506 MOHAMMEDISM 



have been proved to be the translation of corresponding Latin words. 

 No doubt you will comprehend that the progress made in our 

 knowledge of this relationship in Islamic law could not remain with- 

 out influence on our judgment of its nature. 



But this again had to give way to new ideas also from another 

 point of view. The system of the Muhammadan "Fikh," which, as 

 "rerum humanarum ac divinarum cognitio," extending to all cir- 

 cumstances of orthodox life: to ritual law in the widest sense, to 

 legal states of social life, to the laws of Divine service, almsgiving, 

 fasting, pilgrimage, purity, to the laws of food, to the regulations 

 concerning religious war, as well as to the fundamental doctrines of 

 politics and the constitution of the state, to the laws of family life 

 and hereditary affairs, to those connected with obligations, to penal 

 laws and judicial proceedings this whole encyclopedical system of 

 religious legislature had been considered as an actual constitution of 

 law, setting up the organism of the Muhammadan state and family 

 life, elaborated by sagacious legislators according to the practical 

 wants of one vast empire, and whose management and execution had 

 been the object of the anxious care of Muhammadan authorities for 

 thirteen centuries: in one word, as a Code Napoleon for Islam. 



In later days, historical consideration has proved that only a small 

 part of this system, connected with religious and family life, has 

 a practical effect as of old, while in many parts of merely juristical 

 character this theological law is entirely put aside in actual jurisdiction. 

 You see that we have not here to do with a living system of law, 

 and also that those students of law have been on a wrong path who, 

 without looking at the character of Islamic law in the light of history 

 and to the criticism of sources, make use of these dead codes as data 

 for the knowledge of life, and base their studies of comparative law 

 on this view. 



To the same distinguished Dutch Orientalist, whose great work upon 

 Mekka, beside the Manners and Customs by Edward Lane, presents 

 the most reliable and attractive description of Islamic life and 

 society, 1 we owe the total change, carried out in general by his 

 works, toward a right knowledge of Muhammadan law, and also the 

 reform of our general views about the character of Fikh. Snouck 

 Hurgronje was really the first who set forth with great acuteness 

 and sure judgment the historical truth, namely, that what we call 

 Muhammadan law is nothing but an ideal law, a theoretical system; 

 in a word, a learned school-law, which reflects the thoughts of pious 

 theologians about the arrangement of Islamic society, whose sphere of 

 influence was willingly extended by pious rulers as far as possible 

 but which as a whole could hardly ever have been the real prac- 

 tical standard of public life. He finds there rather a doctrine of duties 

 1 G. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, 2 vols. (Haag, 1888-89.) 



