The spread of literary cultivation among the Turks of the present day, and the European education which many of the rising generation have received, has naturally led to a taste for European literature; and many possess libraries stored not only with the lore of the East, but with the choicest treasures of the French and English classics. Ali Effendi, late ambassador from the Porte to the court of St James's, is well known to have collected a most extensive and valuable library during his residence in the regions of the West; and Mr White enumerates several young Osmanlis distinguished for their accomplishments in the literature and science of the Franks. Emin Pasha, the director of the Imperial Military Academy, and Bekir Pasha, late superintendent of the small-arm manufactory at Dolma-Baktchi, were both educated in England, the latter at Woolwich and the former at Cambridge, where he gained a prize for his mathematical attainments. Fouad Effendi, son of the celebrated poet Izzet-Mollah, and himself a poet of no small note, "possesses a choice library of some 2000 volumes, in French, English, and Italian;" and Derwish Effendi, professor of natural history in the academy of Galata Serai, "has studied in France and England, and is not less esteemed for his knowledge than for his modesty." But foremost among this Tugenbund, the future hopes of Turkey, stands one whose name has already appeared in the pages of Maga, (Sept. 1841, p. 304,) Achmet Wekif Effendi, now third dragoman to the Porte, and son of Rouh-ed-deen Effendi, late Secretary of Legation at Vienna, whom Mr White pronounces, with justice, "one of the most rising and enlightened young men of the Turkish empire. His knowledge of the French language is perfect, and he adds to this an intimate acquaintance with the literature of that country and of England." While men like these (and we could add other names to those enumerated by Mr White, from our personal knowledge) are in training for the future administration of the empire, there is yet hope of the regeneration of the Osmanli nation.
In no country is primary instruction more general than in Turkey. Each of the smaller mosques has attached to it an elementary school, superintended by the imam, where the children of the lower classes are taught to read and write, and to repeat the Koran by heart; while those intended for the liberal professions undergo a long and laborious course of study at the medressehs or colleges of the great mosques, some of which are intended to train youth in general literature, or qualify them for government employments, while others are devoted to the study of theology and jurisprudence. Mr White states the number of students in Stamboul, in 1843, at not less than 5000, all of whom were lodged, instructed, and furnished with one meal a-day, at the expense of the wakoof or foundation, (a term which we shall hereafter more fully explain,) all their other expenses being at their own charge; but "the sallow complexions and exhausted appearance of these young men indicate intense labour, or most limited commons."
After thus successfully vindicating the Turks from the charge so often brought against them by travellers who have only spent a few weeks at Pera, of ignorance and indifference to knowledge, Mr White thus sums up the general question of education. "For ten men that can read among Perotes and Fanariotes, there are an equal number that do read at Constantinople; and, taking the mass of the better classes indiscriminately, it will be found also that there are more libraries of useful books in Turkish houses than in those of Greeks and Armenians." And though "the number of Turkish ladies that can read is much
less than those of Pera and the Fanar, those who can read among the former never open a bad book; while among the latter there is scarcely one that ever reads a good work, unless it be the catechism or breviary on certain forced occasions. And while neither Greek nor Armenian women occupy themselves with literature, Constantinople can boast of more than one female author. Among the most celebrated of these is Laila Khanum, niece to the above-mentioned Izzet-Mollah. Her poems are principally satirical, and she is held in great dread by her sex, who tremble at her cutting pen. Her divan (collection of poems) has been printed, and amounts to three volumes. Laila Khanum is also famed for her songs, which are set to music, and highly popular. Hassena Khanum, wife of the Hakim Bashy, (chief physician,) is likewise renowned for the purity and elegance of her style as a letter-writer, which entitles her to the appellation of the Turkish Sevigné."
