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Middle Eastern Studies

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The Indian Red Crescent Mission to the Balkan Wars

Syed Tanvir Wasti Available online: 11 Jun 2009

To cite this article: Syed Tanvir Wasti (2009): The Indian Red Crescent Mission to the Balkan Wars, Middle Eastern Studies, 45:3, 393-406 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263200902853389

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Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 45, No. 3, 393406, May 2009

The Indian Red Crescent Mission to the Balkan Wars

SYED TANVIR WASTI
Muslim dynasties ruled most of northern India for many centuries after Qutbuddin Aibak1 made Delhi the capital of his kingdom in 1206. As the eighteenth century rolled into the nineteenth, Muslim political power in India was in complete eclipse. The death in battle of Tipu Sultan in 1799 at Seringapatam and the capture of Delhi in 1803 by the British were like the writing on the wall heralding, a few decades later, the conquest of the Punjab in 1849 and the annexation of Oudh in 1856. Like the ickering ame that burns brightly before extinction, India made a military attempt to ght the foreigners in 1857. History records this violent conict either as the First War of Independence or the Sepoy Mutiny. However, this uncoordinated and feeble eort was too little, too late. The British, using Indian soldiers to ght other Indian soldiers, crushed it. The last Moghul Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, who had become a symbol of the uprising, was exiled to Rangoon, where he died in 1862. A further result was that Indians, especially Muslims, were made to pay a heavy price. As the erstwhile rulers of India, they were unceremoniously removed from the centres of power. Far away, 20 years after 1857, Disraeli proclaimed Queen Victoria as Empress of India. Indian Muslim reactions to these momentous events, and their subsequent attempts to re-assert themselves politically, have been summed up by Wasti.2 In the article cited in note 2, it is also explained in some detail how historical reasons as well as deep religious and cultural anities led the Indian Muslims to consider that their political destinies were linked with the fate of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire, although it was the largest and virtually the only independent Muslim state, was under onslaught from Europe as well. The French seized Tunisia in 1881, the British occupied Cyprus in 1878 and Egypt in 1882. When the Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs combined to attack Ottoman Turkey in 1912, a year after the Italians had unilaterally attacked the Ottoman territory of Libya in North Africa, Indian Muslims could remain silent no longer. Rather than swords, they used pens, mighty pens such as those of Muhammad Iqbal,3 Maulana Zafar Ali Khan,4 Mohamed Ali5 and Abul Kalam Azad.6 Moreover, the foundation of major universities in India7 had resulted in new generations of articulate and politically aware Muslims appearing on the scene. The graduates of the Muslim University of Aligarh8 were in the forefront of pan-Islamic activity. In particular, the duo of Shaukat Ali9 and Mohamed Ali, known in literary,
ISSN 0026-3206 Print/1743-7881 Online/09/030393-14 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/00263200902853389

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political and social circles as the Ali Brothers, gave ery speeches and combined fund-raising skills with political sagacity. But words were not the only answer. Let us pick up the story in the words of Francis Robinson: Shaukat Ali, observed Theodore Morison10 who knew him well, was lled with josh [fervour] for Islam and rage at its impotence during the Balkan war; he felt he must do something for Islam . . . The Red Crescent Mission was the rst project. Shaukat Ali suggested it in the rst Delhi edition of the Comrade and Dr Ansari later gave it form. Their plan was that a group of Muslim doctors and assistants should go to the Turkish front as a medical mission.11 Dr Ansari had agreed to lead the Mission, but subscriptions from the Muslims of India had to be raised in order to defray its expenses. There were no doubts whatsoever where Dr Ansaris sympathies lay he had written in the issue of the Comrade dated 26 October 1912: It is perfectly obvious that the very existence of the Turkish nation depends upon the issue of this war. Firstly, the medical service in the Turkish army has been very recently organized and as such will be unable to cope with the requirements of such a deadly war. Secondly, Turkeys foes are already receiving, on a very large scale, medical . . . help from all parts of Europe; and the poor Turk is left entirely to his own limited resources.12 Dr Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari13 was properly chosen to lead the Medical Mission. To his skills as a surgeon he added an international outlook, a genial temperament and an ability to organize. During the two-week journey from Bombay to Istanbul, he taught rst-aid and gave some paramedical training to the members of the Medical Mission on the deck of the ship. His participation in the later politics of India has been analyzed by Robb14 based on the book by Mushirul Hasan.15 It is from this book that the initial composition of the Medical Mission is given as follows:16 Five Qualied Doctors: Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari, Ali Azhar Fyzee,17 Mohammad Naim Ansari, Mahmud Ullah and Shamsul Bari. Seven Paramedics/Dressers: Ghulam Ahmad Khan, Nur ul Hasan, Mohammad Chiraghuddin, Syed Tawangar Husain, Hamid Rasul, Abdul Wahid Khan and Husain Raza Beg. Ten Male Nurses and Ambulance Bearers: Abdur Rahman Siddiqi,18 Qazi Bashiruddin Ahmad, Shoaib Qureshi,19 M. Aziz Ansari, Choudhry Khaliquzzaman,20 Abdur Rahman Peshawari, Manzoor Ali, Yusuf Ansari, Ismail Husain Shirazi21 and Tafazzul Husain. Of these nurses and bearers, the rst seven were students or alumni of Aligarh College. As also pointed out by Barni,22 this group was composed of men from all parts of India, from the North West frontier and the Punjab to Bihar and

