The Crescent of the Sultan

The carriage quickly arrived at Topkapi Palace. It was already late at night when Selim returned to Baghdad Palace, and the Grand Mufti was already waiting here.

"Your Majesty, I have already contacted many religious orders and guilds regarding your examination questions.

They have all expressed great interest in this and are willing to take the exam in June. Your Majesty, you can then meet them in person after the wedding. "

Selim asked immediately.

"How do you plan to arrange the marriage?"

The Grand Mufti smiled bitterly.

"Your Majesty, I personally think it's best to convert Miss Anna. After all, the empire's main goal now is to shape religious identity to eliminate the unstable factors that national identity brings to the empire.

Although Your Majesty has taken a series of measures to address the issue of conversion, hasty conversion is ultimately unacceptable to many Orthodox Christians.

They need someone to encourage them, and your marriage can be just that.

As long as you make a big publicity that the daughter of the dignified Orthodox Patriarch has converted to Christianity, will the rest of the people still have any scruples?

After listening to the Grand Mufti's advice, Selim said nothing.

After seeing off the Grand Mufti, Selim lay down on the bed.

He didn't want to think about this issue for the time being. After all, the selection of civil servants was the top priority.

To be honest, he actually didn't want the first batch of bureaucrats to be mixed with too many religious jurists and local powerful families, but this balance was already the best result he could choose.

Do you think this is Sudan’s basic plan?

This is the error of empiricism. Whether it is Austria next door, Tsarist Russia or even Daiying on the island, their current situation is different from that of the Ottoman Empire.

Selim was in the process of suppressing the jurists and local wealthy families, implementing the power of the Sultan, and establishing a vertical management model similar to that in the East. He needed officials, but he had no choice.

If the Ottoman Empire could still speak with abundant military virtue in the past, regardless of its low literacy rate.

Now both sides are struggling. In the past, they could reach the city walls of Vienna, but now, they almost reached the city walls of Constantiniya.

The literacy rate was as stable as ever. Selim couldn't find anyone to recruit a group of poor children who were only loyal to the Sultan. What's more, even if there was one, his ideological qualifications might not be as good as those of jurists.

In this case, King Sai's solution was to use local power to counterbalance the teachings of the jurists, playing a balance game, which is the traditional wisdom of the East.

Considering that the local wealthy families in the Balkans have never been particularly loyal, Selim deliberately killed only the main branch during the last Greek purge. And let the remote branches succeed.

During this period, don’t underestimate the gap between the branches and the main branch. Don’t you see the differences between the various houses of the Chinese family? If it weren’t for Selim’s purge movement, these people would never have thought of living like this in their lives. kind of life.

It can be said that Selim created a wave of goodwill in their hearts.

As for the jurists, their previous dissatisfaction with the Sudan because of Selim's attempt to open a compulsory grammar school has disappeared with the introduction of a series of policies to support conversions, and they have become the Sudan's most loyal supporters. By

But this is not a reason that can reassure Sudan. The example of Khomeini in Iran in later generations has always given him a terrible sense of oppression. Sudan is indeed the caliph of the Islamic world, but does this really work?

In the future, after preliminary industrialization, society will inevitably be impacted by capitalist ideas, and the Young Turks are a perfect example.

To a certain extent, this is exactly what Selim wanted.

It's just that his requirements are more detailed. He needs to liberate the Ottoman Empire's thoughts to a certain extent, but not too much.

In this case, will the Sultan’s standards conflict with those of the jurists, and will they conflict with those of the capitalists?

Whether the jurists would confront the Sultan and whether the capitalists would initiate a revolution were all things Selim could not predict.

He needs a force that is independent of religion and capital. Such a force is the bureaucracy, a real bureaucracy that can confront the jurists.

When Emperor Sai was alive, he relied on his prestige to support the bureaucracy against the jurists and at the same time suppress the bureaucracy into submission.

After the death of King Sai the Great, his successors could also balance the relationship between the bureaucracy and the jurists by relying on the natural uniqueness of the sultanate's status.

Although this requires the monarch to have superb skills, it is also the only feasible method that Selim can come up with. After all, this only requires good education.

As for secularization now, that is definitely not realistic.

Historically, there were prerequisites for Kemal to be able to complete secularization. From the Tulip Era reforms started by Ahmed III until before World War I, the influence of religion on the people had been weakened to a certain extent.

The First World War completely lost the last conservative forces in the Ottoman Empire, but Kemal's glory still needs to be compared by someone.

While Enver Pasha, the leader of the three pashas of the Ottoman Empire, achieved a world-class victory with the Caucasus Campaign, Kemal at the Gallipoli Campaign restored the martial virtues that the Ottoman Empire had lost for centuries.

The genius Churchill and his genius Dardanelle Plan suffered a devastating blow in front of Kemal. The Allied Powers suffered as many as 140,000 casualties, while Turkey only suffered more than 20,000 casualties.

It can be said that in this battle, Kemal saved the entire Turkey. This is also one of the most important reasons for his successful secularization.

But the key problem is that Kemal only has Turkey, and he has no theological baggage.

But Selim still has most of the Balkans, Egypt, Arabia, and Mesopotamia. He is still a caliph. If he becomes secular, how can he learn from Modi's method of replacing national identity with religious identity.

When it doesn't work either here or that.

Selim deliberately designed a system based on the original institutions of the Ottoman Empire.

The American separation of powers legislation can actually be said to be the core mechanism for the operation of power in modern democratic constitutional countries. As a monarch, Selim certainly cannot engage in democratic constitutionalism.

You have already traveled through time, so you have to sit upright.

Local judges have always been controlled by jurists. This cannot be changed, and Selim has no intention of changing it. However, the Ministry of Supervision is a new thing for the Ottoman Empire.

No matter how unfaithful the jurists were, Selim could still use the checks and balances of the Ministry of Supervision, plus the legislative power in the hands of the Sultan, and the administrative power that everyone could eat.

This was Selim's response before the bureaucracy took shape.

In Selim's view, as long as the balance is good, he is certain to become a combination of Iran's Khomeini, Turkey's Egypt and Sudan.

With expectations for the future, Selim lay on the big bed in the Baghdad Palace and rested.

He has something to do tomorrow.

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