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    "source_key": "britannica_1911",
    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)",
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    "chunk_id": "1911:caliphate:2f10ffc3c979",
    "title": "CALIPHATE",
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    "verified_text": "caliphate, e.g. b. § 8 and mahommedan institutions), and a land-tax for all owners of land. immediately after the taking of khaibar certain communities, of which the most notable was fadak, sent tribute before they had been attacked and reduced; their land was regarded by mahomet as his private domain, but after his death it was withdrawn from his heirs by his successor abu bekr, in virtue of a maxim that prophets left no inheritance, which in the opinion of fatima was contrary to koranic doctrine, and invented by ayesha's father expressly for the purpose of excluding her and her husband from their rights; and this is likely to have been the case. as a military organizer mahomet, as has been seen, was anxious to adopt the most advanced of contemporary methods, and more than once is said to have scandalized the arabs by foreign innovations, as at a later time the moslem chiefs who first used gunpowder scandalized their co-religionists. the unit in his armies seems to have been, as of old, the tribe, under its natural leader; that he introduced no more scientific division, and nothing like a hierarchy of officers was perhaps due to the difficulty of reconciling such a system with the equality of all moslems. as has been seen, the koran only assumed the character of a civil code as the need for one arose; and for some time after mahomet's arrival at medina old-fashioned methods of settling disputes continued in use, and doubtless in accordance with precedent where such was known. for difficult cases, even in arab opinion, divine inspiration was required; and since mahomet naturally claimed to be in sole enjoyment of this, his utterances soon became the unique source of law, though he did not at first think of organizing a code. such a plan is said to have occurred to him, and he even wished to dictate a code upon his deathbed; but his friends supposed or professed to suppose him to be delirious. a table regulating the \"alms\" was left by him, it is said, in the possession of abu bekr; but other traditions assign another origin to this document. just as there were no regular officials for the arrangement of business, so there were none for its execution; when punishment was to be administered, any follower of mahomet might be called upon to administer it. in the case of the massacre of the banu quraizah care was taken to see that some of the heads were struck off by their former allies, in order that the latter might be unable at any time to bring a demand for vengeance. the prophet hoped by the mere terror of his name to make complete security reign throughout arabia, and there is no evidence that any system of policing either it or even medina occurred to him. domestic life. until the death of khadija the prophet's private life seems to have been normal and happy, for though the loss of his sons in infancy is said to have earned him a contemptuous epithet, he was fortunate in his adoption of zaid b. harithah, apparently a prisoner ransomed by khadija or one of her relatives, who appears as dutiful almost to excess and competent in affairs. the marriages of his daughters seem all to have been happy, with, curiously, the exception of that between fatima and ali. his domestic troubles, to which an unreasonable amount of space seems to be devoted, even in the koran, began after the migration, when, probably in the main for political reasons, he instituted a royal harem. one of these political motives was the principle which long survived, that the conquest of a state was consummated by possession of the former monarch's wife, or daughter; another, as has been seen, the desire to obtain the securest possible hold on his ministers. in his marriage with the daughter of his arch-enemy abu sofian, before the latter's conversion, we can see a combination of the two. few, therefore, of these marriages occasioned scandal; yet public morality seemed to be violated when the prophet took to himself the wife of his adopted son zaid, whose name has in consequence the honour of mention in the koran in the revelation which was delivered in defence of this act. its purpose was, according to