This Contempt Has
Not Decreased; But Animosity Gives Way To An Exterior Politeness,
Whenever The Interest Of The Mohammedan Is Concerned.
The degree of
toleration enjoyed by the Christians, depends upon the interest of the
provincial government under which they live:
And if they happen to be
favoured by it, the Turkish subject bows to the Christian. In all the
eastern countries which I have visited, more privileges are allowed to
Christians in general than the Moslim code prescribes; but their
condition depends upon the fiat of the governor of the town or district;
as they experienced about seven years since at Damascus, under Yousef
Pasha, when they were suddenly reduced to their former abject state.
Twenty years ago, a Copt of Egypt was in much the same situation as a
Jew is now in Barbary; but at present, when the free-thinking, though
certainly not liberal, Mohammed Aly finds it his interest to conciliate
the Christians, a Greek beats a Turk without much fear of consequences
from the mob; and I know an instance of an Armenian having murdered his
own Muselman servant, and escaped punishment, on paying a fine to
government, although the fact was publicly known. Convinced as the Turks
must now be, in many parts of the East, of the superiority of these
Europeans, whom they cannot but consider as the brethren of their
Christian subjects, their behaviour towards the latter will,
nevertheless, be strictly regulated by the avowed sentiments of their
governors; and it would be as easy for Mohammed Aly by a single word to
degrade the Christians in Egypt, as he found it to raise them to their
present consideration, superior, I believe, to what they enjoy in any
other part of Turkey.
The hatred against Christians is nearly equal in every part of the
Ottoman empire; and if the Moslims sacrifice that feeling, it is not to
the principles of charity or humanity, but to the frown of those who
happen to be in power; and their baseness is such, that they will kiss
[p.207] to-day the hands of him whom they have trodden under foot
yesterday. In examining into the fanatical riots, many of which are
recorded in the chanceries of the European consuls in the Levant, it
will generally be found that government had a share in the affrays, and
easily succeeded in quelling them. The late Sultan Selim, in his
regenerating system, which led him to favour the Christians, found no
opposition from the mass of his people, but from the jealous
Janissaries; and when the latter had prevailed, the demi-Gallicized
grandees of Constantinople easily sunk again into Sunnys. Sometimes,
indeed, a rash devotee, or mad Sheikh or Dervish at the head of a few
partisans, affords an exception to these general statements; and will
insult a Christian placed in the highest favour with the public
authorities, as happened at Damascus in 1811, to the Greek Patriarch,
after Yousef Pasha had been repulsed: but his countrymen, although
cherishing the same principles, and full of the same uncharitableness,
seldom have the courage to give vent to their feelings, and to follow
the example of the Saint.
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