ENGLAND, INDIA, AND THE BALKAN WAR Al Mulko wad Dino tawaman. State and Religion are twins. ARAB PROVERB. LAST week, on the anniversary of Trafalgar, King George issued a Proclamation that in the Balkan War England will be a neutral Power. Every lover of peace will congratulate the Emperor of India on this decision, which no doubt was largely guided by the keen interest which his Majesty takes in the tranquillity of India. Is it not the first duty of a Sovereign to maintain peace inside his Empire, and then to use his influence for the cause of peace outside it? It was in this very month of November, thirty-seven years ago, that through the action of the Porte Imperialism dawned 1 on the British mind, when Disraeli made his great speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet on the 9th of November 1875, following the Sultan's iradeh, dated the 2nd of October, in which Turkey promised fair treatment of her Christian subjects. Later in the same month Disraeli's purchase of the Suez Canal shares from the Khedive again instilled Imperialism into the thoughtful in this country. The growth of the plant sprung from the seed thus sown by Disraeli was then entrusted by him to Royal hands, and during the next four months King Edward, as Prince of Wales, travelled through India, erecting the banner of true Imperialism even at centres where only eighteen years before the bloody battles of the Indian Mutiny were raging. Very few in this country seem to realise that the King of England rules over a much larger number of Moslems in India than the total number of Moslems under the Sultan of Turkey, the Sultans of Morocco and Zanzibar, the Shah of Persia, and the Amir of Afghanistan, five Moslem monarchs put together. Now, from the point of view of the orthodox Moslem, this war in the Balkans is a war between the Cross and the Crescent; and yet, if Christian Powers were attacking the Sultanates of Morocco or Zanzibar, or the Moslem kingdoms of Persia or 1 Development of European Nations, by J. Holland Rose, 1905, p. 165. Afghanistan, instead of the Moslem country of Turkey, though those would be wars between the Christian and Moslem, they would not be, from the Sunni Moslem point of view, wars against the Crescent. What is it, then, that makes the position of Turkey as a Moslem State unique in the religious sentiment of over fifty millions of King George's Moslem subjects in India? After the death of the Prophet, Abu Bakr became his Vicegerent or Khalifa (Caliph), and was followed as Khalifa by others. I shall here deal solely with the view which the Sunni sect of Mahomedans hold regarding the Khalifa, both because the premier Moslem Prince of India, his Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad, who rules over fifteen million subjects and over eighty thousand square miles of territory, is a Sunni, and also because the vast majority of the Moslem subjects of England in India, numbering over fifty millions, are Sunnis. To the Sunnis the Sultan of Turkey is the Khalifa, or Vicegerent of the Prophet on earth. On him has fallen the mantle of Mahomed. The Sultan is their spiritual and temporal head. Other Moslem rulers, like the Sultan of Morocco or the Sultan of Zanzibar, may be termed Sultan, but they are not accorded the privileges of the Khalifa. According to the Sunnis, the Sultan of Turkey is the only personage who is entitled to introduce reforms in Islam, by causing the Qanun, or the Sultan's commands, to be substituted. for Hanafi Law; for Hanafi Law did not precede, but followed, the 'great Khalifs,' the direct successors of the Prophet. The Sultan of Turkey is the Khalifa Khalifai Rasul Allah,' Successor to the Successors of the Prophet; he is the Sautal Hai,' the Living Voice of Islam. 2 In 1871 no less an authority than Sir William Hunter raised the question: Are they [the Indian Moslem subjects of Great Britain] bound in conscience to rebel against the Queen?' His questioning of their loyalty to England, in view of their acknowledgment of the Sultan of Turkey as their religious and temporal head, was met by rejoinders from three distinguished Moslem leaders, one of Northern India, the well-known Sir Syed Ahmad,3 the second from Bengal, Nawab Abdul Latif, and the third Maulavi Cheragh Ali, of Hyderabad. The whole matter in a nutshell was this: According to Moslem law, a country is either (1) Dar ul harb, a 'country of warfare,' or (2) Dar ul Islam, a 'country of peace.' Now what is British India? Sir William Hunter and his party thought that British India could not properly be looked upon as Dar ul Islam; the three Moslem leaders, on the other hand, were anxious to prove that British The Indian Musalmans, by W. W. Hunter. Trübner, 1871. Review on Dr. Hunter's Indian Musalmans, by Syed Ahmad Khan Benares, 1872. India was not Dar ul harb. The Hyderabad Mahomedans decided that British India was neither Dar ul harb nor Dar ul Islam," an enunciation which was made to the world by Maulavi Cheragh Ali, afterwards known as Nawab Azam Yar Jang. None of these three Moslem leaders could prove to their European critic that British India was Dar ul Islam. The Hyderabad decision was however highly important, because the real centre of Indian Moslem feeling is in that State. Even to-day capital punishment is there inflicted under the laws of the Koran by decapitation by the sword, and not by hanging, a practice which appeals to the Moslem masses throughout the world more than British readers can realise. Another fact not generally known here which raises Hyderabad in Moslem estimation is that hundreds of Moslems. from all parts of Asia congregate there annually and start for Mecca on pilgrimage to become Haji, his Highness the Nizam, as Defender of the Faith, paying all their expenses. Hyderabad is unquestionably Dar ul Islam. The Moslems of Hyderabad are in more direct touch with, and command greater sympathy among, the rest of the Moslem world than even the Moslems of Lahore, Delhi, or Lucknow. In the 'seventies the Musalman attracted a considerable amount of attention, in India by the dagger of the Moslem and in London by the pen of the Christian. The Moslem rebellion against the British Government known as the Wahabi conspiracy drew the eyes of the world to the Indian Mahomedan, and about the same time the Turkish question caused an agitation in the London Press. Two articles in this Review on the subject of Turkey, one by the Rev. Malcolm McColl in December 1877,5 and the other by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe