Space forbids the mention of other minor races like the Yezidis, neither is there call for a description of the Arabs who dwell in Arabia and northward.
It is sufficient to say that all these divergent, crude, and often hostile races, each with a religion differing from that of all others, together constitute the people of the Turkish empire. The dominating class is the Turk, representing the Mohammedan faith, but far from harmonious even among themselves, except as they are practically united in a common hatred of the Christians and in a common purpose to keep them from gaining supremacy in wealth, number, intelligence, or influence.
Outside of the large coast cities there are but few people in Turkey who are not native to the country. Turkey has offered little attraction to people of other countries for colonization. Far more are seeking to leave that country than are attempting to enter it. The exactions of the government upon all who dwell within the empire, the insecurity of the protection afforded to life and property, and the risks which gather about trade and commerce are not calculated to attract foreign capital or induce natives of other lands to immigrate there.
VIII. TURKEY AND THE WEST
Only last year the Arabic paper, Es-Zahir, published in Egypt, said: “Has the time not come yet when uniting the suppressed wailings of India with our own groans and sighs in Egypt, we should say to each other, Come, let us be one, following the divine words, ‘Victory belongs to the united forces’? Certainly the time has come when we, India and Egypt, should cut and tear asunder the ties of the yoke imposed on us by the English.” On the other hand, Mohammed Husain, the editor of a paper at Lahore, wrote a treatise on Jihad (1893), stating: “The present treatise on the question of Jihad has been compiled for two reasons. My first object is that the Mohammedans, ignorant of the texts bearing on Jihad and the conditions of Islam, may become acquainted with them, and that they may not labor under the misapprehension that it is their religious duty to wage war against another people solely because that people is opposed to Islam. Thus they, by ascertaining the fixed conditions and texts, may be saved forever from rebellion, and may not sacrifice their lives and property fruitlessly nor unjustly shed the blood of others. My second object is that non-Mohammedans and the government under whose protection the Mohammedans live, may not suspect Mohammedans of thinking that it is lawful for us to fight against non-Mohammedans, or that it is our duty to interfere with the life and property of others, or that we are bound to convert others forcibly to Mohammedanism, or to spread Islam by means of the sword.”
So the question of “religion and the sword” is still an open one among Moslems. It must needs be so long as they obey the Koran and tradition, for Mohammed said, “He who dies and has not fought for the religion of Islam, nor has even said in his heart, ‘Would to God I were a champion that could die in the road of God,’ is even as a hypocrite.” And again, still more forcibly, “The fire of hell shall not touch the legs of him who is covered with the dust of battle in the road of God.” In spite of cruelty, bloodshed, dissension and deceit, the story of the Moslem conquest with the sword of Jihad is full of heroism and inspiration.
—S. M. Zwemer, F. R. G. S. in “Islam.”