THE CURSE OF ISLAM.
Dr. M. S. Gabriel.
In Europe and America there is very little, if any, exact knowledge
of what Mohammedanism means and who the Turks are. The Christian
subjects of Turkey alone have the unfortunate opportunity of knowing
well both the Turk and his religion. And of all the Christian subjects
of the Porte the Armenians have the profoundest understanding in this
matter. In the case of the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Christian,
Turkish oppression has more or less been alleviated by the sympathy
and protection of some one or the other of European Powers, while
the Armenians, related to none of the great nations by close ties of
either church or race, are absolutely friendless and have known the
virulence of Moslem hatred in its utmost intensity.
This remark, I hope, will caution those of my readers who, having
heard of the "tolerant spirit" of Islam and "the benign rule" of the
Sultan, might think my description of them to be rather exaggerated.
Of "the benign rule" of the Ottomans and the spirit of Islam I can
speak from personal and intimate acquaintance. There can be no curse
for a Christian nation as great as that of bearing the yoke of Moslem
tyranny. Armenia has many times during her long national life seen
foreign rule or supremacy, that, for instance, of the Romans, but not
without some consoling advantage. The British, called the true Romans
of modern times, carry some blessing to the countries they conquer
or rule, although they conquer or rule in the commercial interests of
their own. They are like butterflies which fly from flower to flower
in order to suck the honey, but, in so doing, they transfer to them
the fertilizing pollen attached to their wings.
What have the Turks brought into the Greek and Armenian centers of
civilization in the Orient? Any commerce, or industry, or literature,
or art, or science? No, not a bit. They have come, sword in hand,
bringing with them new vices and novel methods of torture. Since
they established their rule in the East, Italy, in the West, had
her literary Renaissance, Germany her religious Reformation, France
her great Revolution, each contributing to the cause of general
civilization, and all Europe and America appear to-day gloriously
transfigured, thanks to modern science and industry and art, while
Turkey remains where she was five centuries ago. The task of the Turk
has been not to enter himself and not to allow his Christian subjects
to enter into the path of progress. Whatever progress has been realized
by the Armenians has been despite the systematic opposition of the
Turkish government. They have smuggled, so to say, European elements
of civilization into Armenia. But Armenian experience proved that
it is vain, it is even dangerous, for Christians under Moslem rule
to try to progress, to multiply schools and churches and colleges,
to educate the children, to send the young men to the Universities
of Europe and America, to be economical and industrious, to grow
rich and to be influential or merely to be born beautiful under the
Turkish flag. The destruction of Armenia, after the general massacres
of October and November last, is going on by starvation and exposure
and sickness. Armenian progress is buried by Islam in the heaps of
slaughtered bodies and under the ashes that cover her ruined and
deserted villages.
Why is the Turk so fiercely opposed to progress? Why does he so
bitterly hate the progressive Armenians? Because, in the first place,
he is Turkish; and because, in the second place, he is Mohammedan.
The Turk is not a member of the best human race--the Indo-European
or Arian, like the Armenians. The Turk does not belong even to the
next best of races, the Semitic, like the Jews and the Arabs. He is a
branch of the Mongolian race, and, as such, incapable of assimilating
complex ideas and higher forms of civilization.
The mental inferiority of the Turk unfortunately matched with a
religion of a very low order, has made of him what he is, worse
than savages.
There is much to say of the inferiority of Islam, but I shall confine
myself to showing that the moral law of Islam is essentially immoral.
This may seem to some too bold an assertion. Let us see. According to
the Koran, the woman must be veiled lest any man look at her and lust
after her. She is not to talk with any man other than her nearest
relatives. A Moslem must not drink wine or liquor at all, in order
that he may not drink too much. There should be no liberty of Press,
nor of speech, nor of association, lest any seditious utterance or
movement be the outcome. In a word, man must be watched from above,
governed, repressed, in order that he may not have any occasion
to sin. He is not to be left free, he is not to govern himself,
but remain under tutelage, like a child. The consequence is that
the Moslem is condemned to perpetual infancy as a moral creature;
his individuality, his will power remain undeveloped.
Compare that with the moral law of Christianity. Christianity is
the fight of man's deeper, true nature against his animal or lower
nature. It is a healthful exercise by which his soul grows in grace
and strength and will power, building up a Christlike character,
that is the ideal of his life. The more he fights, the greater and
surer becomes the supremacy of his higher nature over the lower.
Just the reverse of this is the spiritual course of a Moslem. He does
not aspire at all at purity or moral freedom, but, on the contrary,
he believes that by certain acts he can so please Allah and become
his friend as to get the privilege of indulging in things forbidden
to the common "faithful." I know this to be the belief among the
learned Moslems. It has its ground in the Koran itself--in the
fact that Mohammed the "Prophet" was granted such privileges. "O
Prophet!" says the Koranic oracle, "we have allowed thee thy wives,
unto whom thou hast given their dower, and also the slaves which thy
right hand possesseth, of the booty which God hath granted thee; and
the daughters of thy uncle, and the daughters of thy aunts, both on
thy father's side and on thy mother's side, who have fled with thee
from Mecca, and any other believing woman, if she give herself unto
the prophet; in case the prophet desireth to take her to wife. This
is a peculiar privilege granted unto thee, above the rest of the true
believers. (Koran, Chapter XXXIII.) Another privilege, necessitated
by the above, is thus declared: "Thou mayest postpone the turn of
such of thy wives as thou shalt please, in being called to thy bed;
and thou mayest take unto thee her whom thou shalt please ..., and
it shall be no crime in thee." A further affirmation of the peculiar
privilege: "O Prophet, why holdest thou that to be prohibited which
God hath allowed thee, seeking to please thy wives?" (Chapter LXVI.)
