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One can stretch this argument to say that partly to accommodate the
Muslim views the government adopted a policy that it did.
Is there an Islamic dimension in India’s Saudi policy? It would be naïve
to suggest otherwise. Islam was less relevant in its dealings with Nasser’s
Egypt or Ba’athist Iraq and Syria, but this has never been the case with
Saudi Arabia. At the same time, it is equally irresponsible to argue that it
was exclusively dominated by the Islamic dimension. If Islam is not the
only factor, it is a dominant one. Religion has been a critical factor in the
evolution of India’s perception of the Kingdom and Islamic-religious par-
adigm has both positively and negatively affected and shaped the Indo-
Saudi relations. The importance of Saudi Arabia in Indian strategic
calculations has been heavily influenced by the Islamic factor.
Pan-IslamIsm
Pan-Islamism in the political sense of the word is as old as the faith itself.
As Bernard Lewis put it eloquently, Prophet Mohammed “established a
state during his lifetime, in which he did the things that statesmen do. He
commanded armies, he made war, he made peace, he collected taxes, and
he dispensed justice” (Lewis 2010 , 70). Institutionalized through the
office of caliph after the Prophet’s death in 632 AD, pan-Islamism has
championed the cause of ummah, the inclusive community of believers.
The formation of various Islamic empires in the Middle East since the
mid-seventh century was primarily an effort in this direction. In the wake
of the Turkish abolition of the caliphate in 1924, the Hashemites and later
on al-Saud sought to revive the institution under their tutelage but in vain
(Nafi 2015 ; Teitelbaum 1998 ; Liebl 2009 ; Lewis 1933 ).
The Indian Muslims who rallied behind the Ottoman caliph during the
Khilafat Movement were not enamoured by the Hashemite claims as they
viewed the Sharif Hussein as the “stooge” of the British and Christians
and a usurper (Qureshi 1999 , 83–84). In their view, the Sharif of Mecca
was set up to challenge, weaken and eventually unseat the legitimate
Ottoman caliph (Meleady 2016 ). There was a sense of relief among the
Khilafat leaders when al-Saud took over Mecca, and as one League func-
tionary remarked in December 1924, Hussein’s removal was “unwept,
unhonoured and unsung” (Pirzada 1982 , II:14–15).
However, the abolition of the Caliphate by Ataturk removed the pan-
Islamic agenda and the Indian Muslims had to cope up with the Congress-
League tussle over India’s future. The partition of the subcontinent and
P. R. KUMARASWAMY AND MD. M. QUAMAR