Imperial Rivalry and Muslim Reform : The Ottomans, the Aga Khan and the Syrian Isma'ilis

The little-known history of the Syrian Ismailis’ linkages to Shii imam the Aga Khan III in colonial Bombay, offering a window onto fin-de-siècle geopolitics and Muslim networks across the Ottoman and British empires.

In the late 19th century, the minority Syrian Isma'ilis became followers of a Shi'i imam, Muslim politician and British ally in colonial Bombay, the Aga Khan III, embroiling them in wider Ottoman and British competition over subjects’ religious and political loyalty. Challenging binary views of the historical experiences of religious minorities as either victims or collaborators, this book reveals the Syrian Isma'ilis’ strategic agency as they navigated complex geopolitical contexts from the fin de siècle through WWI and the establishment of the French Mandate over Syria in 1922. Using a range of archival materials, the book explores the Syrian Isma'ilis’ reasons for becoming followers of the Aga Khan, their responses to the Aga Khan’s and the Ottomans’ interventions in their lives and the degree to which they were affected by and participated in cultural and political movements, such as Ottomanism, Pan-Islamism and nascent Arab nationalism. It also details the wider context, such as the Ottomans’ reaction to the Syrian Isma'ilis and Aga Khan’s new relationship in light of ongoing ethnonational separatism and European imperialism as well as the influence of Muslim modernists on the Aga Khan’s reformist vision of Islam and his motivations to remake his followers into a global religious community. Examining the effects of the Ottomans’ and the Aga Khan’s competition over the Syrian Isma'ilis’ religious and political consciousness, the book sheds important light on the complexity of transimperial Muslim identity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.