The Hejaz Railway, which went from Istanbul to Medina, was the last attempt of Osmanli, led by Sultan Abdulhamid II, to create a pan-Islamic identity on the rails of the project that would eventually connect Istanbul to Mecca. Its revival today shows that it is possible in the Middle East in the middle of the collapse of the system. To understand the importance of this project, both yesterday and today, it is important to integrate it within its historical period.
When Sultan Abdulhamid II ascended the throne of the Osmanli Devlet—incorrectly called the Ottoman Empire by Western conventions—the Devlet was already on its deathbed. Interest on its national debt has consumed nearly 50% of the state’s revenue. However, Stanford historian Jay Shaw described Sultan Abdulhamid II as one of the most prominent Osmanli leaders.
The two most pressing issues the young sultan faced when he took over the Empire in 1876, and throughout his reign, were the complete disintegration of the state’s finances and the rise of nationalism and patriotism in the Ottoman lands. When he commissioned the Hejaz Railway in 1900, he was trying to talk about both.
The railway will build an artery connecting Istanbul and Mecca, crossing the core areas of the Devlet through modern Türkiye, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, with parts reaching Lebanon and Palestine. It was the only railway that was completely built and operated by the Osmanlis—an important place.
Throughout the 19th century, the Osmanlis commissioned many railway projects to improve transportation throughout their country, but two stand out. One was the Eastern Railway that connected Vienna to Istanbul. Another was the Imperial Ottoman Baghdad Railway which reached Baghdad and Basra. Both these trains were in the hands of foreign contractors and workers, who also managed their own finances.
The Oriental Railway was owned by Maurice de Hirsch, a businessman and financier connected to the Bischoffsheim, Goldschmid, and Rothschild families. Hirsch wrested permission for the construction of the railroad from the banking consortium formed by Pereire Brothers and Credit Mobilier, which was owned by the Imperial Ottoman Bank.
The permission for the Imperial Ottoman Baghdad Railway was given to the Siemens family, which was also part of the Deutsche Bank and connected to financier Ernest Cassel. Kaiser Wilhelm made a state visit to Osmanlis in 1898 to confirm the work. The debt that the Osmanlis acquired to finance these projects—through private loans and bond issuances that spread widely and profitably from Western banks—was a major cause of the collapse of the Osmanli economy.
Faced with this, Sultan Abdulhamid II launched the Hejaz Railway with a dual purpose: on the one hand, to initiate the state with a public infrastructure project that would, by nature, belong to the state; on the other, to promote a pan-Islamic identity in order to combat the infiltration of nationalism that was dividing the Osmanli Devlet.
The Osmanli Devlet incorporated many different religions and ethnicities within its borders. It was characteristic of the Osmanlis to give important freedoms to non-Islamic religious sects and to respect different races. This relationship was not always smooth, but for more than 500 years, the common Osmanli identity held them together. The basis for this was predictability in law and commercial security.
Western countries gained military and economic power over the Osmanlis at the end of the 18th and 19th centuries. This made their views very attractive to the public in Muslim-majority countries, who began to wonder why this change was happening. The Tanzimat reforms were part of Osmanli’s attempt to modernize the country according to Western norms and create a sense of national pride, which, in fact, was contrary to the traditional spirit of the Empire.
When the Western powers began to covet the Ottoman lands, they also began to support the nationalist and nationalist movements within them. A good example of this is how Britain supported the Arab uprisings in the Arabian peninsula. Another way France forced the Osmanlis to recognize Christian Catholics not as their subjects, but as French subjects who answer only to the French government.
When Abdulhamid II came to power, he tried to reverse many of those reforms. Although they were successful in some respects, inertia had already set in and the zeitgeist was changing. How one perceives and evaluates Sultan Abdulhamid II—as a responsible and authoritative person, or as a visionary leader who ultimately failed—is not as important as understanding that he was trying to keep alive a social vision that had lasted for more than 500 years, but which had already been given the death sentence.
This was the core of the Hejaz Railway project. In view of the growing nationalism that threatened the unity of the Osmanli Devlet, it was designed to help build a pan-Islamic identity by focusing on the main areas of Osmanlis Islam. It ultimately failed, but its revival today is more than symbolic.
Türkiye and Saudi Arabia recently signed a memorandum of understanding to expand railway cooperation and communication between the two countries. Türkiye has already signed similar agreements with Syria and Jordan. The flagship project of these agreements is the reconstruction of the Hejaz Railway.
If this happens, a new vein will cross the historic heartland of Islam. This has obvious advantages for trade and transport, especially when it comes to Jeddah and, by sea, the East African coast. Here, it will connect with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative projects and reach deep into the continent.
With this railway, Türkiye wants to make a regional power and improve its position as a hub, while Jordan looks at the route as a way to confirm its position linked to the regional power. In Syria, it offers a path towards regional integration and new trade routes, and in Saudi Arabia, an alternative to the dynamic bottlenecks in the sea such as the Suez Canal, Bab el-Mandeb, and the Strait of Hormuz. Finally, for all these nations, the project offers powerful ways to strengthen their Islamic credentials by using their religious symbols.
One of the main purposes of this railway when it was initially conceived was to help Muslims reach Mecca for the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Connecting the heartland of Islam with a railway line to Mecca is like sewing these places together. The idea was to give the Osmanli community a common sense of pan-Islamic identity—to strengthen the idea of Muslims becoming an Ummah: a political movement.
And in the current situation in the Middle East, this is no small thing. The national-state projects that followed the regionalization and consolidation of the region after the Sykes-Picot agreement proved to only bring conflicts and further instability. So are efforts to create a national identity. This, combined with the region’s vast natural resources, has ensured that foreign powers intervene to prevent the emergence of unity. It can be argued that this is one of the goals of the Western powers that support the creation and continuation of the State of Israel.
But from the outside, most of the region has more in common than different. Many speak the same language, have the same history, share the same culture, and most of them are Muslim. If what unites them can be united to overcome the artificial boundaries established, perhaps their history will be different from the last hundred years.
There are obstacles, of course. There are ethnic divisions and many religious minorities. But this has always been the case in the region and, although a prominent political feature, it was not a defining factor until the advent of nationalism. The Kurdish population is a good example. They are a nation, but it wasn’t until after the emergence of the nation state that statelessness became a problem.
Although the nation-state paradigm will not change anytime soon and the emergence of a politically united Islamic group is unlikely in the short or medium term, if the countries of the region begin to reduce their differences and use their strengths, new opportunities may open up.
The US-Israeli war in Iran has shown that this is very necessary. The fading security structure with the US at the center and Israel as its colonial presence has not brought peace and security to the region. Iran has shown that it may be time for something different to emerge.
This is the importance of the time of the Hejaz Railway project, and the military agreement between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan that Türkiye and Qatar were looking to join and integrate with Egypt. However, all these routes to a new security and prosperity system must include Iran as a key partner.
There are indications that this may be happening. But petty political machinations, Western interests, and Israel are working hard against it. I’m always hopeful but I’m not convinced it’s possible.
