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http://www.firstpost.com/
#British PM #Churchill #Islam #NewsTracker #Ottoman Empire #Prime Minister #Winston Churchill
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, credited with leading his nation and the Allies to victory against Nazi Germany during World War II, wanted to convert to Islam and family members had to beg for him not to do so, according to various news reports.
The reports have surfaced after a letter written by Churchill's sister-in-law Lady Gwendoline was discovered by a history research fellow at Cambridge University, points out a report in The Independent. Lady Gwendoline Bertie was married to Churchill's brother as this report in The Telegraph notes and she wrote the letter in 1907 before she got married to Churchill's brother.
The contents of her letter go like this, "Please don’t become converted to Islam; I have noticed in your disposition a tendency to orientalise [fascination with the Orient and Islam], Pasha-like tendencies, I really have...If you come into contact with Islam your conversion might be effected with greater ease than you might have supposed, call of the blood, don’t you know what I mean, do fight against it."
Apparently in another letter to Lady Lytton, Churchill also referred to himself as a 'pasha' and wished he were one. The report in The Independent points out that "he even took to dressing in Arab clothes in private."
So did Churchill really consider conversion or was his future sister-in-law over-reacting? According to the researcher Warren Dockter, while the British leader had a fascination for the Islamic culture, he "never seriously considered converting."
"He was more or less an atheist by this time anyway," Dockter told The Independent on Churchill's spiritual leanings.
No doubt though, his fascination with Islam was such that during the war, he put aside £100,000 for the purpose of a Mosque in central London in the "hope of winning the support of Muslim countries in the war", adds the report in The Independent.
Dockter told The Telegraph that Churchill's view of Islamic culture "were an often paradoxical and complex combination of imperialist perceptions composed of typical orientalist ideals fused with the respect, understanding and magnanimity he had gained from his experiences in his early military career."
But while there might have been some admiration for the religion, the former UK Prime Minister was unabashedly critical of Islamic laws. So his sister-in-law might just have over-reacted a bit to Churchill's personal fascination with Islamic culture.
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How Winston Churchill 'flirted' [?] with Islam
'Please don’t become converted to Islam' says British Prime Minister's future sister-in-law in a letter
- By Patrick Sawer, DT
- Published: 14:30 December 29, 2014
- Image Credit: Supplied
- Winston Churchill.
London: He is indelibly associated with the fight to preserve Britain
and its Empire from Nazi invasion and his subsequent denouncement of
Soviet totalitarianism’s Iron Curtain.
In the public eye, Sir Winston Churchill’s long political career earned him a place among the greatest of Britons.
But what may come as a surprise is that he was a strong admirer of
Islam and the culture of the Orient — such was his regard for the Muslim
faith that relatives feared he might convert.
The revelation comes with the discovery of a letter to Churchill from
his future sister-in-law, Lady Gwendoline Bertie, written in August
1907, in which she urges him to rein in his enthusiasm.
In the letter, discovered by Warren Dockter, a history research fellow
at Cambridge University, she pleads: “Please don’t become converted to
Islam; I have noticed in your disposition a tendency to orientalise
[fascination with the Orient and Islam], Pasha-like tendencies, I really
have.”
Lady Gwendoline, who married Churchill’s brother Jack, adds: “If you
come into contact with Islam your conversion might be effected with
greater ease than you might have supposed, call of the blood, don’t you
know what I mean, do fight against it.”
In a letter to Lady Lytton in the same year Churchill wrote: “You will
think me a pasha [rank of distinction in the Ottoman Empire]. I wish I
were.” Churchill’s fascination led him and his close friend Wilfrid S.
Blunt, the poet and radical supporter of Muslim causes, to dressing in
Arab clothes in private while in each other’s company.
Dr Dockter said of the letter from Lady Gwendoline: “Churchill had
fought in Sudan and on the North West frontier of India so had much
experience on being in ‘Islamic areas’.
“But during this period Churchill was in the Liberal phase of his career, having switched to the Liberals in 1904.
“He often came to loggerheads on imperial policies with hard-line
imperialists such as Frederick Lugard, the High Commissioner of Northern
Nigeria. Churchill was opposed to Lugard’s punitive expeditions against
Islamic tribes in northern Nigeria.”
The letter was discovered by Dr Dockter while researching his forthcoming book, Winston Churchill and the Islamic World: Orientalism, Empire and Diplomacy in the Middle East.
He points out that Lady Gwendoline’s concerns may not have been so wide of the mark.
Not only did Churchill appear to regard Islam and Christianity as
equals — a surprisingly progressive notion for the time — but he also
admired the military prowess and history of expansion of the Ottoman
Empire.
