Ulama

“ Where, however, an ulama goes beyond these everyday limits and travels about the country to enforce reform according to the spirit of the law, the respect he inspires increases to the highest degree, unless his life be in gross contrast with his preaching, and his proceedings manifestly dictated by ambition only. Many Achehnese sinners sympathize in the fullest sense with such a revival, while the rest dare not do otherwise than pretend to assent to it. At times indeed a section of the people will range themselves in opposition to such an ulama ”

“ But they have a reason, these ulama, for endeavoring to keep a genius like Abu'l-Ala within the pale of belief. Which reason, let us hope, has no claim on Prof. Margoliouth. And in his attempt to depreciate Abu'l-Ala as a disinterested and independent scholar and poet, he does not escape the inconsistency which often follows in the wake of cavil. Read this, for instance:
"Like many of those who have failed to secure material prosperity, he found comfort in a system which flatters the vanity of those who have not succeeded by teaching that success is not worth attaining." ”

“ No! answered the Magistrates and the Ulama, it is impossible! it cannot be done! it is her property. While the power of the Monarch is thus limited, and the rights of the People thus ascertained by the Koran, and in things manifest and open to view rigidly adhered to, justice between man and man 14is rarely administered; for, though the laws themselves are good, the corrupt administration of them disarms their effect, and distorts them from their purpose. The venality of the Judges is beyond conception flagitious and barefaced ”

“ Not a person in his whole army takes any intoxicating drink whatever; and great ʻUlamā, consisting of commentators, traditionists, jurists, and disputants, are in his society. He has a great number of religious books, and most of his receptions and debates are with ʻUlamā. In his place of audience debates on ecclesiastical law constantly take place; and, in his faith, as a Musalman, he is exceedingly strict and orthodox.”26 Baraka K͟hān entered into a close alliance with the Mamlūk Sultan of Egypt, Rukn al-Dīn Baybars. ”

“ They constitute the party of action, the chiefs that of inaction. They stand forth in the name of Allah, the chiefs in the name of an adat which, so far as it relates to government and the administration of justice, is very far from finding favour in the eyes of the people. Disobedience to them leads to misery in this world and the next, while the ulèëbalang has only power to make life unpleasant to the refractory within the limits of his own district [215] .
Next to the ulamas, chiefs such as Teuku Uma play the most important part, but they do not form the soul of the movement of resistance. ”

“ Yesterday a number of Ulamas and Mullahs were assembled in one of the great halls of the palace. Among them naturally Abdul Kadir appeared; then there were the Jesuits, a Jew, and a Parsee, and your former tutor Kulluka, who has returned here, and whom doubtless you have already greeted; my brother Abú-l Fazl was also present, and I also had that honour, and took for my part in the course of the discussion your ancient atheistical philosophy of nature. ”

“ In private and in public he expects that all should assume a respectful attitude towards him and acknowledging his superiority treat him as a higher being. They should greet him first, make way for him wherever he walks; when he speaks everyone should listen to him and never try to oppose him. He is a genius and people are like asses. They should be grateful to him seeing that he is so condescending. Such proud men are found especially among ulamas. Sages are ruined by their pride. The Prophet says: “He who has an atom of pride in his heart will fail to enter paradise.” ”

“ These laws are very short: they consist only of the Koran, and of the commentaries on the Koran drawn up by ancient pundits. The members of this corporation bear the title of ulemas, or effendis. They unite judicial to religious authority; they are at the same time the interpreters of religion, and the judges in all civil and criminal matters.
The mufti is the supreme head of the ulema. He is the head of the church. He represents the sultan’s vicar, as caliph or successor to Mahomet. ”

“ But Habeebah had remained a Muslim, and she was for calling the Imam. “The Imam is good, the Imam is holy; who so good and holy as the Imam?” “Nay, but our Sidi holds not with the Imam, for our lord is a Jew, and our lord is our master, our lord is our sultan, our lord is our king.” “Shoof! What is Sidi against paradise? And paradise is for her who makes a follower of Moosa into a follower of Mohammed. Let but the child die with the Kelmah on her lips, and we are all three blest for ever—otherwise we will burn everlastingly in the fires of Jehinnum.” ”

“ Certainly chance has made a sad mistake in giving sovereign power to thee; but the mistake will be repaired, let us hope. Dost thou think that I fear the savage treatment thou art preparing for me? Do I not know that the utmost of thy power is to say, ‘Let him [180] be killed?’ Go; to die is better than to be in the presence of a being so vile as thou art.” The Sultan then addressed the Ulemas and the doctors of the law, and said to them: “What is the judgment which the code of Islam pronounces against this rebel?” ”

“ Know that I am become a very old man, decrepit and feeble, and I desire to take up my abode in an oratory, there to worship God the Most High and crave His pardon for past offences and make this my son Seif el Mulouk ruler. Ye know that he is a goodly youth, eloquent, just and intelligent, learned and versed in affairs; wherefore I am minded presently to resign my kingdom to him and to make him king and sultan over you in my stead, whilst I give myself to the worship of God in an oratory. ”

“ And he said, "When people asked Ali, why his property had gone to ruin; he tells them, 'He who does not know the meaning of it, will not be told;' because he would not tell those matters to ignorant people. They would not know how to reply to him. Was it not better, then, not to tell those who knew not its meaning? For he who tells a man a matter, likes to get an answer. Would you tell anything to a man who would not know how to reply? This, then, was his meaning in not telling them." And the Sultan said, "Yes, certainly, these words are true." ”

