Sulayman Pasha al-Baruni and the Networks of Islamic Reform

 

An Ottoman Pasha and the

End of Empire

Sulayman al-Baruni and the Networks

of Islamic Reform

By: Amal Ghazal

 

INTRODUCTION

In a photograph taken in 1913, Sulayman al~Baruni (1872/73-1940), a native of the Nafusa Mountains in what is now Libya, has donned an Ottoman army uniform and a fez and poses with an Ottoman officer. His appearance and his career epitomized the cosmopolitan Muslim reformer at the beginning of the twentieth century. Educated in Tunisia, Egypt, and Algeria, elected to the Ottoman parliament in Istanbul, dispatched to Tripolitania to fight Italian invaders, and spending the end of his life in exile in Oman with intermittent visits to Baghdad, al-Baruni had a career resembling that of many of his contemporaries who zigzagged the Ottoman realm, defended its borders, and then watched as their world crumbled into fragments. But al-Baruni was distinctive among Ottoman officials. He was a member of the minority Ibadi sect who turned into a modernist reformer, a pan-Ottomanist, and, later on, a pan-Arabist.

          At the heart of al-Baruni’s experience lay a web of transformations and developments peculiar to the age. By the late nineteenth century, the movement of modernist Islamic reform known as Harakat al-Islah (later to be labeled the Salafi movement of reform), which sought Muslim unity across sects and schools of jurisprudence, as well as Ottoman pan-Islamism and anticolonialism, provided someone like al~Baruni, as an Ibadi, with the opportunity to transcend his parochial sectarian identity and find a place in the world of transnational politics. A globalized world order, with new and faster means of transportation and communication, including steam and print respectively, turned the possible into a living reality and the world of reformist ideals into a concrete experience. The steamship facilitated al-Baruni’s movements and gave him access to individuals who shared his ideas and politics. It was also fundamental in shaping a cosmopolitan experience tied to his travels between the cities of Tunis, Cairo, Istanbul, Algiers, Marseilles, Muscat, and Baghdad. The printing press connected him to a world of ideas he came to advocate and help disseminate; it also connected him to like-minded individuals who also used it to communicate across a wide geography and propagate their ideas of religious reform, Muslim unity, and liberation from colonialism.

          Both the steamship and the printing press created new forms of connectivity and reconfigured existent ones. One particular form of connectivity affected by this new wave of globalization was the network. A network consists of an interrelated group of people who come together around social, political, economic, or intellectual concerns. What distinguishes the network from other forms of connectivity is the clear and conscious decision made by individuals to join a specific one, whose members share their interests, goals, and beliefs. Tracing networks and using them as analytical tools provide us with an opportunity to follow the movement of ideas and people horizontally and through any cross-regional links that might exist. They also create a framework of analysis that looks at the levels of interaction and fusion between the local and the global and, more significantly for studies encompassing the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, at traces of continuity between the Ottoman and the post-Ottoman eras. Networks function as bridges between the two, providing connections across borders constructed by colonial realities and by new political entities, the nation-states. Because the erection of these new borders has also had an effect on our research methodologies in the post-Ottoman order, networks are a reminder and a proof that the fragmented Ottoman polity and the newly erected geographic borders and boundaries mischaracterize intellectual fluidity and continuity between the two eras. Transnational networks such as al-Baruni’s, encompassing Istanbul, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, permeated borders and pulled people together, providing some intellectual cohesiveness to the fragmented geography in the post-Ottoman period. Some of those networks formed an intellectually and politically subversive power that tried to formulate a new reality to undo the colonial one.

          This biographical approach, however, is not meant to highlight the uniqueness of al-Baruni’s experience. Some aspects of his political career, such as his membership in the Ottoman parliament, might have been exceptional, but he was not the only one to cross sectarian boundaries and join a reformist network defined by pan-Islamism and/or pan-Arabism and by anticolonialism. Far from being an isolated case, al-Baruni rather represented a trend among many Muslim intellectuals and political activists—Ibadis and non-Ibadis—whose careers were shaped by their membership in Muslim networks and who bore witness to dramatic changes and transformations in their societies starting in the late nineteenth century. Tracing his life opens the door to this larger network, within which he operated. The biography of al-Baruni thus becomes a mirror of many biographies and a reflection of dramatic times that shaped him as they shaped many like him.

THE NETWORKS OF ISLAMIC REFORM

Muslim networks, as Miriam Cooke and Bruce Lawrence have observed, inform the span of Islamic civilization. Within the Ottoman realm, Muslim networks traditionally functioned as bridges connecting distant communities and, more significantly, as conduits of ideas adhered to by individuals or groups that may have been far apart geographically but close intellectually and ideologically. The emergence of a new phase of the globalized order in the late nineteenth century breathed new life into these networks. As a form of connectivity, they changed at an unprecedented level. The steamship made movements of people and material faster and more frequent, and print functioned as a more efficient medium for communicating and disseminating ideas among members of the same network, as evident in the previous chapter, by Michael Laffan. Newspapers and periodicals in particular played a formidable role in cementing intellectual networks whose members used them as tools of communication among themselves and with their readers and proponents, with Muslim reformers making especially effective use of the press. The press also defined the networks’ political or ideological platforms. At the heart of those networks were cities linked to global circuits of connection and communication. Playing an important role similar to that of cities in contemporary economic networks, Tunis, Cairo, Istanbul, Baghdad, and others were nodal points for Muslim intellectual and activist networks, whose members could now more easily and frequently travel and converge in such cosmopolitan cities.

