"Gold is the great civilizer"

I should celebrate, for I have finally began writing my paper, now due in less than two weeks. However, I have written but a page, comprising little more than a restatement of my paper outline in the form of an introduction and thesis. If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, there is no sign yet of a life and blood pudding to speak of. Thus I will scatter to the wind any talk of celebration.

Now if what I just wrote sounds like it belongs in the nineteenth century, it's because I've been reading something that was written then. It's the observations of an American in the Middle East, originally from the December 1856 issue of Harper's, that I found under the topic Empire while browsing the Harper's web site. Some interesting parts:

'The bigotry of the Muslims is not unlike that of other religions. They adhere to their fanatical views just so long as it suits their purposes, but no longer. They adhere to their religion even to death. No class of men are more devoted to their creed; but, at the same time, the rigid requirements of it are easily strained to suit circumstances.

...But let no one imagine, on this account, that the hold of the Mohammedan religion on their intellects is any less strong.

The creed of the Mohammedan has always been incorrectly translated. It should read: “There is one God,” or, “God is God, and Mohammed is a prophet of God,” not “Mohammed is the prophet of God.” The ordinary translation would appear to imply that Mohammed was the only prophet; but, on the contrary, the Muslim believes in the divine mission of all the Old Testament prophets, and of Jesus Christ himself. They place Mohammed at the head of the prophets, because they believe him to have been the last and the best able to communicate the word of God to man. There is not, therefore, such a vast difference in the historical religion of Mohammedans and Christians; and it was a source of astonishment to me, as I learned more of their religion, to find how much, after all, we had in common, even in their views of the life and mission of Christ; for I could at all times talk freely with them so long as I did not differ from them.

...

The peculiarities of the Mohammedan religion are its appeals to the individual, and the equality which it gives to every person. It makes no distinctions among men, and the Sultan on his throne at Constantinople dare not violate its laws any more than the beggar at his gate.

It is this which has stood in the way of the advance of liberal principles in Turkey, and ten years ago I think there can be no doubt that the Sultan would have forfeited throne and life if he had ventured to issue the decree which has recently been issued, giving equal privileges in his dominions to men of all religions. And today, should [Sultan] Abdul Medjid utter the heresy that Mohammed is not a prophet of God, he would sleep with the camel-driver of Mecca in twenty-four hours, and his throne would pass to a more faithful representative of the founder of Islam. The Sultan is no higher in the mosque than the humblest pauper, except only as he is for the time the representative of the Prophet. The temporal power in Turkey is always necessarily the defender of the faith, and an appeal to the Sultan or the governor for the time, in the name of Mohammed, is never in vain.

...

The Koran and the traditions are the law of all Mohammedan countries, and they are the higher law, superior to every decree of Sultan or Viceroy. If therefore the clergy, who are the only doctors of the law, decide that a decree is contrary to the letter or the spirit of the Koran, it is equivalent to a decision by our courts in America that a law is unconstitutional, and it becomes a dead letter.

* * *

There are two ways in which Turkey may be Christianized, and neither of these is by simple preaching and teaching. The one way is by the contact of Western nations, Western manners, and Western gold.

Depend upon it, gold is the great civilizer. Gold will introduce the new on the wrecks of the old. The first effect of this Western influence will be infidelity, and when the nation is infidel it may be Christianized. This process is slowly going on now. Fewer Turks pray now than did formerly, and many who pray have their eyes open and look around at passing strangers. An infidel is within reach of missionary labor; a Mohammedan is not.

But there is another and a swifter process, which all observers of the East are hoping and working for. It is coming—it must come—it will come... Europe will find it necessary to divide the dominions of the Sultan, and the haughty Turk will have a Christian for his lord and master, and Christians for governors, magistrates, and police-officers. Then the terrible higher law of which we have spoken will have no power in the land.

When that time comes the religion of the False Prophet will vanish in a single generation. The children of Muslims, familiarized to Christian ideas, will laugh at their fathers' beards when they see them going through the absurdities of their worship; and fast young men, associating with Christians, and learning Christian manners and customs, will grow up to lord it over the lonely and deserted harems of the last of the Turks.

In anticipation of that day, which may come at any moment now—which will come in a few years at the latest—every missionary that can be sent to the Orient should be sent forthwith, and the strength and wealth of the Western churches should not be spared in the endeavor to give Protestant Christianity a prominence in the lands of the False Prophet.'