76 Geaves
the British sense of superiority over the “native”. In this regard he also shared
with his fellow convert a powerful antipathy to the inequality and snobbery of
Victorian society. In 1895 he was already considering converting to Islam but
was dissuaded by the Sheikh al-‘ulama in Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. He
returned to England where he picked up his previous life, but longing to return
East. The period until the outbreak of the First World War reveals a remarkable
degree of parallel activity to Abdullah Quilliam, already converted and leading
Britain’s Muslim community until 1908.
Like the Sheikh al-Islam of Great Britain, Marmaduke Pickthall was also a
convinced Turkophile who had fallen under the spell of the Ottoman civilisa-
tion and who believed that Turkey was the hope for the Muslim world to enter
a new flowering of its civilization through education, social reform and im-
proving the position of women in society.11
Parallel Developments
Even prior to his conversion in 1917 Pickthall’s contact with the Muslim world
in the Near East for nearly a quarter of a century would lead to his position-
ing himself against a number of key political decisions by the British govern-
ment in regard to relations with the Ottoman Empire. Key to understanding
the overarching political view of both Pickthall and Quilliam is the change
in policy of the British government since its pledge made in 1878 in Berlin to
guarantee the independence of the Ottoman Empire. Quilliam considered
that Britain required a strong alliance with the Ottomans as a bulwark against
Russian expansion,12 and that in Abdul Hamid ii (1876–1909), the empire was
ruled by an enlightened reformer that needed British support. However, since
the Crimean War fought from 1854–1856, when British interests had led to de-
fending the Ottomans against Russia, the position had politically transformed.
Britain would become increasingly cool towards the Ottomans as the twentieth
century entered its first decade. Quilliam recognized the shift and railed against
a number of British ministers even going so far in 1905 as to issue a fatwa against
11 Clark, Marmaduke Pickthall, 26–8.
12 This position had been maintained since 1774. British foreign policy feared Russian
expansionism. The attitude of the British and Russians towards the Ottoman Empire
were diametrically opposed. The British sought to maintain the Empire whereas the Rus-
sians sought its disintegration and argued that it was decadent. See A.J. Marcham, Foreign
Policy: Examining the Evidence in Nineteenth Century England (London: Methuen Educa-
tional, 1973), 107.