Suleiman’s laws are not contained in a single _Kanun-nameh_. He is rightly named the Legislator by comparison with preceding Ottoman sultans, who were men of the sword and not of the pen; who, saying little, but doing much, had built up a great empire. With the empire, institutions which started from small beginnings had also grown great; but, resting as they did on few written laws or ordinances, they had tended to reach a confused and complicated condition. The Ruling Institution itself, gathered closely about the sultans and constantly amended by them, was kept in excellent order; it needed no _Kanun-nameh_, and as a whole never had one, though many _Kanuns_ of rank, ceremony, salary, and inheritance had reference to it. More remote matters, however, could not have so much attention. By the time of Suleiman’s accession, for example, the feudal system, and the bearing of the various forms of taxation and land tenure on the subject population, had come into great disorder; criminal law also needed further development, and the market and gild regulations of the cities of the empire demanded attention. Egyptian affairs were likewise in wild confusion. Already disordered under the last Mameluke sultans,[537] they were now, by reason of the many deaths and confiscations in the war of conquest and the setting-up of a new governing authority, imperatively demanding settlement. In accordance with the needs of the time, therefore, Suleiman issued a large number of _Kanuns_, dealing especially with _timars_ or fiefs, _rayahs_ or subjects, ceremonies, and criminal and market regulations, and comprising a constitution for Egypt, the _Kanun-nameh Misr_.[538] The latter appears to be the only body of _Kanuns_ which the Legislator published as a whole, and which formed a complete system; issued in 1532,[539] it was probably inspired by Ibrahim, following up his visit to Egypt in 1524.[540] The collection of the great _Mufti Ebu su’ud_, which is called the _Kanun-nameh_ of Suleiman, contains chiefly his ordinances in regard to the land tenure and taxes of the subject Christians, together with a number of laws designed to regulate the feudal system, and a few relating to judges and legal processes.[541] Suleiman was great as a legislator only by comparison with his predecessors. He set nothing in final order; and the ground had to be gone over again within fifty years after his death, in the reign of Achmet I.[542] His legislation was doubly hindered: first, by the conservatism of his people and his religion, which alike believed that the old ways were the best, and which made radical departures practically impossible; and, second, by the weakness inherent in despotic legislation, in which the distance of the law-giver from the subjects affected makes true adaptation to circumstances and complete enforcement impossible of attainment. Because of the first hindrance, most of Suleiman’s laws professed an attempt to restore a former better state of affairs.