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Bengal. With minor dierences in spelling, this list23 is given in other sources, e.g. Aziz.24 It must be mentioned that the Indian Medical Mission was by no means the only foreign team helping the Ottoman Turks during the Balkan Wars according to the annual publication of the Ottoman Red Crescent Society25 there were volunteers and teams from several European countries, from Egypt and even from the United States. However, it was the Indian Medical Mission, composed entirely of Muslims from a faraway land, that captured the attention of the Turkish public. Choudhry Khaliquzzaman has devoted several pages in his book of memoirs to the Medical Mission.26 As members of the original delegation, apart from Dr Ansari and himself, Khaliquzzaman refers to Abdur Rahman Siddiqui, Shuaib Qureshi, Aziz Ansari, Manzur Mahmud27 and Abdur Rahman Peshawari.28 Azmi Ozcan has also dealt with the Mission in his exhaustive work on relations between Great Britain and the Indian Muslims.29 He gives the names of the ve doctors, but lists only Abdurrahman Siddiqi, Abdurrahman Peshawari, Choudhry Khaliquzzaman and Shuaib Qureshi as prominent among the male nurses. Ozcan continues as follows: Peshawari remained in Turkey and fought in the Turkish army during World War I. He later became a Turkish citizen and represented the Turkish Republic as an ambassador at Kabul in 192330 . . . Mirza Abdul Qayyum,31 another member of the Mission, also remained in Turkey and died ghting for the Ottoman army during World War I. Ozcan also lists some references from which he has obtained the information in the footnote. These include Khaliquzzaman, and also the book published in Urdu from the material assembled by Muhammad Yusuf Peshawari chronicling the life and death of his elder brother Abdur Rahman Peshawari.32 This book, scripted by Abu Salman Shahjahanpuri from materials residing with Muhammad Yusuf Peshawari is, in fact, an interesting collective eort. More than 50 years elapsed between the death of Abdurrahman Peshawari in 192533 and the publication of the book in 1979 at his own personal expense by Yusuf Peshawari. The dedication by Yusuf Peshawari is to three deceased persons: Peshawaris own father Haji Ghulam Samdani,34 Ghazi Rauf Pasha35 and Maulana Mohamed Ali Jauhar.36 According to the introduction by Yusuf Peshawari, one of his elder brothers, Haji Muhammad Amin, had asked Sir Abdul Qadir37 in Lahore to recommend someone who might be able to write a biography of the late Abdurrahman Peshawari, whose exploits in Turkey went far beyond the demands of the Medical Mission. Sir Abdul Qadir suggested Hafeez Hoshiarpuri,38 then a recent graduate of Government College, Lahore.39 Hoshiarpuri prepared a draft manuscript of some 50 pages and the issue lay dormant for several years, during which Haji Amin died. This matter came to light many years later by complete chance when Hafeez Hoshiarpuri noticed some photographs of Kemal Ataturk, other Turkish military commanders and Abdurrahman Peshawari in Yusuf Peshawaris Karachi oce. On learning of Abdurrahmans relationship with Yusuf Peshawari, Hoshiarpuri passed the manuscript to him and subsequently Abu Salman Shahjahanpuri took over the task of compiling and

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editing the book. As might be expected, it is also a mine of information on the activities of the Indian Medical Mission. Furthermore, the book features a lengthy and valuable prologue by Dr Reyazul Hasan, an enterprising Pakistani diplomat who originally met Rauf Orbay in Delhi in 1933 and renewed contact with him while posted to the Pakistan Embassy in Turkey in 1953. Fortuitously, Reyazul Hasan also met von Hentig40 in Jeddah in 1955 when the latter was an advisor to the Saudi King. The frontispiece of the book is a photograph of Abdurrahman Peshawari in Turkish uniform and has the inscription: Colonel Ghazi Abdurrahman Peshawari with the Turkish Medal of Independence41 pinned on his chest. From all the accounts quoted above, it emerges that the All India Red Crescent Medical Mission (henceforth to be called the Indian Medical Mission or simply the Mission) left in a triumphal procession that began in the United Provinces and proceeded by train to Bombay. A huge crowd of well-wishers saw the train o from Lucknow with poems, prayers and tears; the venerable Shibli Numani42 was there at the station, and Maulana Mohamed Ali himself was to escort the Mission by train to Bombay. A similar reception took place along the trains route to Bombay at Bhopal. The Mission left Bombay in the Italian vessel Sardegna on 15 December 1912.43 En route, at Aden and Suez, people turned up at the dockside to cheer. At Alexandria, the Mission transferred to a Romanian ship, reaching Istanbul two weeks later. Most members of the Mission had contributed nancially towards their own passage and Abdurrahman Peshawari, worried that his parents might veto his departure, had sold his clothes and personal eects to obtain money for the fare in order to be able to depart surreptitiously.44 The Mission was received at the port of Istanbul by Besim Omer Pasha45 and ocials of the Turkish Red Crescent Society with much fanfare. They were housed in the Kadrga46 Hospital in Istanbul for a short period in preparation for being sent to the front. Members of the delegation took turns in sending accounts of the Missions progress (usually in letters) to Mohamed Ali and his editorial sta in Delhi, as also to friends and relatives. These accounts were then published regularly rst in the Comrade; subsequently they were translated into Urdu for publication in the companion journal Hamdard, and have also formed the basis for further work related to the Mission, its purpose and achievements. Not surprisingly, the Mission took as much time as was possible to see the historical sights and monuments that Istanbul has to oer. They visited the mosque and cemetery of Abu Ayyub Ansari on the Golden Horn,47 the mosque of the conqueror of Istanbul, the sultan Mehmed Fatih, and were able to oer Friday prayers in the same mosque as Sultan Mehmed Res ad.48 According to Khaliquzzaman, the Aligarh members of the Mission even presented themselves at Enver Pashas house in Pera49 to greet him. The Mission was also invited to a _ luxurious repast by Ahmed Izzet Pasha,50 then Army Commander at the front. The Pasha made an emotional speech welcoming the Mission members and calling them my children. On 14 January 1913 Dr Ansari went to Omerli with his Turkish hosts to decide upon the location of the rst eld hospital close to the battle front in Catalca. Along with army doctors, the delegation also included Talat Bey (later Pasha and Grand

