Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/689

 SUNNITES.] SUNNITES 661 enumerated in vol. xvi. p. 553 sq. ; the civil law, on the development of which Roman law had some influence, is treated under heads similar to those of Western juris- prudence. It is here that the differences between the four schools (vol. xvi. p. 594 sq.) come most into notice : the Hanafite praxis is the least rigorous, then the Shafi'ite; the Hanbalites, whose system is the strictest, have practi- cally disappeared in the M&likites. The Hanafite rite is official in the Turkish empire, and is followed in all Govern- ment offices whenever a decision still depends on the sacred law, as well as by all Mohammedans of Turkish race. In Egypt and North Africa ShAfi'ites are more numerous than Malikites, while the opposite is the case in Arabia. In 1878 the Azhar had 7691 students, 3723 Shafi'ites with 106 sheikhs, 2855 Malikites with 75 sheikhs, 1090 Hanafites with 49 sheikhs, 23 Hanbalites with 1 sheikh. In this as in the previous studies a compendium is learned by heart, and explanations are given from commentaries and noted down by the students word for word. The professors are expressly forbidden to add anything of their own. The recognized books of jurisprudence, some of which run to over twenty folio volumes, are vastly learned, and occasionally show sound sense, but excel mainly in useless hair-splitting and feats of scholastic gymnastics, for which the Arabian race has a natural gift. Besides the three main disciplines the student takes up according to his tastes other subjects, such as rhetoric (ma ani ivabaydn), logic (mantik), prosody (arud), and the doctrine of the correct pronunciation of the Koran (kira'a watajwid). After three or four years, fortified with the certificates of his various professors, he seeks a place in a law-court or as a teacher, preacher, cadi, or mufti of a village or minor town, or else one of the innumerable posts of confidence for which the complicated ceremonial of Mohammedanism demands a theologian, and which are generally paid out of pious foundations. A place is not hard to find, for the powerful corporation of the ulema seeks to put its own members into all posts, and, though the remuneration is at first small, the young 'Alim gradually accumulates the revenues of several offices. Gifts, too, fall in, and with his native avarice and economy he rises in wealth, position, and reputation for piety. The common- alty revere him and kiss his hand ; the rich show him at least outward respect; and even the Government treats him as a person to whom consideration is due for his influence with the masses. This sketch of his education is enough to explain the narrow-mindedness of the 'alim. He deems all non-theo- logical science to be vain or hurtful, has no notion of progress, and regards true science i.e., theology as having reached finality, so that a new supercommentary or a new students' manual is the only thing that is perhaps still worth writing. How the mental faculties are blunted by scholasticism and mere memory work must be seen to be believed ; such an education is enough to spoil the best head. All originality is crushed out and a blind and ludicrous dependence on written tradition even in things profane- takes its place. Acuteness degenerates into hair-splitting and clever plays on words after the manner of the rabbins. The Azhar students not seldom enter Government offices and even hold important administrative posts, but they never lose the stamp of their education the narrow un- teachable spirit, incapable of progress, always lost in ex- ternal details, and never able to grasp principles and get behind forms to the substance of a matter. (w. S.-B.) chools. Yet it is but a small fraction of the ulema of the Mos- lem world that enjoy even such an education as the Azhar affords. It draws few students from foreign parts, 1 where 1 In 1878 seventeen lecture-rooms of the Azhar had 3707 students, of whom only 64 came from Constantinople and the northern parts of the local schools are of the poorest kind, except in India (thanks to the British Government) and perhaps in Con- stantinople. 2 BokharA was once a chief seat of learning, but is now so sunk in narrow fanaticism that its eighty madrasas with their 5000 students only turn out a bigoted and foolish clergy (Vambery). 3 But for this very reason BokharA is famed as a luminary of pure theology and spreads its influence over Turkestan, Siberia, China, Kash- mir, Afghanistan, and even over India. Minor schools attached to mosques are found in other places, but teach still less than the great schools already mentioned. Except in India, where it is controlled by the Govern- Caliph- ment, the organization of the priestly and judicial persons ate and trained in the schools is a compromise between what theo- tem l' oral logical principles dictate and what the state demands. J v g e nt Neither Koran nor Sunna distinguishes between temporal and spiritual powers, and no such distinction was known as long as the caliphs acted in all things as successors of the prophets and heads of the community of the faithful. But, as the power of the 'Abbdsids declined (see vol. xvi. p. 585 sq.) and external authority fell in the provinces into the hands of the governors and in the capital into those of the amir al-omard, the distinction became more and more palpable, especially when the Buyids (Buwaihids), who were disposed to Shf ite views, proclaimed themselves sultans, i.e., possessors of all real authority. The theo- logians tried to uphold the orthodox theory by declaring the sultanate to be subordinate to the imamate or sove- reignty of the caliphs, and dependent on the latter especi- ally in all religious matters ; but their artificial theories have never modified facts. The various dynasties of sul- tans (Buyids, Ghaznevids, Seljuks, and finally the Mongols) never paid heed to the caliphs and at length abolished them ; but the fall of the theocracy only increased the influence of the clergy, the expounders and practical administrators of that legislation of Koran and Sunna which had become part of the life of the Mohammedan world. The Mame- lukes in Egypt tried to make their own government appear more legitimate by nominally recognizing a continuation of the spiritual dignity of the caliphate in a surviving branch of the 'Abbasid line which they protected, and in 923 A.H. (1517) the Ottoman Selim, who destroyed the Mameluke power, constrained the 'Abbasid Mutawakkil III., who lived in Cairo, to make over to him his nominal caliphate. The Ottoman sultans still bear the title of " successors of the Prophet," and still find it useful in foreign relations, since there is or may be some advantage in the right of the caliph to nominate the chief cadi (kadi) of Egypt and in the fact that the spiritual head of Khiva calls himself only the nakib (vicegerent) of the sultan. 4 In India too the sultan owes something perhaps to his spiritual title. But among his own subjects he is compelled to defer to the ulema and has no considerable influence on the composi- tion of that body. He nominates the sheikhu 'I- Islam (senior, i.e., president of Islam) or mufti of Constantinople (grand mufti), who is his representative in the imdmate and issues judgments in points of faith and law from which there is no appeal ; but the nomination must fall on one of the mollatis, 5 who form the upper stratum of the hierarchy the Ottoman empire, 8 from North Arabia, 1 from the government of Baghdad, 12 from Kurdistan, and 7 from. India with its thirty million Sunnites. 2 In Kazan also the standard of learning seems to have been raised by Russian and Western scholars. 3 The madrasa is here a college, generally attached to a mosque, with lands whose revenues provide the means of instruction and in part also food and residence for scholars and teachers. 4 Till the Russians gained preponderating influence the khan of Khiva also acknowledged the sultan as his suzerain. 5 Mollah is the Perso-Turkish pronunciation of the Arabic maidd, literally "patron," a term applied to heads of orders and other reli- gious dignitaries of various grades.