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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Will I join the Catholic church? I don't know.
Yep. Funny how life works, eh? |
It was a plot.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:37
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quote:
I've ignored nothing about your 'point' regarding
Orthodox Christians and Otooman treatment of them,
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Sure you have. You have not addressed my point regarding the treatment of Orthodox Christians under the Turks.
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Still, let that tangent of yours go by, shall we?
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It's just as valid as bringing Jews into the argument. We were comparing the treatment of Christians in Vienna versus the treatment of Christians under the Turks.
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say, me, or chegitz,
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The Hagia Sophia and the Parthenon, which had been Christian churches for nearly a millennium were, admittedly, converted into mosques,
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My point confirmed. How tolerant is it to convert churches? Why not leave them alone?
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Islamic law makes no distinction between nationality and religion,
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True, but this is not a point in favour of tolerance. This point is neutral. It can be used as an excuse to persecute, just as much as it can be used to preserve.
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"Emperor Charles V lamented the construction of the cathedral saying: "You have destroyed something unique in the world with something that can be found anywhere."
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Ah, that is sly. I shall have to confine the point to the Austrian Habsburgs, rather than the ones in Spain. That is the point of citing Vienna, is it not?
Secondly, we are looking at a very specific time period, at the height of the Ottoman Empire. How would the treatment of Christians be comparable in Vienna at that time?
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were being herded out by their captors. He stopped one of his soldiers hacking at the marble floor, saying, with a conqueror's pride: `Be satisfied with the booty and the captives;
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So that they had more mercy to the building than the Christians is proof of tolerance?
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THEY ADVERTISED IT.
In pictures, photographs, broadsheets, and so forth.
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One could find advertisements that Minnesota had the same climate as Denmark. Advertisements often have a purpose other than to tell the truth of the matter.
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In any case, it's hardly bolstering a case for 'tolerant' Christianity, is it?
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Not really my point. I defended more the city of Vienna, than the Habsburgs, since Vienna, as you have admitted, is a cosmopolitan city.
Nowhere do I try to extend that to Christians in general. There have been many occasions where they have not accepted people, and others in which Islam has also taken those in whom Christianity rejected.
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Dr Strangelove
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While it's true that the Ottomans could be at times quite tolerant towards Judaism and Christianity, the empire could also effectively put the squeeze on them. At the beginning of the 19th century about half the population of Egypt and Palestine were still Christian as witnessed by both French and British observers during Napoleon's Egyptian adventure. The humiliation that the Turks received from the Christian kings of Europe at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries compelled the Porte to make at least feeble attempts at reform, which triggered a massive reaction from conservative elements within the empire. The reforms were overthrown and the empire literally isolate Egypt, Palestine and Syria from the rest of the world for the next 4 decades. They put enough pressure on the Christian population that by the time that work began on the Suez canal in the 1850s only 10% of the population of Egypt continued to practice Christianity.
I also recall that one of the early Sultans decreed that any Janissary soldier who did not convert to Islam by the time that his enlistment was up would be converted to a eunuch.
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
I also recall that one of the early Sultans decreed that any Janissary soldier who did not convert to Islam by the time that his enlistment was up would be converted to a eunuch. |
You didn't get to be a Janisarry until you converted. Furthermore, I know this story has to be false, as the practice of making eunichs is forbidden in Islam. Eunichs were purchased from Chrisitan states.
BK, the Ottomans were more tolerant of everyone than their Christian counterparts. As the empire declined, things changed, but under the Empire, the Orthodox Church was restored, after having been forced to unite with the Catholics in order for the Romans (Byzatnines) to get aid from the West. Those areas of Orthodoxy under Latin rule typically prefered to be ruled by Turks, and when the Turks invaded, Greeks refused to come to the aid of their masters. In 1718, the Greeks of Morea even revolted to help the Turks toss out the Venetians.
While the Latins were kicked out of Orthodox churchs, at the same time, the Emperor gave his protection to Catholic missionaries traveling in his lands. Nestorian, Catholic, Jew, Orthodox, and Protestant alike found a more hospitable climate among the Turks than among their own.
This is not to say they were treated as equals by the Moslems. The difference between how a Christian was treated by the Empire and how a Moslem was treated by the Habsburgs was emense. The Christian lords had to build forts in order to keep peasants from fleeing to the Turks. At the same time, Christian peasants found life under the Turks much easier, as taxes decreased from 50% to 8% when the Latin lords were replaced by Moslem ones.
Jews, of course, found life in the Empire much better than in Europe (with the exception of the Union of Poland-Lithunania, which was similarly enlightened). Sephardic Jews flocked to the Empire in such numbers that until the Nazis conquest of Greece, Spanish was still spoken in Thessalonika.
