Khwaja Kamal-ud-Dins letter
to All-India Muslim League meeting, 1913
Warns of severe misconceptions about Islam in the West
Western powers desire to efface Muslims from the earth
Our sole remedy lies in dispelling
the cloud of ignorance which enshrouds Europe and prevents
her from appreciating Islam at its true value
Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din wrote a letter from England with a message addressing
the meeting of the All-India Muslim League held at Lucknow, India, on 2223 March 1913. He published this letter in the Islamic Review (which was at that time titled as Muslim India and Islamic Review), March 1913, pp. 65–70.
It was also published in The Review of Religions, the monthly of the Ahmadiyya Movement published from Qadian, India, and edited by Maulana Muhammad Ali, in its issue of May 1913, pp.
210219. This version also carried an introduction by him about his reasons for writing
the letter.
That Introduction and the letter are as follows. In this website publication we have added brief explanatory
footnotes which are given at the end and are linked from various points in the article in following form: {note
1}.
I give below my letter which I addressed to the members of the
All-India Muslim League.{note
1} It will give you an inkling into the circumstances
which have induced me to venture on my present attempt. I need not
again emphasise the necessity and justification of my starting the
Muslim India. {note
2} We need an organ here to safeguard our interests and
enlighten the ruling nation on our needs and aspirations. Islam
never taught us to be discontented with a rule over us because it
was non-Islamic. It would be against the injunction of the Quran
and the Holy Prophet even to think of shaking the stability of the
Government. But there are certain mutual rights and obligations
existing between the rulers and the ruled, and we are taught to
observe and have them observed. We are bound by our religion to
pay taxes and to fight against the enemies of the Crown. We should
give support to its strength. Sedition and anarchical movements
are Harám, and strictly prohibited in Islam; and our
past conduct in the days of the unrest in India has
proved to the hilt that we are true Muslims in this respect.{note
3} But we are also entitled, under the sacred traditions
of our Prophet, to submit our needs and complaints to our rulers,
to ask them to correct their wrong steps, and to have our rights,
aspirations and susceptibilities respected by the Government. I
believe in the high sense of justice of the English nation and their
willingness to meet our just demands.
As to the dissemination of Islam in the Western lands, we have
hardly made any attempt worthy the name in this direction as yet.
The trend of the modern philosophy, ethics and socialism is towards
Islam, and we are only missing a favourable opportunity if we sit
inactive.
That I am up to the arduous task before me will be nothing short
of presumption, if I say so; but encouragement, co-operation and
sympathetic help can facilitate ones way to achieve the object
aimed at.
I am highly indebted to such friends of mine, whose circle at
present is very narrow, but who have kindly encouraged me on my
writing to them to run the paper at least for one year. They have
enabled me to give to it, within certain limits, a free circulation
among the clergy and the laity here. But it is a drop in the ocean.
Besides the members of Parliament and the Church, whose number exceeds
one thousand, there are numberless clubs and libraries here. And
there are very many other quarters where the circulation of Muslim
India is desirable.
I also intend to circulate, especially the religious portion of
the journal — which will be published also in a separate edition
in future — in the rest of the continent, as well as in America
and Africa.
As to the present space of the journal, I think it hardly sufficient
to meet the need. Besides, a month is of long duration, and forty
pages are practically nothing to plead an important cause like ours.
For the present I should like to see a bi-monthly edition of forty
pages each, if I could.
This is a big work, and requires gigantic calibre and great resources
to meet it. But perseverance, honest labour, good health, and, above
all, the grace and blessings of God, are the chief treasures which
I pray Him to confer on His humble servant. In conclusion, I call
upon my dear brethren in Islam to co-operate with me, and to join
with me in praying the Almighty and invoking Him to help us in our
cause, and grant us means to establish His glory and the glory of
Islam in the world. Mountains of obstacles can be removed, and seeming
impossibilities become actualities, when He is pleased to bless
His servants with His grace.
Your brother in Islam,
KHWAJA KAMAL-UD-DIN,
Editor the Muslim India & Islamic Review.
112a Kew Road, Richmond, London.
From —
The Editor the Muslim India and Islamic Review (London),
To the Members of the All-India Muslim League (Lucknow.)
DEAR BRETHREN IN ISLAM,—
Assalamu-alekum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu.
I left India some months ago, and my departure from home excited
unnecessary surmises as to the object of my visit to English shores.
