Page:The young Moslem looks at life (1937).djvu/169

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the Central Powers in the World War, and sought to rally fellow Moslems throughout the world to his support by issuing the call for a jihad, or holy war. He vainly hoped that the Moslems of India, Egypt and the Sudan would revolt against the British; that their brothers in North Africa would overthrow the Italian, French, and Spanish rule; and that the Arabs would faithfully stand their ground.

But history now shows that Abdul Hamid "backed the wrong horse." The Moslems of India, Egypt, the Sudan and North Africa did not rise in revolt against their non-Moslem rulers; the Germans lost the war; Turkey was dismembered; and even the Arabs themselves staged a revolt in the desert which led to complete independence from the rule of the Turkish sultan. More than this, separate states were carved out of the Turkish Empire, and mandated governments were set up in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Transjordania, with the British and French assigned to guardianship. But the final crushing blow came when in 1921 Turkey overthrew the monarchy, abolished the old regime, and became a republic, and finally in 1924 put an end to the Turkish caliphate.

Today Pan-Islamism is dead. There is no caliph of the Moslems. There is no symbol of unity, and no unifying force other than the spiritual influence of the faith and ritual of Islam. Ineffective efforts have been made to revive the caliphate and to elect a new caliph. Suggestions have even been made that a Moslem league of nations be established and that the annual