on the dogma that the ijtahad, that is to say the elaboration of new doctrine, is absolutely closed; that nothing can be added to or taken away from the already existing body of religious law, and that no new mujtahed, or doctor of Islam, can be expected who shall adapt that law to the life of the modern world. At the same time, while obstinate in matters of opinion, Hanefism has become extremely lax as to practice. Its moral teaching is held, and I believe justly, to be adapted only too closely to the taste of its chief supporters. It is accused by its enemies of having given the sanction of its toleration to the moral disorders common among the Turks, their use of fermented drinks, their immoderate concubinage and other worse vices. It is, in fact, the official school of Ottoman orthodoxy. It embraces most of those who at the present day support the revived spiritual pretensions of Constantinople.

The pilgrimage then described in our table as Ottoman is mostly made up of men of this theological school. It must not, however, be supposed that anything like the whole number either of the 8500 pilgrims, or of the 22,000,000 population they represent, is composed of Turks. The true Ottoman Turk is probably now among the rarest of visitors to Mecca, and it is doubtful whether the whole Turkish census in Europe and in Asia amounts to more than four millions. With regard to the pilgrimage there is good reason why this should be the case. In Turkey, all the able-bodied young men, who are the first material of the Haj, are taken from other duties for military service, and hardly any now make their tour of the Kaaba except in the Sultan's uniform. Rich merchants, the second material of the Haj in other lands, are almost unknown among the Turks; and the officials, the only well-to-do class in the empire, have neither leisure nor inclination to absent themselves from their worldly business of intrigue.

Besides, the official Turk is already too civilized to put up readily with the real hardships of the Haj. In spite of the alleviations effected by the steam navigation of the Red Sea, pilgrimage is still no small matter, and once landed at Jeddah, all things are much as they were a hundred years ago, while the Turk has changed. With his modern notion of dress and comfort he may indeed be excused for shrinking from the quaint nakedness of the pilgrim garb and the bare-headed march to Arafat under a tropical sun. Besides, there is the land journey still of three hundred miles to make before he can reach Medina, and what to some would be worse hardship, a wearisome waiting afterwards in the unhealthy ports of Hejaz. The Turkish official, too, has learned to dispense with so many of the forms of his religion that he finds no difficulty in making himself excuses here. In fact, he seldom or never now performs the pilgrimage.

The mass of the Ottoman Haj is made up of Kurds, Syrians, Albanians, Circassians, Lazis, and Tartars from Russia and the Khanates, of everything rather than real Turks. Nor are those that come distinguished greatly for their piety or learning. The school of St. Sophia at Constantinople has lost its old reputation as a seat of religious knowledge; and its Ulema are known to be more occupied with the pursuit of Court patronage than with any other science. So much indeed is this the case that serious students often prefer a residence at Bokhara, or even in the heretical schools of Persia, as a more real road to learning. Turkey proper boasts at the present day few theologians of note, and still fewer independent thinkers.

The Egyptian Haj is far more flourishing. Speaking the language of Arabia, the citizen of Cairo is more at home in the holy places than any inhabitant of the northern towns can be. The customs of Hejaz are very nearly his own customs, and its climate not much more severe than his. Cairo, too, can boast a far more ancient political connection with Mecca than Constantinople can, for as early as the twelfth century the Sultans of Egypt were protectors of the holy places, while even since the Ottoman conquest, the Caliph's authority in Arabia has been almost uninterruptedly interpreted by his representative at Cairo. So lately as 1840 this was the position of things at Mecca, and it is only since the opening of the Suez Canal that direct administration from Constantinople has been seriously attempted. To the present day the Viceroy of Egypt shares with the Sultan the privilege of sending a mahmal, or camel litter, to Mecca every year with a covering for the Kaaba. Moreover the Azhar mosque of Cairo is the great university of Arabic-speaking races, and its Ulema have the highest reputation of any in Islam. Egyptian influence, therefore, must be reckoned as an important element in the forces which make up Mohammedan opinion. The late Khedive, it is true, did much to impair this by his infidelity and his coquetteries with Europe, and under his reign the Egyptian Haj fell to a low level; but Mohammed Towfik, who is a sincere, though liberal Mussulman, has already restored much of his country's prestige at Mecca, and it is not unlikely that in time to come Egypt, grown materially prosperous, may once more take a leading part in the politics of Islam.[3] But of this later.

All three schools of theology are taught in the Azhar mosque, and Egyptians are divided, according to their class, between them. The Viceroy and the ruling clique, men of Ottoman origin, are Hanefites, and so too are the descendants of the Circassian Beys, but the leading merchants of Cairo and the common people of that city are Shafites, while the fellahin of the Delta are almost entirely Malekite. Malekite, too, are the tribes west of the Nile, following the general rule of the population of Africa.[4]

The Malekite school of religious thought differs widely from the Hanefite. If the latter has been described as the high Church party of Islam, this must be described as the low. It is puritanical, fierce in its dogma, severe in its morals, and those who profess it are undoubtedly the most fervent, the most fanatical of believers. They represent more nearly than any other Mussulmans the ancient earnestness of the Prophet's companions, and the sword in their hand is ever the sword of God. Piety too, ostensible and sincere, is found everywhere among the Malekites. Abd el Kader, the soldier saint, is their type; and holy men by hereditary profession abound among them.

The Malekites believe with earnest faith in things supernatural, dreaming prophetic dreams, and seeing miracles performed as every-day occurrences. With the Arabs of Africa, unlike their kinsmen in Arabia itself, to pray and fast is still a severe duty, and no class of Mussulmans are more devout on pilgrimage. In Algiers and Morocco it is as common for a young man of fortune to build a mosque as it is for him to keep a large stud of horses. To do so poses him in the world, and a life of prayer is strictly a life of fashion. With regard to morals he is severe where the Koran is severe, indulgent where it indulges. Wine with him is an abomination, and asceticism with regard to meat and tobacco is often practised by him. On the whole he is respectable and respected; but the reforms he would impose on Islam are too purely reactive to be altogether acceptable to the mass of Mohammedans or suited to the urgent