296 chapter seven
new masters of the land. In their desire to be seen as devout Muslims
with sincere intentions to promote Sharì"ah in the empire, or merely
their wish to control the masses particularly the Arabs through the
device of religion, the promotion of Sharì"ah by the Ottomans was
given an official shape. They set up the Ulama"in offices and estab-
lishments and established Sharì"ah courts, probably for the first time,
headed by judges, qadhis, who were assisted by a religious consul-
tant, mufti, to provide interpretation of the law and derive a reli-
gious opinion on the case in hand. These courts with their qadhis
and muftis were part of the official establishment where positions
were assigned by Ottoman officials, and income and subsidies paid
by the Treasury (Armstrong, 2000). Furthermore, religious schools,
madrasah, were also organized with teachers appointed, like qadhis and
muftis, as part of the government office. Sharì"ah courts served their
purpose for very long and were still operating in Egypt until the
mid 1950’s when they were abolished by the secularized government
of Egypt of 1952.
When Istanbùl’s government was strong the relationship between
the Ulama"and government was a relationship of cooperation. But
when the decay began to show its effect on the central government,
whenever the Ulama"had grounds for expressing an objection, or
an unfavourable opinion about the conditions of the people, they
were curbed and had their properties confiscated (ibid.). With their
livelihood under the control of government, they had too much to
lose, and, consequently, very little to say. In Muœammad Ali’s Egypt,
for example, the Ulama" were harshly treated. Of the properties
Muœammad Ali confiscated, there were religious endowments, waqf,
which were properties donated by devout Muslims for the purpose
of supporting the poor, religious causes, students of Sharì"ah and
Ulama"(Armstrong, 2000). That was a loss of a source of sustenance
which aimed to silence the Ulama". But sporadic resentment mainly
from non-official Ulama" had arisen. Abd-al-Wahhàb al-Sha"rànì
(d.1565) was a particular example. Despite his weaknesses, belief in
superstition and his claim that he could communicate with angels
and prophets, he was concerned about the state of misery and poverty,
which the Egyptian peasants suffered under the dual control of the
Turkish pashaand Mamlùk bey. Seeing the harshness of tax collec-
tors in levying and collecting the taxes from the peasants, the culti-
vators of the land, and how the peasants had to sell the whole
produce and sometimes their working ox to avoid imprisonment for
not being able to pay the tax, and how every lucrative business was