dreams melted into air, 1919–29the Anglo-Afghan War, a number of Indian Muslims, mostly former pupils
of Aligarh and Deoband, had formed the Khalifat Movement following the
Bolshevik government’s publication of the Sykes-Picot Agreement of May
- This highly secret deal between France, Britain and Imperial Russia
divided the Ottoman provinces of the Levant and Anatolia between the
three European powers in the form of what was termed ‘Mandates’. The
news outraged Muslim nationalists in India who were convinced the Allies
planned to dismember the Ottoman Empire and the Khilafat Movement
demanded that any post-war treaty with Turkey should uphold the tem -
poral and spiritual powers of the Ottoman Caliphate. This view seemed to
be confirmed when, while the Mussoorie Conference was still in session,
British forces occupied Istanbul and deposed the cup government, while
King Faizal of Syria, the man who had led the Arab Revolt made famous
by Lawrence of Arabia, was overthrown by French military intervention.
Tarzi raised the issue of the break-up of Ottoman Turkey during
the Mussoorie Conference and tried to link a settlement of the Anglo-
Afghan War with the post-war situation in the Near East, demanding any
treaty with Afghanistan should include assurances that Britain would not
dismember the Ottoman Empire and that the Caliph would retain his
spiritual and temporal powers. Tarzi’s demands were bizarre given that
he was in Mussoorie to represent Afghanistan’s interests and not that of
his adopted country or the Arabs. His demands got nowhere and Dobbs
curtly informed Tarzi that Britain’s policy towards Turkey had nothing to
do with him.
Tarzi’s concerns reflected those of the Khilafat Movement, which was
increasingly vociferous and heavily committed to the Muslim League’s civil
disobedience campaign in the Punjab and Northwest Frontier. Following
the San Remo Conference of April 1920, which confirmed the partition
of the Middle East and committed the Allies to the establishment of a
Jewish Homeland in the Ottoman province of Palestine, Khilafat protests
escalated. In the summer of 1920, several prominent pirs in Sind and the
Northwest Frontier issued fatwas declaring British-ruled India as a Dar
al-Harb, or House of War, and called on India’s Muslims to emulate the
example of Muhammad and migrate to the Dar al-Islam, that is, the nearest
Muslim-ruled country. The fatwas precipitated a mass exodus of around
30,000 people into Afghanistan, known as the Hijrat Movement. The
migration took place in the height of the Indian summer and many émigrés
died from thirst or heatstroke before they reached the Afghan frontier; they
were also plundered by Mohmands and Afridis as they passed through the
Khyber Pass. Amir ’Aman Allah Khan welcomed the first wave of muhajir,