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The land, which, according to the laws of the Sheriat, was your common property, has been taken possession of more and more by the lackeys of the Teheran Government; they trade it away at their pleasure; they lay what taxes please them upon you; and when, through their mismanagement, they got the country into such a condition that they were unable to squeeze enough juice out of it themselves, they sold Persia last year to English capitalists for 2,000,000 pounds, so that the latter will organize an army in Persia that will oppress you still more than formerly, and so the latter can collect taxes for the Khans and the Teheran Government.
Also the law of Islam I am not speaking merely of the Sheriat as we now see it will always remain their law because it is the codification of their custom, and its political organization their political organization because it is founded on a practice coeval with their history.
It is unlikely that a new advance of the Christian Powers from the Balkan would meet again with more than formal opposition; and Constantinople itself, unsupported by European aid, would be abandoned without a blow, or with only such show of resistance as the Sheriat requires for a cession of territory.
The Fakh ed Din and the Fakh esh Sheriat of Abu Hanifeh, the doctor intrusted with this duty, was a first attempt to put into reasoned form the floating tradition of the faithful, and to make a digest of existing legal practice.
Compare the sheriat with the Christian canon law. The spirit is the same. Take, for example, the sheriat's prohibition on the lending of money at interest; a prohibition which, if obeyed, renders impossible anything like business or industry in the modern sense. This is the example oftenest cited to prove Islam's innate incompatibility with modern civilization.
The provisions of the sheriat, or Moslem canon law, such as the prohibition of interest rendered economic life in the modern sense impossible. What little trade and industry did exist was largely in the hands of native Christians or Jews. Furthermore, the whole economic life of the East was being disorganized by the aggressive competition of the West.
In his administration he conforms, wherever he is himself the actor, strictly to the Sheriat, and on doubtful points consults always the mufti or Sheykh el Islam. He has shown no inconsiderable firmness in resisting European demands when they contravened the canon law.
In the recent trial of the murderers of Abd el Aziz, Abd el Hamid has departed from his usual adherence to the Sheriat. It is a lapsus which may one day be taken hold of against him, should the Ulema need to depose him. He is said to have yielded to the advice of an European confidant who directs the details of his diplomacy with Europe.
No point of doctrine need in any way be touched, only the law. The Fakh ed din would need hardly a modification. The Fakh esh Sheriat would, in certain chapters, have to be rewritten.
With it a first article of faith is that the House of Othman has been and is the curse of Islam, and that its end is at hand. In spite of Abd el Hamid's pious appeals to the Sheriat they look upon him as one who troubleth Islam. He is the representative of the party most bitterly opposed to all of good.
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