Bleeding Armenia: Its history and horrors under the curse of Islam

by Augustus Warner Williams; M. Smbat Gabrielean

The Sheikh ul Islam in Constantinople recently replied officially to a European convert to Islam who asked his aid in entering the Mohammedan religion, that “religion is a matter between man and God, and that no sheikh or priest or mediator is needed in man’s approach to his Maker.” This is one of the cardinal principles of Christianity,—the difference consisting in this:—that while the Sheikh ul Islam probably meant to exclude even the mediation of Christ, the Gospel claims Christ as the only Mediator.

It is also true that if any Christian wishes to become a Mohammedan he must go before the Kadi, who summons the Christian’s religious minister to labor with him and examine his case before he is admitted to Islam.

That so much of religious liberty exists is cause for profound gratitude.

II. The social triumphs of Gospel work in Turkey appear in the transformation of the family and the elevation of woman.

The Mohammedan practice of the veiling and seclusion of woman and her exclusion from all social dignity and responsibilities rested like a blight on womankind among all the sects of the Empire. Even among the women of the non-Muslim sects the veil became a necessary shield from insult.

An exploration of the Empire in 1829 failed to discover a single school for girls. American women were the first to break the spell, and after long and patient efforts the first school building for the instruction of girls in the Ottoman Empire was erected in Beirut, in 1834, at the expense of Mrs. Tod, an American lady in Alexandria, and the teacher was Mrs. Sarah L. H. Smith....

In 1877, the first Muslim school for girls was opened in Beirut. They now have three girls’ schools in the city, with five hundred pupils. Thus far their girls’ schools are confined to the great cities, and they have shown commendable zeal in erecting neat and commodious buildings.

In Syria and Palestine there are now nine thousand and eighty-one girls under Protestant instruction, and there are thousands in the Greek and Papal schools. The effects of female education prosecuted for so many years has been a palpable change in the status and dignity of woman. The light and comfort, the moral and intellectual elevation which have resulted are plain even to the casual observer. The mother is becoming the primary instructor of the children at home, and by precept and example their moral and religious guide.

The indifference of the Oriental Christians and the opposition of the Mohammedans to female education has been largely overcome. A Mohammedan Turkish lady in Constantinople, Fatimeh Alia Khanum, daughter of Joudet Pasha, has just published a novelette in Turkish and Arabic to show the superiority of the home life of Turkish Muslim women to that of European Christian women. A Protestant young lady of Northern Syria has taken a prize of $50 for the best original Arabic story illustrating the benefits of female education. Another Protestant young woman has recently published an Arabic book on “Society and Social Customs,” and, on the eve of her departure for the Columbian Exposition, delivered a public lecture on the duty of Ottoman subjects to support their own domestic manufacturers. It was largely attended by Muslim sheikhs, Turkish effendis and the public generally, and at the close a young Jewess, a fellow-graduate with her from the American Female Seminary, arose and made an impromptu address in support of the speaker’s views.

Too much cannot be said in admiration of the self-denying and successful labors of the American, English, Scotch and German women who have toiled patiently through long years, and many of whom have sacrificed their lives to the elevation of their sisters in this great Empire. Educated and cultivated wives, mothers, sisters and daughters, all over the land, rise up and call them blessed. These happy Oriental homes, neat and well ordered, their high character, their exemplary conduct, their intelligence and interest in the proper training of their own children and the best welfare of society, are among the noblest fruits of a revived Christianity in the East.