THE NEW RÉGIME IN TURKEY
The new government of Turkey is doing as well as could be expected,
notwithstanding the many embarrassments which are perfectly natural
under the circumstances. It has been properly said that the greatest
evil which Abdul Hamid inflicted upon his country was by depriving it
of men of capacity, trained to exercise the functions of government.
His policy of centralization, the monopoly of administration which he
kept in his own hands, and the small number of subordinates who were
entrusted with responsibility, has resulted in a lack of experience and
knowledge which is being realized now for the first time in its full
significance. Almost everybody agrees that the leaders of the Young
Turk party, and the cabinet ministers they have selected, represent the
best sentiment of the country, and that a better class of officials
could not be found. They are honest and disinterested to a degree which
has been unknown before in Turkish history. They are full of good
intentions and their greatest fault, or rather weakness, is shrinking
from responsibility. The people have expected much and have received
little or nothing.
People complain that it is more difficult to do business with the
government now than it was under the old régime because now a
contractor has to deal with forty different people, when formerly
he had to deal with one. Now, if he fails to consult or overlooks
some official who has to do with the case, or neglects to show that
deference which the sub-deputy assistant to some minister expects, he
makes an enemy for life, and his business is blocked beyond relief.
And, although the prevailing opinion gives the new government an
excellent reputation for integrity, there are still skeptics who insist
that the bribes are passed under the table instead of over it, as was
formerly the case.
It is scarcely to be expected that a nation will change its habits in
a day. The payment of “baksheesh” has been customary in Turkey since
the beginning of time, and the practice was not only tolerated but
recognized as legitimate by the former government. Abdul Hamid, for
example, expected the ambassadors and ministers of foreign powers to
pay the salaries of the officials of the foreign office with whom
they had to deal, which relieved him of the necessity of paying them
himself, and the same system prevailed through the entire government.
Nobody ever went to a Turkish official for a favour without bringing
a gift. That has always been the custom in all Oriental countries,
even in Bible times, and the value of the gift must correspond with
the value of the favour desired. No one who understands the Oriental
character would concede that this practice had been entirely abandoned
at the sublime porte, although the ministers and the other men high
in authority are believed to be incorruptible. Mr. Crawford, the
Englishman who is in charge of the customs, has made it perfectly plain
to the employés of that department, that any man who accepts a bribe
from an importer must hand in his resignation at the same time. There
has undoubtedly been a great improvement in this respect. The delay
in granting concessions for public works, therefore, is not due to the
reasons which might have prevailed in the old régime, but merely to
indecision on the part of the officials, who have never been accustomed
to decide questions of importance for themselves and hesitate to
do so for fear they may be criticised. They try to shoulder the
responsibility upon somebody else or, as the saying goes, to provide a
screen behind which they may hide in case they are criticised. These
delays have been the greatest fault of the administration.
The next most serious cause of complaint is the failure of the
government to require the governors of provinces and other local
officials to go ahead and carry out plans for the benefit of the
people. It is conceded that the character and ability of the local
officials have been greatly improved. Better governors have been
selected, and they have been cautioned that their tenure of office
depends upon their behaviour. The provincial magistrates no longer
depend upon blackmail for a living. Formerly a governor bought his
position and used it to reimburse himself for past expenditures and to
provide for his future. While he was robbing the people and feathering
his own nest, nothing was done for the benefit of the public. No roads
were built or bridges repaired and none of the revenues were spent
for the general welfare. To-day, things are supposed to be different,
and the governors have been instructed to drain the marshes, build
roads and bridges, to improve the prisons and the barracks, to provide
schools and repair the mosques; but they do not act. They are afraid
of responsibility. They cannot get rid of habits formed under the old
régime, when no governor dared do anything without first reporting
his intentions to the sultan and securing his majesty’s approval and
consent.
There are some exceptions. Certain governors have acted promptly
and have received the cordial commendation of the ministry at
Constantinople. Their work has been publicly commended in the Chamber
of Deputies and it is probable that these examples will be regarded as
precedents and imitated by others.
The greatest amount of trouble from this source is found in the eastern
portion of Asia Minor, where ignorance and fanaticism are universal
and where the people need public works more than any other community.
They have given the new régime their cordial indorsement; they have
been told that the new government will give them roads by which they
can take their produce to market; schools in which their children may
be educated; bridges over the streams and other modern improvements,
and they have waited patiently for more than a year for something to
happen; but there is “nothing doing,” and the peasants are beginning to
have their doubts as to the sincerity of the government, which, if it
goes much further, will result in repudiation and revolution.
One great benefit which the peasants enjoy, however, and the importance
of which they recognize, is the abolition of the passport system, which
prohibited the resident of one village from visiting another without
the permission of the police. Now any one can go wherever he pleases
at any time without interference from the authorities and no questions
asked.
Another great improvement has been in the character and the conduct
of the gendarmes or national police, who are under the direction
of the minister of the interior, with local commanders who report
to the governors of the provinces. Formerly the gendarmes were the
brutal tools of tyranny. Every massacre was led by them. They were
blackmailers, robbers, despoilers of homes, ravishers of women, and
murderers, and their uniforms protected them from punishment. Since the
new government came in there has been an almost universal change in
the personnel of the police, and the present force is made up largely
of veteran soldiers with honourable records. The most intelligent and
reliable men have been detailed for the service, and as a rule they are
honest, conscientious and anxious to perform their duties properly.
