The Destruction of The Islamic State

In the wake of the First World War, after a truce had been declared between the warring factions and once the allies had secured their sweeping victory, the Ottoman State was destroyed and fragmented into small statelets. The allies seized all the Arab lands: Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Eastern Jordan and Iraq stripping them away from the State so that all that remained in the hands of the Ottomans was Turkey, and even she had been invaded by the allies. English warships seized the Bosporus and the British army occupied parts of the capital, Istanbul, all the Dardanelle fortresses and most of the strategic points throughout the whole of Turkey. The French meanwhile had also occupied parts of Istanbul and their Senegalese soldiers filled its streets. The Italian army occupied Bira and the railways, and the allied forces took over the running of the police, the national guard and the ports; they stripped all the fortresses of their weaponry and discharged part of the Turkish army. The ‘Association of Union and Progress’ was dissolved and both Jamal Pasha and Anwar Pasha fled the country; the rest of its members went under ground. A puppet government was then formed headed by Tawfeeq Pasha, to execute the orders of the occupying forces. The Khaleefah at the time was Waheed Ud-Deen, he forged the situation and deemed that he should deal with it in a wise manner; so he dissolved the parliament and assigned the Prime Minister’s post to one of his most faithful friends, Farid, who backed him in his policy of maintaining cordial relations with the allies and in not resisting them lest they destroy the country, which it was more than especially vulnerable to now that the war had ended. He executed his plan and the situation remained as such for a while with the allies dominating and Turkey in a state of lull. This continued on until 1919, when things began to change and the position of the allies weakened. A series of crises hit Italy, France and Britain at home, these were serious enough to threaten their internal stability, and soon differences too emerged between them. This was evident in Istanbul, where they fought over the booty, each of them wanting the lion’s share of military positions and economic advantages. At this point Turkey was in a position to seize a last chance and save her existence. Now that a rift had occurred between the allies and their weaknesses were revealed a point was reached whereby each one of them began inciting the Turks against the other and in the process they gave the Turks assistance. The peace conference, which they had been planning, had not yet taken place and its conditions not laid down, therefore a glimmer of hope appeared on the horizon and people began to believe that they could organise a serious resistance movement. More that ten secret associations were established in Istanbul, their aim was to steal weapons and depots under the control of the enemy and send them to secret organisations within the country. Some officials were also involved in this work; Ismat a deputy in the War Ministry, Fawzi the Chief of Staff, Fathi the Interior Minister and Ra’uf Minister of the Navy were amongst those who helped these movements. Thus the task of secretly resisting the enemy was taken up by the many associations formed with that purpose in mind; the ‘Association of Union and Progress’ also became very active again. These movements were joined by some of the military until eventually they came to be unified under one movement headed by Mustapha Kamal. He established a movement to fight the allies and expel them from the country and he vowed to fight the Khaleefah’s army if it stood in his way.

Mustapha Kamal’s success in this quest was remarkable; having realised that central government and the authority in Istanbul were under the enemy’s control he decided to establish a national government in Anadul. So he organised a national conference (rally) in Sywas, where the policies and the means to safeguard Turkey’s Independence were discussed. The conference adopted few resolutions and an executive committee was formed, to be headed by Mustapha Kamal. The conference sent a warning to the Sultan demanding the removal of the Prime Minister Farid and the holding of free parliamentary elections. Under such pressure, the Sultan was forced to submit to the conferences’ demands, and so he dismissed the Prime Minister and appointed Ali Redha as his successor, then he ordered new elections to be held. The delegates from the conference entered the elections as a group with a manifesto designed to salvage the country and they achieved a sweeping majority in the new parliament. After their success they moved on to Ankara and established their head quarters there where they held a meeting and proposed that the parliament should meet in Istanbul and their assembly should be dissolved since its members had now become official deputies. However Mustapha Kamal strongly opposed these two proposals saying: "The assembly should continue until the parliament’s commitment and integrity is made clear and until its policy becomes known; as for the move to the capital, this would be sheer madness, for if you did this you would be under the mercy of the enemy. The British still control the country and the authorities will undoubtedly meddle in your affairs and perhaps arrest you. The parliament should therefore convene here in Ankara so that it remains independent." Mustapha Kamal persisted and defended his opinion strongly, but failed to persuade the deputies to hold the parliament’s sessions in Ankara. The deputies duly went to the capital and expressed their loyalty to the Khaleefah then they continued on with their work; this was in January 1920.

