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MURAD RAVAGES MOREA 171 Murad had inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Christians, was weary of fighting, and readily promised the emperor that, if he abandoned all concerted action with the Western powers, he should not be attacked. He once more abdi- cated the throne in favour of his son Mahomet, and with- drew to his beautiful gardens and palace at Magnesia, hoping once more for peace in retirement. 1 The same year — always 1444 — he was forced by the Janissaries, who were already beginning to claim a share in the government, and who had marked their discontent by burning a large part of Adrianople, to resume the guidance of the state. After reducing them to complete submission, he turned his attention to Greece, which on the death of the previous emperor had been divided between three of his seven sons. Constantine, brother of John, and afterwards the last emperor, had shown energy in the Morea. He was in possession of a large part of the Peloponnesus, and had chased the Turks out of Boeotia, Pindus, and part of Thessaly. This weakening of their hold compelled Murad to bestir himself. In November, 1446, he started for Greece at the head of an army of sixty thousand men. 1 Gibbon adopts the statement of Chalcondylas (145) that Murad joined the dervishes after Varna, though on other matters regarding his life he relies upon Cantemir, who by implication discredits the story. Chalcondylas states that in the crisis of the battle of Varna, the sultan had vowed that if he were successful he would abdicate and join one of these religious orders. Von Hammer knows nothing of the story, and the whole course of Murad's life is against the belief that ' the lord of nations submitted to fast and pray and turn round in endless rotations with the fanatics who mistook the giddiness of the head for the illumination of the Spirit ' (Gibbon, VII. p. 140). Neither Phrantzes nor Ducas mentions his having become a dervish, as they probably would have done if the fact had been known to them. Indeed, the one point in favour of the story was unknown to Gibbon : namely, that some of the dervish sects are liberal or philosophical. They are all religious or pietistic, but many claim that their tenets are independent of Islam. Their explanation of the turning or dancing is that they first look towards Mecca and reflect, God is there ; then they make a turn and reflect, He is there also ; and so in the complete circle. It should be noted also that there are many dervishes who neither turn nor dance in their devotions. On the subject of the dervishes in Turkey, two useful books are The Dervishes, by J. P. Brown (London, 1868), and, better still, Les Confreries Musulmanes par le E. P. Louis Petit, superieur des Augustins de l'Assomption a Kadikeuy (Constantinople, 1899).