The Ottoman Ruling Institution, and the Moslem Institution of the Ottoman Empire might be compared, contrasted, and reflected upon at great length. In this discussion, however, it must suffice to select and comment upon a few of their salient likenesses, differences, and interactions, without attempting to separate such features sharply.
Both institutions were constructed out of old and well-seasoned materials. Many of the ideas in each can be followed back until their origin is lost in prehistoric obscurity; hardly a feature in either but had a clear derivation from, relationship to, or suggestion in, some prototype of pre-Ottoman days. Only the final structure of each, the proportion and composition of its parts, and the effect of the completed whole was worked out in the Ottoman Empire. If an attempt be made, in a very general way, to distinguish the main lines of influence which led up to the two institutions, it may be said that the Ruling Institution had its nucleus of ideas from the Turks of the steppe lands. Influenced by old Persian neighbors and Chinese rulers, the original group of ideas was brought into the Moslem Empire and Asia Minor by the predecessors of the Seljuk Turks and by the Seljuk Turks themselves. Coming into contact in Asia Minor with the ideas of the Byzantine Empire, and to some extent with those of the crusaders from the West, the system took on a large number of new features; and the Ottomans continued the process in Asia Minor and Southeastern Europe until the time of Suleiman. The Moslem Institution began with the ideas of the Arabs as combined by Mohammed with Jewish, Middle Persian, and Christian influences. Political notions were rapidly incorporated from those prevailing in Byzantine Syria and Egypt, and perhaps to a greater extent from those in the Sassanian Persian Empire. A compact system of ideas began early to be developed, and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it reached final scholastic shape. Together with its institutional embodiments, it began to pass to the Ottomans in their earliest days; and, as the nation grew, it grew into the Moslem Institution of the Ottoman Empire, fresh power being given to it by Selim’s conquest of the old Moslem lands, and especially by his acquisition of the over-lordship of the Holy Cities. The two lines of tendency which led to the two great Ottoman institutions were first brought into contact when, in the seventh century, the Arab conquest of Persia advanced the Moslem frontier into Central Asia. From that time to the reign of Suleiman reciprocal influence was exerted, although the Moslem ideas affected the Turkish much more than the Turkish did the Moslem.
Both of the great Ottoman institutions were founded upon groups of ideas and not upon racial descent. This subject, discussed above in the Introduction, has been shown to be true to an extreme in the Ruling Institution, which drew its members from every direction except from the existing stock of the nation. The Moslem Institution embodied a religion of universal claim. Though originally given to the Arabs, the Moslem faith was intrinsically independent of race, as its subsequent history revealed. Belief, and not blood, became the sole test of membership. This common hospitality of its two great institutions to all who might wish to join them laid firmly the foundation of the Ottoman nation, and made possible the greatness and the permanence of its dominion.
Both Ottoman institutions were self-perpetuating through education. Each had a great educational system which was adapted to its special character, and which was life-long in extent. The Ruling Institution trained its pupils physically as well as mentally, whereas the Moslem Institution neglected physical education in favor of a greater amount of intellectual training. Otherwise their work was largely parallel. One institution took its pupils from the children of Christian subjects and neighbors, and trained them to conquer and to rule. The other took its pupils from the children of Moslems and trained them to know, practise, teach, and enforce the Moslem rules of law and life. The one system raised the ablest Christian-born individuals to the highest positions, and the other raised the ablest Moslem-born individuals similarly. Both continually brought in new material at the bottom, and continually worked upon all their material to increase its value. Each offered such rewards and promotions as to induce its members to put forth their most strenuous exertions, that they might develop their own powers and visibly help their institution. Whatever faults of plan and structure the institutions may have had, they were able to survive all dangers and disasters largely through the trained ability of the individuals whom their educational systems had brought to the front.
Both institutions rose to an apex, through the Divan and the grand vizier, in the sultan, who was the head and center of each. Yet the ideas by which the two institutions were joined to their head were in striking contrast. The sultan was master and owner of the Ruling Institution; he was the divinely-appointed chief of the Moslem Institution. The members of the former obeyed him as slaves; the members of the latter obeyed him as free Moslems commanded by the Sacred Law to render allegiance to the chief interpreter and defender of that law. The former knew no power greater than the sultan’s; the latter relied upon the Sacred Law as above the sultan. The Ruling Institution was extended downward in each of its parts from the sultan’s authority, and in organization and membership depended for existence upon his will. The Moslem Institution rose upward from the people, and was attached almost artificially to the sultan’s authority. Suleiman regulated the grades of higher advancement in it, but the sultans who came after him touched the organization of the institution scarcely at all. Very seldom, moreover, by comparison, did the sultans punish the members of this institution; for the most part its work went on quite independently of them. But the sultan was the head of both institutions: every member of each looked upward along converging lines which met at the foot of his throne. The highest promotions in each were made by him directly, the honored men being put into positions near their sovereign.