          Ilham Khuri-Makdisi’s chapter 4 illustrates the role of both the network and the press in circulating and disseminating anarchist ideas in Mediterranean cities and in exposing Muslim societies to the thought of non-Muslims. However, as Scott S. Reese reminds us in chapter 3, on colonial Aden, interaction with fellow Muslims remained of utmost importance. This interaction, increased by a greater ability to travel and connect, had its own discourse, idioms, and dynamics, which altered the world view of Muslims and their attitudes vis-a-vis one another. Muslim-Muslim encounters defined the network to which al-Baruni belonged. This network was essential to the movement of modernist reform initiated by the teachings of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad ‘Abduh, whose historiography has focused on this movement’s attempts to overcome an intellectual rift between Islam and the West, overlooking its quest to overcome a Muslim-Muslim rift. While it was certainly preoccupied with reconciliation with the West, it was equally preoccupied with reconciliation among Muslims. The emphasis on the Salaf (the early Muslim community, hence the later appellation Salafiyya} and its adoption as a reference point served the goal of creating a framework of unity for Muslims. Invoking the Salaf referred to a community imagined to have been free of discord. This unity transcended madhahib {schools of religious jurisprudence) and sects and acted as the catalyst for forging a reformist network whose members were both Ibadis and Sunnis.

          Ibadism is the only surviving sect from the Kharijite legacy in Islamic history. The Kharijites (or Khawarij) constituted a movement of Muslims dissatisfied with the politics and policies of Caliph ‘Uthman, which they considered a deviation from the ideals of Islam. They supported ‘Ali’s bid for the caliphate as a means to restore social and political justice. When ‘Ali accepted arbitration with Mu‘awiya at the Battle of Siffin in 657, those Muslims, then known as the Muhakkima, objected and defected. Their opposition to ‘Ali earned them his wrath, and their antagonism toward the Umayyads and later the ‘Abbasids led to their persecution. Violence both carried out by and inflicted on the Kharijites divided the movement between radical militants and those who refused to legitimize the killing of other Muslims. Among the latter were the Ibadis, who established the Rustumid dynasty in North Africa, destroyed by the Fatimids in 909. By then a wide sectarian gap separated the Ibadis from the Sunnis (and the Shi‘is}, so the Ibadis sought refuge in peripheral areas, also suiting their goal of preserving their beliefs and traditions, away from the urban centers of the Sunni- or Shi‘i-dominated world.

          Ibadi Muslim communities are now found in the Mzab Valley in Algeria, on Jerba Island in Tunisia, in the Nafusa Mountains in modern-day Libya, in Oman, and in East Africa, the last the result of Omani influence and rule there in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through travel, Ibadi traders and seekers of ‘ilm (knowledge) connected the Ibadi communities. Ibadis’ relationships with other Muslims, especially their Sunni compatriots and neighbors, however, remained cautious at best and hostile at worst. Perhaps other forms of connection between these groups developed in Andalusia, but this requires further investigation. Whatever the Andalusian space might have offered the Ibadi community in terms of a more cordial interaction with Sunnis, it is only in the late nineteenth century that Sunni-Ibadi interaction took a different shape and Ibadis sought to reinterpret their history and identity to create more common ground with other Muslims. That reinterpretation was made possible by the reformist discourse emphasizing Muslim unity in the face of Western hegemony and colonialism, to which many prominent and influential Ibadi scholars, writers, and intellectuals responded by reconstructing the history of their sect, and with it their identity as Ibadis.

          Ibadis, like members of other religious communities, saw their share of revitalization in the nineteenth century. One form taken by the Ibadi nahda (renewal( was a literary renaissance. That nahda, drawing on existing networks of scholarship, took place simultaneously in Oman, North Africa, and East Africa. Thanks to the central role of the Ibadi community in the Sultanate of Zanzibar in sponsoring and funding Ibadi scholars and, later on, publishing their works, this renaissance went unabated throughout the nineteenth century. It coincided, however, with European imperial and colonial dominance over North Africa and the Indian Ocean, where the Omani Empire was also stretching its wings. The Ibadi religious nahda thus transformed itself into a political force and developed an anticolonial discourse and movements in Oman, Zanzibar, and North Africa. It is in reaction to a common colonial experience, including threats to religious values and political sovereignty, and in response to calls for religious reform and Muslim unity that Ibadis and Sunnis found common ground.

