I was just now referring to a change in the
Turks, which I have mentioned before, and
which had as important a bearing as any other
of their changes upon their subsequent fortunes.[{10}]
It was a change in their physiognomy and shape,
so striking as to recommend them to their
masters for the purposes of war or of display.
Instead of bearing any longer the hideous exterior
which in the Huns frightened the Romans and[{15}]
Goths, they were remarkable, even as early as the
ninth century, when they had been among the
natives of Sogdiana only two hundred years,
for the beauty of their persons. An important
political event was the result: hence the[{20}]
introduction of the Turks into the heart of the
Saracenic empire. By this time the Caliphs had
removed from Damascus to Bagdad; Persia was
the imperial province, and into Persia they were
introduced for the reason I have mentioned,[{25}]
sometimes as slaves, sometimes as captives taken
in war, sometimes as mercenaries for the
Saracenic armies: at length they were enrolled as
guards to the Caliph, and even appointed to
offices in the palace, to the command of the forces,[{30}]
and to governorships in the provinces. The son
of the celebrated Harun al Raschid had as many
as 50,000 of these troops in Bagdad itself. And
thus slowly and silently they made their way to
the south, not with the pomp and pretense of
conquest, but by means of that ordinary[{5}]
inter-communion which connected one portion of the
empire of the Caliphs with another. In this
manner they were introduced even into Egypt.
This was their history for a hundred and fifty
years, and what do we suppose would be the[{10}]
result of this importation of barbarians into the
heart of a nourishing empire? Would they be
absorbed as slaves or settlers in the mass of the
population, or would they, like mercenaries
elsewhere, be fatal to the power that introduced[{15}]
them? The answer is not difficult, considering
that their very introduction argued a want of
energy and resource in the rulers whom they
served. To employ them was a confession of
weakness; the Saracenic power indeed was not[{20}]
very aged, but the Turkish was much younger,
and more vigorous; then too must be
considered the difference of national character
between the Turks and the Saracens. A writer of
the beginning of the present century[35] compares[{25}]
the Turks to the Romans; such parallels are
generally fanciful and fallacious; but, if we must
accept it in the present instance, we may
complete the picture by likening the Saracens and
Persians to the Greeks, and we know what was[{30}]
the result of the collision between Greece and
Rome. The Persians were poets, the Saracens
were philosophers. The mathematics, astronomy,
and botany were especial subjects of the studies of
the latter. Their observatories were celebrated,[{5}]
and they may be considered to have originated
the science of chemistry. The Turks, on the
other hand, though they are said to have a
literature, and though certain of their princes have
been patrons of letters, have never distinguished[{10}]
themselves in exercises of pure intellect; but
they have had an energy of character, a
pertinacity, a perseverance, and a political talent, in
a word, they then had the qualities of mind
necessary for ruling, in far greater measure, than[{15}]
the people they were serving. The Saracens,
like the Greeks, carried their arms over the
surface of the earth with an unrivaled brilliancy
and an uncheckered success; but their dominion,
like that of Greece, did not last for more than[{20}]
200 or 300 years. Rome grew slowly through
many centuries, and its influence lasts to this
day; the Turkish race battled with difficulties
and reverses, and made its way on amid tumult
and complication, for a good 1000 years from[{25}]
first to last, till at length it found itself in
possession of Constantinople, and a terror to the
whole of Europe. It has ended its career upon
the throne of Constantine; it began it as the
slave and hireling of the rulers of a great empire,[{30}]
of Persia and Sogdiana.
[35] Thornton.
As to Sogdiana, we have already reviewed one
season of power and then in turn of reverse which
there befell the Turks; and next a more
remarkable outbreak and its reaction mark their presence
in Persia. I have spoken of the formidable force,[{5}]
consisting of Turks, which formed the guard of
the Caliphs immediately after the time of Harun
al Raschid: suddenly they rebelled against
their master, burst into his apartment at the
hour of supper, murdered him, and cut his body[{10}]
into seven pieces. They got possession of the
symbols of imperial power, the garment and the
staff of Mahomet, and proceeded to make and
unmake Caliphs at their pleasure. In the course
of four years they had elevated, deposed, and[{15}]
murdered as many as three. At their wanton
caprice, they made these successors of the false
prophet the sport of their insults and their blows.
