Unity in the Islamic World

True in that the Ottomans were multi-religious. Nationalism entered the middle east late when compared to europe.

Modern nation states call their own nationals by name of country and citizenship. This is nothing new for a 21'st century person. Yet back in the early 20'th century, especially in the middle east, ethnicity and nationality were new ideas. Such ideas were a self preservation vehicle.

I think you are confusing between turkism and to be a turk. In English language, when you say Turkism: a process of turkmenizing. So, Ziya Gokalp might not be a kurd by ethnicity but nevertheless he is not only turkicized, but a strong supporter of Young Turks. As I said, the revolution in Arab countries carried the Arab nationalist and the non-nationalist who want to escape turkism.

No one cares about what the CUP calls for muslim unity or anything. Their actions speaks louder and their actions are nothing but TURKISM.

What money you are talking about? pilgrimage donations? find me one line in the agreement between Sherief and the britons about receiving money after the war? Why would people support the Sherrief then? they won't get a penny if he really will get any money.

The Young Turks were a Turkish nationalist reform party, officially known as the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) � in Turkish the Ittihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti � whose leaders led a rebellion against Sultan Abdul Hamid II (who was officially deposed and exiled in 1909). They ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1908 until the end of World War I in November 1918.

Yes, Young Turks are nothing but nationalist.  Read the link in Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks

Yes, young Turks were panTurkists. But it was later, before, they were Ottomanists. Their purpose was to keep the Ottoman Empire alive and not to lose any more lands in the beginning. But later, their successors, Itt�had ve Terakki, understood that with the nationalism spread through Ottoman subjects, both Christian and Muslim, and after the Balkan wars, they had nothing to hold on but only Turkism to keep the unification soul of all people under the empire's rule.

Arab shiks were becoming nationalists and were provoked by the British against Ottoman Empire, just like Armenians, Greeks or Assyrians. But Turks werent. So for a Turkish nation to survive in the future, Ittihad ve Terakki have chosen Turkism, and it was the only available choice to survive after the massive waves from Europe, against the rule of multiethnical empires, such as Austuria Hungary and Ottomans. And western powers were always using these ideologies with the subjects of these empires for their own benefits for sure, they didnt care about a regular Arab to care about he was an Arab, or they didnt cre about Greeks becoming free again. The only thing, the only purpose for them, for always supporting the nationalism of subjects, was the purpse of colonizing and sharing the massive, very strategic and fertile Ottoman lands, and unite their colonies with Europe.

Arabs were just their tools, like Greeks, Armenians, and even like Young Turks against the multiethnical sickman of Europe. But, the difference btw an Arab and a Serb, a Bulgarian or a Greek fighting against Ottoman Empire was obvious. A regular Greek, armed, supported and provoked by the western powers was believing he was a total Christian freedomfighter against the Muslims. A regular Serb, fighting against the Ottoman Empire, was also fighting with the same purpose and ideology. I am not commenting on they were right or wrong, or really fighting for freedom, but a regular Christian subject's purpose of fighting against the Ottomans was either because of religious factors or freedom fighting.

BUT, a regular Arab, who was provoked and brainwashed by his sheikh, saying Turks had British coins in their stomachs or Turks were non-Muslim kafers, was never a freedom fighter, or never believed he was fighting for his religion or for freedom. He just fought for independence, gold, or for his beloved Lawrance.

That's why the Arab actions are considered as betraying besides all the actions of other subjects. Didnt Armenian gangs betray their empire? Yes, they did. Dont Kurds today, betray their state? Yes, they do. But, purposes and ideologies are the main points seperating them. While a regular Armenian thought he was fighing for his faith, while a regular Kurd thought he is fighting for freedom, an Arab knew he was fighting for more British coins and for Lawrance's bribe. Of course not generalizing, all Arabs didnt betray the empire, but lots of them from Yemen to Iraq. So Arabs, became the only real betrayer of the empire, unlike the other subjects.

Young turks are also traitor of Ottoman Empires too, Ottoman empires had no job at middle asia, and young turks destroyed their empire for Turan.They think importance of Turan is more than importance of Arabic land.

Infact Ottomans  suffered  from young Turks more than arabs.

So If you look another  real betrayer of Ottomans(as a culture) It was turks, we destroyed Ottoman empire, and built nationalist Turkey.

If you look another betrayal, you can find him  at battle of vienna, Isnt we lost battle of vienna because of a turkic betrayal?

Also remember turkish rebellions at anatolia, and help they took from Iran, this is also a betrayal to Ottomans too.

So I dont think, we need to demonize arabs.

They did their mistakes, but We Turks did our mistakes too.

