passage in the Qurán, or one Tradition from which the required judgment may be deduced. The Shafi'ite in the same circumstances, if Tradition is the source of his deduction, will require a considerable number of Traditions from which to make it.

Imám Ibn Hanbal was the last of the four Orthodox Imáms. He was born at Baghdád (A. H. 164). His system is a distinct return to Traditionalism. He lived at Baghdad during the reign of the Khalif Mamun, when Orthodox Islám seemed in danger of being lost amid the rationalistic speculations, (that is, from an Orthodox Muslim stand-point), and licentious practices of the Court. The jurists most in favour at Court were followers of Abu Hanífa. They carried the principle of analogical deduction to dangerous lengths in order to satisfy the latitudinarianism of the Khalíf. Human speculation seemed to be weakening all the essentials of the Faith. Ibn Hanbal met the difficulty by discarding altogether the principle of analogical deduction. At the same time he saw that the Máliki system, founded as it was on the "Customs of Madína," was ill-suited to meet the wants of a great and growing Empire. It needed to be supplemented. What better, what sürer ground could he go upon than the Traditions. These at least were inspired, and thus formed a safer foundation on which, to build a system of jurisprudence than the analogical deductions of Abu Hanífa did. The system of Ibn Hanbal has almost ceased to exist. There is now no Mufti of this sect at Mecca, though the other three are represented there. Still his influence is felt to this day in the importance he attached to Tradition.

The distinction between the four Imáms has been put in this way. Abu Hanífa exercised his own judgment. Málik and Hanbal preferred authority and precedent. AsSháfi'í entirely repudiated reason. They differ, too, as regards the value of certain Traditions, but to each of them an authentic Tradition is an incontestable authority. Their

opinion on points of doctrine and practice forms the third basis of the Faith.

The Ijma' of the four Imáms is a binding law upon all Sunnís. It might be supposed that as the growing needs of the Empire led to the formation of these schools of interpretation; so now the requirements of modern, social and political life might be met by fresh Imáms making new analogical deductions. This is not the case. The orthodox belief is, that since the time of the four Imáms there has been no Mujtahid who could do as they did. If circumstances should arise which absolutely require some decision to be arrived at, it must be given in full accordance with the 'mazhab,' or school of interpretation, to which the person framing the decision belongs. This effectually prevents all change, and by excluding innovation, whether good or bad, keeps Islám stationary. Legislation is now purely deductive. Nothing must be done contrary to the principles contained in the jurisprudence of the four Imáms. Thus, in any Muhammadan State legislative reforms are simply impossible. There exists no initiative. The Sultán, or Khalíf can claim the allegiance of his people only so long as he remains the exact executor of the prescriptions of the Law."

The question then as regards the politics of the "Eastern

1. In South India, the Muhammadan money-changer resorts to a curious piece of casuistry to reconcile the practice of his profession with the faith he holds. It is wrong to gain money by money as a direct agency. Suppose, then, for example, that the charge for changing a shilling is one farthing. It is unlawful for the money-changer to give four three-penny pieces for one shilling plus one farthing, for then he will have sinned against the laws anent usury by gaining money (one farthing) by money; but if he gives three three-penny pieces plus two pence three farthings in copper the transaction will be lawful, as his profit of one farthing is then gained by selling as merchandize certain pieces of silver and copper for one shilling, and not by exactly changing the shilling.

Again, pictures or representations of living creatures are unlawful; and so, when British rupees were first circulated in India, good Muslims doubted whether they could use them, but after a loug consultation the 'Ulamá declared that, as the eye of His Majesty was so small as not to be clearly visible, the use of such coins was legal. This kind of casuistry is very com. mon and very demoralizing; but it shows how rigid the law is.

24

The Faith of Islám.

Question" is not whether Muhammad was a deceiver or selfdeceived, an apostle or an impostor; whether the Qurán is on the whole good or bad; whether Arabia was the better or the worse for the change Muhammad wrought; but what Islám as a religious and political system has become and is, how it now works, what Orthodox Muslims believe and how they act in that belief. The essence of that belief is, that the system as taught by Prophet, Khalífs and Imáms is absolutely perfect.1 Innovation is worse than a mistake. It is a crime, a sin. This completeness, this finality of his system of religion and polity, is the very pride and glory of a true Muslim. To look for an increase of light in the knowledge of his relation to God and the unseen world, in the laws which regulate Islám on earth is to admit that Muhammad's revelation was incomplete, and that admission no Muslim will make.

