mi;... 
 
 The Ulomen of Turkcv 
 Bv the Revolution 
 
 BY REV. J. STEWART CRAWFORD 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SYRIAN PROTESTANT COLLEGE AT BEIRUT, SYRIA 
 
 Woman's Presbyterian Board of Missions 
 OF THE Northwest. 
 
 Room 48, 328 Wabash Avenue, Chicago. 
 
 Price 2 cents; 20 cents per dozen. 
 
The wonderful awakening which 
 has taken place in the Turkish Empire 
 promises as much blessing to the 
 women of the nation as to its men. 
 Women had a share in bringing about 
 that revolution. The world thinks of 
 it as brought about by the political ac- 
 tivities of the young Turk party, and 
 yet women contributed greatly to the 
 success of the movement. The young 
 Turks were compelled to carry on 
 their operations with the utmost se- 
 crecy. For a generation an army of 
 spies has watched them with murder- 
 ous hate. It was not safe for any 
 member of the Society to know too 
 many of his fellow members, or to 
 communicate with more than a very 
 few. Small groups of four or five 
 formed the ' 'stations' ' in a great ' 'un- 
 derground railway." Bach member 
 of such a groups of conspirators was in 
 connection with some other group 
 also, and brought news from one to 
 the other. Meanwhile he kept as a 
 secret from his fellows in each group 
 the names of those with whom he as- 
 sociated elsewhere. Thus each man 
 bore the burden of as few secrets as 
 possible. These secrets, were, how- 
 ever, shared to a great extent by the 
 wives and sisters of the revolutionists. 
 These women often acted as messen- 
 
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gers between tlie groups, finding in 
 the seclusion of the harem and the con- 
 cealment of the veil an immunity from 
 search which was denied their male 
 relatives. Thus women played an im- 
 portant part in the long preparation 
 for the moment when the blow should 
 be struck. 
 
 Not only were the secrets, in many 
 cases, shared by women, but even 
 more widely were the sufferings of 
 the young Turk party shared by loved 
 ones in the harem. Through more 
 than thirty years men were imprisoned, 
 assassinated, or banished by the Gov- 
 ernment because they were found to 
 be associated with the secret Reform 
 Movement. In each case women were 
 left to mourn the loss of husband, 
 brother, or son. Thousands of pat- 
 riotic men fled for their lives when 
 they found suspicion was resting upon 
 them. Rarely were they able to visit 
 their homes again until the revolution 
 came. The women who thus remained 
 at home, to suffer in secret, numbered 
 many thousands. Through this bap- 
 tism of suffering, for men and women 
 alike, the Turkish Revolution came to 
 be a moral movement. This is illus- 
 trated by the story of Midhat Pasha. 
 Early in the reign of Abd-ul-Hamid, 
 the scholarly patriot, Midhat, was 
 
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asked to draw up a Constitution. 
 Thie provisions of that document were 
 put in operation for a few months, but 
 the Sultan never meant to submit to 
 constitutional control, except for a 
 period long enough to deceive the re- 
 formers. As soon as he had opportu- 
 nity to gather the reins of power into 
 his own hands, that cruel autocrat 
 suspended the Constitution, and later 
 imprisoned its author in a lonely fort- 
 ress in southern Arabia. But Abd-ul- 
 Hamid did not feel secure on his 
 throne as long as such an able reform- 
 er as Midhat was still alive. A trusted 
 henchman was sent from the palace, 
 down the Red Sea, to strangle Midhat 
 and bring his head to Constantinople, 
 that his imperial master might be cer- 
 tain that he had been put out of the 
 way. When Midhat was told that he 
 must die, he asked for a few hours in 
 order that he might write to friends 
 and loved ones. The letter he then 
 penned to his wife has since the Revo- 
 lution been published. It is regarded 
 by competent judges as one of the 
 gems of literature. Midhat wrote to 
 his wife that he knew he must die, but 
 that he believed his death would serve 
 the cause he loved, and he called upon 
 her to bring up their son so that he 
 should take a leading part in the great 
 
