we may call the pacific side of their
mission was to substitute the Turkish language for Arabic. Kemal Bey, a
Nationalist of Salonika, with the help of Ziya Bey, collected round him
a group of young writers, and these proceeded to translate the Koran out
of Arabic into Turkish, and to publish the prayers for the Caliphate in
their own language, and orders went out that these revised versions
should be used in all mosques. Turkish was to be the official language
for use in all public proclamations, and, with Prussian thoroughness, it
was even substituted on such railway tickets as had hitherto been
printed in Arabic. The new Turkish tongue (Yeni Lisan) had also to be
purged of all foreign words, but here some difficulty was experienced,
for Persian and Arabic formed an enormous percentage in the language as
hitherto employed, and the promoters of this Ottoman purity of tongue
found themselves left with a very jejune instrument for the rhapsodies
of their patriotic aims. Poets in especial (for the Nationalists, like
all well-equipped founders of romantic movements, had their bards) found
themselves in sore straits owing to the limited vocabulary; and we read
of one, Mehmed Emin Bey, who was forced to publish his odes in small
provincial papers, since no well-established journal would admit so
scrannel an expression of views however exalted.[1] But the translation
of the Koran was the greatest linguistic feat, and Tekin Alp, the most
prominent exponent of Nationalism, refers to it as one of the noblest
tasks undertaken by the new movement. It mattered not at all that by
religious ordinance the translation of the Koran into any other tongue
was a sin. 'The Nationalists,' he tells us, 'have cut themselves off
from the superstitious prejudice.' A further attempt was made to
substitute Turkish letters for Arabic letters in the alphabet, but this
seems to have presented insuperable difficulties, and I gather that it
has been abandoned.

[Footnote 1: This thwarted poet retired from the Committee of Union and
Progress not long after, and his place was taken by Enver.]

The Ottomanisation of religion and language, then, was among the pacific
methods of spreading Pan-Turkism through the Empire. A monstrous idol
was set up, a Hindenburg idol, in front of which all peoples and
languages, not Christians alone, but Moslems, were bound to prostrate
themselves. Indeed it was against Arabs mainly that these provisions
were directed, for