Theos-Talk Archives (October 2002 Message tt00247)

Oct 27 2002

Here is an old letter which may be relevant under current situation. I need 
to thank Dallas for providing the letter.

mkr


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A TURKISH EFFENDI ON CHRISTENDOM AND ISLAM


[Originally printed in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for January
1880, and reprinted in The Theosophist for March 1880.]



In the suburb of one of the most romantically situated towns in Asia
Minor there lives the most remarkable oriental whom it has ever been
my fortune to meet. Traveling through that interesting country a few
months ago, with the view of assisting the British Government to
introduce some much-needed reforms, I arrived at ________________. I
purposely abstain from mentioning the name of the place, as my Eastern
friend, to whom I am indebted for the following paper, desires his
incognito to be observed, for reasons which the reader will easily
understand on its perusal.
I remained there some weeks examining the state of the surrounding
country, at that time a good deal disturbed, and giving the local
authorities the benefit of a little wholesome counsel and advice,
which, I need scarcely say, they wholly disregarded.
My officious interference in their affairs not unnaturally procured me
some notoriety; and I received, in consequence, numerous visits from
members of all classes of the community detailing their grievances,
and anxious to know what chance there might be of a forcible
intervention on the part of England by which these should be
redressed. In my intercourse with them, I was struck by their
constant allusion to an apparently mysterious individual, who
evidently enjoyed a reputation for an almost supernatural sagacity,
and whose name they never mentioned except in terms of the greatest
reverence, and indeed, I might almost say, of awe. My curiosity at
last became excited, and I made special inquiries in regard to this
unknown sage. I found that he lived about a mile and a half out of
the town, on a farm which he had purchased about five years ago; that
no one knew from whence he had come; that he spoke both Turkish and
Arabic as his native tongues; but that some supposed him to be a
Frank, owing to his entire neglect of all the ceremonial observances
of a good Moslem, and to a certain foreign mode of thought; while
others maintained that no man who had not been born an oriental could
adapt himself so naturally to the domestic life of the East, and
acquire its social habits with such ease and perfection.
His erudition was said to be extraordinary, and his life seemed passed
in studying the literature of many languages - his agent, for the
purchase and forwarding of such books and papers as he needed, being a
foreign merchant at the nearest seaport. He seemed possessed of
considerable wealth, but his mode of life was simple in the extreme;
and he employed large sums in relieving the distress by which he was
surrounded, and in protecting by the necessary bribes those who were
unable to protect themselves from oppression.
The result was, that he was adored by the country people for miles
round, while he was rather respected and feared than disliked by the
Turkish officials - for he was extremely tolerant of their financial
necessities, and quite understood that they were compelled to squeeze
money out of the peasantry, because, as they received no pay, they
would starve themselves unless they did.
To this gentleman I sent my card, with a note in French, stating that
I was a traveling Englishman, with a seat in the House of Commons in
immediate prospect at the coming election, consumed with a desire to
reform Asia Minor, or, at all events, to enlighten my countrymen as to
how it should be done. Perhaps I am wrong in saying that I actually
put all this in my note, but it was couched in the usual tone of
members of Parliament, who are cramming political questions abroad
which are likely to come up next session. I know the style, because I
have been in the House myself. The note I received in reply was in
English, and ran as follows:

DEAR SIR - If you are not otherwise engaged, it will give me great
pleasure if you will do me the honor of dining with me tomorrow
evening at seven. I trust you will excuse the preliminary formality
of a visit, but I have an appointment at some distance in the country,
which will detain me until too late an hour to call. Believe me,
yours very truly,
------------------EFFENDI

P.S. - As you may have some difficulty in finding your way, my servant
will be with you at half-past six to serve as a guide."
"Dear me," I thought, as I read this civilized epistle with amazement,
"I wonder whether he expects me to dress;" for I need scarcely say I
had come utterly unprovided for any such contingency, my wearing
apparel, out of regard for my baggage-mule, having been limited to the
smallest allowance consistent with cleanliness.