          The early traces of this rapprochement can be seen in the writings of leaders of the Ibadi literary nahda in the late nineteenth century who experienced the effects of European colonialism firsthand. Muhammad Atfiyyash (d. 1914) witnessed and opposed the annexation of the Mzab, his home, by France; Nur al-Din al-Salimi (d. 1914) led a coup d’état against al-Busa‘idi rule in Muscat and its British protectors; and Nasir al-Rawahi in Zanzibar (d. 1920) wrote extensively lamenting the loss of Zanzibar and Oman to the British. They were sympathetic to both Ottoman pan-Islamism and the pan-Islamic cause promoted by Sunni reformers, and supported downplaying sectarian differences for the sake of Muslim unity. Many Ibadis also joined Sunni reformers in attacking what they considered excessive Sufi practices and beliefs and in accusing Sufi orders of causing divisions among Muslims. Qasim bin Sa‘id al-Shammakhi, an Ibadi from Jerba Island residing in turn-of-the-century Egypt and integrated into the reformist circles of ‘Abduh and al-Afghani, was articulate in his support for ‘Abduh’s program and revisionist in his approach to the history and identity of Ibadism, whose association with Kharijism he redefined to highlight the commonalities, if not the absence of differences, between Ibadis and Sunnis.

          Abu-Ishaq Ibrahim Atfiyyash, a nephew and a pupil of Muhammad Atfiyyash who was exiled to Egypt in 1923, went further, totally dismissing the association between Ibadism and Kharijism and publishing his revisionist views in the newspapers of the prominent Salafi reformer Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib, a Syrian resident of Egypt. Both al-Shammakhi and Atfiyyash could establish themselves in Egypt, publish in the Egyptian press, and even start their own newspapers mainly because of their association with Salafis such as al-Khatib, who provided them with moral and material assistance. By the early twentieth century, several prominent Ibadi scholars, political activists, and writers had moved from their geographic peripheries into Algiers, Tunis, and Cairo—a trend that was intensified after World War I—where they formed a small network integral to a broader one comprising Salafi reformers and their supporters in those cities. It was there—in the halls of their universities and mosques, libraries and clubs, among their ulama and activists—that Ibadis developed a Salafi-reformist identity.

 

AL-BARUNI: FROM PERIPHERY TO CENTER

Al-Baruni’s life and career illustrate and capture the transformation of the Islamic intellectual sphere and the production of an Islamic reformist movement championed by a cross- regional and cross-sectarian network that promoted a pan-Islamic identity at the expense of a parochial one defined by sect. Al-Baruni belonged to a notable family of Jabal Nafusa known for its line of Ibadi ulama and scholarly contributions to Ibadi literature. Raised and educated in his hometown, al-Baruni began his odyssey at Al-Zaytuna University in Tunisia. His father had studied there and wanted his son to receive a similar experience and acquire more knowledge in Islamic disciplines than Jabal Nafusa or Tripolitania could offer. But little did ai-Baruni’s father know that the Zaytuna of his age was different from that of his son’s, especially after the French occupation of Tunisia in 1881. The university was witnessing a fierce debate between Muslim reformers and their opponents and had become a center of intellectual and political activities led by a generation of Algerian and Tunisian students who were to form the backbone of anticolonial and nationalist movements in their homelands. Algerians had been seeking refuge in the Regency of Tunis since the French occupation, beginning in 1830, of what would become Algeria. In the 1870s, there were about sixteen thousand Algerians in the regency. After 1881, the fate of the Algerians in Tunisia met that of their hosts, as both experienced colonialism and occupation firsthand. The history of the two countries, and with it their anticolonial movements and networks of resistance, now became even more entangled than before. Al-Zaytuna and later Al-Khalduniyya (founded in Tunis in 1896) became sites of bitter reform-antire-form rivalry and of anticolonial movements led by both Tunisians and Algerians.

Al-Baruni came to Tunisia in 1887, where he was tutored by, among others, two prominent reformist ulama, Muhammad al-Nakhli and ‘Uthman al-Makki, critics of Sufism and colonialism credited with the dissemination of reformist ideas among the students of Al-Zaytuna. Al-Nakhli in particular seems to have had the most influence on al-Baruni, who, eulogizing his teacher, promised to continue on the path of resistance to colonialism.

          While our sources do not shed much light on al-Baruni’s time in Tunisia, the career of one of his close associates in Tunis, ‘Abd al-Aziz al-Tha‘alibi (1876—1944) —who attended Al-Zaytuna around the same time, became part of al-Baruni’s intellectual and social network, suffered from the intimidation of antireform Sufis, and endured exile like al-Baruni,—provides a clear picture of the political and intellectual environment prevalent then. Al-Tha‘alibi studied at Al-Zaytuna between 1889 and 1896, founded (in 1895) one of the earliest anticolonial newspapers in Tunisia, Sabil al-Rashad, and established the first Tunisian nationalist party, Al-Hizb al-Dusturi al-Hurr (The free constitutional party), in 1920. His political activities and antireform Sufi intrigues against him led to his exile by the French authorities in 1912 and again in 1923. He spent two years in Egypt and then went to Baghdad, where King Faysal I hosted him between 1925 and 1931, as al-Baruni was hosted later on. Al-Tha‘alibi spent his years of exile moving from one place to another, until he was allowed to go back to Tunisia in 1937. One can infer from his itinerary that there was in Tunis, and particularly at Al-Zaytuna, a highly charged environment of anti-French politics and religious currents, which formed the basis of Tunisia’s future nationalist movement and to which al-Baruni was exposed. In any case, during his stay in Tunis, al-Baruni forged long-lasting friendships with a number of reformers, both Sunnis and Ibadis.

