Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead

“ What has happened is no less than the rebirth of Islam. We all know from our school books that Islam began with Mohammed in Mecca, that under his immediate successors it conquered the greater part of the civilized world, and that there was developed within the century a civilization without a contemporary rival. We may further remember that the original Arab rulers were supplanted by Persians, Moors, and Turks, and that the civilization was transformed and then began to decline. ”

“ What happens in Mecca becomes matter for more than amusement when we realize that hundreds of thousands of men under our own flag feel exactly the same sentiments toward that city that other millions of our fellow-citizens feel toward Rome. ”

“ Few of us realize that Islam is one of the most potent forces in the world today, that it counts its adherents by the hundred millions, that in the waste places of the earth it converts its hundreds where Christianity wins its tens, that its followers occupy a belt of the best territory on earth, extending from Morocco and the Sudan to China and the Philippines. ”

“ In Egypt and in Babylonia alike, we have the city-state, a section of land, rarely more than a man could cover in a day's walk, devoted to agriculture, and with its centre in a village which in time of peace furnished a market-place for the simple industrial needs of the peasant, and in war could furnish protection against enemy raids. ”

“ Faisul, in assisting the oppressed, has only performed one of the first duties of our religion and of the Arab's faith. I say with confidence and pride that the Armenian race and other races in similar plight are regarded by us as partners in weal and woe. We ask God before everything to give us strength to enable us to do them helpful service by which to prove to the world the true feelings of Islam, whose watchword is freedom. ”

“ The Assyrian peace was indeed a very welcome change from the petty wars which were destroying the life of the east, and the Aramaean and Phoenician merchants were not slow to seize the opportunities which the Assyrian noble scorned. Thought followed trade along roads formerly taken by armies, and the deportations increased the cultural unification of the empire. For those who believe in cultural unification, the value of the system is obvious. There are those, however, who believe that smaller nations have their rights and their value to history. ”

“ The pure Arab is an extreme individualist, and there is much the same spirit among the others who speak Arabic. The Near East has rarely been a unity, and then generally under foreign control. If Muslim Arabs could for once be induced to abandon their old time desert individualism, there is still the fact that they do not comprise all the Arab speaking population, and that they are not a religious unity among themselves. The true Arab of the desert permits his religion to sit lightly upon him, and with the mass of the Muslim Arabs, is nominally Sunni or orthodox, though without fanaticism. ”

“ To those who have thought of the empire as a despotism, there comes a shock of surprise when they find the Persians, after the Ionic revolt, actually introducing democracies into the cities of Asia Minor; still more strange does it seem that the democracies of Athens and of the other Greek city-states were pro-Persian up to the very outbreak of the Great War. ”

“ General Maude, in the proclamation issued after the capture of Baghdad, expressed the "hope and desire of the British people and the nations in alliance with them that the Arab race may rise once more to greatness and renown among the peoples of the earth, and that it shall bind itself together to this end in unity and concord ... that you may be united with your kinsmen in north, east, south, and west, in realizing the aspirations of your race." ”

“ In the last analysis, it is still the Golden Rule which measures a man and a religion. We all know how "Christian" Germany was responsible for the murder or deportation of millions of unfortunate Armenians. On the borders of the desert east of Palestine, Faisul, son and general of the Hejaz Sultan, found some of the unfortunates the Young Turk had left to perish. He freed them, aided them to the best of his ability, and sent out of the country such as wished. An Armenian Pasha in Egypt sent him this telegram: "Every Armenian throughout the world is today the Ally of the Arab movement." ”

“ None the less, nationalism of a sort persisted. Three quarters of a century after the death of Alexander, the eastern half of the empire had relapsed into Orientalism, and in another century the old culture-lands of Babylonia, Assyria, Media, and Persia had followed. Astonishingly little of Greek culture was left behind. As a single illustration, we have cuneiform business documents from Uruk, one of the Babylonian city-states of former days, which date from the very end of the Seleucid period. Aside from the dating by Macedonian kings, the presence of a half-dozen Greek names. ”

“ America is again brought into contact with the Near East in Palestine. Zionism has received the support of many of our citizens of Jewish descent and there are few Christians but would rejoice that there is hope of a "Return to Zion." None the less, we cannot overlook the obstacles to a Zionist state. The majority of the population of Palestine, descendants of pre-Mosaic Canaanites, are Muslims, and there exists a large sprinkling of Christians. The site of Solomon's temple is the third most holy Muslim shrine. When Jersualem was taken by General Allenby, it was not handed over to the Jews. ”

“ In the case of Egypt, it needs no proof that the long thin line of civilization along the Nile, where city-state bounded city-state on but two sides, up stream and down, was not conducive to unity, and that such a condition bred a localism which broke up Egypt into its constituent parts every time that the central power weakened. ”

“ British policy in the east does indeed rest on Muslim support and when he points out the relative numbers of Muslims and of Jews in the world and the number who today support Britain, he brings forward what after all must be the most serious objection, from the British point of view, to an independent Palestine. ”

“ Today, when irrigation is the great problem, we see that irrigation must be based on the Euphrates, not the Tigris, and that inevitably means the control of the Euphrates watershed far to the north of the barrier range by the power which owns Mesopotamia.
Central Syria affords a problem of more than usual complexity. The inhabitants of Mount Lebanon are among the best of the earth in physical and mental strength. Unfortunately, half are Christians, the other half Druses, an unorthodox Muslim sect, and warfare between the two is the one theme of Lebanon history. ”

