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TURKEY : THE BLIGHT OF ASIA

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THE EXAMPLE OF MOHAMMED

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    We have seen how faithfully this example has been followed by the Turks throughout the years, since the fall of Constantinople, and especially by the Young Turks since their accession to power. But although other branches of the Mohammedan race have shown conspicuous qualities of heart and of head, yet a general study of the spread of that religion from its inception reveals only too clearly the influence of the Prophet’s example as well as of his teachings. Says Pears, already quoted:

    "The history indeed, of Egypt, of Syria and of Asia Minor had been a long series of massacres, culminating perhaps in that of Egypt where in 1354, when the Christians were ordered to abjure their faith and accept Mohammedanism and refused, a hundred thousand were put to death."

    Adrian Fortescue, in his work, "The Lesser Eastern Churches", has this paragraph:

    "In 1389, a great procession of Copts who had accepted Mohammed under fear of death, marched through Cairo. Repenting of their apostasy, they now wished to atone for it by the inevitable consequence of returning to Christianity. So as they marched, they announced that they believed in Christ and renounced Mohammed. They were seized and all the men were beheaded in an open square before the women. But this did not terrify the women; so they, too, were all martyred."

    Regarding the Armenian massacres of our own time, Doctor Johannes Lepsius, to whose masterly "Secret Report" reference has been made in earlier pages, makes the following statement:

    "We have lists before us of 550 villages whose surviving inhabitants were converted to Islam with fire and sword; of 568 churches thoroughly pillaged, destroyed and razed to the ground; of 282 Christian churches transformed into mosques; of 21 Protestant preachers and 170 Gregorian (Armenian) who were, after enduring unspeakable tortures, murdered after their refusal to accept Islam. We repeat, however, that these figures reach only to the extent of our information, and do not by a long way reach to the extent of the reality. Is this a religious persecution or is it not?"

    Christianity, then, has been cleaned out of North Africa and the old Byzantine Empire, the home of the early Fathers of the Church and of the Seven Cities, largely by massacre; the Turk, when he burned Smyrna and made Asia Minor solidly Mohammedan, finished a work that has been going on for centuries.

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