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Pan-Islamism and Modernisation During the Reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II, 1876-1909 Rashed Chowdhury Department of History McGill University, Montreal A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Rashed Chowdhury 2011 1 Contents Contents 2 Abstract 5 Résumé 6 Acknowledgements 7 A Note on Transliteration 9 List of Abbreviations 10 Introduction 11 - Argument, Methodology and 12 Theoretical Framework - Literature Review 23 - Sources and Organisation 45 Chapter One 52 The Birth of a Reign: The Ottoman Empire, Russia and Britain, 1875-1882 - Pan-Slavism and Rebellion in the 54 Balkans - Three Sultans in One Summer 64 - The Constantinople Conference of 72 1876-77, the Ottoman Constitution and Abdülhamid - War and Defeat 87 - New Directions and New Challenges 99 - Conclusion 108 Chapter Two 110 Sufism and the Ottomans in North Africa during the Reign of Abdülhamid II - Sufism and Its Social Dimensions 111 - The Rise of the Madaniyya and 116 Sanusiyya Orders 2 - The Loss of Tunisia and Its 122 Implications - The Shaykh, the Statesman and the 124 Sultan: Zafir, Khayr al-Din and Abdülhamid - The Sultan and the Sanusiyya 152 - Conclusion 159 Chapter Three 161 Sultan Abdülhamid II and Islamism - Abdülhamid‘s Religious Schema and 162 Anatolia - Abdülhamid, Islam and the State 182 - Abdülhamid‘s Advisers 195 - Conclusion 216 Chapter Four 218 Sultan Abdülhamid II and His Indian Ocean Diplomacy - The Anglo-Ottoman Press Rivalry 224 - The Caliph‘s Indian Ocean 235 Diplomacy and Indian Muslims - Ottoman Diplomacy in South-East 246 Asia - The Caliph and Anticolonial 255 Resistance in Africa - Conclusion 268 Chapter Five 270 The Hijaz Railway in the Context of Hamidian Modernisation - Sultan Abdülhamid and 276 Modernisation - Modernisation through Infrastructure 293 3 and Institutions - The Ottoman Empire in the Hijaz 306 - Problem-Solving through 318 Modernisation: The Case of the Hijaz Railway - Conclusion 335 Conclusion 330 Bibliography 337 - Unpublished Primary Sources 340 - Published Primary Sources 341 - Newspapers 347 - Secondary Sources 348 4 Abstract The reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909) is one of the most controversial in today‘s historiography. Historians often depict him as a tyrant who instrumentalised Islam as a means of enhancing and expanding his personal authority. In this dissertation, I argue that such views of Abdülhamid are inadequate and fail to explain two aspects of his reign: the modernisation of Ottoman institutions and infrastructure he undertook at home and his immense prestige among Muslims abroad. A close reading of Abdülhamid‘s own religious views reveals that, to him, Islam and the state were meant to support each other at home and abroad. To that end, the Sultan embarked on a campaign to expand Ottoman influence among the Muslims of the Indian Ocean world, challenging British hegemony in the region. He built alliances with Islamic institutions such as Sufi orders, while transforming and modernising Ottoman institutions and enhancing their Islamic character. His efforts were capped with the construction of the Hijaz Railway, a signal of Ottoman independence and the mobilising capacity of the international Islamic community. 5 Résumé Le règne du sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909) est l'un des plus controversés dans l'historiographie d'aujourd'hui. Les historiens le décrivent souvent comme un tyran qui instrumentalisait l'islam comme un moyen de renforcer et d'étendre son autorité personnelle. Dans cette thèse, je soutiens que ces opinions d'Abdülhamid sont insuffisantes et ne parviennent pas à expliquer deux aspects de son règne: la modernisation des institutions ottomanes et l'infrastructure qu'il a entreprises au pays et son immense prestige parmi les musulmans à l'étranger. Une lecture attentive de ses propres opinions religieuses révèle que, pour lui, l'Islam et l'Etat étaient destinés àsoutenir l‘un l‘autre au pays comme au monde entier. À cette fin, le Sultan a lancé une campagne pour étendre l'influence ottomane parmi les musulmans du monde de l‘Océan Indien, combattant l‘hégémonie britannique dans la région. Il a construit des alliances avec des institutions islamiques telles que les ordres soufis, tout en transformant et en modernisant les institutions ottomanes et en renforçant leur caractère islamique. Ses efforts ont été couronnés avec la construction du chemin de fer du Hidjaz, un signal de l‘indépendance ottomane et la capacité de mobilisation de la communauté islamique internationale. 