They dragged them by the feet, stripped them,
and exposed them to the burning sun, beat them[{20}]
with iron clubs, and left them for days without
food. At length, however, the people of Bagdad
were roused in defense of the Caliphate, and the
Turks for a time were brought under; but they
remained in the country, or rather, by the [{25}]
short-sighted policy of the moment, were dispersed
throughout it, and thus became in the sequel
ready-made elements of revolution for the
purposes of other traitors of their own race, who, at
a later period, as we shall presently see, descended[{30}]
on Persia from Turkistan.
Indeed, events were opening the way slowly,
but surely, to their ascendancy. Throughout the
whole of the tenth century, which followed, they
seem to disappear from history; but a silent
revolution was all along in progress, leading them[{5}]
forward to their great destiny. The empire of
the Caliphate was already dying in its
extremities, and Sogdiana was one of the first countries
to be detached from his power. The Turks were
still there, and, as in Persia, filled the ranks of the[{10}]
army and the offices of the government; but the
political changes which took place were not at
first to their visible advantage. What first
occurred was the revolt of the Caliph's viceroy,
who made himself a great kingdom or empire out[{15}]
of the provinces around, extending it from the
Jaxartes, which was the northern boundary of
Sogdiana, almost to the Indian Ocean, and
from the confines of Georgia to the mountains
of Afghanistan. The dynasty thus established[{20}]
lasted for four generations and for the space of
ninety years. Then the successor happened to
be a boy; and one of his servants, the governor
of Khorasan, an able and experienced man, was
forced by circumstances to rebellion against him.[{25}]
He was successful, and the whole power of this
great kingdom fell into his hands; now he was a
Tartar or Turk; and thus at length the Turks
suddenly appear in history, the acknowledged
masters of a southern dominion.[{30}]
This is the origin of the celebrated Turkish
dynasty of the Gaznevides, so called after Gazneh,
or Ghizni, or Ghuznee, the principal city, and it
lasted for two hundred years. We are not
particularly concerned in it, because it has no direct
relations with Europe; but it falls into our[{5}]
subject, as having been instrumental to the advance
of the Turks towards the West. Its most
distinguished monarch was Mahmood, and he
conquered Hindostan, which became eventually
the seat of the empire. In Mahmood the[{10}]
Gaznevide we have a prince of true Oriental splendor.
For him the title of Sultan or Soldan was invented,
which henceforth became the special badge of the
Turkish monarchs; as Khan is the title of the
sovereign of the Tartars, and Caliph of the[{15}]
sovereign of the Saracens. I have already described
generally the extent of his dominions: he
inherited Sogdiana, Carisme, Khorasan, and Cabul;
but, being a zealous Mussulman, he obtained the
title of Gazi, or champion, by his reduction of[{20}]
Hindostan, and his destruction of its idol
temples. There was no need, however, of religious
enthusiasm to stimulate him to the war: the
riches, which he amassed in the course of it, were
a recompense amply sufficient. His Indian[{25}]
expeditions in all amounted to twelve, and they abound
in battles and sieges of a truly Oriental cast....
