Mahmoud Haddad - Arab Religious Nationalism in the Colonial Era

8/13/2019 Mahmoud Haddad - Arab Religious Nationalism in the Colonial Era

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ARAB RELIGIOUSNATIONALISMIN THE COLONIALERA:REREADING RASHID RIDA'S IDEAS ON THE CALIPHATEMAHMOUDHADDADCOLUMBIANIVERSITY

MuhammadRashid Rida has long been represented as a reformistfigure dedicated to construct-ing a consistent Islamic theory of the caliphate, in order to pave the way for an Arab caliphatethatwould replace the ailing Ottoman one. The evidence presentedhere stronglysuggests that Rida wasmore pragmaticthanwas thoughtuntil now, and that his ideas on the issue were far from consistent.However, there is a common thread that brings his ideas together, namely, the necessity of the po-litical independence of Muslim lands, and especially those Arab areas, with their holy places, thatare considered the cradle of Islam.

MUHAMMADRASHID RIDA (1865-1935) is a well-known figure of the modernist intellectual salafiyyamovement that gained some currency in the late nine-teenth and early twentiethcentury.'Rida, like Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d. 1897) before him, was concernedwith both Islamic religious reform and strengthening heMuslim world in order to ward off Western imperialistdesigns on Muslim lands.2 Rida is also considered anArabnationalist who engaged intellectuallythe OttomanTurksduringthe lastphasesof the Ottomanempire.3Thisstudy will try to show that Rida's thinking on the issueof the caliphate,althoughsteepedin Islamic literatureonthe subject, was eclectic, yet concentratedabove all elseon the necessity of the political independenceof Muslimlands, especially those Arabareas,with theirholy places,that are consideredthe cradle of Islam.Most scholars who wrote about Rida's thought inregard to the caliphate concentrated on his 1922 trea-tise, al-Khildfa aw al-imama al-cuzmi (The Caliphate orthe Supreme Imamate), considered to be his most im-

1 For the best available study on this movement see HenriLaoust, Le R6formisme orthodoxe des 'Salafiya' et les car-acteresg6enrauxde son orientationactuelle, Revue des etudesislamiques6 (1932): 175-224.2 See Nikki Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism:Political and Religious Writingsof Sayyid Jamil ad-Din al-Afghani (Berkeley andLos Angeles: Univ. of CaliforniaPress,1983), xiii-xxii, esp. pp. xiii-xvii.3 Sylvia Haim, Introduction, n Arab Nationalism:An An-thology, ed. Sylvia Haim (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. ofCaliforniaPress, 1976), 3-72, esp. pp. 19-24.

portantwork. Henri Laoust and Malcolm Kerrconfinedtheir study to Rida's attempt to construct a legal andpolitical system that reconciled medieval Islamic politi-cal thoughtwith the requirementsof modernity.4HamidEnayatbelieved that Rida's treatise should be looked atin the context of the crisis over the caliphate whichemerged when Turkeyabolished the temporal powers ofthe caliph in 1922, and then abolished the caliphate al-together in 1924. For Enayat, Rida's treatise is an ex-pression of the tension between the demands of Arabnationalismand religious loyalty to the caliphate n theearly 1920s.5Although all three scholars were correct in pointingto one aspect or anotherof Rida's doctrine, they eitherdid not connect his thoughtwith historical events or didnot trace the development of his thought and activitiesover the whole span of his life. In relying almost ex-clusively on a textual analysis of his 1922 work, theyneglected the contextual.The text is by no means irrele-vant, but the historical situationproves as revealing-oreven more so. The dynamic interplaybetween text and

4 HenriLaoust, Introduction, n Le Califatdans la doctrinede Rashid Rida: Traductionannotee d'al-Hildfa au al-imdmaal-CuzmdLe Califatou l'imamasupreme), M6moires de l'Insti-tut fran9ais de Damas, vol. 6 (Beirut: Institut francais deDamas, 1938), 1-11; Malcolm Kerr,Islamic Reform:The Po-litical and Legal Theories of MuhammadCAbduh nd RashidRida (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press,1966), 158.5 Hamid Enayat, ModernIslamic Political Thought(Austin:Univ. of Texas Press, 1982), 70.

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 117.2 (1997)

context, moreover, shows that Rida's attemptto recon-cile medieval doctrines and the requirements of mo-dernIslam, as he perceived them, was built on the threesemi-Islamic and semi-secular themes6 which he gener-ally adhered o but failed to treat n a systematicmanner.It is only when we recognize these distinct yet relatedspheres that we understandboth Rida's comprehensiveideological views regardingthe caliphate, and his seem-ingly incoherent 7hinkingand political behavior overa period of three decades.Rida's thought on the subject of the caliphate isbased on a separation among the three institutions ofreligion, state, and civil society under a modernizedsharica. Rida's confusion in this regard lay in the gapbetween this fundamentally practical division and hisideal that considered Islam a divine system allowing noseparationbetween temporal and religious realms.8 Atthe same time, while his ideal exposition stressed thatIslam had no religious hierarchycomparableto Chris-tianity,he was, in fact, calling for a similar Muslim re-ligious institutionthat would reinterpret he sharila andcommit all Muslims to one modern unified interpreta-tion of its edicts. Another source of confusion is theway Rida treatedthe caliph. In accordancewith his dis-tinction among the institutions of civil society, state,and religion, he at differenttimes projectedthe caliph asthe chief of a constitutionally limited government, tostress the theme of consultative democraticrule; or asthe symbol of an independentMuslim power to stressthe theme of the necessity of preservingsuch power at asecond point; or as the spiritualleaderof the salafiyya'scherishedseparatereligious institution,whose main taskwas to modernizethe sharica.Rida's ideological development can best be under-stood in the context of four major phases of his life. Thefirst centered aroundthe period of Sultan Abdul-HamidII'srule;the second aroundthe period of the Committeeof Union and Progress'effective rule; the third aroundthe period of World War I; and the fourth around theyear 1922, afterTurkeyabolished the position of sultan,retainingonly thatof caliph. Circumstanceswere to lead

6 Inthisrespect,heattitude f Ridawasverysimilaro thatof the YoungOttomans. ee Carter indley, TheAdvent fIdeologyn theIslamicMiddleEast Part ), Studiaslamica 5(1982):143-70, and dem, TheAdvent f Ideologyn theIs-lamicMiddleEast PartI), Studia slamica 6 (1982):147-80.7 Kerr,Islamic Reform, 176.8 Onthemethodologicalointof differentiatingetweenheidealandthepractical,ee FelixGilbert, Intellectual istory:ItsAimsandMethods, aedalus Winter 971):88.

Rida to defend the Ottomancaliphate in the firstphase,to become engaged in Arab nationalist endeavors in thesecond phase, to work for the establishmentof an Arabcaliphate in the third phase (as secret British archivalmaterial now reveals), and to concentrate on calling fora spiritualArab-Turkish aliphate in the last phase.I. UNDER HAMIDIAN RULE

The theme of religious reform and revival of Islamhad been evident in Rida'swritings since 1898, the firstyear he began publishing al-Mandr. Beginning at thatearly point, he held that Islam, the religion, was notresponsible for the Muslims' sorry state of affairs. Heblamed,instead,the temporalandreligious leadersof theMuslims-the umarad and the Culama.9 In a series ofarticles entitled Rabband inna atacnd sddatana wa ku-bardaanda' adallundal-sabild (Oh OurLord,OurOwnMasters and LeadersHave Led Us Astray)Rida held thatthe umardahad permittedfreedom in unbelief and sub-stituted secular laws for the sharica. The corruptionofthe umara', he charged,was exceeded by the corruptionof the Culama'who busied themselves with seeking thefavors of the rulers.In fact, Rida saved the bruntof hisattacksfor the Culamd',because they magnifiedthe dif-ferences between differentMuslim sects and schools oflaw; they neglected modernsciences and failed to mod-ernize the sharlca to the point where the rulers had toadoptsecularlaws; andthey-and especially the Sufis-confused religion with mawdlid (objectionable popularfestivals) and bidac (harmfulinnovations), while some,he said, went to the otherextremeand acted in an exces-sively ascetic manner.10As a remedyfor this situation,Ridadid not call imme-diately for the establishmentof a spiritualcaliphate,butfor a religious society. AlthoughRidaproposedthatsucha society should be under the auspices of the Sultan-Caliph Abdul-HamidII, Mecca, not Istanbul,was to beits center:

Thisreforms consistentwith he creation f anIslamicsociety,under he auspicesof the caliph,whichwillhave a branchin every Islamic land. Its greatestbranch

9 Rabbana nna atacnasadatanawa kubara'ana a'adallunaal-sabila, pt. 1, al-Mandr 1 (1898): 606-10. In vol. 1 of al-Mancr, there are no specific dates for the month and day ofpublication.See also CharlesAdams, Islam and ModernisminEgypt (New York:Russell & Russell, 1939), 188-89.10 Rabbana, pt. 4, 703; Rabbana, pt. 5, al-Mandr 1(1898): 728; see also, Adams, Islam and Modernism,188-89.

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shouldbe in Mecca, a city to which Muslims come fromall over the world and where they fraternizeat its holysites. The most importantmeeting of this branchshouldbe held during the pilgrimage season, when members(acda') from the rest of the branches in the rest of theworld come on pilgrimage. Thus they can bring backto their own branches whatever is decided, secretly andopenly, in the general assembly (al-mujtamacal-Camm).This is one of the advantages of establishing the greatsociety in Mecca rather than in the dar al-khildfa[Istanbul].

