OTTOMAN CALIPHATE
Contemporary Relevance of the Abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate
On March 3, 1924, Turkey’s Grand National Assembly passed three bills that changed the country irreversibly. One of these bills that abolished the Ottoman caliphate and exiled all remaining members of the Ottoman family remains the most revolutionary. The effects of this abolition are still being felt today throughout the Middle East, and more particularly in the ideologically segmented and polarised Turkey. Being the most expansive and the longest serving empire in history, the Ottoman Empire left a rich legacy cutting across the cultural, economic, social, and political aspects of the modern world, particularly the Middle East. This essay argues that the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate is still relevant in the modern world.
For nearly six centuries under a single dynasty, the Ottoman Caliphate dominated the regions in South-Eastern Europe up to the Hungary frontiers in the North, the Middle East up to the border of Iran, Anatolia, and the Mediterranean coast of North Africa (Kaya, 1996). From the 14th century up to its downfall in the early 19th century, the empire expanded by carrying out a series of conquests in the Middle Eastern world as well as part of Southern Europe and Egypt. The Ottoman Sultan was the absolute ruler of the Ottoman Caliphate - the political-religious state dominated by the Muslim community and the conquered nations that emerged after the death of Prophet Muhammad (Goodwin, 1999). The sultan was the head of the state and also the head of government – his words were the law. This meant that the Sultan was the political, judicial, military, social, and religious leader of the empire. The culture of the empire was informed by the Muslim religion. The empire, however, had conquered many nations of different religions including Christianity and the ancient religions practised in Egypt. After expanding its territory to include Syria, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula, the empire became the definite protector of the three holy sites –Makkah, Madinah, and Jerusalem. With this, the empire put much emphasisis on preserving the important sites as per the Islam religion. The authority to rule was passed down from the father to the son. The empire became the major power in the Mediterranean area after conquering the Byzantine Empire.
The history of this empire is wide and rich, but for the purpose of this essay, it is of utmost importance to mention some factors that led to its success, and equally to its downfall. These factors are crucial in emphasizing the relevance of the empire in modern global politics, and in particular the politics of Turkey and the Middle East. According to the historians of the Ottoman Caliphate, there are many reasons that can be attributed to its success. Some of these reasons include the high centralisation of power, control of the state in the education system, incorporation of religion into the state structures, absolute power, prevalence of the Islamic ideology, and a very strong military. Other reasons included the undermining of the Byzantine Empire and the religious strife in Europe (Kunt and Woodhead, 1995; Faroqhi, 2012).
Like many other Islamic empires in the world, the Ottoman caliphate also reached its end in the 1920s. By the 18th century, the empire had started to decline due to both internal and external factors. Internally, the Ottomans were faced with leadership wrangles as well as weak leaders. Administration issues led to the spread of corruption. The military also weakened leading to a series of defeats. External forces included the decline of the empire's economy while that of Europe was on an upward trend. This happened while the empire was lagging behind in modernisation. These challenges led to the abolition of the caliphate in 1924.
Contemporary relevance of the abolished caliphate
The history of the Ottoman Empire helps in understanding the modern politics, economic, and social culture of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East; and Turkey in particular. Political scientists and economists alike have tried to understand the caliphate to understand some of the crucial aspects in those fields like war and peace. In this, there are aspects of the empire that can be relied on to understand the relationship between ethnicity, religion, state, and conflicts. Other aspects can still explain the state of the modern Turkish Republic. These concepts will be evaluated later in the course of this essay. For now it is important to understand how the abolition of the caliphate has impacted the modern Middle East and Turkey.