6 Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Malek Abisaab, for his advice, encouragement and support over the years I have worked with him. I am also thankful to the other members of my dissertation committee, Prof. A. Üner Turgay and Prof. Gwyn Campbell. The former aroused my interest in the Ottoman world, while the latter introduced me to the Indian Ocean world as a unit of analysis. Prof. Daviken Studnicki- Gizbert (who, along with Prof. Abisaab and Prof. Campbell was on my comprehensive examination committee) introduced me to the field of world history. Prof. Nancy Partner helped me see that history lies in the narrative. The present dissertation owes no small debt to all these approaches. In preparing the dissertation, I have also benefitted from conversations with Prof. Elizabeth Elbourne, Prof. İhsan Fazlıoğlu, Steven Serels, Veysel Simsek and Alberto Tiburcio. Any shortcomings in the dissertation are, of course, my own responsibility. I am grateful to Selim Argun, Prof. Şükran Fazlıoğlu, David Mason and Emrah Şahin for teaching me what I know of modern and Ottoman Turkish, without which the present study would not have been possible. I gratefully acknowledge the fellowships awarded to me by McGill University from 2006 to 2009, as well as the Doctoral Research Bursary awarded to me by the Fonds québecois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC) from 2009 to 2011. I would like to thank the staff of the Islamic Studies Library, the Humanities and Social Sciences Library and the Inter-Library Loan service at McGill University for their help. I 7 am also thankful to the staff of the Ottoman Archive (part of the Prime Ministerial General Directorate of Archives) in Istanbul, as well as the staff of the Newspaper Department of the Russian State Library in Khimki, Moscow Region, Russia, for their help and patience. I thank Can and Serpil Tancı (Bursa, Turkey) and their daughter Nazlı Tancı (Istanbul) for their hospitality and friendship. My biggest debts are, of course, to my family. I thank my parents, Nasim and Maria Chowdhury, for their constant support and encouragement; my wife, Katie Chowdhury, for her love and her patience; and our son, Ibrahim Chowdhury, who arrived a few months before the completion of this dissertation, for being an inspiration. 8 A Note on Transliteration In this dissertation, I have transliterated Ottoman Turkish terms (such as Abdülhamid or Osmanlı) using modern Turkish spelling. For Arabic terms, I have followed a simplified version of the system used by the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill, omitting diacritical marks except for the „ayn and hamza. For terms that are well known in English, I have followed the generally accepted English spelling (for instance, ―Istanbul‖ rather than ―İstanbul‖). For Russian terms, I have adopted the Library of Congress system. 9 List of Abbreviations BOA Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (The Prime Ministerial Ottoman Archive) FO CP Foreign Office Confidential Print LC Library of Congress NA (US) US National Archive N.S. New Style (Gregorian) date O.S. Old Style (Julian) date 10 Introduction In 1908, the Ottoman Empire, long known in the West as the ―sick man of Europe,‖ launched the Hijaz Railway amid much fanfare. This railway connected Damascus across long stretches of forbidding terrain to the second-holiest city in Islam, Medina. Plans were afoot to eventually continue the railway to Mecca. Although the extension to Mecca never came to pass, the construction and launch of the Hijaz Railway was a high-water mark in the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909). This railway was constructed using Muslim labourers and, perhaps more importantly, financed by Muslim capital. It was also the only Ottoman railway planned, built, owned and operated by the state. It demonstrated not only to Ottoman subjects but also to the world at large that the Ottoman Empire had the mobilising capacity, the acumen and the wherewithal to initiate and complete massive infrastructural projects. Moreover, the destination of the railway, namely the Hijaz vilayet (province) was not chosen accidentally, for it was the home to the birthplace of Islam, and the fountainhead of Sultan Abdülhamid‘s legitimacy as Caliph. Indeed, in a global age of railways, the Hijaz Railway was one of a kind: the only railway built to ease access to the holy places of a religion by an empire espousing that religion, with the help of contributions from the followers of that religion not just at home but around the world. Several important questions arise from this episode in Ottoman history. First and foremost, why was the railway constructed? As we will see below, historians who have 11 studied the Hijaz Railway in detail have come up with a range of answers, largely privileging strategic concerns, that is, Istanbul‘s need to bring the Hijaz more firmly into its grasp by easing troop transportation into and through the province. This, however, brings us to a related