A TURKISH APPEAL TO ALLAH.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 272, 16 November 1877, Page 4

A TURKISH APPEAL TO ALLAH.

Pera, Bth September.— La Illah ilia Allah, ne Mahammed il Ressoul Allah—-(ThevQ is no God but God, and Mahammed is his [Ressout] envoy e extraordinaire) ring through the still autumn air, as from the numerous minarets of the mosques of Constantinople the call to prayer floats down the banks and over the deep blue waters of the Bosphorus. It is Friday— the Mussulman's Sunday and 'the monotonous chant of the Muezzins calling " the faithful" to midday prayer breaks upon my. ears as lam writing. I say monotonous, for residents' in thi'a part of Pera are accustomed to hearing this appeal some four or five times daily, to say nothing of its disturbing them in the still hours of the night. This morning, however, the monotony is somewhat relieved, as in addition to the ordinary noontide appeal to Allah a special prayer has been drawn up by Sheik-ul Islam — the "Head of the Church" in Turkey, if I may thus translate the title — which, if it be granted, will secure the utter extermination of all Christians from off the face of the earth, leaving it in the possession of the Moslems alone. I have been fortunate in obtaining a copy, in Turkish of this prayer, a translation of which reads as follows :— " 0 most merciful God, have mercy on us and protect us thy faithful people. Almighty God, show no mercy to the infidels. Merciful Giver of all good [things, strengthen the Ottoman arms ; By thy powerful arm discomfit the proud and perfidious house of the impious. Glory be to God, the Lord of the Universe. The Grace and the blessings of God be upon our Lord, His Prophet Mohammed, and upon all His pious followers. Q God strengthen Thy Servant our Sultan, 'the chief of Tby favorite people. Protect us and our country, and sweep of the face of the earth all infidels opposed , to us and to our holy and true religion. Destroy, Almighty God, every vestige of the impious Russians, of the equally impious Hellenes, who are groping in the darkness of impiety like swine in the mire, and who have dared to raise their sacrilegious hands against Thy faithful people and against Thy Prophet Mohammed. Disperse, 0 God, their coalition ; scatter their assemblies; break, 0 God, their weapons, diminish and annihilate their ranks; send them, O God, to their destined place of punishment. Pour upon their heads, O God, all Tby wrath and indignation; place them, 0 God, in the central abode of the wicked; visit them with the indignation by which Thou hast hitherto punished Thine enemies. 0 God, oonfouud their tongues, let their blood flow in torrents; let their heads be trampled upon by Thy servants the Osmanlis; break down their authority, their rulers, their strongholds; exhaust their power. 0 God, make their children orphans, their wives widows, and their mothers mourners. Confound their mental faculties. O Gad of mercy, let there be left no vestige on the earth of the impious Russians, the Hellenes, the Slavonians, and other infidel Franks, allied to or sympathising with them. Encompass, them, 0 God, on e«ery side, with grievous plagues. Overthrow them with Thy terribie wrath, with fires, and massacres, and shipwrecks , by strangling, by pestilence, and by cholera; by famine and by earthquakes. Make their cities empty of inhabitants. Shake them by Thy eight avenging spirits. As these mischievous and impious infidels endeavor to injure us, let them, 0 God, suffer in their own eyes, in their senses, in their wives, in their children, and lastly, in their own lives. Let Thine anger and indignation, 0 God, be hurled upon them like hailstones; make them and their goods a plunder to all those who believe in Thee and Thy holy Prophet Mohammed, with whom be the grace and blessings of Almighty God."