Pan‐Islamism in late nineteenth‐century Iran

Abstract

Pan-Islamism or the idea of creating a united Muslim front against the common threat of foreign imperialism was one of several ideologies articulated during the second half of the nineteenth century in response to the growing domination of the Islamic world by European powers.' It is generally understood that pan-Islamism began in the Ottoman empire during the second half of the nineteenth century.2 The origins of panIslamic ideas, however, can be traced back to 1774, when the Ottomans first used Islam as a political and ideological weapon not only to counter the threat posed by Europe, but also to secure their religious and cultural influence in the Muslim populated Crimea which they had ceded to Tsarist Russia after suffering a humiliating defeat in the Russo-Ottoman war of 1768-74.3 The loss of Crimea did not, however, deter the Ottomans from trying to preserve their religious and cultural ties with the Muslim and Turkic-speaking Tartar population of the peninsula. In order to secure their religious and cultural influence in the former Muslim province and in the absence of Turkish nationalistic feelings, which were alien to their political and cultural thinking, the Ottomans appealed to Islam and revived the idea of the Caliphate, maintaining that the Ottoman sultan was not only the ruler of his own domain, but also the caliph or the religious and the spiritual leader of the Islamic world. Thus, in the treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca, signed in 1774 after the conclusion of the war with Russia, the sultan claimed the title of caliph of all Muslims and the religious representative of the Crimean Tartars. The treaty provided that, 'as to the ceremonies of religion, as the Tartars profess the same faith as the Muhammadans, they shall regulate themselves, with respect to His Highness [the Ottoman sultan], in his capacity as the Grand Caliph of Muhammadanism, according to the precepts prescribed to them by their law'.4 In order to strengthen their claim to the caliphate, the Ottomans also manufactured the myth that the last Abbassid caliph, who lived in Cairo at the time the Ottomans under sultan Selim I conquered Egypt, had passed the title and the insignia of the caliphate to the family of Osman.5 During the nineteenth century, the Ottoman empire lost most of its European and North African provinces as a result of nationalist uprisings or direct military and diplomatic intervention by European powers. In the