The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-04-05
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until thou hast reached a spring to re-
fresh thee! Thou shalt not Judge, oh,
Judge, feelest thou in thy soul that
God hath not willed it to let thee
judge!"
What" said an old Kadi to me
when / praised a certain German
Judge, and, in proof of it, told how
he had sat awake all night studying a
case and then had sat for twelve hours
to hear it in court. What! Do you
mean to tell me, o Giaur, that he
dared to sit in judgment when he was
weary and fatigued so that his soul
and mind were not at peace? Unhappy
judges of the Evening Lands, to whom
the sweetest duty of man means
wretchedness! For surely no man can
do justice unless he is happy and at
rest with himself and the world"
And are you never unhappy" I
asked, when you face a complex case
that puzzles your"
Nay" said he. I'VE are never I'M
happy when we judge. If we be I'M
happy, We do not judge"
Men Who Are Never Unhappy.
And so they sit, white bearded, I'M
disturbed, patient, while fifty wit
nesses swear before them concerning
a missing camel bride or the right to
get water at we'll And when all the
evidence is in they judge as carefully
and conscientiously as if the fate of
the Moslem world depended on their
verdict.
These men are truly at rest. They
have made the good fight, for they can
become Kadis only after they have
made it. They have no ambitions
save to fulfill the words of the Koran.
They smile at the strife that plays
before them, and maintain their own
souls in quietness.
judge in cases of law. He is the
Wise Man of the district Men come
to him with their quarrels. and dis
putes, and embarrassments, to be
judged, even when the cases are not
at all within legal jurisdiction.
In Arabia and the Eastern Asiatic
Turkey a man cannot become Kadi
by accident of birth and station or
by favor of politics or other influence.
He must choose the profession and
train himself to it from early youth.
When the Oriental boy is II years
old he must enter the Medrese, the
illogical government school, if he wishes
to enter either the theological or legal
profession. There he learns the Koran
by heart. 1t is eXpounded for him mi
nutely passage by passage. He is
known as a Sofia while he is studying.
When he knows the Koran thoroughly,
so that he can hold his own in argI-
ments with the teachers, he assumes
the name of Hafis, and prepares for his
examination. A student rarely rises to
the degree of Hafis until he is 20 years
old.
When he passes the examination, he
must choose at once between theology
and the law. Having chosen the lat
ter. he faces five years of study even
harder than any that has gone before.
During that time he must make him
self proficient in logic, rhetoric NOR
ais, philosophy, theology and law.
Then he is ready to pass the ex-
animation which shall lentitle him to
become a Kadi. But he is not adj
vanced to that dignity Immediately
after he has passed the examination,
for the most important and distinctive
part of the training has still to come.
He must become one of the poor and
learn their daily life. their tempta-,
tions and their sorrows, by hard, per-
sonal experience.
This stage of his career lasts three
years, and almost all it's conditions
are rigidly prescribed. He must prac-
tice in court during that time, taking
the cases of the poor. His income
from this source is almost nominal,
and he must keep himself alive by
earning a petty income with all kinds
of hard, mean toll. So he learns the
world in which he is to be a Judge,
for he struggles for existence as DO
the people who will come before him
some day to be judged
Truly the Wise Men of the East.
But though he experiences their
privations and their temptations, he
may not stumble like them. ITO be
come a Judge, o Hafis, the green
cloth that thou wearest around thy
fez must be ever unsoiled," is the law
1t is bitter, hard service. But they
who go through it untarnished are wise
when they emerge. They are what the
Koran demands when it says that only
a human being who has become a true
man shall dare to judge other human
beings.
Hans Forster, the Orientalist, who
knows the true Eastern Judge better,
probably, than does any other Euro
pean to-day, tells in a recent work
of his talk with the Kadi of Safed--a
talk which illustrates what 1 have said
here about the class.
Poor Judges of the Unbelievers,'
said the Kadi of Safed, Hassan Bey,
to me, after he had read several arti-
cles from the Turkish law to me, and
i ndQ, III GApldlLcu W MIN ABOUT
the duties of our judges. Poor judges
of the unbelievers! How often you
must suffer painful hours owing to
your duties!'
THAT was strange to hear from the
lips of man who had been a Kadi
hidden away in that little hamlet in
Palestine for forty years and in that
time had heard little or nothing about
European judges. When l asked Eitn
if he had ever, for even moment,
repented his choice of a profession,
the aged man smiled and answered:
" Not for a moment. How can one
feel repentance for that which gives
him jov?'
"And that truly is the secret of the
judges of the Orient" concludes For
stem. "They are peaceful. I know
more than one. Their profession gives
them JOY. We read pretty Arabic
stories of the astounding judgments
of the Kadis. The stories are true of
to-day. The Kadis are the wise men
of the Lands of the Morning"