In spite of the accumulated evidence which on the surface points to a contrary conclusion, the Osmanli is not and never has been a religious fanatic like the Arab Moslem.[140] He is not by nature zealous or enthusiastic, nor is he by nature cruel. Docile, tractable, gentle, in a word, lovable--this is the verdict of the traveller who has had an opportunity of knowing that portion of the Moslem population of the Ottoman Empire which is popularly called Turkish. Other influences of their religion than hatred for the Christian have prevented the Osmanlis from winning and keeping a place among the civilized peoples of the world. Whatever one may claim in abstract theory for the Koran and the whole body of Moslem teaching, its practical concrete results have been ignorance, stagnation, immorality, subserviency of womanhood, indifference, paralysis of the will, absence of incentive to altruism. These are the causes of the irremediable decay of every Mohammedan empire, of every Mohammedan people. The government and the ruling classes of the Ottoman Empire are negatively rather than positively evil. There is nothing inherently bad about the Osmanli. He is inert, and has thus failed to reach the standards set by the progress of civilization. He lacks ideals, and has thus shocked the enlightened conscience of the modern world. By the law of the survival of the fittest, he has been cast aside. But when we compare the early Osmanlis with the Byzantines and with the other elements in the Balkan peninsula, it is the Osmanlis who must be pronounced the fittest. They were fresh, enthusiastic, uncontaminated, energetic. They had ideals: they had a goal. As it is with the individual, so it is with the nation. Ideals are lost when the goal is reached. Decay sets in when the struggle for existence ceases. Pressed on the one side by his Turkish neighbours and on the other by the danger of including in his dominions a large and unassimilated mass of Christians, Orkhan was wise enough to desist from any attempt at forcible conversion. But some _modus vivendi_ had to be arranged. A mere raider would have massacred and destroyed, and the empire he built would not have outlived the century of its birth. Orkhan was neither raider nor invader. He lived in the country of his father and of his grandfather. Many of his lieutenants--certainly his ablest ones[141]--were descendants of the oldest stock in Asia Minor. His nation, if it was to be a nation, depended upon at least a partial assimilation of the Byzantines. As his dominions increased, it became clear that there had to be some distinction between Moslem and Christian other than a profession of faith. He must devise some reward, which would be so attractive that the Christians, especially the higher classes among them, would change their faith in order to secure its benefits. This was the problem.