The Hajj by Japanese Muslims in the Interwar Period: Japan's Pan-Asianism and Economic Interests in...

Journal of World History, Vol. 24, No. 4© 2014 by University of Hawai‘i Press

849

The Hajj by Japanese Muslims in the Interwar Period: Japan’s Pan-Asianism and Economic Interests in the Islamic World*

mikiya koyagiUniversity of Texas at Austin

In 1938, Suzuki Tsuyoshi, a Japanese convert to Islam, visited the holy city of Mecca during the month of Dhu al-Hijjah, when Muslim

pilgrims from across the world flock to the city for the hajj. This pil-grimage was to be Suzuki’s last one before he died in World War II after establishing Hezbollah against the Allies in Java.1 Having performed the hajj in 1935 and 1937, Suzuki had become familiar with the proce-dure of the pilgrimage. Upon his return to Japan, he was going to intro-duce his experiences to his audiences in conferences and symposiums, the most notable among them being the Islamic World Exhibition held in Tokyo and Osaka in late 1939. Along with the sudden proliferation of Islamic organizations and scholarly works about the Islamic world, Suzuki and his fellow pilgrims contributed to the increased interest of the general public in Islam in the 1930s.

Japanese Muslims like Suzuki were by no means a large group in interwar Japan. The Religious Organizations Law of 1939 recognized

* I would like to thank the anonymous readers for the Journal of World History and its interim editor, Professor Matt Romaniello, as well as Professor Mark Metzler in the Depart-ment of History at the University of Texas at Austin, for their comments on an earlier draft of this article. English translations of the titles of Japanese primary sources in parentheses are mine.

1� $LNR�.XUDVDZD��¨'DLWþD�6HQVþNL�QR�7DL�,VXUDPX�6HLVDNX�©� LQ�1LFKFKX�6HQVý�WR�,VX�UDPX��0DQPý��$MLD�&KLLNL�QL�2NHUX�7ýFKL�.DLMą�6HLVDNX� ed. Tsutomu Sakamoto (Tokyo: Keio University Press, 2008), pp. 267, 277–279.

850 journal of world history, december 2013

only Shinto, Buddhism, and Christianity as official religions while it categorized Islam as “other religions” due to the small number of Muslims among the Japanese. The vast majority of Muslims in Japan during the interwar period were non-Japanese like Tatars, Bashkirs, and Indians. Unlike the process of Japanese conversion to Buddhism and Christianity, the few Japanese who became Muslims were often exposed to Islam abroad as they interacted with Muslims as traders and translators in such areas as Qingdao, Celebes, and Bombay.2 Japanese Muslims who performed the hajj were even fewer. The statistics slightly differ from source to source, but approximately eight Japanese Muslims attempted to perform the hajj between 1934 and 1938, five of whom sailed for Mecca twice or more.3

Despite the small number of Japanese pilgrims, their hajj encapsu-lates broader changes that occurred in the relationship between the Japanese Empire and the Islamic world. For one thing, it sheds light on the complicated relationship between nationalism and universalism. Optimism among Asian intellectuals in the immediate aftermath of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904–1905 with regard to Japan’s positive role in ending European colonialism waned quickly. Instead, Japan’s increasingly aggressive policy in East Asia raised questions in the eyes of Muslims in South Asia, the Middle East, and beyond about the inten-tion of Japan’s efforts to reach out to Muslim populations. The hajj by Japanese pilgrims reflects this larger trend about the rising tensions. In this paper, I will examine how Japanese pilgrims situated themselves in relation to their new faith and the loyalty to the emperor. I will also discuss how they understood the relationship between Japanese nationalism that desired to expand the realm of the emperor into Asia on the one hand, and the two universalist ideals of pan-Asianism and pan-Islamism on the other.

The hajj by Japanese Muslims also reflects the rapidity with which interactions between Japan and Muslims were expanding during the interwar period, even prior to the official adoption of an “Islam policy” �NDLN\ý� VHLVDNX��by the Japanese government following the Manchu-rian Incident in 1931. Not surprisingly, a rapid expansion in the scale and frequency of Japanese-Muslim interactions meant that more actors

2 Hideaki Sugita, 1LKRQMLQ�QR�&KąWý�+DNNHQ��*\DNX�(QNLQKý�QR�1DND�QR�+LNDNX�%XQ�kashi (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1995), p. 152.

3 The Saudi newspaper 8PP�DO�4XUDª provides a different number for 1938. Instead of two Japanese Muslims, the local newspaper’s chart records four Japanese Muslims perform-ing the hajj in that year, which suggests that there may have been two individuals who traveled separately from Suzuki. “Bayan Ajnas al-Hajjaj,” 8PP�DO�4XUDª� 18 February 1938.

Koyagi: The Hajj by Japanese Muslims in the Interwar Period 851

with divergent ideas and motives were involved. While Muslim activ-ists made informal alliances with Japanese pan-Asianists in the first decade of the twentieth century, private businesses were drawn to the prospect of a new market immediately after World War I. After the Manchurian Incident, the Japanese government adopted the idea of an alliance with the Islamic world as a vital component of its vision of the new world order in Asia. These developments resulted in an increased governmental involvement in Japanese-Muslim interactions. The imperial state, along with private businesses and pan-Asianist activists, sought to expand the economic sphere of the Japanese Empire into the Islamic world in the 1930s in order to mitigate the hardships associated with the Great Depression. Although Northeast and Southeast Asia remained more important in this scheme, Japan was attempting to pen-etrate economically into the Middle East as well. Existing literature has noted the significance of the economic factor, but the exact nature and degree of Japan’s economic expansion into the Middle East deserves a detailed study that contextualizes it in early twentieth-century Japan’s intellectual milieu. The present article fills this lacuna and suggests that economic motives inflamed Japan’s further involvement in the Islamic world, particularly in hitherto neglected areas like the Middle East. A pan-Asianist tone in Japanese political discourses provided a legitimate framework to promote the economic penetration into the Middle East.

The First Hajj and Its Context

Japan’s victory against Russia in the war of 1904–1905 sparked enthu-siasm across much of Asia, from Central Asia and the Ottoman Empire to Egypt, as it enabled Asian thinkers to imagine a new world order in which the colonized East could progress once it adopted a constitu-tion in the manner of Japan.4 Following this war, a number of Muslims IORFNHG�WR�-DSDQ��LQFOXGLQJ�$EG�UUHêLG�úbrahim from Kazan.5 úbrahim

4 Cemil Aydin, 7KH�3ROLWLFV�RI�$QWL�:HVWHUQLVP�LQ�$VLD��9LVLRQV�RI�:RUOG�2UGHU�LQ�3DQ�,VODPLF�DQG�3DQ�$VLDQ�7KRXJKW (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). For reactions to the Russo-Japanese war in Iran and Egypt among other places, see Sugita, Nihonjin, pp. 189–219.

5 Sugita, Nihonjin, pp. 220–232, and ElMostafa Rezrazi, “Dai Ajia Shugi to Nihon Isur-DPX�.\þ��+DWDQR�8Kþ�QR�ª&KþKþ�NDUD�,VXUDPX«�KHQR�7DEL©�>3DQ�$VLDQLVP�DQG�WKH�-DSD-QHVH� ,VODP��+DWDQþ�8Kþ��)URP�(VSLRQDJH� WR�3DQ�,VODPLVW�$FWLYLW\@��1LKRQ�&KąWý�*DNNDL�1HQSý��$-$0(6� 12 (1997): 101.


was a Muslim Tatar known for his political activism against tsarist Rus-sia and was influenced by the pan-Islamist ideologue Jamal al-Din al-Afghani.6 He came to Japan in 1909 and stayed for five months, during which he met a number of prominent politicians as well as high-eche-ORQ�DUP\�OHDGHUV�DQG�SDQ�$VLDQLVW�LGHRORJXHV�VXFK�DV�7þ\DPD�0LWVXUX�DQG�8FKLGD�5\þKHL��WKH�IRXQGHU�RI�WKH�FKDXYLQLVWLF�SDQ�$VLDQLVW�JURXS�.RNXU\ĆNDL�7 In his meetings with these influential figures, úbrahim stressed the geopolitical significance of Islam as a religion of Asian peoples from North China, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and all the way to Anatolia. By aligning with the Islamic world, úbrahim consid-ered, Japan would be able to achieve Asian unity and compete with Western imperial powers.8 úbrahim’s networking with pan-Asianists culminated in the foundation of the Asian Reawakening Society (Ajia Gikai), which embodied the pan-Asianist slogan of promoting Asian solidarity including Muslims and at least paid lip service to úbrahim’s ideal of propagating Islam to the Japanese.9 Thus, the Japanese-Mus-lim interactions in the early twentieth century started with the active solicitation of Muslim activists in diaspora.10 Nevertheless, the interac-tions between Japanese pan-Asianists and the Islamic world did not expand radically following the foundation of the Asian Reawakening Society, as the 1911 Xinhai Revolution in China diverted the atten-tion of pan-Asianists to East Asia and úbrahim turned his attention to the Ottoman Empire when World War I broke out.

