Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/194

188 population of the absolute will of the Sultan that the women cover their faces with veils when they went in the streets—which met the ideal of the fanatic majority—and the necessity of Ramazan fasting was discussed and enforced everywhere. The ruined mesjids and the Mohametan chapels were repaired and opened for public prayers and the believers were enforced to attend them. The schools were started and religious leaders were sent to neglected Moslem villages and towns. Lightning-stricken minarets were repaired and the unceasing cry of muezzin was heard upon them. The disputed properties of the mosques were secured from the hands of the local beys or agas and delivered into the hands of the clergy. The annual pilgrim caravan of the Sultan, loaded with great riches and in Oriental pomp, started on its journey in the streets of Scutari, and continued for weeks, until the heavy-laden camels sat in front of the door of the kabeh, the holy temple at Mecca. The sacred mantle of the Prophet Mehamet, kept in the closets of the old seraglio, was kissed by the Sultan and all palace authorities every 14th of Ramazan, the memorial day of Mohamet's "journey to Heaven." The holy banner of the religious wars, ever ready to lead the Moslem hosts against the "infidels," showed itself in the hand of "the conqueror," Sultan Hamid—though he has never been out of the capital since his enthronement.

This central zeal made its favorable effect felt in the remotest parts of the empire, and a very great majority of the Moslem population thought Sultan