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Vizier). On 16 January 1913 Besim Omer Pasha gave a sumptuous reception in honour of the Indian Medical Mission, in which he oered thanks to all members for strengthening ties with Turkey and hoped that this display of aection would continue also in peacetime. Dr Ansari asked Talat Bey if the Mission members could be introduced to Enver Pasha sometime. Talat Bey said that as Enver Pasha was at the Catalca front, not too far away, he felt sure that he would accede to the request. The next day, in the afternoon, Enver Pasha came to the Kadrga Hospital quite informally and mingled with both members of the Mission and the soldiers they were treating. He was young, handsome and charismatic, and greeted the Mission members with great warmth. He went up to the wounded soldiers in the hospital, slapped some gently on the back and said to them all: Stop worrying, lift up your hearts, your brothers are here to care for you, having travelled a great distance just to share your troubles and to be of help. Forget your pain, get t soon, and show the world once again the courage and bravery of the Turk. The members of the Mission took the opportunity to have a photograph taken with Enver Pasha.51 A couple of days later, the Mission shifted from the Kadrga Hospital to the eld hospital at Omerli near the battlefront. Less than a week later, Enver Pasha and some of his followers were involved in the storming of the Sublime Porte that resulted in the fall of the government of the veteran leader Kamil Pasha.52 Letters from the members of the Mission written to friends and relatives are quick to dispel the impression that they were promenading in clement weather on the banks of the Bosphorus and point out instead the cold, damp and mud of the tent hospital in Omerli and the diculty of tending the sick and wounded. All such communications are full of references to the kindnesses shown to the Mission by Turkish ocers and their men, some of whom were mildly baed that the Indian Muslims should display such sympathy for the Turks. The Indian Medical Mission had arrived in Turkey during a lull in the ghting as a ceasere had been proclaimed in December 1912.53 However, the surrender of the great fortress of Edirne on 26 March 1913 after a siege of many weeks created immense sorrow at the national level in Turkey. Abdurrahman Peshawari lost no time in writing to one of his sisters: Oh dear one! Adrianople [Edirne] has slipped out of our hands! God grant us ` safety. It is impossible to describe what we all feel after this cursed event, but who can combat fate? The name of Shukri Pasha will live on in history for the valiant manner in which he held back the enemy . . .54 While the Omerli Hospital continued to function, two Indian Muslims who were recent medical graduates from London, Dr Abdur Rahman Bihari and Dr Raza Haider, arrived at Omerli to join the Mission. Aale Imran and Hasan Abid Jafri55 also arrived from England as volunteers, and Mirza Abdul Qayyum from India. A medical man from Egypt, Dr Fouad, also joined the Mission. The Turkish Red Crescent and Enver Bey therefore requested Dr Ansari to send about half the members of the Mission to sta a second eld hospital at Canakkale on the Asian shores of the Dardanelles, opposite Gallipoli. A couple of members stayed on in Istanbul under the supervision of Abdur Rahman Siddiqi to purchase and despatch supplies for the two eld hospitals and for liaison purposes.

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Khaliquzzaman was one of those who departed for the Dardanelles. He continues as follows in his memoirs: The same ship took us to our destination and we went to the Turkish hosital at Chanak56 as their guest till such time as we had established our own hospital. The doctor in charge of the Chanak hospital, Dr Rushdi, became very friendly to us and to me personally. I hardly imagined then that later on he would be Dr Rushdi Aras,57 Foreign Minister of Ghazi Mustafa Kamal Pasha.58 With the cessation of active warfare, the eld hospital in Canakkale was closed down and the Mission members from there returned to Istanbul at the end of April 1913.59 In a letter to one of his brothers on 3 June 1913 from the eld hospital near the Catalca front, Abdurrahman Peshawari writes: The fame of the Indian Hospital has spread far and wide because of its medical facilities and the compassionate care it provides. Virtually all of Turkey is heard to repeat: Efendim, Hind Hastanesi cok iyi.60 The second eld hospital also wound up its duties in the summer of 1913 and most Mission members returned to Istanbul. This allowed them to renew their social contacts with the cream of Istanbul society. Khaliquzzaman especially refers to frequent meetings with Halide Edib, the famous Turkish woman writer.61 The friendships and goodwill established at the time were of lasting value because in her book Inside India,62 written over 20 years after the Indian Medical Mission left Turkey, Halide Edib devotes several pages to Dr Ansari, Abdur Rahman Siddiqi and Khaliquzzaman63 whom she met again during her travels in India. She also visited the home64 of the late Abdurrahman Peshawari and met members of his family. Khaliquzzaman mentions that apart from himself, Shuaib, Aziz and Dr Ghulam Mohammad did not return with the Mission when it departed from Turkey in the second half of June 1913 but stayed on for another three months travelling around the country.65 Prior to the ocial departure of the Mission for India, the members were granted an audience with the Sultan-Caliph Mehmed Res ad. The Sultan received the Mission in the Dolmabahce palace, made a short speech praising the Islamic spirit in which the Mission had performed its services and shook each person by the hand. As it happened, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan was visiting Istanbul at the time and was also present at this leave-taking. He extemporaneously composed a panegyric for the Sultan in Persian which was recited with deep emotion by Manzoor Mahmud, eliciting much praise from the Sultan himself. Dr Ansari and most of the Mission members returned to an enthusiastic welcome on their arrival at Bombay on 4 July 1913.66 Newspapers in India (such as the Al-Hilal of Abul Kalam Azad) were full of praise for the work of the Mission. According to a report67 in the Comrade, Rauf Orbay Pasha was on a naval assignment but was able to greet Dr Ansari and his delegation in Suez on 25 June 1913.68 As had been mentioned above, Abdurrahman Peshawari stayed on in Turkey after the nal departure of his Mission colleagues in order to pursue a career in the Turkish Army. Initially, Manzoor Mahmud also remained in Turkey in order to join the Turkish Navy, but after some weeks he fell seriously ill and gave up the idea. He too returned to India.