The Sultan, backed by the British, tried to impose his will on the deputies but they resisted and showed their willingness to hold on to the country’s rights. When pressure from the allies mounted on them they rallied public opinion for the national charter which they had agreed upon during the Sywas conference. The charter included the conditions according to which they were prepared to accept peace; most important of these conditions was that Turkey should become a free and independent state within specified borders. The allies, especially the British, rejoiced, for this was exactly what they had been aiming at, moreover they wanted it to come from the Turks themselves. It is worth mentioning here that all the countries, which the Ottoman State used to rule over in her quality as an Islamic State, had each had, in the wake of the First World War, a national charter drawn up for them by the allies and which proclaimed for them the independence of the part which the allies wanted to keep separate. Iraq therefore had a national charter comprising the independence of Iraq, as did Syria, Palestine, Egypt and so on. Thus it was only natural for the allies, especially the British, to rejoice at this Turkish national charter for it was exactly what they wanted - the dismembering of the Ottoman State and its division into statelets lest it return again as one strong State. Their dream of destroying the Muslims’ State looked as though it would now be fulfilled.

Had it not been for the national charter, which the allies managed to set up everywhere, the situation would have taken a different turn. The reason for this was because the Ottoman State was a single entity which considered all its Wilayas a part of it, it had adopted a system of Unity and not Union and so there was no difference in the State’s policy between Hijaz or Turkey, nor between the Sanjak (district) of Al-Quds and the Sanjak of Iskandarona - all of them were part of one single State. In addition to this the situation should have been further complicated by the conditions imposed on the defeated powers at the wars end. This was because the defeat of Turkey was similar to that of Germany, since they were allies in the war together, and the conditions of peace laid down on one country should have applied to the other. Thus if the people of Germany resisted the idea of having to part with as much as a hand span of their land, and fought against their country being dismembered, so should have been the case for the Ottoman State, and she too should never have been dismembered. The allies were aware of these realities and took them into account, however, when the Ottomans themselves requested their country to be dismembered, a request sought by Arabs and Turks alike, the allies leapt at the chance and ardently encouraged such moves - especially in the State’s Central Office (Turkey) where most of the rule within the State originated and where it was represented.

The allies therefore considered the national charter to be their final victory. The Turks were thus allowed the freedom of resentence once it had been published and the allies then began to pull out their troops from every corner of the land. British and French troops were removed from the country, concomitantly the Turks began gathering strength. A resistance movement was formed which eventually turned into a revolution against the Sultan, thus forcing him to send in an army to crush the movement. This it managed to do until all the people stood by the Sultan except those in Ankara where the stronghold of the revolution was. Eventually Ankara itself was on the brink of defeat. In the face of the Khaleefah’s army the surrounding villages fell one after the other and then joined it. Mustapha Kamal and those with him were placed in a very critical situation, but Mustapha Kamal was determined to fight on and so he incited the nationalists. They responded and gathered strength; rumours were spread in the Turkish provinces and villages that the British army was about to occupy the capital, arrest the nationalists and shut down the house of parliament by force. Rumours about the Sultan and his government supporting the occupation were also spread.

them and kept his cards close to his chest. Instead he began to incite public opinion against the Khaleefah, Waheed Ud-Deen, accusing him of collaborating with the British and the Greeks. People were enraged against the Khaleefah and amidst the public euphoria behind him Mustapha Kamal called for a meeting of the National Assembly to outline his plan regarding the Sultan and the government. He had known all along that he was capable of convincing the deputies to remove Waheed Ud-Deen and dissolve the Sultanate, but he could not be so daring as to risk a direct attack on the Khilafah since this would have triggered the peoples Islamic sentiment and feelings. He did not therefore dissolve the Khilafah and avoided tackling the issue head on, instead he slyly suggested separating the Sultanate from the Khilafah, thus the Sultanate could be dissolved and Waheed Ud-Deen removed. As soon as the deputies heard this they became speechless and dejected, they quickly realised the dangerous implications of the proposal which they had been asked to endorse and they moved to first debate the issue at hand. Mustapha Kamal was exceedingly apprehensive and fearful of such a debate, so he asked instead for a motion (vote) regarding the proposal to take place. He received the backing of eighty of the deputies, they were from among his personal supporters, however the assembly refused to grant him his wish and alternately referred the proposal to the legal committee to look into. When the committee convened the next day, Mustapha Kamal turned up at the meeting and watched the course of events closely. The committee, comprising of scholars and lawyers, debated the issue for a few hours and soon realised that the proposal violated the Sharia‘a texts, since in Islam there is nothing called religious authority and temporal authority - ‘Saltana’ and Khilafah - are one and the same. The concept of separating the Deen from the State does not exist in Islam and had never existed throughout its history, but there was an Islamic System and the State was part of the System, indeed it was the State that implemented the System. Inevitably the legal committee could not find any justification for such a separation nor could it find a reason for conducting a debate on the issue because the Islamic texts are clear-cut and decisive (not open to interpretation) about it. Unsurprisingly, the committee rejected the proposal. However, Mustapha Kamal was determined to separate the Deen from the State by separating the Sultanate from the Khilafah, which was the fulfilment of the aims of the allies - the destruction of the remains of the Islamic State at the hands of its own people. He was spurred on by the colonialist culture, he aped the Westerners in their separation of the temporal power from the spiritual one, just as the church had come to be separated from the state in the West. When Mustapha Kamal realised that the debate of the committee was taking a course different to his, he lost his temper and leapt off his seat, he stood on a chair fuming with rage and interrupted the debate of the committee by shouting: "Your excellencies! The Ottoman Sultan has seized the authority of the people by force, and it is by force that the people have decided to regain it. The Sultanate must be separated from the Khilafah and dissolved, this shall take place whether you agree or not, all there is to it is that some of your heads will fall in the process." He spoke like a dictator, then the meeting of the committee broke up. The national assembly was immediately called for so as to meet to discuss the proposal.

