82 Geaves
The situation would be very different in 1912. The first sign of difference be-
tween the two can be discerned in an article for the journal Nineteenth Cen-
tury and After, when Pickthall argued that Turkish massacres of Christian
subjects of the Empire were the fault of Abdul Hamid ii, a sultan whom the
Turks had correctly deposed. “Muslims of a better sort are not bloodthirsty”, he
claimed.30 The article appeared shortly before his fact finding mission to Tur-
key in 1913. Once in Turkey he became deeply impressed by the reforming zeal
of the Young Turks and considered Turkey to be the closest Muslim nation to
the European mindset, writing on his return that “Turkey, a close country with
Europe, was the head of the progressive movement in the East”.31 Although
Quilliam would be inclined to accept this sentiment, it has to be remembered
that he had witnessed first-hand the overthrow of the Ottoman caliph by the
revolutionary Young Turks, and as a result returned to Britain. For Quilliam,
Turkey was the “closest Muslim nation to the European mindset” only because
it was led by a great reforming caliph.
Quilliam’s return to Britain resulted in a major transformation in his life.
No longer able to claim leadership of British Muslims, his position as Sheikh
al-Islam of Great Britain undermined by the overthrow of the Caliph and his
own disgrace in Liverpool,32 he was to establish himself in London with a new
identity as Henri de Léon. His main activity was to establish the Société Inter-
nationale de Philologie, Sciences et Beaux-Arts33 but he remained active in the
cause of Islam amidst the Muslims of London and Woking who had formed
30 Marmaduke Pickthall, “The Outlook in the Near East: for El Islam”. Nineteenth Century
and After, 72, 430 (1912), 1145.
31 Pickthall, With the Turk, 155.
32 Quilliam was consistently to argue that he became Henri de Léon because of a strange
clause in the will of his third wife. However, it is far more likely that he remained afraid of
negative media coverage and subsequent disgrace arising from a divorce case in which he
was prosecuted and debarred from the Law Society in 1908 (see Geaves, Islam in Victorian,
254ff ).
33 The Société was formed by De Léon/Quilliam in London to offer him the opportunity to
rebuild his identity as a philologist, writing on aspects of Persian culture and Manx stud-
ies, in addition to Philology. The society may have existed since 1902 when Quilliam had
announced a connect ion between his Muslim boys’ school and the International Society
of Philology, Science and the Arts. The society provided De Léon with a means to build
his reputation as a man of letters and polymath. The main vehicle to promote the society
and publish articles was The Philomath, edited by de Léon and Edith Miriam De Léon (see
Geaves, Islam in Victorian, 268; Gilham, Loyal, 78–9).