There are several schools for training them similar to those adopted
by the foreign officials in Macedonia. They are taught by European
officers, and the first lesson is to convince them that they must
command and deserve the respect of the people. It is perfectly natural
that they should be regarded with jealousy by the zaptiehs and spies of
the old régime, but there has been very little complaint and they are
winning golden opinions.
Another serious mistake of the new government has been the treatment
of the Albanians, who were greatly favoured by Abdul Hamid and are
haughty, independent, fearless mountaineers, very difficult to deal
with. They are only semi-civilized, and their province is probably the
most primitive in all Europe. Instead of giving them roads, railways
and schools of their own and cultivating their good will, the new
government has antagonized the Albanians from the start. They were
recognized as favourites and adherents of the old sultan, and the
Albanian regiments, which formed his body-guard and received four
times the pay of the ordinary soldier, were disbanded and sent home
to make mischief. An unwise governor issued an order requiring the
use of the Turkish language exclusively in all the Albanian schools,
which was the most offensive act that could have been committed. The
Albanian representatives in the Chamber of Deputies protested and in
vain. They had thrown in their lot with the reformers and had offered
their support to the government, but the government would not trust
them and treated them as enemies. Hence an insurrection which stirred
up the entire province, cost several hundred lives and hundreds of
thousands of dollars. An armed peace has been restored, but no attempt
has been made to improve the condition of the Albanians. The ruins of
the villages that have been burned and the graves of the neighbours
that have been killed will be perpetual reminders of what the Albanians
consider to be a tyrannical and unjust treatment of their province.
A similar mistake was made in Macedonia, where the sympathy of the
people was so strongly on the side of their nextdoor neighbours, the
Albanians, that the government feared a revolution. Instead of trying
to prevent it by giving the Macedonians new roads and schools and other
public improvements they need so much, an order was issued to disarm
the entire population. Comparatively few guns have been surrendered
and even a smaller number have been found by searching parties. The
rest are buried in the woods, ready for use whenever a favourable
opportunity is offered to show their resentment against the new
government. It would not be difficult to point out other mistakes,
but none so serious as these. And, taking all in all, there has been
a decided improvement in conditions. The finances are in good shape;
the taxes are honestly collected and the money is honestly expended.
The increase in the revenues is remarkable and the importers and other
tax-payers no longer complain of favouritism.
Another sign of progress is the respect which the officials show
to the public, and that is much appreciated. There is still some
complaint concerning the administration of justice, but such troubles
will naturally correct themselves with changes in the personnel of
the judiciary. At any rate, the least that can be said is that the
courts are no longer used for political purposes or for blackmail or
persecution. The present government is the best Turkey has ever had,
and as Sir Edwin Pears, the venerable correspondent of the London
_Times_, says: “Its faults are those of inexperience which time will
cure. Experience will give the ministers greater courage to accept
responsibility, and they and the masses of the people are gradually
gaining confidence in each other and in themselves.”
There has always been a department of education in the Turkish
administration, but it has never amounted to anything until now. The
present minister is an earnest, ambitious, conscientious man, who
realizes the illiterate condition of the people and the importance
of education. And he has begun the organization of a free public
school system throughout the entire empire, to be supported by local
taxation, with subsidies from the imperial treasury. The parliament
appropriated $4,300,000 for the year 1910, of which one sixth was paid
to private schools and the remainder was allotted to public educational
institutions and the free public schools throughout the empire. It is
expected that this amount will be increased gradually year by year as
the revenues will permit. The spirit shown by members of Parliament
promises generous grants in the future.
D. J. Mahmoud Bey, the inspector general of public instruction, told me
that there would be about 65,000 elementary public schools in operation
throughout the Turkish Empire before the end of 1910, and that number
will be increased as rapidly as possible. The greatest difficulty is
to get teachers. Indeed, that is the only obstacle to the extension of
the system. Mahmoud Bey says the inhabitants of the various provinces
are “crazy” for schools, and are willing to pay any amount of taxes
within their power to secure them. But there are no teachers to be
had. The salaries that can be allowed will not tempt educated men away
from other professions and there are so few educated women in the
country that it is almost impossible to find instructors for the girls’
schools. Mohammedan girls cannot attend mixed schools and cannot be
taught by men.
“We have just started two large normal schools in Constantinople for
the education of teachers,” said Mahmoud Bey, “and will establish
others in the provinces as rapidly as possible. It will be at least
two years and probably three years before any of the students from
these schools will be available for teachers, and in the meantime we
will have to do the best we can. We are getting some teachers from the
American missionary schools in different parts of Turkey, although they
are, of course, reluctant to let their teachers go. We are placing
promising young men and women in all the American institutions, to be
educated at government expense. We have five government students in
the American College for Girls at Scutari. We shall have as many or
more young men in Robert College at the opening of the fall term. We
have already sent 150 students to Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Geneva and
other European educational centres at government expense. These young
men are selected from the most promising students in our high schools.