          In 1893, al-Baruni left Tunis for Egypt to study at Al-Azhar University for three years. There he was part of an active front of modernist religious reformism and was exposed to a wide spectrum of anticolonial movements in an even more politically and intellectually charged atmosphere than in Tunis. The anticolonial politics of Mustafa Kamil, especially his call for Egyptian independence from British rule, seemed to have had a particular impact on al-Baruni, who heroized him. After Egypt, al-Baruni spent three years in the Mzab Valley, learning at the

feet of one of the most prominent Ibadi scholars of the time, Muhammad Atfiyyash. While this immersed al-Baruni more in Arabic studies, theology, and traditional Ibadi literature and served to raise his stature in the larger Ibadi community, it did not provide him with the same exposure to anticolonial politics as Tunis and Cairo had done. But although the Mzab was not yet a hub of such activities, it was not unaffected by them or uninfluenced by religious reform and calls for Muslim unity. With the French annexation of the valley in 1882, Mzabis gradually integrated into the larger Algerian and regional networks of anticolonial politics.

          Atfiyyash himself was known for his hostility toward the French and his support for anticolonial movements, including the Omani one that sought to overthrow the al-Busa‘idis in Muscat, accused by the leaders of the Ibadi nahda of collaboration with and submission to the British. Atfiyyash’s time in Mecca from 1886 to 1888 brought him closer to Sunni circles, some of whose scholars he befriended, and this might have been when he got a close glimpse of Sunni reformist currents that advocated Muslim unity. He also corresponded with Muhammad ‘Abduh, who seems to have held him in high esteem, and Rashid Rida’s Al-Manar journal featured his scholarship. The impact of these experiences is evident in his

increased interest in pan-Islamic affairs on his return home and in his treatise explaining Ibadism to non-Ibadi Muslims, reducing the points of contention between Ibadis and Sunnis to only four points. Al-Baruni played a similar role, exposing Mzabis to the ideas and movements he experienced in Tunis and Cairo, including religious reform and Ottoman pan-Islamism. It is reported that he explained the Ottoman-Greek war of 1897 to Atfiyyash, describing the heroic acts of Ottoman troops against the Greeks and showing him newspaper illustrations of retreating Greek troops. In response, Atfiyyash asked his students to raise their hands in prayer for the victory of the Ottomans.

          Al-Baruni’s introduction into reformist networks seems to have earned him the enmity of the antireform group in Tripolitania. On his way home from the Mzab in 1900, he was arrested, charged with subversive activities against Sultan ‘Abd al-Hamid II, including attempting to establish an independent Ibadi emirate in Nafusa, and sentenced to five years in prison. There is no evidence in the writings, career, or thought of al-Baruni that he was guilty. It is instead likely that he had become known as a Muslim reformer after criticizing the “obscurantists” in Tripolitania, who, it seems, framed him, as their counterparts in Egypt and Syria did to reformers such as al-Tha‘alibi. There was no doubt of al-Baruni’s allegiance

to the Ottoman Empire and to its pan-Islamic policy. lie praised ‘Abd al-Hamid II for his drive to modernize, to improve communications among Muslims, and to build schools and mosques; for his pan-Islamic policy; and for his resolve against European powers and against “treaties aimed at subjugating the [Ottoman] dynasty.” Only after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 did al-Baruni criticize as despotic ‘Abd al-Hamid II’s regime, as well as the conservative Sufis on the sultan’s advisory team, such as Abu al-Huda al-Sayyadi, who were hostile to reformers.

          Mediating parties secured al-Baruni’s release two years into his sentence, when he received a pardon from the Sublime Porte in August 1902. One of those mediators was Atfiyyash. He wrote a letter to ‘Abd al-Hamid II indicating that al-Baruni was his student, whom he had recommended as an aid to the sultan, and had been unjustly accused and imprisoned. This was one of seven letters that Atfiyyash sent to ‘Abd al-Hamid II pleading for al-Baruni’s release, though he doubted they reached the sultan. It is not clear what impact—if any—this correspondence had, but it testifies to the integration of the Mzab and its reformist ulama into Ottoman pan-Islamist networks and to Ibadi support for ideas of unity and cooperation among Muslims and solidarity with the Ottoman government. Two years after his release the case was reopened, and al-Baruni was charged again and imprisoned for six months.

          In 1906 he returned to Cairo and established a publishing house, Al-Azhar al-Baruniyya. In addition to printing Ibadi books and disseminating them in both the Mashreq (Arab East) and the Maghreb (Arab West), he produced a newspaper, Al-Asad al-Islami. By then Muslim reformers had realized the full potential of the press, and al-Baruni, believing in its enlightening mission and its ability to be a better medium of communication between Muslims and having experienced its potential in both Tunis and Cairo, was the second Ibadi to establish a newspaper with a reformist orientation in Egypt, after Qasim al-Shammakhi’s Nibras al-Mashariqa wa-l-Maghariba. Al-Asad al-Islami not only served as a platform for al-Baruni’s ideals of Muslim unity and religious reform but also marked him as part of an expanding network that was coalescing around the press.