Rida's religious society had the same general functionas had the well-known Arab Qurayshite caliphate ofanother Salafi thinker, CAbdal-Rahman al-Kawakibi(d. 1902). This was a sort of spiritualdirectorywhichwould be recognized by all Muslims as the authorita-tive exponentof the Faith. '2Ridaexplainedthat Muslimreligious unity meant the abolition of sectarian differ-ences and reviving a doctrine that concentratedon theteachings of the salaf who pre-dated the founders of thedifferentIslamic sects and schools of law. By this, Ridawas restricting his definition of the salaf to the com-panions of the Prophet.Although he maintainedthat thefounders or eponyms of the schools of law contributedmuch to the development of religion, he envisioned areunionof the Muslim sects and schools of law througha return to the usul (bases) of the faith.'3Rida also ratherambiguouslymade the point that the modernizedsharcawould give equality of rights to Muslims and non-Mus-lims alike.14The centralizing tendency in Rida'spropo-sal might be detected in his statement that the caliphwould announce that this is Islam and all who believe init are brethrenin faith... although they may differ insecondary religious matters. 15 he society should, fur-thermore,strive to unify the language of religion and ofthe state by making Arabic the official language of theOttoman state.16Rida held that such unification wouldresult in both secular and religious benefits. It would

l al-Islahal-dini, pt. 1, al-Mandr 1 (1898): 766.12H. A. R. Gibb, Modern Trends n Islam (Chicago, 1947),112.13Rida, al-Wahdaal-isldmiyyawa'l ukhuwwaal-diniyya, 3rded. (Cairo:Dar al-manar,1376 [1956-57]), 41. See also Albert

Hourani,Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798-1939 (Ox-ford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1962), 230.14 al-Islah al-dini, pt. 1, 768; Adams, Islam and Modern-ism, 138.15 al-Islahal-dini, pt. 1, ibid.16 Ibid., 769-71.

spread the language of religion and abolish the racialdifferencesbetweenthe Arabs andthe Turks.ForRida,atthat point, language was the criterionof race, and com-peting languageswouldbreedconflicts betweenthe racesof the Ottomanempire in the same way they bred con-flicts in the Austro-Hungarian mpire.17Rida's proposal had a political dimension as well. Itemphasized the unity of Muslims against Europeanen-croachmentson their lands. This might have been onereason he stated that if the unity of Sunnis and Shiciswere contingent on permittinga Shici Imam to reside inMecca then such a request should be granted.He evencalled on the two great Muslim states, the Ottomanandthe Iranian, o realize the common Europeandangertheyfaced. The two should present a united front in foreignaffairs, and cooperate in internalaffairs, such as educa-tion, legislation and language, in a confederate mannersimilar to that of the United States of America. Eachrulerwould govern independentlyof the otherin the in-ternal administrationof his country with the assistanceof a separate,elected shard, or council.'8But toward the British, Rida had an accommodatingstance. For him, if a Muslim countryhad to be ruled bya European power, it was preferablethat it be British.This was so because Muslims under British rule-as inIndia and in Egypt-were free in their religious affairs.Thus, the Muslims would prefer British rule as long astheirreligion and its holy shrines were secured from for-eign aggression or from non-Muslim interference.19This last provision might explain other facets of Rida'schoice of Mecca as the center of his religious society. Hewrote that such a center had otheradvantages, the mostimportant among them being the distance [of Mecca]from the intrigues and suspicions of foreigners and se-curityfrom theirknowing what there is no need for themto know either in partor in whole. 20But Rida did not wish even the British to have anypolitical or economic leverage in the Hijaz because thesecurity of the Muslims' greater bond is dependent onthe security of the Hijaz. 21 ince the British controlledthe Red Sea and could blockade the Hijfzi ports, thusdenying the holy places their necessary imports, Ridasupported building a railway between Damascus and

17Ibid.8 al-Islahal-dini, pt. 2, al-Manar 1 (1898): 792-93.19 Mas'alatal-'aqaba al-Manar9 (25 April 1906):231-33.20 al-Islahal-dini, pt. 2, 766; cited also in MartinKramer,Islam Assembled: The Advent of the Muslim Congresses (NewYork:ColumbiaUniv. Press, 1986), 28.21 al-Islahal-dini, pt. 2, 793.

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Mecca, a project which the Ottoman government wasseriously consideringat the time.22As to the theme of the caliphateas a necessary tempo-ral power, Rida seemed always to have been consciousof the need for at least one independentMuslim powerwhich could defend religion and enforce its edicts. Asearlyas 1899he maintained hatone of thebases of Islamwas the pursuitof authorityand power, not in the senseof imposing its will on non-Muslims, but in the sense ofmakingits sharfa the supreme principleof rule.23As heput it at one point,

The Muslim does not consider his religion in full beingunless there exists a strong independent Islamic statecapable of enforcing the sharia without opposition orforeign control.24

Duringthe HamidianperiodRidaconsideredthe Otto-mans the representativesof that Islamic temporal inde-pendentpower. Writingin 1898 and emphasizing termsused earlier by another medieval jurist and historian,Ibn Khaldun d. 809/1406), Ridadidnot regard he Otto-mans as ideal caliphs, since their authoritywas for himbasedon the casabiyya(social cohesion) of mulk(tem-poral power) not religion, andthey even disregarded hetitle of caliph until Sultan Abdul-HamidII revived itsuse. 25However, he was also carefulto stressthathe wasnot workingagainst the Ottomancaliphate,at thatpointat least, because that would have meant destroying theonly available temporal Islamic power. This logic wasreminiscent of yet another medieval jurist, Ibn JamOCa(639-733/1241-1333) who legitimized what he termedthecaliphateof conquest. 26Moreover,for Rida, thoseArabsof Qurayshitedescentwho optedfor an alternativeArab caliphate to replace the Ottomanlacked other im-portantrequirements.Scholars have failed to note thatat this time he even explicitly expressed agreementwithIbn Khaldun when he explained that the hadith whichsays the Imamatebelongs to Quraysh has its rationalein the Quraysh's nfluence and authorityduringthe earlyIslamic era. Since the Ottomanshave a comparable in-fluence in the modernera, theconditionis to be consid-

22 Ibid.23 al-Din wa'l dawla aw al-khilafa wa'l saltana, al-Manar(19 August 1899): 353-54.24 Muhammad Rashid Rida, al-Khildfa aw al-imama al-CuzmaCairo:Matbacatal-manar,[1923]), 114.25 Rabbana pt. 3, al-Manar 1 (1898): 679.26 See Badr al-Din b. Jamaca,Tahriral-ahkamfi tadblr ahlal-isldm, ed. Hans Kofler,Islamica 6 (1934): 356-57.

ered legally fulfilled. 27n so arguing,Rida was not-asE. I. J. Rosenthal described him at one point- a rigidadherentto the classical theory of the Khilafa 28whichemphasized the condition that the caliph mustbe of theProphet's ribe.Rida, rather,acceptedIbn Khaldin's the-sis which explained the condition of Qurayshitedescentin secular or semi-secular terms. But this was the onlytime he would voice this opinion and, in fact, he wouldreverse himself on this point in 1922. Rida also de-fended Sultan Abdul-HamidII's title as caliph when anEgyptianCalimquestionedit in 1906.29The theme of consultative/constitutionalrule was alsopresent n Rida's deological formulationsduringHamid-ian rule. Like other aspects of his thought, Rida's ideason this subject were a blend of Islamic and Westernnotions of representativegovernment. For example, af-ter Iran'sconstitutionalrevolution in 1905-630 Rida ex-pressedthe opinion thatshura (consultation)is the basicfeature for any Islamic government, and despotic rulemay not be called Islamic. He voiced dismay thatSultanAbdul-HamidII was the only ruler who did not congra-tulate Muzaffaral-Din Shah of Iran on sanctioning thepopular demands for a constitution in his country. Hewent on to say: If consultative rule is established inIran while other Muslim governments remain despotic,then we have to admit that the Iranian government isthe only true Islamic government on earth. We shouldsupport it lest the rule of the Qur'dn be effaced fromthe world. 31As for the notion that constitutionalism isa Western concept, he wrote an article a year later inwhich he said that one of the positive effects of the Eu-ropean presence in the Orient is the acquiredawarenessof the Orientals of the benefits of constitutionalrule incomparisonwith Ottomanabsolutism.32For him, at thatpoint, althoughshura had always been one of the tenets

27 Rabbana, t. 1, al-Manar 1 (1898): 628-29. He repeatedthisview in al-Khilafaaw al-turkwa'lCarab, l-Manar(2 April1904): 70-74.28 E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in Medieval Islam:An IntroductoryOutline (Cambridge:CambridgeUniv. Press,1958), 67.29 Difac al-shaykhmuhammadbakhitCanrisalatihiwa rad-dihi, al-Manar 9 (23 June 1906): 365-67.30 See Nikkie Keddie, Roots of Revolution:An InterpretativeHistory of ModernIran (New Haven:Yale Univ. Press, 1981),72-73.31 al-Shura fi bilad faris al-Manar 9 (23 August 1906):553-54.

32 Manafical-awrubiyyinwa madarruhumi 'l-sharq, pt. 3,al-Mandr 10 (11 June 1907): 279-84.

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of true Islam, it was the interaction with Europeanswhich reawakened the sense of opposition to absolutismin Muslims.33Here it is essential to consider the Arab nationalist

aspect of Rida's political thought. While he backed theYoung Turk movement in its demand for a democratictype of rule, he was concerned by the movement's adop-tion of Western national themes which emphasized theprimacy of the Turkish race in the Ottoman domains.34He thus sided with the Young Turks' movement on theissue of democracy, but with Sultan Abdul-Hamid II onthe necessity of resisting the Turkish nationalism advo-cated by the Young Turks.35 Since the latter were ex-pressing unfavorable opinions about the Arabs and Arabcivilization and culture, Ridai addressed the subject ofthe relationship between Arabs and Turks.36 As early as1900 he was engaged in writing articles in al-Mandrwhere, in the words of Sylvia Haim, he takes up thecause of the Arabs against the Turks, in evaluating thecontribution of both to Islam. 37 He is correctly quotedas saying in 1900:

The Turks are a warlike nation but they are not ofgreatermoment than the Arabs;how can theirconquestsbe comparedto those of the Arabs, althoughtheir statelasted longer than all the states of the Arabs together?It is in the countries which were conquered by the Arabsthat Islam spread, became firmly established and pros-pered. Most of the lands which the Turks conqueredwere a burden on Islam and the Muslims, and are stilla warning of clear catastrophe. I am not saying thatthose conquests are things for which the Turksmust beblamed or criticized, but I want to say that the greatestglory in the Muslim conquests goes to the Arabs, andthatreligion grew, andbecame great throughthem;theirfoundation is the strongest, their light is the brightest,and they are indeed the best ummabroughtforth to theworld.38

33 Ibid.34 Islah al-dawlahal-'aliyya, 922-23.35 Ibid.; al-Turk wa'l Carab, t. 2, al-Mandr 3 (29 May1900): 197.36 For an example of the YoungTurks'calls to adoptWesternculture at the expense of Arabculture, see Niyazi Berkes, The

Developmentof Secularism in Turkey Montreal:McGill Univ.Press, 1964), 298-99.37 Haim, Introduction, 2.38 al-Turkwa'l Carab, t. 1, al-Manar 3 (20 May 1900):169-72. The above quotationis Haim'stranslation.See Haim,

Introduction, 2-23.