this, to establish the difference between adoptive and real filiation. serious trouble was occasioned by a charge of adultery brought against the youthful favourite ayesha, and this had to be refuted by a special revelation; the charge, which was backed up apparently by ali, seems to have been connected with some deeper scheme for causing dissension between the prophet and his friends. yet another revelation is concerned with a mutiny in the harem organized by omar's daughter hafsa, owing to undue favour shown to a coptic concubine (mary, mother of a son called ibrahim, who died in infancy; his death was marked by an eclipse, january 27, 632); and various details of factions within the harem are told us by mahomet's biographers. of the members of this harem the only prominent one is ayesha, married to the prophet shortly after the flight, when she had scarcely passed the period of infancy, but who appears to have been gifted with astuteness and ambition that were quite beyond her years, and who maintained her ascendancy over the prophet in spite of the fact that many carping criticisms of his revelations are attributed to her. some of this may have been due to the obligations (including pecuniary obligations) under which her father had laid mahomet; but her reputation seems to have been greatly enhanced by the sending down of a revelation to exonerate her (a.h. 6), for which she thanked god and not the prophet. each accession to the harem rendered the building of a house or room necessary for the newcomer's accommodation; a fact in which robertson smith perhaps rightly saw a relic of the older system whereby the tent was the property of women. the trouble noticed above seems to have arisen from the want of a similar arrangement in the case of slave girls, with whom mahomet's system permits cohabitation. when mahomet, whether in consequence of the fatigue incurred by the \"farewell pilgrimage,\" or, as others thought, by the working of some poison put into his food some years before by a jewess of khaibar, was attacked by the illness which proved fatal, it was to the house of ayesha that he was transferred (from that of another wife) to be nursed; and he apparently died in the arms of the favourite, on whose statements we have to rely for what we know of his last hours. general characteristics. the traditional description of mahomet is \"of middle height, greyish, with hair that was neither straight nor curly; with a large head, large eyes, heavy eyelashes, reddish tint in the eyes, thick-bearded, broad-shouldered, with thick hands and feet\"; he was in the habit of giving violent expression to the emotions of anger and mirth. the supposition that he at any time suffered from physical weakness seems absolutely refuted by his career as a leader of difficult, dangerous and wearisome expeditions, from his migration to medina until his death; indeed, during his last years he exhibited a capacity for both physical and intellectual activity which implies a high degree of both health and strength; and without these the previous struggle at mecca could scarcely have been carried on. the supposition that he was liable to fits (epileptic or cataleptic) was intended to account for certain of the phenomena supposed to accompany the delivery of revelations; some of these however rest on very questionable authority: and the greater number of the revelations give evidence of careful preparation rather than spontaneity. the literary matter ascribed to the prophet consists of (1) the koran (q.v.); (2) certain contracts, letters and rescripts preserved by his biographers; (3) a number of sayings on a vast variety of topics, collected by traditionalists. the references in the koran to a form of literature called \"wisdom\" (_hikmah_) suggest that even in the prophet's time some attempts had been made to collect or at least preserve some of the last; the general uncertainty of oral tradition and the length of time which elapsed before any critical treatment of it was attempted, and the variety of causes, creditable and discreditable, which led to the wilful fabrication of prophetic utterances, render the use to which no. 3 can be put very limited. thus the lengthy description of the journey to heaven which sprenger was inclined to accept as genuine is regarded by most critics as a later fabrication. it is very much to be regretted that the number of _pieces justificatives_ (no. 2) quoted by the biographers is so small, and that for these