It is a miracle that any Armenians at all have been left to the present time. But it seems to me, that God purposely preserved some of them even to the beginning of the twentieth century to prove two things, namely, that the boasted Christian civilization of Europe is a Christless civilization, that Mohammedanism, after thirteen centuries of opportunity and trial has proved itself not a whit better than the barbarism of the past, and even worse in many respects. Some new warriors were preparing themselves to enter into the arena. Shah Ismail established and founded the Suffavean dynasty of Persia (1499). The Suffaveans claimed that Ali, the fourth Caliph, would have been the successor of Mohammed and the head of Islamism had not Abubeker, Omar, and Osman, usurped his right. They, moreover, claimed lineage from Ali, and thus to be the lawful successor of Mohammed. The Osmali sultans repudiated this right and descent. Though both the Persians and Turks venerate the false prophet, yet they divide the Mohammedans into two sects. The Turks are _sunees_, or _sonees_, orthodox, and they call the Persians _Sheahs_ or heterodox. This difference and the national jealousies between the Turks and Persians furnished these two Islam nations with an occasion for constant war and bloodshed which lasted over two centuries. But alas! the noble land of Ararat had to furnish them the battle-field, and the unfortunate “House of Torgarmah” to suffer the doleful consequence of their bloody conflicts. Sultan Selim I, who merited the title of “the cruel,” is believed to have caused the death of his father, Bajazet II. He had forced him to abdicate, and while on his way to Adrianople as an exile, he was murdered. Selim was fiercely intolerant in religion. Naturally, all the fanatics loved him. Turning his army of 140,000 eastward he subdued Armenia and Mesopotamia and conducted a successful war in Persia against Shah Ismail. The latter was defeated and barely escaped from capture (1514). Selim captured Tabriz and there he found a dethroned prince of Temur’s race and carried him to Constantinople. It was a fortunate thing for the Christians, that though this eastern campaign was a religious war it was conducted against the Sheahs or the heterodox Mohammedans; and a formal expression of opinion by the Ulema was, that there was “more merit in killing one Sheah than in shedding the blood of seventy Christians.” Selim’s savage intolerance was so fierce that he thought to annihilate every member of the sect in his dominions.[66]