The present day misery of Gaza, Syria and Iraq began in that war.
As people in Britain and Europe remember mark the anniversary of the armistice, there is little in the way of critical reflection about the horrors of a war that saw tens of millions killed and injured. One would question – looking at Iraq, Syria and Gaza – whether the world has learnt any lessons at all.
So it is worth reflecting on the legacies of this war that still resonates today.
In particular that World War One shaped the chaos, oppression and conflict of the modern Middle East; and laid the seeds for the Zionist occupation of Palestine.
Sowing the seeds of misery – Sykes-Picot, Client-Regimes and the Abolition of the Caliphate
The modern Middle East is rife with wars, oppression and injustice. It is a series of nation states artificially constructed in the aftermath of World War One. They are ruled by client regimes, initially installed at that time, that serve themselves as well as a narrow elite and foreign interests – instead of serving the people of the region. These rulers are widely hated by the people they preside over. They use their armed forces for two main purposes. Firstly, to suppress their own populations – particularly when they see a flicker of political criticism or Islamic sentiments; and secondly to serve any Western military interests that are asked of them.
The most enduring of these client-regimes are the Kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Saudi Arabia was conceived in Britain’s foreign office around a century ago and has since then squandered huge amounts of material wealth. Its ruling family has enjoyed close ties with Britain and the United States ever since. Jordan is a similar family business, installed by the British after World War One. Britain installed members of the same family, widely seen as traitors to Islam and Muslims, to rule Egypt, Iraq and briefly Syria – only to see their dynasty toppled in these places by coups and counter-coups variously sponsored by the Britain, France and the US.
It is worth reflecting that people living under the Ottoman state – even in its era of decline – enjoyed more stable and less oppressive lives than people living in the Middle East over the past century. For several centuries prior to that, under the Caliphate, the region was the home of a great civilization that presented a unique society in which communities of different racial and religious backgrounds lived peacefully and in harmony.
In his 2009 essay, ‘Islam and its Discontents’, Brenden Clifford of the Bevin Society wrote:
Islam, one of the major cultures of the world, has been without a state to uphold its position in the world-order for close on 90 years. The Islamic state was destroyed by Britain in the course of the war, which it declared on Germany in 1914. It has been argued that the destruction of the Islamic state was one of the purposes for which Britain declared war on Germany. And the destruction of the Islamic state appears to me to be the ultimate cause of the condition of the world which the USA and Britain call the War on Terror.
He reminds the reader that:
‘A little over a century ago the German Kaiser paid a state visit to the Ottoman Empire, met the Sultan, and declared that a strong Muslim state was a necessary part of any stable order in the world’.
German policy as set out by Count Von Moltke (later a Field Marshal of the German state) in his Essays, Speeches, And Memoirs, 1893 (Vol 1, p272) argued that it was possible to regenerate the Ottoman Empire as such from Islamic roots.
The British feared the impact of this in relation to its colonies – in particular in India – so pursued a policy of expansion of their Empire from India to Egypt. Indeed, once the Ottomans did enter the war, declaring it to be a Jihad, Kitchener had real fears this call would spread to India, Egypt and Sudan.
But at the outset of the war, the Ottoman policy was neutrality. It was in no financial or political position to engage in a war. However, Britain refused to accept this position and refused to accept any overtures of alliance with it – and set about provocation of the Ottoman state, particularly through allying with a hostile Russia.
By 5th November 1914, Britain declared war, in conjunction with Russia, by alleging an Ottoman attack on Russia in the Black Sea. Clifford writes scathingly that it was ‘an allegation made so obscurely and furtively that there is reason to suspect that it was comparable to Hitler’s allegation of a Polish attack on Germany in September 1939’!
Failing to see the expected rapid collapse of the Ottoman defences, Britain found allies in the form of Sharif Hussein – the ancestor of the Jordanian dynasty and Ibn Saud – the founder of modern day Saudi Arabia.
In 1916, under the Sykes Picot accord, the British and French governments agreed to a division of the spoils of the Middle East between the two states, drawing ‘a line in the sand’ between Acre and Kirkuk – the British to take what was south of the line, and the French what was north of it.
After much wheeling, dealing and double crossing between the two, the regions of Syria and Lebanon fell to France, whilst Transjordan, Iraq and the Hejaz went to Britain. The original agreements were meant to share Palestine. Britain managed to secure a mandate over the region, but was later forced by America and France to share the newly discovered oil revenues from Mosul shortly after the war.
The events of the war and the subsequent ‘peace conferences’ afterwards not only carved up the Ottoman state, it precipitated a collapse internally, ending with the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924.
The following 90 years have seen wars between these artificially constructed states; repressive regimes tyrannising their people; the material wealth of the region haemorrhaging away from the people who had a right over it; and various periods of occupation.
