ECCLESIASTICAL GOVERNMENT, AND CLERGY.

The Mohammedan clergy are numerous: their body in Turkey is composed of all the learned in that empire; and they are likewise the only teachers of the law, and must be consulted in all important cases. In their capacity of lawyers, or interpreters of the Koran, which, in most cases, is the code of laws, the clergy are called Ylana, or "the instructed in the law." The grand Sultan himself, as caliph, or successor to Mohammed, who died a prince and a pontiff, the head in spiritual affairs as well as in temporal, is their head *; but their actual chief is the Grand Mufti, an ecclesiastic of great authority and political influence. He is appointed by the Grand Signior; is sovereign pontiff, expounder of the law of Mohammed, and supreme director of all religious concerns. He is regarded as the oracle of sanctity and wisdom; and having an extensive authority, both over the actions and consciences of men, his office is one of the most honourable and lucrative in the empire. The Sultan encourages a great veneration for him, pays him great external homage himself, and pretends to consult him in all doubts and difficulties. The concurrence of the Mufti justifies the Sultan's conduct, and silences the discontents of the people, who are persuaded, that whatever he consents to is approved by the Deity. Hence it too often happens, that he must confirm his edicts, and ratify all his mandates, even the most iniquitious, unless he prefers a good conscience to his life or his situation. But in what way soever the Sultan may be disposed to punish a conscientious and unpliant Mufti, he cannot take from him his property; that being considered as sacred.

The Grand Mufti is likewise president of the Oulema, an assembly consisting of three descriptions of persons, who are administrators of the various powers which are centered in the sultan's person, the authorized interpreters of the Koran, and without whose fetra (or decree) no measure of state should be executed. The first description of persons forming this body, are the ministers of religion, called the Imams; the second, the doctors of the law, called the Muftis; and the third, the ministers of justice, called the Cadis.

The Oulemas enjoy various privileges; and, among others, freedom from taxation, and from arbitrary confiscation. The

Among other high titles of the Grand Sultan, he is styled "the Sultandin, the Protector of the Faith, the Padishah-Islam, or Emperor of Islamism, and the Zil-Ullah, or Shadow of God."

chief imams are part of their body; the inferior clergy are

not.

The immediate ministers of religion are of five descriptions:

1. The Sheiks, or ordinary preachers in the mosques. 2. The Khatibs; readers, or deacons, who, in imitation of the prophet or caliphs, and in the name and under the sacerdotal authority of the sultan, discharge the function of an imam, or high priesthood, and read the prayers on Fridays. 3. The Imams, (a word answering to the Latin Antistes); a general title for the priests, who perform the service in the mosque on ordinary days, and who consecrate the ceremonies of circumcision, marriage, and burial*.

4. The Maazeens, or criers +.

5. The Cayims, or common attendants of the mosque.

The numbers of the priests attached to the different mosques are various; but except in the fourteen principal mosques of Constantinople, the Khatibs enjoy a pre-eminence over the rest of the clergy.

"The ministers of religion throughout the Turkish empire are subordinate to the civil magistrate, who exercises over them the power of a diocesan. He has the privilege of superseding and removing those whose conduct is reproachable, or who are unequal to the dignified discharge of the duties of their office. The magistrates themselves may perform all the sacerdotal functions; and it is in virtue of this prerogative, joined to the influence which they derive from their judicial power and their riches, that they have so marked a pre-eminence, and so preponderant an authority, as they actually enjoy over the ministers of public worship. The priests in their habits of life are not distinguishable from other citizens: they mix in the same society, engage in the same pursuits, and their conduct is not characterized by greater austerity than marks the behaviour of other Muselmans. Their influence on the secular members of the church is entirely dependent on their reputation for learning, and talents, and gravity, and moral conduct. They are seldom the professed instruc

* For the other meaning of the word Imam, see below, p. 411, note. + In proclaiming the hour of prayer, the Maazeens use these words: “God is great, God is great, God is great! I declare that there is no God but God, and that Mohammed is his prophet. Come to prayer, come to prayer! come to the temple of health! Great God, great God! there is no God but God." In the morning the crier adds, "Prayer is better than sleep, prayer is better than sleep."-D'Ohosson, tom. ii. p. 110.

tors of youth, much less of men, and by no means are they considered as the directors of consciences. They merely chaunt aloud the public service, and perform offices which the master of a family can also discharge. The Turks know nothing of those expiatory ceremonies which give so much. influence to the Catholic priesthood: all the practices of their religion can be, and often are, performed without the interference of priests.

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In a view of Islamism, the state of its fanatics deserves attention. Under the name of Sooffees, Fakirs, and Dervises *, the enthusiasts of Mohammedism are spread from the Atlantic to the Ganges. The holy mendicants of the Turkish empire are divided into thirty-two sects. They pass their days and nights in prayer, fasting, and in every species of bodily pain and mortification. Ceremonies, similar to incantations, violent dances, frightful gesticulations, repetitions of the name of Alla for hours, nay days together, impress the vulgar with a sense of their spiritual superiority +."

SUBDIVISIONS.