One of the key philosophies that emerged from the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate is modernisation through westernisation (Mansfield, 1973). This was a philosophy that was promulgated and implemented by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a leader who is credited as the founder of the Turkish Republic and its first president. Under the Ottoman Caliphate, as discussed above, the empire degenerated into chaos and recession. It suffered one defeat after the other. Due to these struggles, Turkey was described as “the sick man of Europe”. When Kemal took over power after the collapse of the empire, he initiated a process of abolishing the caliphate (Kinross, 1979). What followed was a series of reforms that shaped modern Turkey. The reforms initiated under his leadership rapidly secularised and westernised the young republic. Kemal believed that Turkey could only modernise and prosper by incorporating Western values and technology – often christened as modernisation through westernisation. Due to the massive reforms that were undertaken, “Kemalism” became the founding ideology of the Turkish Republic.
In the revolutionary reforms, Kemal introduced the concept of equality in Turkey’s social-cultural and political environment. In this environment, girls were to have equal opportunity just as the boys. Women were given voting rights and given equal space to compete in business as well as government jobs. In an unprecedented manner, the abolishment of the caliphate equally abolished the place of Islam in the Turkish justice system. Under the caliphate, Turkey was governed by the Sharia law. The reforms introduced replaced the religious laws with the Western system of justice, with a legal structure similar to one practiced in European nations. Further, despite the teaching of the Quran, Kemal outlawed polygamy. In other reforms, Kemal outlawed veils, fezzes, and other traditional Turkish clothing. The leader had little regard for these attires. To him, people had to look civilised from the way they dressed. Those who disobeyed this order were arrested and imprisoned. All this followed Kemal's belief that religion was one of the greatest impediments to Turkey’s modernisation. No wonder the father of modern-day Turkey took decisive steps to separate state and religion. Sunday replaced Friday as the legal weekly holiday and state's role in managing the economy was enshrined in the constitution. The abolition eliminated the theocratic power of the caliphate and the modernisation program embarked on secularising a country that was 99% Muslim.
In the education sector, Kemal reforms brought about the alphabet reform in 1928. Perhaps, among all, this is the reform that impacted the Turkish Republic greatly; it had a dimensional impact. During this reform, the Ottoman Turkish written in Arabic script was banned and replaced with the Turkish alphabet which was based on Latin letters. Numbers written in Arabic were replaced with their Western equivalent (Lewis, 1999). This change of alphabets transformed how Turkish used their language up to date. Beside Arabic script being difficult to learn, its alphabet did not sit well with the Turkish language due to vowel discordsance. This impacted negatively to the Turkish literacy levels. After the change of alphabet, Turkish literacy level improved by 95%, indicating how the change of alphabet was transformative to the education system. To date, Turkey remains a country with a high literacy level, a success that can be attributed to the abolition of the caliphate.
Apart from this transformation, the language reform was also a cultural shift, from Islam to Western. The reform fell in line of modernisation and civilisation as championed by the new leader. This could be the reason why some of the critics have argued that the language reform was “part of cultural reforms supported by Westernist-positivist Ottoman statesmen since the early 1860s” (Taspinar 2005:24). In a more scathing attack, Nadi quipped that the goal of the alphabet reform was to unite Turkey with Europe. “Thanks to the alphabet reform; the country will irrevocably be forced to face modernity” (Yilmaz, 2011, p.684). This argument may carry some weight considering that it has been a long goal for Turkey to join the EU. The relevance of this and the impact of the abolition of the caliphate in joining the EU will be discussed later in this essay.
All these reforms have transformed the modern-day Turkey. Turkey today is an example of how an Islamic nation can be democratic, pro-western, and secular and still be Islamic (Motika, 2014). Although the coming into power of the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP) has eroded some of these gains, Turkey is still a beacon of hope in the Islamic world. Despite the few drawbacks, the post-caliphate reforms are still alive in Turkey. Like Kinzer (2008) argues, the long match to democracy can be the magnet that pulls the Islamic countries away from fundamentalism and says to them, “be like us. Adopt our secular model and you can have all the successes and prosperity that we have had”. On that note, Turkey can be praised by the Western nations as a model country that can be copied by other Muslim nation. This is important considering the fundamentalism ideologies currently spreading in Middle East. In case, other Muslim countries may not turn their back to Islam like Turkey did with the abolition of the caliphate, but they may try to copy some of the democratic principles adopted in Turkey and still maintain their Muslim religion. However, for a country that is predominantly Muslim, but one trying to embrace Western values, modernisation through westernisation has left Turkey under an identity crisis. The country is split between Western and Eastern identities.
