The First Phase (1878–1895)

Though it is customary to view the beginnings of dissent from Hamidian rule as of the mid-1890s, the conspiratorial ventures of that decade and the continuities in the liberal movement can be understood best against the background of political exertions occurring mostly outside the empire in which émigré Arab intellectuals played the major role.

Literary and journalistic activity was intensifying among Syrian intellectuals when Abdülhamid came to power. The sultan’s strict press censorship forced many journalists to emigrate to Europe or to Egypt. The historical and cultural links of the Syrian Christian communities with European countries facilitated the exiles’ stay in European cities such as London, Paris, and Naples, where they were often backed by friendly governments (which sought to exploit the anti-Hamidian posture of the intellectuals for their own national and imperial interests), individuals, and church groups, but had no coordination amongst themselves.

Only in 1894 Salim Faris, the son of the publisher (Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq) of an Arabic journal in İstanbul called Al-jawa’ib (Current News),^[123] brought some coordination to these efforts. He revived in London Hürriyet, which had been the principal Young Ottoman publication in Europe.^[124] Before then, oppositional activity fit into only the broadest definition of the Young Turk movement, namely, opposition to the Hamidian despotism. In keeping with Young Ottoman ideals, the fundamental demand in this period continued to be a liberal constitutional regime. Hence, the refutation of Abdülhamid’s claim to the caliphate, which the sultan used to justify his absolute power, became a focal point in fighting the regime.

Two independent Arabic papers published in Europe carried the name Al-khilafa (The Caliphate). One was edited by Louis Sabunji,^[125] a Catholic priest, in London and the other by Ibrahim Muwaylihi in Naples. Sabunji dwelled on the idea of an Arab caliphate in Al-nahla (The Bee), which he started in Beirut and transferred to London in 1877, as well as in his Al-khilafa, founded in 1881. The supporters of Sabunji and his Al-nahla included, in addition to his British benefactors and Khedive Ismail (who had harbored rival ambitions to become caliph), Indian and other Muslim leaders of colonies under British rule, suggesting that the British may have tried to undermine the sultan’s claim to the office at this early stage. Ibrahim Muwaylihi was an Egyptian and the only prominent Arab Muslim editor in Europe in opposition to Abdülhamid. Muwaylihi published Al-khilafa in 1879, in which he denounced the deposition of his patron, Khedive Ismail.^[126] He attacked sharply the Ottoman government as well as imperialist Britain and Russia. Both Muwaylihi and Sabunji^[127] later reconciled with Abdülhamid and entered his service.

If the Ottoman sultan was unsuitable for the office of the caliph, who met the necessary requirements? Some salafi modernists suggested one answer to the question by advancing the idea of an Arab caliph, but refrained from advocating a transfer of allegiance away from the House of Osman lest it undermine the Ottoman state, the only Islamic political entity capable of standing up to Western imperialism. Although Arab Christians had reason to be apprehensive about Islamism, some, such as Sabunji, proposed an Arab caliphate as an alternative to the Hamidian regime.^[128]

After the closure of the First Parliament, Khalil Ghanem also joined the journalistic opposition to Abdülhamid in Europe. Though his early career as a journalist is similar to that of the other Arabs in Europe, toward the end of the nineteenth century Ghanem identified with and committed himself to the mainstream of the growing Young Turk movement to a greater extent than any other Arab intellectual or activist. Of the ten opposition deputies banned from İstanbul in 1878, Ghanem was the only one to go to Europe. He settled in Paris and wrote articles criticizing the Ottoman government and urged reforms.^[129] He appropriated the expression Young Turkey in his Arabic and French La Jeune Turquie (Turkiya al-fatat) in Paris, where he wrote as a “democrat interested in [political] reform” in the empire.^[130]

Ghanem resisted bribes from Abdülhamid to abandon his struggle,^[131] even as the opposition in Europe lost its vigor in the late 1880s. Many individuals were co-opted by the sultan or abandoned the struggle in discouragement, dismayed by the contradiction between the liberal principles of European countries and their imperialist ambitions. While Cairo in British-occupied Egypt increasingly replaced London and Paris as the center of the Arabic press and intellectual activity, Khalil Ghanem continued the struggle in Europe. Indeed, Ghanem was unequaled in his persistence in the liberal cause, and he represented not only the link between the early and later phases of the anti-Hamidian movement but also embodied the liberal Ottoman currents during the entire span of the last quarter of the nineteenth century.^[132] The Europe of the 1890s witnessed a new generation of Ottoman liberals and enhanced organizational activity, in both of which Ghanem continued to be a key figure.