Razi Ashraf : (BA (Hons), MA (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London)
Keywords: Central Asia, Ottoman, Turkey, Mughal, Muslim, Hindu, India, Khilafat,
This article should be cited as: Razi Ashraf, ‘Ottoman-Mughal Political Relations circa 1500- 1923’, in The Eurasia Studies Study Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1 (February2013), at http://eurasiahistory.com/2013-2/
Introduction
The
early modern world saw developments in the power of the emergence of Muslim
empires that replaced the fragmented
tribal alliances and minor Sultanates. These great empires namely the Ottomans, Safavids, the Uzbeks and
the Mughals all shared Central Asian Turkic
political traditions apart from Persian aesthetic understandings and a
vision of conquest rooted in Mongol
aspirations of a world empire.1
Modern
day historians tend to treat all Islamic civilizations as discrete entities
in terms of their colonial heritages and
European style nation-state analysis. These civilizations are as a matter of routine conceptualised
according to their dynastic character and political character. But in reality cultural contacts
between Central Asia, Iran and India have always transcended political realities. The
sub-continent has been connected to the world system since pre-historic times primarily via the
mountain passes over the Hindu Kush to the North West.2
Successive
Muslim dynasties to rule over parts of the sub-continent all came from the northwest and were mainly either Persianized
Central Asian Turks or Turkified Pakhtuns all
coming from the direction of what is now Afghanistan. These successive
waves of Muslim conquerors all brought
with them elements of Central Asian and Persian culture which they added to the ever evolving mix of South Asian
society.
It
should be however emphasized that it was under the Mughals that this
steady process of cultural amalgamation
between Central Asia and South Asia reached its peak and in many ways showed a
happy synthesis. The magnificent cultural achievements in the form of breath-taking architecture took place
entirely on Indian soil as the Mughals along with their Central Asian political, administrative
and military influences also brought painting and architectural styles. The famous Taj Mahal as
we all know was directly inspired by Timur’s
tomb in Samarqand. Never were the lines of communication and interaction
more open between Central and South Asia
than they were under the Mughals.
The
same can be said for the channels leading from Iran and even the
Mediterranean world of the Ottomans.
Part one of this paper will study the historical relationship between the Turkic-Asian Mughals and the Eurasian Ottomans
with a focus upon the political story.
The second part of the paper will investigate the relations between the
Muslim Indians and the Ottomans.
Part
One: The Mughal-Ottoman Political Relationship
The
Mughals were the principal inheritors of the Central-Asian Turco-Persian legacy
of Timur: ‘true Timurids who
enthusiastically embraced Timurid legitimacy and consciously presided over Timurid renaissance Indian
sub-continent’3
So although Arab traders had been in touch with the Indian sub-continent for quite some time ever since the conquest of Sind by Mohammed bin Qassem in (712AD) some historians regard this part of history as a mere episode in the history of the sub-continent as it affected only a small portion of the vast sub-continent. It would be however a denial of fact to say that the Arab conquest of Sind had no lasting effect on India. The conquest introduced Islam to the Indian sub-continent. But we must not fail however to add here that the permanent conquest of India was later achieved only by the Turks from the north. The Muslim religion and the Persian language and the literary tradition united Turks, Iranians, Afghans and others for nearly a millennium.
Mughal-Ottoman
relationship.
According
to Prof. Naimur Rahman Farooqi the study of this fascinating subject was
not given proper scholarly attention it
deserved. The situation is no better in Ottoman
historiography either he goes on to say. Professor Karpat’s research
applies especially to the Ottoman
relationship to the contemporary Muslim states. Hikmet Bayur’s Hindusthan
Tarihi (two volumes, Ankara 1947-50) has
devoted only a few cursory remarks to Ottoman-Mughal relations. Likewise Indian historians like
R.C Verma have devoted only perfunctory remarks
on this great subject.4
The
year 1556 marks the beginning of the diplomatic relationship between the Mughal and the Ottoman States when Emperor
Humayun (1530-1556) wrote his first and his
last letter to the Ottoman Sultan. The year 1748 on the other hand marks
the termination of Mughal-Ottoman
relations. It was in this year that the last Ottoman embassy to the Mughal court left Shahjehanabad, the Mughal capital
on its homeward journey to Istanbul. After 1748
there is no record of any exchange of diplomatic missions between the
two sides although cultural contacts
continued in the form of letters from minor rulers of India till the
abolition of Khilafat 1920. So this
shared legacy of Mughal-Ottoman relationship has to be understood before we actually discuss Turkish-Pakistan
relationship.
