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Updated: June 17, 2025
Her words are as the words of one who holds the sacred sword and speaks from the high pulpit," he said sternly; and his dry lean face hungered like a wolf's for the blood of the woman. "She has blasphemed," said the Ulema. Outside the house, quietness had given place to murmuring, murmuring to a noise, and a noise to a tumult, through which the yelping and howling of the village dogs streamed.
In other cities, Cairo and Constantinople excepted, the Ulema, or learned men, of whom a stranger might seek instruction, would be found busying themselves mainly with doctrinal matters not always interesting at the present day, old-world arguments of Koranic interpretation which have from time immemorial occupied the schools.
"Thou art a blasphemer," broke in the chief of the Ulema.
The Ulema, although lacking boldness to make the assertion, evidently believe them to be of Galla or pagan extraction. The present city of Harar is about one mile long by half that breadth. An irregular wall, lately repaired , but ignorant of cannon, is pierced with five large gates , and supported by oval towers of artless construction.
The chief Ulema are the Kabir Khalil, the Kabir Yunis, and the Shaykh Jami: the two former scarcely ever quit their houses, devoting all their time to study and tuition: the latter is a Somali who takes an active part in politics. These professors teach Moslem literature through the medium of Harari, a peculiar dialect confined within the walls.
The Turkish Ulema, ever since their first appearance in the Arabian schools in the eleventh century, finding themselves at a disadvantage through their ignorance of the sacred language, and being constitutionally adverse to intellectual effort, had maintained the proposition that mental repose was the true feature of orthodoxy, and in their fetwas had consistently relied on authority and rejected original argument.
The official clique in Stamboul were, however, at that time still intent on other projects, and only half understood the part to be played by religion in their scheme of administrative reform for the Empire. Besides and this was the chief hindrance to the Ulema Abd el Aziz was not a man capable of seriously carrying out a great political idea, being little else than a man of pleasure.
As to their learning, there is an immense difference between a Turkish ulema and a Moorish doctor. "From the fall of Carthage and Rome, until the fourteenth century, the people of North Africa have had relations with Europe. The independence of the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco fell by internal dissensions like the Mussulman power in Spain.
There, without doubt, he would have proclaimed himself Caliph, having all the essential elements of the Sultan's admitted right on which to found a new claim. Nor is it probable that he would have found much religious opposition to the realization of his scheme from the Turkish Ulema.
The Ulema, indeed, such as were Hanefites, admitted him to be legally Khalifeh; but many of the Shafite school denied this, pleading still that as an alien to the Koreysh his claim was illegal, while to the ignorant mass of the people out of his dominions his spiritual title remained almost unknown.
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