The Ruling Institution, on the other hand, lost relatively. In the early days, when recent converts were exceedingly numerous and the religious spirit of the young nation was weak, the Turkish-Aryan organization was far stronger than the Semitic influence. Sultans, however, were constantly giving away state lands as endowment for new mosques and colleges; and, worse still, so much of the educational system of this institution as was not controlled by its rival was directed only toward its own membership and not toward the nation at large. Accordingly, although the Ruling Institution grew in wealth and power, it did not keep pace with the Moslem Institution, which, after two and a half centuries of gain, was able to overtake it about the time of Suleiman’s reign. His gifts of great mosques, numerous colleges, and vast endowment,[711] his arrangement in final perfection of the _cursus honorum_ which led up from the primary schools to the office of _Mufti_, and the personal leaning of his later years toward the influence of the _Ulema_, settled permanently the preponderance of the Moslem Institution. At the same time, the Moslem Institution could never destroy its rival. Theoretically it had no need of such a counterpart. Mohammed and the early caliphs had no such institution. The Sacred Law developed with no mention of a secular government, and with no hint of any deficiency in its own provisions that would make it inadequate to guide a nation by its own strength; but, within thirty years from the death of Mohammed, Muavia had set up a secular government at Damascus, and since then every Moslem state had had one. Many a Moslem state, also, had had a ruler who was not of lawful blood; for the Sacred Law affirmed that the _Imâm_, or divinely appointed ruler, must be of the tribe of the Koreish.[712] According to that unenforced provision, Suleiman himself had no right to the throne. The fact is that the Moslem Institution very early became too unworldly to live unsupported by a secular power. It was a strong but tender hand, which must always wear a glove. After it had acquired a permanent ascendency in the state, therefore, the Moslem Institution was compelled to keep its rival in place, and to allow it always strength enough to defend and support the empire which nourished both. Bound together closely in an alliance which neither enjoyed, but which was necessary for the preservation of both, the Ruling Institution and the Moslem Institution constituted the twofold inner framework of the Ottoman Empire, to which it owed all its might and energy, its grandeur and repute, its continuity and durability. APPENDICES APPENDIX I THE SECOND BOOK OF THE AFFAIRS OF THE TURKS Written in 1534, supposedly by Benedetto Ramberti Translated from the Italian [From _Libri Tre delle Cose de Turchi_, as printed in _Viaggi ... alla tana_, Venice, 1543, pp. 131-146.]