January 31, 1899
(Tuesday) [Aintab]
Wrote a letter to Bros. Larson and
Hintze at Aleppo. YMA night. We took a walk to see Bro Samuel but the folks
were not home. We also called at Neresis Kulujian and spent a few moments
there. We scarcely ever go to the stree[t] without being saluted with a “Mur-r”
from the tongue of both boys and men. It is the way in which they express their
disfavor of Mormons. (Joseph Wilford Booth, Journal, January 31, 1899, in Missionary
in the Middle East: The Journals of Joseph Wilford Booth, ed. James A. Toronto
and Kent F. Schull [Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book, 2024], 254)
Also passing two other calls at the
Saints and on our way home as we were passing the door of a weaving room we
were met with that usual expression Murrr Murrr from those inside. (Joseph
Wilford Booth, Journal, February 2, 1899, in ibid., 255)
As
the editors note:
Mür means “bitter” in Ottoman Turkish, so this could
be a play on words to disparage the Latter-day Saint missionaries since a
nickname for Church members as “Mormon”—a term that, at the time, the Church embraced
as part of its identity. (Ibid., 254 n. 19)
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