In proportion as the Young Turks have brought racial politics to a fine art, so they have neglected the other, the religious side. More and more, Islam, the rock of Empire, has been sacrificed to the needs of race-politics. Those who look upon Enver and Talaat and their consorts to-day as a freemasonry of time-serving opportunists rather than as good Mohammedans come far nearer the truth than those who believe the idea spread by ignorant globe-trotters that every Turk is a zealous follower of Islam. It was not for nothing that Enver Pasha, the adventurer and revolutionary, went so far even in externals as to arouse the stern disapproval of a wide circle of his people. With true time-serving adaptability to all modern progress-and who will blame him?--he even finally sacrificed the Turkish soldier's hallowed traditional headgear, the fez. While the _kalpak_, even in its laced variety, could still be called a kind of field-grey or variegated or fur edition of the fez, the ragged-looking _kabalak_, called the "Enveriak" to distinguish it from other varieties, is certainly on the way towards being a real sun helmet. Still more recently (summer 1916) a black-and-white cap that looks absolutely European was introduced into the Ottoman Navy. The simple, devout Mohammedan folk were most unwilling to accept these changes which flew direct in the face of all tradition. They may be externals of but little importance, but in spite of their insignificance they show clearly the ruling spirit in official Young Turkish spheres. This is in the harmless realm of fashion, or at any rate military fashion, exactly the same spirit as has caused the Turkish Government to undertake since 1916 radical changes in the very much more important field of private and public law. Special commissions consisting of eminent Turkish lawyers have been formed to carry through this reform of law and justice, and they have been hard at work ever since their formation. What is characteristic and modern about the reform is that the preponderating rôle hitherto played by the Sheriat Law, founded on the Koran and at any rate semi-religious, is to be drastically curtailed in favour of a system of purely Civil law, which has been strung together from the most varied sources, even European law being brought under contribution, and the "Code Napoléon," which has hitherto only been used in Commercial law. This of course leads to a great curtailment of the activity and influence of the _kadis_ and _muftis_, the semi-religious judges, who have now to yield place to a more mundane system. The first inexorable consequence of the reform was that the Sheikh-ul-Islam, the highest authority of Islam in the whole Ottoman Empire, had to give up a large part of his powers, and incidentally of his income.