It has been stated on high authority that all that is required for the reform of Turkey is that the Qánúns or orders of the Sultán should take the place of the Shari'at or law of Islám. Precisely so; if this could be done, Turkey might be reformed; but Islám would cease to be the religion of the State. That the law as formulated by the Imam Abu Hanífa il suits the conditions of modern life is more than probable; but it is the very function of the Khalíf of Islám,

1. "Authority becomes sacred because sanctioned by heaven. Despotism, being the first form of consolidated political authority, is thus rendered unchangeable and identical in fact with Government at large." "Supreme Government has four stages: (1) where the absolute Prince (Muhammad) is among them concentrating in his own person the four cardinal virtues, and this we call the reign of wisdom; (2) where the Prince appears no longer, neither do these virtues centre in any single person: but are found in four (Abu Bakr, Omar, Osmán and 'Alí), who govern in concert with each other, as if they were one, and this we call the reign of the pious; (3) where none of these is to be found any longer, but a chief (Khalif) arises with a knowledge of the rules propounded by the previous ones, and with judgment enough to apply and explain them, and this we call the reign of the Sunnat; (4) Where these latter qualities, again, are not to be met with in a single person, but only in a variety who govern in concert; and this we call the reign of the Sunnat-followers. -Akhlák-i-Jalálí, pp. 374. 378.

which the Sultán claims to be, to maintain it. He is no Mujtahid, for such there are not now amongst the Sunnís, to which sect the Turks belong. If through stress of circumstances some new law must be made, orthodoxy demands that it should be strictly in accordance with the opinions of the Imáms. The Shía'hs, in opposition to the Sunnís, hold that there are still Mujtahidín, but this opinion arises from their peculiar doctrine of the Imámat, a subject we shall discuss a little later on. At first sight it would seem that if there can be Mujtahidín who are now able to give authoritative opinions, there may be some hope of enlightened progress amongst Shía'h people-the Persians for example. There is doubtless amongst them more religious unrest, more mysticism, more heresy, but they are no further on the road of progress than their neighbours; and the apparent advantage of the presence of a Mujtahid is quite nullified by the fact that all his decisions must be strictly in accordance with the Qurán and the Sunnat, or rather with what to the Shía'h stands in the place of the Sunnat. The Shía'h, as well as the Sunní, must base all, legislation on the fossilized system of the past, not on the living needs of the present. Precedent rules both with an iron sway. The Wahhábís reject all Ijma' except that of the Companions, but that they accept; so when they are called the Puritans of Islám, it must be remembered that they accept as a rule of faith not only the Qurán, but the Sunnat, and some Ijmá'.

In order to make Ijma' binding, it is necessary that the Mujtahidín should have been unanimous in their opinion or in their practice.

The whole subject of Ijtihád is one of the most important in connection with the possibility of reforms in a Muslim state. A modern Muhammadan writer1 seeking to show that Islám does possess a capacity for progress and that so far from being a hard and fast system, it is able to adapt itself to new circumstances, because the Prophet ushered in

1. Life of Muhammad, by Syed Amír 'Alí, p. 289.

an age of active principles," uses the story I have already related when describing the origin of Ijtihád (Ante. p. 17) to prove the accuracy of his statement. He makes Mu'áz to say: "I will look first to the Qurán, then to precedents of the Prophet, and lastly rely upon my own judgment." It is true that Ijtihád literally means 'great effort,' it is true that the Companions and Mujtahidín of the first class had the power of exercising their judgment in doubtful cases, and of deciding them according to their sense of the fitness of things, provided always, that their decision contravened no law of the Qurán or the Sunnat; but this in no way proves that Islám has any capacity for progress, or that "an age of active principles" was ushered in by Muhammad, or that his "words breathe energy and force, and infuse new life into the dormant heart of humanity." For, though the term Ijtihád might, in reference to the men I have mentioned, be somewhat freely translated as "one's own judgment," it can have no such meaning now. It is a purely technical term, and its use and only use now is to express the "referring of a difficult case to some analogy drawn from the Qurán and the Sunnat." But even were the meaning not thus restricted, even though it meant now as it sometimes meant at first, "one's own judgment;" still Syed Amír 'Ali's position would remain to be proved for, since the days of the four Imáms, the orthodox believe that there has been no Mujtahid of the first class, and to none but men of this rank has such power ever been accorded. Thus granting, for the sake of argument merely, that the Syed's translation is grammatically and technically correct, all that results from it is that the "age of active principles" lasted only for two centuries. I do not admit that there ever was such an age in Islám, and certainly neither its theological development, nor its political growth negative the opposite assertion, viz., that Muhammad gave precepts rather than principles. The Turks are included in "the dormant heart of humanity," but it is difficult to see what "energy and