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Abdurrahman Peshawari wrote an emotional letter to one of his sisters when _ Turkish forces retook Edirne on 22 July 1913: Dear one! With Izzet Pasha putting a large part of his forces at the disposal of Enver Pasha, Adrianople [Edirne] was saved. The rest of the heroic Ottoman soldiers marched over 50 miles in a single day to recapture Krkkilise.69 Abdurrahman Peshawari was inducted into the Turkish Armed Forces70 and taken under the wing by Rauf Orbay. Abdurrahman fought on several fronts and earned the respect of his Turkish fellow ocers for his bravery. In his political memoirs, referring to Enver Pashas directive in 1915 for a Turkish mission to proceed to Afghanistan, Rauf Orbay mentions Abdurrahman Peshawari thus: In my military delegation there were Hasan Atakan [who became full General later] and Osman Tufan Pasha and, seconded by Enver Pasha because of his knowledge of the language and that he would be useful to us, was the Afghan Abdurrahman Nihat.71 The last named had come to Istanbul from Afghanistan several years back with a Medical Mission and stayed with us.72 Peshawari was also a member of a delegation sent by the Turks to Germany in 1916.73 Separate accounts, e.g. Reyazul Hasan and Aybek,74 indicate that Abdurrahman was like a younger brother or colleague of Rauf Orbay.75 In 1919, when Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later Ataturk) left Istanbul76 for Samsun to organize the Turkish national resistance in Anatolia, one of the rst persons to join him in Amasya (in June 1919) was Rauf Orbay, along with the following companions: _ Ibrahim Sureyya, Captain Osman Nuri, Reserve Ocer Recep Zuhtu and the Afghan ocer Abdurrahman.77 Rauf Orbays memoirs refer to the Indian reserve ocer Abdurrahman who had come to Turkey to participate voluntarily in the Balkan wars.78 Later, a high point in Peshawaris life was when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk sent him to Afghanistan as a diplomatic envoy in March 1921. In the chaotic circumstances of the time, it took Abdurrahman four months of overland travel to reach Kabul as he had to avoid possible apprehension by the British. During his stay of over a year in Kabul, Abdurrahmans family was able to travel from Peshawar to visit him. In 1922, Abdurrahman was recalled to Turkey and replaced as ambassador by Fahreddin Pasha.79 However, after a life of thrilling adventures,80 he came to a sad and untimely end in 1925. Halide Edib writes in her book Inside India about her visit to Aligarh in 1936: Abdur Rahman Qureshi was among the young members of the Red Crescent Mission of the Balkan War. He remained in Turkey after 1912, and entered the Turkish Army. He fought at dierent fronts in the Great War. In 1920 he joined the Nationalist struggle at Ankara and worked with the writer at headquarters.81 In 1923 he represented Turkey at Kabul. In 1927 he was murdered in Istanbul by an unknown person or persons. Neither the motive for this ugly crime nor the criminals have been brought to light. He himself was a brave and able ocer, and a lovable person. Many of the participants in the Indian Red Crescent Medical Mission achieved fame at various levels, whether in India, Pakistan, Turkey or elsewhere. More work needs

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to be done to trace the lives and careers of several others, such as Mirza Abdul Qayyum. Not surprisingly there has been of late a revival of interest in the activities of the Medical Mission from the Turkish point of view. Ozaydnls article82 pays generous tribute to the services rendered by the Mission at a time when, in addition to the travails of war, the outbreak of a serious cholera epidemic also resulted in the loss of many lives. The value of the article is enhanced by the inclusion of several rare photographs of and from the eld hospitals. Ozaydnl points out that around the time of the arrival of the Mission headed by Dr Ansari, two other volunteer Indian Muslim volunteer groups came to Turkey and were amalgamated into the medical relief eort.83 _ Izgoers interest in OttomanIndian Muslim relations during the early part of the twentieth century is well known, as he has rendered Mushir Hosain Kidwais books into Turkish.84 In a short article,85 he has touched upon the background to the arrival in Turkey of the Indian Medical Mission. In particular, he has mentioned that Dr Ansari was also the background organizer for a medical mission to Tripoli in 1912 that left England under the leadership of Syed Ameer Ali86 after the Italians _ invaded the Turkish province (now known as Libya). A part of Izgoers article is made up of a report of an emotional speech made by Dr Ansari on his return to India,87 which was sent to Turkey by the well-known journalist S.M .Tevk.88 Within the sub-division of the province of Istanbul called Catalca lies the village of Omerli, a distance of 20 miles to the European heart of the Ottoman capital. Although now part of a great megalopolis, it was a small but strategic location because the main railway line connecting Istanbul with the former capital and frontier city of Edirne (Adrianople) passes right through it. Computer websites pertaining to Omerli refer to three plaque-like stone tablets to be found respectively by the village mosque, the village fountain and near the source of the Cortlen waters.89 All the plaques have the same inscription: A fraternal souvenir from the All India Red Crescent Medical Mission which came from India during the Balkan Wars to help our Ottoman brothers 1913.90 Notes
1. Aibak is written as Aybek in Turkish. 2. S.T. Wasti, The Political Aspirations of Indian Muslims and the Ottoman Nexus, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.42, No.5 (Sept. 2006), pp.70922. 3. Muhammad Iqbal (18771938), wrote poetry of the highest quality in Urdu and Persian. His philosophical writings include The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Lahore: Kapur Art Printing Works, 1930), which has been translated into many languages. He is credited with putting forward a concrete proposal for the establishment of an independent Muslim state in India. 4. The son of Maulvi Sirajuddin Ahmad, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan (18731956) was a poet, writer, journalist and political activist. His newspaper called Zamindar (literally land-owner) was issued from Lahore and had a decidedly pan-Islamic tone without being anti-British. Maulana Zafar Ali Khan was one of the many seconders of the Lahore Resolution of 23 March 1940 which was passed at a meeting of the Muslim League presided over by Mohamed Ali Jinnah. This resolution incorporated the Muslim demand for a separate state. 5. Mohamed Ali (18781931) edited the Comrade in English rst from Calcutta and then from Delhi, as well as the Hamdard in Urdu. Further information on Maulana Mohamed Ali (and his elder brother

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6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11. 12. 13.

14.

15. 16. 17. 18.

