196 DESTINY DISRUPTED
The Three Islamic Empires of the Seventeenth Century
Turkish and so were many of the Qizilbash.) Throughout this world, the
traveler would find that the educated literati tended to know Persian and
the classic literature written in that language. Everywhere, he would hear
the azan, the call to prayer, chanted in Arabic at certain times of day from
numerous minarets, and he would hear Arabic again whenever people per-
formed religious rites of any kind.
Everywhere he went, not just in the three empires but in the outlying
frontier zones such as Indonesia and Morocco, society would be perme-
ated with a web of rules and recommendations that shaded up into law
and down into the practices and rituals of everyday life with no border
between the two. And every society would have its ulama, that powerful,
self-regenerating, unelected class of scholars, and they would have an in-
fluential grip on daily life. Everywhere, the traveler would come across
Sufism and Sufi orders as well. Merchants and traders would have an ele-
vated status, but it would be lower than that of bureaucrats and officials
connected to the court, itself a distinct and significant class in society.
Passing through the public realm, the traveler would see very few
women. Throughout this world stretching from Indonesia to Morocco, he