          The newspaper did not survive more than two years, and only three volumes appeared. From the few excerpts of Al-Asad at-Islami in Za‘ima al-Baruni’s biography of her father, it is clear that the paper had a fiery pan-Islamic tone. The following excerpt from a letter sent to “the notables of this umma, the representatives of the Islamic groups” and titled “Al-Jami‘a al-Islamiyya” (Islamic unity( serves as a good example of the newspaper’s preoccupations:

          Do you agree that one of the main reasons behind the division among Muslims is the numerous madhahib and their disparities?

-        If you do not agree, what is the main reason behind their division?                    

-        If you do agree, is it possible to unite [the madhahib] and eliminate the differences since we are in a critical need of unity at all levels?

-        If it is impossible to unite the madhahib, why is it so and how can we solve the problem?

-        If it is possible to unite the madhahib, what is the easiest way to achieve this unity, in what country should we attempt it first, and approximately how much money do we need?

-        How do we organize it? And how do you judge the person seeking to achieve this? Is he a reformer or a corrupt [Muslim]?

Al-Baruni had no doubt of the need for such unity, which was a recurrent theme in this newspaper and in his writings published and reprinted in other newspapers. His emphasis on Muslim unity and reform also mirrored his concerns for the Ottoman Empire, whose territorial integrity and strength he sought to preserve. The need for reforms and modernization in all of the empire’s provinces, including his own, were a top priority. Al-Baruni hoped to see Tripolitania on par with Egypt and Tunisia in terms of educational opportunities, infrastructure, and technologies.

          Publishing was not the only domain in which he defined his Ottoman identity and his allegiance to the Ottoman Empire. The political career he pursued until 1919 marked that identity too. Al-Baruni’s prestigious background and reputation in Tripolitania, as well as his troubles with the Hamidian regime, earned him a seat in the restored Ottoman parliament in Istanbul after the Young Turk Revolution in 1908. He then became a field commander and was dispatched to defend his homeland against the Italian invasion in 1911. But Tripolitania was lost, and he retreated to Tunisia in the spring of 1913 before returning a year later, via London, to Istanbul, where he was appointed to the Chamber of Deputies in recognition of his efforts in the war against the Italians. In the wake of World War I, he lobbied the Ottoman government to send him back to Tripolitania to organize and reignite resistance against the Italians. For that purpose, he was appointed governor of the province in 1916; his mission was to secure its independence. When the Ottomans completely lost their grip on Tripolitania, in 1919, al-Baruni and others led negotiations with the Italians and secured, through a formal declaration at the Paris Peace Conference, its independence, as the first, though short-lived, Arab republic, with al-Baruni a member of its supervisory Council of Four. Nevertheless, al-Baruni’s activities shortly after 1919 indicate that he, like many others at the time, still had faith in an Ottoman future: he was assisting the new Turkish government in Ankara in its activities of interference in Tripolitania.

          The French authorities in Algeria, aware of al-Baruni’s connections and their significance, were monitoring his activities for fear of their implications in the Mzab. They recalled that during the war against the Italians, Ibadis in the Mzab and in Tripolitania were constantly in touch with one another, and that the former offered al-Baruni financial and moral support. The French believed that whatever ephemeral success Ibadis had had at the time in the Nafusa Mountains, it reverberated among Mzabis who hoped for independence from French rule. They also noted al-Baruni’s association with the Tunisian nationalist party, among whose members were Mzabis. In 1923, al-Baruni left Tripolitania, never to be able to visit it again, and headed to Istanbul.

          From Istanbul he went to Ankara and then to Europe, where he attended the Conference of Lausanne in an unofficial capacity. Once he was in France, the French authorities prevented him from leaving, fearing he might continue his anticolonial agitation in one or another of their North African possessions. He wanted to go to Egypt, but the British did not permit him to enter. His Mzabi friend Ibrahim Atfiyyash, now in exile there, corresponded with the British consulate in Cairo on his behalf, but to no avail. Al-Baruni’s forced exile in France was a bitter one, about which he complained incessantly, continuously pleading, without any success, with the French and the British authorities to allow him to return to any Arab country. Whether Algeria, Tunisia, or Egypt, they had all become part of the world to which he belonged and from which colonial authorities wanted to keep him. Al-Baruni’s yearning for Tripolitania was no stronger than that for Algeria, Tunisia, or Egypt. In fact, the last two were his preferred choices, the location of the nexus of his network of friends and fellow activists. That same network, with its press, provided al-Baruni with a window onto current events in the Arab world, practically his life support during his two years of exile in France. While there, he corresponded with several newspapers and received some as well. His main link was his Mzabi friend Abu al-Yaqzan Ibrahim, who was

then in Tunis, attending Al-Zaytuna and supervising the Mzabi student mission at that university and at Al-Khalduniyya. Ibrahim was one of his main correspondents and was also in charge of subscribing al-Baruni to Arabic newspapers. Without significant financial resources, al-Baruni received material support from the Mzabi community in France and from individuals who were familiar with his anticolonial history, including his actions against the Italians.

