practice of Western democracies. Herein lies one of the strongest elements of hope for the future of the new Turkey, which may thus preserve continuity with the past. The Ottoman Ruling Institution, still thus capable of imparting valuable ideas, was in its halcyon days a thing of immense moment in the world. Out of carefully selected but most heterogeneous materials it had built itself up as a firm, strong, and simple structure, which had gathered a chaotic mass of petty states and hostile peoples into a great and, by comparison, a well-governed and durable empire. In the reign of the great Suleiman no human structure existed which equalled this institution in wealth, splendor, power, simplicity and rapidity of action, and respect at home and abroad. CHAPTER VII THE MOSLEM INSTITUTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE GENERAL DESCRIPTION In a survey of the institutional history of the Ottoman Empire, a study of the complex organization which was based upon and inspired by the Mohammedan religion would demand as large a space as that given to the Ruling Institution. In a discussion of the government of the empire, however, a much briefer treatment will suffice. The Moslem Institution as a whole will be sketched rapidly; fuller consideration will be given to its juristic and judicial features, which especially affected and entered into the government of the nation. The structure of the Moslem Institution of the Ottoman Empire, as of the corresponding institutions in all Moslem lands, was and remains to the present time wholly different from that of any of the Christian ecclesiastical organizations. As a mere church it claimed far less place and influence than they do, but in other aspects it reached out far more widely. It included all those Mohammedans in the Ottoman Empire, outside of the Ruling Institution, who were in any way lifted above the level of the ordinary believer. Islam recognized no organized priesthood, no aristocracy, and no monks; yet the Ottoman Moslem Institution possessed groups that were much like each of the three. In addition it had a graded educational system, with a graded corps of teachers, it contained a hierarchy of jurist-theologians, and it supplied a classified body of judges, whose combined jurisdictions covered the whole empire. That which all persons who constituted this institution had in common was a special relationship to the Mohammedan religion, sometimes based on birth or piety, but usually established by intellectual training in connection with the Book and the Law of Islam. In contrast with the Ottoman Ruling Institution, the Moslem Institution cannot as a whole be regarded under several aspects. Like the former, it included component institutions; but these all grew up from the Mohammedan population and rested on one broad base, instead of being extended downward from the top. At the same time, the sultan was the head of this institution, whether