111.—A TURKISH BARBER.
It is a great mistake to imagine that the Mussulman religion predominates in Turkey. In Turkey in Europe, not more than a quarter of the population profess the creed of Mahomet. The remainder are Christians, subdivided into the leading sects of that faith. The Greeks, the Servians, the Walachians, and the inhabitants of Montenegro belong to the eastern Greek Church. The Armenians are numerous, and are the more powerful on account of their known character for austerity and honesty. Other religious communities, such as the Jakobites, called Kopts in Egypt, the Nestorians, and the Maronites, have some influence, from the unity which reigns among their different sects; the Druzes, for instance, defy the Mahometans to their very face. There are more Jews in Turkey in Europe, than in any other country.
All these brotherhoods, excepting the Druzes and the Maronites, were formerly deprived of the free right of worship, were liable to marks of ignominy, and were handed over, defenceless, to injustice. But in the beginning of our century, an edict of the sultan declared all his subjects, regardless of their religion, equal in the eyes of the law.
Mahometanism, which prevails in Turkey, and in the greater portion of the East, dates from the 610th year of our era. Its principal doctrines are purification, prayer, and fasting. The fasting takes place in the month of Ramazan, a month which is the Mussulman’s Lent, and during which all food must be abstained from in the daytime. It is followed by the festival of Beyram, during which the faithful are allowed to make up for their preceding abstinence. A legal charity is instituted by their creed. It consists in giving every year to the poor a fortieth part of their movable property. Another religious injunction is the pilgrimage to Mecca, which every Mussulman is obliged to undertake at least once in his lifetime.
Their devotions take place five times a day. Friday is the day of rest for the Mahometans, as Sunday is that of the Christians, and Saturday that of the Jews.
Mahometanism has inherited from the ancient Arabs the practice of circumcision. Mussulmans are forbidden to drink intoxicating drinks, but are allowed to marry four wives, and to make concubines of their female slaves. Their religion deprives them of all liberty of will, as it tells them that everything that can happen, either for evil or for good, is settled beforehand. It is this fatalism that paralyzes all individual enterprise, and prevents the march of progress.
Mahometanism has not been more exempt than other creeds from schisms, which have brought to pass religious wars always so terrible in their consequences.
Its precepts, which have their advantages from a religious point of view, have many disastrous consequences when we regard mankind’s physical constitution. The interdict on the use of wine, for instance, has given rise to the secret consumption of alcoholic drinks, and to the public use of opium.