Is then the Nizam-y-Gedid the only cause of
revolution? On what does your dispute now rest, and what answer can you
give to my question?” After I had thus spoken, some of them who were
disposed to hear reason yielded to conviction, and remained abashed,
having nothing to answer. But some others, less reasonable, who knew
nothing of the things which I had spoken, answered thus:—“What need I
know about the troubles that have formerly happened in the world? I am
well aware that those which now prevail are caused by the
Nizam-y-Gedid.” To these ignorant and pertinacious adversaries, I again
addressed myself in these terms:—“Disturbances having broken out in the
regions of France, the people eat each other’s flesh[59], and the
Crals[60] having declared war against them, for the space of exactly
fifteen years, battles have been fought without intermission, so that
the country of France has been turned upside down, and the inhabitants
have drank each other’s blood, and poured it out in the streets like a
torrent, and have, until this day, with the fury of dogs, changed their
country into a slaughter-house for swine. Behold such troubles are not
confined to[61] Frenghistan alone. Neither India, nor China, Arabia,
Persia, nor the new world[62], are at present exempt from confusion and
carnage. These things being so, is their source to be attributed to the
Nizam-y-Gedid? We may observe, likewise, that although trouble and
bloodshed prevail in Rumelia, yet, thanks be to God, Anatolia is free
from these calamities (may the ears of Satan be stopped with lead[63]).
Shall we say, then, that the fatal contagion of the Nizam-y-Gedid is
confined to Rumelia, and that it has not infected Anatolia; or rather
have not these things proceeded from the decrees of Providence? Should
not that consideration strike us? After reflecting and meditating on
what I have said, what reply can you make?”—“Good God!” says my
opponent, “I thought Rumelia alone had been disturbed.”—“Then,” I
replied, “if you are ignorant that every part of the world is thus
convulsed, and such things happen when there is no Nizam-y-Gedid, and
disturb the tranquillity of the universe, you should not, by any means,
impute the origin of dissension to that establishment.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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