Pan-Islamism () is a political movement advocating the unity of Muslims under one Islamic country or state – often a caliphate – or an international organization with Islamic principles. Pan-Islamism was launched in Turkey at the end of the 19th century by Sultan Abdul-Hamid II for the purpose of combating the process of westernization and fostering the unification of Islam. Pan-Islamism differentiates itself from pan-nationalistic ideologies, for example Pan-Arabism, by seeing the ummah (Muslim community) as the focus of allegiance and mobilization, excluding ethnicity and race as primary unifying factors. The major leaders of the Pan-Islamist movement were the triad of Jamal al-Din Afghani (1839 - 1897), Muhammad Abduh (1849 - 1905) and Sayyid Rashid Rida (1865 - 1935); who were active in anti-colonial efforts to confront European penetration of Muslim lands. They also sought to strengthen Islamic unity, which they believed to be the strongest force to mobilize Muslims against imperial domination. Following Ibn Saud's conquest of Arabian Peninsula; pan-Islamism would be bolstered across the Islamic World. During the second half of the twentieth century; pan-Islamists would compete against secular nationalist ideologies in the Arab World such as Nasserism and Ba'athism. At the height of the Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s, Saudi Arabia and allied countries in the Muslim World led the Pan-Islamist struggle to fight the spread of communist ideology and curtail the rising Soviet influence in the world. Classical doctrines The Arabic term Ummah, which is found in the Quran and Islamic tradition, has historically been used to denote the Muslims as a whole, regardless of race, ethnicity, etc. This term has been used in a political sense by classical Islamic scholars e.g. such as al-Mawardi in Ahkam al-Sultaniyyah, where he discusses the contract of Imamate of the Ummah, "prescribed to succeed Prophethood" in protection of the religion and of managing the affairs of the world. Al-Ghazali also talks about Ummah in a political sense e.g. in his work, "Fadiah al-Batinyah wa Fadail al-Mustazhariyah". Fakhruddin al-Razi, who also talks about Ummah in a political sense, is quoted as saying the following: According to some scholars, the ideology's aims takes early years of Islam – the reign of Muhammad and the early caliphate – especially during Islamic golden age as its model, as it is commonly held that during these years the Muslim world was strong, unified, and free from corruption. History Origins Many scholars assert