oral tradition was preferred to a search for the actual documents, some of which may well have been in existence when the earliest biographies were written. their style appears to have been plain and straightforward, though the allusions which they contain are not always intelligible. in his personal relations with men mahomet appears to have been able to charm and impress in an extraordinary degree, whence we find him able to control persons like omar and khalid, who appear to have been self-willed and masterful, and a single interview seems to have been sufficient to turn many an enemy into a devoted adherent. cases (perhaps legendary) are quoted of his being able by a look or a word to disarm intending assassins. although the titles which he took were religious in character, and his office might not be described as sovereignty, his interests appear to have lain far more in the building up and maintenance of empire than in ecclesiastical matters. thus only can we account for the violent and sudden changes which he introduced into his system, for his temporary lapse into paganism, and for his ultimate adoption of the cult of the black stone, which, it is said, gave offence to some of his sincere adherents (e.g. omar), and seems hard to reconcile with his tirades against fetish-worship. the same is indicated by his remarkable doctrine that the utterance of the creed constituted a moslem and not its cordial acceptance, and his practice of at times buying adhesion. even an historian so favourable to the prophet as prince caetani recognizes that ultimately what he regarded as most important was that his subjects should pay their taxes. and in general his system was not favourable to fanaticism (_al-ghulu fi`l-din_); he repeatedly gave permission for concealment of faith when the profession of it was dangerous; he took care to avoid institutions which, like the jewish sabbath, interfered seriously with military expeditions and the conduct of business, and permitted considerable irregularity in the matters of prayer and fasting when circumstances rendered it desirable. in his theory that koranic texts could be abrogated he made wise provision against the danger of hasty legislation, though some of its usefulness was frustrated by his failure to provide for such abrogation after his death. mahomet's reforms. as has been seen, mahomet claimed to introduce a wholly new dispensation, and a maxim of his law is that islam cancels all that preceded it, except, indeed, pecuniary debts; it is not certain that even this exception always held good. hence his system swept away a number of practices (chiefly connected with the camel) that were associated with pagan superstitions. the most celebrated of these is the arrow-game, a form of gambling for shares in slaughtered camels, to which poetic allusions are very frequent. more important than this was his attitude towards the blood-feud, or system of tribal responsibility for homicide (whether intentional or accidental), whereby one death regularly led to protracted wars, it being considered dishonourable to take blood-money (usually in the form of camels) or to be satisfied with one death in exchange. this system he endeavoured to break down, chiefly by sinking all earlier tribal distinctions in the new brotherhood of islam; but also by limiting the vengeance to be demanded to such as was no more than the equivalent of the offence committed, and by urging the acceptance of money-compensation instead, or complete forgiveness of the offence. the remembrance of pre-islamic quarrels was visited by him with condign punishment on those who had embraced islam; and though it was long before the tribal system quite broke down, even in the great cities which rose in the new provinces, and the old state of things seems to have quickly been resumed in the desert, his legislation on this subject rendered orderly government among arabs possible. next in importance to this is the abolition of infanticide, which is condemned even in early suras of the koran. the scanty notices which we have of the practice are not altogether consistent; at times we are told that it was confined to certain tribes, and consisted in the burying alive of infant daughters; at other times it is extended to a wider area, and said to have been carried out on males as well as females. after the taking of mecca this prohibition was included among the conditions of islam. in the laws relating to women it seems likely that he regulated current practice rather than introduced much that was actually new, though, as has been seen, he is credited with giving them the right to inherit property; the most precise legislation in the koran deals with this subject, of which the main principle is that the share of the male equals that of two females. our ignorance of the precise nature of the marriage customs prevalent in arabia at the rise of islam renders it difficult to estimate the extent to which his laws on this subject were an improvement on what had been before. the pre-islamic family, unless our records are wholly misleading, did not differ materially from the islamic; in both polygamy and concubinage were recognized and normal; and it is uncertain that the text which is supposed to limit the number of wives to four was intended to have that meaning. the \"condition of islam\" whereby adultery was forbidden is said to have been ridiculed at the time, on the ground that this practice had never been approved. yet it would seem that certain forms of promiscuity had been tolerated, though the subject is obscure. against these services we must set the abrogation of some valuable practices. his unfortunate essay in astronomy, whereby a calendar of twelve lunar months, bearing no relation to the seasons, was introduced, was in any case a retrograde step; but it appears to have been connected with the abrogation of the sanctity of the four months during which raiding had been forbidden in arabia, which, as has been seen, he was the first to violate. he also, as has been noticed, permitted himself a slight amount of bloodshed in mecca itself, and that city perhaps never quite recovered its sacrosanct character. of more serious consequences for the development of the community was his encouragement of the shedding of kindred blood in the cause of islam; the consequences of the abrogation of this taboo seem to have been felt for a great length of time. his assassinations of enemies were afterwards quoted as precedents in books of tradition. no less unfortunate was the recognition of the principle whereby atonement could be made for oaths. on the question how far the seclusion of women was enjoined or countenanced by him different views have been held. sources. besides the contemporary documents enumerated above (koranic texts, rescripts and authentic traditions) many of the events were celebrated by poets, whose verses were ostensibly incorporated in the standard biography of ibn ishaq; in the abridgment of that biography which we possess many of these are obelized as spurious, and, indeed, what we know of the procedure of those who professed to collect early poetry gives us little confidence in the genuineness of such odes. a few, however, seem to stand criticism, and the _diwan_ (or collection of poems) attributed to hassan b. thabit is ordinarily regarded as his. though they rarely give detailed descriptions of events, their attestation is at times of value, e.g. for the story that the bodies of the slain at badr were cast by the prophet into a pit. besides this, the narratives of eyewitnesses of important events, or of those who had actually taken part in them, were eagerly sought by the second generation, and some of these were committed to writing well before the end of the 1st century. the practice instituted by the second caliph, of assigning pensions proportioned to the length of time in which the recipient had been a member of the islamic community, led to the compilation of certain rolls, and to the accurate preservation of the main sequence of events from the commencement of the mission, and for the detailed sequence after the flight, which presently became an era (beginning with the first month of the year in which the flight took place). the procedure whereby the original dates of the events (so far as they were remembered) were translated into the moslem calendar--for something of this sort must have been done--is unknown, and is unlikely to have been scientific. mahomet's conduct being made the standard of right and wrong, there was little temptation to \"whitewash\" him, although the original biography by ibn ishaq appears to have contained details which the author of the abridgment omitted as scandalous. the preservation of so much that was historical left little room for the introduction of miraculous narrations; these therefore either belong to the obscure period of his life or can be easily eliminated; thus the narratives of the