What do you mean that they had no job in central Asia? Enver Pasha died in Central Asia, fighting against Russians with the Uzbek troops. What was the job of Ottoman Empire in Vienna? What was the job of Roman Empire in Anatolia? What was the job of China at Eastern Turkestan? There was no meaning of job those times, there was only one job, to improve/expand your empire/state/country and your nation. Altough I really dont support all the actions of Young Turks and all the actions for Turan, Turan was a better mission than pan-Islamism.

Well, Our priority should be our lands, not middle asia,when Enver Pasha was fighting at Central Asia, Anatolia was occupied, by greeks, france,Italy  and Italians. So I  think  If Enver Pasa was an ottoman patriot, he should try to protect anatolia not Middle asia, this is excatly betrayal of Ottomans.

Infact turan is a worse mission than pan-islamism, Pan-Islamism didnt mean one country for muslims, but turan excatly  means, one country for turks, and It failed. Enver Pasa fight  for Turan, not for Ottomans.

This isnt true. Ottomans always suffered from Russians, British and later Austurian, not from Greeks or Serbs. They were just tools for them. I consider the Arab actions against the empire as the actions of British against the empire. Like the actions of Armenians were in fact purposes of Russians. Small, weaker nations are always tools of greater bullies.

Sure they are, but Young Turk is not anyone tool, they prefer to be nationalist by themself. Nationalism is worst type of ideology for  multi-cultural Empire and they were worse than Abdulhamit 2.  They played games with  whole empire, Their unnecessary and naive expansionism destroyed empire. they were like childs, they were not enough capable to rule Ottomans.

We didnt destroy the empire, western imperialism and nationalism did. And we were the last one to become nationalized after all our subjects. We had to deny Ottoman past, because we had to create a "nation" out of a religious group, just like the Greeks, Armenians or arabs did. Nations of Middle East are all fabricated.

We built nationalist Turkey because we had no other chance for a state. The world was nationalising, our subjects also were, so we also had to. And I am proud of being a succeeder nation state rather than an Islamic state under the rule of a Sunnite, puppet caliph.

Infact we did, we refused everything related with ottomans, even their alphabet. (Pls dont tell me,It is because changin  alphabet will modernize us)

For Caliph,I dont think destroying caliph is a good political move. Ataturk want to westernize us, but we are not a western country. And now we lost, a lot political power without Caliph.Of course It harmed Islamic Unity too, If not destroyed.

Maybe because Ottomans oppressed the nonSunnite minorities, exiled and always tried to terminate them. So according to that logic, Ottomans have betrayed real Turks just for creating a Sunnite religious unity within the Muslim society of the Empire. The word "betray", shouldnt be matched with trying to survive.

this is another discussion, but we know, Shies are joined with Iran against ottomans. 

Of course we did, noone can deny that. All nations have their mistakes, but no other nation than us sends tens of thousand of its soldiers to fight for their so called "Sunnite brothers", and let them all be massacred in lands where they have nothing to fight for. Do you know how much Turki�sh soldiers were killed to defend their Muslim brothers in Jarusalem? Do you know how much Turkish soldiers died in Yemen to fight for the Sunnite brotherhood? If we had trusted our real brothers rather than the artificial ones in history, life would be much more better and wealthier for us.

our real brother? what do you mean with our real brother? This looks like as racism to me.Our real brothers fought each other, more than other people. Ottomans harmed by turks more than by Europeans. 

The most important mistake of Turks was, slaughtering its own population (Alevis) and fighting with other Turks (Timur-Ottomans). And also, believing a so called Sunite brotherhood and wasting our efforts for unaccaptable dreams.

Realy what should they do? Give their empire to someone who call Shah Shah?

And so? Did Ottomans even care about Anatolia, did they give any "thing" to "tashra"? Did Ottoman Empire care about Etrak-i bi-idrak in its decading periods? Ottomans priority was always Istanbul and Balkans, then holy lands. So they were the one who didnt give the priority to their homeland, Anatolia. Instead of wasting our Anatolian human source, mehmetcik in unnecessary, far edges of the empire such as Yemen, or signing Sevres, they could try to defend their homeland, their real prior lands like Ataturk did.

To me, both are imperialist missions that ended up with nonsense wasting of our people and efforts. Our home is Anatolia. This is the place we should care about, unlike Ottomans. Yes, PanIslamism exactly means one country for all Muslims. And both ideas are unhealthy in current international norms and condition.

I agree.

Maybe because we arewnt Ottomans. Tell me how much Turks have been using the Ottoman script in -Anatolia. 1% - optimistic percentage. So Ottoman script wasnt our script at all. Arabic script cant match Turkish grammer. 3 vowels for eight Turkish vowels for example.