It was not to better my worldly condition that I made this journey:
the spread of Islam and its preaching have been an ideal of my life.
It made me restless while in India, and was chiefly responsible
for my journey to this side of the world. I came here with the object
of finding the best methods of preaching Islam and disseminating
Muslim literature in the West. But my sojourn here has brought me
a revelation of things before unknown, as I presume they will be
to most of you in India. You are assembled to devise means to ameliorate
your condition and to improve your future prospects, and I think
I would miss a great opportunity if I failed to invite your thoughtful
deliberation upon what I have learnt since my arrival in London.
It is not merely a gradual dismemberment of the Moslem Kingdoms
leading up to their total extinction that has been engineered, but
the very existence of the Muslim community is threatened. The fate
of the Moors in Spain awaits us everywhere, and our annihilation
is only a question of time.
Unfortunately we have been an obstacle and hindrance in the way
of European self-assertiveness, and have also constantly rebuffed
Christianity, and it need therefore be no matter for surprise if
our existence is considered undesirable in certain diplomatic and
ecclesiastical quarters; but now it is ostensibly on humanitarian
grounds that the peoples of the West desire to see us finished
as soon as possible.
Brethren! you need not be startled at this occidental attitude
towards you. It is not difficult to find its causes. If the conception
of Islamism and the Muslim, prevalent in Europe, were correct and
based upon valid data, I should see no reason why every fair-minded
person having the least interest in humanity should not come forward
to help Europe in her task of effacing Islam from the face of the
earth. But if the situation has arisen through deliberate misrepresentation,
and is a creation of gross calumny, the people here are not to be
blamed for it, nor would it serve any purpose to bring our malicious
detractors to task. Our sole remedy lies in dispelling the cloud
of ignorance which enshrouds Europe and prevents her from appreciating
Islam at its true value.
It is not only our institutions of polygamy, slavery, Jiziah and
Jehad which under misinterpretation arouse ignorant disgust and
unmerited resentment, but everything of Islam is now under the ban,
and judged as past reclamation. Our theology and our ethics, our
polity and our economics, our social and domestic conditions, all
savour of barbarity. Our conception of God is an insult to the Deity,
and our view of man an outrage to humanity. We have no faith in
female virtue, and do not believe in chivalry on the part of man;
jealousy has gripped us, and we have deprived mankind of that harmless
pleasure which accrues only from free inter-mixture of men and women
in balls and masquerades. We are dead to sublimity and blind to
beauty, and will not allow others to appreciate the personal charms
possessed by our female folks, which were meant by nature to contribute
to universal happiness. We have secluded our better-halves, and
stunted everything good and noble in them. Our ethics are a confused
mass of conflicting principles, and an unharmonious hotch-potch
of puritanism and sensuality. Islam, it is said, appeals to the
animal nature and leaves no opportunity for the play of the tender
passions. It excites fanaticism, and kills reason and common-sense.
The Muslim, therefore, can make a conquest and retain its fruits
by the sword, but he is absolutely incapable of giving good rule
to the conquered races. In a word, ignorance and narrow-mindedness,
ferociousness and brutality, sensuality and inadaptability, and
many other abominable tys have been heaped on our heads,
and in ecclesiastical coverings of grace and diplomatic insinuations
are declared to be our chief qualifications. It is asserted that
Islam has had its day. It did service to humanity in reclaiming
races bordering on barbarity; it may still pave the way for Western
civilisation and religion in certain parts as, for instance, in
Central Africa, but in the advanced parts of the world it should
give place to its betters.
This is a brief resume of what I have learnt here about myself
and my religion through books, periodicals, newspapers, theatres
and cinematographs in the short period of six months, which I could
not possibly have learnt through my incessant study of religion
for the last twenty years. But in the same breath, I say it is a
lie and a brazen calumny of the blackest dye. In the beginning,
no doubt, it was the work of some evil schemers against Islam, but
now it is the honest belief of millions in Europe; and England is
no exception. It is under such erroneous beliefs that European nations
think themselves justified if they nurse intentions detrimental
to you. The Cause of Humanity, in their wrong judgment, demands
your immolation to its altar. You are charged with having contaminated
half the world, and it is therefore imperative that the remaining
hemisphere should be safeguarded from your unwholesome influence.
Therefore there is no occasion for surprise if, as I learn from
reliable sources, the United States of America contemplates legislation
under which no Muslim shall be allowed to set foot on her shores.