Before the temporary decline of interactions, however, úbrahim was requested in 1909�E\�ýKDUD�7DNH\RVKL�RI� WKH� ,PSHULDO�$UP\�WR�SHU-IRUP�WKH�KDMM�ZLWK�<DPDRND�.þWDUþ��ZKR�KDG�FROOHFWHG�PLOLWDU\�LQWHO-ligence on Russia during the war and could converse with úbrahim in Russian.11 Yamaoka started his journey as a non-Muslim, but he was forced to convert when his being a non-Muslim became controversial

6 Hisao Komatsu, Ibrahim, Nihon heno Tabi: Roshia, Osuman Teikoku, Nihon (Tokyo: 1RPL]X�6KREþ��2008), p. 28.

7 Ibid., p. 56.8 Ibid., pp. 62, 71.9 Ibid., pp. 85–88.10 Selçuk Esenbel, “Japan’s Global Claim to Asia and the World of Islam: Transna-

tional Nationalism and World Power, 1900–1945,” American Historical Review 109, no. 4 (2004): 1140–1170; and Esenbel, “A Transnational History of Revolution and Nationalism: Encounters between Japanese Asianists, the Turkish Revolution, and the World of Islam,” New Perspective on Turkey no. 35 (2006): 37–63. See also Tsutomu Sakamoto, “The First Japanese Hadji Yamaoka Kotaro and Abdürresid Ibrahim,” in The Rising Sun and the Turkish Crescent: New Perspectives on the History of Japanese and Turkish Relations, ed. Selçuk Esenbel and Chiharu Inaba (Istanbul: Boùaziçi University Press, 2003), pp. 105–121.

11 Komatsu, Ibrahim, p. 101; Sakamoto, “The First Japanese Hadji,” p. 107.


among Indian Muslims. Thus, the first part of Yamaoka’s travelogue before his conversion lacks discussions of Islam.12 Instead, he meticu-lously recorded the injustices he witnessed on the way to Mecca. When his ship stopped at the port of Shanghai, he witnessed British police officers pulling the braided hair of Chinese men to beat them.13 From this first encounter with white men’s violence, Yamaoka’s negative image of the white race was only reinforced through the pilgrimage. He expressed anger when he saw white men occupying cozy booths on the train from Madras to Bombay while people of color were all crammed into small booths. He wrote, “Once one travels abroad, he cannot help resenting the arrogance of white men. They treat people of color as if they were slaves.”14 In Jeddah, he became indignant to hear a complaint that foreign legations of imperial powers use “protection” of their respective citizens as a pretext for surveillance.15

The arrogance of the white men he witnessed did not shake his belief in the benevolence of Japanese imperialism. He complained, “The British attitude toward Indians is not like the kind attitude we have toward Koreans at all.”16 In Yamaoka’s view, British imperialism in Asia was symptomatic of the oppressive nature of “the civilization of the white race,” which geographically corresponded to Euro-America, or the West. In juxtaposition to the West lay the East, the civilization of the peoples of color in Asia. Yamaoka, like other pan-Asianists of the era, believed that the Japanese, a fellow people of color and an Eastern nation, were simply offering a fraternal helping hand to its less fortunate Asian brothers. An enthusiastic welcome he received during the hajj as “a citizen of the victor (in the war with Russia),” including the immediate issuance of a visa for him by the Ottoman Empire, a free ticket to Jeddah, and the opportunity to dine with Sharif Husayn, reas-sured him of the righteousness of his idea.17 In this framework, Japan was responsible for liberating its brothers as the only capable brother and ending the oppression by the white men.

Yamaoka’s understanding of Islam was equally influenced by the logic of Japanese expansionism. He managed to memorize the five pil-lars of Islam and basic greetings in Arabic before reaching Jeddah, but

12� .þWDUþ�<DPDRND��$UDELD�-ąGDQNL [Diary of a Journey Across Arabia] (Tokyo: Seishi-sha, 1988), pp. 45–46.

13 Ibid., p. 5.14 Ibid., p. 31.15 Ibid., p. 73.16 Ibid., p. 51.17� .þMLUþ�1DNDPXUD��¨(DUO\�-DSDQHVH�3LOJULPV�WR�0HFFD�©�Orient 22 (1986): 47–57.


he understood fundamental concepts of Islam in the only way that was fathomable to him. In his travelogue, Yamaoka explained the meaning of Allah upon his arrival at the Ka’ba: “(Allah) is the only God and it means $PDWHUDVX�üPLNDPL�” the main goddess of the sun in the Shinto faith and the presumed ancestor of the emperor.18 He continued: “it may sound disrespectful (to the Emperor) to say that the ideal main god for West Asians today (i.e. Allah) is the same as the ancestor of our Emperor . . . Still, I came to believe that what they worship in a changed form is nothing but the ancestor of our Emperor. It is the duty of our nation and the essential for the grand plan of the Imperial Nation to propagate the absolute Shinto Faith, enlighten people, and enrich them by changing them into the subjects of the Emperor.”19 Early Japanese pilgrims to Mecca not only lacked knowledge of Islam but were devoted subjects of the Japanese Empire and understood Islam in a nationalist framework.20 Yamaoka exemplifies this trend. Even more striking when compared to later pilgrims in the interwar period is the complete absence of commercial issues in Yamaoka’s account. His travelogue reveals much about his dichotomous view of race and a Japan-centered understanding of Islam, but he does not note the pos-sibility of trade and commerce with Asian regions en route to Mecca.

Also evident is the rather marginal position of Yamaoka’s endeavor in the politics of the emerging empire. Japanese-Muslim interactions prior to World War I remained largely informal contacts and transna-tional alliances between Japanese pan-Asianists, intellectuals, military officers, and mainly diaspora Muslim activists.21 Despite the involve-ment of high-echelon army personnel and major pan-Asianists, this circle did not have much influence on the decision-making process of the empire. Moreover, the special treatment he received owed much to the enthusiasm with Japan’s victory over Russia and the unusualness of a Japanese pilgrim and had little to do with his function or position as a representative of Japan. Unlike later pilgrimages, particularly those from the mid 1930s, Yamaoka’s hajj did not benefit from the coordina-tion of the pan-Asianist circle with the Foreign Ministry, the military, and private businesses. It was only in the post–World War I period that the Japanese authorities began to use the networks between Japanese pan-Asianists and Muslim activists, and that the awareness of the need

18 Yamaoka, Arabia, p. 112.19 Ibid.20 Nakamura, “Early Japanese Pilgrims,” p. 56.21 Esenbel, “Japan’s Global Claim,” p. 1148.


to have a policy on Islam permeated in some circles of the political and military elite.22 But even then, the seeds of future Japanese-Muslim interactions did not completely come to fruition, and, as I will discuss later, only one hajj was undertaken in the 1920s.

Cultivating Japanese-Islamic Ties

The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September 1931 and the sub-sequent establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo opened a new phase in international politics and Japan’s foreign policy. When the League of Nations did not recognize the state of Manchukuo, Japan withdrew from the League in 1933. This withdrawal increased Japan’s international isolation and intensified its involvement in Northeast Asia, where Muslims lived as a significant minority group. The expan-sion of the empire into areas with a large Muslim population neces-sitated the cultivation of cordial relationships with Muslims in such areas as Manchuria and Xinjiang against the Kuomintang China in the south and the Soviet Union in the north. By aligning with Mus-lims, Japanese pan-Asianists argued, the Japanese Empire would be able to create an iron wall against its adversaries, especially the Soviet Union.23 Political discourses in the post–Manchurian Incident era also stressed how Japan had to acquaint itself with Islam, one of the three major world faiths along with Christianity and Buddhism. In a formu-laic manner, many publications about the Islamic world started with the list of areas populated by Muslims and sometimes with a world map visually representing where Muslims lived.24 From North China, Man-churia, Central Asia, the Caucasus to Southeast Asia, India, and West Asia, Islam was by far the most widely practiced religion in Asia. With WKH�0XVOLP�QDWLRQ��.DLN\þ�0LQ]RNX��EHJLQQLQJ�WR�UHYLYH�LQ�WKH�SRVW–World War I era, it is imperative for Japan, “the integrator and leader of Asia,” to reach out to them and “make them understand the truth of our nation” and thereby strengthen ties with the nation of three hun-

22 Ibid.23 .DLN\ý�6HNDL�[Islamic World] 1, no. 1 (April 1939): 1–2. Similar arguments appeared

in many publications of the period, including .DLN\ýNHQ�[Islamic World] 1, no. 1 (1938): 1.24 For instance, .DLN\ý�6HNDL 1, no. 1 (1939): 1–3��.DLN\ýNHQ 1, no. 1 (1938): 1–3, and

'DLWýD�.HQVHWVX�WR�.DLN\ýWR�[The Building of Greater East Asia and Muslims] (Nihon Bunka &KĆþ�5HQPHL��1942��$�VOLJKWO\�HDUOLHU�H[SUHVVLRQ�RI�WKLV�YLHZ�LV�LQ�0LQRMLUþ�:DWDQDEH��.DLN\ý�0LQ]RNX�QR�.DWVXGý�WR�$MLD�QR�6KýUDL [Activities of the Islamic Nation and the Future of Asia] (Osaka: Osaka Mainichi Shinbones, 1922), pp. 141–145.


dred million Muslims.25 Thus, achieving unity with the Islamic world became an essential component of Japan’s project to form pan-Asian unity under its leadership.