Of course, things weren't always so great. Selim the Grim, father of Suleyman, very nearly decided to convert all Anatolia to Islam by the sword.
Still, all thnigs being equal, it was better to be a Christian in the Empire than to be a Christian in the rest of Europe.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Sure you have. You have not addressed my point regarding the treatment of Orthodox Christians under the Turks.
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Yet again ypou leap in too soon.
Don't try to make up for deficiencies in your knowledge by misquoting or hacking up my quotes.
Th elot of Orthodox Christians under the Ottomans was markedly better than the lot of religious minorities under the Habsburgs.
Charles V was the last Habsburg to unite the Austrian and Spanish branches- not sly of me at all.
And just to let you know, chegitz also knows his stuff about the Ottomans too.
Ooohhh, not the Parthenon! How tolerant is it to convert pagan monuments into churches?
No, really, it is to laugh. Did you read in the link about Cordoba about how mosques were DEMOLISHED across Spain? Not converted, not preserved, not repaired, but the usual Christian treatment of non-Christian sacred sites- if you can't convert it, demolish it or eradicate it, or stick something less interesting there.
Now which height of the Ottoman Empire do you want? The reign of Suleyman the Magnificent? (1520-1566)
Not an especially happy time for alternative approaches to Christianity- the Habsburgs, having recently spent the latter part of the 15th Century fighting against the Hussites and Taborites (you remember them, eh, Ben?)
spent the first part of the 16th Century fighting Calvinists and Lutherans. Oh, and Anabaptists too.
The latter part of the century saw the Austrian Habsburgs fighting the Swedes and German Protestants and Dutch Protestants and the French, and the Spanish expelling Jews, Muslims, Jewish converts, Muslim converts, and unleashing the Inquisition in the Low Countries.
And trying to crush the United Provinces.
And Protestant England.
1517, October 31 Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg.
1517, November The Pope issued a statement suggesting war on the Turks with 80,000 men.
1518, March Erasmus first mentioned Luther in a letter to Thomas More; he also wrote, “The Roman curia has abandoned any sense of shame. What could be more shameless than these constant indulgences?”
1518, October 25 Cajetan wrote Frederick a letter in which Cajetan reminded Frederick of his Christian responsibility.
1519 Charles V (Charles I of Spain) was Holy Roman Emperor to 1556.
1519, June 28 Charles I unanimously elected Holy Roman Emperor, becomes Charles V; Leo fought against his election.
1520 Frederick was visited by papal nuncio (ambassador) Aleander who urged Frederick to burn Luther's books and seize and transport him to Rome; Frederick sought Erasmus's advice and decided not to follow Aleander's advice
1520, February A commission was begun in Rome with the purpose of examining Luther's writings for heresy; Cajetan was one of the chairmen.
1520, June Luther received a promise of 100 knights for protection.
1520, June 15 Leo X issues the bull "Exsurge Domine" which gave Luther 60 days to recant.
1520, October 8 Luther’s books are publicly burned at the University of Louvain, where Erasmus was living.
1520, December 10 Luther publicly burns "Exsurge Domine" at Wittenberg.
1521 Cortes conquered Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), the Aztec capital.
1521 Henry VIII was named “Defender of the Faith” by Pope Leo X for his opposition to Luther.
1521, January 18 Charles V & I receives a formal bull of excommunication, Decet Romanum Pontificem, with instructions to read it at the Diet and that any territory, city, or church that protected Luther would also be under the ban
1521, January 27 Diet of Worms officially opened.
1521, April Charles decided to condemn Luther; Luther was allowed to return to Wittenberg under safe conduct, but that this safe conduct was only guaranteed for 21 days; after those 21 days Luther was under the ban, which he would remain the rest of his life
1521, May 4 Luther and 2 companions surprised by 4 or 5 horsemen who kidnapped Luther. The horsemen took Luther to Wartburg, Frederick's castle. Luther assumed the name "Sir George" and grew a beard.
1521, May 19 John Calvin at age 11 was put in possession of a chaplaincy attached to the altar of La Gesine in the cathedral of Noyon. He received the tonsure, the only sign of membership in a clerical order which Calvin ever attained in the Roman Catholic Church.
1521, June 1 Luther's "On Confession: Whether the Pope Has the Power to Require It" appeared; Luther's response was no.
1523 The first of Luther’s followers were executed in Brussels: two Augustinians were burned at the stake.
http://www.hgstnc.org/research/refo...rmationList.asp
The usual happy catalogue of Christian tolerance.
Let's compare and contrast militant Catholic Counter- Reformation Vienna with Suleyman's Istanbul, shall we?
