Constantinople is the assembling place of pilgrimage for all
Mohammedans west of the Ural Mountains, who reach it by the Black Sea,
and could never be replaced to them by any new centre further south
among the Arab races, with whom they have little sympathy or direct
religious connection. A Caliph at Mecca or in Egypt could do little for
them, and the Turkish-speaking Sunites would have no university open to
them nearer than Bokhara. In this respect they would find themselves in
a far worse position than the Moors, however universally these may
become subject to Europe, and their religious disintegration would be a
mere question of time. I believe, therefore, that Islam must be prepared
for a loss, not only of political power in Europe and in Western Asia,
but also of the Mohammedan population in the Ottoman lands absorbed by
Russia. It will be a strange revenge of history if the Ottoman Turks,
whom Europe has for so many centuries held to be the symbolic figure of
Mohammedanism, shall one day cease to be Mohammedan. Yet it is a revenge
our children or our grandchildren may well live to see.
How far eastward the full results of this religious disintegration may
extend, it is perhaps fanciful to speculate.
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