s the right to put questions
to the state _mufti_; and the _qadhi_ court is bound to take his answers
into account in its decisions. In this way the _muftis_ have absorbed a
part of the duties of the _qadhis_, and so their office is dragged along in
the degradation that the unofficial canonists denounce unweariedly in their
writings and in their teaching.

The way in which the most important _mufti_ places are filled and above
all the position which the head-_mufti_ of the Turkish Empire, the
Sheikh-ul-Islam, holds at any particular period, may well serve as a
touchstone of the influence of the canonists on public life. If this is
great, then even the most powerful sultan has only the possibility of
choice between a few great scholars, put forward or at all events not
disapproved of by their own guild, strengthened by public opinion. If, on
the other hand, there is no keen interest felt in the Shari'ah (Divine
Law), then the temporal rulers can do pretty much what they like with these
representatives of the canon law. Under the tyrannical sway of Sultan
Abd-ul-Hamid, the Sheikh-ul-Islam was little more than a tool for him and
his palace clique, and for their own reasons, the members of the Committee
of Union and Progress, who rule at Constantinople since 1908, made no
change in this: each new ministry had its own Sheikh-ul-Islam, who had to
be, above everything, a faithful upholder of the constitutional theory
held by the Committee. The time is past when the Sultan and the Porte,
in framing even the most pressing reform, must first anxiously assure
themselves of the position that the _hojas, tolbas, softas_, the
theologians in a word, would take towards it, and of the influence that
the Sheikh-ul-Islam could use in opposition to their plans. The political
authority makes its deference to the canonists dependent upon their strict
obedience.

This important change is a natural consequence of the modernization of
Mohammedan political life, a movement through which the expounders of a
law which has endeavoured to remain stationary since the year 1000 must
necessarily get into straits. This explains also why the religious life of
Mohammedans is in some respects freer in countries under non-Mohammedan
authority, than under a Mohammedan government. Under English, Dutch, or
French rule the 'ulamas are less interfered with in their teaching, the
_muftis_ in their recommendations, and the _qadhis_ in their judgments of
questions