Punctually at the hour named, my dragoman informed me that _______
Effendi's servant was in attendance; and, arrayed in the
shooting-coat, knee-breeches, and riding-boots, which formed my only
costume, I followed him on foot through the narrow winding streets of
the town, until we emerged into its gardens, and following a charming
path between orchards of fruit-trees, gradually reached its extreme
outskirts, when it turned into a narrow glen, down which foamed a
brawling torrent. A steep ascent for about ten minutes brought us to
a large gate in a wall. This was immediately opened by a porter who
lived in a lodge outside, and I found myself in grounds that were half
park, half flower-garden, in the center of which, on a terrace
commanding a magnificent view, stood the house of my host - a Turkish
mansion with projecting latticed windows, and a courtyard with a
colonnade round it and a fountain in the middle. A broad flight of
steps led to the principal entrance, and at the top of it stood a tall
figure in the flowing Turkish costume of fifty years ago, now, alas!
becoming very rare among the upper classes.
I wondered whether this could be the writer of the invitation to
dinner; but my doubts were speedily solved by the empressment with
which this turbaned individual, who seemed a man of about fifty years
of age, descended the steps, and with the most consummate ease and
grace of manner, advanced to shake hands and give me a welcome of
unaffected cordiality. He spoke English with the greatest fluency,
though with a slight accent, and in appearance was of the fair type
not commonly seen in Turkey; the eyes dark-blue, mild in repose, but,
when animated, expanding and flashing with the brilliancy of the
intelligence which lay behind them. The beard was silky and slightly
auburn. The whole expression of the face was inexpressibly winning
and attractive, and I instinctively felt that if it only depended upon
me, we should soon become fast friends. Such in fact proved to be the
case. We had a perfect little dinner, cooked in Turkish style, but
served in European fashion; and afterwards talked so far into the
night, that my host would not hear of my returning, and put me in a
bedroom as nicely furnished as if it had been in a country-house in
England.
Next morning I found that my dragoman and baggage had all been
transferred from the house of the family with whom I had been lodging
in town, and I was politely given to understand that I was forcibly
taken possession of during the remainder of my stay at _____.
At the expiration of a week I was so much struck by the entirely novel
view, as it seemed to me, which my host took of the conflict between
Christendom and Islam, and by the philosophic aspect under which he
presented the Eastern Question generally, that I asked him whether he
would object to putting his ideas in writing, and allowing me to
publish them - prefacing his remarks by any explanation in regard to
his own personality, which he might feel disposed to give.
He was extremely reluctant to comply with this request, his native
modesty and shrinking from notoriety of any sort presenting an almost
insurmountable obstacle to his rushing into print, even in the
strictest incognito. However, by dint of persistent importunity, I at
last succeeded in breaking through his reserve, and he consented to
throw into the form of a personal communication addressed to me
whatever he had to say, and to allow me to make any use of it I liked.
I confess that when I came to read his letter, I was somewhat taken
aback by the uncompromising manner in which the Effendi had stated his
case; and I should have asked him to modify the language in which he
had couched his view, but I felt convinced that, had I done so, he
would have withdrawn it altogether.
I was, moreover, ashamed to admit that I doubted whether I should find
a magazine in England with sufficient courage to publish it. I need
not say that I differ from it entirely, and, in our numerous
conversations, gave my reasons for doing so. But I have thought it
well that it should, if possible, be made public in England, for many
reasons. In the first place, the question of reform, especially in
Asiatic Turkey, occupies a dominant position in English politics; and
it is of great importance that we should know, not only that many
intelligent Turks consider a reform of the Government hopeless, but to
what causes they attribute the present decrepit and corrupt condition
of the empire.
We can gather from the views here expressed, though stated in a most
uncomplimentary manner, why many of the most enlightened Moslems,
while lamenting the vices which have brought their country to ruin,
refuse to cooperate in an attempt, on the part of the Western Powers,
which, in their opinion, would only be going from bad to worse.
However much we may differ from those whom we wish to benefit, it
would be folly to shut our ears to their opinions in regard to
ourselves or our religion, simply because they are distasteful to us.
We can best achieve our end by candidly listening to what they may
have to say. And this must be my apology, as well as that of the
magazine in which it appears, for the publication of a letter so
hostile in tone to our cherished convictions and beliefs.
