THE FUTURE OF TSLAM. 



73 



Frciicli scholava. Hence some sort of acquaintance with French 

 literature appears to be common in educated circles, and books 

 of criticism mainly dealing with French literature are pub- 

 lislied in Turkish and widely read. Such works assume an 

 acquaintance on the part of the reader with the literature whose 

 beauties they point out, or wliose characteristics they analyse. 

 Frencii novels are also translated in masses into Turkish, some- 

 what on the scale in which they are rendered into Italian : and 

 owing to the cheapness with which books can be produced from 

 Oriental presses they are widely read. Thus at a Turkish 

 bookseller's it is possible to procure not only translations of 

 t})ose works which are regarded as part of the literature of 

 Europe, but also of works of fiction of ephemeral interest, which, 

 as those who are acquainted with such works are aware, have a 

 tendency to follow rather stereotyped lines. With the innnediate 

 moral effect of these works I am not at present concerned ; nor 

 with the taste which they represent. But what is important is 

 the state of feeling on domestic matters which they assume ; the 

 condition of the society on which they are based and which they 

 doubtless faithfully portray. That condition is the outcome of 

 centuries of Western civilization, absolutely distinct from the 

 Mohammedan system, which, as instituted by the founder of 

 Islam, differed only for the worse from that of idolatrous 

 Arabia. The romance which fills the feuillctons of the Turkish 

 newspapers, which provides the literature of entertainment and 

 repose, is the romance as the European conceives it, of which 

 the environment is the European family, with its ideas of 

 women and men which differ so utterly from those which were 

 realized in the capitals of the Umayyads and Abasids, and of 

 the Osmanli's before the introduction of French influence. 



When the Turkish stylist endeavours to imitate the same 

 style, he is compelled to adapt himself to this European environ- 

 ment ; without it it is impossible to obtain the motives by which 

 scene can be made to follow scene, and complication to lead to 

 denouement. The institutions of Islam have in a Vv^ay to be 

 strained, ingenious combinations have to be devised, in order to 

 permit of the construction of a romance in the French style at 

 all. It must also be remembered that much of the French 

 literature that is translated is from the prudish point of viev/ 

 absolutely unobjectionable : ii is of value m respect of the 

 morals which it is intended to inculcate, not only in virtue of 

 the environment which it necessarily assumes. It is rare that 

 religious motives enter into this literature ; what it assumes is 

 not so much the standard supposed to be inculcated by a church, 



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