Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Second Fascicle

“The Turks are intelligent, and studious as long as they have
chiefs to lead and conduct them in a positive direction. They are
utterly content. All their merits, even their feelings of heroism
and bravery, come from their traditionalism and strong character.
“First it is necessary to blunt their feelings of obedience, to
exterminate their spiritual bonds, and to weaken their religious
firmness. And the shortest way of doing this is to accustom them
to foreign thoughts and actions incompatible with their national
customs and faith.
“The day their faith is undermined, their real power, which has
brought the Turks to victory against forces which in outward
appearence are by far superior to them in power and in number,
will be undermined, too; and it will then be possible to topple
them by the ascendancy of material means. For this reason,
victories merely won in battlefields will not suffice for the
elimination of the Ottoman State. In fact, walking in this way
alone will stir the Turks’ dignity and honour, and so it may cause
them to penetrate into their own essence.
“What is to be done is, without letting the Turks notice
anything, to fulfill the atrophy in their construction.”
This letter is so important that it should be rewritten in
schoolbooks for students to memorize. The letter contains many
warning lessons, of which the following two are the most
important:
1— To accustom the Turks to foreign ideas and customs for
demolishing their faith and religion.
2— To complete the destruction in their construction without
the Turks noticing it.
And these goals can be achieved only by making the people
imitate the West’s beliefs, fashions, customs, traditions, and
immoralities.
Certainly, it is necessary to adopt the West’s scientific and
technical knowledge and its scientific improvements in every area.
Islam commands this. A hadîth-i sherîf states that it is necessary to
learn foreign languages. Zayd bin Thâbit ‘radiy-Allâhu ’anh’ says:
“Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ commanded me to learn
the Jewish language. I learned it. He would have me write most of
the letters which were to be sent to the Jews. He would have me
read the letters coming from them.” This report is written in detail
in Tirmuzî. Thus, Zayd learned the Ibrânî (Hebrew) and Suryanî
(Syriac) languages. The great Islamic savant Sayyid ’Abdulhakîm
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