Shaukat Ali) may be found in S.T. Wasti, The Circles of Maulana Mohamed Ali, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.38, No.4 (Oct. 2002), pp.5162. Abul Kalam Azad (18881958) was a poet, scholar and politician who rose to become Minister of Education in India after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947. Earlier, he was the editor of the inuential paper Al-Hilal issued from Calcutta. He was a friend of Nehru and Gandhi and was a prominent member of the Khilafat Movement. However, he was opposed to the political aspirations of the Indian Muslims for a separate state. The universities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras were founded in 1857, Aligarh Muslim University was established as an educational institution in 1875, The University of the Punjab was founded in Lahore in 1882 and Allahabad University in 1887. After a visit to Britain in 186970, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (181798), started a residential educational institution in 1875 patterned on Oxford and Cambridge. This institution developed into the Mohammedan Anglo Oriental College and, in 1920, into the Aligarh Muslim University. Maulana Shaukat Ali (18731938) was the elder brother of Maulana Mohamed Ali and nanced his education at Oxford. He studied at Aligarh and became Captain of the University cricket team. Later, he worked as a civil servant. He took an active part in the Khilafat Movement and suered imprisonment along with Mohamed Ali. Sir Theodore Morison (18631936), joined the sta of Aligarh College in 1889, serving as Principal of the College between 1899 and 1905. He was Member of the Secretary of States Council of India between 1906 and 1916. F. Robinson, Separatism Among Indian Muslims (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993), p.207. Quoted in M. Hasan, A Nationalist Conscience M.A. Ansari, the Congress and the Raj (New Delhi: Manohar, 1987), pp.423. Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari (18801936) was a prominent political gure in India before his relatively early death, becoming President of the Indian National Congress in 1927. Born in the United Provinces, he studied medicine at Madras and in Edinburgh, becoming House Surgeon at the Charing Cross Hospital, London where, according to several sources, e.g. Wikipedia, there is an Ansari Ward named after him. In an essay on Ansari in his book Azmat-e Rafta [The Departed Glory] (Karachi: Idara-e Ilm-o Funn, undated), Ziauddin Barni (see note 22), mentions that the appointment of Dr Ansari to the position in the Charing Cross Hospital caused a minor furore at the time, with a London evening paper publishing an item entitled: Grave Injustice to British Doctors. The Governing Council of the Hospital issued a reply stating that the appointment of Dr Ansari had been made entirely on the basis of his qualications and abilities, and it would be tragic for British hospitals if any criteria other than ability were invoked in making such appointments. Dr Mukhtar Ansari was the younger brother of the famous Hakim Abdul Wahab Ansari of Delhi (known by his sobriquet of Na-beena because he was blind), who was a practitioner of Asian alternative medicine. He was a close friend of the Ali Brothers and also of Gandhi and Nehru. Dr Ansari and the members of his household are sympathetically described by the Turkish novelist and author Halide Edib in the rst chapter of the book Inside India (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1937) which is dedicated in his memory. P.G. Robb, Muslim Identity and Separatism in India: The Signicance of M.A. Ansari, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol.54, No.1 (1991), pp.10425. This is a thoughtful and well-written essay, which correctly suggests that HinduMuslim political cooperation against the British really took ight only during the Khilafat Movement (191922) and around 1935. M.A. Ansari had excellent relations both with members of the Congress Party and the Muslim League. Most of Ansaris later family members have continued to live in India. Had he lived beyond 1936 it is possible to speculate that he might well have lost hope and changed tack to pursue the path of Pakistan like many of his Muslim colleagues. Hasan, A Nationalist Conscience. Ibid., pp.434. According to Barni, q.v., Dr Fyzee moved to Britain in 1920 to practise medicine and died there in 1962 at the age of 81. Abdur Rahman Siddiqi (18871953), student leader at Aligarh, later took a degree at Oxford and was called to the Bar. He had a long journalistic career as Editor of the Morning News, Calcutta. He became Mayor of Calcutta and subsequently rose to become Governor of East Pakistan. The name

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Abdur Rahman is sometimes (as in Turkish) written in the form of one word, but Abdur Rahman Siddiqi along with a large number of people with the same name preferred to divide it into two words. 19. Shoaib Qureshi (18921962), studied at Aligarh, later took a degree at Oxford and was called to the Bar. He served as a Minister in the State of Bhopal, and in ambassadorial and ministerial posts in Pakistan. His rst name is also quoted sometimes as Shuaib. 20. Choudhry Khaliquzzaman (18891973) was educated at Aligarh, and was a lifelong supporter of the Muslim League. He served as Governor of East Pakistan and in ambassadorial assignments. 21. Syed Ismail Husain Shirazi (18801931) came from Sirajganj, Pabna District, in East Bengal. He was a prolic writer of novels and poetry in Bengali and a political activist. In Sua Ahmeds article entitled Tribute to Kamal Ataturk published in The Daily Star of Dacca (Vol.5, No.169, 10 November 2004) on the 66th anniversary of the death of Ataturk, the following information on Shirazi is of interest: In this connection the name of the talented poet Syed Abu Muhammad Ismail Hossain Shirazi of Pabna deserves special mention. The Muslims of Bengal owe a great deal for their intellectual and political renaissance to this ery speaker, ghter, and writer in the realm of poetry and prose. Shirazi had the unique opportunity to be included as a member of the All-Indian Medical Mission which was sent in 1912 by the Indian Muslims to Turkey during the Balkan Wars, to aid the Turkish soldiers with moral and material support. On his return Shirazi wrote about his experiences in a book entitled Turoshka Bharaman (travels in Turkey) in Bengali published in 1913. In this book Shirazi depicts the tragic condition of the Ottoman army ghting the Balkan wars, and the shabby treatment meted out to Turkey by the Western powers. He was a great supporter of the Turkish war of Independence organized and led by Mustafa Kemal. 22. Z. Barni, Hayat-e Maulana Mohamed Ali Jauhar [Life of Maulana Mohamed Ali Jauhar] (Karachi: Urdu Academy Sind, 2001), pp.99100. Barni gives the place of domicile for each of the members of the delegation. 23. In his prologue to the book by Shahjahanpuri (Ghazi Abdurrahman Peshawari Shaheed), Dr Reyazul Hasan gives the initial number of members of the delegation as 24. However, he mentions that the numbers rose to 27 or 28. He mentions that the Mission used the services of one Ghulam Jilani as interpreter. He also writes that both Hamid Rasul and Qazi Bashiruddin had experience of working as compounders. No comprehensive ocial list of all names is available. 24. K.K. Aziz, An Historical Handbook of Muslim India 17001947, Vol.2 (Lahore: Vanguard Books Pvt., 1995), pp.3356. 25. The salname [yearbook] of the Osmanl Hilal-i Ahmer Cemiyeti [Ottoman Red Crescent Society]. 26. C. Khaliquzzaman, Pathway to Pakistan (Lahore: Longmans Pakistan Branch, 1961), Chapter IV, entitled Balkan War and Medical Mission 19121913. 27. On a point of minor interest, Manzur Mahmud [also spelt Manzoor Mahmood and given in some lists as Manzur Ali] was the father of the well-known Indian ghazal singer Talat Mahmood. 28. Minor dierences in the spelling of the names occur in virtually every reference. 29. A. Ozcan, Pan-Islamism, Great Britain and the Indian Muslims (18771927) (Leiden: Brill, 2001), note 19, pp.15051. 30. A.S. Shahjahanpuri, Ghazi Abdurrahman Peshawari Shaheed [in Urdu] (Karachi: North Western Hotel, 1979). 31. It will be observed that apart from Ozcan, only Khaliquzzaman gives this name as that of one of the members of the Medical Mission. 32. A.S. Shahjahanpuri, Ghazi Abdurrahman Peshawari Shaheed [in Urdu] (Karachi: North Western Hotel, 1979). 33. 1925 is the year given by Zafer Hasan Aybek, who visited Abdurrahman Peshawari even on the day of his death in hospital. However, Halide Edib gives 1927 and Dr Reyazul Hasan gives 1926. Khaliquzzamans memoirs (Pathway to Pakistan) contain the following: Abdur Rahman Peshawari did not return to India at all. He joined the Military Academy, became an army ocer and fought for the Turks in the battleelds of the rst World War. Thereafter he used to live with Rauf Bey in the same house, but one night in 1923 he was found dead, having been shot by someone near his house; someone who wanted to play foul with the life of Rauf Bey mistaking Rahman for him is suspected to have killed him, pp. 245.

