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Updated: June 17, 2025
Nor are those that come distinguished greatly for their piety or learning. The school of St. Sophia at Constantinople has lost its old reputation as a seat of religious knowledge; and its Ulema are known to be more occupied with the pursuit of Court patronage than with any other science.
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.
The Turkish Ulema have always insisted strongly on the dogma that the ijtahad, that is to say the elaboration of new doctrine, is absolutely closed; that nothing can be added to or taken away from the already existing body of religious law, and that no new mujtahed, or doctor of Islam, can be expected who shall adapt that law to the life of the modern world.
For all these reasons it will be readily understood that Abd el Hamid has gained not only the support of his own Turkish Ulema, but the sympathy of a very considerable section of opinion outside his dominions.
The Firman lately issued by the Sultan and forwarded to the Pasha of Jeddah for the Kaimakan and the Kazi of Mecca, has lately caused a kind of revolution in Western Arabia. The Ulema and the inhabitants denounced the rescript as opposed to the Koran, and forced the magistrate to take sanctuary.
"To-morrow, at sunrise, she shall die as a blasphemer, this daughter of Sheitan the Evil One," continued the holy men. "What saith the Mudir?" cried a tax-gatherer. "The Mudir himself shall see her die at sunrise," answered the chief of the Ulema. Shouts of hideous joy went up. At that moment the woman's eyes met Dicky's, and they suddenly lighted.
It is surely not beyond the flight of sane imagination to suppose, in the last overwhelming catastrophe of Constantinople, a council of Ulema assembling at Mecca, and according to the legal precedent of ancient days electing a Caliph. The assembly would, without doubt, witness intrigues of princes and quarrels among schoolmen and appeals to fanaticism and accusations of infidelity.
The change, advantageous as it was politically, is regarded as a religious falling off. Henceforth the Caliphs, whether of the Ommiad or afterwards of the Abbaside families, were not in reality elected, though the form of confirmation by the Ulema was gone through; and they affected to succeed by right of birth, not by the voice of the people.
To this some add that he will arise of a sudden in some distant corner of the earth, and that he will march towards Mecca, and that everywhere the blood of Moslems shall be shed like water, and that he shall enter Mecca when the streets shall run with blood. In support of this coming of the Móhdy many traditions exist which are held to be authentic by the Ulema.
Whilst he sat with us, Kabir Khalil, one of the principal Ulema, and one Haji Abdullah, a Shaykh of distinguished fame who had been dreaming dreams in our favour, sent their salams. This is one of the many occasions in which, during a long residence in the East, I have had reason to be grateful to the learned, whose influence over the people when unbiassed by bigotry is decidedly for good.
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