IMAGInInG ThE “ISrAElITES” • 165even in the course of his own polemic against Judaism, rida holds
fast to the contention that Jews were treated more favorably under
Islam than in Christendom. he notes that the Islamic conquest of “Syria,
Palestine, and then Andalusia” benefited the Jews, freeing them from
“Christian oppression.” they continued to be oppressed in russia and
Spain “because the governments there were religious.” the Jews thus
“conspired, and still conspire, in the name of freedom and civilization, to
remove the influence of the Christian religion from these two states.”^104
as evidence, rida cites Jewish involvement in the recent revolutions in
russia and Spain.^105 as we shall see, when rida writes that Jews “con-
spire” to bring down various Western governments, ostensibly “in the
name of freedom and civilization,” his real concern is a parallel “con-
spiracy” in which he believes Jews have been engaged, a conspiracy
much closer to home and of much greater consequence to his readers:
the 1908 Young turk revolution against the Ottoman sultan.
rida does not argue that the Jews are opposed, in principle, to re-
ligious rule. they are opposed, rather, to non- Jewish religious rule. In-
deed, their aim is to establish Jewish religious domination. Jews “re-
volt against anyone who resists [their efforts] to establish a religious
government [sulṭadīniyya] of their own,” asserts rida. It is for this
reason that they “had a hand in the Ottoman [Young turk] revolution,
not because they were oppressed or persecuted in the Ottoman em-
pire.” after all, they were so secure in the Ottoman empire that “they
fled to it from persecution in russia and elsewhere.”^106 thus, rida rea-
sons, their opposition to the Ottoman sultan’s government was due to
its opposition to the Jews’ efforts to create their own religious state.
It is at this point that rida openly directs his comments to the sub-
ject of Zionism. Jews participated in the Young turk revolution, he
insists, “because they want[ed] to rule Jerusalem [bayt al- muqaddas]
and its environs, and to establish Israelite sovereignty there.” the Ot-
toman sultan’s government had sought to prohibit Jews from acquiring
land in palestine, and, rida hastens to add, any land purchases that
Jews did manage to carry out were accomplished “through subterfuge,
bribery, and other monetary schemes.” as a result, rida charges, Jews
helped carry out the Young turk revolution that overthrew the sul-
tan, and they are assisting the new government in an effort to realize
their own aims. rida then implores “the Ottoman nation [al- umma al-
ʿuthmāniyya]” to recognize that “the danger of their influence is great
(^104) Ibid., 725.
(^105) rida presumably refers here to the russian revolution of 1905 and Spain’s so-
called Glorious revolution of 1868.
(^106) al-Manār 13:10 (November 1910), 725.