有趣的歷史。介紹鄂圖曼帝國的蘇丹，派遣特使到中國，試圖與中國穆斯林建立友好關係。之後在北京建立伊斯蘭大學。這可以從當時清國與鄂圖曼帝國同時在西方半殖民與殖民的背景理解。
20 January 2010 /MESUT
ÇEVIKALP/OSMAN EROL
An
Austrian steamship which left İstanbul silently on April 28, 1901, stopping
briefly in both İzmir and Alexandria, and then passed through the Red Sea and
headed towards the Far East, wound up spurring all of the various Western
agents and envoys in the region into action.
Before
the steamship had even reached China, the Western envoys in Beijing were all
sending encrypted messages back to their capitals: “The
‘tricky Sultan’ in İstanbul has started up new maneuvers to try and pull the
Muslims in China onto his side. A nine-person delegation is arriving in China.”
When, after
a long and difficult journey, the Ottoman delegation
reached China, there were celebrations in the region. Crowds of Chinese Muslims rushed to the Shanghai port to see
the steamship. And not only Western newspapers, but in fact the world
press turned over generous amounts of space to the coverage of this event at
the time. Though the Chinese leadership greeted the
visiting Ottoman delegation warmly, the Western colonial powers present in
China at the time were not as relaxed. There was great curiosity about
what the real reason behind the visit to China by Enver
Pasha -- sent by Sultan Abdülhamid II himself -- really was. This being
the case, the pasha and his accompanying delegation
(composed of his wife, two clerks, two scholars, two soldiers, and various
manservants) spent the next four months of their visit basically surrounded by
a circle of Western agents and envoys. In his fluent French, and through
his influential style, Enver Pasha told both the
Chinese Muslims and the various foreign envoys that he was in China to deliver
messages of peace from Sultan Abdülhamid II. The Westerners, however, were not
inclined to believe these assurances.
Actually,
the outwardly apparent reason behind this visit was an attempt to calm the
uprisings that were taking place at the time in China against the colonizing
German and British presence. To wit, in the wake of the
Boxer rebellion of 1901 in China -- when the German ambassador to Peking
was killed and then had his body dragged through the streets -- the German emperor at the time, Kaiser Wilhelm II,
had personally asked for assistance from Sultan
Abdülhamid II. Kaiser Wilhelm asked the Turkish Sultan if he would send a
delegation to China to help quell unrest among the protestors, among whom there
were Muslims. At the same period of time, some Western countries,
wishing to punish China, sent mixed units to China to put down the rebellions. As for the Ottoman Empire, it resisted sending any military
units to China at the time, not wanting to draw negative reactions from the
estimated 50-60 million Chinese Muslims present in the country. At the
same time though, the Ottoman Empire (with its population of around 30 million
or so) was extremely interested in maintaining the balance of its relations
with the West, Germany in particular.
Known for
his skills in diplomacy, Sultan Abdülhamid II found a
formula that would both prevent damage to Ottoman-German relations, as well as
incline Chinese Muslims to feel warm towards İstanbul. Obtaining the
approval of Cemaleddin Efendi, the chief religious official of the time in the
Ottoman Empire, the Sultan decided he would send a
nine-person delegation -- a “Nasihat” or “Counsel” delegation -- to China.
And to head up this critical mission, he chose one of the shining officers from
the palace, Enver Pasha. In addition to Enver Pasha,
another high-ranking military officer, Binbaşı Nâzım Bey, was also chosen to go.
Also accompanying the group as a man of religion would be Mustafa Şükrü Efendi
(the grandfather of former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit).
Followed
by Western agents
After
a long and difficult month’s journey, the delegation
from Istanbul arrived in Shanghai at the start of May 1901. Not only did
the delegation meet up with Chinese Muslims in this large city, but it also set
out to visit regions of China known to be heavily populated by Muslims. The delegation also used these regional meetings as
opportunities to distribute a declaration written in the name of the “Caliphate
of all Muslims,” Sultan Abdülhamid II. The declaration had been
translated into Chinese. The delegation also participated in local Friday
prayers, having “hutbes” or sermons read out in the name of the sultan. At the
same time, Western envoys in China, noting that the
mission of the Ottoman delegation was in fact not to “quell uprisings,” but
instead to gather Chinese Muslims under the protection of the Caliphate of
Abdülhamid, cut all ties with the delegation and with Enver Pasha
himself. Even the German envoy in China, who had personally welcomed Enver
Pasha on his arrival, did not visit the delegation again.