In order for this sudden proliferation of discussions about Islam in political discourses to occur, a rather small group of pan-Asianists needed to convince political and military leaders. Despite the constant growth of pan-Asianists in the post–World War I era, the group’s pro-posal was not adopted as the official foreign policy until 1931. Waka-ED\DVKL�+DQ��D�GLVFLSOH�RI�8FKLGD�DQG�D�PHPEHU�RI�.RNXU\ĆNDL�ZLWK�ties to the military, stresses his prominent role in the endeavor to have the pan-Asianists’ notion of Islam policy adopted as the official foreign policy.26 We know very little about Wakabayashi’s early life, but he was one of the many WDLULNX�UýQLQ� Japanese pan-Asianist adventurers who moved to the Asian continent in the first few decades of the twentieth century.27 He had a three-year sojourn in India and Burma from 1912 to 1914, when he became convinced of the importance of a policy on Islam for a new East Asian order. Upon his return, he engaged in espio-nage in Southeast Asia and China and later did further espionage in the Dutch East Indies and Taiwan (1929), at the request of Prime Min-ister Tanaka and the governor-general of Taiwan, respectively. He later played a significant role in facilitating the hajj by Japanese Muslims in the 1930s while continuing to do “research” in China.28 According to his book, he met Lieutenant General Isogai Rensuke immediately after the 1933 Assembly meeting at the League of Nations, when the Japanese delegation walked out due to the League’s criticism. Waka-bayashi discussed with Isogai the essential need to form a policy on Islam for Japan as the leader of Asia. He also met with minister of war Araki Sadao and reiterated his point regarding an Islam policy, to which Araki agreed.29 It is rather unlikely that Waka bayashi’s sugges-

25 .DLN\ý�6HNDL 1, no. 1 (1939): 3.26 For a work that discusses Wakabayashi and his book .DLN\ý� 6HNDL� WR�1LKRQ [The

Islamic World and Japan] in relation to Japanese pan-Asianism in the 1930s, see Selçuk Esenbel, “The Legacy of the War and the World of Islam in Japanese Pan-Asian Discourse: Wakabayashi Han’s .DLN\ý� 6HNDL� WR�1LKRQ�” in 5HWKLQNLQJ� WKH� 5XVVR�-DSDQHVH�:DU��1904–1905��9ROXPH�,��&HQWHQQLDO�3HUVSHFWLYHV� ed. Rotem Kowner (Folkestone, Kent: Global Ori-ental Ltd., 2007), pp. 263–280.

27 For the ties between WDLULNX�UýQLQ� chauvinistic nationalism, and Asian nationalists, see Aydin, 3ROLWLFV�RI�$QWL�:HVWHUQLVP��p. 57.

28 Wakabayashi’s life is based on JACAR (Japan Center for Asian Historical Records) Ref. B05015680800 (H.6), pictures 5–9, and Han Wakabayashi, .DLN\ý� 6HNDL� WR� 1LKRQ (Tokyo: n.p., 1938), pp. 1–7.

29 Wakabayashi, .DLN\ý�6HNDL�WR�1LKRQ� pp. 3–4.


tion was solely responsible for the adoption of the Islam policy by the Japanese government, and, as Esenbel points out, it is not even clear whether his “advice” to important military figures were solicited.30 Yet, his interactions with prominent political figures represent a wider effort among radical pan-Asianists to have their view incorporated into Japanese foreign policy.

Once the Japanese government and the military recognized the need to formulate a policy on Islam, Japan’s political ties with the ,VODPLF�ZRUOG�GUDVWLFDOO\�JUHZ��)LUVW��0XVOLP�DFWLYLVWV�VXFK�DV�$EG�UUHêLG�úbrahim and Ayaz Ishaki flocked to Japan from Tatarstan.31 The failure to acknowledge Islam as one of the official religions in the Religious Organizations Law of 1939 was compensated for by its inclusion along with the three official religions (Shinto, Buddhism, and Christian-LW\�� LQ� WKH�5HOLJLRXV� /HDJXH� RI� (DVW�$VLDQ�'HYHORSPHQW� �.þD� 6KĆ�N\þ�'þPHL��HVWDEOLVKHG�LQ�1942 and the virtual recognition of Islam’s official status.32 Furthermore, beginning in the mid 1930s, institutions devoted to studying and strengthening ties with the Islamic world came into being with differing degrees of financial support and sub-sequent interventions by the imperial government. For instance, the ,VODPLF� &XOWXUH� $VVRFLDWLRQ� �,VXUDPX� %XQND� .\þNDL�� DQ� LQVWLWXWH�established in 1932 as the first research institute for studying Islam, was restructured into an organization with much stronger influence on the navy and the Foreign Ministry in 1937. Likewise, the Research ,QVWLWXWH�RI�WKH�,VODPLF�:RUOG��.DLN\þNHQ�.HQN\ĆMR��ZDV�HVWDEOLVKHG�in 1938 under a different name but was soon taken over by Zenrin .\þNDL�� D� ULJKW�ZLQJ� RUJDQL]DWLRQ� DFWLYH� LQ� FLUFXODWLQJ� SUR�-DSDQHVH�propaganda in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia.33 Other organizations VXFK�DV�WKH�(DVW�$VLDWLF�&RPPHUFLDO�,QWHOOLJHQFH�,QVWLWXWH��7þD�.HL]DL�&KþVDN\RNX��WKH�UHVHDUFK�EUDQFK�RI�WKH�0DQFKXULDQ�5DLOZD\�OHG�E\�WKH� SDQ�$VLDQLVW� LGHRORJXH�ýNDZD�6KĆPHL�� DOVR� FRQGXFWHG� UHVHDUFK�

30 Esenbel, “The Legacy of the War,” p. 268.31 Selçuk Esenbel, “Japan’s Global Claim to Asia and the World of Islam,” p. 1159.32� &KLVDNR� 6KLJHFKLND�� ¨6KĆN\þ� 'DQWDLKþ� ZR� 0HJXUX� .DLN\þ� .þQLQ� 0RQGDL� QR�

Haikei,” Osaka Daigaku Gengo Bunkagaku 14 (2005): 143.33 For detailed discussions of these organizations, see Masashi Haneda, Isuramu Sekai

QR�6ý]ý (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 2005), pp. 234–243; Mitsuo Kawamura, “Senzen 1LKRQ�QR�,VXUDPX��&KĆWþ�.HQN\Ć�6KRVKL��6KRZD�10�1HQGDL�ZR�&KĆVKLQ�QL�©�1LKRQ�&KąWý�*DNNDL�1HQSý��$-$0(6��2 (1987): 409–439��.þML�ýVDZD��¨6KþZD�=HQNL�QL�2NHUX�,VXUDPX�.HQN\Ć��.DLN\þNHQ�.HQN\ĆMR�WR�ýNXER�.þML�©�6KąN\ý�.HQN\ą (Journal of Religious Studies) 78, no. 2 (2004): 493–516��DQG�$NLUD�8VXNL��¨6HQ]HQ�1LKRQ�QR�.DLN\þ�0RQGDL��.DLN\þNHQ�.HQN\ĆMR�ZR�&KĆVKLQ�QL�6KLWH�©�LQ�§7HLNRNX¨�1LKRQ�QR�*DNXFKL��9RO��3��7ý\ýJDNX�QR�-LED� ed. Mio Kishimoto (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2006), pp. 215–251.


on the Islamic world and Muslims. Between 1939 and 1942, these offi-cially sanctioned institutes published almost seven hundred books and articles on issues related to Islam, contributing to a heightened aware-ness about the unfamiliar religion and region among the Japanese read-ing public.34

Nevertheless, these organizations functioned primarily as research institutes, and their impact on the general public remained compara-tively limited. The group that played the most important role in dis-seminating information about Islam was the Greater Japanese Islamic $VVRFLDWLRQ� �'DL� 1LKRQ� .DLN\þ� .\þNDL�� 0DWVXVKLPD� +DMLPH�� RQH�of its members, emphasized that while the Research Institute of the Islamic World dealt primarily with scholarly works, the association focused more on contemporary issues and the dissemination of knowl-edge to the general public, as well as spreading Japan’s truth to world Muslims and promoting trade and cordial relationships with them.35 The association was established in 1938 at the initiative of prominent ILJXUHV�OLNH�7þ\DPD�0LWVXUX��WKH�SDQ�$VLDQLVW�IRXQGHU�RI�.RNXU\ĆNDL��WKH� IRUPHU� SULPH�PLQLVWHU�*HQHUDO�+D\DVKL� 6HQMĆUþ� RI� WKH� ,PSHULDO�Army, and Captain Inoue Kiyozumi of the Imperial Navy. Like other organizations, its members were mostly composed of Japanese citizens, most of whom were non-Muslims. Although the association techni-cally lacked official recognition, and the members stressed that on mul-tiple occasions it purported to establish close ties with Islamic coun-tries and Muslims based on the “spirit of the Imperial way” and thereby contribute to the national policy.36 The presence of Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro at its inauguration ceremony at Gunjin Kaikan, a PLOLWDU\�DVVHPEO\�KDOO��DQG�WKH�FKRLFH�RI�+D\DVKL�6HQMĆUþ�DV�WKH�ILUVW�president, as well as the participation of prominent figures of the army and the navy, indicated the de facto official status of the organization.

A secret booklet circulated among its Japanese members further clarifies the ideological standpoint of the association. It starts with the usual description of the Islamic world in this period; it first emphasizes that most parts of the Islamic world are suffering under the oppression of people of color by white men. The booklet then moves on to note

34 Cemil Aydin. “Overcoming Eurocentrism? Japan’s Islamic Studies during the Era of the Greater East Asia War (1937–1945),” in The Islamic Middle East and Japan: Perceptions, $VSLUDWLRQV��DQG� WKH�%LUWK�RI� ,QWUD�$VLDQ�0RGHUQLW\� ed. Renee Worringer (Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2007), p. 137.

35 Hajime Matsushima. .DLN\ý�.\ýNDL�QL�7VXLWH�QR�0RQGý [Dialogue about the Islamic $VVRFLDWLRQ@��7RN\R��'DL�1LKRQ�.DLN\þ�.\þNDL��1939), p. 1.

36 .DLN\ýNHQ�1, no. 1 (1938): 49.


