Was Mahomet a religious fanatic?
Mahomet cannot justly be represented as a religious fanatic. He of course conformed to the practices of Islam, built many mosques, and did nothing to show irreverence for the teaching of the Prophet. He was possibly in his youth a devout believer in the tenets of Islam. But it is difficult to believe that a man who conversed freely with Gennadius on the difference between Christianity and his own religion, and who had paid as much attention as he had paid to Greek and Arabian philosophy, should be a fanatic. Mahomet’s most recent Turkish biographer claims that he was tolerant and alleges as a reason for this statement that he did not follow the example of the Arab conquerors and put all to the sword who did not accept Islam. The more fanatical Mahometans probably urged him to take this course.[533] The hope of plunder and the value of captives as slaves probably furnished a more effective argument against general extermination.
Moreover, Mahomet had need of an industrious population, not only for the repeopling of the capital but to furnish a revenue.
His subjects, even of both religions, regarded him as a Gallio, or as a man of no religion.[534] The statements that in private he branded the Prophet as a robber and impostor, or that he was half converted to Christianity by Gennadius and that shortly before his death he became a great worshipper of relics and burned candles before them, may be dismissed as not supported by trustworthy evidence.[535] The sovereign’s readiness even to discuss Christianity and speak with unbelievers upon questions of philosophy and religion would be certain to obtain for him the reputation of atheist from the ignorant among his own people; for to the faithful Mahometan no other religions need be discussed: they exist only for condemnation; to study them is to express a doubt upon the all-sufficiency of the teaching of the Koran, and a doubt on such a subject is treason to the faith. But at least such accusations do not point towards fanaticism. The man who by one party is claimed as almost persuaded to be a Christian and is regarded by the other as an atheist or at least a disloyal believer in Islam can hardly have been a religious persecutor. It may be true that after conversing with the patriarch or with any other unbeliever he went through the prescribed forms of washing, but if he wished to preserve the loyalty of his subjects it was necessary for him to observe such formalities of purification. He was at the head of the Turkish nation, that is, of an armed camp, a nation in the field whose chief if not sole bond of unity was, as it still remains, the belief in the prophet-hood of the founder of Islam. Nearly all his soldiers held the one great creed and went into battle with shouts of ‘Allah!’ and ‘Mahomet!’ They believed, as the followers of the Prophet have always fervently believed, that death on the battle-field fighting for Islam is the shortest road to Paradise and the Houris. The Turks were ready to obey and endure unto death for the sake of the sovereign whom Allah had placed at their head. Some of them were as full of religious enthusiasm as crusaders, as confident that they were working for God as Cromwell’s Ironsides, and as fanatic as a grossly ignorant army can be which believes itself to be immeasurably superior to the enemy because, on the one hand, it possesses the true faith, while, on the other, the enemy, more learned in the world’s despicable science and philosophy falsely so called, is in the abysmal darkness of unbelief. The support of such men was not to be risked by any nonconformity with the rites which are the outward signs of Islam. Mahomet would have been of all rulers the most blind to his own interest if he had derided their beliefs.
But though Mahomet was the leader of a nation containing many fanatics, there is nothing to show that he shared their fanaticism. If he appealed to it, it was because it gave force to his army. He was no more inclined to be a fanatic himself than was Napoleon to be a democrat when he called upon his troops to fulfil their mission of carrying democratic principles to England and other countries assumed to be suffering under despotic rule. In a different age and under different circumstances Mahomet might have been a thoughtful student, or an excellent civil administrator, but it is difficult to conceive that he could ever have been a religious persecutor.
He remained all his life a student, desirous of learning, but he was at the same time a man of energy, a successful general, and a good administrator. He was without high ideals of life, but capable of spasmodic kindness, a man not given to sensual pleasures—in his later years at least—sober, intolerant of drunkenness, seeking his pleasure in glory.[536] He appears to me essentially a lonely man; one who took each man’s censure but reserved his judgment; one who, in his own phrase, would pluck out a hair from his beard if he believed that it knew his designs. He was too suspicious and too highly placed to have friends. He was supremely selfish and only considered himself bound to respect his promise when it suited his purpose to do so. Circumstances compelled him to be a soldier, and his great natural abilities made him a successful one, but his ambition, which was spasmodically great—which meditated the conquest of Naples, an expedition against Rome, and other conquests, as stages in his great design of conquering the world[537]—wanted pertinacity and was joined to an emotional, almost a sentimental, nature. He relieved his loneliness and friendlessness by hard work, study, and the companionship of artists and learned men.
Cantemir calls him the most glorious prince who ever occupied the Ottoman throne, but adds that he did not listen to the voice of conscience, and that he broke his word without any hesitation when it seemed politic so to do. Chalcondylas speaks of him as great in intellect, in conquest, and in cruelty. Halil Ganem says, with truth, that by his military exploits Mahomet occupies the first place in the Ottoman annals. He impartially states also that he shed abundance of blood to secure peaceful possession of the throne, and for his pleasure. ‘To shed blood became for this grand monarch a function which he exercised with an incredible maestria.’[538] His long series of victorious conquests and especially his success in the capture of the city have caused him to be known in Ottoman history as the Fetieh or Conqueror.
In forming a judgment upon the character of a ruler whose reign marks an epoch of importance in the world’s history, it is needful to take account of his life and his acts in their entirety: to ask what the man accomplished and with what means; what were his ideals and how far he realised them. We may recognise that Cromwell was a great ruler notwithstanding Drogheda, and that William the Third was a great statesman in spite of Glencoe, even supposing that he fully approved of that massacre. Taking a broad view of the character of Mahomet, we may observe that his conquests were made by means of overwhelming numbers, that his army from its composition was the most mobile in existence, and that its greatest success was but the final act in a series which had been gained by his predecessors. But while giving due importance to these considerations, it yet remains true that his reign marks an epoch, not only of Turkish history, where its influence is the most conspicuous, but in that of Europe generally. To him more than to any other ruler the organisation of the Turks as a governing power is due. To him must also be credited the creation of Turkey as a European State. Subsequent sultans built on the foundations which he had laid. It is also not too much to say that none of his successors have done so much to give orderly government to the Turkish race as Mahomet. But for the fact that the influence of Moslemism strangles the moral and intellectual growth of the Turkish people, the rule of a few more sultans possessed of the like capacity and determination to secure strong, orderly, and even just government might possibly have placed Turkey among the civilised nations.