In fact, Rida was-as were other members of thesalafiyya-generally consistent in presenting the Arabsas the one Muslim element which had supremacy in thereligious sphere. Indeed,

To care for the history of the Arabs and to strive to re-vive their glory is the same as to work for the Muslimunion which was only obtained in past centuries thanksto the Arabs, and will not return n this century exceptthrough them, united and in agreement with all otherraces. The basis of the union is Islam itself, and Islamis none other than the book of God Almighty, and thesunna of his prophet, prayerandpeace be on Him. Bothare in Arabic. No one can understand hem properlyun-less he understands their noble language . ..39

Hence, Rida perceived a de facto division of laborbetween the Arabs and the Turks within the generalframework of the caliphate. For him, the Arabs havesupremacy in the religious sphere while the Turks havesupremacy in the attributes of political and militarypower, at least since the emergence of the Ottoman Em-pire. As he elegantly put it at a later point, The Arab isthe germ (jurthuma) of Islam while the Turk is its pierc-ing sword. 40Rida was implying not a racial but a religious hierar-chy between Arabs and Turks. The importance of Ara-bic in his discourse clearly stems from the fact that itis the language of Islam and not of the Arabs per se.Rida's Arab nationalism may be better described asArab religious nationalism. This is evident when heelaborated on the importance of Arabic, showing clearlythe influence of Ibn Khaldun on him.

Whoever understandsthem [the Qur'anand the sunna]in this sense is, accordingto our usage, an Arab. For wedo not mean by the Arabs only those who have kin-ship with an Arab tribe, because we do not desire to befanatics for race; on the contrary,we deplore such anattitude and shunall its exponents. Not all who contrib-uted to Arab civilization in which we take pride werepureArabswith a clear lineage;but the foreigneramongthem did not have his knowledge in his foreign lan-guage, for the impetus to acquire this knowledge cameto him from the Arab lands and the religion which helearnt in the Arabic language. Ibn Khaldun was right

39 Madaniyyatal-'arab, al-Mandr3 (8 July 1900): 289-93.I have slightly revised Haim'stranslationof this quotation.SeeHaim, Introduction, 3.40 Rida, al-Khildfa,61.

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whenhe said thatpeoplesuch as al-ZamakhsharindCAbdl-Qahiral-Jurjani],he knightsof the languageand hekeepers f thetreasuryf Arabicwere oreign-ersonlyin theirancestry.41Likewise, Rida's preference for the conquests of theArabs to those of the Turkswas based on a comparisonbetween conquests which led to the conversion of theinhabitantsof the conquered ands, and those which fellshort of that ideal. For him, the conquests of the Turksin Europe were a burden on their power and served asa distraction from annexing other Muslim lands.42His

lamenting the fact that the Turksdid not adopt Arabicas the official language seems to have stemmed fromtemporalas well as religious considerations.43Had theydone so, then the languages of religion and state wouldhave been unified, a matterwhich explains, for him, theArabs'success and the Turks' failure in converting theconquered peoples to Islam.But here, as well, Rida employed secular logic to ex-plain other aspects of his argument.For him, Islam andArabicdo not have an exclusively religious utility, but anationalone as well. A common religion and a commonlanguage are two bonds that knit a nation together ina cohesive manner.Rida held that the Arabs were ableto convert the peoples they conqueredto their languageandreligion through heirmoralauthority.The Europeannations achieved the same goal throughbruteforce, im-posing conversion on Arabs,Jews, and native Europeanpagans. Yet the Ottoman state did not follow eithercourse; thus it failed to establish any firm bond betweenthe state and the conqueredpeople, who await any op-portunityto breakaway from the empire.44On the historical level, Rida echoed other membersof the salafiyya in periodizing Islamic history in away that gave preferenceto Arab Islam and associatedthe demise of the caliphate with the despotism of theTurkishmilitary,who began to dominateit underthe Ab-basid caliph, al-MuCtasimr. 218-27/833-42). He em-phasized, as he would again at a later point, that whilethe Arabslost theirracial Casabiyyawithin the widerre-ligious identity of Islam, the Turksand the Iraniansre-tained their pre-Islamic racial Casabiyya.45 Here it isimportantto correct an erroneous statement of SylviaHaim's:

41 Madaniyyatal-'arab, bid., 289-93.42 al-Wahdaal-'arabiyya, al-Mandr3 (30 April 1900): 1.43 Ibid.44 Jamciyyatal-shuraal-'uthmaniyya, 950.45 Rida, al-Khildfa, 123.

[T]his partiality o Arab Islam, in the case of al-Afghaniandof Muhammad bduh,did not betoken ninterestin or an encouragementof Arab nationalism.Itwas otherwisewithRashidRida. A good exampleofthedivergence etweenhisviews and hoseof Muham-mad Abduh occurs in a footnote he added to the pas-sage in al-lslam wa'l-nasraniyyamentioned above, inwhich Muhammad Abduh discusses the causes for thestagnation f Islam. The caliphwho was responsiblefor introducingthe Turks as mercenaries, says the foot-note, was al-MuCtasim,nd,it adds, how miserable washis helping (blameworthy)innovation to triumph overthe sunna, and how miserable was his action in en-abling the Turks to spoil the umma. The footnote isnoteworthynot only because it makes explicit and ex-aggerates a possible tendency of MuhammadAbduh'sargument,but also for the implicit change it introducesinto the conceptof umma.Traditionally,he word meantthe body of all the Muslims, and made no distinctionbased on race, language, or habitation.But RashidRidaseems here to be saying that the Turks,Muslims as theywere, were not really partof the umma,that the ummaconsisted only of Arab Muslims. This remains an am-biguous hint, however, and is not made explicit.46

A careful examination of al-Islam wa'l nasraniyya, thesource on which Haim based her argument, reveals thatRida did not accuse the Turks of spoiling the umma, butrather of spoiling the mulk (temporal power) of the umma.His statement should thus be translated as follows: Howmiserable was his [al-MuCtasim's] helping (blameworthy)innovation to triumph over the sunna, and how miserablewas his action in enabling the Turks to spoil the mulk ofthe umma. 47 Rida, then, did not hint at excluding theTurks from the umma. Haim was more precise elsewherewhen she stated that Rida's partialityto the Arabs wasbased on a regardfor Islam and on a zeal in its defensewhich, so Rashid Rida thought,had been best insuredbythe Arabs. 48

Rida's Arab cultural nationalism was evident whenhe defended the Arabs'contribution o civilization whenthey were at the zenith of their power. He thought theycreated a new civilization and revived dead sciences. Atthat time, there was no science except their science, noindustry was better than their industry, and no agricul-

46 Haim, Introduction, 2.47 MuhammadCAbduh,al-Islam wa'l nasraniyya maca al-Cilmwa'l madaniyyd,5th ed. (Cairo:MatbaCatIsa al-Babi al-Halabi, 1357 [1938]), 113, n. 1.48 Haim, Introduction, 3.

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HADDAD:Rereading Rashid Rida'sIdeas on the Caliphate

tureand tradeequalledtheiragricultureand trade. 49 utit should be stressed that when Ridii talked about Arabcivilization, he meantby it civilization under the Umay-yads and the Abbasids.50 e certainlydid not believe thatthe Arabian Peninsula was rich in sciences or crafts orcivilization in general even underthe Rfshidun caliphs.When a Turkishnewspaper,for example, criticizedthosewho called for an Arabcaliphateto replacethe Ottomanand arguedthat the caliphate is the responsibilityof themost civilized Muslim nation and that most capable ofdefending the domain of the caliphate,Rida agreedonlyin part: Yes, temporalpower is the basic mainstay [ofthe caliphate] . . . but this power should be compatiblewith the justice of the sharfa. On the otherhand, Ridahad strong reservationsabout linking the caliphate withthe requirementsof advanced civilization: If civiliza-tion were a necessarycondition, thenthe caliphateof theRashidun would be illegal. 5'In fact, Rida stressed that God had chosen the Arabnation (in the Arabian Peninsula) for the Islamic mis-sion precisely because it had no pre-Islamiccivilization,althoughit was surroundedby areaswhich hosted greatcivilizations.52Having been isolated, the Arabs of thePeninsula had greater free will and more independentthought. They had no spiritualor temporal leaders rul-ing over them despotically, and no religious customs torival Islam when it emerged.53At any rate, Rida believed that the Arabs, during theheyday of their empire, produced a higher civilizationthanthe Turksat the zenith of theirpower. He held thatthe Arabs had better mental faculties and possessed su-periorscientific minds than the Turks.54Yethe conceded

49 al-Turkwa'l Carab, pt. 2, al-Manar3 (29 May 1900): 194.50 See his series of articles on the civilization of the Arabs,the first of which appearedunder the title Madaniyyat al-Carab, bid.51 Dacwaal-khilafa, al-Manar 6 (3 March 1904): 954-58.52 It is interestingto note the similaritybetween Rida'sviewson the ArabianPeninsula and those of the Iranian ntellectual,CAliShariCati.The latter wrote six decades later and in 1968,for example: Atthe time of the appearanceof the ProphetofIslam, all the civilizations in existence were gathered aroundthe Arabianpeninsula. But the peculiar geographical locationof the peninsula decreed that just as none of the vapors thatarose over the oceans ever reached the peninsula so too not atrace of the surrounding ivilizations ever penetrated he penin-sula. In Ali Shari'ati, On the Sociology of Islam, tr. from thePersianby HamidAlgar (Berkeley:Mizan Press, 1979), 54.53 ICfdatmajdal-islam, al-Manar 3 (1 April 1900): 74-75.54 al-Turkwa'l carab, pt. 2, 194.

