APPENDIX I. 299 



the islands of Bali and Lombok on the Javanese coast. 

 A few centuries later a far greater wave of religion 

 came surging down from India over the same course : 

 Muhammadanism, which had invaded India from the 

 North - West in the eleventh century, reached Java, 

 Sumatra, and the Malay Peninsula about the fifteenth 

 century. 



The Malays of the Peninsula became ready converts, 

 and are now without an exception followers of the Prophet 

 decidedly unorthodox in many ways, it is true, but 

 unshakable in their adherence to what they consider to 

 be the essentials of their religion ; recognising the claim 

 of the "Law of the Custom," the Hukum Adat, the 

 traditions of many centuries of paganism and Hinduism, 

 on the one hand, and on the other hand the often 

 conflicting claim of the " Law of the Prophet," the Hukum 

 Shara, their more recently acquired code ; and always 

 ready to make a compromise between them. In certain 

 parts of the Malay Peninsula the pre - Muhammadan 

 customary laws of debt, land tenure, and inheritance 

 have prevailed over the Muhammadan code, and have 

 recently in some instances been perpetuated by judicial 

 decisions and by statutes. 



It is often said that the Malay of the Peninsula is a 

 bad Muhammadan, because he has retained so much of 

 his pre- Muhammadan beliefs. The truth more really is 

 that he is an imperfect Muhammadan : he certainly is 

 not an indifferent one, for even his severest critics 

 will admit that he would die rather than willingly do 

 what he believes to be forbidden. If he is told that 

 his habitual omission to say the five daily prayers, for 

 instance, will ensure his eternal damnation, he will be 

 greatly distressed to hear it ; but he will probably con- 

 tend that this is not the law as he knows it, and thence 

 proceed to try to persuade his critic, as he has persuaded 

 himself, that a man should be judged not by the law, 

 but by the law as he knows it. 



Of the old pagan religion the pawang, or sorcerer, is 