          In 1923, al-Baruni pleaded with the French to be allowed to settle in Algeria. He had previously asked them for permission to settle in Tunisia, but they had refused, citing Italian objections: Tunisia was close to Tripolitania, and he thus remained a threat. He promised the French to abandon any correspondence with the Turkish government and not to be involved in politics. His tone was one of despair, of someone tired of a life in exile and bewildered by a new world order with no anchor; with the collapse of the Ottoman imperial order, he had lost his center of political gravity. The government of Ankara interceded on his behalf, assuring the French that he would cause no harm to them in Algeria. The French refused.

          Between Tripolitania, Tunis, Cairo, the Mzab, and Istanbul, al-Baruni’s world was defined by an allegiance to the Ottoman Empire, by modern reformism as an ideology of Muslim unity, and by anticolonialism. Those intellectual and political circuits merged and formed a framework for a new identity, with Islamic reform and unity at its core. For those from the geographic and intellectual peripheries of the Muslim world, membership in the intellectual networks forged by anticolonialists and people with Salafi and pro-Salafi orientations facilitated an affiliation with those currents and the cities in which they thrived. The press was one of the available tools for identifying with and even expanding such networks. Al-Baruni, a product of those cities and a member of their pan-Islamic and reformist networks, had become a cosmopolitan Muslim who, although still an Ibadi, had transcended the boundaries of such an identity while making it part of a larger one.

 

AL-BARUNI IN EXILE: A LIFE HELD TOGETHER BY

NETWORKS

Al-Baruni’s exile in France came to an end when Sharif Hussein in Mecca granted him permission to make a pilgrimage in June 1924. He boarded a ship from Marseilles to Alexandria, Port Said, and eventually Beirut. From there, he took a train to Jedda. As a guest of Sharif Hussein, al-Baruni was treated to a trip to Mecca by automobile. On his return to Jedda, he traveled by sea to Muscat, where he arrived in early August and spent the next few months visiting different parts of Oman, then divided into two political entities: the Sultanate of Muscat and the Imamate of Oman, in the interior. Oman’s imam Muhammad al-Khalili persuaded al-Baruni to move to the interior and work for him, appointing him an adviser and prime minister. Known for his experience in state affairs, al-Baruni was assigned

the tasks of administering the imamate’s finances and implementing reforms-in that arena, governance, and education. He also hoped to help mend fences between the imam and Sultan Sa‘id bin Taymur of Muscat.

          Ibadi communities everywhere celebrated both his arrival in Oman and his new responsibilities, a testimony to the prestige he had earned as a reformist and a political leader well recognized in his network. The Ibadi press in Cairo and in the Mzab kept receiving congratulatory letters from readers in Oman, Zanzibar, and North Africa, who also occasionally requested updates on al-Baruni’s stay and activities in Oman. They were celebrating the end of his exile in France but also, and more significantly, the contributions that this former Ottoman statesman could make to the Omani Imamate to help it progress and modernize. Although it is beyond the scope of this study to assess the degree to which he was able to introduce significant changes in Oman, it is clear that al-Baruni sowed seeds of reform and provided the imamate with a more international outlook, despite the opposition he faced from conservative imamites which resulted in his resignation as the imam’s adviser. Ibrahim commented that “he intended to reform and modernize all administrative units, to make the imamate in Oman compete with developed and modern nations. This might have been an exaggeration, but it is also an indication of what Ibadis expected from him and from Oman.

          Other significant and relevant aspects of al-Baruni’s stay in Oman are the ways in which he, as an exile, managed his communications and remained involved in regional affairs arid connected to his network. The colonial policy of exile, a widening phenomenon after World War I, defeated its own purpose. Exiles, forced to relocate, spread their anticolonial activities with them. Their world had to stretch beyond their locality, to engulf all the distance between themselves and the places they called home. The reality of exile made the network wider and more elastic. Some exiles even became the nexus of their networks, as their banishment and subsequent experiences only enhanced their reputation as anticolonial activists. Paramount here again was the role of the press in keeping up the integrity and vitality of such networks, despite newly erected borders, distance, and censorship.

          In al-Baruni’s case, this is most evident in his stay in Oman. What we know about him during those years we know primarily from the press that either reported on his activities or published his opinions on a variety of topics. The number of issues on which he wrote for newspapers is staggering, and the geographic scope of discussion about his ideas also speaks to the power of the press. Al-Baruni published in a number of newspapers, including Ibadi ones such. as Al-Minhaj in Cairo, Wadi Mzab and Al-Umma in Algeria, and Al-Falaq in Zanzibar and non-Ibadi ones such as Al-Shura, Al-Zahra’, and Al-Fath in Cairo, from which the Ibadi newspapers also reprinted his submissions. His correspondence with Al-Fath in particular is significant. Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib, the owner and editor of both that paper and AI-Zahra’, played a key role in providing Ibadi reformers with all possible assistance to publish their works and even establish their own newspapers. He had much respect for al-Baruni, including his role in opposing colonialism, and wrote to defend him against accusations by some rivals of mismanaging the war against the Italians. Al-Khatib praised al-Baruni as a leading notable in the Muslim world and twice printed a photo of him in the pages of Al-Fath, in an Ottoman military coat and a fez and with a sword in his hand.

