Approaching the West — Page 47
A pproaching the West—47 The Khil ā fat Movement When European allies decided to partition the Ottoman Empire territories, there was a strong reaction among the Muslims of the world. In late 1919, some Indian Muslim leaders started ‘Khil ā fat Movement,’ to preserve the integrity of the Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire. A Khil ā fat Committee was formed with two goals to achieve, “First, to urge the retention of the temporal powers of the Sultan of Turkey as Caliph, and second to ensure his continued suzerainty over the Isl ā mic holy places. ” The Khil ā fat Movement was based on a non-factual premise that the Ottoman Caliph was the 'Universal Caliph' to whom all Muslims, everywhere in the world, owed allegiance. In 1920, a famous Indian Muslim scholar and leader, Maul ā n ā Abul-Kal ā m Ā z ā d, published a book called Mas’ala- i-Khil ā fat (The Issue of Caliphate), in which he stated, “Without the Caliphate, the existence of Isl ā m is not possible, the Muslims of India with all their effort and power need to work for this. ” Surprisingly, the Muslim leaders of the Khil ā fat Movement then asked a Hindu leader, Mohan Das Gandhi, to help them with what was purely an Isl ā mic cause. To gain strength for his own political agenda, Gandhi willingly agreed to give his support to the Muslims in creating mass agitations and applying diplomatic pressure on British Government. However, the Muslim political leader Mo ḥ ammad ‘Al ī Jinn āḥ (who later became the founder of Pakistan) was opposed to Gandhi’s political tactics, and the Khilafatists used to jeer at him. However, when the Turkish Muslims under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk