144 Notes on tie oldest work on Sufism. [No. 2. 



Most of the questions which he discusses bear on property. The 

 manner in which the land conquered by the early Musalmans was 

 disposed of, gave rise to discussions which seem to have much 

 occupied learned and pious men during the first three centuries. I 

 will give an example. The country about Tarsus was obliged to 

 surrender to the Mosliui arms unconditionally, and consequently it 

 was, according to the principle laid down by 'Omar, the property of 

 the Moslim community, but the reigning Khalif, who according to the 

 original notion of the Islam is merely the servant of the community? 

 divided it among his adherents, generals and partisans. He had no right 

 thus to dispose of it, nor were these persons justified in accepting it? 

 and consequently ,though the land may have frequently changed owners 

 from the time of the conquest down to the age in which our author 

 lived, he considers it as unlawfully acquired property which no man 

 of principles would purchase, nor would he purchase the produce 

 thereof, and he goes so far as to recommend to those who resided 

 temporarily in those regions for the sake of repressing the inroads 

 of the Greeks, to send for their provisions to Egypt or Syria. Most 

 of the other questions which he discusses are of the same descrip- 

 tion. The principal theme of the whole work is an unqualified 

 condemnation of every thing that the executive c;lkLJ| ever did 

 since the demise of the first four Khalifs. The only sovereign 

 whose acts he considers legal is 'Omar b. 'abd al'azyz. "We must 

 not suppose that he challenges the right of any of them to rule. 

 This question he does not discuss, and from one passage, it would 

 appear that he conceives that a man who reigns de facto, reigns also 

 de jure. But he seems to consider the sovereigns as well as their 

 officers as a band of thieves and robbers, and goes so far as to lay 

 it down as a general rule, that, as the whole or at least part of the 

 property of public officers has been acquired unlawfully, their heirs 

 are not justified in accepting it. Herein he preached not only in 

 words but by example, for he refused to accept seventy thousand 

 dirhams which his father left him, because he (his father) believed 

 in predestination j<^\ and he thought it wrong to share in the 

 inheritance of a heretic. There can be no doubt, that the Khalifa 

 and their officers violated the constitution of the Islam at every 

 step. We should however very much misunderstand the author if 



