Coll 6/43 'Pan Arab Congress 1933. Attitude of H.M.G. to a Pan Arab Movement' [‎363r] (726/1144)

THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY CTF~BjSjBRlTANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
n c
EASTERN (General).
June 6, 1936.
CONFIDENTIAL.
Section 1 .
[E 3284/381/65]
Copy No.
Sir A. Clark Kerr to Mr. Eden.—{Received June 6.)
Sir 0 ' 260 ) May 28. 1936.
I HAVE read with interest the report on the pan-Islamie Arab movement
enclosed in Sir Miles Lampson's despatch No. 223 of the 24th February last,
which came to me under cover of your despatch No. 229 of the 15th April, and 1
venture to submit some observations on this subject derived from my own contact
with it in this country.
2. In the first place, I think it is perhaps a little misleading to use the term
pan-Islamic when discussing the modern movement which springs from Ara >
nationalism. The efforts which have been made in recent times to quicken the
spirit of Islam have been fundamentally religious and universal in their aims,
while the manifestations of Arab nationalism have been political and regional.
There are, of course, points at which the two movements meet, but these are. I
feel, too few to justify their being dealt with as connected phenomena.
3. The Islamic world has not yet recovered, and may, indeed, never recover,
from the shock of the Turkish abolition of the Caliphate in 1924.^ If, in their
hour of victory, the Turks had not thrown aside Islam and the Caliphate and
declared for a purely secular and nationalist State, a new unity might have
developed among Islamic peoples. As it was, Islam was rejected by the one State
that might have assumed the role of leader, and the Mahometan world was
deprived of the one central institution (apart from the Haj) which stood above
the regional interests of its diverse peoples. Appreciation of the gravity of the
situation led to a movement in some quarters to revive the Caliphate, but the
proclamation of King Hussein as Caliph in 1924 and the Caliphate C ongress in
Cairo in 1926 were both failures. The Congress of the Islamic World summoned
bv King Abdul Aziz A1 Saud at Mecca in the summer of 1926 was equally barren
of results. The General Islamic Congress founded in Jerusalem in December
1931 has also failed to establish its authority as a central directive body for
Islam, and it now appears to be moribund. It should also be noted that, although
its conception owed much to the idea of the Mufti of Jerusalem that the congress
could be used to bring to the Palestinian Arabs the help of the Moslem world in
the Wailing Wall dispute with the Jews, the congress itself was careful to resist
all efforts to convert it from a pan-Moslem into a pan-Arab gathering.
4. The failure of this last effort to organise Islam was very largely due to
the aloofness of all the Islamic Governments. The Turkish and Persian Govern
ments regarded it as reactionary and obscurantist. The Arab Kingdom of Iraq
and Saudi Arabia were suspicious of any organisation in which they could not
enjoy a predominant influence. Egypt stood aside and Afghanistan was too
distraught by internal disorders to have time to spare for the outside world.
Only the Yemen accepted officially the invitation of the organisers. The line of
cleavage was clear. National interests had usurped the allegiance once given to
the faith. Henceforward, the peoples of Islam were to rally under their national
flags rather than under the banner of the prophet.
5. The modern history of the movement to attain some form of political
unity among the Arab peoples follows a different course. The spectacular
manifestation of Arab national sentiment which was brought about by the
Amir Feisal and T. E. Lawrence in the Hejaz (which, it must be remembered,
was a revolt against the Caliph) did not evoke universal response in other Arab
countries. In the heart of Arabia, in Nejd and in Hail, the princes and the
people were quite unmoved. In Mesopotamia the revolt in the desert was scarcely
1731 f—1]