SPIRITUAL BRANCH OF THE GOVERNMENT.
Turkey is a country where church and state are most eminently
combined. The standard of every measure or act is the Koran; the
administration of affairs, both civil and religions, must, therefore,
be in conformity with the precepts of that sacred book; but since that
book does not provide for all emergencies, and in many instances is
not even explicit, those who made the Koran their special study have
ever been consulted, and all matters referred to them for examination
and sanction.
The entire body of these ecclesiastics are denominated the Ulema, or
learned (in the Koran), and their expositions are termed Fetvas. These
Fetvas constitute, as it were, the statutes of the state.
The sanction of these doctors in every measure being essential,
each civil tribunal is supplied with one of their number, in order
that their acts may be valid. Hence, even the Grand-Vezir, who only
represents the sultan in temporal matters, is associated with the
chief of the Ulema, viz., the Sheikh-ul-Islam, who, on his part,
personifies his majesty in spiritual affairs. Bearing the title
of Fetvayi-Pena, or the Grand Expositor, his approval is necessary
even to the measures of the great viceroy himself, for no law can be
promulgated without his sanction.
Considering then the importance attached to the study of the Koran, and
the benefit derived from a full knowledge of its spirit and contents,
which constitute the basis of the law and government, many have been
induced to adopt it as a profession.
There are no less than forty thousand of these Ulema in Constantinople.
These men are of very low origin, and are generally the sons of poor
peasants. They come to Constantinople and enlist themselves as Softas,
or students of divinity or law, which are synonymous terms, in one of
the principal mosques, where they go through a regular course of study.
They receive no salary, but are allowed one loaf of bread a day,
and partake of such food as is gratuitously distributed to the poor
from the Imarets, or charitable institutions, which are attached to
all the principal mosques.
When they are proficients in writing, they are allowed to copy the
Koran in the original Arabic, which it has hitherto been considered
sacrilege to print or translate. And by the sale of these copies they
gain a livelihood.
They are afterwards promoted either to the office of Imams, officiating
priests, or to that of Kadis and Mollahs, district judges, or Muftis,
or expounders of the law. The acme of their ambition is to become
either Molla-Hunkiar, chaplain to his majesty, Kazy-ul-Asker chief
justice, or Sheikh-ul-Islam, high pontiff of the realm. This latter
personage is considered by the Mussulmans as an undoubted oracle in
all instances.
Though the sultan is the head of both church and state, yet the
Sheikh-ul-Islam being appointed for life, and exempted from capital
punishment, his authority, through the superstition of the people,
has been most arbitrary, and even sometimes controlled the actions of
the executive; and it has only happened in our day, that in order to
assert the entire supremacy of the sultan, the Sheikh-ul-Islam has,
for the first time in the annals of the nation, been deposed from
his sacred office, and another substituted in his place.
The Ulema are not supported by the government, but by the income of
the mosques, which are largely endowed by religious devotees. Those
who are in the civil employment, receive, however, fixed salaries
from the state, in addition to their own ecclesiastical income.
The real estates owned by the mosques are immense and beyond
calculation. They are called Vakuf, in contradistinction to other lands
of the government, termed mülk. These vakuf lands, which comprise
more than two-thirds of the empire, are sold as under a perpetual
lease, with a yearly tax or rent, and all improvements made on them
are considered to belong by right to the land, and not allowed to be
removed. In case of the death of a proprietor leaving no male heirs,
the property, with all the improvements thereon, reverts to the mosque.
The documents by which these lands are held, are so carelessly
registered and transferred, that disputes are almost unavoidable. For
instance, a deed is thus drawn up, A B has purchased of C D a piece of
land, belonging to such a vakuf, said to contain about 156 acres more
or less; that is, it might range from 100 to 1,500 or 2,000 acres,
since its limits are not fixed by any actual survey, or specified by
a map; but the boundaries are described in the most primitive style
by sensible objects, viz., an apple tree on one side, a ditch on
the other, the property of so and so on the third, and the main road
on the fourth. This system has hitherto proved most advantageous to
the vakufs; the peculiar elasticity of such indefinite boundaries,
admitting of great territorial trespass upon adjoining lands, until
they have succeeded in absorbing two-thirds of the empire.
Strangers are not allowed to own these lands, nor hold them in
trust, with the view to avoid litigation with the different foreign
embassies. There has not, therefore, been hitherto any inducement
to European emigration, to the introduction of foreign capital,
nor encouragement to internal improvements.
The mosques derive an immense revenue, both from the rents of these
estates, and the commission on sales, which is enormous; being no
less than 8 per cent. on each transfer.
With such a percentage, were the sale repeated fifteen times, the
original cost of the land would be doubled; so that there is an
effectual check upon land speculation. Apart from this, the vakuf
system is ruinous both to the community and to the government. If a
man wants to raise a sum of money, by mortgaging his property for
three months only, besides the customary interest of the country,
which is 1 per cent., he has to bear the enormous expense of the
transfer and retransfer, which amounts, as has been said, to 6 per
cent. This added to the 3 per cent., the interest for the three months,
making altogether no less than 9 per cent. for three months! This
is not all. The natives not being allowed the privilege of borrowing
foreign funds, by mortgaging their own property, are reduced to the
necessity of resorting to their own capitalists, who usually demand
2 or 3 per cent. a month!
The whole of this vakuf land, or church property, occupied and
unoccupied, pays no taxes, so that a most profitable source of revenue
is unavailable to the government.
The immense incomes of the vakufs are partly appropriated to the
erection of mosques, hospitals, schools, fountains, baths, and
other charitable institutions; and above all to the support of the
Ulema themselves. But there is always an immense surplus, which lies
dormant with previously accumulated hoards, unless resorted to for the
promotion of some of the fanatical schemes and personal aggrandizement
of the Ulema themselves.
These men, thus rendered independent of the government, and possessing
unbounded influence over the minds of the superstitious people, and
being, in fact, the ultimatum of every hope and project, have been the
greatest barriers to national improvement; for, surrounded by wealth,
and themselves of the lowest origin, they attach an undue value to
worldly possessions; and trained in religious bigotry, they resist
all innovations as infringing upon their own interests, temporal and
spiritual; so that in destroying the janissaries, and leaving the
Ulema unmolested, Sultan Mahmoud did but half the work of reform.