meccan council at which the assassination of mahomet was decided, of the battles of badr, uhud and honain, and the death of sad`b. mu `adh, would lose nothing by the omission of the angels and the devil, though a certain part is assigned the one or the other on all these occasions. we should have expected biographies which were published when the `abbasids were reigning to have falsified history for the purpose of glorifying `abbas, their progenitor; the very small extent to which this expectation is justified is a remarkable testimony to their general trustworthiness. relatives of the prohet[1] 1. _family of `abd al-mottalib_, mahomet's maternal grandfather:--*`abbas (d. a.h. 32 or 34), *hamza (d. a.h. 3), `abdallah, father of the prophet, *abu talib (said to be named `abd manaf), ? *zubair, harith, hajal, moqawwam, dirar, *abu lahab (said to be named `abd al-`uzza, d. a.h. 2), *_safiyyah_ (d. a.h. 20), _umm hakim_, _al-baida_, _`atikah_, _umaimah_, _arwa_, _barrah_. 2. _family of abu talib_:--*`aqil (d. after a.h. 40), *ja`far (d. a.h. 8), talib, tulaiq, `ali, the caliph, _umm hani'_, _jumanah_, _raitah_. 3. _family of mahomet. wives_:--*_khadija_ (children:--qasim; ? `abd manaf (tahir, tayyib); *_zainab_ m. abu'l-`as b. rabi', d. a.h. 7; *_ruqayyah_, m. `othman b. `affan, d. a.h. 2; *_umm kulthum_ m. `othman b. `affan, d. a.h. 9; *_fatimah_, m. `ali, d. a.h. 11): *_saudah bint zam`ah_,? d. a.h. 54, *_`a'ishah (ayesha) bint abi bekr_ (d. a.h. 56), *_hafsa bint `omar_ (d. a.h. 45 or 47), *_zainab bint khuzaimah_, d. before a.h. 11, *_zainab bint jahsh_, d. a.h. 20, *_umm salimah_, d. a.h. 59, *_maimunah_, d. a.h. 38, *_juwairiyah_, d. a.h. 56, *_umm habibah ramlah bint abi sofian_, d. a.h. 44. _concubines_:--*_safiyyah bint huyyay_, d. a.h. 36, *_raihanah bint zaid_, *_mariyah the copt_, d. a.h. 15 or 16, mother of ibrahim. (other names given by ibn sa`d, vol. viii.) _chronological table of chief events in the life of mahomet._[2] ? 570 birth. ? 595 marriage with khadija. ? 610 commencement of call. ? 613 public appearance. 616 persian conquest of the nearer east. ? 617 flight of his followers to abyssinia. ? 618-619 siege in mecca. retractation and subsequent repudiation. death of abu talib and khadija. ? 620 flight to taif. 622 july 16. beginning of the moslem era. sept. 20. arrival at kuba after the flight. 632 jan. 27. death of his son ibrahim. 632 june 7. death of mahomet. the following dates are given by the arabic historians according to their own calendar. for the reasons which have been seen it is impossible to obtain certain synchronisms. a.h. 2. rajab 1. raid of `abdallah b. jahsh to nakhlah. ramadan 19. battle of badr. shawwal 15. attack on the banu qainuqa. 3. rabia i. 14. assassination of ka`b b. al-ashraf. shawwal 7. battle of uhud. 4. saphar. massacre of mahomet's 70 missionaries at bi'r ma`unah. rabia i. attack on the banu nadir. dhu'l-qa`da. abortive raid called \"the lesser badr.\" 5. shaaban 2. attack on the banu'l-mustaliq (according to waqidi). dhu'l-qa`da. battle of the trench. massacre of the banu quraizah. 6. jomada i. capture of a caravan by zaid b. harithah. futile attempt to assassinate abu sofian. dhu'l-qa`da. affair of hodaibiyah. 7. jomada i. taking of khaibar. mission extended to the world. dhu'l-qa`da. pilgrimage to mecca (called _'umrat al-qadiyyah_) 8. jomada i. expedition to mutah. ramadan 20. taking of mecca. shawwal. battle of honain. attack on ta`if. 9. muharram. tax-gatherers sent over arabia. rajab. expedition to tabuk. rival mosque built at kuba, destroyed on mahomet's return to medina. dhu'l-hijja. pilgrimage conducted by abu bekr. abolition of idolatry in arabia. 10. ramadan. expedition of `ali to yemen. dhu'l-qa`da. \"farewell pilgrimage.\" 11. saphar. expedition ordered against the byzantines. _companions of the prophet._ the _sahabah_, as they are called, are the subject of a vast literature, and the biographical dictionaries devoted to them, of which the best known are the _usd ul-ghaba_ of the historian ibn athir and the _isabah_ of ibn hajar al-`asqalani, enumerate many thousands. the following two lists are of special groups. (a) _naqibs_, i.e. leaders selected by mahomet from the medinese tribes: i. _khazrajites_:--as`ad b. zurarah, sa`d b. al-rabi`, `abdallah b. rawahah, al-bara' b. ma`rur, `abdallah b. `amr b. haram, `ubadah b. al-samit, sa`d b. `ubadah, al-mondhir b. 