From pre-Balfour Declaration to the Zionist Occupation of Palestine
Before World War One, British imperial strategists took account of the implications of potential scenarios within the Middle East. Addressing the 1907 Imperial Conference in London, Britain’s Prime Minister Henry Campbell Bannerman expressed these fears and called for a commission to look at the question of how to prevent the fall of their empire. The report recommended:
1) To promote disintegration, division and separation in the region.
2) To establish artificial political entities that would be under the authority of the imperialist countries.
3) To fight any kind of unity – whether intellectual, religious or historical – and taking practical measures to divide the region’s inhabitants.
4) To achieve this, it was proposed that a “buffer state” be established in Palestine, populated by a strong, foreign presence which would be hostile to its neighbors and friendly to European countries and their interests.
Retrospectively, this would appear to have become British Imperial policy from this time – prior to World War One – for several decades thereafter.
Within this context, Arthur Balfour’s letter to Lord Rothschild in 1917, expressing Britain’s support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, becomes easy to understand.
There has been much debate over the years as to what extent the British government of the time really meant this expression of support.
Writing many years later, Sir Anthony Nutting believed that Balfour and others were complicit with the Zionist agenda to evict the Palestinian Arabs from the region – fitting very much with the pre-war policy recommendation to Bannerman to establish the ‘buffer state… populated by a strong, foreign presence’.
But other historians like Jonathan Schneer have viewed the promise to the Zionists as one of a complex series of bargaining moves that sought to variously ‘play’ Zionist Jews and the leaders of the Arab revolt, all in order to maintain British control over Palestine.
Schneer recognizes overlapping interests in that the Zionist movement wanted the Ottomans out of Palestine, whilst the British government wanted the Ottomans out of the whole Middle East – whilst conceding as little influence as possible to France.
His argument is that part of this bargaining process was that Balfour’s promise would tantalize American Jewry into lobbying for the United States to enter the war on Britain’s side against the Ottomans. Yet simultaneously, Britain was secretly negotiating a peace with the Ottomans, ready to ditch Balfour’s promise, in case they did not get support from the United States.
So in effect, at some stage or other between 1916 and 1918, Britain had offered Palestine to different interested parties at different times. As well as offering it to the Zionist lobby there was a dialogue to hand it to the Ottomans had Britain decided to settle for peace prior to American entry in the war. There had been a verbal promise to Sharif Hussein that it would be part of his territory, as well as having agreed to share with the French under the original terms of the Sykes Picot agreement.
According to historian James Barr the trust between the ‘allies’ of Britain, France and the Zionists was so poor – because of the feeling they had been made too many broken promises – that by 1945 the French were financing Zionist terrorists to attack British troops in Palestine (whilst British soldiers were helping to liberate France from the Nazis).
However, the client Arab regimes accepted humiliation and broken promises with servitude – and showed no real interest in defending or liberating Palestine. From the very first until today they have been the first line of support and defence for ‘Israel’.
One prime example was illustrated in Chaim Weizmann’s diary, where it is recorded that St John Philby, a former British intelligence officer and advisor to Ibn Saud, made a proposal that Ibn Saud should be offered a financial incentive of £20,000,000 in return for his support for a Zionist state. It seems the only reason this didn’t happen was because Weizmann didn’t want to proceed.
So much of the politics of today’s Middle East can be understood from the political intrigues surrounding World War One.
It is imperative that Muslims know the history of that disastrous era and learn real lessons from it in order to understand the neo-colonial games that are played today – that continue to wreak havoc over large parts of the world.
Similarly, it is essential that all people in Britain actually learn from their history so that their views on today’s current affairs are not clouded by lies and deceit from the political heirs of Balfour and Lloyd-George.
Recalling Muslim Loyalties in World War One
As people in Britain commemorate of the war dead of World War One, so Muslims have chosen to focus on Muslim soldiers who fought for Britain.
Most people recognize that all nations remember their fallen soldiers as those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
Yet this should stifle a critical review, nor mask the fact that in World War One both Muslim and non-Muslim soldiers were sent off by the industrial, political and military establishment to die in vast numbers for imperial objectives, the fruits of which would never have been enjoyed by the ordinary soldier or their family and nor the society at large. Sadly, they made their sacrifice for the benefit of a few rich and powerful men.
There were some Muslim soldiers who refused to fight against other Muslims, whilst others fought on condition they did not have to fight the Ottoman army directly.
Amongst those who did fight in the British Army, it is likely they were ignorant of the wider imperial plans. Yet they became pawns in the war that gave birth to the chaos, bloodshed and oppression of the modern Middle East. They were fighting for the side that would ultimately steal Palestine and give it away to Zionists to establish a racist hegemony in the region – as part of a wider plan to divide and conquer the Middle East.
