SUNGEI UJONG 



SUNNITES 



811 



making demulcent and soothing emulsions ; and 

 in some parts of Europe a bouilli is made of them 

 which is used as food for infants. Russians eat 

 them like nuts, and American Indians make bread 

 of them. The flowers abound in honey, and are 

 much frequented by bees. The leaves are good 

 fodder for cattle. The stems are used for fuel, and 

 yield much potash. A profusely flowering garden 

 variety, H. multiftorus, is referred to the same 

 species. The fallacy that the Hewers of the sun- 

 flower turn with the sun is mentioned by Gerarde 

 (1597), who adds, however, 'the which I could 

 never observe, although I have endevored to finde 

 out the truthe of it.' The Jerusalem Artichoke 

 (q.v.) belongs to this genus. 



Slingei I join:, a native state of the Malay 

 Peninsula under British protection, lies on the west 

 side, between the British colony of Malacca and 

 the native state of Selangor. Area, 660 sq. m. ; 

 pop. (1891) 23,602, mostly Chinese. The produc- 

 tions are the same as those of the neighbouring 

 Straits Settlements (q.v.). 



Nil Ililllll. See COLONNA (CAPE). 



Nil II II. SeeCROTALARIA, FIBROUS SUBSTANCES. 



SllllllitcS, the name commonly given to ortho- 

 dox Muslims, because in their rule of faith and 

 manners the Sunna (pron. Soonna), or traditionary 

 teaching of the Prophet, is added to the Koran. 

 According to Islam the human mind is incapable 

 of attaining light in law or religion but through 

 the Prophet, and all expressions of God's will are 

 equally important. Reason and conscience are here 

 of no value ; memory is all. Hell-fire is the award 

 due alike to him that prays without being properly 

 washed and to him that denies the word of the 

 Prophet. Accordingly during the Prophet's life his 

 counsel was eagerly and continually sought ; and 

 after his death his example and sayings were 

 collected as of infinite value. After the death of 

 the four rightly guided califs, Abu Bekr, Omar, 

 Othman, and Ali, intimate friends of the Prophet, 

 fearful uncertainty arose and gradually occasioned 

 the four schools of the four orthodox Imams. The 

 first of these was Abu Hantfa, born in Basra of a 

 noble Persian family. He taught in Kufa on the 

 Euphrates. He logically deduced from the Koran all 

 religion and law ; for the Koran says (Sura 16 : 91 ) 

 ' to thee we have sent down the book which clears up 

 everything.' Consequently, when the Koran says 

 (S. 2 : 20) 'for you have I created the whole earth,' 

 it follows that to Muslims belongs all the property 

 of unbelievers. Hence the propriety of piracy and 

 aggressive war against them. In his school arose 

 the famous legists of Irak, and his system, the 

 most widely spread of the four, is now professed by 

 the Turkish empire. He would never hold any 

 office under government, fearing the doom due 

 according to prophetic tradition to every giver of 

 a wrong decision, namely, to lie plunged into hell 

 from a neight of forty days' journey. He died in 

 767 in prison, where the calif had confined him for 

 refusing to be Cadi over the new capital Bagdad. 



In 795 died Malik ibn Anas in his eighty-fourth 

 year at Medina, where he was born and had lived 

 all his days. There, surrounded by traditions of the 

 Prophet, he had taught after the custom of Medina. 

 This had been impossible to Abu Hanifa, residing 

 amid a partly foreign people and a very complex 

 civilisation. Malik gathered from the Koran and 

 from local traditions of Mohammed his Muw&ttaa, 

 or Beaten Path, a complete body of law and 

 religion. He never announced any such tradition 

 without a previous ablution. On his death-bed he 

 regretted with tears that he had ever used his own 

 judgment in pronouncing an opinion on a point of 

 lawf and wished that he had been flogged and re- 

 flogged every time. His system was established 



in North Africa by African students, who found 

 Medina the most convenient school, and in Spain 

 by his Berber pupil Yahya 'bn Yahya. The third 

 orthodox imam was Ash-Shafii of the Koraish tribe, 

 and descended from the Prophet's grandfather, 

 Abdul-Mflttalib. He was born, it is said, on the 

 day of Abu Hanifa's death. He taught in Cairo, 

 and there he died in 820. He was an eclectic, but 

 leaned more to the traditionary precedents of his 

 teacher Malik than to the deductive method of 

 Abu Hanifa. His system prevailed in Egypt, and 

 was not uncommon eastward. It still flourishes in 

 the Asiatic islands. 



The use of reason and Greek philosophy had 

 by this time wrought such laxity in faith and in 

 public and private conduct that" rigid puritanism 

 was a natural concomitant. Its exponent was 

 Ibn Hanbal, the fourth orthodox imflm, who died 

 in 855 in his native city Bagdad, beyond which 

 his system never had much power. He was 

 a pupil of Ash-Shftfii, whose lectures, however, he 

 would never allow his own pupils to attend. 

 Tradition and Sunna had now immensely increased, 

 and by these alone the Hanbalites were guided. 

 They are now almost extinct, but were strenuous 

 in their early days, when they would break into 

 festive meetings in Bagdad, beat the singers, break 

 the musical instruments, and pour the wine into 

 the streets. The bulk of tradition had now made 

 editing indispensable, and those huge masses of it 

 began to appear under which the Muslim mind has 

 been crushed to death. As Ibn Hanbal said, ' the 

 punishment of the learned man in this world is 

 blindness of heart.' Abu Hanifa had used only 

 18 traditions, Malik 300. Ibn Hanbal used 30,000. 

 These were mainly collected by his friends and 

 pupils. One of these, the excellent Abu Daftd 

 Suleiman, travelling in many Muslim lands, col- 

 lected half a million, which he sifted down to 4800. 

 Another, Yahya 'bn Main, spent a large fortune 

 and wore out his last pair of shoes in collecting 

 600,000. Helpers copied as many more for him. 

 ' I copied quantities of traditions to the dictation of 

 liars, he said, ' and heated my oven with them, 

 whereby my bread was well baked.' But of the 

 six accepted collections the standard one was made 

 by Al Bukhari, a friend and pupil of Ibn Main. 

 He taught in Bagdad, and like the best Muslim 

 theologians was a Persian. He died in 870. Of 

 the 600,000 traditions heard by him he admitted 

 only 7275, whereof the half are probably genuine. 

 Till he had washed and performed two rekas of 

 prayer he never inserted any tradition. An edition 

 by Krehl appeared at Leyden in 1862-72, in 3 

 vols. The collection by his Muslim pupil is 

 better arranged, and is more used. The sources 

 of tradition were Ayesha, the first four califs, and 

 the six companions of the Prophet, of whom Abu 

 Horaira, a manifest liar, was more prolific than 

 any other. Through one of these channels to 

 Mohammed the isnAdor pedigree of every tradition 

 had to be traceable. Worth or internal evidence 

 counted for nothing. The work of collecting was 

 begun too late. The real origin of most traditions 

 was the requirements of interested parties, con- 

 scious mendacity, or gossip, specially in the standing 

 camps of Arabs required in every conquered land. 

 The matter is called Hadith, events, tradition, and 

 is much more entertaining than the Koran. Besides 

 the legal and religious utterances of Mohammed, 

 which are generally in one or two sentences, it em- 

 bodies endless nonsense about his life and miracles, 

 although Mohammed disowned all miracles but his 

 own inspiration, about spirits, the beginning of the 

 world and its end. Whatever in the Hadith can 

 be imitated or obeyed is Sunna, method ; compul- 

 sory for guidance if connected with religion, but 

 redundant or collateral, though praiseworthy, if 



