The Future of Islam | Page 7

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. At the same time, while obstinate in matters of
opinion, Hanefism has become extremely lax as to practice. Its moral
teaching is held, and I believe justly, to be adapted only too closely to
the taste of its chief supporters. It is accused by its enemies of having
given the sanction of its toleration to the moral disorders common
among the Turks, their use of fermented drinks, their immoderate
concubinage and other worse vices. It is, in fact, the official school of
Ottoman orthodoxy. It embraces most of those who at the present day
support the revived spiritual pretensions of Constantinople.
The pilgrimage then described in our table as Ottoman is mostly made
up of men of this theological school. It must not, however, be supposed
that anything like the whole number either of the 8500 pilgrims, or of
the 22,000,000 population they represent, is composed of Turks. The
true Ottoman Turk is probably now among the rarest of visitors to
Mecca, and it is doubtful whether the whole Turkish census in Europe
and in Asia amounts to more than four millions. With regard to the
pilgrimage there is good reason why this should be the case. In Turkey,
all the able-bodied young men, who are the first material of the Haj, are
taken from other duties for military service, and hardly any now make
their tour of the Kaaba except in the Sultan's uniform. Rich merchants,
the second material of the Haj in other lands, are almost unknown
among the Turks; and the officials, the only well-to-do class in the
empire, have neither leisure nor inclination to absent themselves from
their worldly business of intrigue.
Besides, the official Turk is already too civilized to put up readily with

the real hardships of the Haj. In spite of the alleviations effected by the
steam navigation of the Red Sea, pilgrimage is still no small matter,
and once landed at Jeddah, all things are much as they were a hundred
years ago, while the Turk has changed. With his modern notion of dress
and comfort he may indeed be excused for shrinking from the quaint
nakedness of the pilgrim garb and the bare-headed march to Arafat
under a tropical sun. Besides, there is the land journey still of three
hundred miles to make before he can reach Medina, and what to some
would be worse hardship, a wearisome waiting afterwards in the
unhealthy ports of Hejaz. The Turkish official, too, has learned to
dispense with so many of the forms of his religion that he finds no
difficulty in making himself excuses here. In fact, he seldom or never
now performs the pilgrimage.
The mass of the Ottoman Haj is made up of Kurds, Syrians, Albanians,
Circassians, Lazis, and Tartars from Russia and the Khanates, of
everything rather than real Turks. 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. So much indeed
is this the case that serious students often prefer a residence at Bokhara,
or even in the heretical schools of Persia, as a more real road to
learning. Turkey proper boasts at the present day few theologians of
note, and still fewer independent thinkers.
The Egyptian Haj is far more flourishing. Speaking the language of
Arabia, the citizen of Cairo is more at home in the holy places than any
inhabitant of the northern towns can be. The customs of Hejaz are very
nearly his own customs, and its climate not much more severe than his.
Cairo, too, can boast a far more ancient political connection with
Mecca than Constantinople can, for as early as the twelfth century the
Sultans of Egypt were protectors of the holy places, while even since
the Ottoman conquest, the Caliph's authority in Arabia has been almost
uninterruptedly interpreted by his representative at Cairo. So lately as
1840 this was the position of things at Mecca, and it is only since the
opening of the Suez Canal that direct administration from

Constantinople has been seriously attempted. To the present day the
Viceroy of Egypt shares with the Sultan the privilege of sending a
mahmal, or camel litter, to Mecca every year with a covering for the
Kaaba. Moreover the Azhar mosque of Cairo is the great university of
Arabic-speaking races, and its Ulema have the highest reputation of