The European, at least of the English-speaking world, who visits Constantinople for the first time usually arrives with extraordinary preconceptions regarding the mysterious ways, the cruelty and fanaticism of the Turk. If he be one of the open-minded few, a prolonged residence in Turkey will usually suffice to banish his previous opinions, to inspire him with sympathy, and to make him marvel how it could have been possible to harbour such false notions regarding a people and a country concerning which the average European knows so little. For there can be no doubt that our early training, the one-sided ideas of our youth due to clerical teaching from generation to generation, are the main causes of our conception of the Turks as cruel and depraved. Who of us has not been shocked as a boy in visiting the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s and viewing the array of coloured prints depicting the horrible tortures said to have been inflicted upon dishonest traders in Turkey?[[21]] Well might Turkish Ambassadors have protested long ago against this method of prejudicing the English mind against Turkey, as Bismarck did in Paris, after the 1870 war, against the public exhibition of M. Edouard Détaille’s well-known picture, “Nos Vainqueurs,” which was removed in consequence. But the Turk is accustomed to suffer wrong in silence, and, as far as I know, has never complained officially.
[21]. As far as I recollect no explanation is vouchsafed with these drawings that they refer to the Turkey of the past. Hence the likelihood that many a cockney visiting Madame Tussauds goes away with the impression that they treat of Turkish practices of to-day.
The mystery attached to polygamy, our imaginary ideas concerning the position of Turkish women and the harem, may also have a great deal to do with our prejudice against the Turks.
We are taught in our youth to look upon the Crusades as expeditions undertaken to protect the Tomb of Christ from the desecrating hands of the Infidel. Serious historians are no longer under any delusion as to the political character of the Crusades. Thus if the Sacred Sepulchre was ever endangered by the Turks, how came it to pass that it was not destroyed long before the Christians ever reached Jerusalem? Is it not an historical fact that Jerusalem was in the possession of the Turks for centuries before the idea of protecting the Holy Sepulchre ever occurred to the Popes? If the Crusades were justified as undertaken for the protection of the Christians against the Turks, how came it to pass that so few Christians in the East ever joined the Crusades? From what we know of Christian fanatical intolerance, even down to comparatively recent periods, is it not rather more than likely, supposing the Holy Sepulchre had been situated in a Christian country, that its very site would long ago have been obliterated?
In the course of my various visits to Constantinople I used often to look up my kind friend Ahmed Midhat Effendi, and our many conversations, always fraught with instruction for me, embraced every imaginable subject. They turned especially upon the Mohammedan religion and the attitude of Christianity towards Islam, not merely in our time, but throughout past centuries. It needed no great powers of persuasion to convince me that the European frame of mind towards the Mohammedan world must needs be the outcome of a one-sided version of events. How could it be otherwise in view of the inaccessibility of the records of Mohammedan history? Thus Lessing’s drama of “Nathan the Wise,” and the portrayal of Sultan Saladin as the ideal type of chivalry and religious tolerance, struck the Western world at the time as a revelation. To-day no serious person who has given the slightest attention to the subject can doubt that, whatever may have been the policy of aggression of the great Moslem conquerors, the spirit of Islam was one of broad religious tolerance at a time when such a quality was practically non-existent in Europe. When Sultan Selim proposed to offer the Christian population of his dominions the alternative of embracing Islam or expatriation—or, if you will, extermination—it was the Sheikh ul Islam who appealed to the precepts of the Koran prescribing the duty of the Sultan to protect and safeguard his subjects, whatever their faith, which prevented Selim from carrying out his intention. It was thus owing in a large measure to the Koran that the Christian population in Asiatic and European Turkey was protected and enabled to prosper in days when no European public opinion could have possibly intervened on its behalf. While the Turk was thus practising religious tolerance Jews were burnt at the stake in Christian Spain; the most intelligent portion of the inhabitants of France, the Huguenots, were being persecuted for their faith and driven from their homes by Louis XIV, and in England the penalty of death awaited the priest who dared to say Mass.
These are weighty historical facts, without fully and constantly realizing which it is practically impossible for a Christian born and bred to be fair to the Mohammedan Turk, and approach the study of his customs and character in an impartial spirit.
Ahmed Midhat, in drawing my attention to a recent publication concerning the conduct towards Christians prescribed by the Koran for Mohammedans, wrote to me some years ago as follows:
“I do not know whether this document will be sufficient to bring home to you the calumny which the Christian world launches at us, in attributing to us a hatred for everything that is not Mohammedan, and more particularly for Christianity and Christians as such. But if you believe in my honesty, accept my assurance, tendered on my oath as a devout Mohammedan, on my honour as a gentleman, that such hatred has never existed among us....
“Quite recently I read Count de Castries’ excellent book on the Islam faith.[[22]] De Castries is an old French officer who has lived many years in the Algerian deserts, and has become almost an Arab himself in language, habits, and even in religion. I call his book excellent not merely because it is favourable to us, but because it reveals the attitude of the Christian world towards Islamism. I recommend you strongly to read it. But before you do so, I would like to tell you that we Mohammedans have never produced a single poet or prophet in the East who has written against Christianity and Christians in the spirit of those thousand abominations in which the Italian, French, and Spanish troubadours sang of Islam. You will not find a single line in all our literature of the kind such as the hundreds cited by De Castries from Christian writers, and which justly arouse his indignation. I do not exaggerate, my dear friend, I merely tell you the naked truth. You can defy the Christian world to cite, not a single Mohammedan writer, but a single line in the whole of our popular literature which could inspire hatred of the Christian. Even the wars of the Crusades, which lasted through centuries, were powerless to change the sentiment of tolerance towards the Christian world, a sentiment for ever rooted in the spirit of the Koran—the Word of God revealed by His Hadis (the words of the Prophet) and by the legislation of His Imams the so-called Cheriat.
[22]. “L’Islam: Impressions et Études.” Par le Comte Henri de Castries. Paris: Armand Colin.