WILLIAM II.-MOSLEM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16020, 11 September 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

WILLIAM 11.-MOSLEM.

BY REV. J. TAKLE. German intrigue has tried a variety of strings to its bow, but, with the one exception of Turkey, they have all failed to stand the test when the strain came. Ten years ago Germans were sure that Pan-Islamism would be a useful factor on the side of Germany in a world-war. More recently it has been proved without doubt that, to make the British position untenable in Egypt, their agents were behind the Nationalist agitation, with what success the whole world knows.

Now the intriguers are wasting a great deal of money and ink in spreading throughout the Islamic world that the Kaiser has become a zealous Mohammedan ; that he has secured the title of Hadji Mohammed William, and is constantly prayed for in the mosques of the Turkish dominions as the Defender of the Faith of Islam. '•Hadji." it should be explained, is the honour title given to every devout follower of the prophet who has performed the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca. Everywhere in the villages of Turkey, Egypt, and India, this cunning artifice is being used by German agents and pro-Turkish sympathisers, thinking that nothing will give the ordinary ignorant Moslem more rapturous delight than the news of the conversion of such an august personage.

But the rumour is referred to in deprecatory and somewhat sarcastic terms by the leading Mohammedan papers in India. They cannot believe that such a ruse has imposed upon thoughtful Moslems, even in Turkey. In India it has provoked a great deal of mirth. The Hablul Matin, published in Calcutta, says : " Not a single Moslem in India, with the exception, perhaps, of a few idiots or imbeciles, puts faith in the Islamic professions ot the Kaiser. Some have taken serious offence at this irreverent reference to our religion. ' Hadji Mohammed William' can never secure the confidence of the Islamic world after his intrigues at Stamboul. The ' Hadji' has done so much evil, that we doubt whether a pilgrimage to the Holy Mecca can secure his absolution."

This is an old dodge of would-be world rulers, and the Kaiser has learnt his lesson well. Napoleon, in Egypt, his great brain throbbing with the dream of personal domination of Europe and Asia, sent forth a proclamation to the effect that, lie had not come to destroy the faith of the people, but to " revive the true worship of Mohammed. Tell them that I venerate more than do the Mamelukes, God, His prophet and the Koran." One of his staff officers writing to France at the time, said : " You witlings of Paris will laugh outright at the Mohammedan proclamation of Napoleon. He, however, is proof against all your raillerv. and the proclamation itself has produced the most surprising effect." Napoleon was well versed in Islamic lore, and knew that Moslems for centuries had been looking for the advent of the Madhi— they still expect him—who should come to deliver all the Faithful, and bring in the church-state ideal of Mohammed and the first Caliphs. He worked on the expectation, and some of the French historians maintain that he himself even claimed to be the long-expected Madhi. The Kaiser could not go such lengths, living away from a Moslem centre, but bis agents are doing the next smart thing by proclaiming him to be a Mohammedan convert. It has been the set policy of Germany for years to champion the Mohammedans, although jts sane advisers have recognised the evil effects of Islam. Bismarck openly described the Turks as • the only" gentlemen in the East. The German book markets have been flooded with literature breathing appreciation, of, if not. direct sympathy with the Moslem world, and real friendship for • the Turkish people. Britishers, on the other hand, unable to obliterate the memory of the horrible atrocities regularly perpetrated by Abdul Hamid and his tyrannical crew, would encourage no intercourse with the Turks beyond the severest civilities necessary to political relations. There is not the least doubt that the colonising designs on Asia Minor, the railway and irrigation schemes in Mesopotamia, and the fostering of commercial interests in Syria, were the ultimate aim of German conciliation and compromise. And the powerful influence of William the Second "was exerted on every possible occasion to pander to Ottoman pride and intrigue, and thus strengthen German domination of Turkish affairs.

A review of the Kaiser's many little courtesies to Abdul Hamid shows how far he can- go with his .flattery and friendship. In 1895.. when there was a frightful slaughter of thousands of Armenians, and '' Europe turned pale" at the news, the Kaiser was silent and sympathetic; in 1897, during the Greek war with Turkey, he was active and auxiliary; in 1898. during his first visit to the Sultan's dominions, the Turks were blinded with the brilliance of his Teutonic flare, but the world stood aghast at his indirect acquiescence in recent Turkish events. All the officially inspired newspapers hailed his coming with delight, and exhausted the Turkish and Arabic languages for expressions of adulation, laying stress on the increasing power of his army and navy. His journey to Palestine was attended with the pomp of Oriental splendour, the Turkish officials vieing with each other in their attempt* to please "the friend and ally of Abdul Hamid." The official banquet at Damascus is said to have been worthy of the palmiest days of the famous Caliph Haroun '1 Raschid of _ Baghdad. In. reply to the toast at this banquet the Kaiser wished it proclaimed that lie was "the friend of all Moslems the world over." While in Damascus he visited the tomb of Saladin, and at the head of the sarcophagus placed a bouquet of flowers, in respectful memory of the brave defender of Islam in. the days of the Crusades. By a recent cable -we see that he has sent' the gift of an Arabian lamp, designed by himself, to be hung over Saladin's tomb. KT,e also visited the reputed temple of the Sun at Baalbec (now proved to be the temple of Bacchus) and placed within it a tablet commemorating his visit, in which he proclaims in German and Turkish his undying friendship for Abdul Hamid. He has certainly- breathed the spirit of his own Lessine's Saladin, who is made to say : "Wilt thou remain with me? About me? As Christian or Moslem, 'tis all the same! The difference is only in garb and head-gear!" In 1908. when Turkey was again trying to annihilate the Armenian nation—a people bereft of all means of protection, the Kaiser paid his second visit to Constantinople, and the whole world will not soon forget his announcement that the Sultan was "merely pacifying his rebellious subjects." And after all is there not much about the Kaiser that is in keeping with the ideal Moslem Sultan ? The excessive tyranny and cruel absolutism of Abdul Hamid is more or less characteristic of all the States of Islam, uninfluenced by Western ideas. The Sultan appropriates to himself the title " God's shadow on earth. ' and assumes that he is the State. His Ministers are mere executors of his arbitrary decrees, and the people are his slaves. His caprice, arbitrariness, and " {rightfulness" are endured in the same way as pestilence and famine: they areall a part of the divine order of the universe. A constitutional monarchy, therefore, to a true Moslem, and doubtless to the Kaiser, is a feeble imbecility. Even von Treitschke, who taught the self-asser-tion of the State over all minor states, had the greatest contempt for an Oriental Kaiser. He says : " The exaggerated theocratical cult shown to majesty is a dark stain imon nnr monarchy. We have taken pvpr formalities and ceremonies for the life of the eo'irt which do not bear the stamp of having been originated by free Aryans, but are representative of the abjectness and stagnation of Oriental alayery."-