Yamaoka Kōtaro

Ömer Yamaoka, 1924

Yamaoka Kōtarō ( Japanese 山岡 光 太郎 ; * March 7, 1880 in Fukuyama ; † 1959 ) converted to Islam and was the first Japanese Hādj . He took the name Ömer / Omar Yamaoka ( オ マ ル 山岡 Omaru Yamaoka ).

Life

Youth and education

After finishing school, Yamaoka enrolled in Tokyo at the Tokyo Foreign Language School (today: Tokyo Foreign Language University ) in the newly established Russian language department. He completed his studies in 1903.

Secret service activities on the mainland

He was in the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War the following year as part of the Japanese army in Manchuria sent. His tasks were in the field of education. After the war he continued to work as a spy in Manchuria, Mongolia and Korea. Its base was the small town of Chang-tu ( 昌图 , 42 ° 47 '  N , 124 ° 6'  E ) on the railway line from Lüshunkou to Harbin , where the occupation forces had set up a command post. The commander there, Ōhara Takeyoshi , was also from Fukuyama. Both were subordinate to Colonel Fukushima Yasumasa , chief of military intelligence. During this time he became a member of the nationalist Kokuryūkai (" Amur League"; in English literature mostly: Black Dragon Society , the Japanese characters for the Amur River can be read like this.). Yamaoka's mission was completed in 1908 and he returned to Japan.

The Japanese secret service sought to use the Tatar communities that had formed in the Far East since the beginning of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1891, as it had been recognized that this could be used as an opposition to the Tsar . To this end, the pan-Islamist agitator Abdurresid Ibrahim , who was in Tokyo in 1909, was promoted.

Haj

Most likely to serve the Pan-Asian cause (i.e. Japanese imperialism), Yamaoka converted to Islam. The actual transfer took place on November 1, 1909 in Bombay , where he met with Abdurresid Ibrahim, who was on the way back, in order to continue the journey to Istanbul together. This was done on behalf of the nationalist "Ajia Gikai" ("Asia awake!", Founded in 1909), and probably also his former superior Fukushima Yasumasa , who had meanwhile risen to the highest ranks of the military secret service.

The pair's ship anchored in Jeddah on December 10, and they reached Mecca the next day . During their almost one month stay, they lived with a sheikh of Tatar origin. On December 21st, Yamaoka planned to climb Mount Arafat and complete the Wuqfa rite, but a fever prevented him from doing so. Both were active in propaganda among the other pilgrims. Yamaoka traveled on via Medina and Beirut and reached Istanbul on March 3, 1910.

There he stayed at the Hotel Süflet, a well-known Tatar meeting place. His nominal assignment was to have the construction of a mosque in Tokyo sanctioned by the caliph (cf. Tokyo Camii ). Thanks to Ibrahim's mediation, this succeeded without any problems. Until his departure, he wrote several articles for Ibrahim's magazines.

He returned to Japan via Odessa, Moscow and Siberia in June 1910. He published his experiences in the Arab world in 1912.

After that, he focused on agitation among Chinese Muslims.

See also

• Japanese-Turkish relations
• Ayaz Ishaki

literature

• Esenbel, Selcuk; Inaba Chiharū (Ed.); The Rising Sun and the Turkish Crescent; İstanbul 2003, ISBN 975-518-196-2 ; (especially pp. 107–21)
• Abdürreşid İbrahim; Alem-i-İslam ve Japonya'da İntişar-ı İslamiyet 1911; (for example: The Islamic world and its distribution in Japan) partly Japanese practice Caponya, Tokyo 1991 (Daisanshokan)
• Yamaoka Kōtarō; 世界 の 神秘 境 ア ラ ビ ヤ 縦 断 記; Tokyo 1912 (東 亜 堂 書房), 252S .; reprint in: 明治 シ ル ク ロ ー ド 探 検 紀行文 集成. 第 22 巻, 1988, ISBN 4-89668-003-0

Remarks

1. ↑ Sekai no shimpikyō Arabia jūdankai