The fact that the Ruling Institution was recruited from Christian slaves and the Moslem Institution from Moslem freemen led to a profound difference of spirit. The Christian slaves, newly converted to Mohammedanism, were not as a body so closely attached to the Sacred Law as were the Moslem freemen. Their loyalty being rather to one man, their master and benefactor, they felt a servile devotion which was very different from the reasoned allegiance of those who had always been free. A Mufti, fortified by the Sacred Law, would firmly oppose the will of the sovereign in a case where a grand vizier would scarcely dare venture a mildly contrary suggestion. The Sacred Law, despite the introduction of all later influences, still breathed forth something of the freedom of the Arabian desert: in one or two generations, as has been seen, it could render its followers unfit to be slaves. Thus the spirit of the Ruling Institution was far less independent of personal authority than that of the Moslem Institution.
As to the authority of old ideas the contrary was true. The fundamental distinction of parties in modern states seems to rest upon a greater or less relative inclination to follow old paths or to enter upon new ones. Both institutions of the Ottoman state would in modern times be classed as strongly conservative, but of the two the Moslem Institution was by far the more so. Conservatism, in fact, was of the very essence of the Sacred Law. The early Turks had also loved their Adet, but not so much as to be unwilling quickly to adopt the new if they saw in it distinct advantage; the rise of the Ottoman power was, indeed, marked by the constant incorporation of new ideas, devices, and methods.[708] As the Moslem influence grew, however, changes became increasingly more difficult to make; and when they were made it was by the activity of the Ruling Institution, usually against the resistance or the inert passivity of the Moslem Institution.
The fact that the Ruling Institution fought and governed while the Moslem Institution thought and judged was, of course, highly significant: the former embodied the active, the latter the contemplative, principle of the nation. Here again is involved a difference of Turk and Saracen. In the steppe lands the Turk fought, obeyed, and gave orders; after the fever of conquest was abated, the Saracen, under Islam, thought, preserved intellectual independence, and worshipped. With the two characters placed side by side, it was in the nature of things that in the long run muscle would be controlled by mind.
By comparison with the Moslem Institution, the Ruling Institution possessed a great structural disadvantage, in that it was much more artificial and therefore much less stable. It admitted its members as slaves, but they were not hereditary slaves; most of them were free-born subjects of the empire or of the neighboring Christian states. A class of hereditary slaves would not have possessed the requisite mettle. Now, the acquisition of a large number of free-born children who can be made into slaves is hardly a process that can be continued indefinitely. Conquest had its limits for the Ottoman Empire, for boundaries were reached beyond which lay states whose powers of self-defense developed increasingly; accordingly, recruiting by capture became increasingly difficult. But the levying of children as tribute was strongly against human nature; and in the long run it, too, must lead to decline, for under its operation the best were taken and inferiors were left. Furthermore, not only were children separated from their parents against the wishes of the parents, but the recruits, when they grew up, were not encouraged to form family ties. Even when they did so, they were unable to advance their children as they had been advanced themselves, and they could not be sure of conveying their property to their descendants. Thus in several respects the Ruling Institution ran counter to the idea of the family. On the other hand, the advantages given to the sultan’s kullar became too great not to be coveted; and it was not natural that the free-born Moslems should continue to let outsiders be the only recipients of so much wealth, power, and privilege. The Moslem population forced its way in, and the plan of the Ruling Institution was upset. The Moslem Institution, on the contrary, was recruited voluntarily from an increasing population; hence, as its advantages became attractive, it was benefited rather than harmed by pressure for admission. Its able men, while they must labor if they would advance, were free, unhindered in their family relationships, and under little fear of being deprived of property or life.
The two institutions, running everywhere parallel, with their members in constant association one with the other, could not fail to act reciprocally upon each other. It is not easy, however, to discriminate likenesses that were due to mutual influence from those that were caused by common circumstances; nor is it easy to distinguish pre-Ottoman interactions from those which operated after the beginning of the fourteenth century. A few probabilities may be expressed, however.
It is a matter of frequent remark that men, institutions, and peoples are apt to impart to each other their faults and vices more readily than their good qualities. Whether or not this be true, the two Ottoman institutions certainly seem to have taught each other some evil qualities. Luxury, venality, and unnatural vices were all strongly discountenanced by the Sacred Law; but all were fostered in the members of the Ruling Institution by the very conditions of the system, and by the sixteenth century all had come to be charged against the members of the Moslem Institution as well. On the other hand, the conservatism of the Moslem Institution and its resistance to progress came more and more to characterize the Ruling Institution. Members of the Ulema taught even the pages of the palace and the princes on the intellectual side of their training, thereby exerting a constant influence which in the course of time operated powerfully on the Ruling Institution from top to bottom, till it, too, began to acquire a changelessness which resisted improvement and progress. With such a character once established, the end of the empire’s greatness was at hand. In a rapidly progressing world, a stationary position means a relative decline.
