Recent Political Changes in the Moslem World

Extract

Ten years ago the Moslem world seemed near to political extinction. The only portion of it that could present a reasonable claim to be called independent was Turkey, and Turkish freedom was hampered by debt control, which gave foreigners the command of a large fraction of the Turkish revenues, and by the Capitulations, which allowed foreigners to reside on Turkish territory without obedience to Turkish laws. At the close of the Great War this last remnant of the once vast political Islam seemed about to be destroyed. But in a little more than five years a very different situation has developed among the Moslems, and in many regions they are moving rapidly in the direction of independence and modernization. Not only Turkey, but Persia, Afghanistan, Khiva, Bokhara, Albania, Egypt, and the Hejaz claim to be independent now; while other regions, such as Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Turkestan, and Azerbeijan, not to speak of Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco, are in different degrees stirred with the desire to become free. In fact, every portion of the Moslem world, defining it to mean those lands in which persons professing the Mohammedan faith are in the majority, aspires to full statehood. India does not fall within this definition, having only about 20 per cent of Moslems; but the Moslems of India along with the rest are agitated by the demand for the complete independence of that great country.

The principal ideas that have been working in the Moslem world are self-determination, constitutionalism, the separation of church and state, the desire to obtain the benefits of modern scientific advances, and unwillingness to remain indefinitely among those regarded as backward peoples. All of these ideas have had their origin or their recent development in western civilization. They have all been greatly promoted by the example and in many cases by the actual promises of Western nations engaged in the recent war.