          Through the press, al-Baruni remained involved in discussions about several regional issues, the most important for him being the unity of the Arab world. For him, and for many of his generation, a political unity defined by Islam, Arabism, or a conflation of both was the best alternative to the shattered Ottoman order and a guard against the European colonial order in the region. Arab unity was certainly the number one issue that preoccupied al-Baruni in the late 1920s and the 1930s, around which revolved most of the commentaries he sent to the press. His constant elaborations on ways to unite the Arab countries led people to consult him on related matters. Following the General Islamic Congress in Jerusalem in December 1931, he received a letter from a group of “prominent Arabs” dated February 26, 1932, asking for his input on the policies and priorities of that meeting. In his reply, he listed the liberation of Arab countries from colonialism as the top priority, advising his correspondents to consider this the first necessary step toward the union of all Arab countries. Hashil al-Maskari, a leader of the Arab Association in Zanzibar, which represented Omani interests on the island, and the editor of Al-Falaq for eleven years, frequently consulted al-Baruni on matters relating to the association and to Arabs in Zanzibar. On launching Al-Falaq, he sent al-Baruni a letter, on December 23, 1928, informing him of the news. Al-Baruni replied on February 13, 1929, congratulating the Arabs in Zanzibar on that step and praising their efforts to resurrect “the glory of Arabs in Zanzibar.”

          Al-Baruni was thus no obscure figure among intellectuals and political activists in the Arab world. Ibadis and non-Ibadis constantly sought his advice on political affairs, and his contributions to newspapers were often the subject of discussion and debate. He defended himself against accusations of collaboration with the Italians, described the sacrifices of Tripolitanians during the war, elaborated on the role of the League of Nations in world affairs, warned about the consequences of the war in the Arabian Peninsula between [Imam Yahya in Yemen and Saudi Arabia’s King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Sa‘ud, stood up for the rights of the Palestinians in Palestine, and preached unity among Arabs and Muslims. Arab unity for him was part and parcel of Muslim unity and included all Arabic-speaking countries, from Morocco to Iraq, Oman, and Yemen. Islam, the Arabic language, and movements of liberation from European domination and colonialism gave a form to that unity. Al-Baruni therefore lamented all actions and decisions by Arab leaders that, in his opinion, undermined such unity. Thus, he criticized the Arabic press for taking sides in the war between Ibn Sa‘ud and Imam Yahya. He shunned both parties, as he considered their actions a war against Islam and Arabism.

          Al-Baruni clashed with Shakib Arslan when the latter suggested in a 1936 speech at the Arab Club in Damascus that Arab unity could be confined, temporarily, to the Mashreq, to the exclusion of the Maghreb. This generated much criticism from Maghrebis, especially Libyans, who, as William Cleveland notes, felt that “Arslan had abandoned his anti-imperial campaign in exchange for Italian gold. Al-Baruni condemned Arslan in an article published in the Tunisian periodical Al-Rabita Al- ‘Arabiyya and reprinted in the Mzabi newspaper Al-Umma. Al-Baruni believed that one pillar of Arab unity was Islam. North Africans, as Muslims and speakers of Arabic, should naturally be included in this unity. Arslan, he contended, had abandoned them not only to please the Italian and the French governments but also because North African countries were poor, lacking the wealth of countries such as Egypt, which Arslan included in his plan.

          Despite their different opinions, al-Baruni’s career was strikingly similar to that of Arslan. Both belonged to fringe Muslim sects—Arslan hailing from a notable Druze family from Mount Lebanon but a convert to Sunni Islam—and both fought against the Italian invasion of Libya, were elected to the Ottoman parliament in 1913, defended the Ottoman order during World War I, and were denied entry into territories occupied by the French and the British. Both spent their careers in exile campaigning for Arab unity and Islamic reform, battling colonialism, and bridging intellectual networks in the Maghreb and the Mashreq. Cleveland’s words about Arslan—that “independence was his objective in dealing with Europeans, the reconstruction of a true Islamic society in confronting his fellow Muslims”—hold true for al-Baruni as well. Their resemblance speaks of the world view of many of their generation, who, in campaigning for unity and reform, became cosmopolitan citizens of an Arab-Muslim world they perceived and defined as bonded by language, religion, and a quest for liberation from colonialism. It also points to the role of political exiles in sustaining the discourse of unity. Given al-Baruni’s extensive network, he was no outlier in seeking a transnational framework for his Muslim identity, one defined by Arabism and replacing the now-defunct Ottoman one.