Japan’s responsibility as the respected leader of people of color in the world. The time was ripe for Japan, it argues, to revive Greater Asia and achieve world peace.37 The Islamic world is particularly important for the revival of Asia because of its large and increasing population, the existence of natural resources like oil, and the unifying power of Islam. Therefore, it concludes, Japan needs to strengthen its ties with the Islamic world in order to conduct a holy war against oppressive Euro-American capitalist countries and the anti-religion Soviet Union and construct a new world order in Asia.38 The booklet clearly indi-cates the consistency of the association’s ideology with Japan’s offi-cial Islam policy to achieve pan-Asian unity through cooperation with the pan-Islamic world. It also demonstrates the incorporation of the Islamic world in Japan’s larger imperial scheme among prominent fig-ures in key civilian and military institutions of the empire, not just by a small group of intellectuals and activists as was the case in earlier decades of the century. They used the language of racial differences between peoples of color and the white race and conflated the notions of race, religion, and civilization to legitimize Japan’s burden to “liber-ate” other races in Asia like Yamaoka did in his travelogue, thus giving an effective response to Europe’s justification for colonizing nonwhite races.39 With this ideological weapon equipped, and after merging with the Islamic Culture Association in 1939, the Greater Japanese Islamic Association expanded as Japan’s key Islamic institution even into the 1940s.40

The increase in governmental interventions with Islamic affairs in Japan culminated in the construction of the first mosque in Tokyo in 1938. Unlike the mosque founded in Kobe with private money from local Indian Muslims, Tokyo Mosque was constructed with overt gov-ernmental interventions and was funded by the ]DLEDWVX. Foreign dig-nitaries and officials from more than forty countries, in addition to

37 Hajime Matsushima. 6HNDL�.DLN\ýWR�7DLVDNX�QR�+LWVX\ýVHL� QL�7VXLWH [Regarding the 1HHG�IRU�D�:RUOGZLGH�3ROLF\�WRZDUG�0XVOLPV@��7RN\R��'DL�1LKRQ�.DLN\þ�.\þNDL��1939), pp. 1–2.

38 Ibid., pp. 8–9.39 Many other works used the same distinction between the white race and the other

races. See Masao Hara, 1LKRQ� 6HLVKLQ� WR�.DLN\ý [The Japanese Spirit and Islam] (Tokyo: 'DL�1LKRQ�.DLN\þ�.\þNDL��1941), pp. 3–4, Hajime Kobayashi, .DLN\ý�-RVHWVX [Introduction WR�,VODP@��7RN\R��0DQVKĆ�-LMþ�$QQDLMR��1940), p. 5, and Masashi Sakurai, 'DLWýD�.DLN\ý�+DWWDWVX�VKL�>7KH�+LVWRU\�RI�WKH�'HYHORSPHQW�RI�,VODP�LQ�*UHDWHU�$VLD@��2VDND��6DQVHLGþ��1943), p. 8.

40� .þML� ýVDZD�� ¨6KþZD� =HQNL� QL� 2NHUX� 'DL� 1LKRQ� .DLN\þ� .\þNDL� QR� .DWVXGþ� QL�Tsuite,” 6KąN\ý�.HQN\ą�77, no. 4 (2004): 1088–1089.


Japanese politicians and military personnel, received an invitation to the opening ceremony. The ceremony adeptly captured the increased governmental interventions in Islamic affairs and the consequent ten-sions, rather than harmony, between Muslims and Japan’s Islam policy. ,W�VWDUWHG�ZLWK�D�FDOO�IRU�SUD\HU�IURP�WKH�QHZ�PLQDUHW��7KHQ��7þ\DPD�0LWVXUX��WKH�.RNXU\ĆNDL�IRXQGHU��RSHQHG�WKH�GRRU�RI�WKH�QHZ�EXLOGLQJ�DQG�HQWHUHG�LW��$EG�UUHêLG�úbrahim led the first prayer. Following the ceremony, participants went outside for the reception, which started with a speech by úbrahim and the Japanese anthem. The anthem was followed by the call for a EDQ]DL for the Japanese emperor led by the cousin of Puyi, the emperor of Manchukuo. In response to this EDQ]DL� General Matsui, who was later executed in the Tokyo Trial, led another banzai for Muslims before the end of the reception.41

The 1939 Islamic World Exhibition and related meetings perhaps best demonstrated the high level involvement by the imperial gov-ernment, an unprecedented high level of interest in the Islamic world among the general public, and, more important, the widening scope of Japanese interests in the Islamic world. The exhibition was planned and held by the Greater Japanese Islamic Association and the Islamic Asso-ciation of Tokyo at Matsuzakaya department stores in Tokyo and Osaka from November to December 1939. It was also supported by a number of other institutions, including the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Colonization Affairs, the Research Insti-tute of the Islamic World, the government of Manchukuo, the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the legations of Egypt, Iran, and Afghanistan.42 The army and the navy clandestinely supported the exhibition as well.43 The exhibition aimed to: (1) enhance the general understanding of current situations in the Islamic world, (2) introduce Islamic cultures, (3) promote cooperation with the Muslim nation, (4) promote economic cooperation with the Islamic world, and (5) invite prominent Muslims.44 The recipients of the invitation letter to the exhibition included representatives of the following areas: Manchuria, the Republic of China, the Dutch East Indies, India, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Tur-

41 *HNNDQ�.DLN\ýNHQ 1, no. 1 (1938): 48, discussed in Haneda, Isuramu Sekai, p. 249.42 .DLN\ýNHQ�7HQUDQNDL�>7KH�,VODPLF�:RUOG�([KLELWLRQ@��'DL�1LKRQ�.DLN\þ�.\þNDL�DQG�

7RN\R�,VXUDPX�.\þGDQ��1940), p. 4.43 JACAR Ref. B04012294800 (I.1), picture 17.44 .DLN\ýNHQ�7HQUDQNDL�.HLNDNXVKR [The Plan for the Islamic World Exhibition] (Dai

1LKRQ�.DLN\þ�.\þNDL�7RN\R�,VXUDPX�.\þGDQ��1939).


key.45 Although about half the foreign guests who attended the exhi-bition came from China and Manchuria, the extension of invitation letters to the Middle East indicated Japan’s new interest in the wider Islamic world beyond Northeast Asia.46 The Greater Japanese Islamic Association financed these guests’ trips and their stay in Japan and escorted them through ministries, the Diet building, mosques, schools, factories, and Shinto shrines in major Japanese cities.47 In return for the invitation, the association asked them via the Foreign Minis-try to bring items to display at the exhibition. When no guest came from some regions, the ministry requested diplomats and businessmen abroad to send items.48

The exhibition had a great turnout. According to the official record, it attracted approximately 1.5 million people in Tokyo and Osaka.49 It boasted clothing, varieties of hats, carpets, musical instruments, cook-ing utensils, pottery, water pipes, spices, food, copies of the Qur’an, school textbooks, and many other regional specialties ranging from Manchuria and Morocco to Turkestan to Java.50 The exhibition also featured pictures and georamas of diverse Islamic cities ranging from China to Tunisia, as well as pictures of the interior of mosques, bazaars, caravans, oases, and the oil refinery in Abadan.51 A Quick Guide to the Islamic World� �.DLN\þNHQ�+D\DZDNDUL�� D�ERRNOHW� WR� HQKDQFH�SXEOLF�knowledge about the vast regions of Asia, was also published specifi-cally for this occasion.52

Concurrently with the exhibition, the First World Muslim Confer-ence was held in Tokyo with more than one hundred participants from China, Afghanistan, Tatarstan, and other places. The most prominent participant was the Yemeni minister of religion al-Kibsi. Like the open-ing ceremony of Tokyo Mosque, al-Kibsi’s statement during the confer-ence seemingly pointed to the uneasiness of some Muslims with Japan’s rhetoric of pan-Asian unity including the Islamic world. He expressed his concern: “I would like this conference to be held with purely reli-gious motives and means, and I hope that this kind of conference will

45 .DLN\ýNHQ�7HQUDQNDL� p. 2.46 Ibid., p. 3.47 Ibid., p. 23–25.48 JACAR Ref. B04012294800 (I.1), pictures 17 and 22.49 .DLN\ý�7HQUDQNDL� p. 20.50 .DLN\ýNHQ�7HQUDQNDL�6KXSSLQ�0RNXURNX [The Catalogue for the Islamic World Exhi-

ELWLRQ@��'DL�1LKRQ�.DLN\þ�.\þNDL�7RN\R�,VXUDPX�.\þGDQ��1939).51 .DLN\ýNHQ�7HQUDQNDL� p. 49.52 .DLN\ýNHQ�+D\DZDNDUL� >$�4XLFN�*XLGH� WR� WKH� ,VODPLF�:RUOG@� �'DL�1LKRQ�.DLN\þ�

.\þNDL��1939).


all be based on a proper religious spirit in the future.”53 Apparently without any suspicion with regard to the intent of al-Kibsi, the confer-ence closed with a EDQ]DL for the Great Japanese Empire and Islam, and it was decided that the conference would be held annually in Tokyo.

Economic Motives

The Islamic World Exhibition was not simply a result of the govern-ment’s increased intervention based on ideological and geopoliti-cal interests. Rather, it was a culmination of a new aspect of Japan’s interaction with the Islamic world. As mentioned above, promoting economic cooperation with the Islamic world was one of the primary objectives of the exhibition. The involvement of the Ministry of Com-merce and the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, as well as the items on display in the exhibition, attest to the importance of the economic factor. In addition to regional specialties and pictures, the exhibition featured a great number of charts and panels that explained the economies and industries of the Islamic world and visually rep-resented Japan’s trade with the Islamic world.54 The data were pro-vided by the Ministry of Commerce, Mitsui and Co., Mitsubishi and &R��2VDND�6KþVHQ��DQG�WKH�1HDU�(DVW�7UDGH�$VVRFLDWLRQ��.LQWþ�%þHNL�.\þNDL��DPRQJ�RWKHUV�55 Significantly, the inclusion of the three major ]DLEDWVX�RI�0LWVXL��0LWVXELVKL��DQG�6XPLWRPR��2VDND�6KþVHQ��VXJJHVWV�the involvement of commercial interests in the exhibition and private businesses’ cooperation with state institutions in implementing an Islam policy.