“ The Ulema who have triumphed in this conflict are the most powerful, compact, and thoroughly organized body in Turkey. They represent all the wealthy and influential Turkish families. They monopolize the two great departments of law and religion, and the revenues of the higher orders of the hierarchy are immense. Those who are not fanatics by nature or conviction are so by profession, and their idea of reform is a return to the good old days of the Caliph of Bagdad. The Sultan is afraid of them, and he has reason to be so. ”

“ Two hundred thousand men in arms demanded the presence of the Grand Seignior, insisting upon the observance of the law according to which he was not permitted in times of peace to absent himself from the capital; all the troops uniting with the people and the men of law, the troops to complain of not having been paid, the people to attribute their misery to the residence of the Sultan at Adrianople, the men of law to protest against the cupidity of the Mufti. ”

“ The Mamaluks, then, being Mahomedans in little more than name, yielding their loyalty to the Sultan and to Islam simply from a regard to their own interests, were commonly looked upon by the Ulema, as well as by the people generally, as scarcely better than heretics, while their ceaseless rapacity and heartless cruelty made them at once feared and hated. ”

“ Yet kept going it must be; and the only men who had the requisite knowledge were just that clique of unspeakably corrupt officials whom it would have been the first duty of any good Government to clear away. Further, while the great mass of the subjects of the Sultan, of whatever creed; are easily governed folk enough, and obey any order that the Hukumet gives, within certain limits; yet everywhere in each one of the varied nations there was a small, noisy and irreconcilable minority—sets of men who could work neither with the Government nor with one another. ”

“ The order of the Government was an outrage on the Mohammedan religion, which England had pledged herself to respect. El Azhar was one of the three holy places of the Islamic world, and to close it was to take the bread of life from the Moslems. "The Government might as well cut our throats at once and have done with it," said some one.
From denouncing the order of the Government the Ulema went on to denounce the Government itself. It was eating the people! It was like wolves trying to devour them! "Are we to be body and soul under the heel of the infidel!" they asked themselves. ”

“ What becomes of an Imam [the title of the Sultan of Turkey as head of the Orthodox faith] who has destroyed certain holy writings, who has seized property in contravention to the Sheri laws, who has committed cruelties in ordering the assassination and imprisonment of exiles without any justification under the Sheri laws, who has squandered the public money, who, having sworn to govern according to the Sheriat, has violated his oath, who, by gifts of money, has provoked internecine bloodshed and civil war, and who no longer is recognized in the provinces? ”

“ When the lieges oppress one another, Allah setteth over them a tyrannical Sultan and a terrible King. Thus it is told in history that one day there was sent to Al-Hajjáj bin Yúsuf a slip of paper, whereon was written, “Fear Allah and oppress not His servants with all manner of oppression.” When he read this, he mounted the pulpit (for he was eloquent and ever ready of speech) , and said, “O folk, Allah Almighty hath made me ruler over you, by reason of your frowardness;”——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say. ”

“ When unfurled it is always handed to the Scheik-ul-Islam, or Grand Mufti, who combines in his own person the supreme power of the law with the highest office of religion, who mounted on a caparisoned steed, and, attended by the Sultan, bearing a drawn scimitar, rides in procession through the streets of Constantinople, escorted by the Ulemas, whose duty it is to proclaim that war has been declared against the unbelievers. ”

“ Both in the Assembly of Ulemas and in the Grand Council the proceedings were very curious, as showing that, even under the present reign of terror, there are a few men who have the courage to maintain openly opinions which they know to be unpalatable in the highest quarters. The obsequious Sheik‐ul‐Islam, for example, who wished to cover the illegal proceedings by art, encountered a determined resistance from the Mufti Emini, whose duty it is to give a written decision to any legal questions which may be addressed to him. ”

“ By such means, they enriched themselves. Hence, the saying, "It is good to be in authority even over stones." [9] This saying, however, is, according to al-Athram, explained by abu-ʿUbaidah by the fact that al-Ḥajjâj ibn-ʿAtîk ath-Thaḳafi, or his son, had charge of cutting the pillars for the al-Baṣrah mosque from Jabal al-Ahwâz where he discovered a mine. This gave rise to the expression: "It is good to be in authority even over stones."
Abu-ʿUbaidah states that the colonization of al-Kûfah took place in the year 18. ”

“ I determined to try my luck; and a young officer from the military academy, who was residing close to our madrasseh, gave me, as a favour, some coaching for the examination in geography and arithmetic, the two subjects in which I was most backward. I passed the examination fairly well, and joined the law l institution.
As I said before, all the progress of the educational institutions of modern creation has of late been lamentably hampered by the interference of the Sultan's palace Government, whose principal desire is to crush the growing liberalism. ”

“ This is a letter to the servant of God Umar [ibn al-Khattab] , Commander of the Faithful, from the Christians of such-and-such a city. When you came against us, we asked you for safe-conduct (aman) for ourselves, our descendants, our property, and the people of our community, and we undertook the following obligations toward you:
We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, Churches, convents, or monks' cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night, such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims. ”

“ Their creed is: God is not the immediate actor; as it would not be suitable to the dignity of royalty and sovereignty to perform himself every business; but it is proper that he should appoint some one of his servants who, on account of his great knowledge and power, is qualified for business, for the execution of the royal orders and the protection of the subjects. The latter also may, by the Sultan’s order, name another as Vizir or Nawab, for the affairs ”

“ If the said head of Islam, being backed by his party, gives his legal decree for the dethronement of a sultan, the community cannot disregard it. That is why during these frequent changes of ministry and secret butchcries in the palace of the Sultan, the Sheikh al Islam is comparatively safe, and the coward Sultan favors the Softas and Mollahs, the chief actors in the late massacre at Constantinople, with presents, decorations and congratulations. ”