508 MOHAMMEDISM 



whole historical Islam all this is founded on the normative power 

 of the consensus. 



So the whole prevailing theory and practice must trace its legit- 

 imacy, even its legality, back to this. If we had only the text of the 

 Koran, the texts of the Sunna, and the results of deductive reason- 

 ing, with these three approved "roots" for the construction of law, 

 we should have many riddles before us in considering the real relig- 

 ious life in Islam. How, for instance, could the worship of saints 

 spread all over Islamic territory, with all the manifestations of 

 anthropolatry attaching to it, and be brought into harmony with the 

 uncouthly inflexible monotheistic theory on which the dogmatic of 

 Islam is based? Are there not dozens of passages in the Koran and 

 sayings in the Sunna to justify the fighting motto of the Wahhabites 

 and of precedent puritans, who, in all these superstitions covered 

 under the mask of piety, see only polytheism and mere paganism, 

 by which the purity of the creed is dimmed and falsified? This would 

 certainly be the case, if the great principle of Idjma/ were not there 

 to justify such outgrowths as being in accordance with righteous 

 Islam, in spite of the contrast they form to the real doctrine of that 

 religion. The general feeling of the believers has adopted all this, as 

 well as many other strange things, so that there can be no "failing." 



Without the consideration of this great principle orthodox Islam, 

 as it is, would be quite incomprehensible to us, as according to the 

 ideas of Islamic theology, orthodoxy consists in being in complete 

 congruity with the consensus. One becomes a heretic by merely 

 contradicting the Consensus Doctorum Ecclesiae. 



You will often have to deal in the history of Islam with the para- 

 dox that a reactionary doctrine corresponds to the traditional ones 

 and still does not pass for orthodox. Take, for instance, the Wah- 

 habite movement. It is a protest against anti-Islamic innovations; no 

 one can deny that its puritanism agrees more nearly with the funda- 

 mental doctrines of Islam than the abominations against which it 

 fought. But nevertheless it is heterodox. It rebelled against develop- 

 ments which in the course of the centuries were admitted and sanc- 

 tioned by the consensus, and for that very reason had the only legiti- 

 mate claim to pass for the correct form of Islam, " nam diuturni mores 

 consensu utentium comprobati legem imitantur" (Institut. I, ii, 9). 



But although, particularly in the Sunnitic quarters of Islam, this 

 collective, or, as it has been called, catholic trait has manifested it- 

 self, it must be remarked, on the other hand, that just as much feel- 

 ing has been shown for the individual peculiarities of the single parts 

 of that wide territory over which the creed of Islam has spread. 



