AS TO MOSLEM UNITY

What Turkey Has Done for the Happiness of Ottomans

December 22, 1915 (10:16)
To the Editor of the New York Times:
I beg to take exception to the statement to the effect that the Moslem world is divided.
There is not only a lack of evidence to support this statement, but close followers of the
trend of affairs in the East have been struck by the spirit of enthusiasm exhibited
throughout the Mohammedan countries since Turkey's entry into the present conflict.
It is true that England, whose policy has always been directed to prevent Turkey from
becoming a power strong enough to become a symbol for the progress of all Moslem
races, has tried to attain her purpose by "appointing a Sultan" to the Egyptian throne, but
this attempt has not only failed to materialize but has had the rather unlucky effect of
making the "Arabs furious against the British for having appointed a Sultan of Egypt,
which title they claim, is reserved for the Caliph II. Constantinople," as Neufeld, who has
just returned from a journey in Arabia, says. The fact that the so-called Sultan has at
several times narrowly escaped assassination by the Egyptian themselves indicates that
he is not altogether welcomed even by his own countrymen. What has Turkey done to
assure the happiness of the Ottoman Empire? To say nothing of the admitted defeat
inflicted on the "mistress of the seas" by the "sick man of Europe" in the Dardanelles, we
have crushed at least two revolutions, one in Yemen, organized by England for the
formation of a new Caliphate under British control, in which England's participation had
become an open fact when her former Commissaries, Iman Yahya and Seyid Idris,
renewed their allegiance to the Ottoman authorities: the other in Armenia, which was
frustrated by virtue of the precautionary measures taken by the Government to the utter
disappointment of England and Russia, who had spent millions in carrying out their
seditious propaganda.
AHMED SHUKRI
Columbia University, New York, Dec.20, 1915.