The two institutions contributed strongly to each other’s power and permanence. The Ruling Institution defended the Moslem Institution by the sword, and carried out among the people the decisions of its wise men. It also protected the latter’s sources of regular revenue, and thus enabled the Ulema, secure of a living, to devote themselves to the study and teaching of the Sacred Law. The Moslem Institution, on the other hand, kept the Moslem population obedient and submissive to the sultan’s authority as expressed in the Ruling Institution. It taught that the Sultan was divinely appointed and therefore always to be obeyed, no matter what his character was or how oppressive his rule might become, so long as he did not transgress the Sacred Law; and that it was for the Ulema alone to decide when he had made such a transgression. Accordingly the two institutions, so long as they acted in harmony, were absolutely impregnable in their position among the Moslems of the empire.
These two institutions constituted, as it were, the two great parties in the Ottoman state.[709] The Moslem Institution was always strongly Islamic, and extremely conservative in all respects. The Ruling Institution was originally liberal both religiously and in its receptivity of new ideas, but it departed from its liberal tendency in much the same proportion that the Moslem Institution increased in power.
To trace the ups and downs of the influence of the two institutions from the beginnings of Ottoman history would be an interesting problem. Much depended of course, as must always be the case in a despotic state, on the character of the sultan. With an active conquering sultan like Mohammed II or Selim I, the Ruling Institution would gain upon its rival; with a pious or mild sultan like Murad II or Bayezid II, the Moslem Influence would increase in importance. Selim I’s vast conquests in Moslem territories, and his acquisition of the protectorate of the Holy Cities and of the title of caliph, prepared the way for a later advance in the power of the Moslem Institution which was not in harmony with his own personal influence. Suleiman had a fiery active period of youth when the liberal policy was stronger in his mind, and a quieter old age when the Moslem influence became predominant; it is not unlikely that a consciousness of his position as caliph grew upon him with advancing years. But in general, through all the reigns, the power of the Moslem Institution grew; the only difference from reign to reign was in the rate of speed. The Ruling Institution also grew in power before the world and the Ottoman nation as long as the empire continued to expand rapidly; but it did not grow relatively so fast as did the Moslem Institution.
The reasons for the more rapid growth of Moslem influence lay chiefly in the fact that that influence was cumulative. As to its financial basis, the Moslem Institution, like the Christian church in the West, gained lands and wealth continually, and never lost any; for sultans took great pride, and high officials vied with each other, in founding mosques, schools, colleges, and other charitable and semi-public institutions supported by vakfs.[710] In general moral and political influence, also, the institution gained rapidly through its system of education; for, like the medieval Christian church again, it held in its hands all the means and methods of intellectual development. Every new primary school, college, and law school,—and they were many in the days of glory,—strengthened the influence of this institution. In this field, indeed, its power acted constantly upon its rival. Old Hojas taught the pages in the palace, advised the sultan’s mother, and trained the young princes and the sons of high officials. Thus within the nation the external show of the Moslem Institution, and its sway over the minds of men, grew without ceasing.
The Ruling Institution, on the other hand, lost relatively. In the early days, when recent converts were exceedingly numerous and the religious spirit of the young nation was weak, the Turkish-Aryan organization was far stronger than the Semitic influence. Sultans, however, were constantly giving away state lands as endowment for new mosques and colleges; and, worse still, so much of the educational system of this institution as was not controlled by its rival was directed only toward its own membership and not toward the nation at large. Accordingly, although the Ruling Institution grew in wealth and power, it did not keep pace with the Moslem Institution, which, after two and a half centuries of gain, was able to overtake it about the time of Suleiman’s reign. His gifts of great mosques, numerous colleges, and vast endowment,[711] his arrangement in final perfection of the cursus honorum which led up from the primary schools to the office of Mufti, and the personal leaning of his later years toward the influence of the Ulema, settled permanently the preponderance of the Moslem Institution.
At the same time, the Moslem Institution could never destroy its rival. Theoretically it had no need of such a counterpart. Mohammed and the early caliphs had no such institution. The Sacred Law developed with no mention of a secular government, and with no hint of any deficiency in its own provisions that would make it inadequate to guide a nation by its own strength; but, within thirty years from the death of Mohammed, Muavia had set up a secular government at Damascus, and since then every Moslem state had had one. Many a Moslem state, also, had had a ruler who was not of lawful blood; for the Sacred Law affirmed that the Imâm, or divinely appointed ruler, must be of the tribe of the Koreish.[712] According to that unenforced provision, Suleiman himself had no right to the throne. The fact is that the Moslem Institution very early became too unworldly to live unsupported by a secular power. It was a strong but tender hand, which must always wear a glove. After it had acquired a permanent ascendency in the state, therefore, the Moslem Institution was compelled to keep its rival in place, and to allow it always strength enough to defend and support the empire which nourished both.
Bound together closely in an alliance which neither enjoyed, but which was necessary for the preservation of both, the Ruling Institution and the Moslem Institution constituted the twofold inner framework of the Ottoman Empire, to which it owed all its might and energy, its grandeur and repute, its continuity and durability.