Chapter Seven - War and Captivity

CHAPTER SEVEN

War and Captivity

#### Bediuzzaman and the War

Bediuzzaman and the War

For Bediuzzaman, the War may be seen as a watershed. At some point he was appointed by Enver Pasha, the Minister of War, to raise and command a volunteer militia force. This he did, making his students the centre of the force. It was a jihad, and Bediuzzaman performed this bounden duty of Muslims on two fronts. In addition to raising the militia, training it to the very highest standards, and personally leading his men in bold and courageous actions, he continued to teach his students and to write his celebrated commentary on the Qur'an. Wielding both sword and pen, he was like a figure from the golden age of Islam, a model Muslim. When Bitlis fell to the Russians in early March 1916, he was captured and spent the next two years in various prisoner-of-war camps in Kosturma in Russia. He escaped, and travelling across Russia safely, came to Warsaw and Berlin, and arrived back in Istanbul in June 1918. But the rigours of his captivity had taken their toll on his health, and his outlook, too, had changed. The dreadful period of defeat and foreign occupation following the War was one of inner turmoil for Bediuzzaman, despite his worldly position and success, but from it the New Said was to emerge.

#### Events on the Eastern Front

Events on the Eastern Front

The first shots of the War had been fired when Russia invaded northeastern Anatolia on 31 October 1914. On this occasion, Russia was not successful, and the invasion was repulsed by the Ottoman army under Enver Pasha. But he was only successful in this after leading the disastrous counter-offensive at Sarikamış in the arctic conditions of December and January as a result of which sixty-thousand out of his one hundred-thousand-strong army perished. The Russian army retreated, and Grand Duke Nicholas spent the following year completing preparations for the