that in modem times the Turkswere more educated andthus more civilized than the Arabs, but only becausethe Ottomanstate allocated more funds for education tothe Turkishprovinces than to the Arab provinces of theempire.55At the same time Rida was developing his ideas onArab religious nationalism he called for Arab-Turkishcooperation. For him, Islam both gave people equalrights and transformed hem into brethren.The achieve-ments of each should be perceived as complementary.Otherwise, racial conflict which was the cause of Mus-lim weakness in the past might become the cause oftheirtotal destruction in the future. 56Rida agreedwith the TurkishhistorianJawdatPasha'sdescription of the Ottoman state at its inception as acombinationof Arabreligion and courage blended withsteadiness which is characteristicof the Turks. 57 orRida, natural obedience to their rulers was the Turks'superiorquality;it enabled the Ottomanstate to survivefor longer than any Arabstate had ever done. But Arabswere more courageous, and more steadfast in adherenceto Islam, Rida wrote. Unlike the Turks,who usually fol-lowed theirleadersunquestioningly,Arabswere pronetopolitical power struggles. But in Rida's view, this frac-tiousness, while not promotingunity,reflected the Arabs'closer adherence to the Islamic democraticprincipleand an independenceof mind and will.58Rida'sconcernfor the unityof Islamdid not meanthathe neglected his concernfor Arabunity.The mainreasonfor his calls for such unity was that he perceived it as onecomponent of a larger Islamic and Ottomanunity. Forhim, Arabunitydid not meanthe separationof the Arabsfrom other Muslims or from the Turks, n particular,butunderlinedthe necessity of each Islamic component tostrive to improve its conditions and elevate its status,a matter which contributes to the progress of the wholeIslamic umma.59However, the underlying cause for Rida'surgency in arguing for Arab unity lay elsewhere. Ridafeared most of all that Arab lands would come underforeign occupation, and he believed that the Arabs weremore vulnerable to such danger than the Turks. Writingat a time when further European encroachments seemedimminent, he compared the prospects of the collapse ofOttoman power for both the Turks and the Arabs. In sucha case he saw the Turks being able to preserve their

55 Ibid.56 al-Turkwa'l Carab, t. 1, 170.57 Ibid.58 Ibid., 170-71.59 Ibid.

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independencein Anatolia because they representan in-dependentelement capable of ruling itself and attaininga status at par with Europe's. 60he Arabs, on the otherhand, dependent on the Turksas they were, would be-come victims of Europeanambitions.The Arabs laggedbehind in what Rida considered the three elements ofpower: [modem] knowledge, wealth, and military pre-paredness.61 ince the Ottomanauthoritiesallocatedmostfunds for education to the Turkishprovinces, and sincewealth is a derivativeof education,andsince it was onlythe Turks who were educated in military sciences, andthere were few Arabmilitarycommanders, t was logicalto conclude thatthe Turkswere in a muchbetterpositionthan the Arabs to defend themselves in case of foreignaggression.62The ironyof the situation s reflectedin Rida'spercep-tion that while the Arabs were, so to speak, spirituallysuperior by virtue of the linkage between theirdestinyand the destiny of Islam, they were materially nferiorand were the weakest of Muslim peoples in terms of theability to defend themselves.63In this respect they notonly lagged behind the Turks,but behind the Afghansand the Iraniansas well.64

Thus, since for Rida danger loomed largest for theweakest of the Muslim peoples, and since he believedthat the Ottoman central government was unable tospread education in all its provinces, he called on theArabs to rely on themselves and asked the sultan to im-plement compulsorymilitarytraining n all provinces toenable each to devise measuresof self-defense in case ofEuropeanattack.ForRida, thiskind of preparedness opreserve the Arab nation and its unity is not incompat-ible with Ottomansovereignty. 65Rida's principle of independence vis-i-vis the Euro-pean powers was not exclusively religious and political,but it also had a geographicaldimension. The cherishedindependentIslamic power was not just any power, butone that would be capable of defending Arab lands, thelands of Islampar excellence. In this respect Rida con-structeda two-tier religio-territorialhierarchy:The toptier referred o the ArabianPeninsula,as the early home-land of Islam. Of particular mportancewas its westernprovince, the Hijaz, where the two holiest shrines of Is-

60 Icadatmajdal-islam, al-Manar 3 (1 April 1900): 78.61 al-Wahdaal-'arabiyya, al-Manar 3 (30 April 1900):122-23.62 Ibid.63 Ibid., 124.64 Ibid.65 Ibid.

lam arelocated,in Mecca and Medina. He once describedthis province as a sanctuaryof last resort for Muslims;thus to Rida, its status was similar to that of a mosquewhere non-Muslimsarenot allowed to enter. 66 he lowertier of the religious territoryhierarchyencompassed theArab Asiatic lands adjacent to the peninsula, namely,Syria, Palestine, and Iraq.Rida's failure to insist on the freedom of Egypt andother Muslim lands in Africa and Asia is revealing. ItdemonstratedRida'spragmatism, n thathe chose not tochallenge the European powers where they had alreadyseized control. Apparently,he acquiesced in the Muslimloss of political control over those regions that werealreadyunderEuropeanoccupationbefore WorldWarI,but considered he ArabOttomanAsiaticprovinces,whichwere until thenfree of such control,as the bareterritorialminimumnecessary for preserving Islam as a temporaland religious force.As early as 1900, Rida was sensitive to the prospectsof non-Muslim controlof theholy places in theHijaz.Hebecame extremely concernedabout this issue afterread-ing a series of translatedarticles, written originally inFrench,by GabrielHanotaux(1853-1944), a statesmanand historian,in which he said that the Semites in gen-eraland the Muslims in particular an not be equal to theChristiansor Aryans because of the fatalistic nature ofthe formers'beliefs. 67What alarmedRidamost were notHanotaux'sremarks,but his description of the ideas ofan obscureGreekwriter,a certainD. Kimon. Kimon wascorrectlyquoted as calling for a joint Europeanmilitaryexpedition to eradicate Islam by destroying its two holycities and the tomb of its prophet.68 or Kimon,

to destroy slam we haveonly to suppress he actioncenter of Islam;thatis, Mecca, andto seize, in Medina,the remains of the prophetMuhammad,transport hemto the Louvre Museum and this epitaph could be writ-ten on the remains: R.I.P. Islam. Born in Mecca in 612and eliminated in 1897.69

Although Hanotaux was, in fact, criticizing Kimon'sbizarre scheme, Rida felt that the direction of Hano-taux's logic was not opposed to Kimon's. In addition,

66 Mancghayral-muslimin min sukna al-hijaz, al-Mandr12 (22 March 1909): 98.67 Hanatuwa'l islah al-islami, al-Mandr 3 (28 July 1900):337-45.68 D. Kimon, La Pathologie de l'lslam et les moyens de ladetruire, 2nd ed. (Paris:n.p., 1897), 183-84.69 Ibid., 183.

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Rida held that the latter'shostile attitude toward Islamwas representativeof the opinion of many influentialEuropeanwriters and politicians.70II. UNDER C.U.P. RULE: THE PRE-WAR YEARS

Rida's political thought and behavior entered a newphasewhen the Committeeof Union andProgress C.U.P.),an offshootof theYoungTurkmovement,assumedpowerin Istanbul in 1908 and reinstated the Ottoman constitu-tion of 1876. At first he set aside his misgivings aboutthe Turkishnationalisttendencyof the YoungTurks,andthe C.U.P. in particular,and praised the C.U.P. and itsanti-corruptionprogram,emphasizing that the return tothe constitution was in line with the consultative anddemocraticprinciples of Islamic rule.71However, Ridawas careful to argue at that point that Sultan CAbdul-Hamid II was still the head of the umma and the im-plementer of its laws and sharica, and thus should betreated with all due respect.72Yet, when the C.U.P de-posed CAbdul-HamidI in April, 1909, after a counter-revolution to restore his absolute powers failed, Ridasided with the C.U.P. For him, CAbdul-Hamid I's con-spiracy proved his unwillingness to abide by the consti-tution, and thus his deposition was lawful.73The theme of a spiritualcaliphate or religious revivalwas somewhat muted n Rida'swritings during his phase.Rida was concerned, instead, with trying to counteractthe activities of Christian missionaries by founding asociety and a school to prepareMuslim missionaries forproselytizingactivitiesoutside Ottomandomains.74Duringhis stay in Istanbul,Rida tried to reconcile thedifferences between Arabs and Turks. He wrote manyarticles in the Turkish press which were republishedlater in al-Manar. His central point was the need toshun the ideas andpolicies of nationalismbased on race.He argued that racial nationalism was a Europeancon-cept which was incompatible with the interests of theOttomanempirebecause it was composed of numerousracial elements.75To Rida, if the Turkspursue a pol-

70 Hanatu a'l slah, 38.71 al-Ummal-'uthmaniyyaa'ldustur l-Manar29 Au-gust1908):539-44.72 'Id al-umma al-'uthmaniyya bi nicmat al-dustur wa'l

hurriyya, al-Manar 11 (28 July 1908): 417-23.73 al-Inqilab al-Cuthmani al-maymun bi-khalc Cabdul-hamid, al-Manar 12 (19 May 1909): 304-14.74 Jam'iyyat al-dacwawa'l irshad, al-Manar 14 (30 Janu-

ary 1911): 43.75 al-Turkwa'l Carab, t. 1, al-Manar 12 (13 December1909):822.

icy based on racial nationalismthey stand to lose most,because they would end up restricting themselves toAnatolia. 76Again, Rida's Arab nationalism was not intended to

displacetheOttomanEmpirepolitically,but to live withinit. Rida'sArab nationalismwas restricted o the religiousand culturalspheres;politically he thoughtthatArab na-tionalism,thoughuseful as aunifyingprincipleforArabs,should give way to the wider concept of Ottomanism.77On the eve of World WarI, Rida accused the C.U.P.ofhaving, in effect, abandoned slamism andOttomanism norderto embrace Turkishnationalism.78

But the dominant themes in Rida's writings duringthis period were the need for the political independenceof Islam from foreign powers and the preservationof anIslamic temporal power. It was out of this concern thatRida differentiated between his opposition to Ottomanpolicies-first, to the unconstitutional rule of SultanAbdul-Hamid II before 1908 and then to the Turkishnationalistpolicies of the C.U.P.-and his loyalty to theOttomanstate. In fact, he never advocatedthe formationof an Arab caliphate to rival the Ottoman one beforeWorld War I. At the beginning of the Ottoman-Italianwar over Tripolitania n 1911, Rida wrote:

Islam is a religion of authorityand sovereignty.Theseattributesmay be more firmlyrooted in the hearts of itsadherents han the belief in the unity [of God]. Muslimsall over the world believe that the Ottoman state isfulfillingthe role of defenderof the Muslimfaith.Itmayfall short in serving Islam because of the despotism ofsome of its sultans, or the irreligion of some of its pa-shas, or the threats from Europe. But these are symp-toms that will disappearwhen their causes cease, as longas the [Ottoman]state remainsindependentand respon-sible for the office of the caliphate.79

What made Rida, however, restive and politicallyvery active on the eve of the war was the fact that mili-tary and political developments were pointing clearly inthe very direction he feared most, namely, the collapseof the last temporalpower capable of protectingIslam.Indeed, he was to reflect later that the only factors thatdeterredArabsfrom tryingto form an independentArab

76 Ibid., 823.77 Ibid., 929.78 Al-Jinsiyyat fi al-mamlaka al-Cuthmaniyya, t. 2, al-Manar (24 June 1914): 615-17.79 al-Mas'ala al-sharqiyya, pts. 2-5, al-Mandr 14 (21 No-vember 1911): 834.