The
Ottoman influence had preceded the Mughals in India particularly in the
Deccan in the south and along with the
western coast of the sub-continent. Ottoman adventurers and soldiers of fortune abounded in India. They
were reputed to be expert gunners and
musketeers and were generally employed as artillery men. Several Ottoman
Turks held positions of power and
considerable influence in the Sultanate of Gujarat (parts of both are in India and Pakistan). Names like Rumi Khan and
Rajab Khudawand Khan are still famous in
the sub-continent. Rajab Khan became the governor of Surat a city in
Gujarat. According to Turkish historian
Farishte it was Rajab Khan who built the castle of Surat fortifying it in
the Turkish architectural fashion. The
rousing reception that Sidi al Reis the Ottoman admiral received in Gujarat bear witness to the
strong position and influence enjoyed by the Ottoman Turks in this Muslim state of the
sub-continent.
Mughal
attitude towards the Ottoman Khilafat.
There
was a tremendous respect for the Ottoman Khilafat. Letters written to the
Emperor especially during the reign of
Humayun to ‘Suleiman the Magnificent’ bears testimony to this fact:
‘Gifts
of sincere wishes to your exalted majesty the possessor of the dignity of
Khilafat, the pole of the sky of
greatness and fortune, the consolidator of the foundations of Islam. Your name is engraved on the seal of
greatness and in your time the Khilafat has been carried to perfection .May your Khilafat be
perpetuated. God be praised that the gates of
victory are opened by the eyes of His inspiration and His dispensation
the seat of the Sultanate and the throne
of the Khilafat of the realms of Hind and Sind is once again graced by a monarch (Humayun) whose
magnificence is equal to that of Sultan Suleiman the magnificent.’5
The
Ottoman grand vizier Mustafa Pasha was greeted most respectfully by the
grand Mughal Vizier accompanied with
pomp and splendour. The Turkish ambassador Arsalan Agha was given a pompous and distinguished
reception by Mir Zafar of Mughal India when
he visited Emperor Shah Jehan in Kashmir. However Mughal attitude
towards the Ottomans varied from emperor
to emperor. It was a phase of mostly cordiality with occasional outbursts of spasmodic hostility.
Babur
the first Mughal was steeped in Turkish culture. He spoke and wrote
beautiful Turkish (Chagtai). His famous
Baburnama is well known universally. The Emperor also admired and utilized Ottoman military tactics
and methods. Yet he remained indifferent
towards the Ottomans the reason being his dislike of Ottoman- Uzbek
friendship that he considered damaging
to his aims and interests in Central Asia. Babur’s successor Humayun exhibited great respect for the Ottoman
Sultan as the only sovereign in the world worthy to bear the title of Padshah and displayed a
genuine desire to establish contacts with the
Ottomans on a permanent basis.
Akbar
who followed Humayun not only reversed this policy but even demonstrated outright hostility towards the Ottomans. It
has been suggested that Akbar’s policy was based on real politik6 according to Pakistani
Scholar Riazul Islam.7 He goes on to say Akbar
revealed a lack of political pragmatism and diplomatic acumen as far as
the Ottomans were concerned. Historians
say Akbar missed a great opportunity of a joint Mughal-Ottoman operation against the Portuguese whom he
wanted to encounter. It could have curtailed if not ended the Portuguese behaviour towards the
Indian commerce and Haj traffic.
Jehangir’s
policy was based on high diplomacy and friendship with the Ottomans
despite
depending on Safavid Persia. He took care not even to offend the Uzbeks. Shah
Jehan in early reign revived the policy
of his father of a Mughal-Ottoman-Uzbek alliance. However Shah Jehan’s military
intervention in Central Asia left him isolated in the world of Islam. The Ottoman initiative in 1649 as usual restored
suspended diplomatic relations. At the time of
Shah Jehan’s deposition in 1658 Mughal Ottoman relations had improved
considerably.
At
the time of Aurangzeb the Empire was beset with internal problems and
further conquests. Aurangzeb attempted
to send an embassy to Istanbul but did not enthusiastically make overtures of friendship. But the Ottomans
magnanimously broke the diplomatic
deadlock by taking the initiative of continuing the friendship. In 1689
Sultan Suleiman II (1687-1691) sent
Ahmed Aqa as his envoy to Aurangzeb’s court.8
Muhammad
Shah was the last Mughal Emperor to acknowledge the Ottoman Khilafat. However it was during Shah Alam’s
reign (1759-1806) that several Indian Muslim
potentates acknowledged the Ottoman Sultan as the leader of the
Faithful. The Bibi of Arrakal (‘Arrakal’
was the name of a small province in the South of India that was in control of some fragmented families of the last
vestiges of the Mughal Empire. ‘Bibi’ is a highly respectful term used in the Urdu language for
a lady of high rank and honour) addressed the
Sultan as Khalifa and sought his help against the ‘high handedness’ of
the English East India Company.