The abolition of the caliphate also helps modern learners understand some of the contemporary political intrigues in the Middle East. For instance, fear, between Europe and the Muslim nations is one of the lasting legacies of the Ottoman caliphate. These fears continue to shape the relationship between Islamic nations and Europe. The case of Turkey is a good example. Since Turkey applied to be a member of the European Union, there has been opposition from other European members. Although Europe has been issuing stringent demands before Turkey is considered fit to join Europe, fear aroused by the fact that Turkey was the heartland of the Ottoman Empire and that it still remains 99% muslim, cannot be overlooked. Since 1959, when Turkey applied to be a member of the EU (then EEC), the country has come to close to joining the Union but remains still far away from realising this dream. Some have described this relationship as “forever engaged, never to be married” kind of relationship. However, if Turkey maintains its democratisation process dedicated to freedom and progress, it might not only succeed in joining EU, it may also be an influential player in global politics. The fact that the country is a member of NATO, admitted in 1952, cannot escape a mention here(Hale, 1994). The US, and the Western powers, would like to maintain Turkey in this position in order for it to be a buffer and a military leader in the Middle East.
There is also the question of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). With the rise of ISIS, many are asking whether the world is seeing a re-emergence of the Ottoman Caliphate. After the abolition of the caliphate, there were calls to establish another new Pan-Islamic state with a new caliph. When ISIS announced that it had established a caliphate and declared its leader the caliph of Muslims, some tried to liken this with the Ottoman caliphate. In this outcome, the history of the Ottoman caliphate gains relevance. It is the interest of political historians to look at what extent ISIS resembles the abolished ottoman caliphate.
There is no doubt that ISIS harbours a goal of re-establishing the glory of former Islamic empires, but whether the organisation is a reincarnation of the Ottoman caliphate is open to debate. The events following the end of World War I, and the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire, are issues that evoke mixed reactions in the Arab world. Following the Sykes-Picot agreement western powers went ahead to partition the Middle East without consideration of the ethnic, religious, and cultural dimension of the region. A section of the Muslim community thought that had there been a caliphate that controlled the region like the Ottoman, this could not have happened. As such, ISIS may position itself as the avenger of this misrepresentation and the heir of the Ottoman caliphate. Such understanding is crucial for anyone interested in contemporary Middle East politics.
One striking similarity between ISIS and the abolished caliphate is the expansive area that they controlled. ISIS has gained huge control of major areas in Syria and Iraq. It has also established its leader and the caliph and declared him the spokesman of the 1.6 billion Muslims. However, there are also striking differences. While the group may consider itself as the heir of the Ottoman Empire, its tactics and practices keep it far apart from its predecessor. In the first place, the empire was tolerant of other religions and ethnicities. On the contrary, ISIS is ready to kill anyone who does not conform to the Islamic faith. In addition, the group may not succeed in recapturing regions such as North Africa that were controlled by the old empire.
Conclusion
The abolition of the Ottoman caliphate still has contemporary relevance. The abolition is one of the remarkable political reforms that define the modern-day Turkey. However, the relevance of the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate cannot make a great impact if it is not viewed in terms of how it paved the way for the building of a modern secular democracy. The end of the caliphate gave way to the language reforms, the separation of the state and the religion, the entrenchment of democratic principles, and initiated economic growth for the country. Most of these reforms are still evident in the social-economic and political climate in Turkey. In addition, the end of the caliphate still has relevance in the global politics of the Middle East. The effort made by Turkey to join the the EU is such an outstanding example. Turkey today is an example of how an Islamic nation can be democratic, pro-western, and secular and still be Islamic, thanks to the secularisation reforms enacted with the end of the caliphate.
List of References
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