We will send more next year. We expect to send twenty-five, perhaps
fifty, young men to America to be educated. We like the American system
of education very much, but in the organization of our public schools
we are adopting the German and Swiss systems rather than the American
because it is more easily applied.
“There is a great educational renaissance in Turkey,” continued Mahmoud
Bey. “The deputies of our parliament are here every day demanding more
schools for their constituents. One of them who was in this morning
said that the people in his province were ‘actually screaming for
schools.’ The deputy from Mesopotamia has just sent me a copy of a
speech he has recently made in approval of our efforts and promising
his earnest support for us in the future.”
The appropriations for 1910 were divided as follows--a piaster being
five cents in American money:
Piasters.
Subventions to primary schools 20,000,000
Subventions to secondary schools 12,000,000
Government primary schools 3,000,000
Government lyceums 3,000,000
Government normal schools 2,453,820
Subventions to provincial normal schools 3,000,000
Subventions to provincial lyceums 4,000,000
University of Constantinople 2,928,816
Agricultural schools 3,636,000
Medical schools 8,502,200
Schools of music and art 1,030,000
Technical schools 7,839,000
Schools of commerce 2,670,120
Students in private schools 5,190,000
The several military academies are supported from the appropriations
for the war department. The provincial schools referred to in the
above table are situated in forty or fifty of the largest centres
of population in the different provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The
lyceums are what we call high or preparatory schools. Schools of
commerce are what we call commercial colleges where modern languages,
bookkeeping, typewriting, stenography, and other accomplishments
required in a business career are taught.
The Ottoman Imperial University was established in Stamboul, the
native part of Constantinople, by the ex-sultan, Abdul Hamid, in 1904,
with six departments--law, medicine, politics, theology, literature,
and natural sciences. It was a concession to the orthodox and loyal
families of the Moslem faith who were determined that their sons should
have a liberal education, but were reluctant to send them to the
American missionary colleges or to the European universities. Hundreds
of Turkish young men have been going to the universities of Paris,
Geneva, Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest, and at those institutions have
acquired liberal and revolutionary doctrines which made them dangerous
to the despotism. Abdul Hamid was opposed to education in every form,
particularly among the middle and lower classes of his subjects,
because it made them troublesome and discontented, but he threw a tub
to the whale, as it were, by starting a university of his own about
four years before his downfall. It did not amount to much under his
reign, but since the Young Turks came into power it has branched out
considerably and promises to be an institution of importance.
There are now about twenty-five hundred students in the various
departments, and a faculty of two hundred professors, most of them
competent men, but only a few have had experience in instruction. For
the year 1910, the appropriation for the support of the university was
three million piasters, which is equivalent to $150,000 in American
money--a sum that is ample to meet the present demands.
The university occupies the former palace of Kiamil Pasha, near the
mosque of Sultan Bayazid, on one of the highest and best positions in
the city. While the building is not at all adapted to the purpose, it
is a costly and highly decorated mansion, and when the Cheragan Palace,
occupied by the parliament, was burned in 1909, it was proposed to turn
out the university and use the Kiamil Palace as a parliament house.
Fortunately the minister of public education was able to head off the
plan, because he would have found it very difficult to find even so
good, or so poor a place in Constantinople for the institution. Plans
have been made for a new building to cost five million dollars, but
it will be a long time before the Turkish treasury can afford such an
expenditure.
The largest branch of the university is the law department, called
the Mektebi Hookouk, where an average of more than a thousand young
men are attending lectures to prepare themselves for the bar, and
for employment by the government as magistrates and in other legal
capacities. Many of these young men finish their courses at the
Sorbonne, Paris, and other European institutions. More attention is
paid to the Shariat, the Mohammedan code, than to European law, because
that prevails throughout the entire Ottoman Empire, and is based
entirely upon the Koran. Several propositions have been offered for the
appointment of a commission to modernize this code, that it may better
apply to everyday affairs, but thus far the Mohammedan priests have
been able to head them off.
The law school is open to students of all nationalities. The
matriculation fee is $5.00 and there are similar fees for tuition and
for each examination, which makes the total charge $15.00 for the first
year. Parliament has passed a law authorizing the officials of the
university to waive the fees of students who bring certificates from
local magistrates that they are competent and worthy to attend the
lectures, but are not able to pay the charges. During the year 1910, 40
per cent. of the students in the law department took advantage of this
exemption.
There are about fifty instructors in the law school, and probably 2,500
different young men attend all or a part of the lectures during the
year, coming and going according to their convenience, but the average
attendance does not exceed one thousand.
The next largest school is the Mektebi Milkieh, or school of politics,
where attendance is obligatory and each student is required to appear
at three lectures a day, except on Friday, which is the Moslem sabbath.
There are about three hundred students and nine professors, who are
teaching the several languages spoken in the Turkish Empire, and other
general branches for the purpose of qualifying the graduates to fill
official positions in the different provinces and in the various
departments of the government. It is a training school for government
employés.
The Ulumi Dinieh, or theological department, has ten professors and
one hundred and forty students, who are being prepared for the Moslem
priesthood. The methods of instruction are said to be considerably in
advance of those that prevail in the ordinary medresses, or seminaries.