'amr; ii. _ausites_: usaid b. hudair, sa`d b. khaithamah, rifa`ah b. `abd al-mondhir. (b) _commanders of expeditions_: names occurring in (a) are not repeated: `abdallah b. jahsh, `abd ar-rahman b. `auf, abu bekr, abu qatadah, abu `ubaidah b. al-jarrah, `ali, `alqamah b. mujazziz, `amr b. al-`as (ibn el-ass), bashir b. sa`d, dahhak b. sofian, ghalib b. `abdallah, ibn abi'l-auja, ka`b b. `umair, khalid b. al-walid, kurz b. jabir, marthad b. abi marthad, muhammad b. maslamah, qutbah b. `amir, sa`d b. abi waqqas, sa`d d. zaid, salama b. `abd al-asad, shuja` b. wahb, `ubaidah b. al-harith, `ukkashah b. mihsan, `umar b. al-khattab, usamah b. zaid, `uyainah b. hisn, zaid b. harithah. authorities.--the biography of ibn ishaq was before the world long before the two chief causes for the falsification of tradition had begun to have serious effects; these were the need for legal precedents, and the concept of saintliness, combining those of asceticism and thaumaturgy. these gave rise to the classical works on the _evidences of mohammed's mission_ by abu nu`aim (d. a.d. 1012-1013) and baihaqi (d. a.d. 1066). _lives of the prophet_ ([+] indicates that the work is lost); [+]`urwah b. zubair (d. 712-713); [+]musa b. `ukbah (d. 758-759); [+]mohammed b. ishaq (d. 768); mohammed b. hisham (d. 828-829), ed. wustenfeld (gottingen, 1860); reprinted in egypt by zubair pasha, a series of excerpts from the last; mohammed b. omar al-waqidi (d. 823), portion published by kremer (calcutta, 1855), abridged trans. of a fuller copy by wellhausen, _muhammad in medina_ (berlin, 1882); mohammed b. sa`d (d. 844-845), an encyclopaedic work on the history of mahomet and his followers, called _tabaqat_, ed. sachau and others (berlin, foll.); mohammed b. jarir al-tabari (see tabari). many more writers on this subject are enumerated in the _fihrist_, cf. sprenger's _leben muhammads_, iii. 54-76. among the most popular compilers of later times are: ibn al-athir (q.v.) al jazari, the historian (d. 1233); ahmad b. ali al kastalani (d. a.d. 1517), whose _al-mawahib al-laduniyyah_ was published with commentary (cairo, 1278); hosain b. mohammed al diyarbakri (d. 1574) whose work _ta'rikh al-khamis_ was published in cairo, a.h. 1382; `ali b. burhan al-din al-halabi (d. a.d. 1634), whose biography called _insan al-`uyun_ was published in cairo, a.h. 1292. to these must be added all the collections of tradition. _modern authorities._--the critical study of the life of mahomet begins in europe with the publication by th. gagnier in 1723 of the life by abulfeda (q.v.). presently there appeared an apologetic biography by henri cmte. de boulainvilliers (2nd ed., amsterdam, 1731), to which gagnier replied in 1732 (_la vie de mahomet, traduite_, &c. ibid.). the next considerable advance in the treatment of the subject is marked by the biography of g. weil (_muhammed der prophet_, stuttgart, 1843), which is wholly without religious bias; the popular life by washington irving (london, 1849) is based on this. that by j. l. merrick (the _life and religion of mohammed_, boston, u.s.a., 1850) rests on shi`ite sources. the search for mss. in india conducted by a. sprenger led to the discovery of fresh material, which was utilized by sprenger himself in his unfinished _life of mohammad_ (pt. 1, allahabad, 1851), and his more elaborate _das leben und die lehre des mohammad_ (berlin, 1861-1865), and by sir william muir in his _life of mahomet_, (london, 1858-1861) 4 vols.: afterwards abridged in one volume and reprinted. these are still the standard treatises on the subject; the pro-christian bias of muir is very marked, while sprenger has hazarded numerous conjectures on subjects with which he had little familiarity. the biography by s. w. koelle, _mohammed and mohammedanism_ (london, 1889), is pro-christian, the popular work of syed ameer ali _the spirit of islam_, (london, 1896) an apology for mahommedanism. later treatises, resting on original authorities, are those by h. grimme _mohamed_, (munster, 1892, and munich, 1904), f. buhl, _mohameds liv_ (copenhagen, 1903--danish: since translated into german), d. s. margoliouth _mohammed and the rise of islam_ (n.y., 1905, &c.), and prince caetani _annali del islam_, i. ii. (milan, 1905-1907). for the direction of public opinion in mahomet's favour the lecture on _the hero as prophet_ in carlyle's _heroes and hero-worship_ (london, 1846) was singularly effective; his views were enforced by r. bosworth smith _mohammed and mohammedanism_, (london, 1873, &c.). a somewhat similar line was taken in france by j. barthelemy saint-hilaire, _mahomet et le coran_, (paris, 1865), while the _vie de mahomet d'apres la tradition_ of e. lamairesse and g. dujarric (paris, 1897) is written entirely from the moslem standpoint. see further caliphate, _ad init._; mahommedan institutions; mahommedan law; mahommedan religion. (d. s. m.