Turkey is a country where church and state are most eminently combined. The standard of every measure or act is the Koran; the administration of affairs, both civil and religions, must, therefore, be in conformity with the precepts of that sacred book; but since that book does not provide for all emergencies, and in many instances is not even explicit, those who made the Koran their special study have ever been consulted, and all matters referred to them for examination and sanction.

The entire body of these ecclesiastics are denominated the Ulema, or learned (in the Koran), and their expositions are termed Fetvas. These Fetvas constitute, as it were, the statutes of the state.

The sanction of these doctors in every measure being essential, each civil tribunal is supplied with one of their number, in order that their acts may be valid. Hence, even the Grand-Vezir, who only represents the sultan in temporal matters, is associated with the chief of the Ulema, viz., the Sheikh-ul-Islam, who, on his part, personifies his majesty in spiritual affairs. Bearing the title of Fetvayi-Pena, or the Grand Expositor, his approval is necessary even to the measures of the great viceroy himself, for no law can be promulgated without his sanction.

Considering then the importance attached to the study of the Koran, and the benefit derived from a full knowledge of its spirit and contents, which constitute the basis of the law and government, many have been induced to adopt it as a profession.

There are no less than forty thousand of these Ulema in Constantinople.

These men are of very low origin, and are generally the sons of poor peasants. They come to Constantinople and enlist themselves as Softas, or students of divinity or law, which are synonymous terms, in one of the principal mosques, where they go through a regular course of study.

They receive no salary, but are allowed one loaf of bread a day, and partake of such food as is gratuitously distributed to the poor from the Imarets, or charitable institutions, which are attached to all the principal mosques.

When they are proficients in writing, they are allowed to copy the Koran in the original Arabic, which it has hitherto been considered sacrilege to print or translate. And by the sale of these copies they gain a livelihood.

They are afterwards promoted either to the office of Imams, officiating priests, or to that of Kadis and Mollahs, district judges, or Muftis, or expounders of the law. The acme of their ambition is to become either Molla-Hunkiar, chaplain to his majesty, Kazy-ul-Asker chief justice, or Sheikh-ul-Islam, high pontiff of the realm. This latter personage is considered by the Mussulmans as an undoubted oracle in all instances.

Though the sultan is the head of both church and state, yet the Sheikh-ul-Islam being appointed for life, and exempted from capital punishment, his authority, through the superstition of the people, has been most arbitrary, and even sometimes controlled the actions of the executive; and it has only happened in our day, that in order to assert the entire supremacy of the sultan, the Sheikh-ul-Islam has, for the first time in the annals of the nation, been deposed from his sacred office, and another substituted in his place.

The Ulema are not supported by the government, but by the income of the mosques, which are largely endowed by religious devotees. Those who are in the civil employment, receive, however, fixed salaries from the state, in addition to their own ecclesiastical income.

The real estates owned by the mosques are immense and beyond calculation. They are called Vakuf, in contradistinction to other lands of the government, termed mÜlk. These vakuf lands, which comprise more than two-thirds of the empire, are sold as under a perpetual lease, with a yearly tax or rent, and all improvements made on them are considered to belong by right to the land, and not allowed to be removed. In case of the death of a proprietor leaving no male heirs, the property, with all the improvements thereon, reverts to the mosque.

The documents by which these lands are held, are so carelessly registered and transferred, that disputes are almost unavoidable. For instance, a deed is thus drawn up, A B has purchased of C D a piece of land, belonging to such a vakuf, said to contain about 156 acres more or less; that is, it might range from 100 to 1,500 or 2,000 acres, since its limits are not fixed by any actual survey, or specified by a map; but the boundaries are described in the most primitive style by sensible objects, viz., an apple tree on one side, a ditch on the other, the property of so and so on the third, and the main road on the fourth. This system has hitherto proved most advantageous to the vakufs; the peculiar elasticity of such indefinite boundaries, admitting of great territorial trespass upon adjoining lands, until they have succeeded in absorbing two-thirds of the empire.

Strangers are not allowed to own these lands, nor hold them in trust, with the view to avoid litigation with the different foreign embassies. There has not, therefore, been hitherto any inducement to European emigration, to the introduction of foreign capital, nor encouragement to internal improvements.

The mosques derive an immense revenue, both from the rents of these estates, and the commission on sales, which is enormous; being no less than 8 per cent. on each transfer.

With such a percentage, were the sale repeated fifteen times, the original cost of the land would be doubled; so that there is an effectual check upon land speculation. Apart from this, the vakuf system is ruinous both to the community and to the government. If a man wants to raise a sum of money, by mortgaging his property for three months only, besides the customary interest of the country, which is 1 per cent., he has to bear the enormous expense of the transfer and retransfer, which amounts, as has been said, to 6 per cent. This added to the 3 per cent., the interest for the three months, making altogether no less than 9 per cent. for three months! This is not all. The natives not being allowed the privilege of borrowing foreign funds, by mortgaging their own property, are reduced to the necessity of resorting to their own capitalists, who usually demand 2 or 3 per cent. a month!

The whole of this vakuf land, or church property, occupied and unoccupied, pays no taxes, so that a most profitable source of revenue is unavailable to the government.

The immense incomes of the vakufs are partly appropriated to the erection of mosques, hospitals, schools, fountains, baths, and other charitable institutions; and above all to the support of the Ulema themselves. But there is always an immense surplus, which lies dormant with previously accumulated hoards, unless resorted to for the promotion of some of the fanatical schemes and personal aggrandizement of the Ulema themselves.

These men, thus rendered independent of the government, and possessing unbounded influence over the minds of the superstitious people, and being, in fact, the ultimatum of every hope and project, have been the greatest barriers to national improvement; for, surrounded by wealth, and themselves of the lowest origin, they attach an undue value to worldly possessions; and trained in religious bigotry, they resist all innovations as infringing upon their own interests, temporal and spiritual; so that in destroying the janissaries, and leaving the Ulema unmolested, Sultan Mahmoud did but half the work of reform.