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Turks Quotes

“...But the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis—as dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace.”

“Wegens de krapte zijn de meeste kinderen en jongeren geneigd om veel, talrijk en langdurig op straat te hangen, anders kibbelen ze met de divisie thuis, ledigheid is immers des duivels oorkussen, of ondervinden ze hinder van de ouders die ongevraagd je kamer binnenstormen (kloppen doen we niet aan bij ons, privacy evenmin) en vervolgens jou voor klaagmuur aanzien en beginnen te raaskallen over alles waar ze hun ei of zaad over kwijt moeten, meestal familiaire aangelegenheden, financieel noodweer, huwelijks gesodemieter, en anders over eventuele rommel in je kamer. Ze komen je vragen om de post voor ze te vertalen en allerlei formulieren in te vullen en worden ook nog boos en verwijtend als je dat niet kunt, zelfs al ben je nog kind. Ze eisen dat je naar de moskee gaat op vrijdag, vragen waarom je niet bidt, vragen wat je kijkt op de telefoon, vragen waarom je lacht als je op je beeldscherm kijkt, vragen met wie je belt en waarom dat klinkt als de stem van iemand van het andere geslacht of ze produceren gewoon heel veel geluid terwijl ze videobellen met familieleden, zowel uit het buiten- als binnenland, terwijl jij je moet concentreren op je huiswerk of gewoon niet blootgesteld wilt worden aan dat oeverloze gezwatel. Het ergste van alles is als er mensen onthaald worden en de visite zo lang blijft zetelen dat je je afvraagt of ze van plan zijn te blijven tukken. En dat gebeurt nogal frequent; op elk moment van de week kunnen ze ongegeneerd komen aankloppen en blijven tot je ze afwimpelt door opzichtig te gapen. Men zegt dat bezoek en vis drie dagen fris blijven, daar hadden ze bij de Turken nog geen notie van genomen. Of ze namen die drie dagen letterlijk.”

“The greatest hero for a country is the person who gave a progressive vision, a peaceful soul, a modern mind and an unshakable belief in science to his nation. And for the Turks, this honorable name is Atatürk, an immortal revolutionist!”

“Deprived of their direct ties with Central Asia -- and with it their access to Turkish slaves, mercenaries and war horses -- the later Ghaznavids lost their wider, imperial vision an acquired the character of a regional, North Indian state. They were certainly not seen as menacing aliens who might have posed a civilzational threat to Indian culture. Contemporary Sanskrit inscriptions refer to the Ghaznavids not as Muslims but as 'turushkas' (Turks), an ethnic term, or as 'hammiras', a Sanskritized rendering of 'amir' (Arabic for commander), an official title. For their part, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries Ghaznavid rulers in India issued coins from Lahore bearing the same legends that had appeared on those of their Indian predecessors, the Hindu Shahi dynasty (c.850-1002). These included Śiva's bull Nandi and the Sanskrit phrase 'śri samanta deva' (Honourable Chief Commander) inscribed in Devanagari script. Such measures point to the later Ghaznavids' investment in establishing cultural and monetary continuity with North Indian kingsdoms. Moreover, despite the dynasty's rhetoric about defending Sunni Islam, religion posed no bar to military recruitment, as Indians had always been prominent in Ghaznavid armies. In 1033 Mahmud of Ghazni gave the command of his army stationed in Lahore to a Hindu general, and in Ghazni itself Indian military contingents had their own commanders, inhabited their own quarter of the city, and were generally considered more reliable soldiers than the Turks. Crucially, the Ghaznavids brought to the Punjab the entire gamut of Persianate institutions and practices that would define the political economy of much of India for centuries to come. Inherited from the creative ferment of tenth-century Khurasan and Central Asia under the Samanid rulers of Bukhara, these included: the elaboration of a ranked and salaried bureaucracy tied to the state's land revenue and military systems; the institution of elite, or military, slavery; an elaboration of the office of 'sultan'; the courtly patronage of Persian arts, crafts and literature; and a tradition of spiritually powerful holy men, or Sufis, whose relations with royal power were ambivalent, to say the least.”

“In the cities of the European Franks, women roam about exposing not only their faces, but also their brightly shining hair (after their necks, their most attractive feature), their arms, their beautiful throats, and even, if what Ive heard is true, a portion of their gorgeous legs; as a result, the men of those cities walk about with great difficulty, embarrassed and in extreme pain, because, you see, their front sides are always erect and this fact naturally leads to the paralysis of their society. Undoubtedly, this is why each day the Frank infidel surrenders another fortress to us Ottomans.”