Daybreak in Turkey / Second Edition

by James L. Barton

There are the many non-Moslem races of Syria, the country first overrun by the Moslem invaders as they pushed their way northward. The races who occupy that country in connection with perhaps one million Mohammedans are the Nusairiyeh, the Maronites, Greeks and Armenians, Jacobites, Druses, and Jews. The three mentioned here especially peculiar to Syria are the Nusairiyeh, the Maronites, and the Jews.

THE NUSAIRIYEH

The Nusairiyeh number a quarter of a million souls or more and are perhaps the most degraded of all of the races in Turkey. They are also most difficult to classify religiously or ethnologically. Their religion is a mixture of ancient heathenism, the survival of certain Gnostic beliefs, tinged strongly with Mohammedanism. The Mohammedans claim them, as they do the Koords and Albanians. They dwell in the mountains north of Syria and along the Mediterranean coast as far north as Cilicia. Their origin is lost in obscurity. At present they are decidedly a mixed race. Their name comes from Nusair, who led them in their separation from the Shiites, of which they were a branch. The Nusairiyeh are most reticent upon the subject of their religion. It is regarded as an unpardonable sin to reveal their religious beliefs and rites. They worship the moon, which they think is the throne of Ali, and the sun, which is the throne of Mohammed. They also worship fire, the waves of the sea, and anything that manifests power. They believe in transmigration of the soul, progress being upward or downward according to the life of the individual.

It is, in short, a rude, primitive, rough, and ignorant race, absolutely under Turkish sway and terribly oppressed. Little progress has yet been made in the line of mission work among them. The Turks guard them with a jealous eye, and the severest persecutions await all who profess Christianity, and every effort is made to prevent their education and general enlightenment.

THE MARONITES

The Syrian Maronites number not less than 250,000 and are scattered all over the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges. They are found in largest numbers in the northern districts of Lebanon and there they have control of local affairs. They are also found as far south as Mount Hermon in the country of the Druses. The hostility of these two races led to the massacres of 1860 in which thousands of the Maronites were slain. They take their name from John Maron, their first patriarch and political leader, who died in 701 a. d. They were mixed up with the Monophysite controversy in the sixth and seventh centuries. In an attempt to reconcile them, John Maron, a Monothelite (one will) leader, at the time of the Moslem invasion, conducted them into the high mountains of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, where for five hundred years they maintained their independent existence in the face of every attempt to subdue or dislodge them. They developed qualities of manly strength and industry. Their language was the Syrian and their government a simple feudal system. They had a patriarch with Episcopal dioceses at Aleppo, Balbek, Jebeil, Tripoli, Ehden, Damascus, Beirut, Tyre, and Cyprus.

This interesting people was discovered to the world by the Crusaders and through them were brought under the wing of the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Florence in 1445. They adopted the Arabic language but retained their old Syriac ritual. They are to-day recognized as followers of the Church of Rome with a form of worship somewhat modified to meet their special conditions. The Jesuits and forces of the Catholic Church have made every effort to prevent the Protestant missionaries from getting a foothold among them. Much, however, has been done for them by both the Presbyterian Board North, and the Free Church of Scotland. The Irish Presbyterian Church of Damascus is reaching the Maronites in that part of the country. Education is greatly transforming the race and through this they are becoming more and more responsive to evangelical religion.

THE DRUSES

The Druses are a smaller sect numbering probably not more than 100,000, possibly less, and occupying the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon in touch with the Maronites. They are found as far north as Beirut and as far south as Tyre, extending even to Damascus. Their chief town is Deir-el-Kamor, about fifteen miles southeast of Beirut. They are decidedly a mixed race with the blood of the Crusaders mingling with that of native and invading peoples. They are a people of an unusually high order of intelligence and outward refinement. They are an offshoot of the Mohammedans through the fanatical, if not insane, leadership of one of the caliphs of Egypt who began to reign in 996. One Darazi who made known the claims of the caliph to divine incarnation led these people into the mountains of Lebanon and is supposed to have given them his own name.

They believe in one God and in a fixed number of human souls that can never be increased or diminished. This resemblance to the religions of India is probably due to Persian teaching. They recognize the claims upon them of no other religion, and yet with manifest indifference they join in the prayers of the Mohammedans in their mosques and sprinkle the holy water of the Catholic Church with the Maronites, according as expediency may require. They have seven commandments: