rules should be settled "according to the laws and constitution of India (as to Zamindars, etc.), by which their tributes, rents, and services should be rendered and paid."

With regard to the Supreme Court established at Calcutta under 13 Geo. III., c. 63, it was enacted by 21 Geo. III., c. 70, that suits should, in the case of Mohammedan Dafiis, be determined by Mohammedan Law in cases relating to inheritance and also to contracts. Provision was made also for preserving the authority, under Mohammedan Law, of the fathers and masters of families, and for freeing them from criminal liability for acts affecting members of their families consistent with the law of caste. In the subsequent Statutes for establishing Recorders' Courts and Supreme Courts at Madras and Bombay, similar provisions were made, and were fortified by a direction that the rules of the Courts should be framed with due respect to the religious laws and usages of the natives.

The Charters of the present High Courts, under the Statute 24 & 25 Vict., c. 104, preserve to them the jurisdiction previously exercised by the Supreme Courts. The Statute 24 & 25 Vict., c. 67, gives to the GovernorGeneral in Council full power of legislation for British India; and in the exercise of this power, and of that simultaneously conferred on the local councils, the Hindu and Mohammedan Laws have been maintained or declared operative in the several provinces of India, with certain variations of expression, as noted in my introductory lecture on Hindu Law. The variations consist generally in the greater or less weight allowed to local custom in competition with the general provisions of the Hindu and Mohammedan Laws. In case of difference the customary law generally prevails; but the precise terms of the jurisdictional laws should be studied as set forth for each province in Sir Roland Wilson's Digest. Rather important breaches have been made by legislation in the Mohammedan Law by Act 21 of 1850, which frees an apostate from forfeiture of his property; and by the Contract Act 9 of 1872, which applies to transactions, in many cases, rules differing from those of the Mohammedan Law. Majority is fixed by Act 9 of 1875, at an age (18) different from that fixed by the Mohammedan Law. The duties of guardians are defined and modified by Act 8 of 1890, but without radical alteration of their relation to their wards and the estate. The extent to which the Probate and Administration Act operates on executors who do and who do not obtain probate has not been completely settled. The Succession Certificate Act 7 of 1889 greatly enlarges the powers of relatives and persons interested as to the estate of a deceased, if they arm themselves with a certificate. Kázis abolished by Act 11 of 1864 may now be appointed for certain Executive duties under Act 12 of 1880.

Sources of Mohammedan Law. The sources of the Mohammedan Law are

(1) The word of God revealed in the Korán.

(2) The acts and words of Mohammed.

(3) A decision of agreement, as to some point mooted, by the companions of Mohammed, their disciples or the pupils of these.

(4) Inferences from the indications afforded by any of the foregoing

drawn by recognised Mujtahids.

The lawyer or judge who is called in to decide a point in a controversy is not at liberty to construe the original sources (1) and (2) according to his own discretion. He is bound by the interpretations, by the rules and jural method, accepted by the school to which he belongs, or to which the party to be affected belongs. He must allow due weight to authoritative treatises of the same school; and in India he must be governed by the decisions on similar points of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and the High Courts. The weight due to precedents is fully recognised by the Mohammedan Law; and many collections of precedents exist, especially the Fatáwa-ul-Alamgiri, compiled by order of the Emperor Aurungzeb. The decisions of the British Courts must be allowed at least equal force, in order to prevent confusion and uncertainty.

The Korán. The early life of Mohammed is sketched in Sir Roland Wilson's Introduction to the Study of Mohammedan Law. I shall purposely avoid the matters which are there treated in detail, and shall call attention to the sources, authorities, and science of the Mohammedan Law as viewed by the Mohammedans themselves, whom it binds as a part of their religion.

The much greater part of the Korán was dictated by Mohammed after his withdrawal to Medina. He used from time to time to fall into an ecstasy, on recovering from which he had a message to dictate which had been brought to him by the Angel Gabriel. Many otherwise insoluble difficulties were thus disposed of. The passages delivered by the Prophet were committed to memory, in some instances reduced to writing, by his disciples. Mohammed himself appears to have exacted scrupulous accuracy in the record of his inspirations. He dismissed Mouavia, it is said, from the office of secretary on account of an erroneous entry, and replaced him by Zaid ibn Thabit, to whom the literary perfection of the Korán is largely due. After Mohammed's death there was an evident danger of the text being lost or corrupted. This was prevented by a careful collation made by Zaid, and a commission of those who knew all or most of the Korán by heart. Great pains were taken with the work. The MS. was handed to the Khalifa Abu Bakr, from whom it passed to Omar, and after him, to his daughter Hafza-a widow of the Prophet. She placed it on her husband's tomb. The Kaliph Othman afterwards made a copy, which he deposited in the great mosque at Damascus, where it remained, until destroyed, along with the mosque, some few years ago, by fire. Two other copies were made from Zaid's MS., and from these all the existing copies of the

Korán have been derived. They are almost absolutely free from variation, except in a few places where the omission of the vowel-points has left an opening for supplying these in different ways, with a consequent difference of sense.

According to Mohammedan belief, the messages delivered to the Prophet by the Angel Gabriel were by him repeated word for word. But his conduct also was equally regulated by Divine control: hence the acts and forbearances preserved by tradition-what Mohammed said, and even what he allowed to be said and done-all afford grounds for inferences of inspiration. As he could not err, his decision on any subject, whether express or implied, has to be received as conclusive and binding as a command of heaven. He did not himself pretend to an exemption from error in judgment and conduct, but the reverence of his disciples soon invested him with a semi-Divine infallibility.

Traditional Authority. The word "Sunna" (pl. "Sunnat ") signifies manifestation or visible conduct. The casual acts and events even of the Prophet's domestic life have been made the basis for doctrines of momentous importance. The sayings and doings of Mohammed having a sacred authority were religiously preserved by tradition. It happened, also, that they were greatly multiplied and varied as time went on. After some generations they were reduced to writing by several jurisconsults; and six of the collections thus made are generally accepted as authentic.1 Of these six, the works of Bukhari and of Hafiz Muslim Nissaburi, as being the most ancient, command the most confidence; yet even these were not compiled until two centuries after Mohammed's death. Each of them comprises about seven thousand three hundred separate traditions, together with the isuaad, or specification, of the links of tradition by which each was traced up to a companion of the Prophet. When at an earlier period the great jurists Abu Hanifa and his successors came on the scene, they generally found a hadis ready at hand to support the conclusion on any point in controversy which was conformable to reason and to the ethical system of the Korán. They must have been cheered in their labours by such a hadis as this: "When the Most High desires to show favour to one of His slaves, He makes him a lawyer"; or this: "The prayers of a lawyer are mightier against Satan than those of a thousand laymen." It is certain that Mohammed attached a high importance to the correct administration of justice according to the law, which he regarded as a precious boon of God to man. He stamped a sacro-sanctity upon his legislation, as of Divine ordinance, which in after ages has sometimes proved a stay and sometimes a fetter.

Mohammed's own Legislation.—Mohammed's first essay in legislation was in his agreement with the envoys who invited him to Medina. They swore

'The Shiahs reject the traditions received through the first three Khaliphas. They accept the example of their Twelve Imams as itself a source of law, not merely as an authentication of the traditions of the Prophet.

on behalf of their fellow-citizens to worship one God, to abstain from theft, infanticide, adultery and fornication, and degrading insults to women. We may learn from this enumeration what forms of immorality were most flagrant, and how great a step Mohammed at once took in advance. After his installation at Medina he organised public and private worship, and established the Zakát, or alms-tribute, as an institution divinely commanded. The contests in which he was engaged necessitated his regulating the disposal of booty and prisoners of war and of conquered and ceded lands. During his ten years of rule he had to decide a multitude of civil disputes. Direct revelation from time to time came to his assistance. Its inspirations are enshrined in the Korán. His actions and words, equally authoritative when clearly established, constitute the Sunnat. From these two sources the whole Mohammedan religious and jural system has been evolved. Just before his death Mohammed recited God's message to himself: "This day I have completed your religion and perfected my favour for you. I am satisfied with you as regards the faith." And in his final address to the assembled believers, after specific exhortations to good living, he concluded: "I have revealed all. I leave you a law which will for ever preserve you from error if you steadfastly adhere to it—a clear and positive law, the book of God, and the example (practice) of His prophet." As all the requisite guidance for human life was declared to be contained within these limits, it would be sacrilege to contradict their contents or to seek illumination from alien sources. Yet the authority of these last words itself rests on oral tradition.