At the same time, I cannot disguise from myself that, while many of
its statements are prejudiced and highly colored, others are not
altogether devoid of some foundation in truth; it never can do us any
harm to see ourselves sometimes as others see us. The tendency of
mankind, and perhaps especially of Englishmen, is so very much that of
the ostrich, which is satisfied to keep its head in the sand and see
nothing that is disturbing to its self-complacency, that a little
rough handling occasionally does no harm.
These considerations have induced me to do my best to make "the bark
of the distant Effendi" be heard, to use the fine imagery of Bon
Gaultier; 1 and with these few words of introduction, I will leave him
to tell his own tale, and state his opinions on the burning questions
of the day.



MY DEAR FRIEND -
I proceed, in compliance with your request, to put in writing a résumé
in condensed form of the views which I have expressed in our various
conversations together on the Eastern Question, premising only that I
have yielded to it under strong pressure, because I fear they may
wound the sensibilities or shock the prejudices of your countrymen.
As, however, you assure me that they are sufficiently tolerant to have
the question, in which they are so much interested, presented to them
from an Oriental point of view, I shall write with perfect frankness,
and in the conviction that opinions, however unpalatable they may be,
which are only offered to the public in the earnest desire to advance
the cause of truth, will meet with some response in the breasts of
those who are animated with an equally earnest desire to find it.
In order to explain how I have come to form these opinions, I must, at
the cost of seeming egoistic, make a few prefatory remarks about
myself. My father was an official of high rank and old Turkish
family, resident for some time in Constantinople, and afterwards in an
important seaport in the Levant. An unusually enlightened and well
educated man, he associated much with Europeans; and from early life I
have been familiar with the Greek, French, and Italian languages. He
died when I was about twenty years of age; and I determined to make
use of the affluence to which I fell heir, by traveling in foreign
countries.
I had already read largely the literature of both France and Italy,
and had to a certain extent become emancipated from the modes of
thought, and I may even say from the religious ideas, prevalent among
my countrymen. I went in the first instance to Rome, and, after a
year's sojourn there, proceeded to England, where I assumed an Italian
name, and devoted myself to the study of the language, institutions,
literature, and religion of the country.
I was at all times extremely fond of philosophical speculation, and
this led me to a study of German. My pursuits were so engrossing that
I saw little of society, and the few friends I made were among a
comparatively humble class. I remained in England ten years,
traveling occasionally on the Continent, and visiting Turkey twice
during that time. I then proceeded to America, where I passed a year,
and thence went to India by way of Japan and China. In India I
remained two years, resuming during this period an Oriental garb, and
living principally among my co-religionists.
I was chiefly occupied, however, in studying the religious movement
among the Hindus, known as the Brahmo Samáj. From India I went to
Ceylon, 2 where I lived in great retirement, and became deeply
immersed in the more occult knowledge of Buddhism. Indeed, these
mystical studies so intensely interested me, that it was with
difficulty, after a stay of three years, that I succeeded in tearing
myself away from them.
I then passed, by way of the Persian Gulf, into Persia, remained a
year in Teheran, whence I went to Damascus, where I lived for five
years, during which time I performed the Hadj, more out of curiosity
than as an act of devotion. Five years ago I arrived here on my way
to Constantinople, and was so attracted by the beauty of the spot and
the repose which it seemed to offer me, that I was determined to pitch
my tent here for the remainder of my days, and to spend them in doing
what I could do to improve the lot of those amidst whom Providence had
thrown me.
I am aware that this record of my travels will be received with
considerable surprise by those acquainted with the habits of life of
Turks generally. I have given it, however, to account for the train
of thought into which I have been led, and the conclusions at which I
have arrived, and to explain the exceptional and isolated position in
which I find myself among my own countrymen, who, as a rule have no
sympathies with the motives which have actuated me through life, or
with their results. I have hitherto observed, therefore, a complete
reticence in regard to both.
Should, however, these pages fall under the eye of any member of the
Theosophical Society, either in America, Europe, or Asia, they will at
once recognize the writer as one of their numbers, and will, I feel
sure, respect that reserve as to my personality which I wish to
maintain.
