Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - Mohammedanism (1916).djvu/110

 Rh of by their own guild, strengthened by public opinion. If, on the other hand, there is no keen interest felt in the Sharîʿah (Divine Law), then the temporal rulers can do pretty much what they like with these representatives of the canon law. Under the tyrannical sway of Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid, the Sheikh-ul-Islâm was little more than a tool for him and his palace clique, and for their own reasons, the members of the Committee of Union and Progress, who rule Constantinople since 1908, made no change in this: each new ministry had its own Sheikh-ul-Islâm, who had to be, above everything, a faithful upholder of the constitutional theory held by the Committee. The time is past when the Sultan and the Porte, in framing even the most pressing reform, must first anxiously assure themselves of the position that the hojas, tolbas, softas, the theologians in a word, would take towards it, and of the influence that the Sheikh-ul-Islâm could use in opposition to their plans. The political authority makes its deference to the canonists dependent upon their strict obedience.

This important change is a natural consequence of the modernization of Mohammedan political life, a movement through which the expounders of a law which has endeavoured to remain stationary since the year 1000 must necessarily get into straits. This explains also why the religious life of Mohammedans is in some respects freer in countries under non-Mohammedan authority,