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state before World War I were respect for the non-racialprinciples of Islam and fear of European occupation.80After the loss of Tripolitania, Rida voiced concernabout the future of both the Arabian Peninsula and Syria.He wrote an article about the former at the end of 1912,underlining its character as the homeland of Islam:

Every Muslim should know that what is left in thehands of this [Ottoman]state is neither the inheritanceof the Turks nor of the Ottomans. It is the inheritanceof Islam itself. The soul of all these lands is the Arab-ian peninsula, the first bud of Islam and its holy shrine.It is where the Qur'an was received and where the seatof the Kacbaand the tomb of the seal of the prophetsis. Muslims were content with making this [Ottoman]state the defender of the Peninsula from the enemies ofIslam only because they thought that it was capable ofsuch a task and not because it possessed any colonialrights or transmittedany scientific or civilizational in-fluences .... Now ... it is imperative hatthey [theMus-lims] should, wherever they are, think about a way toprotect the Arabian Peninsula from foreign occupationor influence....81

As he was extremely critical of the Ottoman adminis-tration, Rida's proposed solution was to ask the centralgovernment in Istanbul for reform and autonomy, not justfor the Arabian peninsula, but for all the surviving ArabOttoman Asiatic provinces. This, he thought, would makepossible the reconstruction of Arab lands and the progressof the Arabs so that they won't collapse if the [Ottoman]state collapses and they would contribute, through theirprogress, to the progress and esteem of the [Ottoman]state if it survives. 82

At the same time, Rida was trying to help create afederation among the amirs of the Arabian Peninsula tosecure a common defense for the region since, as he putit, the power of the Arabs is in their peninsula. 83As for Syria, Rida was alarmed at the beginning of thewar by French news reports that London and Paris hadreached an agreement which would put southern Syriaunder the control of the British, and northern Syria, in-cluding Mount Lebanon, under the control of the French.He was particularly disturbed by the fact that the Syrian

80 al-Mas'ala al-'arabiyya, al-Manar 20 (30 July 1917):33-47.81 al-Harb al-balqaniyya wa'l mas'ala al-sharqiyya, al-Manar 15 (9 December 1912): 957.82 al-Mas'alaal- arabiyya, 40.83 Ibid.

Christians, especially the Maronites of Mount Lebanon,were allying themselves with France while the Muslims,conscious of the traditional Anglo-French rivalry, wereexpressing pro-British sentiments.84 In a strongly wordedarticle, Rida addressed his fellow Syrians, rejecting thecontrol of either power. For him, it was humiliating to beruled by the French, but it was even more humiliatingto ask to be ruled by the British. Rida told the Syriansthat both powers harbored vicious intentions toward theirhomeland. He pointed out that, although Britain wasusually more tolerant toward the inhabitants of its colo-nies, in this case it was intent on forcibly controlling allArab lands, while France might be content with Syriaalone. He warned them that British control over Syriawould be tantamount to the downfall of the Ottomanstate and the dismemberment of its remaining provinces.As for those who were hopeful of building an indepen-dent Arab state, either under British or under Anglo-Egyptian auspices,85 Rida perceptively remarked:

Our Syrian brethrenshould know that Britain does notpermit the establishment of an esteemed and indepen-dent Arab state even if it were to come under Britishprotection.Neither does Britain look favorablyon Syriabecominga dependencyof Egypt even if the lattermain-tains its present status (i.e., being underBritishoccupa-tion, which permits the creationof an Egyptianmilitarypower for the needs of internal security only, and forsecuring what is within its zone of influence in theSudan).Therefore,nobody should be deceived by thesefictionsor false political promises. They are nothingbutdaydreams.86

Rida then appealed to his fellow Syrians to concen-trate on reforming their homeland and their Ottomanstate, to which they should remain loyal.87At this time, Rida repeated his old theme that it wasimpossible to reform the Ottoman Empire from the cen-ter in Istanbul, which had become too Europeanized andtoo dependent on Europe to pursue its own independentcourse.88 He wrote that the Balkan War might prove tobe a blessing in disguise if Ottoman statesmen could get

84 al-Mas'alaal-suriyya, al-Mandr 15 (9 December 1912):958-60.85 Rashid Khalidi, British Policy TowardsSyria and Pales-

tine, 1906-1914 (London:IthacaPress, 1980), 234.86 al-Mas'alaal-suriyya, 960.87 Ibid.88 al-Dawla al-'uthmaniyya, al-Manar 16 (6 February1913): 110-11.

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rid of their Europeancomplex, an idea he had ex-pressed earlier.For Rida those Ottoman statesmenwereso concerned with keeping the empire a Europeanpower thatthey neglected the opportunitiesof both theTurksand the Arabs in Asia. OttomanEuropewas drain-ing Ottoman resources to such an extent that the statewas able to defend neither its Europeannor its Asiaticpossessions.89Rida'sproposed remedy was very similarto his remedy of a decade earlier: he wished to changeIstanbul into a purely military outpost and move thecapital either to the Arab city of Damascus or to theAnatoliancity of Konya.90Arabs and Turks shouldjointogether then in creating local Asiatic military forma-tions capable of defending themselves in case of for-eign danger. Priority would be given to defending theHijaz and the two holy sanctuaries n Mecca andMedinaand the lands adjacentto them.91III. DURING WORLD WAR I

1. 1914-1915: An Arab Caliphate in Case ofOttoman CollapseBy far the most dominant theme in Rida's thoughtduringWorldI was the need to preservean Islamic tem-poral power should the Ottoman Empire collapse. Butwhile this concern made him stress his Ottomanloyaltybefore the war, it pushedhim in the directionof tryingtoconstructan Arabcaliphateduringthe war.At the start of the war, Rida was careful to demon-stratehis Ottomanloyalty, confining his criticism to theC.U.P He wrote an open letter to the Muslims of Syriaurging them not to turnagainst their non-Muslim com-patriots but to cooperate with them as the sharicadic-tates and assist their Ottoman state in its hour of trial.He told them that the Arabrenaissance was not di-rected against the Turks, and even asked them to droptheir earlierdemands for reformbecause all internalcon-flicts should cease at the moment of externaldanger.Heremindedthem, however, thatsuch loyalty is confined tocarrying out orders that are in conformity with thesharfca.Withoutmentioningthe C.U.P by name,he went

on to say that orders from such bodies are not to be re-spected if they were contrary o the sharica or the intentsof the nation and the fatherland.92

89 Ibid.90 Ibid., 110.91 al-Harbl-balqaniyyal-salibiyya, 6-77.92 Ila ikhwani l-kirammuslimi iriyya, l-Mandr 17 (18November 914):956-58.

These were fine sentiments but they show nothingmore than political wavering. Rida was unable to main-tain these views when warragedacross the empire.Ridaalso seems to have himself confronted the fact that Otto-man collapse was now inevitable93and would lead toEuropeancontrol of Arab lands. Rida reacted similarlyto the way he had acted at the end of 1912 when Istanbulseemed about to fall to the Bulgarians. Apparently,hefelt that an Anglo-Arab alliance that would guaranteeArab independence after the war was the only way tosave both the temporaland spiritualauthorityof Islam.However, with the war underway Rida was prepared ogo a step furtherandworkfor the re-establishmentof anArabcaliphateto substitutefor the Ottomanone. He wasunequivocal about his intentions when, in July 1915, hetold Sir Mark Sykes, Assistant Secretaryto the BritishWarCabinet, that

thefall of Constantinopleouldmean heend of Turk-ishmilitary ower,and hereforet wasnecessaryo setup anotherMohammedantate to maintainMoham-medanprestige.94Later in the same interview, he was more specific, re-markingthat

whenTurkeyell Islamwouldrequirehesettingupofanabsolutely ndependent rabia,ncludingSyriaandMesopotamia,nder he sherif[of Mecca].95At the beginning of the war, Rida believed that thehelp of GreatBritainto the Arabsand Mohammedans omaintain their independence in their own country wasquite consistent with her own political and economic in-terests. 96He was encouraged in this belief by Britishofficials in Cairo and Khartoumwho were initially infavor of an Arabcaliphate, in spite of the objections ofother British officials, especially in the India Office.97

93 Ta'sishukumatmakkahwakhutbat ashid ida i minah,al-Mandr 20 (11 February1918): 280-88.94 Policy in the Middle East II. Select Reports and Tele-

grams from Sir Mark Sykes. Report No. 14 (Secret). FromLieutenant-ColonelirMarkSykes,Bart.,M.P., o theDirectorof MilitaryOperations.hepherdsHotel,Cairo,14July1915.London, ndiaOfficeRecords,L/P&S/10/525,.95 Ibid.96 SupplementaryNote to the Memorandum.. . Wingate

Papers 135/7/90.97 See Elie Kedourie, CairoandKhartoum n the ArabQues-tion, 1915-1918, in The ChathamHouse Version and Other

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According to Rida himself, Ronald Storrs, the OrientalSecretary at the British residency in Cairo, and GilbertClayton, Sudan Agent and Director of Intelligence forthe Egyptian Army, gave him all the assurances heneeded. Ronald Storrs, wrote Rida,

explained to me that in the event of Turkey oining theenemies of Englandin this war, Englandwould not as-sociate the Arabs with the Turks and would considerthem as friends and not as enemies.... If the Arabsseize then the chance to proclaim their independence,I was assured that Great Britain would help them inevery possible way and would defend them from anyaggression.... We were also promised in case it wasnecessary for military reasons to occupy with militaryforces certainpartsof theircountry,GreatBritain wouldgive them back to the Arabs.98

According to Rida, Clayton alsorepeatedto me the same pleasantassurances, which it isneedless for me to say, have given to me and to all ourbrethren the Ottoman Arabs, real pleasure and muchsatisfaction.99

Having received these promises orally, Rida suggestedthat Britain issue a comprehensive proclamation formal-izing them. An English language translation of such aproclamation exists in the archives of the British Em-bassy in Cairo. An analysis of the text and statementsby Rida about the proclamation led me to believe thatthis document is the English translation of the suggesteddraft proclamation as written by Rida himself and pre-sented to the British authorities on 4 December 1914,after Istanbul had joined the war the previous month. Itis not, as Abdul-Latif Tibawi says, an official Britishdocument recording a promise to the Arabs, nor was iteven composed by junior British officials, as Elie Ke-dourie suggested.'1?

