In instances of uncertainty he has a way of getting out of the difficulty by adding “God is the best judge.” His decrees are called fetvahs, and he signs himself, in the common formula, “the poor servant of God.” He is assisted in his functions by a secretary called the fetvah eminé, who in cases of minor importance directs the pleas and presents them all ready for the affixing of the mufti’s seal.
The influence of the Sheikh ul Islam is great, and powerful for good or harm to the nation, according to his character, and the amount of justice and honesty he may display in his capacity of Head of Islam and supreme judge. This influence, however, being strictly Mohammedan, and based on rigid religious dogmas, cannot be expected to carry with it that spirit of tolerance and liberality which a well regulated government must possess in all branches of the administrative and executive power. Instances, however, in which Sheikhs ul Islam have shown strict honesty, justice, and even a certain amount of enlightened tolerance, have not been unfrequent in the annals of Turkey, in the settlement of disputes between Mussulmans and non-Mussulmans.
I have heard several curious stories about the Grand Muftis of this century. Whilst Lord Stratford was ambassador at Constantinople, one of the secretaries had an audience with the Sheikh ul Islam, who at the moment of his visitor’s entrance was engaged in the performance of his namaz. The secretary sat down while the devotee finished his prayers, which were ended by an invocation to Allah to forgive a suppliant true believer the sin of holding direct intercourse with a Giaour. His conscience thus relieved, the old mufti rose from his knees and smilingly welcomed his guest. But this guest, who was a great original, in his turn begged permission to perform his devotions. He gravely went through an Arabic formula, and ended by begging Allah to forgive a good Christian the crime of visiting a “faithless dog of an infidel.” The astonished old mufti was nettled, but with true Oriental imperturbability he bore the insult.
A late Grand Mufti was greatly respected, and appealed to from all directions for the settlement of new and old lawsuits, which he is said to have wound up with strict impartiality and justice; but at the same time he always urged upon the disputants the advantages of coming to an amicable arrangement.
One of his friends, observing that this advice systematically accompanied the winding-up of the case, asked the dignitary why, being sure of having delivered a just sentence, he recommended this friendly arrangement? “Because,” said the mufti, “the world nowadays is so corrupt, and the use of false witnesses so common, that I believe in the honesty of none; and my conscience is free when I have obtained something in favor of the loser as well as the winner.”
From the time of the annexation of Egypt and Syria by Selim the Inflexible, the title of Khalif, or Vicar of God, was assumed by the Turkish Sultan; but although this title gives him the power of a complete autocrat, no Sultan can be invested with the Imperial dignity unless the Mollah of Konia, a descendant of the Osmanjiks, and by right of his descent considered holy, comes to Constantinople, and girds the future sovereign with the sword of Othman; on the other hand, a Sultan cannot be deposed unless a Fetvah of the Sheikh ul Islam decrees his deposition, or, if by consent of the nation, his death.
Such, then, are the Ulema—the clergy, so to speak, of the Established Church of Islam in Turkey. They are the ultra-conservative party in the nation in things political as well as things religious. “Let things be,” is the motto of the Sheikh ul Islam and his most insignificant Kadi. It is not surprising that this should be so. Trained in the meagre curriculum of the Medressé, among the dry bones of traditional Moslem theology, it would be astonishing if these men were aught but narrow, ignorant, bigoted; and chained in the unvarying circle of the Ulema world they have no chance of forgetting the teaching of their youth. But this does not explain the fact that nine out of ten Moslem judges are daily guilty of injustice and the taking of bribes.
The Ulema entertain a cordial hatred for the dervishes, whose orthodoxy they deny, and whose influence over the State and the people alike they dread. The dervish’s title to reverence does not, like his rival’s, rest upon his learning and his ability to misinterpret the Koran; it rests on his supposed inspiration. On this ground, as well as on account of his reputed power of working miracles, and the general eccentricity of his life, he is regarded by the people with extreme veneration. His sympathies, moreover, are with the masses; ofttimes he spends his life in succoring them; whilst his scorn for the wealthy and reputable knows no bounds. Hence the people believe in the dervishes in spite of the ridicule and persecution of the Ulema; and even the higher classes become infected with this partly superstitious veneration, and seek to gain the dervish’s blessing and to avoid his curse; and often a high dignitary has turned pale at the stern denunciation of the wild-looking visionary who does not fear to say his say before the great ones of the land. Sultan Mahmoud was once crossing the bridge of Galata when he was stopped by a dervish called “the hairy sheikh.” “Giaour Padishah,” he cried, in a voice shaken with fury, seizing the Sultan’s bridle, “art thou not yet content with abomination? Thou wilt answer to God for all thy godlessness! Thou art destroying the institutions of thy brethren; thou revilest Islam and drawest the vengeance of the Prophet upon thyself and us.” The Sultan called to his guards to clear “the fool” out of the way. “I a fool!” screamed the dervish. “It is thou and thy worthless counsellors who have lost your senses! To the rescue, Moslems! The Spirit of God, who hath anointed me, and whom I serve, urges me to proclaim the truth, with the promise of the reward of the saints.” The next day the visionary was put to death; but it was declared that the following night a soft light was shed over his tomb, which is still venerated as that of a saint.
But it needed a bold man like the reformer-Sultan to put a noisy fanatic to death; and even in his case the wisdom, as well as the humanity, of the act may be questioned. Most grandees would think twice before they offended a dervish. For popular credulity accords to these strange men extraordinary powers—the gift of foreknowledge, the power of working miracles, and of enduring privations and sufferings beyond the limits of ordinary human endurance; and, not least, these enthusiasts are believed to have the power of giving people good or evil wishes, which never fail to come to pass, and which no human action can resist.
In spite of this apparently fanatical and charlatan character, there is much that is liberal and undogmatical about the dervishes. I have certainly met with many broad-minded, tolerant men among the sheikhs of their orders, and have been struck by the charm of their conversation no less than their enlightened views and their genuine good-will towards mankind.