Question

Name the leaders of the Khilafat Movement that was launched in India to champion the cause of the Caliph of Turkey.

Answer 1

Hint:
The Khilafat movement, a pan-Islamic power in India that originated in 1919 in an attempt to rescue the Ottoman caliph as a sign of unity among the Muslim community in India during the British Raj. The movement was initially bolstered by Gandhi's non-cooperation movement but fell apart after the overthrow of the caliphate in 1924.

Complete solution:
The Khilafat movement, also known as the Indian Muslim movement, was a pan-Islamic political protest campaign initiated by British Indian Muslims led by Shaukat Ali, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Hakim Ajmal Khan, and Abul Kalam Azad to restore the caliph of the Ottoman caliphate, considered to be the patriarch of Sunni Muslims, as an effective political authority.

The Khilafat problem crystallized anti-British feelings among Indian Muslims, which had increased after the British declaration of war against the Ottomans in 1914. The Khilafat leaders, most of whom had been imprisoned during the war for their pro-Turkish sympathy, were already involved in the Indian nationalist movement. Upon their release in 1919, they supported the Khilafat cause as a way of achieving pan-Indian Muslim political unity in the anti-British cause.

The importance of the Khilafat movement, however, lies less in its supposed pan-Islamism than in its effect on the Indian nationalist movement. The leaders of the Khilafat movement forged the first political alliance between western-educated Indian Muslims and 'ulema over the religious emblem of the Khilafat (caliphate).

These leaders included the 'Ali Brothers – Muhammad 'Ali (1878-1931) and Shaukat 'Ali (1873-1938) newspaper editors from Delhi; their spiritual guide Maulana Abdul Bari from Firangi Mahal, Lucknow; the Calcutta journalist and Islamic scholar Abu'l Kalam Azad and Maulana Mahmud ul-Hasan, head of the madrasa in Deoband, northern India. These publicist-politicians and 'ulema interpreted the European assaults on the authority of the Caliph as an assault on Islam, and thus as a challenge to the religious freedom of Muslims under British rule.

Note:
The Khilafat movement also benefited from Hindu-Muslim cooperation in the nationalist cause that had emerged during the war, starting with the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League, and culminating in the 1919 protest against the Rowlatt anti-Sedition bills. The National Congress, led by Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), called for non-violent non-cooperation with the British.