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As at Mekka, a number of Khatybs, Imams, Mueddins, and other persons belonging to the body of Olemas, are attached to the mosque. The olemas here are said to be more learned than their brethren of Mekka; and those of former days have produced many valuable writings. At present, however, there is less appearance of learning here than at Mekka.
The most flagrant injustice is committed with respect to the property of deceased persons, as well during the plague as at other times; and the Kadhy, with a whole train of olemas, officers, and people in inferior employments, share in the illegal spoil. In the same manner the property of military officers, and of many soldiers, is sequestrated at their death.
The modern poets content themselves with imitating their ancient masters, humbly borrowing the sublime metaphors and exalted sentiments produced from nobler and freer breasts than those of the olemas of the present day.
After the return of the Hadj from Arafat, a few of the poorer olemas expose some books for sale in the mosque, near Bab-es'-Salam: all those which I saw were on the law, korans with commentaries, and similar works, together with a few on grammar. No work on history, or on any other branch
If this were not universally the case, the Turks themselves would, long ago, have found means of resorting to prophylactics, in spite of their religious doctrines; as the Arabs now did in the Hedjaz; and their olemas would have furnished them with fetwas, and quotations from the law, in favour of what their good sense might have led them to adopt.
The inhabitants of Mekka have but two kinds of employment, trade, and the service of the Beitullah, or Temple; but the former has the preference, and there are very few olemas, or persons employed in the mosque, who are not engaged in some commercial affairs, though they are too proud to pursue them openly.
When, in 1815, the plague raged in the Hedjaz, an event which had never before been known, the Kadhy of Djidda, with the whole body of olemas, waited upon the Turkish governor of the city, to desire him to demolish a windmill which some Greek Christians from Cairo had built withoutside one of the gates, by order of Mohammed Aly.
Even the Kadhy of Djidda, an Arab, made his escape to Mekka, with all his olemas; but Hassan Pasha, then governor of the holy city, ordered him, under pain of death, to return immediately to his post; and he died on the road. The principal marketstreet of Djidda was quite deserted, and numbers of families were entirely destroyed.
I believe that there is not in the whole Mohammedan empire a town so large as Medina where lectures are not held in the mosques; that this was formerly the case also in this town, is proved by the many pious foundations established exclusively for this purpose, the emoluments of which many olemas still enjoy without performing the duties.
Some learned men of Mekka deliver lectures on religious subjects every afternoon under the colonnade, but the auditors are seldom numerous. On Fridays, after prayer, some Turkish olemas explain to their countrymen assembled around them a few chapters of the Koran, after which each of the audience kisses the hand of the expositor, and drops money into his cap.
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