Syria, Asia Minor," and Greece whole cities were subverted. In the reign of Valens and Valentinian the greater part of the Roman world was shaken by seismic disturbances of the most appalling violence. Time and again the massive walls of Constantinople, its palaces, churches, and monasteries crumbled under the earth's paroxysmal movements, and the extent of the disaster inflicted was beyond computation. At Cyzicus a temple which its builders fondly hoped would be as stable and as durable as the pyramids was, in an instant, leveled with the ground by one of those periodical earth shocks that have visited Asia Minor from time immemorial. In the destructive earthquake of 365 A. D., no fewer than fifty thousand persons lost their lives in Alexandria. But probably no city in the world has suffered more from seismic vibrations than Antioch, which is near the southern border of Cilicia. Here in the terrific earthquake of 526 A. D., the loss of life totaled a full quarter of a million people. During the celebration of a public festival in Greece, at which a vast multitude had assembled, "the whole population was swallowed up in the midst of the ceremonies." It was during this period of widespread catastrophe in Greece that "the ravages of earthquakes began to figure in history as an important cause of the impoverished and declining condition of the country. 99 28 The same causes that led to the economic and social decline of Greece operated with equally dire results in Asia Minor and Syria and Palestine. When, therefore, we contemplate the countless ruins of once famous cities, that are so conspicuous in a great part of Greece and Turkey in Asia, let us assign them to their real causes-not "the ravaging Turks," but the devastating Huns and Goths, Tartars and Mongols, Persians and Saracens, and the blind and convulsive forces of nature. 27 Pliny in his Historia Naturalis, II, 86, writes: Maximus terræ memoria mortalium extitit motus, Tiberii Cæsaris principatu; XII urbibus Asia una nocte prostatis. 28 History of Greece From Its Conquests by the Romans to the Present Time, B.C. 146 to A.D. 1864, Vol. I, p. 224 (by George Finlay, Oxford, 1877). It is far from my purpose to excuse the Osmanlis from any of the crimes they have perpetrated against civilization. But the foregoing paragraphs evince that their part in the destruction of the proud cities and monuments-magnificent centers of culture and commerce-of the ancient world has been greatly exaggerated. Their great sin against humanity, at least for generations past, has been one of omission rather than commission.29 It has consisted-I speak of the ruling classes-in their inefficient government, which has given little or no encouragement to trade or industry; which has neglected roads and bridges, making interior communication difficult and often impossible; which has failed to develop the vast resources of a country to which a beneficent nature has been rarely prodigal; which has oppressed and trodden down a laborious and long-suffering peasantry, than which there is no better in the world; which has failed to provide for the education of the masses, ever eager for knowledge and improvement; which has permitted systematic bribery in high places and allowed crying malfeasance in office to go unpunished; which, by its unexampled apathy, has been responsible for one of the richest countries in the world degenerating into one of the most desolate, and for a great mass of its people-although innocent-becoming the most execrated. Surely this indictment is damning enough without cumbering it with counts which are irrelevant or of which the Sultan's government is not guilty. But, fortunately for those who are able to read the signs of the times, there are well-grounded hopes for a change for the better-for a return to the position among nations which the Ottoman Empire occupied when its schools and scholars were as famed as were its achievements on land and sea-when the followers of Osman shall be as far in the van of civilization as they are now in the rear. 29 I do not ignore the atrocities which the Turks, especially during the last few decades, are alleged to have committed in Armenia and elsewhere. But until reliable testimony as to the Ottoman side of the question is forthcoming it is only fair to the accused for one to suspend judgment. CHAPTER X ISLAM, PAST AND PRESENT Properly to appreciate Mohammed we must discard our religious and national prejudices and see in his work only what he has put in it, independently of the consequences which this work has entailed and which may more or less wound us even to-day. J. BARTHÉLEMY ST. HILAIRÉ.1 No one can travel through the Near East with an intelligent appreciation of the manners and customs of its people without an accurate knowledge of the religion professed by the majority of them and an adequate familiarity with the life and times of the one whom they revere as their Founder and Prophet. The reason is obvious. The inhabitantsOsmanlis, Arabs, Turkomans-of this part of the once great Ottoman Empire have so long