"
One of the favourite epithets, both of the sultans and their city, soon became "alem penah", `refuge of the world'. It appeared appropriate to create a multinational capital for an empire which, it was later calculated, contained seventy-two and a half nationalities
Multinationalism became the essence of Constantinople. A common literary device of Ottoman writers would be to compare the merits and looks of the many nationalities in the empire and its capital. In the fifteenth century national differences, based on history and geography more than race, could be acutely felt: Gennadius, first Ecumenical Patriarch under the Ottomans, called Greeks `a race than which there has been none finer on earth'. A medieval Polish proverb stated: `As long as the world is the world, the Pole will not be the German's brother.' Mustafa Ali, a prominent sixteenth-century historian, extolled as a source of strength the number of nationalities in the empire Turks, Greeks, Franks, Kurds, Serbs, Arabs and others. In the nineteenth century a minister of the Sultan, Cevdet Pasha, called the Ottoman Empire a great society `because its people spoke many languages and because it selected the best talents, customs and manners from among its various nations'. The variety of nationalities in Istanbul was proudly advertised in drawings, photographs and the composition of the Sultan's bodyguard; in the twentieth, in political processions and the deputation sent to depose a Sultan. "
from Philip Mansel's "Constantinople: City of the World's Desire, 1453-1924".
Of course you haven't actually given us any information on how tolerant or intolerant the Vienna of the 16th Century was, have you?
The Winter King:
"Elector Frederick, the WINTER KING, fled the country. Habsburg rule was reestablished. The protestant noblemen of Bohemia and consuls of Prague were convicted of treason, sentenced to death and executed, their estates auctioned off. In 1627 the RECATHOLICIZATION PATENT was published and the estates reestablished (where a chamber of the (Catholic) clergy was added and the influence of the burghers reduced). The Jesuits were given free hand in converting the population to Catholicism, the INQUISITION being a major tool. Many Czech noblemen and burghers chose emigration over conversion. Among the emigrants was Jan Amos Komensky, better known under his latinized name COMENIUS, regarded the father of educational science.
The rebellion had primarily happened in Bohemia proper, not in the Bohemian sidelands of Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia. Many of the executed noblemen had been Czechs. Their estates now were bought up by Germans, who, like Moravian knight ALBRECHT EUSEBIUS VON WALLENSTEIN, made a fortune - the mass sale of huge estates had caused the prices to drop dramatically. The power of the Bohemian estates was broken; they were to be ruled from Vienna until 1918."
http://www.zum.de/whkmla/region/ger...yearsczech.html
Sounds very tolerant indeed.
And yes, conversion to Islam gave a Muslim more rights, and more responsibilities too. Conversion to Christianity or Protestantism in Habsburg lands brought the rack, auto da fe, war and exile.
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:37
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quote:
Charles V was the last Habsburg to unite the Austrian and Spanish branches- not sly of me at all.
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No, very sly. I had forgotten that he was responsible for both, and thus evidence in Spain can be used against me in Vienna.
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Ooohhh, not the Parthenon! How tolerant is it to convert pagan monuments into churches?
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That's interjecting an argument you can't apply here. I only have to show that the Turks were just the same. So it does you no good to show that the Christians were just as bad as the Turks.
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Of course you haven't actually given us any information on how tolerant or intolerant the Vienna of the 16th Century was, have you?
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No I haven't. You're doing a good job yourself.
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A medieval Polish proverb stated: `As long as the world is the world, the Pole will not be the German's brother.'
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Funny then that the Poles take so much pride in assisting the Austrians to defeat the Turks? Perhaps you overstate the animosity between the two.
Politics makes strange bedfellows, eh?
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Conversion to Christianity or Protestantism in Habsburg lands brought the rack, auto da fe, war and exile.
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To Christianity? Surely Catholics are also Christians.
Remember, according to them, everyone starts out Catholic, and then rejects the church. So long as the church is part of the state, the state would have the authority over the people.
While you extoll the control exercised by the Turks over the Orthodox church, it also has the effect of regulating and controlling the churches.
Thus, while Suleyman refrained from persecutions, many of the Sultans did not. The structure of government between the Turks and the Christians was not all that different.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
No, very sly. I had forgotten that he was responsible for both, and thus evidence in Spain can be used against me in Vienna.
Funny then that the Poles take so much pride in assisting the Austrians to defeat the Turks? Perhaps you overstate the animosity between the two.
While you extoll the control exercised by the Turks over the Orthodox church, it also has the effect of regulating and controlling the churches.
Thus, while Suleyman refrained from persecutions, many of the Sultans did not. The structure of government between the Turks and the Christians was not all that different. |
You must get out of these pernicious habits of misrepresenting what I say, as well as not providing any evidence for your outlandish assertions.