Of course it wasnt only for modernizing us, I dont care which alphabet we use, I'd prefer the Uighur alphabet, but I am happy with Latin. the most useful one, the one to be used.

Caliphate became a sick organization in the collapsing periods. Remember, printing coming 200 years later to Turkey just because the wise Sheyhul Islams and Caliphate opposed it? But I agree on some point, caliphate would be a very effective power on Muslims if we still had it. Terminating it was a little extreme. ataturk didnt have any other chance in such conditions anyway. But to me, caliphate should have been frozen for some years, and then given back to Arabs. They can do what they want with it. We dont need a caliph to teach our religion to us, or to reach God's will. We can accomplish these ourselves individually for sure.

Nonsense. We could say Turks more harmed by Ottomans than by Europe. But we still respect our Ottoman inheritance.

I prefer a Turkish shah rather than a shayhul Islam or caliph. And I dont blame the Ottomans for not giving the empire to Turkmens. It would be a stupid move. Anyway, lets not open this issue.

And please end this discussion Murtaza, I am tired... 

Number one: Ablanians fought against the Ottomans for their independance

Number two: You keep missing the point. If Young Turks have not instituted their turkcizing procedures, Sherief who is either a nationalist or a greedy person, would have not found any ground support for his campaign. Yes, Arab nationalism was created by the influence of turkish nationalism. Al Faat, the Young Arab Society founded in 1913-1914 in Paris, with branches in Beirut and Damascus; the �Decentralization Party,� founded in Cairo by the Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians in 1912, with committees in Syria and Iraq and appearing as the spokesmen for Arab aspirations; and the Young Algerian Party, also formed in 1912.

All of those dates are before the Sherief launched his campaign. So, there is a ground support already for his campaign.

Number three: Yes, we are the least nationalist people on earth just because we believe in unity of a Muslim ideology. Arabs were not revolting on Ottomans in Syria and Lebanon and Iraq all time as other parts of the Ottoman Empire. Just think why did this happen only after 1908?

Ablanians fought against the Ottomans for their independance

I think this is another story, It is not because ottoman  were ruling albania, but It is because Ottomans giving albania to serbs? Maybe an albanian help about that issue, but I think this is before Turkish nationalism.

All of those dates are before the Sherief launched his campaign. So, there is a ground support already for his campaign.

there was always ground for rebellion, there were a lot of turkish rebellion too. Do you think,their reason is nationalism?

Yes, we are the least nationalist people on earth just because we believe in unity of a Muslim ideology. Arabs were not revolting on Ottomans in Syria and Lebanon and Iraq all time as other parts of the Ottoman Empire. Just think why did this happen only after 1908?

Infact It is not first rebellion of arabs, specialy bedevis are not to calm. We call it betrayal , because Arabs fight us with brits. When  our people was protecting Holy Lands again them, arabs joined with them.Timing is realy bad, and  remember job  of lawrence, I am sure he was not a arab nationalist. I dont think, arabs rebelled because of Young Turks, Infact this is absurd. What an arab at Saudi Arabia cared,power change of Istanbul.

As I explained earlier. The groud for "rebellion" or "revolution" was ready way earlier before the sherief. Residance of Demascus and Lebanon and part of Palestine were already ignited by Jamal Pasha unneccessary rigid policies. George Antonius claimed that it was the Young Turks' policy of 'turkification' that kindled the flames of nationalism among non-Turkish subjects of the Ottoman state, in his book The Arab Awakening: the Story of the Arab Nationalist Movement (New York, 1937).

The friendly relations between the Young Turks and the zionist movement also point to strong western influences. During their rule, the Ottomans obtained many loans from European banks, which were often run by Jews. In return they allowed unlimited immigration of Jews to Palestine. In 1909, when Arab parliamentary deputies expressed their concerns about this, the Minister of the Interior replied that Jews were free to buy property anywhere in the empire except in the Hijaz

Please understand that Im not with the revolution or against it. It is a historical incident that combined both mistakes. Turks mistakes to try to unity a multi-natioanl ethnic society as the example of Germany and Italy and Arab mistake of believing the Sherief intention.

Intention are really important here. Shereif didn't care about rescuing people from turkcizing policies more than his ambition, as Young Turks didn't care about protecting holy places more than gaining lands that were lost. The opportunism of Turkish minister of war Enver Pasha who attacked Russia even without declaring a War. I know you protect holy places by defending them. Now here Envar Pasha declares war first and enter it of course not to defend holy places, because that will be naiive, but to take the opportunity of German early victories and to regain some lost lands. That is the reality of both sides.

I thought Sherief moved from south to north, meaning if the Ottoman empire was defeated, he must have already passed to Demascus. Can you elaborate further please?