Pan-Islamic visions emerged during the last quarter of the 19th Century. Pan-Islamic thought was part of the wartime Ideologies of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Among the three components of the Young Turk Ideology – Ottomanism, Islam and Nationalism – Islam received a greater emphasis than Nationalism, at least untill the first years of World War I.
At the outbreak of the First World War, the Young Turks chose to use Pan-Islam in their propaganda efforts, thus hoping to secure the loyalty of Turkish and Arab Muslims in the Ottoman territories and also of those being under colonial control.
Pan-Islam was used by the Ottomans as a weapon, and greatly feared by the British. I will analyse Islam’s Role in the Resistance against Imperialism during World War I and the role of Ottoman Intellectuals and their relation to Pan-Islam Ideology. Did the Ottoman political elite adopted a pan-Islamic discourse ?
I will examine the political and cultural Dimension of Pan-Islam / Ittihad-i Islam and the Ottoman Pan-Islam Campaigns during World War I, the role of Transnational Imagination and Identity (B. Anderson): the Transational Identity of being Muslim/ the Supranational Identities, analysing the construction of Representations and Elaboration of local Models.
On one hand, how worked the connections between the Ottoman Empire and Germany in the redefinition of the National Identities during World War First ? And on the other one, I will examine the shifting in references between Ittihad-i Islam (religious reference) and Panturkism (ethnic reference).