I have already said that in early life I became thoroughly
dissatisfied with the religion in which I was born and brought up;
and, determined to discard all early prejudices, I resolved to travel
over the world, visiting the various centers of religious thought,
with the view of making a comparative study of the value of its
religions, and of arriving at some conclusion as to the one I ought
myself to adopt.
As, however, they each claimed to be derived from an inspires source,
I very soon became overwhelmed with the presumption of the task which
I had undertaken; for I was not conscious of the possession of any
verifying faculty which would warrant my deciding between the claims
of different revelations, or of judging the merits of rival forms of
inspiration. Nor did it seem possible to me that any evidence in
favor of a revelation, which was in all instances offered by human
beings like myself, could be of such a nature that another human being
should dare to assert that it could have none other than a divine
origin; the more especially as the author of it was in all instances
in external appearance also a human being.
At the same time, I am far from being so daring as to maintain that no
divine revelation, claiming to be such is not pervaded with a divine
afflatus. On the contrary, it would seem that to a greater or less
extent they must all be so. Their relative values must depend, so far
as our own earth is concerned, upon the amount of moral truth of a
curative kind, in regard to this world's moral disease, which they
contain, and upon their practical influence upon the lives and conduct
of men.
I was therefore led to institute a comparison between the objects
which were proposed by various religions; and I found that just in the
degree in which they had been diverted from their original design of
world-regeneration, were the results unsatisfactory, so far as human
righteousness was concerned; and that the concentration of the mind of
the devotee upon a future state of life, and the salvation of his soul
after he left this world, tended to produce an enlightened selfishness
in his daily life, which has culminated in its extreme form under the
influence of one religion, and finally resulted in what is commonly
known as Western Civilization.
For it is only logical, if a man be taught to consider his highest
religious duty to be the salvation of his own soul, while the
salvation of his neighbor's occupies a secondary place, that he should
instinctively feel his highest earthly duty is the welfare of his own
human personality and those belonging to it in this world. It matters
not whether this future salvation is to be obtained by an act of
faith, or by merit through good works - the effort is none the less a
selfish one.
The religion to which I am now referring will be at once recognized as
the popular form of Christianity. After careful study of the teaching
of the founder of this religion, I am amazed at the distorted
character it has assumed under the influence of the three great sects
into which it has become divided - to wit, the Greek, Catholic, and
Protestant Christians.
There is no teaching so thoroughly altruistic in its character, and
which, if it could be literally applied, would, I believe, exercise so
direct and beneficial an influence on the human race, as the teaching
of Christ; but there is none, it seems to me as an impartial student,
the spirit of whose revelation has been more perverted and degraded by
His followers of all denominations.
The Buddhist, the Hindu, and the Mohammedan, though they have all more
or less lost the influence of the afflatus which pervades their sacred
writings, have not actually constructed a theology based upon the
inversion of the original principles of their religion. Their light
has died away till but a faint flicker remains; but Christians have
developed their social and political morality out of the very
blackness of the shadow thrown by 'The light of the World.'
Hence it is that wherever modern Christendom - which I will, for the
sake of distinguishing it from the Christendom proposed by Christ,
style Anti-Christendom 3 - comes into contact with the races who live
under the dim religious light of their respective revelations, the
feeble rays of the latter become extinguished by the gross darkness of
this Anti-Christendom, and they lie crushed and mangled under the iron
heel of its organized and sanctified selfishness.
The real God of Anti-Christendom, is Mammon ; in Catholic
Anti-Christendom, tempered by a lust of spiritual and temporal power;
in Greek Anti-Christendom, tempered by a lust of race aggrandizement;
but in Protestant Anti-Christendom, reigning supreme. The cultivation
of the selfish instinct has unnaturally developed the purely
intellectual faculties at the expense of the moral; has stimulated
competition; and has produced a combination of mechanical inventions,
political institutions, and an individual force of character, against
which so-called "heathen" nations, whose cupidities and covetous
propensities lie comparatively dormant, are utterly unable to prevail.
This overpowering love of "the root of all evil," - with the
mechanical inventions in the shape of railroads, telegraphs,
ironclads, and other appliance which it has discovered for the
accumulation of wealth and the destruction of those who impede its
accumulation, - constitutes what is called "Western Civilization."