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reform that was certain to come. 
 ; Well has Midhat Pasha been called 
 ; the John the Baptist of the Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 As multitudes of Turkish women had 
 shared so nobly in the costly work of 
 preparation for the Revolution it was 
 only right that they, and thousands 
 more of their sisters, should share in 
 the blessings of the new regime. With 
 the return of the political exiles, many 
 and touching were the reunions of loved 
 ones long separated. The fact that 
 the revolution was so nearly bloodless, 
 meant a great deal to the women of 
 the Empire. The new movement was 
 from the first wisely directed. It was 
 initiated and controlled by men of high 
 ideals. . These leaders were young 
 Muhammedans of some education who 
 had begun to read European literature. 
 From their study of history and 
 science, sociology and ethics, they 
 had imbibed noble ideals which were 
 in effect the result of Christianity. 
 The conception of human brother- 
 hood which they grasped, and which 
 they have ardently preached to the 
 nation, was brought to the world 
 by the Gospel and not by the Koran. 
 The true source of their patriotic 
 <principles is only dimly realized by 
 'them, and they still believe that there 
 
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is room for these principles within 
 Islam. We have heard of the effect 
 of new wine on old bottles and can 
 afford to wait for the truth to work. 
 Meanwhile the women of the Empire 
 give thanks for a bloodless revolution 
 which they had feared would cost 
 them the lives of many loved ones. 
 
 The reformers have from the first 
 aimed to raise the status of women. 
 Rarely has a ' ' Young Turk ' ' been 
 other than a monogamist. They have 
 always sought to educate their women 
 and girls. In many of their homes 
 the husband and the wife are seeking 
 to reach the European standard of 
 sympathy and cooperation. One symp- 
 tom of the new spirit that has begun 
 to prevail is seen in a touching story 
 from Damascus. The Governor Gen- 
 eral there, though not a member of 
 the young Turk organization, has al- 
 ways been in sympathy with them. 
 His first wife had no children and she, 
 like Sarah, urged him to take another 
 wife. He accordingly bought a beau- 
 tiful Circassian girl and educated her 
 until she was able to be a companion 
 to him. Her children were brought 
 up by the two wives together. A sur- 
 prising degree of harmony prevailed 
 in the home, according to the testi<- 
 mony of the European ladies wh()* 
 
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visited them. After a few years of 
 I such life together, the second wife fell 
 / ill and died. Before her death she 
 asked her husband to bury her body 
 in a cofl&n, as was done by European 
 Christians. Every Muhammedan body 
 is laid in the grave on its right side, 
 so that the face looks toward the holy 
 shrine of Mecca. The grave is then 
 arched over with stones, before the 
 earth is thrown in, so that there is 
 room for the dead to rise up on to their 
 knees, in order to reply to the two ex- 
 amining angels who are believed to 
 visit the grave a few hours after 
 burial. The service at the graveside 
 consists of directions to the dead as to 
 the replies to be made to these angels. 
 When the Governor announced his 
 purpose to carry out his wife's wishes 
 and bury her body in a cofl&n, all the 
 religious leaders in the city rose in 
 protest. To them it meant that the 
 burial service would be a mockery and 
 that the dead would be prevented 
 from doing honor to the angels, and 
 thus her hope of heaven would be 
 lost. The discussion shook the city, 
 but the Governor was firm, and the 
 poor wife's last request was honored. 
 Events like these are breaking up the 
 pcclesiastical shell of old Islam. 
 ' When the constitution of Midhat 
 
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Pasha was once more proclaimed in 
 Constantinople, in July, 1908, women , 
 of the new school attended public as- ' 
 semblies unveiled. When this fact 
 was published over the Empire, the 
 confidence of the Moslem masses in 
 the new regime was greatly shaken. 
 The devout majority feared that the 
 young Turk movement was tending 
 toward irreligion and that the votes of 
 the populace were being given to es- 
 tablish in power a party whose princi- 
 ples were anti-Islamic. So serious 
 was the crisis that the liberals volun- 
 tarily consented to go back to the use 
 of the veil rather than imperil the 
 cause which would ultimately bring 
 true liberty. A fundamental principle 
 of the young Turk party has been that 
 the Empire can only be reformed from 
 within, and that new and higher ideals 
 must rule the life of the nation. This 
 theory is born of Christian influences 
 and forms a new point of contact with 
 the Gospel. Never before has the 
 Empire presented such opportunities 
 to the heralds of God's Saving Power, 
 and never before have its men and 
 women been in such need of a personal 
 Saviour who shall be the incarnation 
 of their new ideals. 
 
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