The Oriental governments are slow to move, but they do move after all. Moslem fanaticism is every year diminishing, and many of its cruelties are brought to an end. Occidental civilization in its aggressive course has accomplished much, and will do more as time rolls on.
Most of these sects are not held in great esteem by the people, though there are many Moslems who believe that the whirling, howling, and other performances of these gentry, are caused by divine inspiration, and consequently should be held in reverence.
The Turkish government has on several occasions contemplated the suppression of some of the orders of dervishes, particularly those that possess considerable wealth. There are persons uncharitable enough to suppose that this contemplated suppression is induced by the fact that the property of the dervishes would revert to the government in case the sects were discontinued.
Some of the sects have a great deal of fasting and prayer, and make their ceremonies interesting by the addition of various bodily tortures. It is said that a sect was founded in the first century of the Hegira by a holy man named Uvies. Among other farewells to worldly pleasures, he required his followers to draw all their teeth, in remembrance of the Prophet’s loss of two teeth at a battle on behalf of Islam. Painless dentistry was not, then in vogue, as nobody had discovered chloroform, ether, or laughing gas. Uvies did not get very far with his sect, and it expired soon after his death. Another pious Moslem tried to start a sect of dervishes in which every member should have his eyes put out during the ceremony of initiation. He was obliged to be chief and all hands, as he never found anybody to join his order. The devout Mohammedans couldn’t see it.
