[lg policy] ‘Geography of the ummah’

Fri Mar 2 16:25:06 UTC 2018

   - News <http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/>
   - Opinion <http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/opinion/>

[image: TAHA AKYOL] <http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/opinion/taha-akyol/>

   - March 02 2018

By *TAHA AKYOL <http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/opinion/taha-akyol/>*
takyol at hurriyet.com.tr

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‘Geography of the ummah’

One of the concepts mentioned by the protestors who stormed the building of
daily Hürriyet on Sept. 6, 2015, smashing its windows, was the “geography
of the ummah,” which translates as the collective community of Islamic
peoples.

Politicians generally prefer softer concepts such as the “geography of our
hearts” or the “geography of our civilization.”

“We are now removing the boundaries,” the protestors said.

My visits to Andalusia in Spain, Badshahi Mosque in Lahore and the shrine
of Imam al-Bukhari in Samarkand left a deep impression on me. I would also
like to visit the shrine of Saladin Ayyub and perform a two-rekat prayer.

Such experiences concern the emotions of our spiritual and cultural inner
world. But can they be the subject of politics? Can there ever be a foreign
policy based on the “geography of the ummah?”

*Debates on Selim the Resolute*

The Egyptians have been attempting to change the name of the Salim Al Awal
Street, named after Selim I, the Ottoman Sultan who oversaw the conquest of
the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt in the sixteenth century.

Some 114 years ago there was a similar debate in Egypt.

A feature on the anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Egypt, alongside a
picture of Selim I, appeared in the newspaper “Türk,” published by the
Young Turks in Egypt on March 17, 1904.

The feature included a poem by the great scholar Ibn Kemal in which Selim I
was resembled as “the sun in the mid-afternoon,” having a big shadow and a
huge albeit short-lived influence.

“All Muslims should be proud of him,” the feature said.

But as historian Şükrü Hanioğlu remarks, the Arabic press reacted to the
feature. Reşit Rıza, a modernist Islamist, wrote in the magazine El Menar
that the feature had stirred hatred against the Ottomans among the Arabs.

*Arab nationalism*

Arab nationalism had actually sprung up during the reign of Abdul Hamid II
as developments in education and the press inevitably foreshadowed the
politicization of languages and “Arabism” among the educated Arabs who
turned to nationalism.

Kazım Karabekir, the prominent general and politician of the Ottomans and
the Republic of Turkey, said Arabic students were having heated arguments
about their language. They were demanding that the Arabic language be the
official language of the Ottomans just as the Turkish language was.

Some of those young Arabs fled from the Ottoman army and joined the
rebellion led by Sharif Hussein of Mecca during the World War I.

Abdul Hamid II did not permit opening any Arabic-medium school. On the
contrary, he convinced Mozaffar ad-Din Shah of Iran to open Turkish-medium
schools for the Azeri people in Iran.

It was unimaginable for Mehmed the Conqueror or Selim I to follow such a
language policy.

*Stepping into a new age*

History is not a theater in which the same play is staged over and over. In
history, the main plays are in a continuous course of change. As you I am
sure you well know, laws, politics, institutions, tastes, experiences and
even the foundations of knowledge in traditional agricultural societies
differ widely from those of industrial societies.

Ottoman institutions based on agriculture stopped working in the 18th
century when the industrial age kicked in. That is why the reformist
Ottoman sultans of the 19th century tried to found or copy modern
institutions and to establish modern schools.

All these developments paved the way to great and bloody tremors that led
to multinational empires breaking up into nation states. The sultans were
replaced with national sovereignty and imperial orders with acts.

In the 21st century, especially in the Balkans and the Middle East, foreign
policy makers should avoid moves that could evoke memories of the old
empires and should instead develop relations based on terms of equality.

Why was the Republic of Turkey conceived as a nation-state and why did the
republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, say: “Peace at home, peace in
the world” in his speech in 1931? The answers to these questions shed light
on the era in which we have been living.

To engage successfully with the 21st century, we should understand that our
age requires the nation-state to become a beacon of the rule of law and
democracy.

Arab <http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/search/Arab>, Middle East
<http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/search/Middle East>, Ottoman
<http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/search/Ottoman>, Ottoman Empire
<http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/search/Ottoman Empire>, geography
<http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/search/geography>, opinion
<http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/search/opinion>, Turkey
<http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/search/Turkey>

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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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