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The Great Island
Turkish women had been the downfall even of Greek bishops, thereby
causing incalculable injury to these ecclesiastics themselves; and also
bringing infinite scandal on their profession. ‘These inconveniences ’ ,
says Pashley, ‘the Cretan mode of warfare effectually prevented.’
Once the island settled down under Turkish rule, however, there was
no time for perpetual animosity. Certainly, even until the end of the
nineteenth century, the latent animosity could he fanned into flame, as
in the 1897 rebellion. Certainly renegade Muslims were often intolerable
to their brother Cretans. Still, behind the quarrels, revolts and
bitternesses, the two creeds got along together. It was in any case the
privileges that went with Islam which caused the animosity, more than
religious differences. The soil was not fertile for religious quarrels. The
entire rural population spoke Greek, and Pashley found that even
among the aghas Greek was usually the mother tongue. Gibbon’s words
apply to Muslim as well as Christian: ‘In the East, as well as in the
West, the Deity is addressed in an obsolete tongue, unknown to the
majority of the congregation.’ Cretan Mohammedans drank wine.
Their knowledge of the Koran was minimal.
There was no objection to the Mohammedan marrying a Christian
woman. The objection came from the Christian side; such a woman
would be refused the sacrament until and unless she renounced her
husband, it might be on the deathbed. She could hardly be prevented,
however, from attending church. La Motraye in 1710 described a
happy mixed-marriage: ‘Ce couple vivoit fort bien ensemble: Ali-oglou
alloit a la mosque’e, et safemme a I’eglUe. Pour les enfanis, Us etount ikvez
dans la Mahomelisme. 11 ne faisoit point de scruple d’allumer pour elk la lampe
les samedis, devant I’image de la Panagia’ A hundred years later Mohammedans
were still paying their respects to the Virgin, and standing godfather
to Christian children.
Thus when we are told that in the eighteenth century the Mohammedans
outnumbered the Christians by 200,000 to 60,000 we must
remember first that the vast majority of these Mohammedans were
Cretan, second that their faith was of a peculiar, bibulous Cretan
nature. There were also a few crypto-Christians - probably not many.
Pashley traced the history of one distinguished family, the Kurmulidhes
of the Messara, whose children were secretly baptized with Christian
names; then later circumcised and called Ibrahim or some such
Mohammedan name. The family had influence, which they used with
the Turks on behalf of the Christians in the Messara. But sometimes
they were troubled with doubts about the propriety of this game.
Eventually one of them went to the bishop of Jerusalem and asked his
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