Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1882 — Mohammedan Sensualism. [ARTICLE]

Mohammedan Sensualism.

No one of the Mohammedan races has carried out the license given to sensual passion by the Koran and the adhering tradition to such an extent as have the Ottoman Turks, and no race has suffered so much from that license. The evil consequences are far-reaching and baleful in the extreme. It is to feed Turkish sensuality that the slave trade throughout the empire and in the interior of Africa is maintained. The beautiful, fair daughters who are purchased from the Georgians and Circassians also find their way at last to the harems of Constantinople, Brusa, Smyrna, Adrianople, Aleppo, Bagdad, and other towns and cities of Asia Minor. One of the direct results of this sensuality is that the Turks have degenerated physically during the past 200 years. That the conquerers of Constantinople were a hardy race of great physical strength there can be no doubt; that the great majority of modern Turks are of an effeminate type is equally certain. Very many of them are persons of fine appearance, but they are physically weak, without elasticity, giving the impression of men who have lost their yitality. The same may be said even more emphatically of Turkish women; they are small in stature, of a sickly complexion, easily fatigued by slight exertion* and become prematurely old. After the age of 40 all feminine beauty is gone; the eyes have become sunken, the cheeks hollow, and the face wrinkeled; and there remains no trace of the activity and physical strength often seen in English women of 65 or even of 70 years of age. Another immediate resalt of the prevailing sensuality is the mental imbecility of multitudes of the Ottoman Turks; great numbers among them are intellectually stupid. Many even of the young men have the vacant look which borders close on the idiotic state. Severe mental application is for them almost a physical impossibility. It is well known that in all branches of business where considerble activity is required the Turks employ Christians to work for them, This is owing, not so much to a lack of education, or to a general want of energy, as in many cases to a mental incanacity which often amounts to real imbecility. Obvious illustrations of the special topic now discussed is furnished by the royal family itself. Sultan Abdul Mejid, Sultan Abdul Aziz, and the deposed Sultan Murad were all men of depraved minds, vicious habits, intemperate and sensual in the extreme, and were alike devoid of moral character and mental capacity. Mental incapacity, however, from the causes alleged is not eonflned by any means to the wealthy and aristocratic elasses; it is found in all grades of society.—The British Quarterly review.