Throughout the debate, Mustapha Kamal realised that the majority of the deputies were against the proposal, so he gathered his supporters around him and called for a vote on the proposal by raising hands once. The deputies objected to this and said: "If it is absolutely necessary to vote, let this take place by calling out the name of each deputy." Mustapha Kamal rejected this and shouted out menacingly: "I am confident that the assembly will endorse the proposal by general consensus and it will be sufficient to take votes by raising hands only." The proposal was put to the vote and only a few hands were raised, however the result was declared as though the assembly had accepted the proposal by a clear majority. The deputies were stunned by this and some of them leapt from their seats protesting and shouting: "This is not true, we did not agree!" So the supporters of Al-Ghazi shouted back at them and restrained them, insults were exchanged then the President of the assembly declared the result of the vote once more stating that the assembly had approved by a clear majority the dissolution of the Sultanate. Then the meeting broke up. Mustapha Kamal left the conference centre surrounded by his supporters. When Waheed Ud-Deen, the Khaleefah, received news of this he fled the country and soon after his nephew, Abdul Majeed, was nominated as the Khaleefah of the Muslims, albeit stripped of any and all authority. The country, however, remained without a lawful ruler.

If the Sultanate was separated from the Khilafah, who then was the legal ruler? Mustapha Kamal had all along been very anxious to separate the Sultanate from the Khilafah, and he did so without revealing the structure of government which Turkey was to adopt. With the dissolution of the Sultanate it had become necessary to decide the format of the new government; would Mustapha Kamal form the government and become the President of a constitutional state whilst keeping the Khaleefah as the authoritative figure? If so then would not the decision to dissolve the Sultanate have been ineffectual in the first place?

Mustapha Kamal refused to form a government and did not reveal his intentions. Backed up by his power and authority, through which he had control over the people, he went on to form a party which he called the ‘People’s Party’. His intention was to gain the public opinion in his favour, because, despite his power, the sweeping majority in the assembly were still against him even after the declaration of the separation of the Sultanate from the Khilafah. This led him to consider disclosing the shape of the new government which he had decided to form - declaring Turkey to be a republic with himself as its President. He started by initiating a smear campaign against the assembly and this produced an embarrassing political crisis, thus leading to the resignation of the government in office. The government tendered its resignation to the national assembly and this created a power vacuum. Amidst the deepening crisis, some of the deputies suggested to the assembly that it should appoint Mustapha Kamal as the head of the government in order to solve the crisis. At first he pretended that he held no ambitions for the job, then he agreed and went up to the stand to address the assembly. In his speech he said to the deputies: " You have sent for me to come to the rescue at the critical hour, however, the critical situation is of your own doing, therefore this state of affairs is not a passing incident, but a fundamental error of judgment in the system of our government. The national assembly has at the moment two functions, legislative and executive, each deputy wants to take part in every ministerial decision and stick his nose into every government department and every decision made by a minister. Your excellencies, no minister can become familiar with his job and responsibility, and accept a post in such circumstances. You have to realise that a government founded on this basis is impossible to establish; and if it were established, you would not call it a government, but a shambles; and we have to appreciate this state of affairs. Therefore, I have decided to turn Turkey into a republic, with an elected President." Once he had finished his speech it was soon realised that he had already prepared a decree, making Turkey a republic and electing Mustapha Kamal as the first President of the Turkish republic; he therefore turned himself into the lawful ruler of the country.