Mohammed's Successors.-The four immediate successors of Mohammed (called Rashid ad Din1) followed his example in disposing, as chief judges, of a multitude of litigious cases. Omar, as well as Abu Baku, used to assemble for conference, on such occasions, a council of the faithful, by whom the question was debated with reference to the words and acts of the Prophet as reported by those who remembered them. The ijmaa, or concurrence of opinion thus arrived at, became a further fountain of jurisprudence and one of great importance. It was by such means that Omar obtained a ratification of his determination not to distribute all the lands of Syria as spoil to his victorious soldiers, but to leave them in the hands of the Christian occupants, subject to a Kharáj exceeding the tithe payable by Moslems, and dedicated to the uses of Islám.

The practice of obtaining enlightenment as to the law by means of ijmaa continued for three generations. The councils were composed of the Prophet's companions, of their disciples, and of the followers of these. At a later stage their moral authority could not be very weighty, and the Prophet himself had said that the "felicitous hour" belonged to these three generations.

'The Shiahs regard Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed, as his first lawful successor, both as Imám and as Khalipha. After him his posterity. In India the Shiahs prevailed at Bijapur and Golconda, and recently in Oudh.

The councils thus assembled were no doubt influenced in their views by considerations of general utility; but they did not venture to rest any conclusion on a merely rational basis, much less one opposed to a Koránic text. Thus when exile as well as the bastinado was found too severe a penalty for fornication, a council assembled by Omar relied, for its abrogation, on a direction that the laws should be modified according to the needs of times and circumstances. Had the process of legislation by ijmaa continued, this latitudinarian principle might have annulled or reversed the chief behests of the Korán.

Amongst the fiercest early antagonists of Mohammed were the Abu Sofian clan of the Khoresshite tribe, to which his own clan, of the Abu Hashim, belonged. The two clans were hereditary rivals; and Mohammed's greatest perils, after he had established his ascendency at Medina, arose from the attacks of his own tribesmen. They were eventually converted, but more perhaps through policy than conviction; and the accession to power of the first Abu Sufianite, in the person of Mouaviah, was attended with a slackening of religious zeal which continued throughout the rule of the Ommeyad Dynasty. During this period the Mohammedan Law derived much from foreign sources, but in a form which would have tended to disintegrate it as a homogeneous system, had it not been for the subsequent religious reaction, under the Abbasides, representatives of Mohammed's own clan, and the uprise at a critical time of the legislative genius of Abu Hanifa.

The Moslems and Land Tenure. From the time of the conquest of Syria and Irak, for a century or more the Moslems appear to have paid but little attention to the development of their law on Islamic lines. For the Moslems, it is true, there can be no right except what is right according to revelation; but then the Ommeyad sovereigns ruling at Damascus especially the first, Mouaviah, had but little of the true Mohammedan spirit. They ruled over a country in which the Roman Law had been completely established, and where indeed there were great schools of law. For the land tenures and the transactions of the Syrian community the meagre legislation of the Arabs afforded almost no rules. The higher civilisation, therefore, in spite of the theoretic rejection by the Mohammedan Law of any foreign ingredient, imposed itself in a great measure on the lower in the field of law, as well as of administration. In the period preceding the rise of the Abbasides-750 A.D.-the Mohammedan Law became infiltrated with many notions, derived from the Civil Law, which it has ever since retained, though mostly in a modified form. For a period of about ninety years there was a complete cessation not only of original legislation, but of theoretic and doctrinal development of Islamic jural principles. The change that was coming over the Moslems in Syria was highly distasteful to the more rigid believers in Arabia, and under the Abbasides there was a considerable reaction towards strictly Mohammedan feeling and principles, governed by