They were but tools in Lloyd-George’s plans, summarized in 1919, when he said: ‘We are undertaking a great civilizing duty…a mission, which Providence has assigned our race, which we are discharging to people living under the shadow of great tyranny for centuries, trembling with fear, appealing with uplifted hands for protection. Turkish misgovernment… shall now come to an end that Britain and the Allies have triumphed’
For Muslims living in Britain conflicted loyalties existed a century ago as they did today. At that time some brave lone voices did try to stand with the Ummah.
Sheikh Abdullah Quilliam was an Englishman who had embraced Islam and been appointed the Sheikh al Islam of the British Isles by the Ottoman Caliph, Sultan Abdul Hamid II. He used his mosque in Liverpool as a base to help poor and unfortunate mothers who had been abandoned by Victorian society. He mused about how Islam could tackle some of the bitter problems facing Britain at that time. His sincere concern for the ordinary citizen in Britain was beyond question. Yet when it came to British policies hostile to the Muslim world he was uncompromising. When Britain was engaged in a war in the Sudan in 1896, he issued a fatwa clarifying this conflict for a Muslim soldier:
For any True Believer to take up arms and fight against another Muslim is contrary to the Shariat, and against the law of God and his holy prophet. I warn every True-Believer that if he gives the slightest assistance in this projected expedition against the Muslims of the Soudan, even to the extent of carrying a parcel, or giving a bite of bread to eat or a drink of water to any person taking part in the expedition against these Muslims that he thereby helps the Giaour [Turkish word for non-Muslims] against the Muslim, and his name will be unworthy to be continued upon the roll of the faithful.
Facing hostility and having a community of only a few hundred, he stood firm to the Islamic Shari’ah perspective that to fight against Muslims was haram, and to fight against the legitimate Caliphate of the Muslims was unacceptable.
Quilliam was not wholly alone. The famous translator of the Quran – Mohammad Marmaduke Pickthall and others vocally spoke out for the interests of the Ummah at that time.
Pickthall and others sometimes articulated their criticism of anti-Ottoman British policy in terms of what they felt was harming Britain itself – echoing ideas articulated on either side of the policy debates in Britain in order to influence them.
Nonetheless, what is clear is that they were vocal in their support for the Ummah – loyal to principles and not expedient.
They knew they were defending an unpopular cause.
Pickthall wrote ‘[We] have had to fear, and encountered, public ridicule and private abuse.’
Pickthall had already written in the Times in 1912, at the time of the Balkan War criticizing the British government for their silence after the ‘butchery’ of Muslims in Macedonia by Christians. In 1913, together with Quilliam and others he helped establish an Ottoman Committee to defend Turkish interests and working to maintain the integrity of the Ottoman Empire.
These early Muslims in Britain were not simply more uncompromising than their successors today. They were more politically insightful.
Writing just before the Balfour Declaration in 1917, Pickthall recognized the political and spiritual disaster of the suggestions of a Jewish State in Palestine under the supervision of a ‘Christian’ power. He wrote in the Central Islamic Society booklet that he ‘should regard it as a world-disaster if that country should be taken from the Muslim government. Must even that sacred ground be exploited by the profiteer? If you want to have a new and terrible storm-centre for the world, hand over Palestine to any Christian power.’
Pickthall and others vocally opposed British policy, whilst arguing they were not against Britain. They refuted the fallacies that were used to underpin these policies and was seen to be exposing the cozy relationship between the ‘King of the Hejaz’ (Sharif Hussein) and the British government that the establishment became irritated by him. They reminded the British government of previous pledges made to Palestine.
Yet they were ignored by the Foreign Office, who branded them ‘seditionists’ and ‘agents’, and who even considered prosecuting him under the Defence of the Realm Act. (They only refrained because it was feared a prosecution would further expose that relationship.)
In the aftermath of World War One, when Pickthall argued that Britain had no place to decide the fate of the Ottoman Khilafat – he was again accused of having ‘Pan-Islamic and anti-British’ aims and condemned for his ‘vehement denunciations of Lord Curzon and of British policy, and constant glorification of the Turk’.
The words and arguments of these forebears were met with hostility, abuse and threat of being criminalized by the state. Yet their sincere commitment to Islam and their understanding of certain Islamic political principles was greater than many Muslims have today.
Celebrating An Unsung Hero of World War One
There can be little doubt that most of the ordinary foot soldiers on all sides were victims. Whereas the villains in that war were the likes of Lloyd George, Kitchener, Curzon and Balfour who sent millions to die in a war that was to secure Britain’s imperial position – part of a geopolitical game rather than a war to defend the security of any state.
Yet when I reflect on bravery, courage of convictions and character there is one figure that stands in World War One.