No wonder if Europe, as the self-appointed guardian of human welfare,
schemed to bring your kingdoms to the dust: the partition of Muslim
lands may have been decided in European cabinets long ago, although
put into operation only in the last decade. As Islam is believed
to be a scourge to mankind, the sooner it disappears the better;
this is the only possible explanation of the cold indifference which
Europe preserves in the face of those inhuman atrocities and barbaric
outrages, which caused the death of thousands of Muslims admittedly
non-belligerents. All the laws of humanity have been trampled in
Thrace, Macedonia and Albania, under the savage feet of the Bulgars
and Montenegrins. {note
4} All the rules and regulations of the Hague Conferences
have been set at nought in the Tripolitan and Balkan Wars, but the
equanimity of the European mind has remained undisturbed. It not
only fails to feel the slightest pang of remorse, but endeavours
to minimise or explain away the terrible truth of these unprecedented
occurrences. To show the light in which millions of honest minds
here are deliberately misled to regard these diresome events, I
here insert a letter which probably comes from the pen of a clergyman,
and appeared in the Daily News & Leader of the day on
which I am writing.
THE MASSACRES IN MACEDONIA.
Sir,— How greedy some people are to believe charges
against their fellow-Christians! But even were these charges true,
terrible as they would be, the last person who would have the
right to complain would be the Turk. He would be reaping where
and what he has sowed. The horrible picture of the great massacre
of Armenians in or about 1896, as seen and described to me by
one of many English sailor witnesses, has never left my brain.
If Christian regular troops have done these unchristian things
it is the result of centuries of education by Mohammedans. It
is one more reason to end the Mohammedan rule. A persecuted, down-trodden
race either becomes cowardly like the poor Armenians or fierce
like the Cretans. Mohammedans have very much improved under Christian
rule, as in India and Egypt. Christians have never improved under
Mohammedan rule. If the charges be true, which I doubt, this is
a most painful instance of it.
LIONEL LEWIS.
St. Marks Vicarage, Whitechapel, Feb. 14.
England has no doubt remained aloof till now out of her regard
for us, but I am afraid our alleged Muslim backwardness and our
retrograde tendencies are too incorrigible to keep her on the side
of the losing cause, for already her traditional friendship has
been converted into neutrality.
Brethren! In body I am far from you, but my heart is with you.
I can imagine the intensity and magnitude of pain which the facts
revealed in my letter will cause you. But be patient, and with a
cool mind think of an efficacious remedy for such misfortunes. If
Europe is correct in her estimate of us, we have no just cause of
complaint, if our days are numbered it is because we deserve it.
But if Europe labours under gross ignorance and has been misled
by deliberate calumny and misrepresentation, as the case is, do
your best to correct her errors, and I assure you millions of people
at least on this soil of freedom and liberty will advocate your
noble cause.
In order to make myself clear to you, allow me to remind you of
the European attitude towards you some fifty years back —
England was then the great ally of Turkey; we could count on her
support.
If the Christian bigotry of Gladstone could not bear Islam and
wanted to see the Turks leave Europe bag and baggage,
he had to face a strong public opinion which then existed in favour
of the Ottoman. He died without seeing his wishes realised. To convert
Turko-philes into Turko-phobes in England was a task of gigantic
calibre. A generation of backbiters and evil-speakers of Islam came
forward to perform the ignoble work. The Ottomans as a race could
not be found fault with. Everything abominable was therefore imputed
to the Muslim — his religion — the only Faith of God
which has brought civilisation, light and peace to the world, which
has furnished basic principles of modern civilisation, but which
was painted in the blackest colours to create the present situation.
God has been pleased to put us under British rule, and the regime
has been useful to us in various ways. The English nation can be
credited with a strong sense of justice and willingness to redress
the grievances of her dependants. I know for certain that well-guided
effort made here to enlighten the public on our concerns is sure
to change the policy hitherto adopted. Besides, John Bull is too
business-like to see his own interests jeopardised.
The creators of the present situation are too astute to allow
the honest British nation to see the actualities in their real colouring.
