It is accused by its enemies of
having given the sanction of its toleration to the moral disorders
common among the Turks, their use of fermented drinks, their immoderate
concubinage and other worse vices. It is, in fact, the official school
of Ottoman orthodoxy. It embraces most of those who at the present day
support the revived spiritual pretensions of Constantinople.
The pilgrimage then described in our table as Ottoman is mostly made up
of men of this theological school. It must not, however, be supposed
that anything like the whole number either of the 8500 pilgrims, or of
the 22,000,000 population they represent, is composed of Turks. The true
Ottoman Turk is probably now among the rarest of visitors to Mecca, and
it is doubtful whether the whole Turkish census in Europe and in Asia
amounts to more than four millions. With regard to the pilgrimage there
is good reason why this should be the case. In Turkey, all the
able-bodied young men, who are the first material of the Haj, are taken
from other duties for military service, and hardly any now make their
tour of the Kaaba except in the Sultan's uniform. Rich merchants, the
second material of the Haj in other lands, are almost unknown among the
Turks; and the officials, the only well-to-do class in the empire, have
neither leisure nor inclination to absent themselves from their worldly
business of intrigue.
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