An Introduction to Islamic Law by Wael B. Hallaq Page B

politics at the district, provincial and national levels. This social transformation of the religious elite explains, at least in good measure, why the upperulama class did not mount any serious resistance to the major transformations that took place, inter alia, in the legal system.
    In the midst of these foundational and structural changes, European pressures on Istanbul continued to increase dramatically. Deeply in debt after the Crimean Wars, the Ottomans secured, in 1860, substantial loans fromBritain, but not without the latter attaching to the loan-agreement certain political and economic strings. As if the capitulations and concessions in favor of foreign nationals were not enough, the British demanded and secured further allowances pertaining to the purchase of real property in the Empire. The introduction of theland codes, which had essentially privatized real property, was one step in this direction. But in order to maximize the opportunity for profit, they also demanded, and received the promise, that the waqf system – which barred much real property from entering the open market – would be abolished.
    Over the next two decades, the pressure was renewed with added vigor by both the British and theFrench, whose scholars – doubling as colonial officers – were already propounding the idea not only that waqf s reflected a primitive mode of existence and belonged to the decadent history of the now maligned “church,” but also that they impeded economic development and thus the much desired “progress.” These pressures, coupled with Istanbul’s conviction as to the superiority of Western culture, created a mood among the reformist bureaucrats that translated into a massive ideological campaign portraying waqf as a cause of cultural malaise and material decline. In 1909 the reformers moved aggressively against the waqf , thus initiating a process which led eventually to its abolition in theTurkish Republic and elsewhere. But the ideological preparation for this move had been underway since as early as the middle of the preceding century.
    Beginning in 1864, there were also attempts to reorganize and restructure the judiciary at the provincial level. On the benches ofappeal courts there presided, in equal numbers, Sharia judges and elected members of the civil service, signaling a yet further step in formalizing the process by which civil officers and technocrats had now come to share the judicial powers of the qadi s. Conversely, installing Sharia judges in theNew Courts suggests that there was a confluence between the traditional and new legal professions, one that prevents us from drawing neat lines of separation between the two systems. This concourse was further augmented by the fact that the Sharia courts themselves also underwent a modernizing administrative and procedural reorganization, even as their jurisdiction was becoming increasingly limited to the spheres of personal status and the diminishing waqf .
    As a part of thesecentralizing policies, all Sharia – andNizamiyye – personnel were appointed by Istanbul, and the age-longprinciple of judicial delegation ceased for good. This administrative act, together with the payment ofsalaries directly from Istanbul, further consolidated centralized control, and transformed the Sharia court into an official arm of thestate. Judicial centralization was manifested in the creation, as part of the Nizamiyye courts, of the COURT OF CASSATION , whose seat was in Istanbul, comprising both civil and criminal sections. And for the benefit of supervision by theIstanbul Ministry of Justice, all courts were ordered to report the cases they adjudicated once every three months.
    The transposition of Islamic law from the fairly independent and informal terrain of the jurists to that of the highly formalized and centralized agency of the state found manifestation in the compendium entitled Majallat al-Ahkam al-Adliyya (henceforth: Majalla). Between 1870 and 1877, the