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34.

35.

36. 37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43. 44.

45.

While this is certainly a plausible explanation for the attack on Abdurrahman Peshawari, the year given by Khaliquzzaman is incorrect, and indicates the dangers of writing about events long after they occur. More detailed information on Abdurrahman Peshawaris stay in Afghanistan and his activities after his return to Turkey in 1922 including his last days are given in Z.H. Aybek, Khatiraat: Aap Beeti [Memoirs: Stories of Events that Befell], ed. Dr G. H. Zulqar (Lahore: Sang-e Meel Publications, 1990). For Aybek, refer to Wasti, The Political Aspirations of Indian Muslims and the Ottoman Nexus. Haji Ghulam Samdani (died 1926) came from a family of Kashmiri origin and was a very successful businessman in Peshawar. He spent a lot of his wealth for the welfare of his community. Haji Samdani was married several times and had a large family. Huseyin Rauf Orbay (18811964) was a naval hero as a result of his daring exploits with the cruiser Hamidiye in the Balkan Wars. In 1915, as one of the core members of the Teskilat Mahsusa (the Turkish Intelligence Special Force) he led a Turkish expedition (coordinated with a similar German military and diplomatic venture known as the von HentigNiedermayer expedition) the objective of which was to persuade Afghanistan to take up an active anti-British stance. In the event, Rauf Orbay and his men (who included Abdurrahman Peshawari) could get no further than Kirmanshah, but the German expedition eventually reached Kabul where it established contact with local Turkish ocials as well as with Raja Mahendra Pratap and Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi. See Wasti, The Political Aspirations of Indian Muslims and the Ottoman Nexus. After the establishment of the Republic, Rauf Orbay served as the rst Prime Minister in 1922. He helped found the Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Frkas (Progressive Republican Party) in 1924. When this party was closed down in 1925, he went into political exile for ten years. During this time he accepted an invitation from Dr M.A. Ansari to visit India and lecture at Jamia Millia Islamia Delhi in 1933. Later, Rauf Orbay was cleared of all accusations and became a member of the Turkish parliament. He was Turkish Ambassador to the United Kingdom between 1942 and 1944. See note 5. Sir Sheikh Abdul Qadir (18741950) was a writer of prose and poetry and the editor of the Urdu literary magazine Makhzan (storehouse of valuable goods). He visited Turkey with Mushir Hosain Kidwai in 1906. He became a High Court judge in 1921 and Minister for Education in the Punjab Government in 1925. He was made a Member of the Secretary of States Advisory Council of India in 1934. Hafeez Hoshiarpuri (191273) was a poet, prose writer, journalist and broadcaster. His real name was Abdul Hafeez Saleem. He served in several civil administrative positions in Pakistan, and retired as Deputy Director-General, Radio Pakistan. A celebrated academic institution in Lahore, Pakistan which is now a University. Over the years, it has produced large numbers of graduates from the Punjab and beyond, including major poets, writers, journalists, diplomats and politicians. Werner Otto von Hentig (18861984) joined the German diplomatic service in 1909 and served in Beijing. He was later posted to Constantinopole and Tehran. In 1915, along with Oskar Niedermayer, he led the German mission to Kabul via Iran. The objective of this mission was to enlist the Afghan Amirs support for the Central Powers and to create political unrest in British India. See also note 35. _ This highly coveted medal (called the Istiklal Madalyas in Turkish) was awarded only in the early years of the Republic to those who had taken an active part in the Turkish War of Independence. The right to wear the medal is hereditary. Shibli Numani (18571914), scholar of Urdu, Persian and Arabic, poet and biographer. Further information on Shibli and his trip to Istanbul may be found in S.T. Wasti, Two Muslim Travelogues: To and from Istanbul, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.27, No.3 (July 1991), pp.45776. Khaliquzzaman, Pathway to Pakistan, incorrectly gives 6 November as the departure date. Peshawari mentions this in a letter to one of his sister posted from Bombay two days before the departure of the ship carrying the Medical Mission. See Shahjahanpuri, Ghazi Abdurrahman Peshawari Shaheed, pp.1224. Besim Omer Pasha (18621940) took the surname Akaln in 1934 after the Surname Law was passed in Turkey. He was born in Istanbul and graduated from the Military School of Medicine in 1885. He specialized in Obstetrics in France and later joined Istanbul University. The Ottoman Red Crescent Society, founded in 1877, where he lectured, and which he supported and represented, was only nally allowed to use its red crescent logo ocially in 1897 due to the eorts of Besim Omer Pasha at the

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46. 47.