Where's your evidence on how 'cosmopolitan' and diverse and tolerant Habsburg Vienna was in the sixteenth century?
Oh, that's right, nowhere. Surprise!
I haven't 'extolled the control' of the Orthodox Church by the Ottoman emperors anywhere. I provided a link to an Orthodox site that described the history of the church in the Ottoman Empire after the fall of Constantinople. And how much more power and influence the Patriarch gained under the Ottomans.
Now with regards to your amnesia or lack of knowledge of Charles V and I, really, I wasn't being sly at all.
The Inquisition didn't just hop over from Spain to Austria- it was instituted in Habsburg Central Europe as a method of political and religious control- the extirpation of non-Catholic religion and Czech/Bohemian nationalism.
I can't recall stating there was any animosity between the Poles and Austrians- are you reading some posts from an alternate reality or just making it up as you go along?
Quoting someone else's article with a Polish proverb in it is hardly an examination of Polish/Habsburg relations.
In any case, Catholic animosity was readily evident, between various Popes and Holy Roman Emperors, between France and Spain, Venice and Genoa, Croats and Magyars (as an instrument of Habsburg control)- it's not like you have to look hard for it.
Yet again, you make assertions about the Ottoman Empire, and notably fail to follow up with any evidence.
Where's your evidence relating to the oppression of Catholics under the Ottomans?
In any case, we weren't talking about forms or methods of government- we were discussing relative tolerance for religions.
Comparing Suleyman's empire with Reconquista Spain and after, and Counter Reformation Habsburg domains in Central and Eastern Europe is a non-starter.
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
However, lest you forget, the Catholics who ended up in Turkey had the worst of it. They were the sworn enemy of the Turks, and expected no mercy while receiving none. |
This is untrue. Catholics in the Empire received the same protection as any of the other of the Sultan's subjects. Before the fall of Constantinople, the Genoese colony of Galata in Pera (just across the river from Constantinople) surrendered to the Sultan (wisely, as they had no hope of resisting). They were not molested. The Sultan signed an agreement with the Genoses that allowed them to practice their faith and to trade freely in their colony. After the fall of Constantinople, the Venetians recieved such a capitulation. The city of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) was both Catholic and a willing vassal of the Sultan. Bosnians, Dalmatians, Hungarians, Franks, and Latins all practiced Catholicism within the Empire in their own churches.
Catholics faced danger not from Molsems, but from their former Orthodox subjects, who frequently lynched Latin circuit priests traveling through the Empire to their various constituancies. These priests sought and received the protection of the Sultan. This was a bit of a surprise to me, given the hostility between Sultan and the Pope and Holy Roman Emperor.
What you have to understand is, everything in the Empire was the personal property of the Sultan. Thus, his Catholic subjects were as important to him as his Jewish and Orthodox subjects. Catholics brought European goods to the Empire, and bought silk and spices and other goods. Why would the Sultan want to ruin his economy? One Sultan, when told of the wisdom of the Spanish King for expelling the Molsems and Jews from his lands said, "Who calls this King wise, who impovrishes his own lands to the benefit of my own?"
Ambassadors and travelers to the Empire were frequnelty astonished at their treatment and freedom, considering how Moslem traders were treated, even in cities like Venice, where Moslems were supposed to be protected by treaty (the reality being somewhat different).
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Bereta_Eder
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The Massacres of the Khilafah
Walter Short
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Introduction
It is the aim of many Muslims belonging to the Sunni sect to restore the Khilafah (Caliphate) abolished by Kemal Ataturk in 1924. In the modern context, this is linked to the desire of proponents of the Islamic revival to see a global, united Islamic state. Inevitably, however large the borders of such a state, it would contain religious minorities. Muslims are usually insistent that other religious communities have always been treated with respect and dignity by true Muslim rulers. It is therefore pertinent to examine Islamic history to test the authenticity of this claim.
Since it was under the Ottomans that an Islamic state contained the largest number of Christians, and actually occupied a substantial part of Europe, we shall restrict our study to an examination of events in the Ottoman state, especially since the last Khilafah was held by the Ottomans. The emphasis in this paper will be to examine massacres executed by the Ottoman Khilafah. After all, if the most basic right of all, the right to life, was frequently violated by the Ottoman Khilafah, those Muslims seeking the revival of the institution, and asserting that non-Muslims were generally respected under the Islamic regime, have some explaining to do.
