THE SULTANATE AND ITS POWERS.
There is no coronation in Turkey; instead the Sultans gird on the sword of Osman, the founder of the Ottoman Dynasty, which is kept in the mosque of Ayoob, in Constantinople. When a Sultan is proclaimed, he goes to that mosque with great pomp, and all the members of the Sublime Porte, the civil officers, the generals, commanders, soldiers, patriarchs of different religions, and the Sheik-ul-Islam, the Mohammedan religious head, follow him. But no Christians enter that holy place, as it is forbidden them. After impressive service, the chief of the dervishes of the order of Mevlair girds the Sultan with the sword; then he is officially recognized as emperor. Then, as God’s will be done, Sultan’s will be done, because the Sultan represents God in heaven, Mohammed in Paradise, Osman on the earth. He has three offices, God’s office, Mohammed’s office, Osman’s office. He is as infallible as the Pope of Rome, and temporally everything belongs to him without exception, men, women, children, money, property, just as everything belongs to God. A Turkish proverb says, “Mal, jan, erz, Padishahin dir” (Property, soul, and virtue belong to the Sultan). He can claim any man’s wife for his enjoyment at any time; his son, or his daughter, or his money, or his property of any sort; there is no use refusing—a man does not own himself, or his wife, or his children; the Sultan owns them all, and it is only by his grace that he permits his subjects to have anything, and he can resume it at any time, for half an hour, or forever. Besides, anybody’s head would come off that refused. If the Sultan asks a millionaire in Constantinople to send him half his wealth, the millionaire must not refuse; he himself is simply a steward; if the Sultan wants it all it must go to him, and the millionaire must beg bread for a living. At the same time he must praise the Sultan, because the Sultan is God on earth. If he refuses to send his wife or daughter to the Sultan’s bed, or his son or money for whatever uses they are wanted to supply, the Sultan has a right to kill him, and take all his possessions by force, because the man was not a faithful slave.
“But I cannot believe this,” says the American in his free, peaceful country. “It is not natural. How can a man be considered as God, owning everything, not in a spiritual sense, but in a very material, pecuniary, and male sense?”
Go to Turkey, get naturalized there, become a Turkish subject, and you will understand it fully, and perhaps shockingly. Of course, if you go as an American citizen, with plenty of money, travel under the escort of soldiers, or Zapties, get presented by the American minister to the Sultan, are entertained in the palace, and receive handsome presents, you will not understand it at all; very likely not believe it; you may come home and praise the Sultan like the rest.
The natural question is, I know, “Do the Sultans, any of them, carry this theory into practice? Has the present Sultan?” Yes; and not once or twice, but thousands of times. To be sure, they do not go in person on such errands; they depute their officers and soldiers to do what they wish. I have shown how the history of the Armenians illustrates it, in the seizure of their property, the forced conversion of their boys into troops to fight against their parents, the appropriation of their wives and daughters, to be given to the Sultan. As to the present Sultan, I have already spoken of Bahri Pasha’s exploit in carrying off by force several Armenian young brides, and girls, and presenting them to the Sultan, and his being decorated and promoted for it. While on his way, he had to pass through Trebizond, and the Armenians fired on him to rescue the women, but failed. They forgot that all women belong to the Sultan, and they made a mistake in firing on one of his officers. He at once ordered all the Armenians in Trebizond to be slaughtered. Some of the richest of the nation lived there; every penny was taken from them, most of them were killed, and their wives and children, and those of them who survived are begging bread. And all through Armenia the girls and young brides are being looked over to pick out the best looking ones for the Sultan’s harem.
Once for all, Armenia is not America. The Turks, the Kurds, the Circassians, the Georgians, though they may be like Americans, are like American Indians only. The Sultan is not a president, and his divine right to kill any man, appropriate any property, or enjoy any woman, is not like the Constitution of the United States. People who think that the Sultan would not do or be allowed to do such things because no ruler they are familiar with does them, that it is impossible they can happen in Armenia because they could not happen in America, that the Armenians must have provoked them in some way, because it is hard to believe any ruler could do so in pure wantonness or from deliberate policy, are reasoning from wrong premises. They did happen, and are happening,—see the consular reports; were perfectly unprovoked,—see the plentiful proofs that the Armenians carry no arms, and cannot even defend themselves from murder, or their wives from dishonor before their eyes. Why it is done, and how much more is to be done, I have explained repeatedly.