48.

49. 50.

51.

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52.

53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

58. 59.

VIII International Conference of the Red Cross in London. He authored dozens of books, and was Rector of Istanbul University between 1919 and 1923. Kadrga means nautical galley in Turkish and is the name of a district in the historical European part of Istanbul. Eyup is the Turkish name for the district with the mosque and cemetery surrounding the tomb of Abu Ayyub b. Zayd al-Ansari, a Companion of the Prophet, who died while on a military mission to Constantinople during the rule of the Caliph Muawiya in the late 7th century. Eyup covers a very large area and ranks rst among the very many graveyards of historical interest in Istanbul. Sultan Mehmed Res ad, otherwise Mehmed V (18441918), Ottoman Turkeys penultimate sovereign during whose reign political power lay with the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). Refer to S.T. Wasti, The Last Chroniclers of the Mabeyn, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.32, No.2 (April 1996), pp.129. Pera is now called Beyolu. g _ Ahmed Izzet Pasha (18641937), was a distinguished Ottoman Army Commander and later Sadrazam (Grand Vizier). He took the surname Furgac in 1934. His memoirs, in two volumes, are entitled: Feryadm [My Lament]. A photograph of Enver Pasha alone and another with the Mission members appear between pages 134 and 135 in Shahjahanpuri, Ghazi Abdurrahman Peshawari Shaheed. Some Mission members were in the area at the time of the raid on the Sublime Porte as they used to rendezvous in the house of the old political activist Abdulaziz Cavus (18761929). They heard the populace shouting: Long Live Enver Bey! See S.T. Wasti, The 191213 Balkan Wars and the Siege of Edirne, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.40, No.4 (July 2004), pp.5978. Letters of Abdurrahman Peshawari to his siblings were generally written in Persian. They are quoted in Urdu translation in Shahjahanpuri, Ghazi Abdurrahman Peshawari Shaheed. According to Dr Reyazul Hasan, Jafri interrupted his studies at Oxford University to join the Mission to give rst aid as a male nurse. Khaliquzzaman transliterates Turkish names into English inaccurately. Tevk Rus tu Aras (18831972) qualied as a doctor at the French Medical Faculty in Beirut. He was elected to the rst Parliament of the Republic from Izmir and served as Foreign Minister of the Republic of Turkey between 1923 and 1939. Reyazul Hasan also met him in 1954 when stationed in Ankara. Khaliquzzaman, Pathway to Pakistan, p. 23. Khaliquzzaman is quoted as follows in Shahjahanpuri, p.153: We must have attended to four or ve hundred wounded patients at the Canakkale eld hospital. All were restored to proper health except only for a severely wounded Arab soldier who died before an operation could be carried out to amputate his gangrenous foot. They plied him with medicines and also gave him brandy to keep up his strength but before daybreak he recited the Kalima [the attestation of the Islamic faith] and died. I gave my Turkish orderly Jalal some money to purchase a winding sheet and arrange for his burial. Jalal said: Khaliq Bey, this man is a shaheed [martyr] and therefore should be buried in his blood-stained uniform.

60. The Turkish expression means: Sir, the Indian Hospital is very good indeed. 61. Halide Edib (18841964), was a Turkish novelist, professor and political worker. She was equally uent in English and Turkish and had a working knowledge of several other languages. She was rst married to the mathematician Salih Zeki and later to Dr Adnan Advar. She visited India in 1936 to give lectures at the Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi at the invitation of Dr Mukhtar Ansari, who was the Chancellor of this University. She mentions that in the hall where she delivered the lectures, there was a framed photograph of Abdurrahman Peshawari. 62. Edib, Inside India. 63. She calls Khaliquzzaman by his Turkied name Haliq Zaman and presciently describes him as a man with a political future. 64. She describes the house located in Peshawar with the plan of which, she says, she was quite familiar because Abdurrahman use to refer to it with nostalgia. In her book (Inside India), Halide Edib attaches the surname Qureshi to Abdurrahmans name for reasons not entirely clear.