Furthermore, in conjunction with the exhibition in Osaka, the Greater Japanese Islamic Association and Osaka Prefectural Trade Bureau hosted a meeting to discuss issues of trade with the Islamic world. Participants discussed such issues as the means to promote trade with the Islamic world and compete with other imperial pow-ers.56 Of particular interest to the participants was the need to con-sider cultural norms in Muslim societies, such as using staple fiber in lieu of pig hair to make toothbrushes, producing various kinds of hats worn among Muslims, and conducting more research on design and

53 Ibid., p. 21.54 Ibid., pp. 49–53.55 Ibid., pp. 18–19.56 Ibid., pp. 22–23.


color tastes among Muslims.57 Although the Ministry of Commerce had already started to dispatch researchers to the Middle East for mar-keting research, participants agreed that Japan needed to conduct fur-ther research to expand trade.58 Coupled with the commercial inter-est manifested in the exhibition, the meeting symbolized how it had become essential for Japan to promote not just the abstract ideals of Asian unity and the alliance of people of color but a more tangible goal of expanding commercial ties. It also showed the involvement of the government as well as the major ]DLEDWVX� One of the publica-tions of the Greater Japanese Islamic Association succinctly captured the new circumstances when it stated: “If we succeed in establishing a friendly Japanese-Islamic relationship and cooperating with them to create a new East Asian order, it would have a tremendous impact. Particularly, the Southwestern Islamic world is not only a very impor-tant client as a trading partner for our nation today but will increase its importance in the future as it revives. In such a circumstance, we should not be content with the present lukewarm negotiations.”59 The issue of cooperating with the Islamic world, particularly its reviv-ing heartland in the Middle East, was closely linked not only to the scheme of creating the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere and broader pan-Asian unity but to the economic prosperity of the empire as well. Political and strategic calculations and economic need came hand in hand.

Before World War I, the importance of the Middle East as Japan’s trading partner was limited to a few items like opium from Iran and the Ottoman Empire, but the Middle East increased its importance once the war broke out in Europe.60 The vacuum in Middle Eastern markets created by the unavailability of European goods during the disruption of the war was filled with cheap Japanese products. Once European items became available again after the war, Japan faced the need to protect the new market in the Middle East, and private busi-nesses began to reach out to the region in the 1920s. While Japanese textile traders began to operate in Alexandria in 1921, the Japanese consulate and a branch of Yokohama Specie Bank, which specialized

57 Hajime Matsushima. .DLN\ýNHQ�%ýHNL� =DGDQNDL [A Symposium for Trade with the ,VODPLF�:RUOG@��'DL�1LKRQ�.DLN\þ�.\þNDL�2VDND�)XULWVX�%þHNLNDQ��1939), pp. 14–15.

58 Ibid., pp. 42–44.59 .DLN\ý�6HNDL�1, no. 1 (1939): 3.60 For an English work about drug trafficking in the Japanese Empire, see John M.

Jennings, The Opium Empire: Japanese Imperialism and Drug Trafficking in Asia, 1895–1945 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997).


in trade finance and foreign exchange, opened there in 1926.61 By the early 1930s, major ]DLEDWVX like Mitsui and Co. and Mitsubishi and Co. DV�ZHOO�DV�WH[WLOH�FRPSDQLHV�OLNH�7þPHQ�DQG�.DQHEþ�EHJDQ�WR�RSHU-ate in Egypt and sold primarily cotton and other textile manufactures through Jewish agents.62 At the same time, in the 1920s and 1930s, an increasing number of Japanese companies and trade unions from major cities started to send missions to the Middle East to conduct research on the potential of exporting such items as textiles, pottery and porcelain, and tea, and circulated their findings among parties of interest.63

Japanese economic penetration into the Middle East was impres-sive, partly thanks to the accumulation of knowledge about the new market. More fundamentally, however, the decline of Lancashire prod-ucts, the Great Depression, and the consequent sharp decline in the purchasing power of the native population facilitated the export of Jap-anese products, especially textile products such as cotton piece goods. Japanese goods, able to be manufactured more cheaply than British goods, swept through Egypt as the chief rival to the British.64 By 1934, Japan, with total exports of 3,444 Egyptian pounds, was the second larg-est exporter to Egypt after the British (6,486 pounds).65 For items like porcelain, Japan was undisputedly the largest exporter to Egypt, where 41 percent of porcelain came from Japan, while Germany, the second largest exporter, produced only 19 percent of porcelain imported by Egypt. This rapid stride prompted the researcher sent by the Pottery

61� 6KĆML�7DPXUD�� ¨1LKRQ� WR�$UDEX�2PRLGH�QR�.L©� >-DSDQ� DQG�$UDE§0HPRLU@�� SS��5–6 [a transcription of lectures given in 1978 and 1979]; available from http://www.econ.hit-u.ac.jp/~areastd/japan-arab/japan-arab-2.pdf, accessed 4 February 2011.

62 Ibid.63 Matsushima, .DLN\ýNHQ�%ýHNL� =DGDQNDL� p. 44. Examples of these publications are

3HUXVKD�.HL]DL� -LMý� >(FRQRPLF�&RQGLWLRQV� LQ�3HUVLD@� �<RNRKDPD�6HLNLQ�*LQNþ�7þGRULVHNL�&KþVDND��1929); .LQWý�2\REL�$IXULND�.DNXFKL�QL�2NHUX�&KD�-LJ\ý�&KýVD [Survey of Tea Busi-QHVVHV�LQ�WKH�1HDU�(DVW�DQG�$IULFD@��7RN\R��&KDJ\þ�.XPLDL�&KĆþ�.DLJLVKR��1932��,WDUþ�Mizuno, <DNXVKLQ�1LKRQ�QR�6KLQVKLMý��.LQWý�&KLKý�ZR�7ýVD�6KLWH [New Markets for Emerging -DSDQ�� 6XUYH\LQJ� LQ� WKH�1HDU� (DVW@� �7RN\R��1LKRQ�.RNXVDL�.\þNDL��1935); 3HUXVKD�ZDQ�(QJDQ�6KRNRNX�.HL]DL�-LMý�&KýVD�+ýNRNXVKR [Report of a Survey of Economic Conditions of 3HUVLDQ�*XOI�6WDWHV@��2VDND�6KþVHQ��1936); .LQWý�6KRNRNX�7ýMLNL�6KLMý�&KýVD [Survey of the 3RWWHU\�0DUNHW�LQ�1HDU�(DVWHUQ�&RXQWULHV@��1DJR\D�7þMLNL�<XVKXWVX�.XPLDL��1936��7HL]þ Nakagawa, .LQWý�(MLSXWR�6KLMý�&KýVD [Survey of Markets in the Near East and Egypt] (Nagoya 6KLQKDQUR�<XVKXWVX�.\þNDL��1937); and $UDELD��.LQWý�6KRNRNX�QR�*HQMý�WR�+RQSý�%ýHNLMý�no Chii [Current Situations in Arabia and Near Eastern Countries and the Status of Our 1DWLRQ«V�7UDGH@��1LKRQ�0HQVKLIX�ýDNLQWþ�<XVKXWVX�.XPLDL�.REH�6KLVKR��1937).

64 Hiroshi Shimizu, $QJOR�-DSDQHVH�7UDGH�5LYDOU\�LQ�WKH�0LGGOH�(DVW�LQ�WKH�,QWHU�ZDU�3HULRG (London: Ithaca Press, 1986), pp. 270–271.

65 Matsushima, 6HNDL�.DLN\ýWR�6HLVDNX�QR�+LWVX\ýVHL�QL�7VXLWH� pp. 18–21.


and Porcelain Export Union of Nagoya to proclaim that the Middle East was no longer a new market but a market to protect from fierce competition with Japan’s rivals.66

The growth of trade with the Middle East was not limited to Egypt. By the mid 1930s, Japan was the third largest exporter to Syria and Lebanon after France and Britain and the second largest exporter to Morocco after France.67 In Iraq as well, Japan was quickly catching up with Britain. While Japan accounted for only 4.37 percent of Iraq’s imports in 1931–1932, the percentage of imports from Japan reached its peak of 20.04 percent in 1934–1935. During the same period, the percentage of imports from Britain dropped from 27.19 percent to 25.00 percent.68 The influx of Japanese products was even more visible in the Persian Gulf. Japan’s export commodities like piece goods, chinaware, glassware, haberdashery, cement, and matches flooded Gulf markets like elsewhere in the Middle East at the expense of British interests.69 The Gulf was especially eager to import cheap textiles and other light consumer goods because it had practically no local industry to protect against Japanese products. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, Japan became virtually the sole supplier of cotton piece goods particularly since the Saudi government imposed low ad valorem duties on foreign textile goods for revenue purposes.70�1DNDQR�(LMLUþ��ZKR�VWXGLHG�DW�DO�$]KDU�and taught Japanese there, witnessed the ubiquity of Japanese prod-ucts in Saudi Arabia when he accompanied Japan’s minister of Egypt, Yokoyama Masayuki, in his 1939 mission to the newly established kingdom. He saw Japanese ink in the reception room of the head secre-tary of Ibn Saud and took this as a polite gesture by the secretary, but he later realized his misunderstanding when he found Japanese products dominating the local markets.71

Behind Japan’s aggressive economic penetration in the 1930s was the change of rules in international trade; once the Great Depression reached the entire world, protectionism quickly replaced free trade. The formation of trade blocs, most notably the sterling bloc by Brit-ain, as well as the pressure on independent states to conform to British

66 .LQWý�6KRNRNX�7ýMLNL�6KLMý�&KýVD� pp. 1, 5–6.67 6HNDL�.DLN\ýWR�6HLVDNX� pp. 18–2168 $UDELD��.LQWý�6KRNRNX�QR�*HQMý� pp. 36–37.69 Sugata Bose, $�+XQGUHG�+RUL]RQV�� 7KH� ,QGLDQ�2FHDQ� LQ� WKH� $JH� RI�*OREDO� (PSLUH

