Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 May 1877 — The Sanjak-Sherif. [ARTICLE]

The Sanjak-Sherif.

Even if English capitalists were not the creditors of the Porte, it is easy to discern why, if Her Majesty abandon the position of neutrality which is not very firmly taken, her sword and her purse will be at the service of the Sultan. In her Indian dominions she is the sovereign of more Musselmans than are found in all Turkey, and the interest she has in siding with the spiritual leader of so many millions of her subjects is obvious. Though head of a branch of the Christian Church and hereditary Defender of the Faith, the Queen of England has fewer Christian than Mohammedan followers, and should the Sultan choose to make the current war one of religion, Her Majesty might be compelled to choose bej tween tie loss of a portion of her Indian Empire and an active support of the Crescent against the Cross. As a Turk, the Sultah could not shake the loyalty of the Mussulmans of Hindustan, but should he take the field as Commander of the Faith ful and unfurl the Sanjak-Sherif, it would be notice to the adherents the world over of the most fanatical of all forms of religion that Allah called upon them to strike down the Christian dogs and die, if need be, to save the temporal power of the Mahommedan Pope. v The effects of the English diplomatic agent at Constantinople are directed toward the localizing of the war, but more especially to the prevention of an acceptance of the Russian invitation to enter upon a war of religion. England fears to see the Banner of the Prophet unfurled. In a crusade against the Christian emblem she dare not take a part, yet Would she be able to keep down Mussulman insurrection in India? Fighting the Crescent, Russia must have the sympathy of Christian people ; but can England endure the capture of Constantinople by Russia, even if it be followed by the planting upon St. Sophia’s of the Cross, the emblem of that faith which the Queen is sworn to defend ? The English Government, then, is deeply interested in giving to the Sultan’s attitude that of a sovereign fighting for his empire, not that of a pontiff warring for the supremacy of his church and animating his followers by every art of the bigot and the ecclesiastical demagogue against the followers of Jesus. The Mohammedan, whether the immediate subject of the Sultan or owing allegiance to some other Asiatic despot, reveres the Sanjak-Sherif as the most sacred of emblems. A fanatical priesthood will not suffer the faithful of any land to forget the significance of its appearance on a battle-field where the Commander of the Faithful leads. It must wave in triumph or the Mussulman must die. There is no alternative. It now reposes in a mosque at Constantinople, where it is wrapped and rewrapped in coverings of silk, carefully guarded by emirs who never cease their supplications to Allah that it may be saved to signal some great triumph for its prophet. It was Mohammed’q, own banner. If, in the lapse of centuries, it has disappeared, and a counterfeit has taken its place, as is sometimes represented, the change works no difference in the devotion of the blind follower of the Prophet. He believes that it is the veritable curtain that hung before the door of the favorite wife of Mohammed, and his life’s blood leaps to flow in its defense. It descended to Omar, the Second Caliph, and came down thence to the Caliphs of Bagdad and Kahira, and was borne across the Bos phorus by Amuralh lll.— Chicago Timet.