It is instructive to study this legal section of the Koran carefully in connexion with the common statement that the religion of Mohammed is made up of a complicated and harassing ritual and a penal code which takes no count of the relative importance of crimes. Colonel Osborn, among various other mistakes in his clever books on Islam, has said that the same fearful punishment is ordained for a serious sin and a mere trifling infringement of ceremonial regulations. That he is altogether wrong may be proved from the Korān itself—in which it is stated that if the believers avoid great sins, God will wipe out their offences, for he is very forgiving. But, in truth, all this complaint of complicated ritual and law is not borne out by the Koran. Mohammed had no desire to make a new code of jurisprudence or to bind his followers to a hard and fast ritual. He seldom appears to have volunteered a legal decision, except when a distinct abuse had to be removed; and the legal verses of the Koran are evidently answers to questions put to him in his capacity of Governor of Medina. In the same way, he laid down but few rules for religious ceremonial, and even those he laid down he allowed to be broken in cases of illness or other impediments. • God

wishes to make things easy for you,' he says, for man was 'created weak.' He seems to have distrusted himself as a lawgiver, for there is a tradition which relates a speech of his in which he cautions the people against taking his decision on worldly affairs as infallible. When he speaks on the things of God he is to be obeyed, but when he deals with human affairs he is only a man like those about him. He was contented to leave the ordinary Arab customs in force as the law of the Muslims, except when they were manifestly unjust.

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The ritual of the Koran includes the necessary acts of faith the recital of the creed, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and ilgrimage-but lays down scarcely any rules as to how they re to be performed. Observe the prayers and the middle prayer,' Mohammed vaguely directs, 'and stand ye attent before God; Seek aid from patience and from prayer; verily God is with the patient;' but he says nothing of the perplexing Iternations of prostrations and formulas which are practised in he mosques. He refers to the Friday prayers, but not in a ompulsory tone. When ye knock about in the earth,' as Ir. Palmer renders it, it is no crime to you that ye come short in prayer, if ye fear that those who disbelieve will set upon you. God pardons everything except associating aught with Him.' The fast is more clearly defined, but with ample eservations.

VOL. CLIV. NO. CCCXVI.

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"There is prescribed for you a fast, as it was prescribed for those before you; haply ye may fear. A certain number of days; but he amongst you who is ill or on a journey then let him fast another number of days; and those who are fit to fast may redeem it by feeding a poor man; but he who follows an impulse to a good work it is better for him; and if ye fast it is better for you, if ye did but know. The month of Ramadān, wherein was revealed the Korān: . . . he who beholds this month, let him fast it; but he who is sick or on a journey, then another number of days--God desires not for you what is difficult.'

This reads more like advice than commandment. Turning the face to the Kibleh of Mekka is distinctly enjoined in chapter ii., and the pilgrimage to the Kaaba is thus commended: Verily Safa and Marwa are of the beacons of God, and he who makes the pilgrimage unto the House (Kaaba), 'or visits it; it is no crime for him to compass it about, and he who obeys his own impulse to a good work, God is grateful and doth know.' Almsgiving is frequently enjoined, but the amount of the alms is merely described as the sur'plus.' We also find that forbidden food is what has died of itself, and blood, and the flesh of swine, which is an abomi'nation, and meats which have been offered to idols, to which were added subsequently all animals that had been strangled or gored or preyed upon. Except these, no food was unlawful. Eat ye of the good things wherewith we have pro'vided you, and give thanks to God.' Further, the believers were forbidden to drink wine, and to make statues, and play at games of chance; in them both is sin and profit to men, but the sin is greater than the profit.' Usury was strictly prohibited, and classed among the great sins. Ablutions are mentioned, and sand is allowed as a substitute for water; but the details of wudu are not laid down. War against the unbelievers is thus ordained: Fight in God's way with those who fight with you, and transgress not; kill them wherever 6 ye find them, and drive them out from whence they drive you out, for sedition is worse than slaughter. But if they desist, then, verily, God is forgiving and merciful. . . . Let 'there be no hostility save against the unjust; whoso transgresses against you, transgress against him in like manner' -a different doctrine from what Mohammed said elsewhere,

Repel evil with what is better.' Fighting in the sacred months is a great sin, but is sometimes necessary.

The civil regulations of the Koran are scarcely more definite than those which refer to the rites of religion. The law of marriage is capable of more than one interpretation, and wears the aspect rather of a recommendation than a statute:

Marry what seems good to you of women by twos or threes or fours; and if ye fear that ye cannot be equitable, then only one, or what your right hands possess (i.e. slaves). That 'keeps you nearer to not being partial.' Marriage with unbelievers is forbidden: Surely a believing handmaid is better 'than an idolatrous wife.' The laws relating to divorce are more explicit than most regulations of the Koran, and contain most of the details now in common use in Mohammedan countries. The laws affecting women are indeed the most minute and the most considerate in the Koran. It was here that Mohammed made his principal reforms, and though to a European these reforms may seen slight, in contrast with the previous condition of Arab women they were considerable. The restrictions of polygamy and recommendation of monogamy, the institution of prohibited degrees against the horrible laxity of Arabian marriages, the limitations of divorce, and stringent rules as to the support of divorced women during a certain period by their former husbands, and as to the maintenance of children, the innovation of creating women heirs at law, though only to half the value of men, the abolition of the custom which treated a man's widow as a part of his hereditable chattels, form a considerable list of removed disabilities. Mohammed, indeed, had no very high opinion of women, as many traditions testify, and the following verse from chapter iv. of the Koran carries with it an unfavourable impression:

'Men stand superior to women in that God hath preferred some of them over others, and in that they expend of their wealth: and the virtuous women, devoted, careful in their husbands' absence, as God has cared for them. But those whose perverseness ye fear, admonish them and remove them into bed-chambers and beat them; but if they submit to you, then do not seek a way against them; verily, God is high and great.'

But he goes on to advise reconciliation by means of arbiters chosen by the two disputants, and frequently counsels kindness to wives; and it is a fact that no profound legislator ever made such important changes in favour of women as did Mohammed in spite of his narrow outlook and his poor opinion of the sex.

The raising of women to the position of heirs is not the only innovation that Mohammed made in the law of inheritance. It may almost be said that he took away the power of testamentary disposition. The just share of each relative is appointed, and the testator has only the power of disposing as he pleases with one-third of his property. It must not be imagined, however, that the complicated and delicate machinery

which Mr. Alaric Rumsey has so ably explained in his 'Mohammedan Law of Inheritance' is to be found in full in the Koran. The general principle is given and certain details, which it needs a Mohammedan lawyer to elucidate (cf. ch. iv., 11-16). One ordinance as to wills deserves to be mentioned: a man is required to provide a year's maintenance for his widows, that they need not be compelled to leave their homes. The main peculiarity, however, of Mohammed's principles of inheritance is the definite institution of an hereditary reserve of two-thirds, which the testator cannot touch, and which devolves upon certain regular heirs, or, in default, upon the state. The system undoubtedly has its merits, and it has been not seldom extolled above the European principle of free disposition; but it may be doubted whether the wide diffusion of property which it involves is, on the whole, advantageous to the state, or has proved successful even under the favourable conditions which certain peculiarities of Eastern life supply.

The penal law of the Koran is extremely fragmentary. Murder is to be dealt with by the Arab custom of vendetta: ' retaliation is prescribed for you for the slain, the free for the 'free, the slave for the slave, the female for the female; yet 'he who is pardoned at all by his brother must be prosecuted in reason, and made to pay with kindness.' Accidental homicide of a Muslim is to be compounded for by the bloodwit and freeing a believing slave. Unchastity in wives was to be punished by immuring the woman until death should release. her, or God make for her a way'; but stoning both parties (according to an authentic fragment not included in the ordinary Koran) was afterwards ordained. Four witnesses are required to prove a charge of this gravity. Slaves, in consideration of their disabilities, are to receive one-half the penalty of free women in strokes of the whip. Thieves are punished by cutting off the hands. This is practically all that Mohammed distinctly ordained in the matter of criminal law. We do not deny that something more may be extracted from his speeches by inference; but what has just been epitomised is all that he stands definitely committed to in the Koran.

These facts, drawn from a study of the Medina chapters, suggest some important conclusions. It is not unusual to compare the Koran to the Pentateuch, and to assert that each forms the lawbook as well as the gospel of its sect. The resemblance is stronger than is commonly supposed. Just as the Hebrews deposed their Pentateuch in favour of the Talmud, so the Muslims abolished the Koran in favour of the Traditions and Decisions of the Learned. We do not mean to say that any

Mohammedan, if asked what was the text-book of his religion, would answer anything but the Koran;' but we do mean that practically it is not the Koran that guides his belief or practice. In the middle ages of Christendom it was not the New Testament but the Summa Theologica' of Thomas Aquinas that decided questions of orthodoxy; and in the present day does the orthodox churchman usually derive his creed from a personal investigation of the teaching of Christ in the Gospels? Probably, if he refers to a document at all, the Church Catechism contents him, or if he be of a peculiarly inquiring disposition, a perusal of the Thirty-nine Articles will resolve all doubts. Yet he too would say his religion was drawn from the Gospels, and would not confess to the medium through which it was filtered. In precisely the same way Mohammedanism is constructed on far wider foundations than the Koran alone. The Prophet himself knew that his revelations did not meet all possible contingencies. When he sent Mo'adh to Yemen to collect and distribute alms, he asked him by what rule he would be guided; By the law of the Koran,' said Mo'adh. But if you find no direction therein?' Then I will act according to the example of the Prophet.' But if that fails? Then I will draw an analogy and act upon 'that.' Mohammed warmly applauded his disciple's intelligence, and very important deductions have been drawn from this approval of the principle of analogy. It is, however, only the last resort. When the Koran supplied no definite decision, the private sayings of Mohammed-a vast body of oral traditions carefully preserved and handed down, and then collected and critically examined-were referred to. And if there was

nothing to the purpose in the Sunneh, as this body of traditions is called, then the records of the general consent of the fathers were consulted. The Law,' says Ibn-Khaldun, is 'grounded on the general accord of the Companions of the Prophet and their followers.' Finally there was the principle of analogy to guide them if all other sources failed. As a matter of fact, however, Muslims do not go through all this laborious process of investigation, but refer to one of the standard works in which it has all been done for them. It was soon found that a system which sought to regulate all departments of life, 'all development of men's ideas and energics by the Sunneh and analogical deductions therefrom, was one which not only gave 'every temptation a system could give to the manufacture of Tradition, but one which would soon become too cumbersome to 'be of practical use.' Hence, as Mr. Sell has explained in his admirable work on The Faith of Islam,' it became necessary