Fakhri Pasha or Umar Fakhr ud-Din Pasha was the commander of Ottoman army and governor of Medina from 1916 to 1919. A testimony to his character is that he was nicknamed “the Lion of the Desert” and “Tiger of the Desert” by no less than his opponents, the British.
He had been besieged in Al Madinah Al Munawwarah since the outbreak of the Sharif Hussain’s treacherous Arab revolt, led by T.E. Lawrence in June 1916. He continued to lead a defence of the city for seventy days beyond the end of the war in October 1918, refusing to surrender the Holy City.
Professor Abdul Latif Tibawi describes some of the details of that period.
‘The Turks remained hopeful of reconciliation with the Arabs as brother Muslims. Overtures with favourable terms continued to be made until within two months of the armistice. In September 1918 the British War Office sent a report to the Foreign Office that the Sharif (by then King Husain) was ready to settle with Turkey on the basis of recognizing his ‘temporal’ authority while he recognized the Sultan’s ‘spiritual’ authority, and asked what Britain’s attitude would be. The Foreign Office rejected the idea of a separate peace between the Sharif and Turkey but suggested another approach be made to Fakhri Pasha to induce him to surrender.”
Then citing Turkish sources Professor Tibawi recounts the response of Fakhri Pasha:
“Some of his officers saw the futility, from a military point of view, of continued resistance. But his steadfastness remained unshaken. The available evidence shows very conclusively that he was animated by religious motives with little or no regard to military strategy or political expediency. According to the same Turkish author, who quotes an eye-witness account, one Friday in the spring of 1918, after prayers in the Prophet’s Mosque, Fakhri Pasha ascended the steps of the pulpit, stopped halfway and turned his face to the Prophet’s tomb and said loud and clear:
‘Prophet of God! I will never abandon you!’ He then addressed the men: ‘Soldiers! I appeal to you in the name of the Prophet, my witness. I command you to defend him and his city to the last cartridge and the last breath, irrespective of the strength of the enemy. May Allah help us, and may the spirit of Muhammad be with us.'”
Fakhri Pasha showed some of his political insight and steadfastness in his response to a letter from Sharif Hussein. Professor Tibawi cites that letter from a poor English translation in the Public Record Office, London. (FO/371) apparently addressed to Hussein himself from ‘Fakhr-ud-Din, General, Defender of the Most Sacred City of Medina, Servant of the Prophet’.
‘In the name of Allah, the Omnipotent. To him who broke the power of Islam, caused bloodshed among Muslims, jeopardized the Caliphate of the Commander of the Faithful, and exposed it to the domination of the British. On Thursday night the fourteenth of Dhu’l-Hijja, I was walking, tired and worn out, thinking of the protection and defence of Medina, when I found myself among unknown men working in a small square. Then I saw standing before me a man with a sublime countenance. He was the Prophet, may Allah’s blessing be upon him! His left arm rested on his hip under his robe, and he said to me in a protective manner, ‘Follow me” I followed him two or three paces and woke up. I immediately proceeded to his sacred mosque and prostrated myself in prayer and thanks [near his tomb].
‘I am now under the protection of the Prophet, my Supreme Commander. I am busying myself with strengthening the defences, building roads and squares in Medina. Trouble me not with useless offers.’
King Hussein viewed himself a descendant of Banu Hashim, the tribe of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Yet to Pasha, he was no more than a rebellious traitor who disrupted Islamic unity and aided the enemies of the Sultan-Caliph.
Fakhri Pasha’s example is that of a man whose faith was central to his struggle. He was uncompromising in the face of defeat; and his political insight was such that he understood the Arab revolt was a British inspired uprising to dismember the Ottoman Caliphate.
Dr. Abdul Wahid is a regular contributor to New Civilisation. He is currently the Chairman of the UK-Executive Committee of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain. He has been published in The Times Higher Educational Supplement and on the websites of Foreign Affairs, Open Democracy and Prospect magazine. He can be followed on Twitter @abdulwahidht or emailed at [email protected] or [email protected]
Selected Bibliography
Barr, J – A Line in the Sand – 2011
Schneer, J – The Balfour Declaration – 2010
Clifford, B – Islam and its Discontents – 2009
Al-Rashid, M – A History of Saudi Arabia – 2010
Nutting, Anthony – Balfour and Palestine – A legacy of deceit – 1975
Weizmann, Chaim – The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann – Vol II
Rotberg, Robert – Israeli and Palestinian Narratives of Conflict: History’s Double Helix
Tibawi, Abdul Latif – Essay: The Last Knight of the Last Caliphs from The Islamic Quartely 1971
Gilham, J – Loyal Enemies: British Converts to Islam, 1850-1950
Geaves, R – Islam in Victorian Britain: The Life and Times of Abdullah Quilliam
Ansari, H – The Infidel Within – Muslims in Britain since 1800