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1. The emergence of the Ottomans and the conquest of Constantinople
The Osmanli or Ottoman Turks emerged as a force in the 14th century, replacing the previous Seljuk Turkish Emirate of Konya. [1] They were '...fanatical Moslems... Their clan leaders called themselves Ghazis, warriors for the faith of Islam. Conquest of the infidel was for them a religious duty.' [2] Hence, jihad by the Ottomans was as much offensive in character as defensive, and their belief was that non-Muslims should be subjugated by the sword. In 1354 they occupied Gallipoli, and then spread across the Balkans, defeating the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, and completing the conquest of Bulgaria and Thessaly by 1393. This meant that the capital of the Byzantine Empire (or what little was left of it), Constantinople, was now isolated. 'Close the gates of the city' said the Sultan to Byzantine Emperor Manuel II (1391-1425), 'for I own everything outside.' [3]
By then it was only a matter of time before Constantinople was attacked, and under the energetic and ruthless Sultan Mehmet II, the Ottomans began the siege of the Byzantine capital in April 1453 – this despite the fact that at his accession to the Sultanate in 1451, he had sworn on the Qur'an to the Byzantine embassy that he would respect the latter's territorial integrity. [4] Obviously, an oath to an infidel meant nothing. There is no way that the siege of Constantinople could be classified as 'defensive' jihad: rather, it was an unprovoked act of aggression. Hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, the city fell on Monday 28 May 1453. It should be noted that on 6 April Mehmet II had sent Emperor Constantine XI a message, the terms of which the latter declined, 'declaring that, as Islamic law prescribed, every citizen would be spared if the city would surrender without resistance.' [5] The implication was clear: if the city resisted, the lives of its residents would be forfeit.
This in fact happened when the city fell on Tuesday 29 May, with Muslim forces slaughtering, plundering, and enslaving multitudes of Christians. [6] This fact, seldom mentioned by those Muslims glorying in the event, demonstrates how intrinsic were massacre and oppression to the Ottoman Khilafah, and naturally gives reason for concern to non-Muslims when they hear of nostalgia for the institution among Muslims. Mehmet II entered the great church of Hagia Sophia, the premier cathedral of eastern Christendom, and rather than respecting its religious integrity, expropriated it for Islam, formally transforming it into a mosque. By the 16th century, the Balkans as a whole had come under Muslim rule.
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2. Christian liberty and dignity under the Ottomans
The picture was not totally dark. The Ottomans allowed the Greek Orthodox a large measure of internal autonomy as to their social and religious concerns – the Millat concept. The Sultan often appointed a Greek as Grand Vizier, and the commander of the Ottoman Navy was frequently a Greek. [7] However, full citizenship was reserved only for those embracing Islam. The Sultan often interfered in the elections for the Orthodox Patriarch, and could even over-rule them. On a number of occasions, Patriarchs were executed. Neither full religious liberty nor equality existed.
One of the most telling practices which questions the view that the Ottoman Khilafah was a Golden Age as far as religious minorities were concerned was the forced recruitment of Janissaries, which started in the 14th century. '... they forcibly took male children of the enslaved Christian families (mainly Greeks. and later also Armenians Bulgarians, Albanians and Serbs), and brought them up in special camps They conditioned them to become fanatic Turks and relentless killers to their own people. These children would grow up to believe that their father was the Sultan and that if they were to die in battle they would go to heaven. Thus, because of this New Army, or Janissaries, (Yeni-ceri in Turkish) the Turks continued to pursue their conquests.' [8]
Ottoman forces would raid Christian villages, and kidnap boys, who were then brought to Constantinople as slave-soldiers, and forcibly converted to Islam. They were banned from intimate relations with women, except when they attacked an enemy town or village, at which point they could pillage and rape for three days. This continued until 1700, after which membership became hereditary, and finally ended with the abolition of the Janissaries, after a rebellion. Other Christian children were kidnapped into slavery as palace officials, eunuchs and concubines. It is practices like these that have left dark memories in Balkan peoples and Armenians about the long years of Muslim rule.
These practices could have become normative in Western Europe as well if the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683 had been successful. Again, this cannot be construed as 'defensive' jihad: it was an unprovoked act of aggression. The actions of Ottoman forces as the attack on Austria began demonstrated what Europe could expect if the Khilafah managed to extend its borders over the rest of Europe. Members of the Ottoman forces 'burnt villages, enslaved the women and children, and the men fit to work. The sick and the old they decapitated. They sacked the churches and trampled the crucifixes into the ground.' [9] They engaged in 'burning, raping, killing, enslaving...' [10] It should be remembered that the Muslim army was commanded by the Grand Vizier himself, Kara Mustafa. It is difficult to see how such behaviour could be considered as attracting people to Islam.