In the latter the students simply commit to memory the Koran and
study the commentators on that remarkable book. At the university the
instruction is broader and includes other branches of learning.
The medical department has nearly a thousand students and occupies
a separate building near the railway station in Haidar Pasha on the
Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. This school was established many years
ago to train medical officers for the army and most of the instructors
are Frenchmen and Greeks. There are several Germans also. The course
of study covers five years and the examinations are said to be very
strict. There are schools of dentistry and pharmacy connected with the
medical department.
The department of natural sciences has ten instructors and ninety
students, who are mostly engaged in studying chemistry, and the
graduates are employed in laboratories connected with the custom house,
arsenals, and other military depots. There does not seem to be any
fixed course.
The school of literature includes everything else, a sort of omnibus,
where a student may receive instruction in almost every branch. And
the department is divided into various schools of mathematics, modern
languages, finance, engineering and fine arts. The latter has about
one hundred and fifty students under the direction of Vosgam Effendi,
a sculptor who has made a considerable reputation by his work.
Architecture, painting, sculpture, engraving, and etching are taught by
twelve instructors. The school occupies a building in the Seraglio near
the new museum.
A normal school, called Dar-ul-Mouallumin, was added to the university
in 1910, for the purpose of training teachers for the public schools
that have recently been established throughout the empire. The corps
of instructors are mostly drawn from the American missionary schools,
which have been accepted as models by the government, and to secure
admission to the normal schools students must have diplomas from one of
the branches of the university or from some American missionary school.
The best education to be had in Turkey outside of the American colleges
has been given by the military school at Constantinople. Nearly all
the leaders of the recent revolution were educated there. It was a
pet of Abdul Hamid and at times he treated it with great generosity.
The lyceum of Galata Serai, in the foreign quarter of Constantinople,
has been the only other native school where Turkish boys could get a
respectable education, and some of the best men in the Turkish service
have been educated there under a French principal and German and
Swiss professors. The school had a bad reputation, however, among the
autocrats. It was suspected of being a nursery for breeding enemies of
the despotism, and Abdul Hamid compelled several of his ministers to
take away their boys who had been sent there, because of the liberal
tendencies of the faculty. Five or six years ago, the school was burned
down. It was a case of arson, and every body believed that the sultan
paid one of his minions to set it on fire. He would never allow
the Galata Serai to be rebuilt, and the ruins lay undisturbed until
the Young Turk party came into power. Then the school was promptly
reorganized and Fikret Bey, a Turkish scholar and poet and a member of
the faculty of Robert College, was appointed director. As soon as a new
building can be erected the school will resume its old importance.
[Illustration: View of the Bosphorus; ancient castle of Mohammed the
Great in foreground]
There are several Roman Catholic schools in Constantinople, taught by
the Franciscan and Augustinian monks. There is a German school of some
importance and a dozen or more French schools, including a medical
college. Its faculty have charge of the French hospital, which is the
most important institution of the kind in Turkey, and is patronized by
members of the diplomatic corps from all countries. A large number of
schools are supported by the Greek population, and some of them are
attended by the children of Turkish families. There are probably more
Greek schools than those of all the nations put together, and they are
scattered in every part of the city. The French language is taught
as well as Greek, because French is really the language of commerce,
diplomacy, and fashionable society in the East. If a stranger goes into
a bank, he is always addressed in the French language, and it is spoken
by a larger number of the inhabitants of Constantinople than any other,
except the Turkish.
The Armenians, the Jews, and the other different races have their own
schools, which have been made necessary because of the absence of a
general educational system. And it is from the graduates of these
schools that the Turkish government is now getting its supply of
teachers.
The Mohammedan schools connected with the mosques are worthless for
a practical education. The teachers are priests, most of whom have
no knowledge outside the Koran, which, to them, is the source of
all light and learning and law and morals, and is regarded with as
much reverence as the maxims of Confucius by the Chinese. Connected
with each medress, or theological seminary, are several ulemas, or
theologians, who are supposed to be profound thinkers and expound the
doctrines of the church to groups of students who gather around them
in the different mosques. These students are called “softas” and there
are said to be 7,000 of them in Constantinople to-day studying the
Koran and the Shariat--a code of laws used, based upon the teachings
of the Koran, which is the authority of every court in the empire.
These softas become priests, judges, notaries, valis, cadis, and other
local officials. Many of them go into private practice, but there are
comparatively few lawyers in Turkey. A judge here gets the facts direct
from the litigants who come before him and applies the law himself.
The softas are never taught geography or history or mathematics, and
most of them are so illiterate that they cannot read an ordinary book
at sight. The text of the Koran would puzzle them if they had not been
required to commit it to memory.
The English government has established a high school for boys, which
will accommodate about one hundred and fifty, with rooms for thirty or
forty boarders. It is intended primarily for the education of the sons
of English families living in Turkey, but is free to everybody who can
pay the fees. It is partially a charitable institution, and a fund of
$50,000 has been contributed during past years by benevolent people to
assist in the education of worthy young men who haven’t the means to
pay the fees.
Thus you will observe that the lack of government educational system
in Turkey has been very largely supplied by foreigners, primarily for
the benefit of their own children, but often available for the natives
also. Most of these schools have been established and maintained in
defiance of the prejudice and the hostility of the late sultan, who was
opposed to all forms of education and did his best to keep his subjects
in ignorance as well as poverty.