Countries in which there are no gigantic swindling corporations, no
financial crises by which millions are ruined, or Gatling guns 4 by
which they may be slain, are said to be in a state of barbarism.
When the civilization of Anti-Christendom comes into contact with
barbarism of this sort, instead of lifting it out of its moral error,
which would be the case if it were true Christendom, it almost
invariably shivers it to pieces. The consequence of the arrival of
the so-called Christian in a heathen country is, not to bring immortal
life, but physical and moral death. Either the native races die out
before him - as in the case of the Red Indian of America and the
Australian and New Zealander - or they save themselves from physical
decay by worshipping, with all the ardor of perverts to a new
religion, at the shrine of Mammon - as in the case of Japan - and
fortify themselves against dissolution by such a rapid development of
the mental faculties and the avaricious instincts, as may enable them
to cope successfully with the formidable invading influence of
Anti-Christendom.
The disastrous moral tendencies and disintegrating effects of inverted
Christianity upon a race professing a religion which was far inferior
in its origin and conception, but which has been practiced by its
professors with more fidelity and devotion, has been strikingly
illustrated in the history of my own country.
One of the most corrupt forms which Christianity has ever assumed, was
to be found organized in the Byzantine empire at the time of its
conquest by the Turks. Had the so-called Christian races, which fell
under their sway in Europe during their victorious progress westward,
been compelled, without exception, to adopt the faith of Islam, it is
certain, to my mind, that their moral condition would have been
immensely improved.
Indeed, you who have traveled among the Moslem Slavs of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, who are the descendants of converts to Islam at that
epoch, will bear testimony to the fact that they contrast most
favorably in true Christian virtues with the descendants of their
countrymen who remained Christians; and I fearlessly appeal to the
Austrian authorities now governing those provinces to bear me out in
this assertion.
Unfortunately, a sufficiently large nominally Christian population was
allowed by the Turks to remain in their newly-acquired possessions, to
taint the conquering race itself. The vices of Byzantinism speedily
made themselves felt in the body politic of Turkey. The subservient
races - intensely superstitious in the form of their religious belief,
which had been degraded into a passport system, by which the believer
in the efficacy of certain dogmas and ceremonials might attain heaven,
irrespective of his moral character on earth - were unrestrained by
religious principles from giving free reign to their natural
propensities, which were dishonest and covetous in the extreme.
They thus revenged themselves on their conquerors, by undermining them
financially, politically, and morally; they insidiously plundered
those who were too indifferent to wealth to learn how to preserve it,
and infected others with the contagion of their own cupidity, until
these became as vicious and corrupt in their means of acquiring riches
as they were themselves.
This process has been going on for the last five hundred years, until
the very fanaticism of the race, which was its best protection against
inverted Christianity, has begun to die out, and the governing class
of Turks has with rare exceptions become as dishonest and degraded as
the Ghiaours they despise. Still they would have been able, for many
years yet to come, to hold their own in Europe, but for the enormously
increased facilities for the accumulation of wealth, and therefore for
the gratification of covetous propensities, created within the last
half-century by the discoveries of steam and electricity.
Not only was Turkey protected formerly from the sordid and
contaminating influence of anti-Christendom by the difficulties of
communication, but the mania of developing the resources of foreign
countries, for the purpose of appropriating the wealth which they
might contain, became proportionately augmented with increased
facilities of transport - so that now the very habits of thought in
regard to countries styled barbarous have become changed.
As an example of this, I would again refer to my own country. I can
remember the day when British tourists visited it with a view to the
gratification of their aesthetic tastes. They delighted to contrast
what they were then pleased to term "oriental civilization" with their
own. Our very backwardness in the mechanical arts was an attraction
to them. They went home delighted with the picturesqueness and
indolence of the East. Its bazaars, its costumes, its primitive
old-world cachet, invested it in their eyes with an indescribable
charm; and books were written which fascinated the Western reader with
pictures of our manners and customs, because they were so different
from those with which he was familiar.
