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 LATER DEVELOPMENT OF JANISSARIES 227 admitted, even though his father had been one of themselves. As a consequence of this cultivation of regimental rights, the popularity of the New Troops became so great that many- young Christians of adventurous spirit voluntarily sought to join their ranks. The Janissaries developed into a species of imperium in imperio. Perhaps the body in Western Europe to which they may most aptly be compared is the Order of Knights Templars. Each was a partly religious, partly military Order. Each was jealous of its own privileges and con- stituted a fraternity largely isolated from the rest of the community. But the isolation of the Janissary was more complete than that of the Templar at any time. The Moslem had been cut off* from his own family and had forgotten all the Christians he had known as a child, and his regiment had taken the place of father and mother, wife and home. His individual rights had been merged in those of his regiment. The resemblance between the Janissaries and the Templars might be noted in one other respect — namely, that their religion sat lightly upon them. Though the former were bound by the precepts of Hadji Bektash, these precepts were, from the Mahometan point of view, extremely latitudinarian. 1 All their discipline and training tended to make them devoted to the sultan as commander-in-chief. The Janissary had nothing to gain and nothing to fear from any person except his military superiors. Each man's promotion depended on the arbitrary will of his commanding officer, or ultimately of the sovereign. Each man saw before him a career in which he could rise to the command of an army or to other high office, provided he won the approval of his sultan. Such a military organisation had never been seen in the world's history, and furnished to the early sultans a force 1 When, contemporaneously with the murder of the Janissaries in 1826, the Order of Bektashis was suppressed, Sultan Mahmoud assigned as a reason that jars of wine were found in the cellars of their convents stoppered with leaves of the Koran. The statement was probably false, but was intended to create the worst possible impression against the Bektashis. Q 2