Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T16:10:13.508Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

II. The ‘Meanings’ of Pan-Islamism: The Growth of International Consciousness Among the Muslims of India and Indonesia in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

D. H. Evans
D. H. Evans
Affiliation:
Cambridge University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A commentator on Muhammad Iqbal, the great poet-philosopher of.Muslim India, once wrote that ‘Pan-Islamism is not actually defined anywhere’. If true, it has not been through want of trying. Since the term ‘Pan-Islamism’ became common currency in the late nineteenth century, a variety of European journalists, colonial officials and academic researchers (not to mention Muslims themselves) have striven to offer a precise interpretation of the phenomenon. But they have failed to develop any consensus, even on basic questions: what was Pan-Islamism? why was it? or even, has it ever existed? Some have considered it an essentially religious drive, others as a political mobilisation. Some observers have presented it as a movement, as a disciplined, and perhaps clandestine, organisation with active members and fixed purposes. Others have dismissed it as mere sentiment, as nothing more than the vaguest of emotional attachments between co-religionists. A number, believing that Pan-Islamism seeks to re-create a past perfection, have argued that it aims to regroup Muslims under one sovereign authority much as they had enjoyed during the Prophet's lifetime. Others, on the other hand, have sensed more modern connotations, claiming that it intends to forge an exclusive international federation of Islamic states with the very real potential for threatening non-Muslim countries. At least one Marxist writer has distinguished between ‘progressive’ and ‘reactionary’ strains.3 This suggests that Pan-Islamism might both nurture the longings for some distant past and be responsive to the demands of the present.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 11 , Issue 1: India and Indonesia from the 1830s to 1914: The Heyday of Colonial Rule , March 1987 , pp. 15 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1 Introductory Appraisal: Bey, Mirza Yar Juny Samiullah, Iqbal: The Poet and His Message (Sachchidananda Sinha, Allahabad 1947) XVIGoogle Scholar.

2 The literature on the origins, background and development of Pan-Islamism as a general concept is copious. Perhaps the best brief and up-to-date survey is provided by Farooqi, M. R., ‘Pan-Islamism in the Nineteenth Century’, Islamic Culture 57 (1983). See also India Office Library Records (hereafter I.O.L.) L/P S/20 G.77 The Rise of Islam and the Caliphate, January 1919Google Scholar.

3 Kruger, H., ‘India's Freedom Struggle and the Beginnings of Solidarity Between National Liberation Movements Before World War I in Various Countries’ in: Studies in the Foreign Relations of India (New Delhi 1966) 301Google Scholar.

4 Lee, D. E., ‘The Origins of Pan-Islamism’, American History Review 47 (1942) 278–279CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Geertz, C., Islam Observed (Chicago 1971) 12Google Scholar.

6 Farooqi, , ‘Pan-Islamism in the Nineteenth Century’, 285Google Scholar.

7 Hassan, P. F., The Political Philosophy of Iqbal (Lahore n.d.) xiiGoogle Scholar.

8 The classic exposition is Gibb, H.A.R. and Bowen, H., A Study of the Impact of Western Civilisation on Moslem Culture in the Near East (Oxford 1950)Google Scholar.

9 An excellent critique of the above is Lughod, Ibraham Abu, ‘The Islamic Influence on Khayr Al-Din of Tunis’ in: Little, D. P. ed., Essays on Islamic Civilization (Leiden 1976)Google Scholar.

10 Dr. F. Robinson has especially emphasised this approach.recently. See ‘Islam and Muslim Society in South Asia’, Contributions to Indian Sociology 17, 2 (1983) 185–203CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Robinson, F., Atlas of the Islamic World (Oxford 1982) 118–124Google Scholar.

12 Robinson, , ‘Islam and Muslim Society in South Asia’, 191. See alsoGoogle ScholarHurgronje, C. Snouck, Mekka in the Latter Part of the Nineteenth Century, tr. Monahan, J. H. (Leiden and London 1931) 291Google Scholar.

13 The writings of the American Protestant Missionary, Zwemer, Samuel M. perhaps best encapsulated this concern, see e.g. The Moslem World: Foreign Mission Study Course (New York 1908) andGoogle ScholarAcross the World of Islam: Studies in Aspects of the Mohammedan Faith and in the Present Awakening of the Moslem Multitudes (New York 1929)Google Scholar.

14 Noer, D., The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia 1900–1942 (Oxford 1973) 24Google Scholar.

15 A solid contemporary study, from a missionary viewpoint, was Simon, G., The Progress and Arrest of Islam in Sumatra (London 1912)Google Scholar.