MiddleEasternStudies,new edition(Hanover,N.H.: Univ. Pressof New England, 1984), 13-32.98 Translationof a Memorandumby Rashid Rida, Win-gate Papers 135/7/61.99 Ibid., 135/7/62.100Foreign Office Archives, Public Record Office, London,FO. 141/710/3156. Copy of a proclamationdated 4 December1914 with the title An OfficialProclamationFromthe Govern-ment of Great Britain to the Natives of Arabia and the ArabProvinces (hereafter Copy of an Official Proclamation ).Forwardedunder a brief cover letter from David Hogarth,the

The proclamation thus should be read merely as arecord of oral promises made by Storrs and Clayton toRida in Cairo in 1914. Rida wanted these promises for-malized by London, but London would refuse to do so.The proclamation specifies the areas of Arab indepen-dence as Arabia, Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia-the countries lying between the Red Sea, Bahr El-Arab,Persian Gulf, frontiers of Persia and Anatolia and theMediterranean Sea. '01 It clearly assures the Arab resi-dents of these regions that the Government of GreatBritain ... has decided not to attack you nor initiate waragainst any of you-nor does it intend to possess anypart of your countries neither in form of conquest andpossession nor in the form of protection or occupation.She also guarantees to you that her allies in the presentwar will follow the same policy. If the Arabs would unitetheir forces, declare independence and drive out the Turksand the Germans, then Great Britain and her allies willrecognise your perfect independence . . . without any in-terference in your internal affairs. The proposed procla-mation promises British help if you help yourselves andtake steps to establish an Empire for the Khalifate to ad-minister your vast countries. It explains, in the language

director of the Arab Bureau, to Ronald Storrs, Cairo 19 June1916. Tibawi takes this proclamationat face value and repro-duces partsof it as an official recordof British promisesto theArabs. Kedourie seems aware of the ambiguous status of theproclamation.He quotes it and then says thatit does not seemto have been authorized from London, nor does it seem thatthe Foreign Office was informed of its publication. But he iswrongwhen he expresses the view that it was almostcertainlycomposed by Storrs. See A. L. Tibawi, Anglo-ArabRelationsand the Question of Palestine, 1914-1921 (London: Luzac,1978), 42-43; Elie Kedourie, In the Anglo-Arab Labyrinth:The McMahon-Husayn Correspondence and Its Interpreta-tions, 1914-1939 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniv. Press, 1976),21. What makes me believe, however, that it was Rida whowrote the Arabic original of this proclamationis that it em-ployed a certainIslamic terminologythatwas used only by himat that point in time. Most notable in this case is Ibn Jamcaa'sterm Khalifateof conquestandnecessity. More important tillis thatRids himself, in his aforementioned1915 memorandum,clearly referredto the proclamationas writtenby himself. Al-though he said that this proclamationwas merely repeatingthepromises made to him orally by the British authorities,theseauthoritiesreturned he proclamationto him in early 1915 withthe most importantphrasescrossed out. See Translationof aMemorandumby RashidRida, Wingate Papers 135/7/65.101 Copy of an Official Proclamation, Public RecordOffice, FO. 141/710/3126.

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of an Calim and employing terms used earlier by IbnJama'a, that one of Britain's fundamental traditions isto be the friend of Islam and Muslums [sic] and to de-fend the Islamic Khalifate even if it was a Khalifate ofconquest and necessity as the Turkish Khalifate. '02 Al-though it knew that the caliphate is the right of Quray-shite Arabs, Britain

has helped the Turks and defended them as the Indianand Arab Muslums were willing to keep the IslamicKhalifate with them. She did not wish to create dissen-sion amongst them. For this reason England has notshown sympathybefore towards the Arabs nor did shehelp the Arabwishers of reformeitherby word or action.

The reasons for Britain's change of heart were ex-pressed in the following way:

Now that the Germans had pushed the Turksto exposethemselves and their Empire to final destruction byfighting us and our allies, the cause which had pre-vented us from giving assistance to the Arabs has nowdisappeared and another cause has taken its place call-ing us to their assistance because the fall of the TurkishKhalifate is impending following the fall of their greatEmpire, and there is no nation amongst Muslums who[sic] is now capable of upholdingthe Islamic Khalifateexcept the Arabnation and no countryis more fitted forits seat than the Arab countries.103

The proclamation was never published. Instead it wasreturned to Rida, most probably after being sent toLondon,'04 with, in his words, the most importantphrases . . .crossed out, thus leaving it devoid of thespirit which would tend to gain the hearts and confidenceof the Arabs. '05The edited version left out British denialof any ambitions in Arab lands and replaced it with apromise of free trade to the Arabs in the Arab countrywhich will become possessed by the English Govern-ment. A phrase relative to the Hedjaz [sic] Railway wasalso cancelled. '06 Rida protested against those changes

102 Ibid.103Ibid.104 An Arabic source suggests that the same proposedproc-lamation was probablywritten by the leaders of the Arab de-centralizationparty in Cairo. See Sulayman Musa, al-Harakaal-Carabiyya1908-1924 (Beirut:Dar al-Nahar, 1977), 160.105 Translationof a Memorandumby Rashid Rida, Win-gate Papers 135/7/65.106Ibid.

which did not agree with the official assurances hithertomade to us. '07 He also criticized the British occupationof Faw and Basra in Iraq in the beginning of the war,which he said amounted to complete annexation. '08 YetRida in his long memorandum was most concerned withthe need to preserve the temporal independence of Islam,which he saw as essential for maintaining Islam. As heput it:

What I seek from Great Britainrepresents the feelingsof Mohammedans in general and Arabs in particular.They all wish GreatBritain to use her influence to retainthe complete independence of Islam in its cradle in theArabianPeninsula and the borderingArabiancountries,bound by Persia and the Persian Gulf in the east, theRed Sea, Egypt and Mediterranean n the west, AsiaMinor in the north and the Indian Ocean in the south.They ask her not to consent thatany partof this countryshould be the slave of any power or in the zone of in-fluence or under the protectionof such a power.This incase the powers thinkof taking possession of a portionof the dominions of Turkeywhen peace is concluded,also if the allies be determinedon her dismemberment fthe final victory be their's [sic]-as it is desiredto be.In doing this GreatBritain will gain the friendshipandloyalty of more than one hundredmillion of herMoham-medan subjects, because they would then be confidentthat the precepts of the Koran and the sanctity of theholy places will not be interferedwith.'09

There can be little doubt that Rida's central concernwas preserving the temporal power of Islam, rather thanmerely the sanctity of the holy places, because hementioned that the strongest point in the argument ofanti-British Arabs and Muslims was that England wastrying to efface the Mohammedan authority and rulefrom the world. 0 In a most revealing passage he said,

[This argument]is even strongerthan their saying thatEnglandwishes to take the Haramein r destroythem.Mohammedans consider that the destruction of the

Haramein ould be repaired,but the destructionof theMohammedanprestige and authority s irreparable.1

107Ibid., 135/7/65.108Ibid., 135/7/64.109Ibid., 135/7/87-88.11 Ibid., 135/7/69.111Ibid.;on November 14, 1914 the British had published adeclarationstressingthat .. . the war with Turkeyhad nothingto do with religion, that the holy places in Arabia, the port of

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For Rida, the callers to jihdd in support of Istanbulhave been given a strong point of argument in theirfavourby the captureof El-Basra.They can make use ofthis to prove to the Mohammedans that their indepen-dence, bothmateriallyandreligiously,is threatened,andthus gain them to their side. They have thus been givena chance to representto the public thatEnglandintendsto take possession of their countryin the same manneras Russia with regardto the countryof Turkey.12

In another memorandum, which addressed the subjectof Turkish sovereignty in the Arabian Peninsula, Ridamade the point that the Turks had only nominal and in-effective temporal authority there, since Arab principal-ities retained autonomy in their internal affairs. At thesame time, the Arabs thought they had superiority in thereligious sphere, and many of them felt that they aremore eligible [than the Turks] for the Caliphate whichis the highest Islamic post. 3 Nevertheless, the Turksinfluence the Arabs by acting as defenders of the HolyPlaces and all the Arab countries from foreign aggres-sion... [in the case of which] the Arabs would losetheir invaluable independence. 4Rida furthermore explained that pre-1914 Arab callsfor reform were not directed against the Ottoman caliph-ate. This very fact underlines that the Arabs did notlook on the Turks as if they were their enemies and tryto cause the downfall of the Government. 15Aware thatthe war might end in Russia taking possession of Istan-bul, 6 Rida pointed out that

most of the Mohammedansfear now that the destruc-tion of the TurkishGovernment will involve also the

Jiddahand the shiCashrines in Iraqwere immune from attackor molestationby British naval and militaryforces, and that, atthe suggestion of the British government, France and Russiagave similar assurances. n Tibawi,Anglo-ArabRelations, 38.112 Translationof a Memorandumby Rashid Rida, Win-gate Papers 135/7/71-72.113Undatedandunsignedmemorandumwritten n Arabic andfound with the other two English translationsof Rida'smemo-randa n WingatePapers.Handwritingandcontent of this origi-nal Arabicdocument ndicateit mostprobably s Rida's.Itseemsto me that it was written at about the same time as the othertwo, i.e., early 1915. al-Siyada wa'l nufudh al-turki fi biladal-'arab, Wingate Papers 101/17/3-5.114Ibid., 101/17/3.115 Translationof a Memorandumby Rashid Rida, Win-gate Papers135/7/95.116 Ibid., 135/7/83.

destructionof the Mohammedanindependence. This isone of the principal reasons which make them so muchattached to Turkey. 17Yet, it was this very fear which drove him to workfor an Arab substitute caliphate. In accordance with his

religio-geographic hierarchy, Rida maintained that theArab Peninsula, Syria, Palestine, and Iraqshould not be placed on the same level with Egypt andotherplaces in Africa or with Tunisia. These countries,from strategical, geographical and religious points ofview, stand on a wholly different basis.'18