“ Such a position, of danger and of opportunity alike, could not but develop in the Assyrians the spirit which found its only worthy activity in war and in government, which looked down with contempt on the merchant princes of the south. While the earlier Assyrian monarchs were, as they called themselves, "kings of kings", the formal change was made by Ashur-nasir-apal and the conquered states began to be placed directly under provincial governors. ”

“ First, a new state has come into the world; and, whatever aid it may receive from the Entente Powers, it must be independent in every sense, or Muslim thought will be outraged. At present, it occupies only the Hejaz, the strip along the west coast of Arabia, with the holy cities, plus a line of advance up the Mecca Railroad to Syria, but its claims are far wider, even to Syria as a whole. Yemen is in anarchy, with the chance that the anarchy will be ended with some sort of British rule, for Yemen forms the back country to Aden, and Aden commands the exit of the Red Sea, the route to India. ”

“ These lands pay, not taxes but rent, and the king is not so much monarch as landlord. Divine right to the land, whether in the Hellenistic period or in the twentieth century after Christ, meant loss of individualism, dynastic wars, a total denial of nationalism. ”

“ He is slow, stolid, solid, rather contemptuous of the man from the south who is quicker in guile as in the field of the intellect. He takes over and patronizes, by virtue of his being a better soldier and ruler, a culture he is incapable of producing. ”

“ Large as is the degree of truth in his claim, in the almost universal backsliding to a regime of tooth and claw, which has proved that after all the so-called retarded races are not such distant brothers, far more can be learned from the history of the ancient Near East. ”

“ With such a confession of faith, we need not wonder that of the two hundred and fifty million Muslims of the world, a bare five per cent was ever on the side of our opponents, that nearly the entire remainder, before the breakdown of Russia, was definitely pledged to the cause of liberty, that many were fighting side by side with our boys in France. ”

“ To them come bands of pilgrims, who will not give a drink of water to the fainting traveller, lest he defile the cup by lack of orthodoxy, who work themselves up into a frenzy in acting the sacred dramas which relate the death of Hassan and Hussein, the murdered grandsons of the Prophet, until the blood flows from the self-inflicted wounds, and the stranger betakes himself away for safety. ”

“ Prophecy has never been more at a discount than at the present, and yet we may venture the prediction that here we have an event of world meaning, that problems are raised which America must aid in settling, that the historians of the future may see in this event one of the most important results of the war. Americans have devoted little enough attention to the Near Eastern Question as a whole ”

“ Babylonia is largely occupied by Shias, or Dissenters, who are among the fanatics of the world. Here are the sacred cities of the Persians, Kerbela, Nejf, Kadhemin, with their minarets plated with solid gold, their trade in corpses brought from afar to be buried in the sacred soil where once flowed the blood of Ali, martyred son-in-law of the Prophet. ”

“ Yet when he arrived in London, he could declare "The two main branches of the Semitic family, Arabs and Jews, understand one another, and I hope that, as a result of interchange of ideas at the Peace Conference, which will be guided by ideals of self-determination and nationality, each nation will make definite progress towards the realization of its aspirations. Arabs are not jealous of Zionist Jews, and intend to give them fair play, and the Zionist Jews have assured the Nationalist Arabs of their intention to see that they, too, have fair play in their respective areas. ”

“ The lands belonging to Muslim mosques and schools, to Christian churches and monasteries, add the complication of vested interest. Much of the remainder is owned by Christian and Muslim notables and they are up in arms over the new invasion. Massmeetings of Christians and Muslims have been held, protection has been demanded against forced sales under unfair conditions, and the use of Arabic as the only official language. ”

“ The Jewish land-holding must first of all be greatly increased. By democratic legislation this could be brought about, with due regard to the rights of all other inhabitants. There was ample elbow-room there, as the land was very sparsely populated. It is obvious that a vast population can be brought into the country without the slightest encroachments upon the rights of the Arab peasant." Such, somewhat condensed, is the statement made by Dr. Weizmann, chairman of the Zionist Commission sent out under the auspices of the British government. ”

“ To the man of the south, he is a northern barbarian, speaking a language which has no connection with the sacred speech used by the Prophet and preserved to posterity in the Koran. He clings to customs which are only nominally glossed over by the Sacred Law and is no fit successor to the Prophet. ”

“ He is a soldier without superior, has much administrative ability, and, where he has not been corrupted by intermarriage with other races or by so-called "Liberalism" in the guise of the pro-German "Young Turk," he is, man for man, the equal of his western brother of similar social standing. ”

“ By their action in this war, as well as by the weight of their numbers and their unrivalled position at the very heart of the old world, they demand and will secure adequate treatment at the peace table. ”

“ For two generations, American missionaries have carried on work in the Lebanons which can only be termed magnificent. The Syrian Protestant College in Beirut has been a worthy rival of the Jesuit institution. ”

“ American ways have been introduced by its staff of American teachers, the scientific investigation of the country has begun, on the football field the most diverse races and religions have learned team work and self-control. The lower classes have meanwhile migrated to America. No village in the most remote mountains but will furnish a man to salute you with "Hello there, you an American? ”