in January 1879," were potent to stir the great Moslem centre of Hyderabad. Refutations were published at Hyderabad, both in English and in Hindustani, by Maulavi Cheragh Ali, and dedicated to the Sultan of Turkey in the words: Khalifa and Sultan Abdul Hamid Khan.' Such is the power of the Porte to rouse to instant action the greatest Moslem stronghold in India. I was at Hyderabad in the 'eighties and 'nineties, and was personally acquainted with Maulavi Cheragh Ali. Now let us enter a little into the daily life of the Indian Moslem, and see how the Sultan of Turkey exercises influence there. The Indian Moslem's most important prayer of the week is said on a Friday, when there is an oration called Khutba, in which he begs Allah to bless the Sultan of Turkey. Whether or not the Khutba read every Friday in the Indian mosques is 5 6 Political Reforms in the Ottoman Empire, by Cheragh Ali, Bombay, p. 25. Passing Events in Turkey.' a weekly reminder to the Faithful that India is Dar ul harb (a country of warfare'), the fact remains that every Friday in hundreds of mosques in the British territories, as well as in the Protected Moslem States in India, the allegiance that the millions of Sunni Mahomedans owe to the Sultan of Turkey is brought vividly to their memory. The importance of the Friday prayer is thus emphasised by the Koran, Surah lxii. 9: 'Oh ye who believe when the call to prayer is made on the day of congregation (yaumu 'l-jum'ah) hasten to the remembrance of God (Khutba) and leave off traffic.' It is no easy matter even for a Moslem ruler to alter the wording of a Khutba,' for we have it on the authority of Muntakhab-ul-lubab what difficulties arose at Lahore when a Moslem sovereign of India wished to insert one word in the Khutba. I am quite aware of the argument that the Sultan of Turkey cannot be the Khalifa because he is not of the Quraish tribe, and I am also conversant with Maulavi Cheragh Ali's book and the pamphlets by Sir Syed Ahmad and Nawab Abdul Latif, so I know all sides of the question as discussed by Sir William Hunter and his three critics; but for obvious reasons I am dealing only with Moslem practices as they are in India, not as they should be according to this or that authority. Roughly speaking, there are three Hindus to one Moslem in India. For a whole generation after the Wahabi insurrection of the 'seventies, the Government of India did everything possible to check Moslem fanaticism by balancing the Hindus against the Moslems, including in their policy of counterpoise the Ruling Princes. It is the careful adjustment of the Hindu and Mahomedan elements of the Indian population which makes it possible to maintain tranquillity in India with only 75,000 British troops. Of course, in this system of equipoise the careful student of politics has to take into consideration the Hindus who form the vast majority of the subjects of the premier Moslem Prince, the Nizam, and the Moslems who form the vast majority of the subjects of the Hindu ruler of Kashmir, as well as various other factors. But it is one thing to manage India when the pax Britannica is in full force, and quite another thing to do so when the pax Britannica is suspended, as it was in the dark days of the Indian Mutiny, or when, according to the belief of the mob in the Indian bazaars, the prestige of the Union Jack is waning, as during the Boer War. Then the problem assumes a more difficult aspect. Why, only a couple of years ago the religious fervour of the Hindu and the Moslem over the killing of a cow brought Maxim guns into the streets of Calcutta! 7 History of India, by Sir H. M. Elliot, 1877. Vol. vii., p. 427. After thirty years of balancing the Hindu and the Mahomedan, the Government of India found relief in the thought that they had built up a fairly substantial edifice for all practical purposes. But during the present century this balance has been considerably modified according to the conception of the importance of the two communities held by the modern rulers of India. For instance, when granting representation under the MorleyMinto scheme, a preference was shown to the Moslems, though in the premier Moslem State of Hyderabad itself the Moslem enjoys no such preference from the rulers of his own religion. In the Morley-Minto scheme, however, the British authorities. had at least the satisfaction of acting with their eyes wide open. But recently they have again upset the Hindu-Moslem balance in India by an action which perhaps they never imagined capable of such religious significance-I mean the transfer of the capital to Delhi. Neither Lord Crewe's despatches nor the CurzonCrewe debate in the House of Lords gave the British reader any idea how England, by removing the capital to Delhi, has placed herself more within the sway of Moslem influence than the authorities would care to admit. Delhi has been a Moslem stronghold and occasionally a fanatical centre for several centuries, and in the great Masjid there is a strong Indian focus of the power of the Crescent second only to Hyderabad. In peace times, no doubt, rupees, titles, and decorations play an important part in balancing the Moslem and the Hindu, but when the pax Britannica is under suspension, or when the prestige of the Union Jack seems to the Indian Mahomedan to be waning, greater force is exercised by the mosque and the temple than by money or by titles. Anyone who properly understands the vitality and inner working of Hinduism is aware that a dozen modern temples, though worth perhaps a million pounds, have not a hundredth part of the real power over the Hindus that is wielded by an ancient shrine which may be merely hewn out of the rock among Himalayan glaciers. Now Delhi has no Hindu shrine whose power might be set over against the influence of its great Moslem mosque. That is how the transfer of the capital to Delhi, a city associated with the world's greatest massacres by Nadir Shah and others, gives a fresh impetus to Moslem activity. The Roman motto divide et impera is doubtless a great maxim for foreign rulers, but it should be remembered that it is as dangerous to divide unequally as it is profitable to divide equally, for in the former case one party gets into a position from which it can. dictate terms to the rulers themselves. This is what has happened. with regard to the Mahomedans, and this is one reason why just now an attitude of neutrality in the Balkan struggle is the only prudent position for England to adopt. The Moslem preferential |