*) footnotes: [1] * is prefixed to names which figure on occasions which seem to be historical. female names are in italics. [2] dates are given a.d. mahommed ahmed ibn seyyid abdullah (1848-1885), sudanese tyrant, known as \"the mahdi,\" was born in dongola. his family, known as excellent boat-builders, claimed to be _ashraf_ (or _sherifs_), i.e. descendants of mahomet. his father was a _fiki_ or religious teacher, and mahommed ahmed devoted himself early to religious studies. when about twenty years old he went to live on abba island on the white nile about 150 m. above khartum. he first acquired fame by a quarrel with the head of the brotherhood which he had joined, mahommed asserting that his master condoned transgression of the divine law. after this incident many dervishes (religious mendicants) gathered round the young sheikh, whose reputation for sanctity speedily grew. he travelled secretly through kordofan, where (with ample justification) he denounced to the villagers the extortion of the tax-gatherer and told of the coming of the mahdi who should deliver them from the oppressor. he also wrote a pamphlet summoning true believers to purify their religion from the defilements of the \"turks\" i.e. the egyptian officials and all non-native inhabitants of the sudan. the influence he gained at length aroused the anxiety of the authorities, and in may 1881 a certain abu saud, a notorious scoundrel, was sent to abba island to bring the sheikh to khartum. abu saud's mission failed, and mahommed ahmed no longer hesitated to call himself al-mahdi al montasir, \"the expected guide.\" in august he defeated another force sent to abba island to arrest him, but thereafter deemed it prudent to retire to jebel gedir, in the nuba country south of kordofan, where he was soon at the head of a powerful force; and 6000 egyptian troops under yusef pasha, advancing from fashoda, were nearly annihilated in june 1882. by the end of 1882 the whole of the sudan south of khartum was in rebellion, with the exception of the bahr-el-ghazal and the equatorial provinces. in january 1883 el obeid, the capital of kordofan, was captured. in the november following hicks pasha's force of 10,000 men was destroyed at kashgil, and in the same year the mahdi's lieutenant, osman digna, raised the tribes in the eastern sudan, and besieged sinkat and tokar, near suakin, routing general valentine baker's force of 2500 men at el teb in february 1884. the operations undertaken by great britain in face of this state of affairs are narrated under egypt: _military operations_. it need only be added that general gordon (q.v.) was besieged at khartum by the mahdi and was killed there when the town was captured by the mahdists on the 25th-26th of january 1885. the mahdi himself died at omdurman a few months later (june 22, 1885), and was succeeded in power by his khalifa abdullah. when he announced his divine mission mahommed ahmed adopted the shi`ite traditions concerning the mahdi, and thus put himself in opposition to the sultan of turkey as the only true commander of the faithful. to emphasize his position the mahdi struck coins in his own name and set himself to suppress all customs introduced by the \"turks.\" his social and religious reforms are contained in various proclamations, one of which is drawn up in the form of ten commandments. they concern, chiefly, such matters as ritual, prayers, soberness in food and raiment, the cost of marriage and the behaviour of women. how far the mahdi was the controller of the movement which he started cannot be known, but from the outset of his public career his right-hand man was a baggara tribesman named abdullah (the khalifa), who became his successor, and after his flight to jebel gedir the mahdi was largely dependent for his support on baggara sheikhs, who gratified one of his leading tastes by giving him numbers of their young women. in the few months between the fall of khartum and his death the mahdi, relieved from the incessant strain of toil, copied in his private life all the vices of oriental despots while maintaining in public the austerity he demanded of his followers. his death is variously attributed to disease