We have now arrived at what may literally be
called the turning point of Turkish history. We
have seen them gradually descend from the north,[{30}]
and in a certain degree become acclimated in the
countries where they settled. They first appear
across the Jaxartes in the beginning of the seventh
century; they have now come to the beginning
of the eleventh. Four centuries or thereabout
have they been out of their deserts, gaining[{5}]
experience and educating themselves in such
measure as was necessary for playing their part in
the civilized world. First they came down into
Sogdiana and Khorasan, and the country below
it, as conquerors; they continued in it as[{10}]
subjects and slaves. They offered their services to
the race which had subdued them; they made
their way by means of their new masters down to
the west and the south; they laid the foundations
for their future supremacy in Persia, and[{15}]
gradually rose upwards through the social fabric to
which they had been admitted, till they found
themselves at length at the head of it. The
sovereign power which they had acquired in the
line of the Gaznevides, drifted off to Hindostan;[{20}]
but still fresh tribes of their race poured down
from the north, and filled up the gap; and while
one dynasty of Turks was established in the
peninsula, a second dynasty arose in the former
seat of their power.[{25}]
Now I call the era at which I have arrived the
turning point of their fortunes, because, when
they had descended down to Khorasan and the
countries below it, they might have turned to the
East or to the West, as they chose. They were[{30}]
at liberty to turn their forces eastward against
their kindred in Hindostan, whom they had driven
out of Ghizni and Afghanistan, or to face towards
the west, and make their way thither through the
Saracens of Persia and its neighboring countries.
It was an era which determined the history of the[{5}]
world....
But this era was a turning point in their
history in another and more serious respect. In
Sogdiana and Khorasan, they had become
converts to the Mahometan faith. You will not[{10}]
suppose I am going to praise a religious imposture,
but no Catholic need deny that it is, considered
in itself, a great improvement upon Paganism.
Paganism has no rule of right and wrong, no
supreme and immutable judge, no intelligible[{15}]
revelation, no fixed dogma whatever; on the
other hand, the being of one God, the fact of His
revelation, His faithfulness to His promises, the
eternity of the moral law, the certainty of future
retribution, were borrowed by Mahomet from the[{20}]
Church, and are steadfastly held by his followers.
The false prophet taught much which is materially
true and objectively important, whatever be its
subjective and formal value and influence in the
individuals who profess it. He stands in his[{25}]
creed between the religion of God and the religion
of devils, between Christianity and idolatry,
between the West and the extreme East. And
so stood the Turks, on adopting his faith, at
the date I am speaking of; they stood between[{30}]
Christ in the West, and Satan in the East, and
they had to make their choice; and, alas! they
were led by the circumstances of the time to
oppose themselves, not to Paganism, but to
Christianity. A happier lot indeed had befallen
poor Sultan Mahmood than befell his kindred[{5}]
who followed in his wake. Mahmood, a
Mahometan, went eastward and found a superstition
worse than his own, and fought against it, and
smote it; and the sandal doors which he tore
away from the idol temple and hung up at his[{10}]
tomb at Gazneh, almost seemed to plead for him
through centuries as the soldier and the
instrument of Heaven. The tribes which followed him,
Moslem also, faced westward, and found, not
error but truth, and fought against it as zealously,[{15}]
and in doing so, were simply tools of the Evil One,
and preachers of a lie, and enemies, not witnesses
of God. The one destroyed idol temples, the
other Christian shrines. The one has been saved
the woe of persecuting the Bride of the Lamb;[{20}]
the other is of all races the veriest brood of the
serpent which the Church has encountered since
she was set up. For 800 years did the sandal
gates remain at Mahmood's tomb, as a trophy
over idolatry; and for 800 years have Seljuk[{25}]
and Othman been our foe.
The year 1048 of our era is fixed by
chronologists as the date of the rise of the Turkish power,
as far as Christendom is interested in its history.[36]
Sixty-three years before this date, a Turk of high[{30}]
rank, of the name of Seljuk, had quarreled with
his native prince in Turkistan, crossed the
Jaxartes with his followers, and planted himself in
the territory of Sogdiana. His father had been
a chief officer in the prince's court, and was the[{5}]
first of his family to embrace Islamism; but
Seljuk, in spite of his creed, did not obtain permission
to advance into Sogdiana from the Saracenic
government, which at that time was in possession of
the country. After several successful encounters,[{10}]
however, he gained admission into the city of
Bokhara, and there he settled. As time went on, he
fully recompensed the tardy hospitality which
the Saracens had shown him; for his feud with
his own countrymen, whom he had left, took the[{15}]
shape of a religious enmity, and he fought against
them as pagans and infidels, with a zeal, which
was both an earnest of the devotion of his people
to the faith of Mahomet, and a training for the
exercise of it....[{20}]