The religious significance of the Arab Peninsula wasclear, but Rida also wished to include the remainingArab Asiatic provinces in his caliphate scheme for thefollowing reasons:

The captureof El Irak would also involve the Nagaf,Kerbela, Samirraand El Kazimia. These are consideredholy places by the Shia Mohammedanswho are nu-merous in those districts and theneighbouringcountries,such as Persia, Baluchistan and India; other sects ofMohammedansequally respect these holy places. Be-sides it involves the captureof one of the roadsto Meccaand the holy Haramein Mecca and Medina].The captureof Syriaand Palestine would mean the cap-ture of Jerusalem,which is much respected by all theMohammedans.It is styled in the Hadithel Sherif asthe third holy place to the Mohammedans:to get pos-session of it wouldmeantakingcommandof the railwayline to the Hedjas [sic] ....The captureof El Irak andSyria,which meanscompletecontrol of El Haramein, would have a more seriouseffecton the heartsof the Mohammedans. t would meandoing away with the independence of Islam withoutwhich the MohammedanFaith cannot exist. The Mo-hammedansrank this matter on the same level with theMohammedantwo creeds (i.e., That there is no otherGod but God and that Mohammedis His Prophet).Thisis the only reason which makes the Mohammedanssoconcerned about and attachedto the Ottoman Govern-ment, in spite of the fact that they have reapedno goodfrom her whatever, neither materially nor religiously.This is the reasonwhich induces the Mohammedansub-jects of non-MohammedanPowers to be so much at-tachedto the Governmentof the Khalifate.19

17 Ibid., 135/7/79.18 Ibid., 135/7/77.19Ibid., 135/7/66-67.

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HADDAD:Rereading Rashid Rida's Ideas on the Caliphate

Rida repeated his well-known position that Englandis preferable in the eyes of the Mohammedans to Russia,Germany and France, on account of its justice and thereligious freedom she gives to her subjects. 120However,he very clearly cautioned the British not to misinterpretthis preference for England as Arab and Muslim ap-proval of putting the Muslim holy places under Britishprotection, however indirect this may be.12' For him, suchan idea is absolutely wrong and I can swear upon myword of honour that there is not a single Mohammedanwho would agree or accept anything of this descrip-tion. 122 But Rida did believe Arab-British cooperationwould be beneficial to both parties especially in the eco-nomic sphere.'23 In summary, the Arabs wish to be thebest friends of England, but they do not want to be un-der her authority or protection. '24For this reason, Rida adamantly refused the idea ofan Arab caliphate dependent on British power, whetherit had its center in Egypt or in the Hijaz. Events in Egyptonly strengthened Rida's conviction. In December 1914,Britain made Egypt a protectorate, deposed the khediveCAbbasHilmi II, and selected Husayn Kamil as sultan ofEgypt, thus severing the last political link between Cairoand Istanbul.'25 After these events Rida wrote:

Some Englishman may be inclined to believe that theappointmentof a Sultan to Egypt and the proclamationof a Khalifate in it or in the Hedjaz, who would benominally and actually under them, or actually and notnominally, would satisfy the majority of the Moham-medans.They arewrongif they think so andthey wouldbe depending on mere appearancesand theory.126

He was even more specific when he addressed thewidespread expectation that Britain would establish anArab puppet caliphate in the Arab Peninsula:

We have persistentlyheard rumours n Egypt thatEng-land wishes to establish an Arabian Khalifate whomshe could use as a tool of her hand.I have no doubt thatthese are nothingbut idle imaginations. I know that the

120 Ibid., 135/7/72.121 Ibid.122 Ibid.123 Ibid., 135/7/76-77.124 Ibid.125J. C. Hurewitz, ed., TheMiddle East and NorthAfrica inWorldPolitics: A DocumentaryRecord, 2 vols. (New Haven:Yale Univ. Press, 1975), 2: 12-14.126 Translationof a Memorandumby Rashid Rida, Win-

gate Papers 135/7/67.

Arabs in their Gezira andtheir Irakconsider Englandas their most fearful enemy and they only fear for thesafety of their country.In like mannerthe Mohammed-ans in Syria fear only Franceandconsider her a danger-ous enemy who has ambitions in their country. I saythis although I am well aware of the friendship whichexists between certain British officials and some Arabchiefs, which is generally based on deceit or fear.127

As the war went on, the future political independenceof Islam increasingly became the fundamental issue. Inthe spring of 1915, Rida complained to Ibrahim Dimitri,Wingate's Arabic secretary, that the chief censor in Cairodid not permit him to publish in al-Mandr a translationof a letter on the caliphate written by Lord Cromer whichappeared in The Times of London, although I concurredin every word stated by Lord Cromer and said that hehad hit a vital chord. '28 The censor's behavior was to beexpected since Lord Cromer, who was then a member ofthe British House of Lords, underscored in his letter thevery same aspect of the caliphate which Rida was usu-ally propounding:

If I understand t rightly, Moslem opinion generally asregardsthe position of the Khalif bearssome analogy tothat entertained at one time by strong Catholics-andperhaps to some extent still fostered-as regards thetemporal power of the Pope. In other words, it is heldthat the due exercise of the spiritual power cannot beensured unless the Khalif is placed in a position ofensured political independence. Hence, although possi-bly the substitutionof some Khalif other than the Sultanof Turkey might be effected without any very greatshock to Moslem opinion and sentiment, the recogni-tion of a Khahf who could directly or indirectly bebroughtundernon-Mosleminfluences would be stronglyresented.129

Lord Cromer seems to have been outside the main-stream of official British policy toward the caliphate,just being formulated at that time. For this reason thecensor blocked, in Egypt, Rida's publication of Cromer'sviews. Rida encountered further opposition from Sir

127 Ibid., 135/7/73-74.128Undated translatedletter from Rashid Rida to IbrahimDimitri,WingatePapers, 135/9/27. Since LordCromer'sarticleappearedin The Times on 24 April 1915, Rida's letter shouldhave been written shortlyafter thatdate.129 The Khalifate:Lord Cromer'sWarning, The Times, 24April 1915, p. 9.

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Mark Sykes, who wrote the following about Rida aftermeeting him a few months later:

[He] is a leader of Pan-Arab and Pan-Islamic thought.In conversation he talks much as he writes. He is a harduncompromisingfanatical Moslem, the mainspringofwhose ideas is the desire to eliminate Christian nfluenceand to make Islam a political power in as wide a field aspossible.He said that the fall of Constantinoplewould mean theend of Turkishmilitary power, andtherefore t was nec-essary to set up anotherMohammedanstate to maintainMohammedanprestige.I asked him if the action of the Sultan in accepting thedictation of the German Emperorwas in consonancewith the independence of the Caliph, whether suchpeople as Enver, Talaat,Javid,and Carasso could be con-sidered as Moslems, whether the Committee of Unionand Progress had not slaughtered Khojas and Ulemawithout mercy, whether the whole policy of the youngTurkshad not been originally anti-religiousin the widestsense. To this he replied that in the eyes of Islam, Turkeyrepresented Mohammedanindependence, and that theactions of individualshad no influenceon this view, andthat whenhe had criticized the actions of the Committee,he had been subject to attack and loss of prestige...His ideal was thatthe Sherif should rule over Arabia andall the country south of the line Ma'arash, Diarbekir,Zakhu, Rowanduz, that the Arabian chiefs should eachrule in his own district,and thatSyriaandIrak shouldbeunderconstitutionalgovernments.He resolutelyrefusedto entertainany idea of control or advisers with execu-tive authorityof any kind. He held that the Arabs weremore intelligent than Turks and that they could easilymanagetheir own affairs;no argumentwould move himon this point; the suggestion of partitionor annexationhe counteredby the statement that there were alreadyGermanofficers who had become Moslems, that morewould do so, and thatEnglandwould hardlydareannoyher numerousMoslem subjects in India and elsewhere.I understand hat ShaykhReshid Rida has no great per-sonal following but thathis ideas coincide with those ofa considerablenumberof the ArabUlema. Itwill be seenthat it is quite impossible to come to any understandingwith people who hold such views, and it may be sug-gested thatagainst such a party force is the only argu-ment that they can understand[emphasesadded].130

130 Policy in the Middle East II. Select Reports and Tele-gramsfromSir MarkSykes. ReportNo. 14 (Secret), bid., 5-6.

Rida may have made exaggerations in his meetingwith Sykes, especially when he hinted at the help theArabs would get from German officers who had be-come Moslems. But Sykes's depictions of Rida's viewslacked insight into the latter's ideological premises andframe of mind. On the other hand, Sykes's strong lan-guage against Rida indicated that British policymakerswere increasingly opposed to the establishment of anArab caliphate to replace the collapsing Ottoman caliph-ate. It is relevant to quote here A. H. Grant, Secretaryto the (Indian) Foreign Department, who expressed theview as early as November 1914 that

the creationof a powerful Caliphate was definitely notin Britain'sinterest. What we want is not a united Ara-bia: but a weak and disunited Arabia,split up into littleprincipalities so far as possible under our suzeraintybut incapable of co-ordinated action against us, form-ing a buffer against the Powers in the West.131

If this was the generally emerging British policy to-ward an independent caliphate, then the story that theBritish authorities in Egypt entertained the idea of send-ing Rida to exile in Malta during the war cannot be eas-ily dismissed.'32In late 1915, Rida began developing a comprehensivescheme for a Qurayshite caliphate, called The GeneralOrganic Law of the Arab Empire. It posited a divisionof labor between the religious and temporal spheres evento the point of designating two separate capitals: Meccaas the seat of the caliphate and religious center, andDamascus as the seat of a president and a secular gov-ernment. Rida here followed his earlier territorial defini-tion of the caliphate. Without explicitly saying so, heenvisioned the second tier provinces of Syria and Iraq,with their large non-Muslim minorities, as run by aconstitutional and thus partly secular form of govern-ment. The Arabian Peninsula, which was overwhelm-ingly Muslim, would govern itself religiously, i.e., in fullaccordance with a modernized sharFa.