Now all this is changed; the modern traveler is in nine cases out of
ten a railroad speculator, or a mining engineer, or a member of
Parliament like yourself, coming to see how pecuniary or political
capital can be made out of us, and how he can best exploited the
resources of the country to his own profit. This he calls "reforming
it." His idea is, now how to make the people morally better, but how
best to develop their predatory instincts, and teach them to prey upon
each other's pockets. For he knows that by encouraging a rivalry in
the pursuits of wealth amongst a people comparatively unskilled in the
art of money-grubbing, his superior talent and experience in that
occupation will enable him to turn their efforts to his own advantage.
He disguises from himself the immorality of the proceeding by the
reflection that the introduction of foreign capital will add to the
wealth of the country, and increase the material well-being and
happiness of the people. But apart from the fallacy that wealth and
happiness are synonymous terms, reform of this kind rests on the
assumption that natural temperament and religious tendencies of the
race will lend themselves to a keen commercial rivalry of this
description; and if it does not, they, like the Australian and the Red
Indian, must disappear before it. Already the process has begun in
Europe.
The Moslem is rapidly being reformed out of existence altogether.
Between the upper and nether milestone of Russian greed for territory
and of British greed for money, and behind the mask of a prostituted
Christianity, the Moslem in Europe has been ground to powder; hundreds
of thousands of innocent men, women, and children have either perished
by violence or starvation, or, driven from their homes, are now
struggling to keep body and soul together as best they can in misery
and desolation, crushed beneath the wheels of the Juggernauth of
"Progress," - their only crime, like that of the poor
crossing-sweeper, I think, in one of your own novels, that they did
not "move on."
This is called in modern parlance "the civilizing influence of
Christianity." At this moment the Russians are pushing roads through
their newly-acquired territory towards Kars. I am informed by an
intelligent Moslem gentleman, who has just arrived from that district,
that the effect of their "civilizing" influence upon the inhabitants
of the villages, through which these roads pass, is to convert the
women into prostitutes and the men into drunkards. No wonder the
Mohammedan population is flocking in thousands across the frontier
into Turkish territory, abandoning their homes and landed possessions
in order to escape the contamination of Anti-Christendom.
In these days of steam and electricity, not only has the traveler no
eye for the moral virtues of a people, but his aesthetic faculties
have become blunted; he regards them only as money-making machines,
and he esteems them just in the degree in which they excel in the art
of wealth-accumulation. Blinded by selfish utilitarianism, he can now
see only barbarism in a country where the landscape is not obscured by
the black smoke of factory-chimneys, and the ear not deafened by the
scream of the locomotive.
For him a people who cling to the manners and customs of a bygone
epoch, with which their own most glorious traditions are associated,
have no charm. He sees in a race, which still endeavors to follow the
faith of their forefathers with simplicity and devotion, nothing but
ignorant fanaticism, for he has long since substituted hypocrisy for
sincerity in his own belief.
He despises a peasantry whose instincts of submission and obedience
induce them to suffer rather than rise in revolt against a Government
which oppresses them, because the head of it is invested in their eyes
with a sacred character. He can no longer find anything to admire or
to interest in the contrast between the East and West, but everything
to condemn; and his only sympathy is with that section of the
population in Turkey, who, called Christians like himself, like him,
devote themselves to the study of how much can be made, by fair means
or foul, out of their Moslem neighbours.
While I observe that this change has come over the Western traveler of
late years - a change which I attribute to the mechanical appliances
of the age - a corresponding effect, owing to the same cause, has, I
regret to say, been produced upon my own countrymen. A gradual
assimilation has been for some time in progress in the East with the
habits and customs of the rest of Europe.
We are abandoning our distinctive costume, and adapting ourselves to a
Western mode of life in many ways. We are becoming lax in the
observances of our religion; and it is now the fashion for our women
to get their high-heeled boots and bonnets from Paris, and for our
youths of good family to go to that city of pleasure, or to one of the
large capitals of Europe, for their education. Here they adopt all
the vices of Anti-Christendom, for the attractions of a civilization
based upon enlightened selfishness are overpoweringly seductive; and
they return without religion of any sort - shallow, skeptical,
egotistical, and thoroughly demoralized.
