B710 <=> B712 [BTG XXXVIII Religion, p. 711]

“Of course, by the destruction in Turkey of this ‘dervishism’ those last dying sparks will also be entirely extinguished there which, preserved as it were in the ashes, might sometime rekindle the hearth of those possibilities upon which Saint Mohammed counted and for which he had hoped.

“And as regards the other order communicated to me in that etherogram and promulgated in that same community Turkey, namely, the prohibition upon beings of the ‘male sex’ to wear the formerly famous fez and upon the beings of the ‘female sex,’ the yashmak, the consequences of these innovations are very clearly depicted in my being-picturings about the future.

“Thanks to these innovations, there is no doubt but that exactly the same will be repeated with the beings of this Turkey as occurred to the beings of the large community Russia after they had also begun to imitate everything European.

“It may be noted, for example, that, indeed, in all the beings of that large community Russia, only one or two centuries ago when, before they had yet begun to imitate everything European, these two being-functions still obtained which are called ‘Martaadamlik’ and ‘Nammuslik’ or – as these being-feelings are still called – the ‘feeling-of-religiousness’ and the ‘feeling-of-patriarchality.’

“And it was just those same being-feelings which a couple of centuries ago made the beings of that large community famous among other beings of the whole of this planet in respect of their morality and the patriarchality of their family foundations.

“But when afterwards they began imitating everything European, both these being-feelings still remaining in them began gradually to atrophy in them, and now at the present time almost all the beings of that community have become, in the sense of religiousness and patriarchality, such . . . the notion of which our wise teacher Mullah Nassr Eddin expresses by the mere exclamation: