Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - The Holy War, Made in Germany (1915).djvu/10



HE proclamation of a "Holy War" by the Sheikh-ul-Islam at Constantinople has excited interest above and beyond its connection with the present war. It has raised the whole question of the validity and effectiveness of this measure as a political instrument in the hands of a modern Mohammedan government. Students of Islam have asked themselves of what use this weapon, taken from the arsenal of a theocratic form of sovereignty, could be in a state which is in process of conforming to the present-day theory of secular and democratic control. The development of the Ottoman Empire since the granting of the Constitution in 1908 has been followed with an interested eye by those of us who have felt