However, things did not run as smoothly for Mustapha Kamal as he had wished, for one thing the Turkish people are Muslim and what Mustapha Kamal did contradicts Islam. A feeling that Mustapha Kamal intended to destroy Islam spread, this feeling was fuelled by Kamal’s own personal actions; in his private life he held Islam in contempt, violating all the Divine Sharia‘a rules, mocking everything that Muslims hold in high esteem and sanctity. People soon realised that the new rulers of Ankara were disbelieving devils and they began to gather around the Khaleefah Abdul Majeed. They attempted to hand him back the authority and make him the effective ruler so that he could get rid of those apostates. Mustapha Kamal sensed the growing danger and realised that the majority of the people despised him, accusing him of being a Zendik, disbeliever and a heretic. He thought long and hard about the matter and as a result intensified his smear campaign against the Khaleefah and the Khilafah, inciting the fervour of the national assembly, until it adopted and enacted a law stating that any opposition to the republic and any siding with the Sultan would be considered an act of treachery which carried the death penalty. Mustapha Kamal then began to talk about the disadvantages of the Khilafah at every meeting, especially the general assembly. He started to prepare the ground to abolish the Khilafah. Some of the deputies countered this threat by speaking out about the diplomatic advantages of the Khilafah, they were met in turn by a fierce attack from Mustapha Kamal. He said to the national assembly: "Was it not because of the Khilafah, Islam and the religious men that the Turkish villagers fought and died for five centuries? It is high time Turkey looked after her own interests and ignored the Indians and the Arabs; Turkey should rid itself of leading the Muslims."

Mustapha Kamal pursued his smear campaign against the Khilafah, highlighting its disadvantages to the Turkish people, he also smeared the Khaleefah himself by portraying him and his supporters as the real traitors and as British puppets. Mustapha Kamal did not stop there but went on to sponsor a terror campaign against those who championed the Khilafah. His reaction towards one of the deputies who openly declared the obligation of holding onto the Khilafah and safeguarding the Deen was to hire someone to kill him the very night that he was meant to speak. So one of his followers assassinated him that night whilst he was on his way back home from the national assembly. Another deputy delivered an Islamic speech, so Mustapha Kamal summoned him and threatened him with hanging if he opened his mouth again. Mustapha Kamal spread terror everywhere. In time he sent to the Governor of Istanbul ordering him to scale down the protocol and ceremonial display that surrounds the Khaleefah’s cortege during the Friday prayers. He also cut down the Khaleefah’s salary to the minimum and exhorted his followers to desert him. When some of Mustapha Kamal’s moderate supporters witnessed this their Islamic feelings began to run high again and they feared the annulment of the Khilafah. They proposed to Mustapha Kamal the idea of appointing himself as Khaleefah over the Muslims. He flatly refused. Then he was visited by two delegations, one from Egypt and the other from India, they asked him to appoint himself as Khaleefah of the Muslims, they pleaded with him repeatedly but to no avail. Mustapha Kamal had by now prepared the way to deal his final blow and destroy the Khilafah.

Hatred and contempt for foreigners, the enemy and their supposed ally the Khaleefah was spread by him amongst the people, the armed forces and the national assembly. Inciting the feeling of hatred towards foreigners was merely a ploy intended to accuse the Khaleefah of being their ally. When public opinion had shifted towards him and with feelings against the Khaleefah running high, Mustapha Kamal presented to the national assembly on March 3rd 1924 a motion stating the annulment of the Khilafah and the removal and expulsion of the Khaleefah, thereby formally separating the Deen from the State. Some of the words which he said when he presented the motion to the deputies were as follows: "At what cost should the threatened republic be safeguarded and be established on a strong scientific basis? The Khaleefah and the legacies of ‘Aal Uthman’ must go, the ancient religious courts and their laws must be replaced by modern courts and modern laws, the schools of the clergy must give way to secular government schools." He then went on to attack the Deen and what he called religious men. Displaying real dictatorial authority, he adopted that motion himself and secured the National Assembly’s approval without any debate taking place, then he sent an order to the Governor of Istanbul stating that the Khaleefah, Abdul Majeed, should leave Turkey before dawn the following day. The Governor himself, went with a group of policemen and soldiers to the Khaleefah’s Palace at midnight. They forced him to get into a cart and escorted him to the border not allowing him to take more than one suitcase containing some clothing and a little money.

This is how Mustapha Kamal abolished the Islamic State and the Islamic System, and in its place established a capitalist state and a capitalist system. By destroying the Islamic State, he fulfilled the dream of the disbelievers which they had nurtured ever since the crusades.