THE MIRACLE A True Story the street. Mr Kleopas gestured towards the couch. "Sit down, sit down!" he said.    Despite his 70 years, he spoke in a sonorous voice that seemed to come from the depths of his being.    "Before you set off for Greece, dear boy, I want to tell you a few things which can't be taught in school and which nobody can tell you about without risking his life. It's a pity your sister isn't here to listen, too, but when you get to Greece, you must tell her yourself."    Miss Alexandra brought us each a little saucer of preserved fruit with a glass of water. The room was a small one and contained a table for four, a couch and a few chairs. There was a large carpet on the floor and on the walls hung several photographs in frames.    "The Turks," he began, "are a barbaric people. Just as a wild animal or a bird of prey tears its victim apart as soon as it's caught it, a Turk also has the ruthless and savage instinct of a creature in the jungle. He has an insatiable desire to conquer, an unquenchable passion to plunder; that is his nature - he is born with it and will remain so until he dies.    "The Turks originate from the nomadic tribes of Mongolia and China. When they moved west, some of these tribes converted to Islam, but they still retained the psychology of the predator. In 1037 AD these nomadic tribes set up their own empire which extended as far as Iraq, Syria and Palestine. One section managed to establish itself in Central Asia, creating a sultanate based in Iconium. It is from these nomads that the Ottoman Turks are directly descended. During the 300 years from 1300 to 1600, the Ottoman Empire was established through the use of weapons and violence, causing much bloodshed and destruction. The prophet Mohammed said that when the Turks were hungry, they took to stealing and pillaging. Having converted to Islam, the Turks threw out the Arabs and did enormous damage to the Islamic religion, adulterating and alienating it from its fundamental characteristics which were spiritual rather than material. They destroyed the oldest and most valuable source of information about Islam, the library at Baghdad. They distorted the Islamic religion deplorably and prevented the Arabic population from developing its faith on the basis of the tenets of the authentic Islamic religion.    "Al Mukaffa, a leading spiritual figure in the Islamic world in the 8th century, wrote of the Turks that they existed only to carry out brutal attacks on other peoples and nations in order to plunder and thus survive.    "One hundred and sixty years before Mehmet the Conqueror captured and enslaved Constantinople, Islam's most illustrious writer and poet, Saadi, recorded that the Turks were a bloodthirsty race, behaving much like wolves and spreading fear and terror in their path.    "During the 300 years when the Ottoman Turks were establishing the Ottoman Empire, the populations that fell under their power were plunged into spiritual and intellectual darkness. In order to convert all the peoples who lived in the conquered lands to the Islamic faith and create a corps of personal bodyguards for the Sultan, which became known as the Janissaries, the Turks put into effect an appalling system of child recruitment from amongst 'infidel' youngsters. This involved, simply, the forcible enlistment of Christian children who then underwent a harsh religious and military training which was aimed at producing individuals with a high degree of religious fanaticism, strict discipline and a blind allegiance to their superiors. Most of the children who were wrenched away from their families by the Turks were between 6 and 14 years of age.    "In 1601 Sultan Mehmet III sent an edict to the 75 and 76 Leonidas Koumakis THE MIRACLE A True Story If you prefer a hard copy of the book, please send an email to HEC-Books@hec.greece.org Previous Page | Initial Page | Site Map | Next Page (77th of 204) © For Internet 2001 HEC and Leonidas Koumakis. Updated on 19 June 2001.