A
message sent by the French ambassador to Peking
to the French capital, Paris, on June 4, 1901 read: “My dear Minister, as an
addition to my letter, you will also find some
information regarding the Turkish delegation sent by the Ottoman Sultan
specifically to set up closer relations with the Muslims in China...
Under the current conditions here, I think it would be advantageous to learn
just what it is İstanbul wishes to see happen on this topic. It is said that
this visit was advised by the German government. Any
pan-Islamic movement in Guangxi, Guangdong and especially the heavily Muslim
area of Yunnan could be dangerous, and thus I will attempt to obtain from our
envoy in İstanbul as much information as possible about the mission of this
delegation under Enver Pasha. The fact that
there are many Muslims in the colonized neighboring regions means that the very
presence of this Ottoman delegation could in fact be a sign of pan-Islamic
movements which we need to follow very closely. I will do what I can to
uncover the true intentions of this delegation, which is staying in
Shanghai...”
Over
the course of their four-month stay in China,
the Ottoman delegation headed by Enver Pasha ran into financial problems.
Anti-Western Russians present in China at the time took advantage of this
opportunity, and came to the assistance of the Ottoman delegation. The fact
that Enver Pasha’s wife was Austrian turned out to be an advantage for the
Ottoman delegation, as the Austrian diplomatic presence in China at the time
came to the assistance of the visiting group. Just at the same time that Enver
Pasha was preparing to make his return home, he received a telegraph from the
Russian czar. The czar was inviting Enver Pasha to visit Russia. After
receiving permission from İstanbul, Enver Pasha and his delegation thus left
China for Russia.
Abdülhamid’s
interest in China
Calculating
that support from Islamic countries would be critical in keeping the Ottoman
Empire strong in the face of colonizing Western nations, Sultan Abdülhamid II
is fast to try and develop the relations with Chinese Muslims that Enver Pasha had been sent to
investigate. Thus, in the wake of Enver Pasha’s visit to China, the Sultan then sent one of his favorite men, Muhammed Ali
(who was, according to some sources, also the Sultan’s best “hafiye” or
detective/sleuth) to China. Once in China,
Muhammed Ali, dressed to give the impression that he was an “erudite tourist”
in religious clothing, managed to make his way around the inner regions of
China, forming some formidable ties with Muslims there. The fact that Ali knew both Arabic and English turned out to be a very
important asset in his visit. He even convinced some of the Muslim families
with whom he meets to send their children to İstanbul to be educated.
At
the same time, Ali also distribute monetary help from İstanbul to Chinese
Muslims, while sending frequent reports back to the sultan about the
relationships he was developing in the region. These reports were then used by
Sultan Abdülhamid II in the various strategies he was employing to tie the
50-70 million or so Muslims living in a nation of 500 million more closely to
İstanbul. During his visit to China, Ali met Imam Wang
Haoren, an important religious leader for Chinese Muslims, telling the imam of
some of the projects that the Ottomans have in mind for the Islamic world.
Imam Haoren
(1848-1919) was one of the most important Muslim scholars in China at the time,
and a defender of the need to modernize the medreses, or theological schools. It was Imam Haoren who first pushed to have Chinese culture
and language included in the lessons offered at the Muslim theological schools
in China, which had previously only offered education in Arabic. He is remembered in Chinese history as being a “unifying bridge,”
and an “activist.”
As
it turned out, Wang was deeply influenced by the unofficial Ottoman envoy as
well as by the efforts of Sultan Abdülhamid II, who was doing so much to propel
modern education forward. After Imam Wang made his
first hajj in 1906, accompanied by one of his students, Ma Debao, he
went from Mecca to İstanbul. Here, he was warmly met by Sultan Abdülhamid II.
