Part 16

Right of foreigners to be judged by the ambassadors and consuls of their respective governments in suits both civil and criminal, between one another, and the obligation of the local authorities to render aid to the consul in enforcing his decision and judgment concerning the same.

Inviolability of foreigners’ domiciles and, in event of urgent necessity for arresting a delinquent, obligation of government officials not to enter the dwelling-place of a foreigner without having previously notified the ambassador or consul, and unless accompanied by him or his deputy.

These statements are sufficient to show that merchant, traveler, and missionary in Turkey are there as foreigners, and as such they and their domiciles are under foreign protection. They have the privilege of holding property and of buying and selling the same. Mission Boards and foreign companies, being foreign corporations, cannot hold property in the empire. All property real and personal is held in the name of an individual. Exception is made in the case of the schools which have a firman (imperial irade) or which have obtained formal recognition from the sultan, in which case the institution itself holds the property in its own name, being a recognized chartered institution.

It is well that the missionary and merchant have been and still are independent of the Turkish officials, for, with the ignorance of those in the interior and their readiness to play into the hands of every rival or persecuting agency, there would be constant liability to arrest, imprisonment, and even deportation. In spite of the extra-territorial laws, missionaries and merchants repeatedly have been put under arrest for imaginary charges, and otherwise officially annoyed. These difficulties have been met in quietness and overcome without loss of position or prestige. In no instance has a missionary been arrested for an actual crime or misdemeanor. The usual charge against them is that they are plotting against the government, and the officers make attempts to search their houses for documentary evidence and for arms. These various evidences of hostility have not seemed to strain the generally friendly relations existing between the missionaries and the local governments.

Perhaps it should be stated here that all foreign capital invested in the country is held in the same way and has the same foreign protection. This is true of all Catholic institutions, Russian churches, monasteries, and schools, German orphanages, and mercantile warehouses, English residences, and stores,—everything that belongs to foreigners representing foreign capital is under foreign protection.

At the same time it is recognized that the school, hospital, or church which occupies one of these foreign buildings is a foreign institution and as such has, according to the Turkish capitulations, special immunities and privileges. All dealings with the Turkish government, even to the present time, are based upon this supposition. This does not seem strange or unnatural to the Turkish government, which permits the English, German, French, Austrian, and other governments to have their own post-offices at Constantinople, Smyrna, and other ports, in which they sell only their own postage-stamps and conduct all the postal business they can procure.

Under treaty rights above quoted, every concession or privilege granted by the sultan to the schools, churches, hospitals, or institutions belonging to England, France, Russia, or any other country, belongs by right to American institutions. The fact that America was discriminated against in this respect for many years, and that American institutions were thus deprived of privileges and concessions which had been conceded to similar institutions of several European powers, is well known, both at Constantinople, and in the United States. Happily these matters have now been adjusted.

After seven years of negotiations, in 1907 the sultan finally conceded in a formal manner the same rights and privileges to American institutions in his dominion which had already been granted to similar institutions of France, Russia, Germany and other countries; but as yet in most cases this concession exists largely in form, while the actual enjoyment of the privileges is withheld. At the same time insuperable obstacles are thrown in the way of the purchase of real estate by Americans and they are even forbidden to improve property which they have already acquired. It is only by eternal vigilance that American interests in Turkey can be safeguarded.

XXIV. RELIGIOUS TOLERATION

One distinctive feature of Islam in Turkey—and this applies to nearly all Moslem races in the Ottoman empire except the Arabs—is that the Turk does not know the language of his sacred book. The Koran is as much a sealed book to the Turk as the Bible is to the peasant Roman Catholic of Central Europe. He knows, even if he is a peasant, many Arabic words and phrases, but although he may read the Koran, he cannot understand it; and it is, to the Mohammedan, a greater impiety to attempt to translate the Koran from the Arabic, than it was, till recent years, in the eyes of the faithful but ignorant Romanist to translate the Latin Bible into French or German. This ignorance of Arabic is a fact even among the more or less educated Turks of the capital and coast cities. It is very rare to find one who can read Arabic intelligently, and who speaks it correctly. Some years ago, when K—— Effendi, a learned Arab Koord, who had embraced Christianity, was called before the highest Mohammedan court, his perfect knowledge of the Arabic, of the Koran and of Mohammedan law and traditions completely confounded and silenced those who would have been his judges. —From “The Mohammedan World of To-day.”

