Fakhri Pasha:
a bloody figure who tried to erase the Arabian identity of Al-Masjid an-Nabawi
The study of the history of the Ottoman Turks in our Arabian region must be subject to a precise methodology through which the logic of narration intersects with the course of analysis to come out with scientific conclusions in reading the history of the region based on a scientific perspective that those in charge of the editorial line of the “White Ink” website were keen to make it in lines; in an attempt to go beyond the rigid classic narrative that seeks recollecting events without seeking to analyze them, break them down and try to project them to the current strategic environment.
In this regard, although the early twentieth century witnessed the decline of Ottoman influence in the world and the independence of large parts from the Ottoman Empire, while the heart of the Arabian Peninsula, especially Medina, remained under the colonization of the Ottoman Sultanate, which it considered the last ground to establish its legitimacy in light of the separation of the rest of the Arabian Peninsula from The rule of the Turks and its return to its Arab incubator, represented by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the leadership of the founder, King Abdulaziz.
Perhaps the main figure that contributed to the racial strategy of the Turkish politicians in Al-Masjid an-Nabawi was Fakhri Pasha, which a group of testimonies confirms that his bloody history in the region and his crime and terrorism are no less bloody than the black history of the three slayers inside and outside Turkey.
Based on this standpoint, we shall try to go beyond narrating facts and analyze it and understand its contexts and backgrounds, in order to reach an answer to the following fundamental questions:
1. What is the secret of the Ottoman to occupy Al-Medina, and what kind of a symbol it represents in the Turk’s point of view?
2. What are the backgrounds for Fakhri Pasha’s expulsion of the inhabitants from Al Medina in what has historically and medially been known as “Seferberlik” or the forced deportation?
3. How did the Turks try to change the cultural and civilizational identity of Medina?
In this context, the Sultans of the Ottoman family continued to view and consider the land of Haramayn as the center of gravity for their alleged caliphate, given the strong religious symbolism of Makkah and Medina, as their preservation remained an indication of the continued legitimacy of the “caliphate” institution in its political and religious dimension. This strategic fact made the Turks desperately trying to preserve Haramayn, or at least one of them, and suppress the voices calling for independency as a result of “abandoning the Islamic caliphate”, at one point, and resisting English colonialism at other times
Fakhri Pasha involved Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in his struggle against Arabs, believing that they would not dare to target Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, and took advantage of the lack of religious awareness among the inhabitants of Medina in an attempt to assemble them to defend the last strongholds of the Ottoman occupation, which did not affect the souls of the people who suffered the woes under the yoke of Turkish colonialism brute.
This fact on the ground reflects the nature of the relationship between Fakhri Pasha and the city’s inhabitants, which prompted him to commit a crime against humanity when he displaced the indigenous peoples from their homeland and deported them to the remainder areas under the rule of the Turks, especially Istanbul and Syria, where most of these expellees perished under the coercion of hunger, cold and torture.
Ali Hafez presents us a painful picture of Fakhri Pasha’s dictatorship and how he famished the people of Medina to force them to immigrate; so, he says “They seized it (Medina) as a military base in the heart of the Arabian Peninsula to protect their properties, and they appointed Fakhri Pasha as its military commander and they reinforced their forces there with an army and equipment, where weapons filled the mosques, including Al-Masjid an-Nabawi.
Fakhri Pasha also confiscated everything that could be eaten such as “dates, rice, wheat and other stores of the army. Nothing was given to the people of Medina except by smuggling from soldiers and at high prices. Anyone found selling something thereof, shall face a severe punishment, along with the buyer (1).
It can be said that Fakhri Pasha resorted to the process of forced expulsion at the aim of killing a group of birds with just one stone:
The first goal is connected to the forcible provision of sufficient quantities of food supply for his army to resist the siege, and the second coercion is related to avoiding the formation of a revolutionary nucleus inside Al Medina loyal to Arabs that may precipitate the end of the occupation of the Ottoman family of Al- Medina. While the third political goal lies in the quick attempts through which Fakhri Pasha sought to change the demographic composition of the region for the benefit of the Turkish race.
In connection to the last point, fellow writer Muhammad al-Saed, in his talk to one of the electronic websites, sees that; “The goal of the Turks from their heinous act (forced expulsion) at that time is to humble the rebellious Arabs, the Turkification of their strain, and to hold them after the end of the war with Turks loyal to them who are not afraid of their separation or their revolution. It is called today in demographic change” (2). Al-Saed cites the Libyan model, where the Ottoman colonialism left an important Turkish community, most of which are based in the Libyan city of Misratah, where some still claim loyalty to Ankara despite their affiliation to a national state that is supposed to have a sovereignty. The same feelings of loyalty were recorded with the Turkmen minorities in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and even China (the Uyghur).
Perhaps what confirms the ambition of the Ottomans in the Turkification of the region’s inhabitants is what Ibrahim bin Ali al-Ayashi, one of the most prominent historians of Al- Medina Al- Munawwarah, said in his book “Al-Medina between the Past and the Present” when he said, “Even education, however its complete failure, it tried to turkificate it. I remember that one of my fellow police officers was attending him while he was doing a calculation, and he said Bish Karak Bish = Yakrami Bish, means five in five equals twenty five. He is Arabic by birth and upbringing, but he knows nothing of what he studied except in Turkish, even the Arabic grammar of syntax and morphology was in Turkish (3).
This was an analysis of an aspect of the racial and superior behavioral structure of Fakhri Pasha as a continuation of the nature of Turkish rule in the Arab region. Whereas the same method of government was reproduced and dropped in all regions where they subjugated and tried to wipe its history and build a history for the Turks on ruins of original Arab civilization.
References:
1. Ali Hafiz, Chapters from the history of Medina, third edition 1996 AD, p. 45 / 46.
2. See the talk of our colleague Muhammad Al-Saed for the “The Independent” in Arabic at the link : Click here
3. Ibrahim bin Ali Al-Ayashi: Al-Medina between the Past and the Present, The Scientific Library of Sheikh Muhammad Sultan Al-Namankani, Al-Medina Al-Munawwarah 1392 AH – 1972 AD, p. 572.