lived under the theocracy established by Mohammed and his successors that every detail of their religion and civil life is regulated for them with a thoroughness that, outside of Islam, is quite unknown. The Sultan as well as the Mollah is both a religious and a civil functionary, and theocratic government prevails everywhere from the palace of the Padishah on the Bosphorus to the tent of the Bedouin in the Syrian and Arabian Deserts. What is not prescribed by the Koran is ordered by the Hadith, that body of legislative traditions which is based on the reputed sayings or acts of the Prophet of Mecca, and which, in the eyes of loyal adherents of Islam, has the force of prescriptions emanating directly or indirectly from Allah, and which are, consequently, immutable. It is evident, therefore, that one who is ignorant of the history of Islam will not only seriously misunderstand 1 Mahomet et le Coran, p. vii (Paris, 1865). the people of Moslem countries but will also be compelled, before he shall be long in their midst, greatly to revise his previous notions respecting them. For he will soon discover, as have many others before him, that while he knew all about their defects, he had little or no knowledge of their many and very great virtues. As his sojourn among the Moslems is prolonged and he becomes better acquainted with them, he will find that most of his views concerning them were based on ungrounded prejudice or age-old stories that had no other basis than crass ignorance or un-Christian hatred. Not only this; he will gradually learn to admire those whom he had been taught to despise and, if he be of a deeply religious nature, he may find himself endorsing the statement of the late General Gordon: "I love the Moslems because they are not ashamed of God." To the student of history it seems incredible that so many and so egregious errors regarding Islam should have so long prevailed among men who are otherwise well informed and disposed to be fair in their judgments of all peoples, regardless of creed or color. For "although Islam has been described in so many books, there are yet educated people who," in the words of the learned Padre Marracci,2 "believe that Moslems are idolaters who adore Mohammed and the moon," and who, as the scholarly Sprenger writes, "have not gotten much further in the knowledge of Islam than that the Turks allow polygamy." 2 "Neque in hoc me falli opinor cum hodieque non paucos ex nostris, alioquin non indoctos, Mahumeticarum rerum tam rudes videam, ut Mahumetanos Idolatras, Lunæque ac Mahumeti adoratores existiment, aliasque de Agarenica secta ejusque Auctore neptias effutiant." Alcorani Textus Universus, Tom. I, p. 6 (Patavii, 1698). Padre Lodovico Marracci, who was a religious of the order of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God, was the confessor of Pope Innocent XII. It was in obedience to the command of this Pontiff that he published his great work on the Koran on which he spent forty of the best years in his life. It embraces three folio volumes with the text of the Koran in Arabic, accompanied by a Latin translation and copious notes, and is notable as being the most successful of the earlier attempts to make the Koran and Mohammedanism known to the Christian world. 8 Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammed, Vol. II, p. 181 (Berlin, 1862). If it were a question of the inhabitants of Central Africa, who were practically unknown until the explorations of Speke, Stanley, and Livingstone, we should not be surprised that even geographers should know next to nothing about them. But it seems difficult to explain the widespread ignorance which has everywhere obtained regarding a people who have played so important a rôle in history as the Moslems, and who during more than twelve centuries have been in constant relations with the Christian nations of Europe. But, although the contact between the East and the West has been uninterrupted since the time Moslemism essayed To plant the Crescent o'er the Cross, the misrepresentations of Mohammed and his followers have continued without intermission from the days of the Crusaders to the present time. And the strangest thing is that the most extravagant tales about Mohammedans and their religion were put in circulation when their originators must have known that they had no foundation in fact. Many of the stories-as false as they were ridiculousthat were long current respecting the Arabian Prophet and the religion which he founded were due to the Trouvères and the Troubadours. A great majority of the Chansons de Geste exhibit a pitiful ignorance of the tenets of the Saracens, and not a few of them contributed to give vogue to the most revolting fables respecting Mohammed and Islam. Although neither Leo the Isaurian nor Oliver Cromwell, both the sworn enemies of images, were more opposed to idolatry or to the worship of images than Mohammed, nevertheless, in La Chanson de Roland, the Franks are represented under the walls of Saragossa as avenging their A mil Franceis fait bien cerchier la vile, |