This is the great difficulty of the Turks in Europe. If they could break the neck of it the others need not frighten them; and so the best of them feel, and are doing something towards meeting the difficulty. Many Turks are setting the example of taking only one wife, and of living with her in their own houses as the men of Christian nations do. A few have done away with the separate system, so far as they themselves are concerned, and their harems are so only in name. They encourage foreign ladies to call on their wives, and would gladly go further. Some of them have even tried taking their wives with them into public; but this has been premature. The nation will not stand it yet. The women themselves object. The few who feel the degradation of their present lives, and are anxious to help their husbands in getting rid of it, are looked upon with so much suspicion that they dare not move on so fast. Honest female conservatism has taken fright, and combines with vice, sloth, and jealousy, to keep things as they are. However, the women will come round fast enough if the men are only in earnest. They get all their outer-world notions from the men, and as soon as the men will say, “We wish you to live with us as the Giaours’ wives live with them,” the thing will be done.
I may say, then, from what I have myself seen and heard, that a serious attempt is being made by the Turks—few in number, certainly, at present, but strong in position and character—to break the chain of their old customs, especially this of the harem, and to conform outwardly to Western habits and manners. This is being done mainly for political reasons, and if nothing more enters into the movement will probably fail; for, in spite of the great changes which have taken place in Turkey in Europe of late years, there is a tremendous power of passive resistance and hatred of all change amongst the people, which no motives of expediency will be able to break through. It will take something deeper than political expediency to do that. Is there the sign of any such power above the horizon?
Well, sir, of course my opinion is worth very little. A fortnight’s residence in a country, whatever opportunities one may have had, and however one may have tried and desired to use them, cannot be of much use in judging questions of this kind. Take my impressions, then, for what they are worth, at any rate they are honest, and the result of the best observation of a deeply interested spectator. Islamism as a religious faith is all but gone in Turkey in Europe. Up to 1856 the Turks were still a dominant and persecuting race, and Islamism a persecuting creed. Since the Hatti humayoun, which was, perhaps, the most important result of the Crimean war, there has been nominally absolute religious toleration—actually something very nearly approaching to it—in Turkey in Europe. Islamism was spread by the sword, and the consequence of this method of propagation was that large layers of the population were only nominally converted. These have never since been either Moslem or Christians but a bad mixture of the two. Since 1856 this has become more and more apparent. I will only mention one fact bearing on the point, though I heard many. An American missionary traveller in a part of Roumelia not very far from Constantinople found the people, though nominally Turks, yet with many Christian practices and traditions, to which they were much attached, but which they had till lately kept secret. They did not seem inclined to make any further profession of Christianity, or to give up their Moslem profession, but were anxious that he should read the Bible to them. They had not heard it for generations, but had preserved the tradition of it. He did so; and afterwards parties of them would come to the Bosphorus to his house to hear him read, and, I believe, do so still. It is a curious story to hear of bodies of men sitting to hear the old Book read, and weeping and going away. It takes one back to the finding of the Book of the Law in Josiah’s day. Amongst the Turks proper there is only one article of Islamism which is held with any strength, and that is the hatred of any approach to image worship. In this they are fanatics still. Thirty years ago the then Sultan nearly caused a revolution by having his likeness put on coin. The issue was called in, and to this day there is nothing but a cipher on the piastres and other Turkish coin. The rest of their faith sits very lightly on them, and is much more of a political than a religious garment. There is a strong feeling of patriotism amongst the people (though it, and all else that is noble, seems to have died out amongst the insignificant upper class, if one may speak of such a thing here)—a patriotism of race more than of country; and it is this, and not their faith, which is holding the present state of things together.
Now, I am not going to tell you, sir, that the Turks in Europe are about to be converted to Christianity. I only say that Islamism is all but dead on our continent; that the most able and far-seeing of the Turks see and feel this more and more every day themselves; that they are themselves adopting, and are trying to introduce, practices and habits which are utterly inconsistent with their old creed; that they have, in fact, already virtually abandoned it. “We must have a civilisation,” the best men amongst them say; “but what we want is a Turkish civilisation, and not a French, or Russian, or English civilisation.” Yes; but on what terms is such a civilisation possible for you? Well, sir, I am old-fashioned enough to believe myself that the Christian faith is the only possible civiliser of mankind. The only civilisation which has reached the East—the outside civilisation of steam, gas, and the like—will do nothing but destroy, unless you have something stronger to graft it upon. What is the good of sending messages half round the world in a few seconds, if the messages are lies; of carrying cowards and scoundrels about at the rate of fifty-miles an hour; of forging instruments of fearful power for the hands of the oppressors of the earth? Not much will come of this kind of civilisation alone for any nation; and, as for these poor Turks, it is powerful enough to blow them up altogether, and that is all it will do for them.
When one stands in Great Sophia, and sees the defaced crosses, and the names of Mahomet and his successors, on huge ugly green sign-boards, hanging in the most prominent places of the noblest church of the East, it is difficult not to feel something of the Crusading spirit. But, if the Turks were swept out of Europe to-morrow, I doubt whether it would not be a misfortune for the world. We should not only be expelling the best race of the country, but they would retire into Asia sullen and resentful, hating the West and its faith more than ever. Islamism would gain new life from the reaction which would take place; for the Turks will not go without making a strong fight, and Turkey in Europe would be left to a riff-raff of nominal Christians, with more than all the vices and none of the redeeming virtues of their late masters. It would be a far higher and nobler triumph for Christendom to see the Turks restoring the crosses and taking down the sign-boards. That sooner or later they will become Christians I have no sort of doubt whatever, after seeing them; for they are too strong a race to disappear. No nation can go on long without a faith, and there is none other for them to turn to. Modern Greeks may regret their old Paganism—here they say seriously that many of them openly avow it; but for a Turk who finds Islamism crumble away beneath him, it must be Christianity or nothing. The greatest obstacle to the conversion of Turkey will be the degradation of the subject Christian races. It is, no doubt, a tremendous obstacle, but there have been tremendous obstacles before now which have been cleared by weaker people.
I daresay I shall seem lunatic to you, sir, though I know it will not be because you think the Christian faith is itself pretty well used up, and ought to be thinking of getting itself carried out and buried decently, instead of making new conquests. But if you had been living for a fortnight on the Bosphorus, you could not help wishing well to the old Turks any more than I, and I don’t believe you, any more than I, could by any ingenuity find out what good to wish them, except speedy conversion. With that all reforms will follow rapidly enough.
If you are not thoroughly outraged by these later productions of mine I will promise to avoid the Eastern question proper, and will try to give you something more amusing next week. Meanwhile, believe me ever faithfully yours.