Mr. Straus, the American ambassador, has recently succeeded in
correcting a great wrong inflicted upon these institutions by Abdul
Hamid. He has obtained from the new government an irade authorizing
all foreign schools and benevolent institutions to hold their property
in their corporate name, instead of being compelled to place it in
the names of individuals, as heretofore. His predecessors in the
embassy have been working for it for thirty years or more. He tried
to get such a decision when he was occupying the same post during
the Cleveland administration, but Abdul Hamid was inflexible in his
refusal to do anything for the encouragement of education. The recent
decision of the council of state, secured by Mr. Straus, exempts
all religious, benevolent and educational institutions founded and
conducted by foreigners from the restrictions imposed upon other
foreign corporations. It applies to about three hundred American
schools, hospitals, colleges, orphanages, and asylums, and to as many
institutions of the same kind supported by Europeans.
The privilege of searching the libraries of the mosques of
Constantinople has long been coveted by the scholars of the world,
because they are supposed to contain many ancient manuscripts of
unique value and interest by Arabic, Persian, Greek, Latin, Egyptian,
and Byzantine scholars and historians, but very few originals of
literary merit are likely to be found there. Constantinople has
never been renowned for its scholars or literary men. It never had a
university until recently. The ancient city of Khiva, far away to the
northeast, beyond the Caspian Sea and the deserts of Central Asia,
was a literary centre when Constantinople was the political capital
of the world. Samarkand, Bokhara, and the cities of Asia Minor were
centres of learning and theological controversy when the thoughts
of Constantinople were absorbed in military and political affairs.
Practically all of the literary treasures in the libraries of this
city are the loot of a score of conquered nations. Most of them, when
brought home from the wars, were dumped at the mosques and other places
without arrangement and generally without any appreciation of their
value or knowledge of their contents. Several of the sultans had an
appreciation of literary merit and encouraged science and art, but
this encouragement has never been continuous. More of them have been
iconoclasts, like the Caliph Omar, who used the books of the great
library at Alexandria, the greatest of its period, to heat the waters
for the public baths.
Many of the manuscripts of the Alexandrian library were stolen, and
some of them, doubtless, found their way to Constantinople. There were
colonies of Greek and Roman scholars all along the coast of the Black
Sea, particularly at Trebizond and in the Crimea. Palestine was once
rich in lore. Damascus, Antioch, Ephesus, Armenia, and several cities
of Persia and Turkestan were well blessed with wise men--authors,
philosophers, theologians, mathematicians, poets, and essayists, and
were the seats of colleges and universities.
Nobody knows much about the libraries of Constantinople, however;
none of them have ever been catalogued; few of them have even been
consulted. The books are piled up on their sides in shelves and covered
with the dust of ages. The Mohammedan priests, who have charge of them,
are usually illiterate men and look upon learning with superstition.
They can give no information concerning the volumes in their charge.
Only occasionally, when some scholar from Germany, England, or Italy
comes here, with sufficient patience and persistence to break through
the restrictions that have protected these collections, has anything of
interest ever been brought to light.
These unknown collections, however, are believed to contain early
copies of the Gospel, of the Greek poets, of the Egyptian geographers,
the Phœnician astrologers, and other ancient tomes, and probably within
a short time we will be able to learn something about them. The lost
books of Livy are supposed to be in a collection of ancient manuscripts
at what is called the topcapon or Cannongate of the Seraglio, the
ancient residence of the Turkish sultans.
Dr. Arminius Vámbéry, a Hungarian author, writer, and scholar of note,
who somehow or other made himself popular with Abdul Hamid, obtained
permission to examine the Cannongate collection, and spent several
weeks there. He afterward persuaded the sultan to let him take back
to Hungary a number of historical manuscripts which were brought to
Constantinople as loot from Budapest after the Turkish army sacked that
city in the Middle Ages. As it was strictly a personal matter between
the sultan and Dr. Vambery, there is no record of what the latter
carried away.
Several years ago an enterprising Russian scholar found his way into
the same library and secured a very early manuscript copy of the
Hexateuch, the first six books of the Bible. The manuscript was sent to
the Russian Institute at St. Petersburg, where it is now being edited
for publication.
Arthur Evans of London also got an opportunity to look over the books
at the Cannongate a few months ago, and found a manuscript of great
historical interest. It was a life of Mohammed II, by Critobolus, a
Greek author, who accepted service under that sultan and became a sort
of Boswell for him. His work is especially important because he was
the only Greek writer of importance in that period who belonged to the
Mohammedan faith and had an opportunity of consulting the Mohammedan
authorities.
There is a strong impression that the libraries at all the mosques
have been looted of their treasures from time to time, because the
opportunity has not been lacking, and they have never been properly
protected. No one has been responsible for the library at that most
famous of all mosques, St. Sophia, which must have been very important
at one time, but is now only a collection of bound manuscripts,
not more than three or four hundred in number, in the custody of a
fanatical old priest. They have been kicked around the mosque and could
easily have been looted by any one who was able to gain the confidence
of the custodian. But all the libraries are amply protected now, and
the world of book lovers will soon have accurate information about
them.
