The Movement of Silk Letters during the World War I

The Movement of Silk Letters was a religious and political movement started by Mahmoud al-Hassan Deobandi, namely Sheikh al-Hind, against the English elements in the Indian-subcontinent which was soon extended to Afghanistan and Iran. Sheikh al-Hind was affected by fundamentalist thoughts of the leaders of Deoband School of India. Since the letters of the heads of this movement were written on Silk textiles, the aforementioned movement became known as “the Movement of Silk Letters”.The movement started its activities in favour of the Germans and against the British interests in the Middle East and India in the course of the World War I. However, finally, some of its letters were discovered by the agents of the British Secret Service in Punjab and its activities were revealed. This study has been done under the historical method based on historical texts and sources, mostly English sources and the written works of the Indian and Pakistani and some Iranian Baluch researchers. The most important result obtained from the present study is that the movement of Silk Letters was influenced by Indians’ great mutiny (1857) which created a great uprising with religious orientations against the English elements in the Indian-subcontinent, extending India’s protests to the other territories and connected the movement with discontents in Iraq and Ottoman empire in order to unite them under the decree of the Ottoman religious scholars