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65. A letter from Abdur Rahman Siddiqi indicates that this group went to visit Edirne shortly after its relief and recapture by Turkish forces on 22 July 1913. 66. Shibli Numani was at the quayside in Bombay to greet Dr Ansari and the Mission with a long poem in Urdu in praise of their humanitarian work. 67. Sent to the Comrade by Qazi Bashiruddin. 68. Khaliquzzaman and his comrades, who returned to India a few months later, also met up with Rauf Pasha and his destroyer Hamidiye in Alexandria. See Khaliquzzaman, Pathway to Pakistan, p.25. 69. Krkkilise is now called Krklareli. 70. He began his regular military training in Istanbul and later in Beirut. When the First World War broke out in 1914, he was commissioned as a lieutenant and sent to the Gallipoli front, where he fought in several engagements and (according to Shahjahanpuri) was said by Rauf Pasha to have been wounded three times. 71. There is a minor confusion in the sense that the second name Nihat is used for Abdurrahman by Rauf Orbay, whereas Halide Edib gives Qureshi and other accounts give Peshawari (i.e., from Peshawar). Surnames as such were not in vogue at the time, but it is clear that the references are to the same person. Furthermore, Aybek mentions that Abdurrahman Peshawaris dislike of British rule in India was so great that he preferred to identify with the Afghans, whose languages (Persian and Pashto) he spoke and who were at least independent as a state. 72. Rauf Orbay, Siyas Hatralar [Political Memoirs] (Istanbul: Orgun Yaynevi, 2003), pp.412. 73. The travails of war meant that Abdurrahman like most Turks in their beleaguered country had virtually forgotten what real milk tasted like. In Germany in 1916, he was delighted to nd large supplies of milk bottles, but on guzzling them down he was shattered to discover that their contents were only water that had been articially given the colour of milk. My disappointment was unimaginable is the quote attributed to him in Shahjahanpuri, p.179. It also mentions a trip to Baghdad by Abdurrahman during the War but no substantiating details are given. 74. For Aybek, see note 33. 75. Thus, in his Introduction to Shahjahanpuris book (Ghazi Abdurrahman Peshawari Shaheed), Reyazul Hasan mentions that when Rauf Orbay visited Aligarh on his trip to India in 1933, he unveiled a plaque in Abdurrahmans memory in the room on campus where the latter had stayed while a student. He also met a younger brother of Abdurrahman at Aligarh with much emotion, and later travelled to Peshawar to visit Abdurrahmans family at their ancestral home. 76. On 19 May 1919. _ 77. See explanation to List of those who accompanied Mustafa Kemal Pasha to Samsun in I. Gorgulu, On Yllk Harbin Kadrosu 19121922 [The Cadres of the Ten Year War 19121922] (Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu Yaynlar, 1993), p.201. 78. Orbay, Siyas Hatralar, pp.2989. 79. Omer Fahreddin Pasha (18681948) is famous as the Defender of Medina at the end of the First World War. He took the surname Turkkan in 1934. See S.T. Wasti, The Defence of Medina, 1916 19, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.27, No.4 (Oct. 1991), pp.64253. 80. As an example, Reyazul Hasan writes (having heard it from Maulana Mohamed Ali at a public gathering) that Abdurrahman Peshawari as one of the ocers of the Turkish general Halil Pasha (who was also an uncle of Enver Pasha) also took part in the famous Kut al Amara battles in 191516. In one engagement, it would appear that Abdurrahman seriously risked harm and capture by a company of Indian soldiers, whereupon he discarded his Turkish uniform and in vest and underwear convinced the soldiers in Punjabi that he was not an enemy combatant, and so made good his escape back to the Turkish lines. 81. Websites related to the establishment of the Turkish news agency called Anadolu Ajans [Anatolian Agency] in April 1920 in Ankara mention Halide Edib describing early days as follows: The news was typed on a borrowed typewriter with one nger by Abdurrahman the Afghan. 82. Z. Ozaydnl, The Indian Muslims Red Crescent Societys Aid to the Ottoman State during the Balkan War in 1912, Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine [JISHIM], Vol.2, No.8 (Oct. 2003), pp.1218. 83. Although the volunteers came in three separate groups, this does not indicate that they were uncoordinated. Ozaydnl mentions that the rst group came from the United Kingdom, and comprised generally well-to-do Oxford students (the names given may be transliterated as Abdul Haq,

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84.

85.

86. 87. 88.

89. 90.

Aale Imran, Mohammad Hussain and Hasan Abid Jafri). She suggests that a Dr Selim from Egypt was with this group. The second group was under the direction of Dr Fyzee, and the names given for this group may be rendered as follows: Dr Mohammad Hussain, Dr Nimkar, Dr Mulkehn, Dr Nizar Ahmed, Dr Salim, a pharmacist Roshan, with Abdul Wajid, Sharif Mashhadi, Hakeem Sirajuddin and Abdul Latif in various other capacities (nurses, assistants, secretary, cashier, etc.). The names given for Dr Ansaris team, i.e. the third and main group, are as follows: Dr M.A. Ansari, Dr Ali Azhar Fyzee, Dr Mohammad Naim Ansari, Dr Abdurrahman, Dr Shamsul Bari, Dr Mahmudullah, Dr Mirza Raza Khan and in other capacities, Ghulam Ahmad Khan, Nurul Shams, Abdul Wahid Khan, Hamid Rasul and Syed Tawangar Hussain. Ozaydnl quotes these names from the Red Crescent publications of the time and from other references. As will be observed, there is a certain overall confusion with respect to some names. In particular, Dr Nimkar and Dr Mulkehn appear to be Turkish mispronunciations of some unfamiliar Indian surnames. _ These include A.Z. Izgoer, Paris Sulh Konferans ve Osmanlnn C kusu Seyh Musir Hu o : seyin Kidwai [The Paris Peace Conference and the Collapse of the Ottoman Empire: Mushir Hosain Kidwai] _ (Istanbul: Nehir Yaynlar, 1991), and A.Z. Izgoer, Osmanlnn son dostlar (Hint alt ktasnda Turk imaj) Mu ir Hu s seyin Kdwai [The Last Friends of the Ottomans (The Turkish Image in the Indian Subcontinent) Mushir Hosain Kidwai] (Istanbul: Nehir Yaynlar, 2004). For more information on Kidwai, see S.T. Wasti, Mushir Hosain Kidwai and the Ottoman Cause, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.30, No.2 (April 1994), pp.25261. _ A.Z. Izgoer, Osmanlnn Ykls Oncesinde Hind Hilal-i Ahmer Yardmlar ve Dr. Ensar nin _ Faaliyetleriyle Ilgili Baz Notlar [Some Notes concerning the Aid provided by the Indian Red Crescent before the Collapse of the Ottomans and the Activities of Dr Ansari], Yeni Tp Tarihi Arastrmalar [New Researches in Medical History] (Istanbul, 2002), Vol.VIII, pp.1731. Syed Ameer Ali (18491928), lawyer, author and Privy Councillor, who established the rst mosque in London in 1910 and was also a supporter of the Khilafat Movement. The speech was made in Bombay in the presence of the Turkish Consul-General Halil Halid. S.M. Tevk was a prolic Turkish journalist who wrote on many Islamic subjects. His dates of birth and death have not been traced. He was well-known by educated Indian Muslims and served as the special Indian correspondent for the journal Seblu ad (The Straight Path). See Wasti, The Political rres Aspirations of Indian Muslims and the Ottoman Nexus, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.42, No.5 (Sept. 2006), pp.70922. The waters when consumed are claimed locally to ease the passage of kidney stones. The Turkish text of the inscriptions is as follows: Balkan muharebesinde Osmanl kardes lerine yardm etmek icin Hindistandan gelen Umum Hindistan Hilal-i Ahmer Heyet-i Tbbiyesinin uhuvvet yadigar 1913.

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