Both institutions rose to an apex, through the Divan and the grand vizier, in the sultan, who was the head and center of each. Yet the ideas by which the two institutions were joined to their head were in striking contrast. The sultan was master and owner of the Ruling Institution; he was the divinely-appointed chief of the Moslem Institution. The members of the former obeyed him as slaves; the members of the latter obeyed him as free Moslems commanded by the Sacred Law to render allegiance to the chief interpreter and defender of that law. The former knew no power greater than the sultan’s; the latter relied upon the Sacred Law as above the sultan. The Ruling Institution was extended downward in each of its parts from the sultan’s authority, and in organization and membership depended for existence upon his will. The Moslem Institution rose upward from the people, and was attached almost artificially to the sultan’s authority. Suleiman regulated the grades of higher advancement in it, but the sultans who came after him touched the organization of the institution scarcely at all. Very seldom, moreover, by comparison, did the sultans punish the members of this institution; for the most part its work went on quite independently of them. But the sultan was the head of both institutions: every member of each looked upward along converging lines which met at the foot of his throne. The highest promotions in each were made by him directly, the honored men being put into positions near their sovereign. DIFFERENCES The fact that the Ruling Institution was recruited from Christian slaves and the Moslem Institution from Moslem freemen led to a profound difference of spirit. The Christian slaves, newly converted to Mohammedanism, were not as a body so closely attached to the Sacred Law as were the Moslem freemen. Their loyalty being rather to one man, their master and benefactor, they felt a servile devotion which was very different from the reasoned allegiance of those who had always been free. A _Mufti_, fortified by the Sacred Law, would firmly oppose the will of the sovereign in a case where a grand vizier would scarcely dare venture a mildly contrary suggestion. The Sacred Law, despite the introduction of all later influences, still breathed forth something of the freedom of the Arabian desert: in one or two generations, as has been seen, it could render its followers unfit to be slaves. Thus the spirit of the Ruling Institution was far less independent of personal authority than that of the Moslem Institution.