There have been conflicting reports about Abdul Hamid’s library at the
Yildiz Kiosk. It has been represented by some newspaper writers to be
of incomparable value and importance. Others condemned it as a lot of
rubbish. Mahmoud Bey told me that it contains about 40,000 printed
books and manuscripts which have been hauled away to Kuba-Altai, one
of the old palaces in the Seraglio, where they have been examined and
classified by a commission, of which Abdureman Sherif Bey, minister of
public instruction, is the chairman. Captain Safed Bey, perhaps the
foremost historian in Turkey, was in immediate charge of the work.
The sultan’s collection contains many manuscripts in the oriental
languages, which were inherited by him and were received as gifts
during his reign; and many printed volumes of great value for their
bindings and illustrations are in English, French, and German, and
were presented to him by people who were seeking favours and supposed
that he had a taste for such things. But Mahmoud Bey says that he
really did not care particularly for books. He was no student; he
never read anything and was actually illiterate. His early education
was neglected, like that of the present sultan, who has no culture or
inclination to acquire it. Mehmed V is fond of show and ceremony, but
it is probable that he never read anything more serious than a French
novel in his life. Abdul Hamid was a miser in everything. He accepted
all gifts that came his way and seized everything he could reach,
simply for the pleasure of possession. He was crazy to add to his
wealth, but did not care much what he acquired.
Hence his books are a motley collection of good, bad, and indifferent
works in manuscripts and printed in all languages, but there is very
little to interest scholars, so far as they have been examined. They
were never classified nor catalogued, but were carefully kept. Sixteen
librarians were employed during the latter days of Abdul Hamid, and
they had several servants who dusted the books regularly and kept them
clean, but the librarians were neither competent nor inclined to make a
catalogue.
The most valuable items in the collection are ornamental copies of
the Koran and ancient classical poems in Persian and other oriental
languages. Many of them are of script of the greatest beauty. They were
made when penmanship was an art. Painting is prohibited by the Koran,
and for that reason, Moslems turn to penmanship and the illumination of
manuscripts to exercise their taste. There are also many Turkish and
Arabic works of historical value, but thus far no Hebrew, Greek, or
Latin volumes of interest have been discovered.
The acquisitive disposition of Abdul Hamid is manifested in a curious
way by some of the books that were found on his shelves. Catalogues
of American manufacturers, price lists, descriptions of battleships
and torpedo boats, and every kind of commercial advertising was mixed
up with his French novels, illustrated manuscripts of the Koran,
illuminated copies of Persian poems and Turkish classics. One of the
most elaborate volumes in the collection is a description of the
exposition held at the Crystal Palace in London sixty years ago. His
majesty was very well supplied with similar literature. He had the
official reports of almost every exposition that has since been held,
including that of the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago, which
has additional value for the reason that it is a presentation copy from
Hakki Bey, the present grand vizier and one of the leaders of the Young
Turk party, which shoved him off his throne.
The number of books about Turkey in all the European languages, and
most of them presented “with the compliments of the author,” is
surprising. The sultan never bought a book, and never read one, and
whether these descriptions of his empire were sent him because they
spoke favourably of his reign or the contrary can only be determined by
examination.
Opening into the library was a sort of storeroom filled with Abdul
Hamid’s clothing, new and old, mixed with sheets and towels and other
soiled linen. Why these things should have been there, a long way from
his living apartments, has never been explained. In another room was a
stuffed horse and several stuffed dogs, cats, and pigeons, all of them
pets of his majesty, which he had preserved in that way.
The library of St. Sophia, which was founded nearly a thousand years
ago, consists of only about two thousand volumes, all manuscripts,
without one single printed book, which are piled up like merchandise
upon shelves protected by woven wire doors, in a small room adjoining
that mosque. The walls are covered with beautiful Persian tiles and the
roof is a low enamelled dome. The windows are small and narrow and are
protected by heavy bars. Only since the constitution was proclaimed and
the new government came into power have strangers been allowed to enter
this library, and its existence was practically unknown to the public
until recently. There is no catalogue; the books have lain undisturbed
for centuries, and even now nobody knows exactly what they are.
A quaint old patriarch with a long white beard and keen black eyes that
shoot out rays from under heavy black eyebrows is in charge. He told
me he had been connected with the mosque of St. Sophia for fifty years
and had been in charge of the books for more than thirty years, but was
unable to read one of them. He was very much more disposed to discuss
theology and politics than to tell me about the books, and I learned by
close questioning that he was quite as ignorant on that subject as the
rest of the mullahs about the mosque. He was so garrulous that it was
difficult to stop him long enough for Michel Naskidoff, my interpreter,
to tell me what he was talking about.
His name is Selim Abdullah; he was born and brought up in
Constantinople, and was never outside of this city in his life. He gave
us a few other facts in his biography and to make sure that we did not
report him unfavourably to the minister of education, who gave us a
permit to visit the library, he explained that he had always been in
favour of constitutional government and had never been a fanatic in
religion, but until recently people in Turkey had not been allowed to
say what was in their minds.