Tipu
Sultan of Mysore (Mysore is another large province in the south of India
which still remains today) also paid
homage to the Ottoman Khalifa. He was the first Indian Muslim to receive a letter from the Ottoman Khalifa.
There is evidence that after the demise of Shah
Alam II the khutba (Friday prayer sermon) was read in India in the name
of the Ottoman Khalifa.9 The deposition
of Bahadur Shah II in 1857 proved to be a turning point in India’s relations with the Ottoman Khilafat.
Henceforth Indian Muslims looked towards the Ottoman Sultan for sympathy and help. The Deoband
School founded in 1857 also promoted pro Ottoman sentiment among the Muslims of
India. According to the author the programme of
the Deoband was to educate the students in strict observance of the
Sunni orthodoxy of the Hanafi school,
and the seeking of closer relations with the Turkish Sultan-Caliph.
Even
though the Mughal Empire phased out, the Muslims of South Asia looked up
to the Ottoman Caliph as their protector
so much so that when the British ventured out to remove the Khilafat there was almost a
revolution in India by the Muslims who warned the British that if the Khilafat was abolished
they would revolt against British rule in India. This is one of the most powerful chapters of
Indian history before partition of the country and is known as the Khilafat Movement and must be
dealt at length regarding the subject of
Turkey’s relations with South Asia’s Muslims.
Part
Two: The effect of the First World War on Ottoman-Muslim Indian Relations
When
the British declared war on Turkey in November 1914 there was a huge
Indo-Muslim sympathy for Turkey. A state
of war was brought about to the regret of Britain’s rulers of India. Despite the assurances by the British
that the Muslim holy places in Arabia and
Mesopotamia and the port of Jidda would remain immune from attack and
that Hajj pilgrims will not be
interfered with, the Indo-Muslims however remained suspicious. Nevertheless
the Ulema did offer their fatwa or oath
of loyalty to the British. But then the Arab revolt, the Mesopotamian campaign, the fall of Jerusalem
and the Balfour declaration affected many
articulate Muslims like the Ali Brothers. Abdul Bari began to feel that
the British claims about the
non-religious character of the war were tenuous if not a total sham. The
British| Prime Minister Mr Lloyd George
added to the suspicion by dubbing Allenby’s conquest of Jerusalem as the ‘last and most triumphant of
all Crusades.’ This did not seem to be a very
reassuring rhetoric at that time.
Then
on January 5 1918 Lloyd George spoke in parliament to reassure the Muslim subjects of the Empire once again. ‘The
Ottoman empire would not be deprived of
Constantinople, nor of the rich and renowned lands of Asia Minor and
Thrace which are pre dominantly Turkish in race.’ But ‘the Arabs were entitled
to a recognition of their own separation
of the national conditions!’
This
was another blow to the Indo-Muslim opinion but not as terrible as the one delivered after the war when the peace conference
started. They were talking of carving up
the Ottoman Empire and threatened to take away Constantinople from the
Turks. The Ali Brothers in north India
who led the Khilafat and the independence movement against the British watched these changes from isolation
and anger. They organised a protest against the
British decisions on Turkey. The Ali brothers who spearheaded this
movement were occasionally called upon
to read the khutba. One such reading brought objections from the British government who were then in control
of India, because in the reading they had asked
God to grant victory and succour to the Caliph of Turkey and
‘destruction to the infidels.’ But there
was little the government could do. ‘You can’t blame me,’ said Shaukat the younger brother, ‘if the Caliph of Islam happens to
be the Sultan of Turkey.’10
Islam
was the Indian Muslim’s sense of identity and near common denominator.
Their pro-Turkish sentiment was based
upon the feelings of Islamic community solidarity and the fact that the Turkish ruler was acknowledged
as Caliph the symbolic head of the community.
Most
electrifying for most of the Muslims of India was news of the Arab revolt against Turkey. The Council of the Muslim
League passed a resolution condemning the
Sharif of Mecca and his followers as enemies of Islam, and the knowledge
that the British government must be
involved was greeted with consternation and anger. So this kind of solidarity of Indo-Muslims had always existed
with the Turkish people according to the
archives of political history.
