A Muslim intellectual in Korea: Abdürreşid İbrahim (1857–1944) and Situating Korea in the Pan-Asian world order

Abstract

Abdürreşid İbrahim, a leading Muslim scholar originally from Russia, embarked on his journey to Japan in 1908 to meet with his contacts from Kokuryūkai (Black Dragon Society). On his way back, he spent around ten days in the Korean Empire. İbrahim, who was convinced of the “barbarism” of the West, found quite a few examples in Korea to build upon his theory of “Eastern civility,” just as he had found during his time in Japan. He met with a range of people, from porters to the Korean Empire’s Interior Minister, and wrote about them in his travelogue titled Âlem-i İslam [The World of Islam]. This paper argues that İbrahim was particularly sympathetic to Koreans because he saw their position in a world of imperial hierarchies as analogous to that of Muslims in the Russian Empire. In Korea, İbrahim’s anti-Westernism is coupled with his vision of a Pan-Asian world order led by Imperial Japan. Âlem-i İslam is significant because it is the only account of the Korean Empire’s final years written by a Muslim intellectual.