It is next to impossible for a Moslem youth, as I myself experienced,
to come out of that fire uncontaminated. His religion fits him to
live with simple and primitive races, and even to acquire a moral
control over them; but he is fascinated and overpowered by the mighty
influence of the glamour of the West. He returns to Turkey with his
principles thoroughly undermined, and, if he has sufficient ability,
adds one to the number of those who misgovern it.
The two dominant vices, which characterize Anti-Christendom, are
cupidity and hypocrisy. That which chiefly revolts the Turk in this
disguised attack upon the morals of his people, no less than upon the
very existence of his empire, is, that it should be made under the
pretext of morality, and behind the flimsy veil of humanitarianism.
It is in the nature of the religious idea that just in proportion as
it was originally penetrated with a divine truth, which has become
perverted, does it engender hypocrisy.
This was so true of Judaism, that when the founder of Christianity
came, though himself a Jew, he scorchingly denounced the class which
most loudly professed the religion which they profaned. But the
Phariseeism which has made war upon Turkey is far more intense in
degree than that which he attacked, for the religion which it profanes
contains the most divine truth which the world ever received.
Mahomet divided the nether world into seven hells, and in the lowest
he placed the hypocrites of all religions. I have now carefully
examined into many religions, but as none of them demanded so high a
standard from its followers as Christianity, there has not been any
development of hypocrisy out of them at all corresponding to that
which is peculiar to Anti-Christianity. For that reason I am
constrained to think that its contributions to the region assigned to
hypocrites by the prophet will be out of all proportion to the
hypocrites of other religions.
In illustration of this, see how the principles of morality and
justice are at this moment being hypocritically outraged in Albania,
where, on the moral ground that a nationality has an inherent right to
the property of its neighbor, if it can make a claim of similarity of
race, a southern district of the country is to be forcibly given to
Greece; while, in violation of the same moral principle, a northern
district is to be taken from the Albanian nationality, to which by
right of race it belongs, and violently and against the will of the
people, who are in no way consulted as to their fate, is to be handed
over for annexation to the Montenegrins - a race whom the population
to be annexed traditionally hate and detest.
When Anti-Christian nations, sitting in solemn congress, can be guilty
of such a prostitution of the most sacred principles in the name of
morality, and construct an international code of ethics to be
applicable to Turkey alone, and which they would one and all refuse to
admit or be controlled by, themselves; when we know that the internal
corruption, the administrative abuses, and the oppressive
misgovernment of the Power which has just made war against us in the
name of humanity have driven the population to despair, and the
authorities to the most cruel excesses in order to repress them; and
when, in the face of all this most transparent humbug, these
Anti-Christian nations arrogate to themselves, on the ground of their
superior civilization and morality, the right to impose reform upon
Turkey - we neither admit their pretensions, covet their civilization,
believe in their good faith, nor respect their morality.
Thus it is that, from first to last, the woes of Turkey have been due
to its contact with Anti-Christendom. The race is now paying the
penalty for the lust of dominion and power, which tempted them in the
first instance to cross the Bosphorus. From the day on which the tree
of empire was planted in Europe, the canker, in the shape of the
opposing religion, began to gnaw at its roots. When the Christians
within had thoroughly eaten out its vitals, they called on the
Christians without for assistance; and it is morally impossible that
the decayed trunk can much longer withstand their combined efforts.
But as I commenced by saying, had the invading Moslems in the first
instance converted the entire population to their creed, Turkey might
have even now withstood the assaults of "progress." Nay, more, it is
not impossible that her victorious armies might have overrun Europe,
and that the faith of Islam might have extended over the whole of what
is now termed the civilized world.
I have often thought how much happier it would have been for Europe,
and unquestionably for the rest of the world, had such been the case.
That wars and national antagonisms would have continued, is doubtless
true; but we should have been saved the violent political and social
changes which have resulted from steam and electricity, and have
continued to live the simple and primitive life which satisfied the
aspirations of our ancestors, and in which they found contentment and
happiness, while millions of barbarians would to this day have
remained in ignorance of the gigantic vices peculiar to Anti-Christian
civilization.
