It is with reluctance that I approach this side of the question. It is not desirable that the subject be complicated or embittered by religious animosities. But unfortunately these animosities do exist and have always formed a primary and essential feature in all the relations of the Turks with their Christian subjects. A writer who styles himself “Diplomatist,” in a recent review article of considerable merit,[[48]] with a stroke of the pen, disposes of this phase of the subject by characterizing it as “pure moonshine.” But real diplomatists do not find it so easy to dispose of, nor do the great historians treat it as moonshine. The fanatical gleam that I have often caught in the eye of Turks and Kurds was never suggestive to me of the mild rays of the lunar orb, but seemed rather like a gleam from the political Crescent, whose baleful influence dominates the East.
The question is not concerning the merits of Mohammed or of Mohammedanism in the abstract. I have a profound respect for the Prophet of Arabia, who might have been another Apostle Paul, but for the fact that the corrupt church of that day failed to give that young and ardent seeker after God a true and worthy conception of Christianity. I would fain admit the high conception of the Mohammedan ideal, portrayed so skilfully by Mr. R. Bosworth Smith in his lectures before the Royal Institution of Great Britain.
But such considerations are irrelevant to the present discussion, which is simply, What are the practical bearings of Islam upon the question of reform or of reconstruction in Turkey?
As has been already shown in Chapter VI., the Ottoman Government is a politico-religious system. This is the necessary constitution of any Mohammedan sovereign state, but the conception has special force and vitality in Turkey, whose Sovereign claims to be the successor of Mohammed, and thus the Calif of the Mohammedan world. The whole fabric of the Turkish Empire rests on a religious foundation. This religious foundation is not the general religious principle in man, but the particular form of religion established by Mohammed.
To what extent, now, does Islam enter into the political structure? We find on investigation that it is part and parcel of the bone and sinew of the organism in Turkey called the State,—called so by courtesy on account of its faint analogy to what is understood in other countries by that name. The Turkish army is exclusively a Mohammedan army, the national festivals are Mohammedan festivals, the official calendar is a Mohammedan calendar, both as to year and month, the laws are based on the Koran and Mohammedan tradition, the expounders of the law are Mohammedan judges, and even testimony is a religious act of which only true believers are, in the nature of the case, capable. It is not denied that the testimony of Christians is allowed to be given in Turkish courts, but that does not signify that it is valid evidence in the eyes of the Court, especially when a Mohammedan is involved. Even the different formulæ used show this. In the case of a Mohammedan it is, “His Lordship, So and So, testified to the face of God”; in the case of a Christian it is, “Mr. Blank stated.”
In Article 63 of the Treaty of Berlin we read Turkey’s solemn (it is hard to suppress a smile) promise to the European Powers in regard to the rights of Christians before the law: “All shall be allowed to give evidence before the courts without distinctions of creed.” The practical application of the above clause is shown in the official reports of British Consuls.[[49]]
Mr. Wilson, Consul-General in Anatolia, writes:
“In the greater portion of Anatolia, though Christian evidence may be received, no weight is attached to it. When Moslem and Christian evidence are opposed to each other, the latter is disregarded. For instance, three Christians are travelling along a road, and one of them is robbed by a man well known to all of them; in the action which ensues, the robber has only to prove an alibi by two Moslem false witnesses to gain his case.”
Mr. Chermside, Vice-Consul at Sivas, writes:
“As regards the acceptance of Christian testimony, theoretically is it accepted in all Nizam courts. Hearing testimony, however, and attaching the relative importance to it that, from its tenor and consistency, it is entitled to, are very different matters; and there is no doubt that, especially in civil cases, tradition, sympathy, and education prejudice the Hakim[[50]] against it—sentimental considerations, however, are not proof against the love of gain.”