The Divan of Suleiman was a splendid ceremony, and it transacted a great amount of administrative and judicial business. A large proportion of the duties of the principal officials was attended to in its sessions rather than in private offices; and on particular matters there was a certain amount of deliberation, though the Ottomans were not a people of many words. The Divan was by no means a legislative chamber. It was in a sense a combination of a president’s cabinet and a supreme court;[635] yet it was unlike both. Its presiding officer was appointed; all its decisions required the approval of the sultan, who was not present at its sessions; and all its members were responsible to him for good behavior on penalty of their lives. It was the highest court in the land, yet not so much a court of appeal as a court of first instance. It had no power to judge the validity of laws; yet it was not restricted in its jurisdiction, since it had cognizance of all civil and criminal cases that might be presented to it from any part of the empire. In its judicial aspect, again, its decisions had no validity without the approval of the sultan. With all its limitations, however, it was of great value to the Ottoman government. Below the sultan, but above all institutions of the empire, it bound together at the top the Ruling Institution and the Moslem Institution, and it united similarly all the component divisions of each; it was the pivot from which were suspended all the separate parts of the despotically constructed government. In it met the ablest men of the empire, chosen by selection after selection, each one charged with great responsibilities and possessing power to execute without delay what might be agreed upon. The Divan was excellently adapted to the general Ottoman system. It enabled the ruler, with a minimum of care, to keep the closest control over every part of the empire through extremely intelligent and capable agents, who were bound to him by gratitude, self-interest, ambition, and fear. It was a training-school of judges, administrators, and statesmen, since men ordinarily rose from place to place among its offices as they gained experience; here they imparted ideas and methods to each other, and made their abilities known to the highest officials, the grand vizier and the sultan, with whom lay the power of promotion. Nor was the Divan wholly destitute of legislative influence. All _Kanuns_ were issued in the sultan’s name and after his definite approval; yet the information on which they were based must regularly have come through members of the Divan, and members of the Divan with their subordinates must certainly have drawn them up and revised them into shape. Controlling administration and justice and influencing legislation, the Divan, under the leadership of the grand vizier, governed the Ottoman Empire for the sultan. THE RULING INSTITUTION AS A WHOLE