Here we stopped him long enough to examine what he said were the rarest
books in the collection. They are kept in a wonderful old chest which
is modelled after a mosque and heavily veneered with mother of pearl.
That chest would be a prize in any museum, and the old man told me that
it was more than 2,000 years old. Nine of the most precious volumes are
kept there under lock and key, and he brought them all out for us. He
told us that they are worth more than 20,000 piasters each and were
written more than 3,000 years ago. They are the original manuscript,
in the handwriting of the authors in the classical language which was
spoken by the early Turks in Turkestan. No one could read that language
now, he said, in Turkey at least, although certain famous scholars in
Khiva are familiar with the text.
He showed us, among others, an exquisite specimen of penmanship bound
in gold covers, about ten by fourteen inches in size, which he said
was an ancient Tartar poem, called “Divan,” written in the year 911,
by Hussein Biscara, one of the most famous of all Tartar poets. This
volume was presented to one of the sultans of Turkey about 600 years
ago by one of the shahs of Persia. The text is the most ornate Persian
script, and each page is illuminated with a border about two inches
wide, of geometric designs worked out in mosaic, with gold leaf and
bright coloured paper. The colours are as brilliant as they were when
the book was written, and the mosaic was made by cutting the coloured
paper and gold leaf into little bits and pasting them on according to
a design. The volume contains fifty-two leaves and 104 pages, also
illuminated with a title page that is a mass of colour. The binding is
not particularly artistic, but is very rich and costly.
The old gentleman explained that no one in Constantinople could read
the book, but in Khiva there were plenty of scholars who could do so.
When we told him we had recently returned from a visit to Turkestan, he
inquired eagerly what the Russians were doing up there and whether they
were persecuting the Mohammedans. He said the Russians are the worst
people in the world to persecute believers in other religions and are
trying to force the Mohammedans and Jews to accept the orthodox Greek
faith. Large numbers of Jews have done so to avoid persecution and to
preserve their property, but no Mohammedan, under any circumstances,
had ever renounced his belief in the prophet. The only nations who do
not persecute the Mohammedans, the old man said, are the English and
the French.
“Do the Americans persecute Mohammedans?” I asked.
“I do not know that I ever heard that they did,” he replied, “but the
Americans are just the same as the English, and most of them live in
England, because they can make more money there. All the Americans want
is money. They don’t care for art, or science, or religion. I have
heard that they dig up the bones of their ancestors from the cemeteries
and sell them to the farmers for fertilizers, they are so greedy to get
money, but I never saw any of them do it. I never saw an American to
know him, but I suppose they look like other people.”
We assured him that we were Americans and that he had been misinformed
about their persecuting Mohammedans. I asked him if he knew how much
American money had been expended to educate Mohammedans and to give
them hospitals, and how much had been devoted to the relief of people
of the Turkish Empire who had suffered in droughts and epidemics and
massacres. He confessed that he did not know; he was not aware that
the Americans had ever contributed any money for such purposes, and
admitted, reluctantly, that he did not read the newspapers, for the
reason that he did not consider them reliable. He had known so many
cases where people had been deceived by newspaper publications, and he
had never read anything about American contributions for the benefit
of Turkey. I told him about the recent Kennedy legacy of $2,500,000
to Robert College and of the Red Cross fund that had been sent to the
relief of sufferers by massacre, by flood, and by epidemics. He had
never heard anything of the kind. He never had anything to do with
Christians.
“We are not Christians,” he said, “because we cannot understand how
they can have two or three Gods (referring to the doctrine of the
trinity). Such a thing is impossible. There is but one God. There can
be no division of spiritual responsibility. It is impossible to believe
that a man can become a God, and I cannot understand why you Christians
have three Gods when the first commandment of Moses forbids you to have
more than one.”
I didn’t try to explain the doctrine of the trinity to him, because our
time was short, and endeavoured to get him back to his books. After a
little further discussion he showed us two ancient volumes in Sanscrit
script on parchment which he said were more than three thousand years
old and were also presented to Mahomet the Great by the shah of Persia.
“Nobody can read these books,” he said, “because the language in which
they are written has been forgotten by all mankind. It is a language
that was spoken by millions of people once, but they are all dead and
it has been forgotten.”
He showed us a gorgeous volume called “Nargai,” which, he said,
contained the observations of Mohammed “the champion,” the first
Turkish sultan of that name, whose reign, beginning in 1314, is noted
as the period when a taste for literature and art and a fondness
for poetry and the drama first prevailed among the Osmanlis. Each
parchment leaf is stained a different tint, including various shades
of the primary colours, and they are ornamented with gold tracery in
the corners and at the tops and bottoms of the pages. On many pages are
broad borders of exquisite design and workmanship.
Another beautiful volume in Persian script on parchment about fourteen
inches square, the old gentleman said, is the third book ever written
about the stars. The author was a very learned Egyptian who lived about
three thousand years ago. The name was on the title page, but he could
not read it--nevertheless, he was certain that there had never been any
such book on astronomy written since that time. It contained everything
that was ever known about the stars, and all other astronomies could
be destroyed without doing any damage so long as this one existed. The
covers are exquisite pieces of leather enamel inlaid with pearl, and
the work is as fine as that of a watchmaker.