At the beginning of mission work in Turkey the government and high officials seemed indifferent. They looked upon missionaries as only another sect of Christians. It apparently did not occur to them that Christians would attempt to present the claims of their religion to Moslems, or that there was the least probability that any Mohammedan would listen to a Christian upon the subject of religion. For centuries no Christian in Turkey had made any such attempt. Indeed, the lives of the Christians there exhibited little that was attractive in the religion of Jesus Christ.

The Turks, therefore, appeared to assume that the missionary movement was an effort to reform the Christians or to divide and weaken them. To either of these purposes or results the sultan and his officers saw no objections. To the Turks all who are not Moslems are infidels, and it mattered little to them what these believed since they denied faith in Mohammed.

Contrary to expectations, observing Moslems were attracted by the fact that the Protestants made use of neither pictures nor images in their worship, and demanded purity of life, honesty, temperance, and truthfulness in their adherents. This was to them a new phase of Christianity, one that accorded more with the Mohammedan ideas than the practises of the Catholic and Oriental Churches with which they were familiar. Among the early inquirers there were many Mohammedans. In 1835 Dr. Goodell of Constantinople wrote, “Almost every day I am visited by Mohammedans. I could very profitably devote my whole time to them.” In cases not a few, in the early days, the Turkish officials were not slow to shield the evangelical Christians from the persecutions of the officials of the old Churches. As it did not occur to the sultan that there was any danger that Moslems could look with favor upon Christianity, he was the more free to grant full religious liberty under the importunity of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the British ambassador.

It was not, therefore, a difficult matter for Sultan Abdul Medjid to issue, November 3, 1839, an imperial rescript named the _Hatti Sherif of Gul Hane_, promising to protect the life, honor, and property of all his subjects irrespective of race or religion. At that time the sultan was eager to enlist and hold the sympathy of European rulers, and believed that such a concession would materially help toward it. This directly pledged the protection of the imperial government to every subject of the empire in the exercise of his rights as a citizen, without regard to religion or sect. It was the first declaration of the Turkish government putting Christians upon a parity with Mohammedans before the law. It was a long forward step in the way of administrative reform.

In August, 1843, an Armenian youth, some twenty years of age, was beheaded in the streets of Constantinople and his body exposed for three days, because he had once declared himself a Moslem and then later recanted. It seems that through fear of punishment this young man had accepted Islam and left the country. Later he returned and resumed the practises of his former religion. In spite of threats and promises, he adhered to his ancestral faith with the above results. Sir Stratford de Redcliffe did all in his power to save his life, but without success.

This execution aroused the ambassadors of England, France, Russia, and Prussia, who united in a formal demand upon the sultan to abolish the death penalty for a change of religion. Hitherto, there had been full liberty to change any and all non-Moslem religions, and for any one to abandon the faith of his fathers and to embrace Islam, but the right had been denied to a Mohammedan to depart from that faith.

Under pressure brought to bear by the four named ambassadors, led by the British, the sultan on the twenty-first of March, 1844, gave a written pledge as follows: “The Sublime Porte engages to take effectual measures to prevent, henceforward, the persecution and putting to death of the Christian who is an apostate.” Two days later Abdul Medjid, in a conference with Sir Stratford, gave assurance “that henceforward neither shall Christianity be insulted in my dominions, nor shall Christians be in any way persecuted for their religion.” The giver of these pledges was not only the sultan of Turkey, but he was also the caliph of the Mohammedan world. The year 1844 is memorable in Turkey and among the Mohammedans for this record of concessions in the interests of religious liberty in Turkey, and for all races, including Moslems.

In 1847 the Protestants had no standing in the Turkish empire. Nominally they were under the protection of the patriarch at Constantinople, but in fact they were without protection since their formal excommunication from the Old Church in the previous year. When their separation had been made complete, it was necessary that some recognition be secured for them from the sultan himself in order that they might continue to live in the empire. Through the British ambassador negotiations were carried on which resulted in the issuance of a firman by the grand vizier declaring that “Christian subjects of the Ottoman government professing Protestantism shall constitute a separate community with all the rights and privileges belonging to others,” and that “no interference whatever be permitted in their temporal or spiritual concerns on the part of the patriarch, monks, or priests of other sects.” This Protestant charter of 1847, as it was called, covered all Protestants who should change from the ancient Churches, but seemed studiously to avoid giving recognition to the possibility of Moslems accepting Protestantism. This charter was not issued with the imperial authority of the sultan, but only under the ministerial authority of the Porte. It was, therefore, liable to appeal at any time by either the sovereign or any succeeding ministry. In November, 1850, the reigning sultan, Abdul Medjid, granted an imperial charter to the Protestants confirming their distinct organization as a civil community and guaranteeing them religious rights and privileges equal to those granted all other religious organizations.

