The Sultan and His People

by C. Oscanyan

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!