The circumstances have been narrated to me as follows:--
Quite in the early days of Abd el Aziz's reign a certain statesman, a
man of original genius and profoundly versed in the knowledge both of
Europe and of the East, and especially of the religious history of
Islam, came to Constantinople. He was a friend of Rushdi Pasha, then the
Grand Vizier, and of others of the party of Young Turkey, men who were
seeking by every means, fair and foul, to reorganize and strengthen the
central authority of the Empire. To these, and subsequently, in an
interview, to the Sultan himself, he urged the advantage which might
accrue to the Ottoman Government both as a means of controlling the
provinces and as a weapon against European diplomacy if the spiritual
authority of the Sultan as Caliph were put more prominently forward. He
suggested especially to Abd el Aziz that his real strength lay in the
reorganization not of his temporal but of his spiritual forces; and he
expressed his wonder that so evident a source of strength had been so
little drawn on. He pointed out the importance of the Mussulman
populations outside the Empire to the Sultan, and urged that these
should be brought as much as possible within the sphere of
Constantinople influence.
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