The question of the influence of Byzantine art and architecture on the West has often been dealt with. For a list of books on the subject see Karl Krumbacher’s Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur, pp. 1124–27.
[561] Hallam’s Middle Ages, ch. vi.
[562] Angeli Johannis Epistola, p. 62.
[563] See, for example, Cuspinianus, De Turcorum Origine; the author was in the employ of the emperor Maximilian I. and insists again and again on the necessity of resisting the Turk and the certainty of being able to do so with success. Almost every European traveller in Turkey during two centuries, beginning with La Brocquière and Tetaldi, made similar representations.
[564] One of the best illustrations of the degraded position assigned to woman in Mahometan countries is found in the fact that the popular belief is that she has no soul. The influence of such a belief is of course fatal to the progress of the race. I am well aware that Khaireddin Pasha and other progressive Mahometans have maintained that this belief is contrary to the teaching of the Koran, and that Mr. Hughes and other well-informed students of the sacred writings of Islam agree in this opinion. Still, my statement as to the popular belief is not affected by these researches into the original teaching. It is not alleged that the houris of Paradise are the representatives of earthly women. The sensual rewards promised to faithful men are clear and unmistakeable. The rewards to women in the Koran have to be searched for and are the result of interpretation. As a confirmation of the truth of my statement I may refer to the interesting interview given by Sir Edward Malet in Shifting Scenes (1901), p. 67. He describes a meeting which he had with Tewfik, the Khedive of Egypt, at a very critical moment, when indeed the latter’s life was in hourly danger. He represents Tewfik as saying: ‘Death does not signify to me personally. Our religion prevents us from having any fear of death; but it is different with our women. To them, you know, life is everything: their existence ends here; they cry and weep and implore me to save them.’
As to the custom of repudiating a wife, two learned Moslems, one Turkish and the other Indian, and both enlightened men, assure me that repudiation, though a general custom, is contrary to the teaching of Islam, which only recognises divorce. Both, however, admit that the practice is general, though they consider it irreligious or—what is the same thing in the Sacred Law of Islam—illegal.
[565] I may add here that the great value of Christian missions from the West in the Turkish Empire, those of the Latin Church and of the American Protestant Churches alike, lies not only in their educational work but still more in their holding up to the members of the Eastern Churches higher standards of truthfulness and morality. Their influence has been already very useful. They have kindled a desire for instruction, and have infused new life in many of the members of the ancient Churches. While Greeks, Bulgarians, and Armenians look with intense distrust on any attempts to proselytise, they have all been awakened by these missions to the necessity for education. Considering the means at their disposal, I think it may be fairly said that no other people during the last half-century has done so much for education as the Greeks. The desire of every Greek who makes money seems to be to found a school in his native place. In Constantinople several large and excellent institutions, both for boys and girls, exist, all of course unaided by the Government, and in other cities of the Turkish empire like efforts have been made by patriotic Greeks. In Bulgaria one of the first acts of the newly enfranchised state was to establish an efficient system of education. The Armenians are not behind either, and their efforts, perhaps to a greater extent than those of the other two peoples mentioned, are directed to bringing their priests into line with those of the West. In 1896 the American missionaries in Turkey met in a ‘summer school’ on the island of Proti, near Constantinople; the late Armenian patriarch visited them, and, having spent a day in listening to their discussion on questions of teaching and Biblical scholarship, declared that he would be ready to sacrifice his life if his own priests could have the advantage of such gatherings.
[566] ‘Pontes qui ad moenia ducunt dirumpunt.’ Pusculus iv. 137.
[567] Professor van Millingen’s Byzantine Constantinople, p. 96.
[568] Esquisse Topographique, p. 25.