This secured in _perpetuum_ to the Protestants the right to choose their own political chief, to transact business, to worship, to marry, to bury, and to perform all the functions of a religious organization under imperial protection. This was the Magna Charta of Protestantism in Turkey, and is called “The Imperial Protestant Charter of 1850.” This was supplemented in 1853 by an imperial firman which was sent to all governors in the provinces, as well as to the head men of the Protestant communities, requiring that the charter of 1850 be strictly enforced. The above were issued in the interests of the Protestants alone.

Besides the written pledge of the sultan given to the ambassadors in 1844, there was no charter in Turkey insuring religious liberty to Mohammedans, except as the above mentioned Protestant charters admitted of such an interpretation. That was indefinite and, it was feared, did not guarantee safety to a Mohammedan who should change his faith. The European nations had demanded that the death penalty for Moslems upon changing their religion should be abolished.

In February, 1856, Sultan Medjid issued what is called the Magna Charta of religious liberty in Turkey. It is entitled the Hatti Sherif (Sacred Edict) or Hatti Humayoun (Imperial Edict). It was regarded at that time as guaranteeing full religious liberty to all Turkish subjects of every creed and faith. One sentence reads, “No subject of my empire shall be hindered in the exercise of the religion that he professes, nor shall he be in any way annoyed on this account. No one shall be compelled to change his religion.” Lord Stratford assumed in his correspondence with his government that hereafter no one was to be molested on account of his religion or punished “whatever form of faith he denies.”

This imperial charter was recognized by Great Britain, France, Austria, Russia, Sardinia, and Turkey, through their representatives who met in Paris in the same year to form the Treaty of Paris, to which body it was communicated by “His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan” and as “emanating spontaneously from his own will.” However, it was clearly understood that no right was conceded to the above named Powers “to interfere either collectively or separately in the relations of His Majesty, the Sultan, with his subjects nor in the internal administration of his empire.” This left Turkey the only interpreter of the document, and as sovereign in the administration of her own internal affairs, including the actual granting of religious liberty.

The acts of government and the behavior of Turkish officials at that period gave the impression that the Porte meant to recognize and enforce the principles of religious liberty. Many Mohammedans began openly to purchase copies of the Turkish Bible and to examine the claims of Christianity. In September, 1857, officials of the government in Constantinople carefully examined a Turkish gentleman, Selim Effendi, and his wife, and gave a certificate that they had become Christians without compulsion, and that “it was the will of His Majesty, the Sultan, that every Ottoman subject, without exception, should enjoy entire religious freedom.” The spirit of inquiry spread and a converted Turk was employed as an evangelist in Constantinople and was unhindered in his labors among his countrymen.

In 1858 religious meetings were held with Turks and Koords in Eastern Turkey. In 1859 it was reported that the Turkish governors of Sivas, Diarbekr, and Cæsarea, after considering cases of the conversion of Moslems to Christianity, declared publicly that a Mohammedan who became a Christian would not be molested. In 1860 cases were reported from the Taurus Mountains of converted Moslems, and of others who were attendant upon Christian services. One of these was a member of the governor’s council. In the vicinity of Aintab, at that time, some thirty Mohammedans were in attendance upon Christian services at one outstation. There were conversions of Turks reported at Diarbekr, Harpoot, and Cæsarea, followed by baptism, and without disturbance.

Up to 1860 fifteen Moslem converts had been baptized at Constantinople. One of these was a Turkish imam or preacher. In an examination before the Minister of War this imam declared that there were forty Turks in the city who believed as he did. This spirit of inquiry was wide-spread and continued until 1864. There was no doubt that Christian ideals were spreading rapidly among the Turks, and it is thought that the government formed the opinion that a considerable number of Mohammedans were desirous of reforming their own faith. Sultan Abdul Aziz became suspicious and fearful, and set spies to watch the missionaries. On a Sunday morning in Pera, Constantinople, Selim Effendi, a Turkish evangelist, and some twenty Turks were arrested as they emerged from their places of worship and were cast into prison. Without trial some of these men were sent into exile.

