Brothers Quotes
His first public speech after being elected President
This is a very interesting historical quotations in that it describes the family culture of an important subset of Americans in the early 19th century. The Duena (chaperone) was a middle aged woman who would always accompany young, unmarried women whenever they left the home. A young man who would take a young lady for a carriage ride or anything else, would also have to take the duena.
Mehmet’s father Murat had just died. There was a custom in Islam that the new Sultan have all his brothers executed so that there would be absolute certainty who was the legitimate Sultan and that dissenting forces should not rally around another son of the old Sultan to have a regime change and/or a civil war. Stability and certainty in the line of succession was critical to the Muslims in that the Sultan was not only the civil ruler, but the highest religious authority as well. He had the power of the Christian Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor together. The struggle between the Sunnis and the Shiites which has overwhelmed Islamic unity was originally all about who the successor to Muhammad would be.
