Islamic tradition of avoiding idolatry. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in seeking to revise a number of aspects of Turkish culture used the ancient heritage and village life of the country forcing removal of all Arabic and Persian cultural influences. Metropolitan Museum of Art summarized this period as "While there was a general agreement on the rejection of the last flowering of Ottoman art, no single, all-encompassing style emerged to replace it. The early years of the Republic saw the rise of dozens of new schools of art and the energetic organization of many young artists." The State Art and Sculpture Museum was dedicated to fine arts and mainly sculpture. It was designed in 1927 by architect Arif Hikmet Koyunoğlu and built between 1927 and 1930 as the Türkocağı Building, upon the direction of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It is located close to the Ethnography Museum and houses a rich collection of Turkish art from the late 19th century to the present day. There are also galleries for guest exhibitions. Legal reforms The Ottoman Empire was a religious empire in which each religious community enjoyed a large degree of autonomy with the Millet (Ottoman Empire) structure. Each millet had an internal system of governance based upon its religious law, such as Sharia, Catholic Canon law, or Jewish Halakha. The Ottoman Empire tried to modernize the code with the reforms of 1839 Gülhane Hatt-i Sharif which tried to end the confusion in the judicial sphere by extending the legal equality to all citizens. The leading legal reforms instituted included a secular constitution (laïcité) with the complete separation of government and religious affairs, the replacement of Islamic courts and Islamic canon law with a secular civil code based on the Swiss Civil Code, and a penal code based on that of Italy (1924–37). Legal system On 8 April 1924, sharia courts were abolished with the law Mehakim-i Şer'iyenin İlgasına ve Mehakim Teşkilatına Ait Ahkamı Muaddil Kanun. Codification The non-Muslim millet affected with the Age of Enlightenment in Europe modernized the Christian Law. In the Ottoman Empire, Islamic Law and Christian Law became drastically different. In 1920, and today, the Islamic Law does not contain provisions regulating the sundry relationships of "political institutions" and "commercial transactions". The Ottoman Empire dissolved not only because of its outdated systems, but also its traditions were not applicable to the demands of its time. For example, the rules relating to