Is there an Islamic World?

I pose this question from Baku, where I'm attending a conference on Islamophobia. When we talk about approximately 2 billion Muslims in today's world, we are referring to a "world": the Islamic World. The notion of Islam having a world implies not only a shared belief, thought, and a minimum common culture and religion but also a shared space. How many of the 2 billion people feel themselves belonging to this world, distinct from the remaining 6 billion, to a separate and special world?

Meanwhile, what we call civilization has interconnected the entire world in a completely different way with all its materiality and the tools, channels, languages, and daily life habits that this materiality manifests, and has produced a completely different perception of the world for all people. However, within the same vast world, people feel, perceive, and experience many things differently. In this same world, people establish different sub-worlds to allocate their affiliations. These sub-worlds are defined by their friendships and enmities. These friendships and enmities determine the boundaries of worlds, and no one is allowed to enter another's world without permission. Even if the 2 billion Muslims want to become the peaceful inhabitants of the Crusader and Zionist worlds, they cannot forget their own world origins even if they wish to, because they face hostilities every day that remind them of where they come from.

Today, the issue of Islamophobia that we suffer from is not something specific to our time as we may think. Hatred of Islam is related to the perception forms produced in other worlds' defense lines. It emerges as part of their narratives of the establishment of their own worlds. These perceptions are reactions of the bodies formed in this world.

Today, while we talk about 2 billion Muslims forming a world, the most important weakness of the Islamic world is the lack of a political will to establish this unity. If this unity existed, no Islamic country would stand by and watch as the Zionist killer Israel brutally massacres Muslims in Gaza today. What is sought here is not roughly and anachronistically reviving or establishing the Caliphate but a Muslim unity where the threat to Muslims from other Muslims can be taken as a Muslim and a response can be made. In establishing this unity, no one can escape a responsibility by saying that others are more flawed than us.

Thanks to SDE Foundation President Sinan Tavukçu, many initiatives aimed at establishing this unity in Türkiye have been summarized in a kind of documentary style as we head towards the War of Independence. To mention just one initiative, in November-December 1919, an Islamic Congress was held in Sivas in three sessions.

"The first session was held on November 11, 1919, in Zara district of Sivas, and Mustafa Kemal Pasha was elected to the executive committee of this Islamic Congress, about which unfortunately, there is not much information in local sources. Reports of this conference, closely monitored by British intelligence, are available for researchers in British state archives. The Muvahhidin Society, which organized the Sivas Islamic Congress, was one of the organizations planning to organize Islamic revolutions in countries that were under the colonial rule of the victorious Allied Powers in World War I in order to achieve their independence. The 18-article Regulations of the Society, which was secretly established and appeared to have a strict discipline, were included. According to the first article of the Regulation, it was stated that, despite the development of civilization, fanaticism still prevails in the world, and therefore, religion must be used against any kind of attack directed by religion. The goal of the Society is to gather all Muslims around the Caliphate and to establish solidarity among them, taking into account their autonomies and regional and cultural independence. The Muvahhidin Society saw the occupation of Islamic countries by Western states as a result of Christian fanaticism. This point of view was also adopted by the cadre leading the national struggle at that time. Indeed, Bekir Sami Bey, who delivered the opening speech of the first meeting held on November 11, 1919, stated in his speech that we must embrace Islam in order to resist the fanatical attacks of Christianity, and for this reason, the Society was established, whose program he read.

According to the Regulation, all Muslims, in principle, will rush to save their brothers and help them in accordance with certain verses of the Quran. Therefore, every Muslim is a natural member of the Society. Non-Muslims who do not oppose the principles of the Society will be under the protection of the Society in complete safety.

In the Regulation, it was declared that the primary duty of the Society was to strive to obtain the independence of Muslim peoples who were not de facto independent or who were under the colonization or authority of foreign powers in accordance with the national principles adopted by European states. After the independence of these countries is achieved, the Muvahhidin Society Council, which will be formed by the participation of representatives from each country and will meet in the caliphate center or any other place close to it, will implement "Pan-Islamism" (Panislamism, as termed by Westerners) in accordance with the decisions reached."

Tavukçu's narrative of the activities of this society, in which Mustafa Kemal actively participated, continues. Many conclusions can be drawn, but from our perspective, one thing is clear: although the Caliphate had not been abolished a hundred years ago, it was already not going to remain in its old form; it was going to evolve and develop to become a functioning institution adapted to the conditions of the Islamic world, which had lost power in that conjuncture.

Today, no one can propose continuing from where we left off a hundred years ago. But no one can overlook the fact that the current weakness of the Islamic world is a problem of unity and initiative.