
territories. That, in short, is the origin of the Ottoman Caliphate.
Such a claim became part of convention, something likening customary
law of Muslims, and thereafter the sultan began to be referred to as
caliph as well. The Ottoman Caliphate became the symbol of Muslim
power in a world increasingly dominated by Christian Europe. At no
stage did the Ottomans or earlier Arab caliphs claim sacerdotal
authority comparable to the Pope. The ulema were no doubt specialists
of sharia but not a priestly class set apart from the lay population.
The French Revolution (1789) ushered in the doctrine of nationalism as
the right of self-determination. The Ottoman Empire, headed by a
Muslim ruler and several Christian subject communities, was the first
to experience separatist revolts. Aided and abetted by France and
Russia, Serbia (1915), Greece (1932), Bulgaria (1878) and other such
nationalities broke away. The Ottomans began to be referred to
derisively as the “sick man of Europe”.
Confronted by reverses, the Ottomans did try to reform and modernise.
In 1839, the inviolability of life, honour and property of all
subjects was recognised. In 1856, the idea of limited government and
rule of law were introduced, and equality of all subjects before the
law, irrespective of religion, sect or creed was granted. Entrance
into the state services was opened to all subjects. It was a radical
departure from the earlier Ottoman practice of reserving governmental
positions only for Muslims. The 1876 constitution affirmed the
recognition of the principle of rule of law. Also, under the tanzimat
(reorganisation) system, secular laws began to be adopted, parallel
with sharia law. The constitution provided for limited and indirect
suffrage. However, in 1878, the assertive Sultan Abdul Hamid suspended
such changes but, in 1908, they were revived. The forces behind these
constitutional changes were military officers and civil servants, who
came to be known as the Young Turks.
The Young Turks began to stress the Turkish identity of the Ottoman
Empire. Previously, it was considered denigrating to call the Ottomans
Turks. They preferred to be known as the Ottomans but, with the Young
Turks, reactive nationalism acquired distinct Turkish trappings. At
that stage, Turanian or Turkish nationalism included the Kurds who
were not Turks. The main ideologue of Turanianism was Zia Gokulp, a
Kurd. Such a trend, however, impacted on the Arabs negatively, where
secular Arab nationalism begun to surface among Christian
intellectuals while the old controversy about the Arab/Qureish
precondition of the caliphate was vented by Islamists such as Rashid
Rida. The Wahhabis of Nejd had, for a long time, been giving trouble
to the Ottomans.
The early 20th century saw war clouds gathering over Europe. The First
World War broke out in July 1914. Ottoman Turkey joined the war in
November 1914. On the goading of the Russians the Armenians revolted
against the Ottomans and bitter, bloody conflict broke out. Initially,
Turkish-Kurdish Ottomans were killed in very large numbers but,
ultimately, the Armenians suffered huge loss of life. It has been
described as the Armenian genocide. On the other hand, although the
Arab revolt of 1916 was a stab in the back from the Ottoman point of
view, the Arab masses continued to identify with the empire
emotionally because of its status as the caliphate. Therefore, when
Sharif Hussein and his sons, as Sunni descendants of the Prophet
(PBUH), led the revolt, they by no means enjoyed mass support. The
Hollywood spectacle Lawrence of Arabia is a great exaggeration.
Secret British-French negotiations had begun in 1915 to capture
Ottoman territories in the Middle East. The Sykes-Picot Agreement
(1916) between them promised a homeland to the Jews in Palestine while
simultaneously promising an Arab Kingdom whose exact boundaries were
not clear. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 formally committed the UK
to the establishment of the Jewish homeland in Palestine. No doubt,
the time of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East was over and it
would have ended any way, but defeat in the war meant that the future
map of the Middle East was determined by the British and French
mandates. The Arab right of national self-determination did not figure
anywhere in the redrawing of the map of the Middle East. The Khilafat
Movement needs to be evaluated in that background.
(Concluded)
The writer is a visiting professor, LUMS, Pakistan, professor emeritus
of Political Science, Stockholm University, and honorary senior
fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of
Singapore. Latest publications: Winner of the Best Non-Fiction Book
award at the Karachi Literature Festival: The Punjab Bloodied,
Partitioned and Cleansed, Oxford, 2012; and Pakistan: The Garrison
State, Origins, Evolution, Consequences (1947-2011), Oxford, 2013. He
can be reached at:[email protected]
From: Baghdasarian
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/02-Sep-2014/putting-the-ottoman-caliphate-into-perspective-ii