While in İstanbul, Wang spent time investigating
Ottoman educational methods as well as various points of sensitivity on the
topic of Islam and education. He took notice of some of the differences he
had seen, and on his return to China, Imam Wang mentioned in his conversations
and religious sermons what he had seen of the Ottoman Empire, the sultan and
Islam practiced by the Turks.
An
idea forms: a university in Peking
Sultan
Abdülhamid II did not send this important Chinese Muslim leader home empty
handed. In fact, reasoning that there were not many
Islamic masterpieces present in China at the time, the sultan sent Imam Wang back with more than 1,000 books,
asking him to share these works with other Chinese scholars when he returned.
Along these lines, too, the sultan told Imam Wang when he was visiting İstanbul
of his desire of seeing an Ottoman university opened in Peking. Wang, himself a
strong supporter of modern education, told the sultan he would do what he could
to shore up support for this plan in China.
Only
one year passed after Wang’s visit to İstanbul before two
Ottoman teachers were sent to Peking on the orders of the sultan. The two
teachers found Wang, and, on the orders of the sultan, asked him for
support. Imam Wang then took “Muallim” (master or teacher) Ali Rıza Efendi and
Muallim Bursalı Hafız Hasan Efendi with him to the Niujie
Mosque. Here, he told people of the plans held by those Turkish
teachers, who had come from 10,000 kilometers away to open a school in China. It should be noted that at that time the Niujie Mosque was
an important meeting point for Muslims. The Chinese Muslims turned over
the gardens of this mosque to the Turkish teachers. At the same location, an
empty building underwent repairs, and two more lesson halls were also built.
After
a year of work, Peking Hamidiye University finally
opened, amidst tears and prayers, in 1908. The presence of this new university
had an immediate and enlivening effect on Ottoman-Chinese relations. In
a sense, it managed to bring these two societies closer together. Using the
opportunities available to him, what Sultan Abdülhamid
II had essentially achieved was to -- despite the opposition of the West --
bring Chinese Muslims closer to both İstanbul and the Caliphate.
As Yang HaiHaipeng, head of the Chinese Muslim History
and Culture Department, sees it, the opening of Hamidiye University under the
conditions in place at the time was a very important event.
Historian
HaiHaipeng notes that it is due to the sensitivities of the Chinese Muslims
that the school has been able to stay standing despite the passage of 101 years
since its opening. He says: “When in 1907 the two Turkish teachers arrived from
İstanbul and met with Imam Haoren, construction began on what was to be called
the ‘Training Institute for Islamic Teachers.’ And today, this university,
referred to in Turkish sources as Hamidiye University, still stands on a piece
of land behind the Niujie Mosque in Beijing, with one main building and three
lesson halls.”
When
the Turkish teachers sent by the sultan left China at the end of 1908 -- for reasons that are still unclear -- the university
was taken over by local Muslims. After awhile, due to
a lack of professors, the university began to be used as a primary school.
Then, after the Maoist revolution of 1949,
Arabic and religious education were brought to an end at the school, and
instead only Chinese was taught. Later, a lack of funds led to the complete
closure of the school. In recent years, the mosque
community decided to see one of the lesson halls of the former university used
for religious lessons for the youth. Despite the passing of many years,
the school still stands in good condition. Some of the Ottoman motifs have been
erased, but the architecture is still clearly Islamic in style. One of the
lesson halls has even been turned into a museum that shows the history of the
Niujie Mosque.
The
occasion of the Beijing Olympics in 2008 saw the restoration of the 1,000-year-old Niujie Mosque and the Hamidiye
University buildings still standing in its gardens in the Xuanwu district of
Beijing. There are an estimated 200,000 Muslims who
live in Beijing.
On
bayrams and Friday prayers, it is nearly impossible to find space amongst the
crowds at the 6,000-square-meter Niujie Mosque. Those who want to pray but
cannot find space in the mosque itself crowd into the empty lesson halls of the
Hamidiye University buildings.
Though the
name of Sultan Abdülhamid II is no longer read out loud at Friday sermons at
the Niujie Mosque, those who know the real story behind the history of the
Hamidiye University have a hard time holding back their tears. They see the
Ottoman structure in the garden of the Niujie Mosque as a stamp from the
Ottoman times.
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