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp. 85, 92–93.70 Shimizu, $QJOR�-DSDQHVH�7UDGH�5LYDOU\� p. 259.71� (LMLUþ�1DNDQR��¨$UDELD�ýGDQNL�7,”�.DLN\ý�6HNDL�2, no. 9 (1940): 53��¨$UDELD�ýGDQNL�

9,” .DLN\ý�6HNDL 2, no. 11 (1940): 82.


trade policies, intensified the perception in Japan of the inevitability of a pending economic collapse.72 At the same time, much of the Middle East needed to protect its nascent local industries against the influx of cheap Japanese goods. For instance, Egypt imposed “a 40 per cent depreciated currency surtax on Japanese textile goods in 1935, which virtually eliminated Japanese competition in the second half of the decade” at least partly due to British pressure.73 In 1936, Iraq imposed a barter system, which required Japan to purchase 15 percent of the value of items it exported to Iraq. While Iraq, a new member of the League of Nations since 1932, was not allowed to impose a similar requirement on other members, it could impose discriminatory measures on Japan, a nonmember of the League since its withdrawal in 1933.74 Japan’s nonmember status in the League of Nations further jeopardized Japan’s economic status in 1937, when Syria and Lebanon passed a new tariff law that set the tariff rate for nonmember states at double of that for member states.75

Japanese businesses responded to the new obstacles, but they were ultimately unsuccessful because World War II broke out before busi-nesses or the government could take appropriate actions. In 1936, to rectify the issue of the lopsided trade balance and to forestall further discriminatory measures against Japanese goods in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, a group of textile manufacturers and exporters, including H[HFXWLYHV�RI�1LFKLPHQ��7þPHQ��0LWVXL�DQG�&R��DQG�0LWVXELVKL�DQG�Co., started to encourage imports from these areas by subsidizing the importers.76 Through subsidies, items like olive oil, cotton, and wool were imported to Japan in modest amounts, but this measure turned out to be impermissible because the continuing war with China required gaining foreign currency and discouraged the purchase of

72 For recent works that discuss the reorganization and growth of intra-Asian trade in the 1930s, see Kaoru Sugihara, $MLD�.DQ�%ýHNL�QR�.HLVHL� WR�.ý]ý��.\RWR��0LQHUYD�6KREþ��1996); Naoto Kagotani, $MLD�.RNXVDL�7VąVKý�&KLWVXMR�WR�.LQGDL�1LKRQ (Nagoya: Nagoya Uni-versity Press, 2000). I would like to thank Dr. Mark Metzler for bringing these works to my attention.

73 Shimizu, $QJOR�-DSDQHVH�7UDGH�5LYDOU\� pp. 272, 275. See also Tamura, “Nihon to Arabu,” pp. 9–13, for negotiations with Egypt, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern states.

74 $UDELD��.LQWý�6KRNRNX�QR�*HQMý� pp. 47–48.75 1LKRQ�üDNLQWý� <XQ\ą� .XPLDL� -LJ\ýVKL [Business History of the Japanese Union of

(XURSHDQ��$IULFDQ��DQG�1HDU�(DVWHUQ�,PSRUWV@��2VDND��1LKRQ�ýDNLQWþ�<XQ\X�-LJ\þ�.XPLDL��1943), p. 9.

76 Ibid., p. 1.


unnecessary goods. The group was disbanded by 1942, when the Min-LVWU\�RI�&RPPHUFH�HVWDEOLVKHG�WKH�&RQWURO�$VVRFLDWLRQ��%þHNL�7þVHL�Kai).77

Thus, overall, the Middle East was a large market for Japan with little to offer materially but much to offer to boost Japan’s legitimacy as the leader of Asia. Japan was starting possible oil concession negotia-tions, such as Minister Yokoyama’s 1939 mission to Saudi Arabia had earlier mentioned, but oil did not prominently factor in the relation-ship between Japan and the Middle East of the interwar period. Middle Eastern countries were more important as markets than oil suppliers, and organizations like the Greater Japanese Islamic Association con-tinued to argue for the need to strengthen Japan’s economic ties with the Middle East. Publications by the association stressed Japan’s need to promote trade with areas outside the yen bloc in order to obtain for-eign currency.78 Only by forging a unified bloc with the Islamic world, one of them claimed, would Japan be able to compensate for the lack of colonies and create a self-sufficient economic bloc like Britain and Russia.79 The presumed existence of a unified “Islam bloc” made perfect sense when Japanese Islam-related organizations were celebrating the supposed revival of Islamic unity and the first step to establish the Islam bloc between the British Empire and the Soviet Union, Japan’s two chief enemies. They cited such events as the 1937 Sa’adabad Treaty between Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey and the 1939 marriage of Crown Prince Mohammad Reza of Shi’ite Iran and Princess Fawziyah of Sunni Egypt as direct evidence of the emergence of a unified Islam bloc.80 Therefore, the rapid growth of Japanese-Islamic ties stemmed not only from the strategic need to deal with Muslims in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, where the empire was beginning to expand, but also from the immediate economic need of the empire to secure markets outside its sphere. The perceived unity of the Islamic world also increased the importance of the Middle East, especially Saudi Ara-bia, in the minds of the Japanese because gaining support from the

77 Ibid., pp. 1, 12.78 Matsushima, .DLN\ý�.\ýNDL�QL�7VXLWH�QR�0RQGý� p. 5.79 .DLN\ýNHQ�+D\DZDNDUL� pp. 80–81.80 For instance, see .DLN\ý�6HNDL�1, no. 1 (1939): 54–58, .DLN\ýNHQ 1, no. 1 (1938):

5, and .DLN\ýNHQ 1, no. 2 (1938): 34. For a detailed discussion of how the concept of the “Islamic world” took root in Japanese consciousness, see Haneda, ,VXUDPX�6HNDL�QR�6ý]ý� pp. 249, 256.


guardian of the holy places would presumably improve Japan’s cred-ibility among various Muslim groups.

The Hajj as a Mission

The hajj in the 1930s manifested these new circumstances in which state institutions took initiative with the cooperation of private busi-nesses to make a political and economic alliance with the unified Islamic world. By this time, the hajj was considered as a site of politi-cal and socioeconomic decision making among national leaders of the entire Islamic world who gathered in the holy city.81 Thus, the hajj, along with studying at al-Azhar in Cairo, appeared to be the best way to prove the sincerity of the Japanese slogan to unite and liberate Asian peoples of color and the most efficient way to promote trade with Mus-lims across the world.82

Profiles of Japanese pilgrims in the post–Manchurian Incident era indicate their strong ties to pan-Asianists and the military. As men-tioned before, the number of Japanese pilgrims did not exceed a dozen. The small number of pilgrims and repeated hajj by the same individuals completely make sense if one sees their hajj as missions to accumu-late knowledge and make connections with prominent Muslims. Pay-ing attention to the connections, funding, and activities of some of these pilgrims will clarify their relationship to the official Islam policy of the Japanese government at the time and enable us to contextualize their hajj as a constitutive element of the efforts made by the Japanese government, ]DLEDWVX� and Islam-related organizations to reach out to the Islamic worldTanaka Ippei, who went on pilgrimage in 1924 and 1934, worked for the army as an official interpreter of Chinese during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904–1905 and stayed in China afterward. Before World War I, he had already established contacts with promi-QHQW�SDQ�$VLDQLVWV�DQG�KDG�EHHQ�LQYROYHG�LQ�IRXQGLQJ�.RNXU\ĆNDL�83

81 :DJD�1DQ\ý�%ýHNL�WR�.DLN\ýWR [Our Southeast Asian Trade and Muslims] (Dai Nihon .DLN\þ�.\þNDL��1939), p. 16.

82 Some Japanese studied at al-Azhar in the interwar period. Some, like Masuko Isamu DQG�<DPDPRWR�7DUþ��KDG�VWURQJHU�FRQQHFWLRQV�ZLWK�WKH�PLOLWDU\��ZKLOH�RWKHUV�GLG�QRW�VHHP�to have direct ties with the military at the time of enrollment. See Tamura, “Nihon to Arabu,” pp. 23–25, and JACAR Ref. B04011301000 (I.1), picture 2, Ref. B04011355600 (I.1), pictures 2–3, and Ref. B04012201900 (I.1).

83 Ippei Tanaka, Isuramu Junrei: Hakuun Yuki� >,VODPLF�3LOJULPDJH@��7RN\R��5RQVþVKD��2004), p. 10��.RNXU\ĆNDL��7ýD� 6HQNDNX� 6KLVKL�.LGHQ� vol. 3 (7RN\R��+DUD�6KREþ��1966), p. 262.