The
Mughals were successful in establishing themselves as the source of
political
legitimacy
within India until the establishment of the East India Company depriving
them from their original authority. Various
Indian Muslim princes still continued to recognise the last Mughal Emperor even though they became
independent of him. The Mughal Emperor’s
name was read in the khutba in the mosques on Fridays and coinage was
minted in his name. Other Indian Muslim
princes seeking to establish hegemony in their own regions turned towards the Ottoman Sultan Caliph as a source
of legitimacy. The Khilafat as a symbol of
Muslim Unity and the supremacy of the Sharia had a special significance
in the history of Muslim rule in India.
The Caliph was important especially in times of political confusion and stood as a source of legitimacy based on the
Sharia.
When
the British finally extinguished Mughal rule after 1857 they eliminated a
whole structure of religious-political
authority. The Ottoman Sultan was one remaining authority as a Sunni potentate and hence the only possible
candidate for Caliph. He was the symbol not
only of the survival of the rule of Islamic law but also of past Islamic
glory. In the late nineteenth century
for a variety of reasons a new and widespread acknowledgement of the Ottoman Sultan as Caliph developed in India.
Imams began to read the Sultan’s name in the
khutba on Friday in some Indian mosques. Each time the Ottomans were
involved in a war – the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, or the Greco-Turkish war
of 1897 Muslims in India channelled fund
drives for Turkish relief. Such actions did not imply political allegiance to the Turkish ruler but they were testimony to
a sympathy for Turkey which could be exploited
in the interests of Muslim solidarity whether within in India or
without. The plight of the Khilafat
seemed to reflect the fate of Islamic rule in India. And by the extension,
the threatened position of the Muslim
elite in the rapidly changing political conditions of the times. The precarious state of the
institution of the Khilafat was concerning and created anxiety as this was the symbol of the supremacy
of Islamic law. This also caused serious
concern among local Indian Muslim elite. The Khilafat Movement emerged
from such groups.
A
quarter century later a group with the same ideology would demand a
separate Muslim state from Hindu
majority India. This eventually came into being in 1947 when India was partitioned forming the state of Pakistan
that literally meant ‘land of the pure’. However in spite of the partition owing to
ideological differences and cultural and geographical impediments nearly 45 per cent of the Muslims
remained back in India. This is another
powerful chapter in the history of the sub-continent and needs to be
dealt separately at greater length.
What
is fascinating is that this historical relationship between the Ottoman Turks
and the Muslims of the sub-continent
still exists till today, this time as Turkey-Pakistan friendship owing to the birth of Pakistan 65 years ago
created by an elite group of Indian Muslims who
feared ‘Hindu’ nationalist hegemony. The Ottoman Empire did not phase
out completely. It survived till it gave
way to the secular Turkish Republic in 1923. At the lowest ebb of their history the Ottoman Turks lost an empire but
never their freedom. How different it is from
the legacy of the Mughals!
Notes
1
In my soon to be published article Ashraf Razi ‘Turkey-Pakistan Political
Relations: Some Observations’ available in The Eurasia Studies Society Journal,
2013, I will explore the relationship between the modern countries of Turkey and Pakistan, the heirs
to the Ottoman and Mughal Dynasties respectively. 2 Richard C. Foltz, Mughal
India and Central Asia, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
3Stephen
Frederick Dale, ‘The Legacy of the Timurids’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society of Great Britain and Ireland,
Vol. 8, Issue. 1, April 1998, pp. 43-58.
4
See Naimur Rahman Farooqi, A Study of Political and Diplomatic Relations
between Mughal India and the Ottoman
Empire,1556-1748, Volume 1, USA: University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1986.
5
Ibid.
6
Riazul Islam, Indo-Persian Relations: A Study of the Political and Diplomatic Relations
between the Mughal Empire and Iran,
Tehran, 1970, p.82.
7
Ibid.
8
Niccolao Manucci, II p. 433 in Riazul Islam, Indo-Persian Relations, p. 95. See
also ‘Uzuncarcillin Osmani Tarihi,III
part II’, p.268 in Riazul Islam, Indo-Persian Relations, p. 95.
9
S.S. Nadvi, ‘Khilafat aur Hindusthan’, p.175, in Riazul Islam, Indo-Persian
Relations, p. 211.
10
Gail Minault, The Khilafat Movement, New York: Columbia University Press, 1982,
p. 55.