They are fully cognizant that the combined voice of the Indian Muslims,
if heard here, will surely change the trend of public opinion. They
therefore spare no labour to misrepresent and minimise the importance
of your present doings. For illustration I may again refer to that
deep interest which you are now taking in Turkey. You hold monster
mass-meetings in the big towns of the Empire, which are important
enough to create sympathy even in official circles of the highest
rank, but the Pall Mall Gazette here tries to hoodwink its
readers when it says in its issue of January 31 that too much
importance should not be attached to the resolutions passed by Indian
Muslims at Calcutta, Lahore and elsewhere regarding the attitude
of Great Britain towards the Balkan war, because they are the doings
of the young Muslims like those of the young Turks in Turkey.
The whole Muslim community in India is in stir and commotion on
account of Turkey, but the Tory organ here tries to persuade the
public that we are not intensely concerned about Turkey
and the anxiety professed by Indian Mohammadans regarding the future
of Turkey is not real and deep seated, but excited by the young
Muslim members of the Indian Muslim League. What can we expect when
the nation which rules us has the misfortune to possess such untrustworthy
and dogmatic papers as recorders of facts and indicators of public
events. But if the ruling nation unfortunately has such incompetent
educators of public opinion, she should not be blamed for her mistakes.
The first business of the ruled should be to think of some better
means of furnishing correct information. Our sister community {note
5} was shrewd enough to realise this long ago and made
satisfactory arrangements here. They secured some pacific, but efficacious,
agencies to create Hindu-phile sentiments here, and are reaping
good fruits from their foresight.
Brethren! you have assembled at Lucknow to deliberate primarily
on your immediate concerns, but do not like your Hindu compeers
localise your interest in your motherland. A Moslem is a citizen
of the whole world, and not bound within the limits of his environments.
You shall have one day to face God and His blessed Prophet, who
have enjoined upon you to carry the holy message to
the four corners of the world. But half the world is going to be
closed against you, and in the other half your enemies have numbered
your days. This situation may, to some extent, be ascribed to the
European hankering after self-aggrandisement, but it is chiefly
owing to a wrong estimate and a false conception of Islam. The calumny
against us is a legacy of the missionary propaganda, and the creation
of a deep-rooted policy of the vile diplomacy; our cause has been
seriously damaged by the untiring pens of the detractors and an
incessant use of the pen is needed to counteract the poison thus
created. It is not the European weapons of war which are reducing
you to dust, but the misguided public opinion in the West which
creates the deplorable predicament. Turkey may be relieved of her
present throes, but your life as a race in the world depends entirely
on a change in the opinion so ignobly created here against you.
Brethren! this is a great problem for your consideration, and demands
your immediate and thorough deliberation. I came here in pursuit
of my humble aims, and not as a fortune hunter: leaving a lucrative
and increasing practice behind me, as your President-elect will
assure you. {note
6} I had to change my plan. I know that the task is too
arduous for me alone, and to do full justice to it requires the
sympathetic co-operation of many. I should like someone better qualified
to take my place. I should like to see a Comrade, a
Muhammadan, an Observer, a Review
of Religions and a Zamindar {note
7} published daily and weekly in London, with free circulation
in thousands. God be with you, and inspire you to do what shall
be necessary to strengthen our cause throughout the world!
Your brother in faith,
KHWAJA KAMAL-UD-DIN,
February 18, 1913
Footnotes by Website Editor
{Note 1.}
The All-India Muslim League was founded in December 1906. Many years later,
under the leadership of Mr. M.A. Jinnah, it was successful in its
campaign to bring about the creation of the state of Pakistan.
{Note 2.}
starting the Muslim India: The original name
of the Islamic Review when its publication started in 1913
was Muslim India and Islamic Review but by 1914 it was
changed to the Islamic Review and Muslim India. In 1921 it
was shortened to the Islamic Review.
{Note 3.}
The views about British rule expressed here by Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din
were in those days held and expressed by the vast majority of Indian
Muslim political and religious leaders. See, for example, an article
by Maulana Zafar Ali Khan in the very first issue of Muslim India
and Islamic Review, at
this link.
{Note 4.}
The reference is to the Balkan Wars of 191213, immediately
prior to the First World War. For further details of these wars,
see this
external link.
{Note 5.}
The reference in our sister community is to the Hindu
community.
{Note 6.}
The President-elect referred to here was Mian (later Sir) Mohammad
Shafi. The proceedings of the conference are reported in the voluminous
book Foundations of Pakistan, All-India Muslim League Documents:
19061947, edited by Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada (published
by National Publishing House Limited Karachi, 1970).
{Note 7.}
These were well-known, leading Muslim journals of the time. |