The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1903-11-17

iiNAtS llN tblll'Ir. Ii includes the poe
lice who are among the greatest
scomdrels ON the face OF the earth, it
includes officials of amy sort, uspec-
tors ana the like. They choose the best
houses In the town or village, demand
the best rooms, ana when night comes
! they order the men out of the house
ANA have the women at their mercy.
/ This rule Is universal; you find &c I'm the
consular reports; during the Armenian
horrors of 1904 and 3. the special COR
respondent of the London Times de-
clared that after careful investigation
in large district in Armenia which
he named, he found that there was not
one Christian woman i'm the whole dis
/ trict who had not been dishonored be-
! fore she was married. That is the con-
! dition Of the helpless Christian subjects
of the Sultan throughout the whole of
! the Turkish Empire
Taking all taxes together. the amount
of taxation that the Christians pay is.
according to the British consular re-
| ports, 81 per cent of their income, leav-N
ing them 30 per cent to live on. And
! in addition to this they have to pay
brides.
We sometimes hea, people speak of
the liberation Of the Turkish govern
ment. But what does this liberation
mean? 1t is a crime for a Musselman--
a crime punished invariably with death
to become a Christian; and il is
capital crime for the Christian who
converts him. 1t is a crime also for
Christian to try to dissuade fellow
Christian from becoming a Musselman.
The Christian subjects Of the Sultan
are not allowed to build any new places
of worship; they are allowed after pay
ing brides, to repair the old places
! which they had when the Sultan took
! possession of the country. They must
not have bells to their places of wor-
! ship, and they must not sing loud
enough to offend the ears of the Mus
! selman who may be passing by.
Bear in mind another thing. The
! Turkish government is unique in this
respect, that it is a strict theocracy,
the strictest the world has ever known;
the Mosaic dispensation is not to be
compared with it. The Koran is be-
lieved to be an uncreated book to have
existed from all eternity on gilded
tablets before the Throne of God. The
angel Gabriel went down to the third
! heavens and in the course of twenty
years dictated the words of the Koran
in Arabic to Mohammed, and therefore
no law of Turkey that bears on the re-
lation of the Christian and the Mussel-
man can ever be changed. / am not
speaking of an oVer-civilized country,
but of a country with the immutable
| creed of a strict theocracy The Sui
| tan himself would be liable to deposit
ton by dogmatic decree from the head
of the religion of Turkey if he were to
yield d single ota to the demands of
Christendom, unless he is forced, in
ameliorating the condition of his Chris
tan subjects Let me try to explain
to you how this comes to be. Moham-
med and Caliphs who followed him
were at once temporal and religious
rulers. This continued while the Cali
phate lasted But the Caliphate ceased
to exist about four hundred years ago
because by an immutable decree of
Mohammedanism the Caliph must be
an Arab, belonging to the tribe of Mo-
manned, the tribe of Korish. The Sui
tan is not; he is a Turk, and not only
is he not a member of the specified
tribe, but he is not an Arab at all, and
/ therefore he is not the head of the Mo-
hammedan religion. The head of the
Mohammedan religion in Turkey is
called the Sheikhul Islam, and the re-
suit is that no political act of the Sui
tan has the slightest validity until it
gets the assent of the Sheikhul Islam
See how this works. Read the treaty
| vention between England and the Sui
tan about Asia Minor and Cyprus, and
you Will find that the Sultan, under
pressure, has published magnificent re-
| forms, promised equality of rights to
Christian and Musselman alike. But
what the Christian nations of the world
forget is, that though the Sultan when
hard pressed will make any sort of pro-
mise, he cannot fulfill any promise till
1t has had the sanction of the Sheikhul
Islam Now, neither the treaty OF Par
is, nor the treaty of Berlin nor the An
glo-Turkish convention has ever had
the sanction of the Sheikhul Islam,
and so far as the Turk is concerned,
they do not exist. Therefore If the
Christian powers want the Sultan to
carry out these reforms they must
coerce him. Again the same law VIII oh
forbids the Sultan to yield an inch
without coercion, oblige him to yield
without fighting if he finds himself UNI
der pressure of a Power superior to
himself. The Sultan can neither declare
| war nor accept a declaration of war
from any Power until he has got the
sanction of the Sheikhul Islam. Let
me give you an illustration of what [
mean. When the Emperor of Russia
declared war upon the Sultan in 1877,
the sultan could not accept that dec
laration until he had permission from
| the Sheikhul islam; anu the permission
was given i'm these words: THAT If the
Sultan has a force wherewith to meet
VIGOROUSLY the forces of the Emperor
of Russia, he can accept the declara-
| ton of war; but not otherwise" And
Midhat Pacha, who was GTand Visier,
ana who afterwards became an exile
In London, declared I'm an article i'm
| Nlnptpanfh 40
| Sultan had not firmly believed that
| England would have sent her feet 10
! support him the Sheikhul Islam would
never have sanctioned his acceptance of
! Russia's declaration or war. Let any
Power tell the Sultan that 4 he does
not carry out any reform which he has
promised, a fleet will be sent to seize
a part of mis- territory, ana ne Will
yield without firing a gun. We have an