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Bereta_Eder
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Discrimination against Christians continued throughout the centuries of the existence of the Ottoman Khilafah. An example of this is found in the peace treaty ending the Crimean War of 1854-56. The War began as a squabble between Russia and the Ottoman Khilafah. Peace was restored by the Treaty of Paris in March 1856. Usually attention is given to Britain and France's imposed clause that banned Russian warships from the Black Sea. Less attention is focussed on Article 9 of the Treaty, which obliged the Ottoman Khilafah to recognise equality among its subjects 'without distinction as to religion or race'. This demonstrates that the Ottoman Khilafah was indeed engaged in such systematic discrimination. Rather than honouring the treaty, the Khilafah passed a decree the same year requiring non-Muslims to obtain a permit from the Khalifah himself to build or repair their places of worship. Effectively, this meant a continuation of the principles of Islamic law, and a circumvention of the Treaty of Paris.
Not only was Christian liberty under the Khilafah limited, Christian dignity was also frequently disregarded. Until the time of the Great War and their ethnic cleansing in 1915, Armenian Christians dressed their young girls as boys to prevent their rape or kidnap (or both) by Ottoman Muslims. In fact, any child was in danger of being kidnapped. A typical example of Ottoman Muslim contempt for Christians is supplied by a consideration of the burial-permit issued by a qadi (Muslim official) in 1855 for a deceased Christian: 'We certify to the priest of the church of Mary, that the impure, putrefied, stinking carcass of Saideh, damned this day, may be concealed underground.' [11] Undoubtedly, Muslims would regard such sentiments made in regard to a Muslim corpse to be bigoted and insensitive; they should not be surprised that Christians would react similarly, and find it difficult to credit that the Khilafah was indeed a Utopian regime.
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3. Massacres by the Khilafah
By the 19th century the Ottoman empire was in decline, and moves towards liberty began among the Balkan peoples. This period saw the first stirrings of modern nationalism, and there was a great desire among the Balkan Christians to rid themselves of their Turkish overlords (and in the case of Romanians, of the Phanariot Greeks that the Ottomans used as administrators). However, nationalism alone did not provide the spur to liberate Europe from the Turks. As Christians, the Balkan peoples were at best second-class citizens – conquered subjects, denied religious equality. 'The Christians, indeed, were excluded from political power, made subject to a special tax, [i.e. the Jizyah] and were on more than one occasion exposed to the risk of systematic extermination.' [12]
3.1 The Greek Revolt
The defeats the Ottomans had suffered at the hands of the Poles and Austrians in 1683, by the Russians thereafter on a number of occasions, and Venice's temporary occupation of the Morea in the 1690s until 1718 demonstrated that the Khilafah was not invulnerable. The first attempts at liberation came with the Serbs under Kara George in 1804. The uprising was successful, but Ottoman authority was restored in 1813. Another uprising in 1815 under Milosch Obrenovitch gained the Serbs a measure of self-rule, and himself received the title 'Prince of the Serbians' from the Sultan. [13] The principal event, however, that began the collapse of Ottoman power was the freedom-struggle of Greece in 1821. Ever since the times of classical Greece, Greek communities had resided around the Black Sea, including areas that had come under Russian control in the 18th century. The aide-de-camp to the Tsar in 1821 was a Greek, Prince Hypsilanti, who was also the leader of a Greek nationalist secret society called Hetairia Philike – the 'Association of Friends', which had been established in 1814 in Odessa. It possessed 20,000 members, and operated in Greek-populated areas of the Ottoman Empire. [14]
The campaign began almost farcically, when Hypsilanti and a group of Greeks crossed into Moldavia in March 1821, and urged the Orthodox population to rise against the Ottomans. However, the Romanians, whilst Orthodox, were not Greeks, and resented Greek superiority in the Empire, and conflict between the Greeks and Romanians soon erupted. It is only fair to state that Hypsilanti and his followers behaved as badly as the Ottomans by permitting a massacre of the local Muslim community. [15] In these circumstances, it was unsurprising that in June at Skaleni the rebels were been beaten by the Ottomans.
However, the events in Moldavia encouraged a popular uprising by the Greeks of the Morea at the instigation of the Hetairia Philike. Again, the Greek shamed their cause by a general massacre of virtually the entire 25,000 strong Muslim community within six weeks of the outbreak of the event. The Ottomans retaliated by massacring Greeks in Thessaly, Macedonia and the Aegean islands. On one of the latter, the Aegean Island of Chios, the Ottomans massacred 27,000 Christians, including women and children. [16] Most of the Christians in the Greek quarter of Constantinople were massacred. [17] On Easter Day 1822, the Orthodox Patriarch in Constantinople was hanged by the Ottomans, and his body was later was thrown into the Bosphorus, eventually recovered by a Greek boat and brought to Odessa, where the Patriarch was given a martyr's burial. [18]
The murder of the Patriarch was a disastrous miscalculation by the Khilafah, and caused widespread revulsion in Europe, with Russia threatening intervention. The cause of Greek liberation now became a popular concern among Europeans, horrified at the oppression of their fellow-Christians, the massacres and the sale into slavery of Greek Christian captives in Egypt. [19] The deep religious conviction of King Charles X of France led him to support the Greek Christians. The famous British poet Lord Byron, like many other Europeans, volunteered to fight alongside the Greeks, and lost his life there. Equally, many Muslims heeded call to jihad against the infidel made by the Khalifah in March 1821.