But we must again diverge, in following Mr White's desultory steps, from the Turkish fair ones—whom he has so satisfactorily cleared from Lord Byron's imputation, that
"They cannot read, and so don't lisp in criticism;
Nor write, and so they don't affect the muse—"
to his dissertation on the wakoofs above referred to;—a word implying a deposit or mortgage, and used to designate a species of tenure under which the greater part of the landed property throughout the empire is held, and the nature of which is but imperfectly understood in Europe. These institutions have existed from the earliest period of Islam; but nowhere to so great an extent as in the Ottoman empire; where they were divided by Soliman the Magnificent into three classes, all alike held sacred, and exempt from confiscation either by the sovereign or courts of law. The first class comprises the lands or funds absolutely bequeathed to the mosques either by founders or subsequent benefactors, the revenues of which are employed in the payment of the imams, khatibs, and other ministers of religion attached to their service, and to the gratuitous maintenance of the colleges and hospitals dependent on them; and which are in all cases amply sufficient for these purposes. "No demands in the shape of tithes, collections, or entrance-money, are ever made: the doors of all temples are open to the public without distinction:" and although the imam usually receives a fee for marriages, name-givings, circumcisions, and funerals, no demand can be legally made. The author proceeds to enumerate the endowments in 1842, as nearly as they could be ascertained, of the seventeen mosques in the capital entitled to rank as imperial foundations—the richest being that of Aya-Sofia, amounting to 1,500,000 piastres annually, while the others vary from 710,000 to 100,000 piastres. The ecclesiastical staff of an imperial mosque comprehends in general from thirty to forty persons—the sheikh, who preaches after mid-day prayer on Friday, and who is a member of the superior ecclesiastical synod, with rank and privileges nearly similar to those of our bishops:—two or more khatibs, who recite the khotbah, or prayer for the Prophet and sultan:—four imams, who alternately read prayers:—twelve to twenty muezzins, who call to prayers from the minarets:—with fifteen to twenty subordinate functionaries. The finances of each of the mosques are regulated by a nazir (inspector) and mutawelly, (accountant,) who are bound by law to render half-yearly statements; and these offices, lucrative from the opportunities they afford for malversation, are usually held for life by the holders for the time being of high official stations, or sometimes by the heirs of the founders, who thus secure their lands from forfeiture or confiscation; or by persons to whom they have been bequeathed, with power to nominate their successors. The annual revenues of the imperial mosques being triple their expenditure, the wakoof fund has been often encroached upon by the Sultan, nominally as a loan under the warrant of the minister of finance, who checks the accounts of the imperial nazir; and by these not unfrequent inroads, as well as by the peculations of the superintendents, the accumulations,
though great, are not so enormous as they would otherwise become.
The second class comprises the funds devoted to the maintenance of public baths, libraries, fountains, alms-houses, and of useful and charitable institutions in general. They are frequently charged with annuities to the representatives of the founder; and in all foundations for gratuitous education, or distribution of alms or food, founders' kin have the preference. They are all registered in the treasury; but the foundation is invalidated if the property assigned for its support be encumbered by mortgages or other obligations:—nor can any one labouring under an incurable disease convert freehold property into wakoof except as a testator, in which case the inalienable rights of the heirs to two-thirds of the property are secured:—a third part only, according to law, being otherwise disposable by will. The third class of wakoofs (called ady or customary, the others being termed shary or legal, as sanctioned by religious law) are considered as secular foundations, consisting of lands purchased by the religious wakoofs from their accumulations, on reversion at the death of the assigner, or failure of his direct heirs, for an inconsiderable portion of their value, leaving to the vendors in the interim the full enjoyment of the property, which is frequently continued to their nephews and brothers on the same terms. "At first this plan was not considered lucrative for the wakoofs: but when the system was widely extended, the multitude of assignments, which fell in every year from death and default of issue, soon crowned the speculation with success, in a country where the tenure of life is eminently uncertain, not only from the caprices of sultans, but from the constant ravages of plague.... The advantages to sellers were equally great. They secured themselves from confiscation, and their heirs from spoliation at their demise. They were enabled to raise money to the value of a sixth or eighth of their capital, on payment of a trifling interest, and yet retained the full enjoyment of the whole for themselves and immediate issue. By founding these wakoofs, sellers are also enabled to check the extravagance of their children, who can neither mortgage nor alienate the property—a practice nearly as common in Turkey as in other countries."
Not less than three-fourths of the buildings and cultivated lands throughout the empire, according to the author, and even the imperial domains, are held under one or other of these wakoof tenures, which thus represent the great landed interests of the country. Formerly, the domains belonging to the mosques in each pashalik were let on annual leases (as the public revenues are still farmed) to multezim or contractors, generally the pashas of the provinces: but the system of subletting and dilapidation to which this course of short leases gave rise, was so ruinous to the agricultural population and the property of the wakoofs, that a thorough reform was introduced in the reign of Abdoul-Hamid, the father of Mahmood II. The lands were now let on life tenancies, (malikania,) on the same system of beneficial leases and large fines on renewals which prevails with respect to the property of collegiate and other corporate bodies in England; which has greatly improved their condition, as it is no longer the interest of the lessee to rack the peasantry, or damage the property, for the sake of present advantage. "More than one monarch has entertained projects of dispossessing the mosques of these privileges, and of placing the wakoofya under the exclusive superintendence of government. Sultan Mahmood II. seriously contemplated carrying this plan into effect, and probably would have done so, had his life been spared. The government in this case would have paid the salaries of all sheikhs, priests, and persons attached to the sacred edifices, together with all repairs and expenses of their dependent institutions, and would have converted the surplus to state purposes. Various plans were suggested to Mahmood's predecessors; but during the existence of the janissaries, no one dared to interfere with institutions whence the Oolema, (men of law and religion,) intimately connected with the janissaries, derived invariable profit."