The Sublime Porte affirmed that “the stories related therein are mere inventions of revolutionists, and their friends intended to attract the sympathy of credulous people. There is no forcible conversion to Islamism in Turkey and no animosity against Protestantism.” This is sublime impudence. The statements thus contradicted, represented conditions certified to by official reports, by careful investigations made by correspondents of newspapers in England and the United States, and by hundreds of private letters from persons in the region where the massacres occurred. Moreover, this declaration of the Sultan is contradicted by centuries of Mohammedan history, by the ruins of ancient churches throughout all Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, and by daily prayer concerning the Christians:—
“Oh Allah make their children orphans, * * give them and their families * * their women, their children, * * their possessions and their race, their wealth and their lands as booty to the Moslems, O Lord of all creatures.”
The Softas are, properly speaking, the pupils who are engaged in the study of Mussulman theology and law in the medresses, or schools attached to the mosques, the range of their studies, however, being practically limited to learning to read the Koran. The Softas take their name from a corruption of the past-participle soukhte—burned—applied to them because they are supposed to be consumed by the love of study of sacred things, and devoted to a life of meditation. The Softas follow their studies in the school building, sleeping and eating at the imaretts, where free lodgings and food are provided for them out of the legacies of the pious. If their families can afford to do so, they furnish them with clothing and bedding; if not, these are given to them from the same charitable fund. The number of Softas is very large, for one reason because of their exemption from military service. After long-continued study of Arabic, and the Koran and its commentaries, the Softa, after an examination which, though nominally arduous, is almost invariably passed successfully, takes the title of Khodja.
The Khodja—khavadje, reader or singer—a scholar who has taken his diploma in the medresse, teaches for several years, in fact till he has conducted a class of Softas through the same course he had himself taken, when, on application to the Ministry of Worship, at whose head is the Sheikh-ul-Islam, and, after a severe examination, he receives the title of Ulema. The Mussulman does not arrive at this dignity until he has reached the age of thirty or thirty-five. It confers numerous privileges, for those doctors escape military service, unless in the event of the djihad, or sacred war, and from their ranks are filled the Judgeships, the curacies (so to speak) of the mosques, the professorships in the medresses, the trusteeships connected with the administration of the trust funds for pious and charitable purposes, etc., etc.
The Imaums—who are the real priests and have charge of the public religious service—are selected from among the Ulema. The title of Imaum comes from the Arabic, and is the equivalent of leader or outpost. There is as a rule one Imaum to each mosque of minor importance—messdjid—while two, or, at most, three, one of whom is designated the chief authority, are appointed to the principal mosques—djamis. Even the Ulema—the word is plural and signifies wise men—are subject to military duty when a holy war is proclaimed.
The term Softa includes all the grades above mentioned, from the Imaum, or priest, to the Softa proper, or mere students of the Koran. They are usually distinguishable in Turkey by wearing a white turban around their fez, or skull cap. Sultan Abdul Medjid some years ago endeavored to induce his subjects to wear a European dress, and succeeded so far that almost without exception every one except the very lowest in the public service adopted it. But the Softas to a man retain the old-fashioned baggy, slouchy dress which Abdul Medjid wished to get rid of.
Who can believe that through fear of the uprising of a few thousand Softas, the Sultan planned a fanatical uprising of the Kurds in distant Armenia. How could that benefit the Softas save as it were permitted them to beat, kill and plunder the Armenians in Stamboul?
If the fear of the Softas prompted it, still what a heartless wretch to doom seventy-five thousand to death and hundreds of thousands to starvation and outrage when to admit the fleets of Europe would have protected him from any possible insurrection in Constantinople.
The Turkish Government itself was directly and actively responsible for the outrages in Asia Minor; it not merely permitted, but actually ordered them. But there was in Constantinople itself a most serious conspiracy against the dynasty, which threatened to turn out the Sultan and revolutionize the whole form of government. As a sort of counter-irritant, which haply might cure this, the Government might have indeed resorted to any extravagance or conduct elsewhere. More than one monarch has begun a foreign war to quell disaffection at home. Why should not the Porte think a general harrying of the Armenians a ready way of allaying incipient disloyalty among the Faithful?
This conspiracy was made by what was known as the Young Turkey party. It included most of the Softas, and students in all colleges, and many lawyers, doctors, officers of the army and navy, and even civil servants of the Porte. Back of these were multitudes of the general populace. There were many who denied Abdul Hamid’s legal right to be Sultan while his elder brother was living. There were others, numbered by millions, who held that the Caliph must be an Arab and that the Sultan was therefore not to be recognized as the true Commander of the Faithful. Moreover, many, indeed all the leaders of Young Turkey, demanded the carrying out of the Hatt of 1877, establishing a Constitution and Parliament, and denounced the suppression of that promised system as a gross breach of faith and wrong to the people of the Empire. It may not be generally remembered; men’s memories are so short; but it is a fact that a constitutional government was once officially proclaimed in Turkey. The plan was conceived by Midhat Pasha, then Grand Vizier, and formally approved by the Sultan. A Constitution was promulgated. A Parliament, consisting of a Senate and an elective Assembly, was created, and its first session was opened by Abdul Hamid in person on March 19, 1877. Later in the same year its second session was opened, and the Sultan publicly declared that the Constitution should thenceforth be the supreme law of the land, in practice as well as in theory. But before the end of the year one designing politician managed to get Parliament involved in a corrupt job, and then, to avoid investigation, persuaded the Sultan to issue a decree abrogating the Constitution and abolishing Parliament! It was a coup d’état, and it was successful; thanks largely to the indifference of the Powers, and especially of England.