What a contrast between this idyllic story of Orkhan and Alaeddin, and the killing of Yakub by Bayezid on the battlefield of Kossova fifty years later!
Alaeddin was also the first Osmanli to receive the title of pasha. He is always spoken of as Alaeddin pasha. This same title was conferred on Soleiman, the eldest son of Orkhan. The oldest son of Murad proving a traitor, and there being no other son mature enough, Murad transferred the title to Kara Khalil. This word, which came from the Persian, was thus early deflected by the Ottoman sovereigns from its original significance, the title of the eldest son of the ruler.[136] It soon came to be bestowed upon high military and civil dignitaries. Similarly, the rank of vizier passed immediately out of the imperial family.
That Alaeddin could have accomplished the work attributed to him by the Ottoman historians, the making of laws and the organization of the army, is impossible for three reasons. The time for this great work was too short and not a propitious period: Alaeddin died seven years after his father, in 1333,[137] before Orkhan was firmly established in his sovereignty; the statement is incompatible with what we know of the character of Orkhan; finally, the organization of the state and of the army must have been the result of a slow development through many years, and its perfection belongs to the middle or latter part of Orkhan’s career, years after Alaeddin pasha’s death.
The whole scheme of an Islamic state is theocratic. Its laws, its customs are founded directly upon the Koran and the interpretation of the Koran by the early ‘fathers’ of Mohammedanism. There is no civil law as distinct from ecclesiastical law.[138] The judges and the lawyers belong to the clergy. Orkhan’s problem was exceedingly difficult. Whether they were Turkish converts or Greek renegades, the Osmanlis were all on common ground in their entire ignorance of the art of building a Moslem state. It is idle to speculate upon the early legislation of the Osmanlis, for there are no records. But it is probable that the Osmanlis did not at this early time make any attempt to establish a body of laws in conformity with the Koran. Where the Sheri’at (the sacred law) was understood, and where it was applicable to local conditions, it was naturally used. But, side by side with the sacred Moslem law, existed the old Byzantine code. This was used by the Osmanlis until they were firmly seated in Constantinople. Only then did they acquire a complete system of Moslem canon law. It is within the scope of a work covering a later period than that included in this volume to point out the strong Byzantine and moderate Turkish influences in the Kanunnamé of Mohammed the Conqueror.
VI
For dealing with Ottoman subjects and with those who might be conquered in war, certain principles were, however, adopted by the Osmanlis in the time of Orkhan. The foremost of these was complete religious toleration. This made possible, to a large measure it explains, the development of the Osmanlis into a powerful empire.
The propagation of Islam by the sword under the early Khalifs, the sudden and unparalleled spread of the new religion from the Arabian desert to Syria, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain, until the hordes of the invaders were stopped by Charles Martel at Tours, the terrible ravages of the Moslem corsairs in the Mediterranean—here were the sources of the deep impression of fanaticism and cruelty that the rise of Islam and the followers of Mohammed had made upon an equally fanatical and cruel Europe. That the recrudescence of the Islamic movement under the Osmanlis was represented in the same colours by the early European writers is explicable when we consider their lack of unbiased information and their confusion of the Osmanlis with the Asiatic conquerors, such as Attila and the Huns, Djenghiz Khan and the Mongols, Timur and the Tartars. We must take into account, too, the fact that these historians wrote at a time when the Osmanlis were beginning to be perverted by fanatical Arab influences, and were a real menace to the peace of Europe. From the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, ‘the Turk’ was a monster of iniquity and cruelty, from whom even the distant English in the security of their island home prayed to be delivered.[139] The recent history of the Ottoman Empire has unfortunately contributed much to keep alive this impression.
In spite of the accumulated evidence which on the surface points to a contrary conclusion, the Osmanli is not and never has been a religious fanatic like the Arab Moslem.[140] He is not by nature zealous or enthusiastic, nor is he by nature cruel. Docile, tractable, gentle, in a word, lovable—this is the verdict of the traveller who has had an opportunity of knowing that portion of the Moslem population of the Ottoman Empire which is popularly called Turkish. Other influences of their religion than hatred for the Christian have prevented the Osmanlis from winning and keeping a place among the civilized peoples of the world. Whatever one may claim in abstract theory for the Koran and the whole body of Moslem teaching, its practical concrete results have been ignorance, stagnation, immorality, subserviency of womanhood, indifference, paralysis of the will, absence of incentive to altruism. These are the causes of the irremediable decay of every Mohammedan empire, of every Mohammedan people.
The government and the ruling classes of the Ottoman Empire are negatively rather than positively evil. There is nothing inherently bad about the Osmanli. He is inert, and has thus failed to reach the standards set by the progress of civilization. He lacks ideals, and has thus shocked the enlightened conscience of the modern world. By the law of the survival of the fittest, he has been cast aside.
But when we compare the early Osmanlis with the Byzantines and with the other elements in the Balkan peninsula, it is the Osmanlis who must be pronounced the fittest. They were fresh, enthusiastic, uncontaminated, energetic. They had ideals: they had a goal. As it is with the individual, so it is with the nation. Ideals are lost when the goal is reached. Decay sets in when the struggle for existence ceases.