Gratification of senses in this world under certain regulations,
and unlimited gratification of senses in the paradise, with plenty
of wine, without any danger of "headache," enjoying "wives free
from impurity," and "fair damsels with large black eyes" result of
"a peculiar creation" ... remaining "virgins" though "beloved by
their husbands." (Chapter LVI.) Such is the ideal of the Moslem for
the present life and the future.
This is not mere theory. To be fully convinced of this, a Christian
must live among the Turks, see their homes, attend to their festivals,
visit their schools, watch their prayers, and become acquainted with
their priests and princes.
Did I say their "homes?" The Turk has no home in the European sense
of the term, nor wife, nor schools, nor government. His prayers are
gymnastics of lips and limbs. His charity is a mere show--as are his
prayers, and often an act of cruelty. His school is a place where the
spark of Tartaric intelligence is put out under the fuel of Koranic
verses. His courts are stores where justice is sold by auction. His
Government is an organized brigandage and his diplomacy, falsehood
and shameless hypocrisy.
Outsiders may think that the Turks will make some progress. No, there
is no hope. As long as the Turks are faithful to the teachings of
their sacred law, the only form of their Government will be absolute
monarchy, their only instrument the sword, and their ideal sensualism.
For the present life the Turks have for centuries secured an
abundance of sensual gratification, thanks to the sword, the great
instrument recommended to them by their religion. Reserving for their
pious selves the sword, they have left all other instruments to the
"unbelievers." They have devoted themselves to the higher vocations
of the State as soldiers, priests, judges, governors, and ministers,
and if those careers are not easily open to any one, another noble
profession, that of brigandage, is embraced, and in all cases, they
have had plenty of income, gardens, palaces and wives. They have left
to the Armenians all the low, hard or undignified work--to till the
soil, to build houses and roads, bridges and palaces, to make shoes,
clothes, rugs and carpets and all the rest.
Thus the Turks led an existence full of pleasure, pride and luxury,
and they degenerated; while agriculture, commerce and industry
which they despised made the Armenians comparatively prosperous,
and the Christian faith which the Turks hated, rendered the Armenian
family great and healthy, and the Armenian community stronger, having
greater solidarity. In brief, Armenia appeared to the Turk like a
little Europe rising in the very bosom of the Ottoman Empire. Already
in 1876 the Turkish newspapers of Constantinople were publishing
editorials with regard to the alarming increase of the Armenians
and the decrease of the Turks. The Sultan, Abdul-Hamid, who aimed,
and still is aiming, to be a very great Padishah, devoted himself
to the task of readjusting the balance in favor of the Turks. His
Khalific intelligence had nothing to do with causes. He never
troubled himself with the complicated question why the Turks were
not increasing, why a rich Moslem with three wives had no children,
while a simple Christian artisan with one wife had three or four or
half a dozen. To Hamid's mind the problem was very simple. Are the
Armenians getting rich? he will plunder them. Have they organized
educational, religious or other benevolent associations? he will
scatter them. Have they bishops, professors and other leaders of high
education; and are they increasing in numbers? he will by exile and
wholesale massacres get rid of them. If anywhere any of them should
venture to resist plunderers or defend the honor of their wives
and daughters or kill any of his imperial brigands in self-defense,
he will regard and declare them to Europe as rebels and treat them
and the rest of their nation as such. His satanic accounts were
quite well made up. Some Armenians did, from sheer exasperation and
desperation, resist their foul aggressors. Hamid was glad. He ordered
the annihilation of Sassoun in 1894. Successful in that, he, in 1895,
by the kind permission of Christian Europe and America, proceeded
to destroy the Armenian nation and extirpate the Armenian Church by
wholesale massacres and forced conversions to Islam.
The sword, even in the hands of the Turks, had never been used
with such ferocity. The Turks surpassed themselves in these late
massacres. They displayed to the world the bottom of their infernal
foulness. Unable to use their sword against Europe, which has grown
far too powerful for them, they used it to cut down the Armenian
Europe in its bud. And the consciousness of their impotence against
the Great Powers intensified their cruelty and hatred with regard to
the defenseless and unarmed Armenians.
But all these frightful deeds of the Moslems do not surprise us. It is
but natural that "a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit." There is
perfect harmony between these happenings and the Mohammedan faith. The
surprise, the shock we experience when we think that the "Christian"
Emperors of Russia, of United Germany, of Austria-Hungary, and the
"Christian" Empress of Great Britain and India, and the "Christian"
Presidents of the United States and of France could prevent the
massacres, and did not. They looked on. They are all, in various
degrees, the accomplices of the criminal Turk. Is it to be supposed,
logically, that while Hamid is acting in accordance with his religious
belief and the example of the "Prophet," certain Christian princes have
no sincere faith in Christ and his Gospel of love? May the exhibition
of Islamic barbarity and blindness open the eyes of the "Christians"
to see the heavenly holiness of Christ! May the curse of Islam which
has fallen upon Armenia as a deadly pestilence arouse the torpid
conscience of Christendom to a full appreciation of its sacred Book,
its Christian homes, its free institutions and its religious liberty!