'We are no longer Mussulmans,--the
Mussulman saber is broken,--the Osmanlis will be driven out of
Europe by the _gaiours_, and driven through Asia to the regions
from which they first sprang. It is Kismet! We cannot resist
destiny!' I heard words to this effect from many Turks, as well
in Asia as in Europe."--_"Kismet; or the Doom of Turkey"
(London, 1853), p. 409._
A later Turkish traveler, Mr. Wilfred Scawen Blunt, says:
"Ancient prophecy and modern superstition alike point to the
return of the Crescent into Asia as an event at hand, and to
the doom of the Turks.... A well-known prediction to this
effect, which has for ages exercised its influence on the
vulgar and even on the learned Mohammedan mind,... places the
scene of the last struggle in northern Syria, at Homs, on the
Orontes. Islam is then finally to retire from the north, and
the Turkish rule to cease. Such prophecies often work their own
fulfilment."--_"Future of Islam," p. 95._
Thus native tradition and human forebodings have contemplated the
break-up of the Turkish power, as the course of the years has witnessed
the shrinkage of its territory and the ever-increasing difficulty of its
position.
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