Greek military and especially naval successes caused the Khalifah to appeal to Muhammad Ali, his vassal in Egypt, to intervene with the Egyptian fleet, promising him control of the Morea, Crete and the Levant. Muhammad Ali's son, Ibrahim, landed in Crete, where the population was at that time roughly one third Muslim, and began to massacre the majority Christian community. Similarly, when Ibrahim's forces landed in the Morea, they 'began to wipe out the Greek population.' [20] It should be stated that this was the result of the Khalifah's direction, as urged by the Muslim ulema, that 'the rebels be openly fought and put to the sword, that their property be plundered and their wives and children reduced to slavery' [21]. As we have seen, both the enslavement and genocide actually occurred – 'the whole population of the Greek mainland was in danger of extermination' [22].
It was the level of genocide and the threat of Russian intervention that eventually caused the Great powers, led by Britain, to intervene at the battle of Navarino in 1827, which destroyed the Ottoman and Egyptian fleets, and allowed French forces to invade the Morea, whilst Russian troops advanced into Thrace. It must be stated that prior to this, the Powers had offered the Ottomans a settlement which would have provided for nominal Ottoman suzerainty with full autonomy for Greece, but the Khalifah, committed to the Islamic idea of the subjugation of non-Muslims, declined the offer. This miscalculation led to the Powers forcing recognition of full Greek independence in 1832.
3.2 Khilafah Massacres from 1840-1860
In fact, it was the constant incidence of genocide that obliged Western intervention in Ottoman affairs, leading to the eventual collapse of the State. In 1842, Muslims engaged in the following massacre:
Badr Khan Bey, A Hakkari Kurdish Amir, combined with other Kurdish forces led by Nurallah, attacked the Assyrians, intending to burn, kill, destroy, and, if possible, exterminate the Assyrians race from the mountains. The fierce Kurds destroyed and burned whatever came within their reach. An indiscriminate massacre took place. The women were brought before the Amir and murdered in cold blood. The following incident illustrates the revolting barbarity: the aged mother of Mar Shimun, the Patriarch of the Church of the East, was seized by them, and after having practiced on her the most abominable atrocities, they cut her body into two parts and threw it into the river Zab, exclaiming, "go and carry to your accursed son the intelligence that the same fate awaits him." Nearly ten thousand Assyrians were massacred, and as large a number of woman and children were taken captive, most of whom were sent to Jezirah to be sold as slaves, to be bestowed as presents upon the influential Muslims. (Death of a Nation, pp. 111-112). [23]
Similar events occurred in 1846. [24] In neither case did the Ottoman Government or its security forces intervene to prevent the massacres or punish the wrong-doers, indicating that they were happy with the outcome, and thus making the Khilafah accomplices to the massacres. In 1847, Muslim forces massacred 30,000 members of the Assyrian Christian community. A good example of State complicity by the Khilafah in massacres of Christians begun by individual Muslims occurred in Lebanon and Syria in 1860, and which were only finally ended by the intervention of French forces:
In Lebanon, from April to July, more than sixty villages of Al-Matn and Al-Shuf were burned to ashes by the Druze and Kurdish forces. The big towns then followed. The Ottoman garrison commander again offered the Maronite population asylum, as he had offered to the small villages, asking for the surrender of their arms and then slaughtering them in the local serai. Such was the fate of Dayr al-Qamar, which lost 2600 men; Jazzin and environs, where 1500 were slaughtered; Hasbayya, where 1000 of 6000 were cold bloodedly killed; Rashayya, where 800 perished. The orders for Hasbayya were that no male between seven and seventy years of age should be spared. Malicious eyes feasted on mangled, intermingled bodies of old and young in the courtyard of the Shihabi palace. Zahla, largest among the towns with 12000 inhabitants, held out for a short time and then succumbed under an attack by a host including fighters from Harwan and Bedouins from the desert. The town lay snugly in a deep ravine carved by the Bardawni flowing from the Mount Sannin. Hardly a house escaped the flames. The total loss of life within the span of three months and a space of a few miles was estimated at 12000. From Lebanon the spark of hate flew to Damascus and ignited a reservoir of Muslim ill-feeling generated by the policy of Ibrahim Pasha and the egalitarian provisions of Khatti Humayun. The Assyrian quarter was sent on fire and some 11000 of its inhabitants were put to the sword. [25]
3.3 The Balkan Massacres of the 1870s
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the rural Christian peasantry still lived under a system of serfdom, and faced heavy taxes from the Khilafah that were not endured by the Muslims. The Balkans suffered poor harvests in 1874, threatening starvation, yet the Ottoman State, far from assisting the populace, still demanded the usual taxes – again, influenced by Islamic law. [26] The pressure-cooker finally blew-up in 1875, when the Christians of Bosnia-Herzegovina revolted against the Khilafah. The uprising spread to Serbia and Montenegro, which had been autonomous since 1829 whilst remaining under Ottoman suzerainty. Soon the revolt spread to Bulgaria, which had no rights of self-government under the Khilafah, because of the large Turkish and Muslim communities in the country and its proximity to the imperial capital.
