Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

Ottoman State System and their Decline 849
old standards of efficiency. The good Pasha was one who remitted promptly and in full the sums and deliveries in kind required by the Imperial Treasury. It was but a step towards general corruption. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, it had become the established practice to give promotion by favouritism and birbery, and to put to auction offices, lands and concessions of all kinds. The impotence of the Pashas to prevent abuses, and the probability that they would be condoned at a price, encouraged lawlessness and rebellion.
The decline of the Ottomans begins with the reign of Sulayman the Magnificent. Although the empire reached its greatest height in his days, he was too much under the influence of his Russian wife In order to secure the throne for her degenerate son, she peisuaded Sulayman to adopt the ”Cage” system. The experimental and bodily part of the training of the princes was abandoned. Though they were still taught some classics and given some education, they were obliged to spend their lives in the harem till the moment of their enthronement. Thus they were deprived of the practical experience of the art of government. The consequence was a series of hot-house princes, soft and ignorant of the conditions of the empire.
The seventeenth century saw a long succession of evil Sultans. Their favourite ladies began to sell important offices. The civil service took itb cue from the Sultan. Merit, which so far had been the sole consideration in promotions and appointments, no longer counted for anything Very few Sultans died on their beds, for there were chronic military risings and dethronements, often accompanied by assassinations. The decline in the army proved to be far more fatal ”I he old recruiting system which had been based on careful selection was abandoned. Instead of the army being recruited from all races, it was now confined only to the Muslims. In the recruitment of forces and promotion of the lower ranks of the soldiers to higher ranks, favouritism played a great part. The army contained not only those who had some function in it, but a vast number of people who remained outside, but whose names were inscribed in the registers that they might receive pay or obtain the privileges of Janissaries. Among them here even a French Consul and an Armenian patriarch.
The monastic simplicity of the military order was also disappearing. The Janissaries were now getting married and

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Political and Cultural History of Islam

interested themselves in outside matters. The fanatical and mystical belief in the unique importance of the State was losing hold on men’s minds. Risings became a habit with the army, and, as the political moves of the palace and parties outside always had to be carried out with the help of the military, the army became the sole arbiter in politics. Again the ulema who were an independent religious body and could even depose the Sultan, if he became too tyrannical, were persuaded to take advantage of their position and began to co-operate with the army and meddle in politics. They were no longer a neutral religious and judicial body. Religion had now become a power in the political game. As regards their role in the educational field, it is undeniable that as long as Medieval scholasticism dominated man’s outlook, the uiema did yeoman’s service in the cause of education.
The madrassahs controlled by them were active centres of learning. But when the West broke the chain of scholasticism and created new learning and science, the ulema failed badly in catching up with Modern knowledge. They took it for granted that human knowledge had not grown beyond what was in the thirteenth century, and this attitude persisted in their educational system and method down to the middle of the last century. Unlike the Christian Church in the West, the ulema did not persecute the new learning. But they also did not allow the new knowledge to enter ’!ie precincts of their madrassahs. During the age of decline they v,ere so occupied with politics that it seemed easier for them to stick to their Medieval scholastic methods. Therefore the madrasshas remained up to the end of the last century what they were in the thirteenth century. No educational reform was ever attempted and the produce of the madrassahs never came into contact with modern science and knowledge.
”The difference between the economic position of the Muslins and Christian nations as well as the general economic decline of the Muslims,” says Halide Edib, ”Is one of the important features of this period.... As long as agriculture, commerce and industry and transport depended on manual labour, organisation and a realistic grasp of facts rather than on machinery and science, the Ottoman Empire preserved its economic prosperity and there was a balance between its heterogeneous elements, a division of labour. The bulk of tne Ottoman Turks were peasants and animal breeders, they supplied the Empire .v/ith all the necessary wheat, vegetable, fruit and animals for meat, for transport and domestic use. The