Of all who have made a careful study of the character and religion of the Mohammedans of Asia, no one probably, is better qualified to express an opinion on the subject under consideration than M. A. de Gobiñeau. As the result of thorough investigation during several years residence among them, he does not hesitate to declare that if one separates religious doctrines from political necessity which has often spoken and acted in its name, there is no religion that is more tolerant, one might almost say more indifferent regarding mens’ faith than Islam. “Cette disposition organique est si forte qu’en dehors des cas ou la raison d’État mise en jeu a porté les gouvernments mussulmans à se faire arme de tout pour tendre à unité de foi, la tolerance la plus complète a été la regle fournie par le dogme.... Qu’on ne s’arrête pas aux violences, aux cruautés commises dans une occasion ou dans une autre. Si on regarde de prés, on ne tardera pas à y découvrir des causes toutes politiques ou toutes de passion humaine et de tempérament chez le souverain ou dans la population. Le fait religieux n’y est invoqué que comme pretexte et, en réalité, il reste en dehors.” Les Religions et les Philosophies dans l’Asie Central, pp. 24, 25 (Paris, 1865).
What has been said of the tolerance of the Osmanlis or of the peoples of Central Asia the distinguished Orientalist, Prince Caetani, claims for the Arabian followers of the Prophet. “Gli Arabi,” he writes in his monumental work Annali dell’ Islam, Vol. V, p. 4 (Milan, 1912), “nei primi anni non perseguitarono invece alcuno per ragioni di fede, no si diedero pena alcuna per convertire chicchessia, sicche sotto l’Islam, dopo le prime conquiste, i Christiani Semiti goderono d’una tolleranza religiosa quale non si era mai vista da varie generazioni.”
[112] L’España Sagrada, Teatro Geografico de la Iglesia de España, Tom. XXXVII, p. 312. Cardinal Hergenröther hold the same view when he declares that Islam was a Strafe—punishment—for the degenerate Christians of the Orient whose moral corruption, religious schism, and desecration of sacred things through arbitrary state-power had paved the way for it. Handbuch der Allgemeinen Kirchengeschichte, Tom. I, p. 748 (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1884).
The distinguished historian, F. X. Funk, expresses a similar opinion when he writes: “The Carthaginians were safely gathered under the standard of the Prophet and the conquerors were free to continue their victorious march on the Barbary States and the West of Africa, the many divisions and enmities to which Christological disputes had given rise among the Eastern Christians greatly facilitating their task.” A Manual of Church History, Vol. I, p. 132 (London, 1909).
[113] “Estimates of population,” observes Marriott, “are notoriously untrustworthy, but it seems probable that at a time when Henry VIII ruled over about four million people the subjects of Sultan Suleiman numbered fifty million.” The Eastern Question, p. 89 (Oxford, 1917).
“After the conquest of Constantinople,” writes Finlay, “the Ottomans became the most dangerous conquerors who have acted a part in European history since the fall of the western Roman Empire. Their Dominion, at the period of its greatest extension, stretched from Buda on the Danube to Bussora on the Euphrates. On the north, their frontiers were guarded against the Poles by the fortress of Kamenietz, and against the Russians by the walls of Azof; while to the south the rock of Aden secured their authority over the southern coast of Arabia, invested them with power in the Indian Ocean, and gave them the complete command of the Red Sea. To the east, the Sultan ruled the shores of the Caspian, from the Kour to the Tenek; and his dominion stretched westward along the southern coast of the Mediterranean, where the farthest limits of the regency of Algiers, beyond Oran, meet the frontiers of the empire of Morocco. By rapid steps the Ottomans completed the conquest of the Seljouk sultans in Asia Minor, of the Mamlouk sultans in Syria and Egypt, of the fierce corsairs of northern Africa, expelled the Venetians from Cyprus, Crete, and the Archipelago, and drove the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem from the Levant, to find a shelter at Malta. It was no vain boast of the Ottoman sultan that he was the master of many kingdoms, the ruler of three continents, and the lord of two seas.” History of Greece, Vol. V, p. 6 (Oxford, 1877).
[114] The Historical Geography of Asia Minor, p. 23 (by W. M. Ramsay, London, 1890).
[115] L’Islamisme et la Science, p. 19 (Paris, 1883).
[116] Count Henry de Castries, in L’Islam, Impressions et Études, p. 121 (Paris, 1912).
[117] “It is an amusing fact,” writes an English woman who had an intimate knowledge of Turkey, “that an idea of impropriety is attached by Europeans who have never visited the East, to the very name of harem, while it is not less laughable they can never give a reason for their prejudice. How little foundation exists for so unaccountable a fancy must be evident at once when it is stated that harem, or woman’s apartment, is held so sacred by the Turks themselves, that they remain inviolate even in cases of popular disturbance, or individual delinquency; the mob never suffering their violence to betray them into an intrusion on the wives of their victims; and the search after a fugitive ceasing the moment that the door of the harem separates him from his pursuers.” Julia Pardoe, in The Bosphorus and the Danube, p. 126 (London, 1839).