Thus, as Esenbel suggests, Tanaka was the link between the older gen-eration of Japanese pan-Asianists in the late Meiji period and the new generation in the 1930s.84 He was first convinced of the importance of having an Islam policy through his discussions with Wakabayashi. After the discussions, Tanaka became a Muslim in Qingdao.85 With Wakabayashi’s urging, he completed his first hajj in 1924, disguising himself as a Chinese Muslim, then came back to Japan with a Chinese Muslim. Tanaka also founded a school to study languages and the reli-gion of the Islamic world in 1927.86

Tanaka firmly believed in Japan’s “God-given responsibility” as the leader of people of color to liberate Asian nations from the oppression of the white race.87 In order for Japan to achieve this, he believed, Japan needed to abandon the slogan of “Leave Asia, Enter Europe” from the Meiji Restoration era as well as the “Euro-American colonial utilitarian economic policy.” Instead, he claimed, he should “return to Japan, return to Asia, . . . and become the star of Asia through the evolution of the Imperial Way.”88 Reminiscent of Yamaoka’s view, one of the core elements in Tanaka’s worldview was the clearly demarcated boundaries between the white race and people of color. He squarely rejected Western capitalism and materialism, stressed the need to restore Eastern religiosity, and argued for the significance of religious understandings in Japan’s colonial policies, in contradistinction with the British “materialist” policies in India.89 In order to solve the con-flict between two contradictory worldviews and create a symbiotic rela-tionship between the white race and people of color, he believed, a showdown of the people of color against the white race, like Gandhi’s movement, and the victory of the former was unavoidable.90

Islam, as well as Shinto, occupied a central place in this worldview. During his journey to Mecca, Tanaka continued to pray facing the Ka’ba as well as the Imperial Palace.91 For him, the rise of Islam was one of the two miracles that happened to mankind. It was a revival of an ancient way of God and a reform of corrupted religions of pre-Islamic Arabia on the Western edge of the Asian continent, while the “2,600

84 Esenbel, “The Legacy of the War,” p. 273.85 Wakabayashi, .DLN\ý�6HNDL�WR�1LKRQ� p. 2, and JACAR Ref. B05015680800 (H.6),

picture 6.86� .RNXU\ĆNDL��7ýD�6HQNDNX�6KLVKL�.LGHQ� vol. 2 �7RN\R��+DUD�6KREþ��1966), p. 850.87 Tanaka, Isuramu Junrei, p. 164.88 Ibid., pp. 166–167.89 Ibid., pp. 254, 256.90 Ibid., pp. 259–260.91 Ibid., p. 169.


years” of the history of the holy emperor and Shinto stood for another miracle on the Eastern edge of the Asian continent.92 Harmonizing the two religions was an urgent task that faced the imperial nation in order to restore religion and its Way in an increasingly materialistic world. At one point, Tanaka even equated Allah with Amenominakanushi-nokami, a Shinto god of creation, just like other early Muslims includ-ing Yamaoka tried to understand Islam in the framework of Shinto.93 Thus, Tanaka’s hajj in 1924 was a journey of a nationalist ideologue who rejected “Western materialism” and sought to find a way to unite Asia religiously rather than a trip that aimed to establish commercial ties with the Islamic world.

Tanaka’s second hajj in 1934 notably differed from his first hajj a decade earlier. His second hajj was funded by Wakabayashi and had more overt political and economic purposes. In late 1933, he traveled around India, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt with Yama-PRWR�7DUþ� DQG�<DPDXFKL�+LGHR� DQG� VWXGLHG� WKH� SRWHQWLDO� IRU� WUDGH�and the condition of industries in these countries at the request of the Japanese government. Because Yamamoto and Yamauchi were assigned only for the examination of the economic situation, they separated from Tanaka in Afghanistan and Beirut, respectively, and Tanaka was joined by Nakano Hideo, a diplomat at the Japanese Legation in Tur-key. After reaching Mecca, they had a meeting with King Ibn Saud and prominent religious figures.94 They also met the Saudi finance minister, Shaykh Abdullah Sulayman, who asked them to inform the Japanese authorities about Saudi Arabia’s desire to conclude a commercial treaty with Japan.95 According to the British minister at Jeddah, Sulayman was infatuated with Japan and was “reported to have acclaimed Japan in private conversations as the greatest of countries and a potential exporter of pilgrims.”96 Clearly, Tanaka’s second hajj in 1934 had a more official nature. He was requested by the government to conduct research in countries on the way and held meetings with the Saudi finance minister. In his first hajj, in contrast, though Tanaka had at least indirect connections to the pan-Asianist circle as his source of funding indicates, he traveled incognito as a Chinese Muslim and did not seem to have meetings with prominent figures. Most likely, he shared the information he gathered in Mecca with Japanese pan-

92 Ibid., pp. 81, 186, 201, 203–204.93 Rezrazi, “Dai Ajia Shugi,” p. 110.94� .RNXU\ĆNDL��7ýD�6HQNDNX�6KLVKL�.LGHQ� 2:850, 3:262–263.95 Shimizu, $QJOR�-DSDQHVH�7UDGH�5LYDOU\� pp. 259–260.96 Ibid., cited in n. 109 for chap. 9 on p. 269.


Asianists, but there was no direct medium to suck it up to Japanese state institutions.

The hajj by younger generations of Muslims from 1935 to 1938 shows a similar pattern. Their trips were funded by Wakabayashi, who in turn received funding from the three major ]DLEDWVX of Mitsui, Mit-subishi, and Sumitomo; the Textile Association; the Kwantung Army; and the South Manchurian Railway.97 Many of the pilgrims became Muslims abroad and later studied at Tanaka’s school. For instance, while Suzuki Tsuyoshi encountered Islam in Celebes during his stay as a businessman, Hosokawa Masaru, a graduate of Osaka University of Foreign Languages in Sanskrit studies, apparently converted in India. 2WKHUV�KDG�EHHQ�LQYROYHG�LQ�SROLWLFDO�DFWLYLWLHV�SULRU�WR�WKHLU�KDMM��.þUL�6Kþ]þ�ZDV�DFWLYH�LQ�&KLQD�IURP�WKH�ODWH�1920V��DQG�<DPDPRWR�7DUþ��WKH�travel companion of Tanaka from the previous year, studied at al-Azhar only briefly after his sojourn in Kabul and later stayed in Morocco for a “mission.”98 Similar to previous Japanese pilgrims, the new genera-tion lacked proper knowledge of Islam and Arabic. Although they did not overtly mold Islam in a Shinto framework to understand their new faith, they carried a copy of the Japanese translation of the Qur’an during the hajj with an image of Prophet Muhammad in it, which of course caused much anger among Egyptian police officers who saw the image.99

Like Tanaka’s second hajj, the younger generations of Japanese pil-grims played an official role during their hajj. As representatives of Japan, they were invited to a number of meetings with representatives of other countries.100 According to their travelogue, while they were received cordially in every one of these meetings, five white Muslims from Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States were not invited to any of the meetings perhaps because of the Muslim view that “white men are not Easterners, nor are they people of color.”101 Thus, like Yamaoka and Tanaka, these Japanese pilgrims held a dichotomous worldview with perpetual racial tensions. They also shared with the

97 Wakabayashi, .DLN\ý�6HNDL�WR�1LKRQ� p. 5.98 JACAR Ref. B05015680800 (H.6), pictures 10–12� IRU� WKH� UHVXPHV�RI�.þUL�6Kþ]þ�

and Hosokawa Masaru. For Yamamoto, see Fujio Komura, Nihon Isuramu Shi (Tokyo: Nihon ,VXUDPX�<ĆNþ�5HQPHL��1988), p. 459.

99 Tsuyoshi Suzuki and Masaru Hosokawa, 1LKRQ� .DLN\ýWR� QR� 0HNND� -XQUHLNL� [The Travelogue of a Pilgrimage to Mecca by Japanese Muslims], reprinted in Shinji Mae jima, Mekka��7RN\R��)X\þ�6KREþ��1975), p. 225.

100 Suzuki, Hosokawa, and Enomoto. “Mekka Taisaiki,” in Wakabayashi, .DLN\ý�6HNDL�to Nihon, pp. 118–123.

101 Ibid., p. 129.


previous Japanese pilgrims a view in which Japan would lead the libera-tion of peoples of color against white men and did not fail to mention speeches by a few Malay Muslims in which they “stressed that it is Japan’s responsibility as the leader of the East to support the liberation of the oppressed people of the East and bring Eastern nations to the coast of happiness and prosperity.”102

Like Tanaka, Suzuki and other Japanese Muslims had several meet-ings with Abdullah Sulayman and discussed the possibility of starting direct trade between Saudi Arabia and Japan without going through the hands of Yemeni merchants to lower the price of Japanese goods.103 They discussed the possibilities of establishing a Japanese-Arabian trading company in Jeddah, opening an exhibition center for Japanese products to take advantage of the hajj to introduce Japanese products to Muslims from across the globe, and stopping of Japanese ships at Jed-dah.104 The plans did not materialize in the end, but the pilgrims most likely reported the plans back to their sponsors in Japan.

More striking about the travelogue of the younger generations was the number of pages dedicated to issues of trade and commerce. This is partly due to the fact that previous travelogues by Yamaoka and Tanaka had elaborated on Muslim customs and rituals during the hajj, but it also demonstrates the importance of trade and commerce in the minds of the Japanese pilgrims, as they note: “to strengthen economic ties [with Arabia] is not only an issue with Arabia, but it is an important issue with all the Muslim states and peoples, and thus should shape the core of our Islam Policy.”105 In addition to the meeting with Abdullah Sulayman, the travelogue notes the “flood of Japanese products” like cotton piece goods, rayon piece goods, silk piece goods, tea, canned food, toys, matches, stationery goods, lamps, knives, and forks.106 Witnessing the popularity of Japanese products, the Japanese pilgrims attributed it not simply to the low price and high quality of Japanese products but to a sense of respect and friendship among Saudi Arabians toward a fellow Eastern country that successfully reached the highest level of civilization in the East.107 Their interest further extended to tariff rates, statistical data of trade, common complaints from Saudi consumers about Japanese products, and potential problems for Japanese compa-

102 Ibid., p. 130.103 Ibid., pp. 135–141.104 Ibid., p. 133.105 Ibid., p. 152.106 Ibid., pp. 141–142.107 Suzuki and Hosokawa, “Nihonjin no Mekka Junrei ki” in Maejima, Mekka, p. 245.


nies like credit of local merchants, exchange rates, and legal problems in Saudi Arabia.108 The prominence of the new economic factor in the travelogues of the younger generations does not necessarily dimin-ish the significance of such older themes as racial dichotomy and pan-Asian unity under Japanese leadership. Rather, it demonstrates how the Japanese pilgrims, in congruence with Islamic organizations and pan-Asianists, found a legitimate way to express practical economic needs through the language of pan-Asian unity and Japan’s “respon-sibility” in it. They elevated the necessity to secure Japanese markets into a vital component of a lofty ideal by seeing economic motives and political motives as two inseparably intertwined parts of the liberation of peoples of color as well as by stressing the expectations Muslims allegedly had toward Japan, the presumed leader of Asia.