According to Rida, his plan met with approval fromboth Muslims and non-Muslims, for it combined theprecepts of modern civil government with the preceptsof the sharfa.' '33 Rida's Arab Empire would have

131Cited in BritonCooperBusch, Britain, India, and the Ar-abs, 1914-1921 (Berkeley:Univ. of CaliforniaPress, 1971), 62.132Shakib Arslan, al-Sayyid RashidRi.daaw ikha' arbacinasana (Damascus:MarbacatbnZaydun, 1937), 155-56; RonaldStorrs,TheMemoirsof Sir RonaldStorrs(New York:G. P.Put-nam'sSons, 1937), 179.133Memorandumdated 25 June 1919, writtenin Arabic andsigned by Rashid Rida, addressed to Prime Minister Lloyd

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HADDAD: Rereading Rashid Rida'sIdeas on the Caliphate

recognized both Christianity and Judaism and wouldhave given non-Muslims the right to serve in the admin-istration of the government and in the judicial system(except the exclusively Muslim shariC' courts). He de-tailed his program in The General Organic Law of theArab Empire, which he submitted to the British author-ities in December, 1915:

[1] The ArabEmpire is composed of the Principalitiesand Provinces of Jezirat-el-Arab and the Provinces ofSyria and Irak and the partsbetween these last.[2] The Arabian Empire to be constitutional anddecentralised: its official language to be Arabic and itsofficial religion, Islam. It is the Governmentof the Is-lamic Khalifate and should recognise officially bothChristianityand Judaism and the freedom of their peo-ples as that of Muslims....[8] The Khalif should be the house of the Sherifs ofMecca. He should recognise the organic law of theEmpireandguaranteeto preserve it.[9] The Khalif should manage in detail all religiousaffairs both in theoretical and in practical [sic]. Heshould have a special legislative Council to help himin managingthe Khalifate and the empire andhe shouldappoint a Vicar General for the Council of Ministerscalled Sheikh el-Islam, Vicar General or Adviser. He itis who will inform the Khalif of all matterspertainingto religion in the Empire, accordingto the Law.[10] Besides the above, the Khalif has also the right ofhaving his name mentioned in religious sermons, andstampedon coins. Treatises or decisions of the Councilof Deputies are to be ratified and judgments executedonly after his permission. He can commute sentencesor reprieve. He can settle any dispute, litigation or dis-agreementbroughtbefore him by any of the authoritiesof the Empire.[11] The seat of the Khalifate is Mecca and the seatof the Presidency of the Government and its Councilof Deputies is Damascus. All the peoples of the Ara-bian Empireare free in their religious beliefs, personalrights and financial operations, unless they go beyondthe limits of religion, law andgeneralmorality.The non-Muslims have the same rights as the Muslims in theprivileges and official posts of the Kingdom with thecorrespondingduties save in affairsof religion.

George,entitled Mudhakkirai ragha'ib al-musliminwa'lCarabal-siyasiyya marfucaila maqam wazir al-dawla al-baritaniyyaal-akbaral-mistir lloyd george (Hereafter Rida'sMemoran-dum to Lloyd George )FO. 371/4232.

[12] A non-Muslim can be Minister but he cannot be ajudge in Muslim Courts.Non-Muslimquestionsof per-sonal status among non-Muslims to be decided beforetheir religious authorities.134

Article 9 of Rida's program is especially notable inthat it does not clearly define who has full spiritualauthority-the caliph or the shaykh al-lslam, his advisoron religious affairs. This deliberate ambiguity may havereflected Rida's lack of confidence in the religious judg-ment of Sharif Husayn, the Qurayshite figure Rida wouldhave liked to be caliph. Rida apparently wished to usethe shaykh al-Islam as a check on the spiritual power ofSharif Husayn who already had temporal power in theHijaz. In 1922, Rida would no longer see any purpose fora shaykh al-lslam under a completely spiritual caliph, aswe shall see later.2. 1916-1918: Backing Both the Arab Revolt and theOttomanCaliphate

Rida'sthinkingand behavior seem to have shifted notafter the war but during it. Although backing an Arabcaliphate during the first two years of the war, he appar-ently realized by the beginning of 1916 that the Britishwere not going to support seriously its establishment toreplace the Ottoman one. Fearing that the collapse of theOttomans in the war might mean the end of the caliphatealtogether and the European occupation of both Turkishand Arab lands, Rida trod a delicate course. He backedthe Arab revolt led by Sharif Husayn of Mecca in June1916, but also emphasizedhis allegiance to the Ottomancaliphate, differentiating t from the C.U.P.government,which effectively held power in Istanbul.Equallyimpor-tant,Rida arguedthat the Arab revolt was not a politicaland militaryeffort to emancipatethe Arabs fromTurkishdomination, but instead a preemptive move to protectthe Arab Peninsula, and particularly the Hijaz, from fall-ing under European rule in the likely event of Ottomandefeat. This could be inferredfrom Rida's statementinsupportof Sharif Husayn in 1916:

Sharif[Husayn] asrenderedhegreatest ervice o Is-lam.Foreseeingthe possibledestructionof the [Ottoman]state, he became afraid that the sanctuary(Haram) ofGod and his prophetand their outer regions of the Ara-bian Peninsula might be among the areasthatwould fall

134 GeneralOrganic Law of the ArabEmpire. Enclosed inNoteon ProposalsDrawnup by SheikhRashidRida, or theFormation of an Arab Kingdom, secret, dated 9 December1915. Wingate Papers 135/7/102-4.

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outside Islamic sovereignty.... In declaring indepen-dence he put the Hijaz under a purelyIslamic authoritywhich could lead to a large Arab Islamic state.135

Rida explicitly expressed his view that the indepen-dence of the Hijaz was a precautionary measure meantto save this holy territory from the control of the Alliedpowers, who, he believed, would win the war.

If [the Ottomanstate] and its allies come out of this warvictorious,then it would be easy for it to do as it wishesin the Hijaz. If, on the otherhand,its enemies come outvictorious then Ottoman concern with the situation inthe Hijaz becomes irrelevant, since [Ottoman] unitywould naturallybe shatteredto pieces and, it is feared,its enemies will end its independence. In that case everyMuslim, whether he is an Arabor a Turk,would heartilywish that the Hijaz and other Arab lands should escapefalling under the tutelageof the victorious Allies.136

Rida's view was an unusual one at the time. SharifHusayn, for example, was completely absorbed in thestruggle for independence from Istanbul and did notforesee the long term threat to independence posed bythe Allies. Rida's opinions would earn him the suspi-cion of elements in the British and French intelligenceservices.137

Shortly after the proclamation of the Arab revolt inJune 1916, Rida travelled to the Hijaz on a pilgrimageand there contacted Sharif Husayn. In an article pub-lished in 1921, after the lifting of British censorship onArabic publications in Cairo, Rida divulged that duringhis visit he had cautioned the sharif about the dangers ofproclaiming himself a caliph, especially since the sharifhad given his bayca (oath of allegiance) earlier to theOttoman sultan-caliph Muhammad Rashad. Rida here fol-lowed the theory of another medieval jurist, al-Mawardi(d. 1058), which allowed for only one legitimate caliphat any one time.138 Rida said that he boldly reminded

135 Aradal-khawass fi al-mas'ala al-'arabiyya, al-Manar19 (29 August 1916): 167.136Ibid., 148.137 See, for example, Ronald Storrs, The Memoirs of SirRonald Storrs (New York: G. P. Putnam'sSons, 1937), 179,190. The French accused Rida also of distributinganti-Frenchpamphletsduringhis visit to the Hijaz. See G6n6ral Ed. Bre-mond, Le Hedjaz dans la Guerre mondiale (Paris: Payot,1931), 53.138H. A. R. Gibb, Al-Mawardi'sheoryof the Caliphate, nhis Studies on the Civilizationof Islam, ed. StanfordShaw andWilliam Polk (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962), 156-57.

Sharif Husayn of a hadith which does not permit theappointment of two men to the position of caliph: Ifthe bayca has been rendered to two caliphs, kill one ofthem. '39

In 1916, Rida was pleased with the way Sharif Husaynhandled the issue of Hijaz independence. He confined hiscriticisms to the policies of the C.U.P, did not refer to theOttoman state except in a positive manner, and men-tioned the name of the Ottoman sultan-caliph Muham-mad Rashfd in the khutba (sermon).140 In December1916, Ridf even congratulated the sharif on his recogni-tion by the Allied powers as the King of the Hijfz, butalso carefully expressed the wish that Husayn may be-come the King of the Arabs, reflecting his desire for thecreation of a large Arab state.'41He turned against Sharif Husayn when he realized thatthe latter's secret agreements with the British compro-mised the independence of Syria and Iraq after the war.142Rida also turned against the British and the French whentheir 1916 secret Sykes-Picot agreement for dividing theArab countries between the Allied powers was publishedby the new Bolshevik regime in Russia.143

IV. AFTER WORLD WAR I

1. Rida and the Turkish CaliphateAs World War I came to an end, Rida became active

in agitating for Arab independence, opposing any formof European control over Syria and Iraq. He went toSyria in 1919 and became a member of the Syrian Na-tional Congress, serving as its chairman for a brief periodin 1920, before French troops entered the country to putan end to the short-lived independent Arab governmentthere. In June 1919, after the British prime minister, Lloyd

139 al-Haqa'iq al-jaliyya fi al-mas'ala al-'arabiyya, al-Mandr 22 (6 June 1921): 448.140Letter dated 5 November, 1916, from Shaykh RashidRida to King Husayn. Cited in SulaymanMusa, ed., al-Mura-salat al-tarikhiyya 1914-1918: al-Thawra al-'arabiyya al-kibra, 2 vols. (Amman:n.p., 1973), 1: 57-58.141Letter dated 18 November, 1916, from Shaykh RashidRida to King Husayn.Cited in ibid., 96-97.142 ,al-Haqa'iq al-jaliyya, 449. For the secret agreementsbetween Sharif Husayn and the British see The Husayn-McMahonCorrespondence14 July 1915-10 March 1916, inHurewitz, ed., TheMiddleEast, 2: 46-56.143 al-Haqa'iq al-jaliyya, 452-53, 455-58. For the Tri-partite (Sykes-Picot) Agreement on the Partitionof the Otto-man Empire:Britain,France, and Russia 26 April-23 October1916, in Hurewitz, ed., The Middle East, 2: 60-64.

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George, had declared that Great Britain would respectthe sanctity of the Muslim holy places, Ridf sent him amemorandum, in which he stated again his well-knownconviction that preserving an Islamic sovereign temporalpower was more important than preserving the sanctityof the Muslim holy places. Interestin

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