IV. M uhammedanism. — The Turks have been a Mo- liammedan people from the 10th century, and have ever since been the banner-bearer among tlie Mohammedan states. Tlie sultan is regarded as the head of the Sun- nite jNIoliammedans [see Sunnites], not only in Turkey, but as far as the Sunnite form of Moliammedanism ex- tends. Church and State are so intimately united in Turkey that the judicial and the priestly power are vest- ed in the same officer, the Uleina, who regards tlie Koran as the sole authority for the decision of ecclesiastical as well as civil causes. '-The administration of justice in Turkey is now divided into two parts — that of the Sheri. wherein all judges are Mussulmans, and that of the Nizdmiijeh, composed of both Christians and Mussul- mans. The head of all the courts of the Sheri is the Sheik el-Islam, who sanctions all their judgments. The judicatory of the Sheri is comjiosed of a high court of appeal {A rz-odiin/), divided into two chambers (.S«/- dur), one for Turkey in Europe, and one for Asia. At the head of each is a cdzi-usker, literally military judge. The cazi-asker is assisted by fourteen honorary chief- justices. In the hierarchy of the IJlema the mollahs rank next to the cazi-asker, and after them the cadis. The first in rank are the mollahs of Constantinople, nine in number, and who sit in the court Sheri, at the cajii- tal. for a year, being taken in turn from the body of the mollahs. At its head is the moUah of Stamboul. The second in rank is the Mevlevizef, which numbers fifty- seven titularies. The mollah, when on duty, serves for only a year, and then returns to the roll" (IJaker, Tur- key). Turkish education, until recently, was also in close connection with the State religion. It was organizeil by sultan Mohammed I (1451-81), the greatest soldier- statesman that the Ottoman empire has produced. He established elementarj' schools called mektebs, scattered over his empire in every town and in almost every ]\Io- hammedan village, and numerous public schools or col- leges of the higher order, which were called viedresses, in distinction from the inektebg, or elementary schools. The medfi'Kfies went through ten regular courses of grammar, syntax, logic, metaphysics, philology, the sci- ence of tropes, the science of style, rhetoric, geometry', and astronomy. - The taker of a degree in these sub- jects received the title o( daimhmend, which has now been replaced by the term sof/a. The degree entitles him to the mastership of one of the minor public schools; but in that case he renounces the prospect of becoming a member of the Ulema, or of any of the higher educational appointments. For this it is nec- essary to go through a still further course of study, and to pass several examinations. Incentives to work are
given in the honors and endovi'ments which are con- ferred. The Ulema sujiplies all the professors of the high-schools, who are called miidvrris, and from the same order are chosen all the ministers of justice, in- cluding the cazi-ask<TS, the mollahs, and the cadis. The actual priesthood of Turkey takes a very inferior posi- tion in the State. The ministers ol' public worship are called imatnns, who officiate at public prayers, and sheiks, or preacliers. But the fact that tlie appoiiilmonts to the priesthood are allotted to the holders of minor de- grees does not mark, on the part of the Turks, any want of respect for tlieir faith. It only arises in conse- quence of the legal profession being so intimately con- nected with the Ciiurch as expounders of the law of the Koran that they, in fact, form the senior branch of the hierarchy. Dervishes, or Mohammedan monks, are very numerous and are divided into a jnimber of sects. See Dekvish. The Uacow/', or Cliurch property, which belongs to the mosques and other religious institutions and to benevolent foundations, is administered by a special department of the State called the Erkuf, and consists of two classes: 1st. Property or its produce ac- tually belonging to such ecclesiastical establishments, and held and received on their account by the Evkaf ; and 2d. Property owned by private persons, but lajising, in default of direct heirs of the owner, to the Evkaf, and subject, in the meantime, to a small yearly contribution payable to that department; but an owner of Vacouf property liaving no direct heirs is not debarred from selling it to a person having such heirs, and so prevent- ing it, for the time, from falling into the Evkaf. By a recent law a private person holding Vacouf property can, on payment of certain fees to the government, have it converted into what is called imilkich. a title which gives the holder the fee simple of the land, to do with it as he pleases, to leave it by will, and, in default of his doing so, it passes to his next heir.
Trustworthy statistics on the religious denominations of Turkey cannot yet be obtained. E. G. Pavenstein, in an article on the population of Russia and Turkey in the Journal of the Statistical Society (Loud. 1877), esti- mates the total population of European Turkey, exclu- sive of Poumania and Servia, but inclusive of Bosnia and Bulgaria, at 9,661,000, which he distributes as fol- lows among the religious denominations:
EUUOPE.