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But among those scholars there are and always have been some who, in poverty and simplicity, devote their life to the study of Allah's law with the sole object of pleasing him; among the qadhis such are not easily to be found.
But as the qadhis were appointed by the governors, they were obliged in the exercise of their office to give due consideration to the wishes of their constituents; and moreover they were often tainted by what was regarded in Mohammedan countries as inseparable from government employment: bribery.
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 of marriage and inheritance than in Turkey, where the life of Islam, as state religion, lies under official control.
It became a matter of course that a pious scholar must keep himself free from all intercourse with state officials, on pain of losing his reputation. The bridge across the gulf that separated the spiritual from the temporal authorities was formed by those state officials who, for the practice of their office, needed a knowledge of the divine law, especially the qadhis.
They refuted this by saying that this defence was admissible only for earlier and better times, but not for "the qadhis of our time." To which he cuttingly replied "And ye, are ye canonists of the better, the ancient time?" In truth, the students of sacred science are just as much "of our time" as the qadhis. Even in the eleventh century the great theologian Ghazali counted them all equal.
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.
Such an opinion would not have acquired full force, if it had not been ascribed to Mohammed; in fact, the Prophet, according to a tradition, had said that out of three qadhis two are destined to Hell. Anecdotes of famous scholars who could not be prevailed upon by imprisonment or castigation to accept the office of qadhis are innumerable.
On this account, the canonists, although it was from their ranks that the officials of the qadhi court were to be drawn, considered no words too strong to express their contempt for the office of qadhi. In handbooks of the Law of all times, the qadhis "of our time" are represented as unscrupulous beings, whose unreliable judgments were chiefly dictated by their greed.
Besides qadhis who settle legal disputes of a certain kind according to the revealed law, the state requires its own advisers who can explain that law, i.e., official muftis. Firstly, the government itself may be involved in a litigation; moreover in some government regulations it may be necessary to avoid giving offence to canonists and their strict disciples.
It was originally the duty of these judges to decide all legal differences between Mohammedans, or men of other creeds under Mohammedan protection, who called for their decision. The actual division between the rulers and the interpreters of the law caused an ever-increasing limitation of the authority of the qadhis.
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