16 Noer, , The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia, 24Google Scholar.

17 I.O.L. L/PS/20C. 191 The Rise of the Turk: The Pan-Turanian Movement, February 1919.

18 Berkes, N., Turkish Nationalism and Western Civilisation (London 1959) 267–269Google Scholar.

19 Shukla, R. L., Britain, India and the Turkish Empire (New Delhi 1973) 184–185Google Scholar.

20 Keddie, N. R., Sayyidjamal ud-Din ‘al Afghani’: A Political Biography (Berkeley 1972) 139–140Google Scholar.

21 Hurgronje, C. Snouck, Politique Mussalmane de La Hollande (Paris 1911) 129Google Scholar.

22 For example see Kidwai, M. H., ‘Pan-Islamin’, Modern Review (02 1908)Google Scholar.

23 Browne, E. G., Pan-Islamism: A Cambridge Extension Lecture (Cambridge 1902)Google Scholar.

24 Ibidem, 307.

25 Halid, H., The Crescent Versus the Cross (London 1907) 211Google Scholar.

26 Shukla, , Britain, India and the Turkish Empire, 973Google Scholar.

27 Bey, B. W., ‘Pan-Islamism’, The Nineteenth Century And After (05 1907) 863Google Scholar.

28 Ibidem.

29 Robinson, , Atlas, 158–176Google Scholar.

30 Peters, R., Islam and Colonialism (The Hague 1979) 3.Google Scholar Peters shows how this traditional perception of international relations was tied up with the wider question ol jihad.

31 Lewis, B., The Muslim Discovery of Europe (London 1982) 306Google Scholar.

32 For example, Indian National Archives, Home Department, Political B, File Nos. 292–302, August 1879. Memorandum on the Vernacular Press of Upper India.

33 For example, see Barrier, N.G. and Wallace, P., The Punjab Press 1880-1905 (Michigan State University 1970)Google Scholar.

34 Ibidem.

35 See reference 32.

36 Gupta, Uma Das, ‘The Indian Press: A Small World of Journalism’, Modern Asian Studies (1977) 217Google Scholar.

37 Ibidem, 213.

38 Hasan, M., Muhammad Ali in Indian Politics. Select Writings I, 1906–1916 (New Delhi 1982)Google Scholar.

39 I.O.L. L/R/S/1–208 Reports on the Native Press. These were collected and arranged on a provincial basis.

40 Gupta, Uma Das, ‘The Indian Press’, 217Google Scholar.

41 Indian Nationa l Archives, Home Department, Political A, File Nos. 500–690, April 1917. Publication of An Illustrated Paper Entitled Al Hakikat To Advertise British Navall and Military Strength and British Friendship for Islam.

42 Watson, C. W., ‘The Sociology of the Indonesian Mind’ (M.A. Thesis, University of Hull 09 1972) 16Google Scholar.

43 Noer, , The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia, 34Google Scholar.

44 Ibidem, 39.

45 Ibidem, 57.

46 Ibidem, 29.

47 Ibidem.

48 Hasan, M., Muslims and the Congress: Select Correspondence of Dr M.A. Ansari 1912–1915 (New Delhi 1979) xixGoogle Scholar.

49 Noer, , The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia, 45Google Scholar.

50 See Pirzada, M., Foundations of Pakistan: All-India Muslim League Documents I 1906–1924 (Karachi 1969) e.g. 61, 99, 160–165;Google ScholarNoer, , The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia, 101–127Google Scholar.

51 For example, I.O.L. L/P S/18 B.219 Secret, Policy in the Middle East III: The Arab Movement: Memorandum by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Mark Sykes, 1915.

52 Ahmed, R., The Bengal Muslims 1871–1906: A Quest for Identity (Delhi 1981)Google Scholar.

53 Ibidem, 108.

54 Ibidem.

55 Metcalf, B. D., Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband 1860–1900 (Princeton 1982) 199–239Google Scholar.

56 Keddie, , Sayyid Jamal ud-Din ‘al-Afghani’, 142–155;Google ScholarNoer, , The Modernist Muslim Movement in Indonesia, 32, 57, 296Google Scholar.

57 Shukla, , Britain, India and the Turkish Empire, 219Google Scholar.

58 Benda, H. J., ‘The Crescent and the Rising Sun — Indonesian Islam Under the Japanese Occupation 1942–1945’ (Ph.D. Thesis, Cornell University 1955) 6, 24, 39-42, 78–83Google Scholar.

59 Keddie, N. R., ‘Pan-Islam as Proto-Nationalism’ (Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, New York 1966) quoted in:Google ScholarMinault, G., The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbolism and Political Mobilization in India (Columbia 1982) 6Google Scholar.

60 Minault, The Khilafat Movement.

61 Ibidem, 2–3.