The Saracens gave the Ottomans a complete religious and social system, united under a Sacred Law which professed to provide for all relations of life, and which became more and more rigid as time went on. Into this had been wrought slowly by generations of learned men most of the Persian governmental ideas that have been mentioned, together with others from Arabian and Byzantine sources, such as a species of laws of inheritance and a system of juristic responses. The Saracens gave also their alphabet and a large stock of Arabic words. All that the Moslems gave the Ottomans was embodied in one great, complex institution, which was founded upon an elaborate system of education and supported by the revenues from a large part of the land of the empire, and which possessed great solidity and an almost changeless permanence. In the Ottoman Empire, as in all other Moslem lands, the influence of this completed institution was ultimately very injurious; when added to the Tatar love of custom, it laid a heavy hand on all movements toward improvement and progress. Its ultimate attitude toward earthly affairs is well expressed in the following couplet:— “To build in this world palaces and castles, there is no need; They will at last be ruins: to build cities, there is no need.”[28] A development which took place among the Turks within the Saracen Empire was of the profoundest significance to Ottoman history. From some date in the early ninth century, Turkish youth were brought to Bagdad in large numbers as purchased, but by no means unwilling, slaves. Having been trained as soldiers, they became generals and local governors, and after no great length of time the central government also passed into their hands. The training of such young Turkish slaves in the palaces of caliphs and governors clearly foreshadowed Ottoman methods. The account that perhaps looks farthest back in relation to the Turks is found in the _Siasset Namèh_, and refers to the time of the Samanid dynasty, which ruled in East Persia from 874 to 999. It describes the external aspect of the system of education, such as promotion and marks of honor, but leaves the severe work which lay behind to be inferred:— “This is the rule that was followed at the court of the Samanids: