Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje on Makkah as a centre of pan-Islamism and anticolonialism

• Main Author: Spahic, Omer
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IIUM Press 2022
• Subjects: AZ History of Scholarship The Humanities
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/98584/7/98584_Christiaan%20Snouck%20Hurgronje%20on%20Makkah.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/98584/; https://journals.iium.edu.my/irkh/index.php/ijrcs/article/download/240/118/1258

This article discusses Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje’s views on Makkah as a centre of pan-Islamism and anticolonialism. The discussion is set against the backdrop of the insatiable Western appetite for colonization and imperialism during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hurgronje was an active protagonist in the developments. Apart from being a leading Orientalist, he was also an advisor to the Dutch government for its colonization project in the Dutch East Indies. To European colonial powers with Muslim subjects, Makkah had become a safe haven for religious fundamentalist activities. With its hajj pilgrimage, it became the nucleus, and epitome, of the ideology of pan-Islamism. The city was seen as a place from where pan-Islamic ideas could unhindered radiate all over the Muslim world, posing a serious and inaccessible threat. Hurgronje, therefore, studied Islam, with specific interest on Makkah and hajj, in order to create at once an ideological and operational blueprint for knowing the enemies and for prevailing over, as well as controlling, them.