In October 1940, as Britain faced its darkest hour against Nazi
Germany, Churchill approved plans to build a mosque in central London
and set aside pounds 100,000 for the project.
He continued to back the building of what became the London Central
Mosque in Regent’s Park — which he hoped would win support for Britain
in the Muslim world at a crucial moment — even in the face of public
criticism.
In December 1941, he told the House of Commons: “Many of our friends in
Muslim countries all over the East have already expressed great
appreciation of this gift.”
Churchill’s attitude may appear hypocritical, given his forthright
defence of the British Empire — which at its height ruled over millions
of Muslims across India, Egypt and the Middle East.
In his book The River War (1899) — his account of the frontier
wars of India and Sudan — he was scathing of the fundamentalist, ultra
conservative Mahdiyya form of Islam adopted by the Dervish population of
North Africa.
Dr Dockter says a closer examination of Churchill’s attitude to the
wider Muslim world reveals it to be “in stark contrast to the purely
imperialistic and orientalist perspective of many of his
contemporaries”.
In his book, he states: “His views of Islamic people and culture were
an often paradoxical and complex combination of imperialist perceptions
composed of typical orientalist ideals fused with the respect,
understanding and magnanimity he had gained from his experiences in his
early military career, creating a perspective that was uniquely
Churchillian.”
The revelation that Churchill had a close affinity for Muslim culture
comes at a time when tensions between the three great monotheistic
faiths, Christianity, Judaism and Islam are greater than they have been
for centuries.
Ironically, many of the fault lines between Islam and the West have
their roots in the world Churchill helped shape after the collapse of
the Ottoman Empire and the redrawing of the Middle East at the end of
the First World War.
The settlements between the region’s colonial powers, brokered by
Churchill, with T.E Lawrence — ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ — as an adviser,
gave birth, in Dr Dockter’s words, to “the Middle East we know, warts
and all”.
Dr Dockter, who assisted Boris Johnson on his book The Churchill Factor,
said: “Not many people are aware that Churchill and T.E Lawrence were
friends or that they worked together to solve the riddles of the Middle
Eastern settlements. Understanding these settlements is paramount to
understanding the legacy of Britain in the Middle East.”
Of course, Churchill did not convert to Islam, and Dr Dockter concludes
that his fascination was “largely predicated on Victorian notions,
which heavily romanticised the nomadic lifestyle and honour culture of
the Bedouin tribes”.
As Dr Dockter points out, at least he had the good sense to ask the
question in the first place, regarding an issue which bedevils the
West’s involvement in the region to this day.* * *
http://www.firstpost.com/
New letter shows Churchill wanted to convert to Islam, family begged him not to
by FP Staff Dec 29, 2014 12:27 IST#British PM #Churchill #Islam #NewsTracker #Ottoman Empire #Prime Minister #Winston Churchill
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, credited with leading his nation and the Allies to victory against Nazi Germany during World War II, wanted to convert to Islam and family members had to beg for him not to do so, according to various news reports.
The reports have surfaced after a letter written by Churchill's sister-in-law Lady Gwendoline was discovered by a history research fellow at Cambridge University, points out a report in The Independent. Lady Gwendoline Bertie was married to Churchill's brother as this report in The Telegraph notes and she wrote the letter in 1907 before she got married to Churchill's brother.
The contents of her letter go like this, "Please don’t become converted to Islam; I have noticed in your disposition a tendency to orientalise [fascination with the Orient and Islam], Pasha-like tendencies, I really have...If you come into contact with Islam your conversion might be effected with greater ease than you might have supposed, call of the blood, don’t you know what I mean, do fight against it."
Apparently in another letter to Lady Lytton, Churchill also referred to himself as a 'pasha' and wished he were one. The report in The Independent points out that "he even took to dressing in Arab clothes in private."
Winston Churchill in this archival photo. Getty Images
So did Churchill really consider conversion or was his future sister-in-law over-reacting? According to the researcher Warren Dockter, while the British leader had a fascination for the Islamic culture, he "never seriously considered converting."
"He was more or less an atheist by this time anyway," Dockter told The Independent on Churchill's spiritual leanings.
No doubt though, his fascination with Islam was such that during the war, he put aside £100,000 for the purpose of a Mosque in central London in the "hope of winning the support of Muslim countries in the war", adds the report in The Independent.
Dockter told The Telegraph that Churchill's view of Islamic culture "were an often paradoxical and complex combination of imperialist perceptions composed of typical orientalist ideals fused with the respect, understanding and magnanimity he had gained from his experiences in his early military career."
But while there might have been some admiration for the religion, the former UK Prime Minister was unabashedly critical of Islamic laws. So his sister-in-law might just have over-reacted a bit to Churchill's personal fascination with Islamic culture.
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