However successful and triumphant ab extra, the progress of the followers of Mohammed received a considerable check by the civil and religious dissensions which arose among themselves soon after his death. Abubeker and Ali-the former the father-in-law, and the latter the son-in-law, of this pretended prophet-aspired both to succeed him in the empire which he had erected. Upon this arose a cruel and tedious contest, the flames of which produced that schism which divided the Mohammedans into two grand factions; and this separation not only gave rise to a variety of opinions and rites, but also excited the most implacable hatred, and the most deadly animosities, which have been continued to the present day. With such furious zeal is this contention still carried on between these two factions, who are distinguished by the name of Sonnites, or "Traditionists," and Shiites, or "Sectaries,"

The Arabic word Sooffee means "wise," and is used metaphorically, to denote a religious mau. The word Fakir is the Arabic, and Derrische or Dervise the Turkish and Persian term, for " a mendicant."-Malcolm's History of Persia, vol. ii. p. 384, note; D'Herbelot, art. "Fakir Dervische, and Sofi."

+ Mills's "History," p. 400, &c.

The former of these two sects, by a general name, are called Sonnites, (i. e. Traditionists), because they acknowledge the authority of the Sonna, or collection of moral traditions of the sayings and actions of their Prophet; which is a sort of supplement to the Koran, directing the observance of several things omitted in that book,and in name, as well as design, answer

that each party detests and anathematizes the other as abominable heretics, and farther from the truth than either the Christians or the Jews.

The chief points wherein they differ are,

1. That the Schiites, who seem to maintain the doctrine of indefeasible and hereditary right, reject Abubeker, Omar, and Othman, the first three caliphs, as usurpers and intruders; whereas the Sonnites acknowledge and respect them as rightful caliphs or imâms.

2. The Schiites call Ali the vicar of God, and estimate his authority as of equal weight with that of Mohammed himself; but the Sonnites admit neither Ali, nor any of the prophets, to be equal to Mohammed.

3. The Sonnites charge the Schiites with corrupting the Koran, and neglecting its precepts; and the Shiites retort the same charge on the Sonnites.

4. The Sonnites receive the Sonna, or book of traditions of their prophet, as of canonical authority; whereas the Schiites reject it as apocryphal, and unworthy of credit, and believe in the all-sufficiency of the Koran as the revealed will of God.

And to these disputes, and some others of less moment, is principally owing the antipathy which has long reigned between the Turks and the Persians; for among the Sonnites, or followers of Abubeker, &c., we are to reckon the Turks, Tartars, Arabians, Africans, and the greatest part of the Indian Mohammedans; whereas the Persians and the subjects of the Grand Mogul are generally considered as Schiites, or followers of Ali; though the latter indeed seem to observe a strict neutrality in this contest, and the Schiites in general are less violent and more tolerant than the Sonnites*.

Besides these two grand factions, there are various other subordinate sects among the Mohammedans, which dispute with warmth concerning several points of religion, though without violating the rules of mutual toleration. And these different sects have been distinguished or divided into two sorts, those generally esteemed orthodox, and those which are deemed heretical.

ing to the Mishna of the Jews. The Schiites are so called from the Arabie word Schiat, which signifies in general a "company" or "party." The Sonnites aud Schiites among the Mohammedans answer, in a great measure to the Rabbinists and Karaites among the Jews, and it likewise appears that the same antipathy subsists between them.

Malcolm's "History of Persia," vol. ii. p. 381. The Shiite faith was proclaimed to be the national religion of Persia, A. D. 1499, and it has continued so ever since.

ge

The former are the Sonnites, whose tenets have been nerally considered the orthodox or established religion, and who are subdivided into four chief sects, of which the 1st is that of the Hanefites, who generally prevail amongst the Turks and Tartars; 2d, that of the Malecites, whose doctrine is chiefly followed in Barbary, and other parts of Africa; 3d, that of the Shafeites, who are chiefly confined to Arabia and Persia; and the 4th orthodox sect is that of the Hanbalites, who are not very numerous, and seldom to be met with out of the limits of Arabia *.

The heretical sects among the Mohammedans are those which are accounted to hold heterodox opinions in fundamentals, or matters of faith; and they are variously compounded and decompounded of the opinions of four chief sects, the Motazalites, the Safatians, the Kharejites, and the Schiitest.

Besides these leading Mohammedan sects, or parties, and their various ramifications, which are considered to be still within the pale of their church, there are several bodies of religionists, who maintain certain Mohammedan tenets and ccremonies, more or less, while they form distinct and independent communities, having either seceded from the mosque, or adopted part of its creed.

Of these, the three following seem to require a particular consideration; namely,

1. The Afghans;

2. The Druses; and

3. The Wahabees.

For an account of each of which, see below.

COUNTRIES WHERE FOUND, NUMBERS, &c.

Of the four religious systems now considered, only Christianity and Mohammedism profess to be a rule of religion to all countries; and it is a matter of serious regret, that the

These four sects are so called from four eminent doctors of law; Haneefa, Malik, Shaffei, and Hanbal, who lived in the first and second centuries of the Hegira, and have been acknowledged as Imâms, or high priests. They are called the four pillars of the Sonnite faith, and each has a separate chapel in the temple of Mecca. Among the Sonnites is a dogma, that there must be always a visible imam, a father of the church or a spiritual and temporal chief of Islamism; and for the last three centuries, the emperor of Constantinople has been the Mohammedan Imanı.

+ For an account of the Mohammedan Sects, both ancient and modern, see Hottinger's "Histor. Orient." lib. ii. cap. 6; Chardin's "Voyage en Perse," tom. ii. p. 263; Reland "De Religione Turcicâ," lib. i. pp. 36, 70, 74, 85; Ricaut's "State of the Ottoman Empire," book ii. chap. 12; Sale's "Preliminary Discourses," sect. 8; the 7th vol. of the "Asiatic Researches," and Mills's "History," ed. 1817, p. 323, &c.