'The new Sultan, Abdul Hamid II (known appropriately in history as the "red Sultan") gave no quarter to the insurgents.' [27] The Khalifah's policy was genocidal: 'whole villages were razed to the ground, and the inhabitants murdered. Bulgarian prisoners were shot after being subjected to the most barbarous tortures.' [28] Between April and August 1876 thousands of Bulgarian Christians were horrifically massacred by Khilafah forces - 12,000 men, women and children were butchered in May alone. [29] The Great Powers responded by sending the Khilafah the Andrassy note, so-named after the Hungarian minister, proposing reforms in Ottoman administration, which the Sultan pretended to accept. The Balkan Christians, however, after their experiences, refused to take seriously Ottoman promises in the absence of firm Western guarantees.
The Great Powers, with the crucial exception of Britain, at that point sent the Berlin Memorandum to the Ottoman Empire, threatening to assist the Balkan revolts if the proposed reforms were not implemented within two months. However, in the absence of British involvement, the Ottomans felt confident enough to ignore the advice. Russia began preparations for an assault on the Ottoman Khilafah, but this was prevented by an international conference at Constantinople where Abdul Hamid II submitted to constitutional reforms, proposed by his minister Midhat Pasha, a man of liberal views, which involved better treatment of Christians. However, virtually as soon as the conference finished, Midhat Pasha was removed and killed soon after. The new constitution was also withdrawn, along with the guarantees to the Christians. [30] This demonstrated that the persecution of Christians was bound to continue as long as the Khilafah continued to exist.
Eventually, Ottoman prevarication and treachery led to a Russo-Romanian attack, and ultimately intervention by Britain, leading finally to the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 which recognised the total independence of Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro, whilst the Austria occupied Bosnia and the Sandjak of Novibazar. Bulgaria received home rule, with eastern Rumelia, bordering eastern Thrace, always to have a Christian Governor. [31] The war had cost the Khilafah much of its European territory, a point of rejoicing for the Balkan Christians. It must be confessed, however, that the now-independent Balkan states after 1878 were often as bigoted and cruel to their Muslim communities as had been the Khilafah to the Christians, and consequently, many Muslims, frequently persecuted, migrated to the Ottoman Empire.
A more crucial loss for the Ottoman Khilafah was British support. News of the Bulgarian massacres was greeted with popular outrage. The Prime Minister, Disraeli, afraid of Russian expansionist plans, dismissed tales of the massacres as mere propaganda - 'coffee-house gossip'. His opposite number, Gladstone, leader of the Opposition, wrote a famous pamphlet entitled The Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East, which enjoyed large sales. For a time, the Ottoman Khilafah was held in as great disdain as Nazi Germany today. The situation was not aided by the actions of the Sultan-Khalifah Abdul Hamid breaking his promises of better treatment of the Christians that he made ate the Berlin Congress. [32]
3.4 The Massacres of the 1890s
On the other hand, the Ottomans continued to massacre whole Christian communities, the most notable event being the massacres of 1894-96 when thousands of Armenian and Assyrian Christians - over 300,000 - were brutally murdered at the instigation of the Red Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The German alliance had given him confidence against any European reaction, and he was proved correct. Six thousand Armenian Christians were butchered in Constantinople alone. [33] In Britain, Gladstone came out of retirement to demand action against the Ottomans, and the British Government did indeed approach other Powers on the subject, but there was no interest in taking any measures. [34] Facing nationalist partisans in Macedonia, the last European province still under complete Ottoman control, Turkish forces were lacking in restraint. Faced with an uprising in Crete in 1897, the Turkish authorities not only suppressed the rebellion but went to war with Greece, defeating the old enemy, only to have the Powers intervene and to insist upon a Christian Governor for the island.
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30-06-2004 06:33
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