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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.
Abd-ul-Hamid was her first pawn, and when the Young Turk Party swept him off the board she adopted them and their colour ; for by hook or by crook, through this agency or that, Turkey had to be commanded or Germany's play was spoilt.
"After the deposition of Abd-ul-Hamid," writes the German authority quoted above, "the Committee of Union and Progress reverted more and more to the ex-Sultan's policy. To begin with, a rigorous party tyranny was set up. A power behind the Government got the official executive apparatus into its hand, and the elections to Parliament ceased to be free.
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