All of the 2,000 books in the collection, he said, had been written by
hand. He does not believe much in printed books, because they are full
of mistakes and wear out in a very short time, while manuscripts are
more accurate and parchment lasts much longer than paper. Many of the
books in the collection had belonged to Moorish princes in Spain and
were taken from them at the time of their expulsion from the peninsula.
“The most learned men in the world are Persians. There are very few
scholars in Europe,” he said, and the wisest of them had studied in
this library, which he declared was founded by the Sultan Mahmoud, who
reigned from 1142 to 1158.
The most remarkable volume he showed us was a heavy folio, perhaps 15
by 20 inches in size, of the thickest kind of parchment, covered with
beautiful script. It is a work of world-wide fame, but doubtless there
are few such beautiful copies. It is known in the medical world as
the “Avicenna,” and is a treatise on botany and medicine by a famous
physician and philosopher and the most learned man of his time.
The librarian insisted that it was the most important book on medicine
ever written and that medical men from every part of the world came to
Constantinople to consult it. “It tells,” he said, “about every kind of
disease that afflicts human beings, and about every plant that grows,
and what diseases each plant will cure.” There is no finer specimen of
penmanship in the world than this volume, and although he was certainly
mistaken when he said that it was written by the hand of Dr. Avicenna
himself, he did not wander very far from the truth in his assertions
concerning the value and importance of the treatise. Although many of
its theories have long since been exploded, and human knowledge on the
subjects of which it treats has been expanded, it is undoubtedly the
most famous and remarkable medical work that was ever written, and is
well known to every educated physician.
The author, whose name was Abu Ali el Hosein, was born in Bokhara,
about the year 980 A.D., of a Persian father and a Bokhara mother.
He was educated among the great scholars who at that period made
Bokhara famous as a centre of learning. At a very early age he had
mastered mathematics, logic, theology, and medicine. Before he was
sixteen he was familiar with all the medical theories of that time,
and by gratuitous attendance upon the sick had discovered new methods
of treatment. He developed remarkable genius in botanizing and in
extracting the medicinal properties from plants, in which he was
assisted, according to the popular idea, by supernatural agencies. When
he was seventeen years old he was famous throughout the khanate of
Bokhara, and was appointed official physician to the emir, who owed him
his recovery from a dangerous illness. This appointment gave Avicenna,
as he was known, leisure to study, means to purchase books that he
required, and access to a library which was filled with important
manuscripts on scientific and other subjects.
When he was twenty-two years old, Avicenna left Bokhara and proceeded
westward to Merv, Khiva, and other centres of learning, where he
remained for a few years, and then went over into Persia, where he
settled at Rai, the birthplace of Zoroaster, in the vicinity of
modern Teheran. There Avicenna remained the greater part of his life,
prosecuting his studies, teaching medicine, and writing books. He
received generous support from the emir, although at times he was
subject to persecution and various annoyances. The last twelve years of
his life were spent as physician and scientific adviser to the emir of
Ispaha.
It appears that Avicenna, like many other wise and great men, did not
practise what he preached, but at intervals indulged in excessive
sensual pleasures and dissipation, which ruined his health, and he
died in June, 1037, at the age of fifty-eight, at the city of Hamaden,
Persia, and was buried among the palm trees in the park that surrounds
the palace.
He wrote more than one hundred treatises. Some of them are pamphlets of
a few pages; others extend through several volumes, and they covered
the entire range of scientific and intellectual activity at that age
of the world, from astronomy to zoölogy. His greatest work, entitled
“The Canons of Medicine,” that which was shown me by the librarian at
St. Sophia, for six centuries was the highest authority upon medical
subjects throughout the civilized world. Up to the beginning of the
eighteenth century it was used as a text book in most of the European
universities, and even now lecturers in the most famous medical schools
frequently refer to the discoveries and theories of Avicenna with
profound respect.
In the Middle Ages manuscript copies of this book were sought for the
libraries of kings as well as scientists, and no library was complete
without his works on metaphysics, mathematics, alchemy, logic, botany,
and philosophy. Avicenna ranks among Moslem scholars as Aristotle or
Plato ranks among the Greeks. For six hundred years he was entitled to
his surname of “Prince of Physicians.” In the mediæval world he ranked
equally high as a philosopher and astronomer. His writings have been
discussed and elucidated by hundreds of commentators in every one of
the civilized nations.
And so he continued to discuss his treasures, as fast as his tongue
could waggle, and he would not let us go without explaining his
views on the doctrine of the atonement as taught by the Christian
missionaries in Turkey. He did not know whether Christian theologians
in other parts of the world were guilty of the same folly, but
the American missionaries in Turkey were teaching the people that
they could be saved and go to heaven, no matter how many sins they
committed, provided they repented of those sins before they died.
“This,” the old gentleman declared, “is such a pernicious doctrine that
I am surprised that the government does not prohibit the missionaries
from teaching it. Anyone must see what it would lead to; for if this
missionary theory is correct, it simply offers an inducement for men to
sin. And then, when they get old, and do not care to sin any more, it
is only necessary for them to say that they are sorry and they will be
forgiven and taken back into the fold and have just as high a place in
heaven as those who have been good and pious all their lives.”