Nonetheless, Japanese pilgrims as well as Islamic organizations in Japan were keenly aware of the changing perceptions in Asia. Between Japanese pilgrims and Chinese pilgrims, Mecca was becoming a battle-ground for winning the hearts of Muslims, especially after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937. Suzuki referred to this issue when he wrote to request that the government include Islam in the Religious Organizations Law in 1939. He recalled his experience in the 1938 Islamic Convention in Mecca during his third hajj, when Chinese representatives accused Japan in the following way: “As com-monly known, Japan is an imperialist country and is using religion in order to start an economic invasion first and then politically colonize Islamic countries. Now, it is incomprehensible why Japan destroys many mosques and massacres many Chinese Muslims on one hand and builds a mosque, holds an opening ceremony and boasts it to Muslims in the world on the other. If Japan feels so sympathetic to Islam, why does it dare to commit cruel acts like massacring Muslims in China?”109 The Chinese representatives then circulated thousands of copies of pamphlets blaming Japan, and the few Japanese Muslims apparently defended Japan’s cause of the holy war in vain. A secret booklet of the Greater Japanese Islamic Association from 1939 also admitted the growing anti-Japanese sentiments among Muslims, particularly due to

108 Suzuki, Hosokawa, and Enomoto, “Mekka Taisaiki,” in Wakabayashi, .DLN\ý�6HNDL�to Nihon, pp. 143–150.

109 Tsuyoshi Suzuki, 1LKRQ�QL�7DLVXUX�6HNDL�.DLN\ýWR�QR�6DNHEL [A Call from Muslims in WKH�:RUOG�WR�-DSDQ@��7RN\R��'DL�1LKRQ�.DLN\þ�.\þNDL��1939), pp. 4–5. For a British report of Chinese activities, see “Report on the Hajj of 1356 AH (1938), 36” in Records of the Hajj: $�'RFXPHQWDU\�+LVWRU\�RI�WKH�3LOJULPDJH�WR�0HFFD�9RO��7 (The Saudi Period [1935–1951]), ed. A. de L. Rush (Cambridge: Cambridge Archive Editions, 1993), p. 281.


the Sino-Japanese War. The booklet noted the negative influence of speeches by Chinese, Malay, Indonesian, and Indian Muslims during the Islamic Convention in Mecca coupled with negative propaganda by Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the Netherlands.110 The book-let went on to call for a more rigorous way of correcting the perceptions of these Muslims, who were deceived by the ignorant Chinese, or the making of New East Asia by the imperial nation would fail.111 Kasama Akio, an Islam specialist in the Foreign Ministry, went as far as casting doubt on the effectiveness of sending pilgrims to Mecca and pointed out that Muslims were becoming increasingly suspicious of the motives of Japanese pilgrims. Because Muslims were now more aware of the political nature of Japanese pilgrimages and of the un-Islamic lifestyle of Japanese Muslims once they left Mecca, Kasama continued, some Muslims were proposing to not allow Japanese pilgrims.112

Conclusion

Japan failed to continue sending organized groups of pilgrims after 1938. The British reported no Japanese propaganda in 1939. The only report concerning Japanese pilgrims mentioned three Japanese students from al-Azhar who were “neutralized by some Chinese alumni of the same institution.”113 At the same time, the wartime economy shrank avail-able funds for organizations like the Greater Japanese Islamic Associa-tion. Moreover, legations in areas controlled by the Allies were closed in 1941, and the subsequent evacuation of these areas by Japanese busi-nessmen halted their economic activities. Even if Japan could have continued sending pilgrims, Japan’s reputation had perhaps been too tarnished among many Muslims to gain much support for pan-Asian unity under Japanese leadership, particularly once Japan invaded such areas as Malay and the Dutch East Indies.

In retrospect, the Japanese hajj did not yield a tangible result. Nev-ertheless, it is certainly true that Japan’s post–World War II relations with the Arab world at least indirectly capitalized on the connections cultivated during the interwar period.114 For instance, Nakatani Takeyo, a pan-Asianist from the prewar era who remained active in pursuing

110 6HNDL�.DLN\ýWR�7DLVDNX� pp. 10–11.111 Ibid., pp. 11–12.112 JACAR Ref. B02030922100 (A.3.3), picture 20.113 “Report on the Hajj of 1358 AH (1940), 11,” 5HFRUGV�RI�WKH�+DMM�9RO��7, p. 367.114 Tamura, “Nihon to Arabu,” pp. 28, 30–37.


the independence of the Arab world, including Palestine, met Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser approximately six months after the end of the 1956 Suez crisis and discussed Arab nationalism with him. He later became the chairman of the Japan Arab Association, which combined politi-cal activism and economic cooperation with Arab organizations and countries.115 Nakatani’s example is not an isolated case. In fact, many of the Japanese who engaged politically, economically, and intellectu-ally with the Arab world in the postwar era had started their careers in the prewar era. In this regard, the Japanese hajj in the interwar era probably comprised part of the cross-cultural exchange whose foun-dations survived the disruption during World War II and the postwar occupation of Japan.

The hajj by Japanese Muslims in the interwar period reflects the last phase of the triumph of Japanese nationalism over potential universal-isms like pan-Asianism and pan-Islamism. As Sugata Bose notes, “[n]ationalism and universalism, far from being in an adversarial relation-ship, were bound in a strong symbiotic embrace.”116 Having fertilized not only within rigid political boundaries but through itinerary activ-ists and scholars in diaspora as well, universalisms with potential to nurture a shared identity among Asians or Muslims captured imagina-tion of many Asian thinkers from the late nineteenth century. Coming from the chauvinistic pan-Asianist circle, however, Japanese pilgrims to Mecca were first and foremost loyal to the Japanese emperor more than anything else. They understood pan-Asian unity and Islam in the framework of Japan’s right to expand into the Asian continent rather than formulating an ideal of an equal partnership. Nonetheless, Yama-oka was welcomed with enthusiasm among Muslims in his 1909 hajj because the infatuation with Japan in the immediate aftermath of the war with Russia was still a valid dream among Asian nationalists and perhaps among the public as well. During Suzuki’s 1938 hajj, however, Japanese pilgrims faced harsh denunciation by Chinese Muslims. By this time, the potential of pan-Asianism to achieve harmony among equal partners had been exhausted by chauvinistic nationalism among Japanese pan-Asianists as well as by the rise of nationalist movements in Asia. On the one hand, Japanese Muslims imagined a larger Japan beyond the Japanese archipelago and supported Japan’s rhetoric of pan-

115 Takeyo Nakatani, 6KýZD� 'ýUDQNL� QR� .DLVý�� 1DNDWDQL� 7DNH\R� .DLNRURNX� 9RO�� 1 >0HPRULHV�RI�WKH�7XPXOWXRXV�3HULRG�RI�6KþZD��7KH�0HPRLU�RI�1DWDNDQL�7DNH\R@��7RN\R��7DLU\ĆVKD��1989), pp. 78–93.

116 Bose, $�+XQGUHG�+RUL]RQV� p. 31.


Asian unity all the way to West Asia, but the only way to incorporate Islam into this imagination was the de facto relegation of Islam and framing it in the mold of the Shinto faith. On the other hand, Muslim nationalists were striving for the sake of their nation, not a larger entity that might have existed in their imagination in earlier decades.

Just when Japan’s political call for Asian unity was losing credibil-ity, Japan was economically penetrating into the Islamic world, partic-ularly into the hitherto neglected Middle East. The Great Depression and the formation of protectionist economic blocs in the 1930s pushed Japan to seek its markets outside the yen bloc to gain foreign currency. The significantly lower price of Japanese products in comparison with European products contributed to Japan’s stride into Middle Eastern markets. Japanese pilgrims in the 1930s not only witnessed the popu-larity of Japanese products but also actively participated in examining economic conditions and meeting political figures to discuss issues of trade and commerce. This by no means suggests that the pilgrims had the authority to sign treaties and make formal agreements. This author-ity remained reserved for the Japanese minister in Cairo, who visited Riyadh following the 1938 hajj to discuss oil concessions and the potential for a bilateral treaty.117 Nevertheless, the new function of the hajj and how it was justified as a vital component of a policy on Islam elucidates on the resilience of the universalist slogan to incorporate the new economic needs of the empire. Whereas existing literature rightly discusses the centrality of the ideology of pan-Asianism and transna-tional movements of activists and revolutionaries, ideology alone could not have fostered the development of stronger ties between Japan and the Islamic world in the 1930s. The expansion of Japanese-Islamic con-nections in the 1930s was very much rooted in the practical needs of the empire. Likewise, however, economic motives alone could not have effectively incubated the alliance between pan-Asianists, the military, ]DLEDWVX� and other private businesses during the 1930s. The relation-ship between ideas and economic needs was supplementary. Only when an appropriate language of pan-Asian unity expressed the economic need in a legitimate form of rhetoric did strategic and economic needs converge in the 1930s, and when the language of pan-Asian unity failed and the war with the Allied Powers broke out, economic pen-etration had to halt temporarily, until the 1950s.

117 For this mission, see “Japanese and Chinese Interest in the Pilgrimage, 1939,” 5HFRUGV�RI�WKH�+DMM�9RO��7, pp. 343–344��DQG�(LMLUþ�1DNDQR��¨$UDELD�ýGDQNL�©�.DLN\ý�6HNDL�1, no. 8 (1939), .DLN\ý�6HNDL�3, no. 2 (1941).

The Hajj by Japanese Muslims in the Interwar Period: Japan's Pan-Asianism and Economic Interests in...

Documents

Transcript of The Hajj by Japanese Muslims in the Interwar Period: Japan's Pan-Asianism and Economic Interests in...