CHAPTER I
EARLY HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

It would be inconsistent with the general plan of this book to give more than a very summary and cursory view of the early history of the Ottoman Empire before the time of Midhat Pasha; but it will not be inappropriate, and may possibly aid in elucidating the history of his times, and throw light on his work of reform, if the main features of that history be here drawn in outline, and some of the phases traced through which the Turkish Empire passed during the four centuries that elapsed between the taking of Constantinople by Mehemet II. and the Crimean War.

It has sometimes been objected to Midhat Pasha and the Constitution of 1876, by those who have given a very superficial study to the subject, or who have a political object in depreciating all reforms in Turkey, that, however admirable the Constitution may have been in itself, it was prematurely and precipitately introduced, and ill adapted to the peculiar conditions of the Ottoman people. One of the aims of this book is to show that, so far from this being the case, the reforms associated with the name of Midhat Pasha were conceived in the very spirit of the early Ottoman Constitution, and were expressly suggested by the wants and requirements of that country as revealed in the course of its administration to a succession of statesmen, who found themselves in practice hampered at every turn, and their best efforts continually thwarted by the absence of the very checks and safeguards which Midhat’s Constitution endeavoured to impose. Within half a century of the taking of Constantinople (1454) by Mehemet II., Bulgaria, Servia, Moldavia, Wallachia and large portions of Hungary and Poland were added to the Ottoman dominions. It was (as all impartial writers now admit) as much by virtue of the simplicity and purity of its creed, and the force of propagandism that it in consequence possessed, as by the force of arms, that Islam made such astounding progress in those days. If extensive provinces and important kingdoms yielded with slight resistance before the advance of the Ottoman armies, and if large masses of the conquered populations adopted the religion of the conquerors, it was because their moral conquest was effected before their political subjection was attempted.

The reputation, too, for justice and moderation enjoyed by the early Ottoman sovereigns was no insignificant factor in conciliating the goodwill and blunting the opposition of nations, who might under different conditions have opposed a more serious resistance to the advance of the Ottoman armies. Sixty years before the appearance of the Turks before Constantinople, the people of the ancient kingdoms of Roumania were called upon to choose between the Magyars—who, in conformity with their traditional policy, desired to Magyarise Wallachia—and the Ottoman sovereign, who offered the inhabitants the enjoyment of their religious and civil liberty. They did not hesitate between the two, and Mircea signed, with the Sultan Bayazid, the first capitulation of Roumania (1393). Twenty‐six years later, in 1419, the Servian ruler Brankovich, pressed by John Hunyadi, ruler of Hungary, to join him in an alliance against the Turks, invited him to state the policy in respect to religion that he proposed to adopt, in the event of victory attending their joint military efforts. Hunyadi answered without periphrasis, that the Servians would have to adopt the Catholic worship. Brankovich then addressed a similar question to Mehemet I. “I propose,” replied the latter, “to build a church next to every mosque, and proclaim that every one shall be at liberty to follow his own worship and religion.” Brankovich rejected the Hungarian alliance, and declared himself the vassal of the Turkish Sultan.

But, it has been contended, the condition of the Christian populations (Raias) of the countries actually conquered by Islam was very different; and there is even a widespread popular belief that these populations were forced to “opt” (to use a modern phrase) between the religion of the conquerors and death, the poll‐tax (kharadj) being the money composition imposed in commutation of the death sentence. Nothing can be more erroneous. The kharadj was the tax imposed on the Christian population in lieu of the military service and other similar duties from which they were exempted, disabilities generally regarded by them as privileges, and in consequence of which they have increased and multiplied and become rich and prosperous in the land. An entirely false interpretation has been given to a passage in the Koran, which was even quoted by the Austrian plenipotentiaries at the Conference of Niemirow, in 1737, in support of the “Death or Koran” theory here referred to. The true answer, which indeed is obvious from the context, was given by the Ottoman negotiators on this occasion, viz., that the text quoted applied only to idolaters and not to the “people of the Book.” Anyone who knows anything of the religion of Mahomet is aware of the important distinction recognised therein between the “people of the Book” (kitabi) and idolaters (medjous), and knows that whereas little mercy, it is true, was shown to the latter, the former were included in the Dar‐ul‐Islam (the house of Islam), where they formed an integral portion of the empire, and that the true Mahomedan was taught, with respect to the latter, that “their substance is as our substance, their eyes as our eyes, and their souls as our souls.” The fable, too, that the murder of a Christian by a Mahomedan was considered by the Cheri (sacred law) as a trivial offence, and was visited by a lighter punishment than the same crime committed on the person of a Mussulman, is disposed of by the Fetva delivered by the Mufti (Supreme Judge of the Sacred Law), and quoted by Cantimer[1] in answer to the question, “What should be the penalty if eleven Mussulmans murdered one Christian?” “If the Mussulmans were one thousand and one in number, instead of only eleven, they should all be put to death.”

So far indeed is it from being historically true that the conquered Christian populations were forced by the sword to adopt the religion of Mahomet, that when Selim I. desired, for reasons of what he considered long‐sighted policy, so to convert the Christians of the Balkans, he was stopped short in the attempt by a Fetva of the Sheik‐ul‐Islam, Zenbilli Ali Effendi, who pronounced such a proceeding to be contrary to the Koran and the Cheri (sacred law), and the attempt was accordingly abandoned.

It may be remarked, in passing, that history does not relate that Cromwell was ever diverted from a policy similar to that from which Selim was deflected, or hampered in his enactment of the penal laws in Ireland by any such scruples or protests on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities of his day. However that may be, the policy of the Ottoman sovereigns with reference to the conquered Raias was the exact opposite to that popularly supposed. Nor was the policy actually adopted the result of any idiosyncracy or peculiar generosity on their part. It was in strict obedience to the injunctions of the Prophet, and in conformity with the policy pursued by himself in the “letters patent,” accorded to the Christians (nassara) on the 4th day of Moharem of the year 11 of the Hegira. It was in fact the fixed and settled policy of the Mussulman political system.

In proof of this position some European authorities, by no means particularly inclined to the Ottoman cause, Montesquieu for example, may be quoted. This author bears testimony to the happy change effected in the condition of the Greek population of the empire after the occupation of their capital by the Turks: “The people,” he says, “in place of that continued series of vexations which the subtle avarice of the Byzantine Emperors had devised, were now subjected to a simple tribute, easily paid and lightly borne, happy in having to submit to even a barbarous nation (sic) rather than to a corrupt government under which they suffered all the inconveniences of a fictitious liberty with all the horrors of a real servitude.”

The reports of the Venetian ambassadors, and the narratives of travellers in the sixteenth century, like La Motraye, offer concurrent testimony to the tolerance and moderation of this “barbarous nation.” “The other (i.e. the Christian) subjects of the Empire,” says La Motraye, “enjoy all the liberty of conscience that they can desire. They go to the churches and pilgrimages and practise all the rights of their religion, without fear or molestation. The same thing applies to their commerce and temporal affairs. They have no dread of being deprived of the fruits of their labours, which they enjoy without let or hindrance.”[2]