The official French paper, the _Journal de Constantinople_, in its issue of August 4, 1864, published a leader supposed to emanate from Ali Pasha, the grand vizier, in which the arrest of the Christian Turks was charged to the alleged fact that the zeal of the missionaries in making converts amounted to a “veritable war,” and that in this work of proselyting seductive arts were employed. These charges were investigated by the Minister of the United States, and by the British ambassador, and not only were the missionaries exonerated from all blame, but Earl Russell, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Great Britain, strongly defended the missionaries and demanded of Turkey that she maintain in her dealings with her subjects the observance of the true principles of religious liberty. Upon the demand of the English government the exiled Turks were permitted to return.

It was at once understood by the Moslems that for them there was no liberty to change their faith. It is true that none were arrested upon the open charge of changing their religion, but every conceivable pretense was trumped up against them, to substantiate which any number of Mohammedan witnesses could be procured, and the Christian Mohammedan was sent into exile, languished in prison, or disappeared from view. Frequently missionaries attempted to follow up a case of manifest persecution, but they usually came upon a medical certificate that the man had died in prison from fever or some other natural cause, or lost all traces of the prisoner through frequent transfers to distant parts. Some men are known to have been shot by their guard in the transfer.

In the Treaty of Berlin, entered into in 1878 by England, Austria, Russia, France, Italy, and Turkey, Article 2 states that absolute religious liberty is to exist in all the various territories mentioned in the preceding article “including the whole Turkish empire.” The sixty-second article begins, “The Sublime Porte, having expressed its willingness to maintain the principle of religious liberty and to give it the widest sphere, the contracting parties take cognizance of this spontaneous declaration.” Then follow specifications of how the sultan is to carry out these principles.

In spite of these reiterated declarations, it is evident that the Turkish government does not and never did intend to acknowledge the right of a Moslem to become a Christian. A high official once told the writer that Turkey gives to all her subjects the widest religious liberty. He said, “There is the fullest liberty for the Armenian to become a Catholic, for the Greek to become an Armenian, for the Catholic and Armenian to become Greeks, for any one of them to become Protestant, or for all to become Mohammedans. There is the fullest and completest religious liberty for all the subjects of this empire.”

In response to the question, “How about liberty for the Mohammedan to become a Christian?” he replied, “That is an impossibility in the nature of the case. When one has once accepted Islam and become a follower of the Prophet he cannot change. There is no power on earth that can change him. Whatever he may say or claim cannot alter the fact that he is a Moslem still and must always be such. It is, therefore, an absurdity to say that a Moslem has the privilege of changing his religion, for to do so is beyond his power.” For the last forty years the actions of the official and influential Turks have borne out this theory of religious liberty in the Ottoman empire. Every Moslem showing interest in Christian things takes his life in his hands. No protection can be afforded him against the false charges that begin at once to multiply. His only safety lies in flight.

XXV. THE MACEDONIAN QUESTION

MR. G. B. RAVNDAL, until recently United States consul at Beirut, Syria, is an intelligent and sympathetic witness of the progress of events in that part of the Turkish empire. He writes, with special reference to the commercial aspects of missionary advance, that “the Syria of to-day cannot be compared with the Syria of twenty-five years ago. Education is working wonders, raising the standard of living, multiplying and diversifying the requirements of the people, developing the natural resources of the country, and increasing the purchasing capacity of the individual. Illiteracy is on the wane, independent thought is in the ascendant. We have printing-presses, railroads, carriage-roads, bridges, postal and telegraph routes. Trade is increasing in volume and variety, and the United States is getting a larger and larger share of it. Our country, owing primarily to the efforts of our missionaries, is near and dear to a large portion of the population, not only of this country, but of the entire Levant—nay, even of Persia and the Sudan. Through our college (at Beirut), with its School of Commerce and museums, through the mission press, the industrial academy, and the experimental farm, missionaries have become ambassadors of American trade, and as the foreign commerce of the Levant swells into larger proportions—it is yet in its infancy—the United States is getting a surer foothold in the near East.” He also speaks of his gratification in witnessing the increasing introduction of American machinery into Syria, such as reaping, threshing, and milling machines, and expresses his confidence that “Western Asia will before long become a market for our agricultural, irrigation, and other machinery, which no manufacturer at home will despise or ignore.” He refers to the School of Commerce recently established in connection with the American College at Beirut, with its students drawn from a widely extended region, reaching from Trebizond on the north to Khartum on the south, and from Albania in the west to Teheran in the east, as an enterprise which is destined to “play a leading part in the economics of the Levant.” There is a business ring to testimonies like these just quoted from men of official position in the East, which surely cannot be credited to missionary partiality or misjudgment, and as such we are glad to have the privilege of presenting them. —JAMES S. DENNIS, in “Christian Missions and Social Progress.”