          While al-Baruni managed to stay informed about regional events and to correspond with his network while residing in Oman, he often felt isolated there. His plans to reform and modernize the judicial and the economic systems did not go unchallenged, as he faced fierce opposition from conservative elements in the imamate, causing him much distress. Moreover, Oman remained an isolated entity, lacking effective means of communications. The fact that it had opted not to get involved in regional affairs added to al-Baruni’s sense of dissatisfaction. His horizon was broader than what the imamate could accommodate, and the intensity and frequency of his correspondence confirm his constant need to communicate with the outside world. Al-Baruni’s acceptance of an employment offer from Sultan Sa‘id bin Taymur in Muscat in 1938 points to his growing disenchantment with Oman. Perhaps the offer was an effort by the sultan, with whom al-Baruni had been on bad terms a few years back, to undermine the imamate. According to Sultan Sa‘id’s memo to the British consul in Muscat seeking approval of this appointment, al-Baruni had asked him for a job in 1935, but the sultan had turned him down. Given al-Baruni’s anticolonial past, the British had to evaluate the decision to hire this “adventurer of the ‘notorious’ type who for many years. . . before[,] during and after the Great War was a well-known person in the Middle East? However, as long as al-Baruni’s role was confined to dealing with internal administrative matters, they were willing to approve.

          While in Oman, al-Baruni and some other members of his family had contracted malaria, which necessitated frequent travel outside the country for treatment. King Faisal of Iraq granted them permission to come to Baghdad for treatment, and al-Baruni seems to have had greater opportunities to read newspapers there and correspond with his contacts. On his first visit, in 1929, he was received with much fanfare, being welcomed by King Faisal and Iraqi ulama; notables, and dignitaries. He also saw his old friend al-Tha‘alibi, who happened to be in Baghdad at the time. It wasn’t too long before the court in Iraq provided him with an allowance and his son Ibrahim with a job at the palace. The network of connection he had been a part of since the late Ottoman period facilitated this. After all, decision making in Iraq at the time was in the hands of those who, like al-Baruni, were either previous Ottoman officers and dignitaries or their relatives.

          Al-Baruni kept moving back and forth between Oman and Iraq, the only two places where he was allowed to set foot, but it was increasingly mostly from Baghdad that he corresponded with friends and newspaper editors. Relentless, and desperate to leave Muscat, he wrote to the French foreign minister in September 1939 offering his services should Italy declare war on France and suggesting that he should go to Tunis right away. He hoped France would help liberate his home country from the Italians and end his exile. The opportunity to return home finally presented itself. On June 8, 1940, the Middle East Intelligence Centre in Cairo sent a telegram to the British political resident in Muscat requesting on behalf of the French general officer commanding North Africa that al-Baruni be asked if he was willing to go to Algiers “as soon as possible to undertake certain work in connection with Libya.” He certainly would have relished that long-awaited opportunity. But he had died on May 1, during a trip to Bombay in the company of Oman’s sultan, Sayyid Sa‘id. Before he traveled, he had confided to his daughter that he would try again to find his way into either Tunisia or Egypt. He never got the chance. The places that had provided him with the opportunities to enter the realms of journalism, publishing, politics, and diplomacy and that were part of a broader world he defined and defended as his own remained out of his reach.

CONCLUSION

Discussing his biography of Evelyn Baring, the first Lord Cromer, a British administrator in Egypt, Roger Owen notes how issues relating to globalization and imperialism “present themselves in a somewhat higgledy-piggledy fashion in the compass of an individual life” The life of Sulayman al-Baruni certainly illustrates developments in these fields. His movements between different cities and centers of learning, his adoption of a definition of Islam that sought Muslim unity, and his publishing activities all shaped a career that defined him as a Muslim reformer, an Ottoman pasha, a field commander, and an anticolonial leader. Lord Cromer was a punch line for al-Baruni, epitomizing European imperialism’s insult and threat to Islam, which only a united Muslim community could neutralize.

          Of all the phases of globalization in world history, the one in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries presented exceptional challenges to Muslim societies. It featured Western imperialism and colonialism of Muslim lands and undermined Muslim political sovereignty in many localities. But it also provided Muslims with tools that enabled them to resist, respond to, and maneuver within the

new realities: improved means of travel and communication, such as the printing press. The challenges and the opportunities of this new world order greatly affected al-Baruni and his generation of Muslim intellectuals. As an institution of connectivity among them, the network was widely transformed; more frequent and faster interactions meant a greater ability to generate and execute responses to challenges. One such response was the Ibadi-Sunni attempt to form a united front against imperialism, born of and creating further opportunities for cross-sectarian and transnational encounters in cosmopolitan Arab cities—and beyond. Using globalization as a framework of analysis to understand such crucial developments at the end of the nineteenth century reveals new answers and sheds light on new

dynamics. It allows us to highlight interactions in their multiple directions, map communications, trace the new ties and connections forged by more-globalized groups and individuals, and track the movement of ideas and their impacts on specific localities. It produces a richer, if not a more complete, picture, as it brings together multiple currents and captures the width and breadth of cross-regional and transnational interactions channeled through networks.

 

NOTES

Research for this project was made possible by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in Canada and from the Gerda Henkel Foundation in Germany.

 

Reference:

Global Muslims in the Age of Steam and Print, Book edited by: James L. Gelvin and Nile Green. An Ottoman Pasha and the End of Empire Sulayman al~Baruni and the Networks of Islamic Reform, By: Amal Ghazal