The West would have then been spared the terrible consequences which
are even now impending, as the inevitable result of an intellectual
progress to which there has been no corresponding moral advance. The
persistent violation for eighteen centuries of the great altruistic
law, propounded and enjoined by the great founder of the Christian
religion, must inevitably produce a corresponding catastrophe; and the
day is not far distant when modern civilization will find that in its
great scientific discoveries and inventions, devised for the purpose
of ministering to its own extravagant necessities it has forged the
weapons by which it will itself be destroyed.
No better evidence of the truth of this can be found than in the fact
that Anti-Christendom alone is menaced with the danger of a great
class revolution; already in every so-called Christian country we hear
the mutterings of the coming storm when labor and capital will find
themselves arrayed against each other - when rich and poor will meet
in deadly antagonism, and the spoilers and the spoiled solve, by means
of the most recently invented artillery, the economic problems of
modern "progress."
It is surely a remarkable fact, that this struggle between rich and
poor is specially reserved for those whose religion inculcates upon
them, as the highest law - the love of their neighbor - and most
strongly denounces the love of money. No country, which does not bear
the name of Christian, is thus threatened. Even in Turkey, in spite
of its bad government and the many Christians who live in it,
socialism, communism, nihilism, internationalism, and all kindred
forms of class revolution, are unknown, for the simple reason that
Turkey has so far, at least, successfully resisted the influence of
"Anti-Christian civilization."
In the degree in which the State depends for its political,
commercial, and social well-being and prosperity, not upon a moral but
a mechanical basis, is its foundation perilous. When the life-blood
of a nation is its wealth, and the existence of that wealth depends
upon the regularity with which railroads and telegraphs perform their
functions, it is in the power of a few skilled artisans, by means of a
combined operation, to strangle it.
Only the other day the engineers and firemen of a few railroads in the
United States struck for a week; nearly a thousand men were killed and
wounded before the trains could be set running again; millions of
dollars' worth of property were destroyed. The contagion spread to
the mines and factories, and, had the movement been more skillfully
organized, the whole country would have been in revolution; and it is
impossible to tell what the results might have been.
Combinations among the working classes are now rendered practicable by
rail and wire, which formerly were impossible; and the facilities,
which exist for secret conspiracy, have turned Europe into a
slumbering volcano, an eruption of which is rapidly approaching. Thus
it is that the laws of retribution run their course, and that the
injuries - that Anti-Christendom has inflicted upon the more primitive
and simple races of the world, which, under the pretext of civilizing
them, it has exploited for its own profit - will be amply avenged.
Believe me, my dear friend, that it is under no vindictive impulse or
spirit of religious intolerance that I write thus: on the contrary,
though I consider Mussulmans generally to be far more religious than
Christians, inasmuch as they practice more conscientiously the
teaching of their prophet, I feel that teaching, from an ethical point
of view, to be infinitely inferior to that of Christ.
I have written, therefore, without prejudice, in this attempt
philosophically, to analyze the nature and causes of the collision
which has at last culminated between the East and the West, between
the so-called Christendom and Islam. And I should be only too
thankful if it could be proved to me that I had done the form of
religion you profess, or the nation to which you belong an injustice.
I am far from wishing to insinuate that among Christians, even as
Christianity is at present professed and practiced, there are not as
good men as among nations called heathen and barbarous. I am even
prepared to admit that there are better - for some struggle to
practice the higher virtues of Christianity, not unsuccessfully,
considering the manner in which these are conventionally travestied;
while others, who reject the popular theology altogether, have risen
higher than ordinary modern Christian practice by force of reaction
against the hypocrisy and shams by which they are surrounded - but
these are in a feeble minority, and unable to affect the popular
standard.
Such men existed among the Jews at the time of Christ, but they did
not prevent Him from denouncing the moral iniquities of His day, or
the Church which countenanced them. At the same time, I must remind
you that I shrank from the task which you imposed upon me, and only
consented at last to undertake it on your repeated assurances that by
some, at all events, of your countrymen, the spirit by which I have
been animated in writing thus frankly will not be misconceived.
- Believe me, my dear friend, yours very sincerely,
- "A TURKISH EFFENDI"
=================================================
Originally published in
THEOSOPHIST March 1880


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