Ottoman declaration of Jihad


The Ottoman declaration of Jihad was issued in November 1914, during World War I. It was initially drafted on the 11th and first publicly read out in front of a large crowd on the 14th of November.

Text of the declaration

The original text was in Ottoman Turkish. Below are translations into modern Turkish and English respectively.

In modern Turkish

English translation

Result

In a 2017 article, it was concluded that the declaration, as well as earlier Jihad propaganda, had a strong impact on attaining the loyalty of Kurdish tribes, who played a major role in the Armenian and Assyrian genocides.
Arab tribes in Mesopotamia were initially enthusiastic about the Jihad. However, following British victories in the Mesopotamian campaign in 1914 and 1915, enthusiasm declined, and some chieftains like Mudbir al-Far'un adopted a more neutral, if not pro-British, stance.
There were hopes and fears that non-Turkish Muslims would side with Ottoman Turkey, but the appeal did not " the Muslim world", and Muslims did not turn on their non-Muslim commanders in the Allied forces.
The war led to the end of the caliphate as the Ottoman Empire entered on the side of the war's losers and surrendered by agreeing to "viciously punitive" conditions. These were overturned by the popular war hero Mustafa Kemal, who was also a secularist and later abolished the caliphate.