and to poisoning by a woman of his harem. on the occupation of omdurman by the british (sept. 1898) the mahdi's tomb was destroyed, his body burnt and the ashes thrown into the nile (see sudan: _anglo-egyptian_). see _mahdiism and the egyptian sudan_ by f. r. wingate (1891); _ten years' captivity in the mahdi's camp_ (1882-1892) from the ms. of father joseph ohrwalder by f. r. wingate (1892) and _fire and sword in the sudan_ (1879-1895) by slatin pasha (trans. f. r. wingate, 1896). both ohrwalder and slatin were personally acquainted with the mahdi, and their narratives contain much first-hand information. wingate prints many translations of the proclamations and correspondence of the mahdi. mahommedan institutions. the caliphate. of all the institutions of islam the caliphate is the oldest, the most fundamental, and in essence the most enduring. for its history see caliphate; the present subject is its origin and nature. mahomet enjoyed absolute rule over his people as a divinely inspired and guided prophet. he led the public prayers; he acted as judge; he ruled. if he consulted with others or paid attention to public feeling or local usage, it was as a matter of policy; the ultimate decision lay with himself. he was the state. on his death a leader was put in his place of similar authority, though without the divine prophetic guidance. he was called the \"successor\" (_khalifa_, caliph) of the prophet, later also the _amir-al-mu'minin_, commander of the faithful, and was elected by the moslems, just as the arab tribes had always elected their chiefs. he was thus an absolute ruler, but was democratically elected; and such is the essence of the caliphate among sunnite moslems to this day. for them it has been a matter of agreement (see mahommedan law) from the earliest times that the moslem community must appoint such a leader (see imam). the shi`ites, on the other hand, hold that the appointment lies with god, and that god always has appointed, though his appointment may not always have been known and accepted. their position may be called a legitimist one. some few heretical sects have held that the necessity of a leader was based on reason, not on the agreement of the community. but, for all, the rule of the leader thus appointed is absolute, and all authority is delegated from him and, in theory, can be resumed by him at any time. just as god can require unreasoning obedience from his creatures (his \"slaves\" in arabic), so can the caliph, his representative on earth. but abu bekr, the first caliph, nominated his successor, omar, and that nomination was accepted and confirmed by the people. so a second precedent was fixed, which was again carried a step farther, when moawiya i., the first omayyad caliph, nominated his son, yazid i., as his successor, and caused an oath of allegiance to be taken to him. the hereditary principle was thus introduced, though some relics of the form of election persisted and still persist. the true election possible in the early days of the small community at medina became first a formal acceptance by the populace of the capital; then an assertion, by the palace guard, of their power; and now, in the investiture of the sultans of the ottoman turks, who claim the caliphate, a formal ceremony by the `ulema (q.v.) of constantinople. the ottoman claim is based on an asserted nomination by the last abbasid, who died in exile in egypt in 1538, of the ottoman sultan, suleiman the great, as his successor. such a nomination in itself was a perfectly legal act, but in this case had a fatal flaw. it is an absolute condition, laid down in tradition, that the caliph must be of the tribe of koreish (quraish), that of the prophet. the duties of this democratically elected autocrat are, in theory, generally stated as follows. he shall enforce legal decisions and maintain the divinely revealed restrictive ordinances; guard the frontiers and equip armies; receive the alms; put down robberies, thieving, highwaymen; maintain the friday services and the festivals; decide disputes and receive evidence bearing on legal claims; marry minors, male and female, who have no guardians; divide booty. he must be a free, male, adult moslem; must have administrative ability; must be an effective governor and do justice to the wronged. so long as he fulfils these conditions he is to be absolutely obeyed; private immorality or even tyranny are not grounds for deposing him. this is a position reached by islam practically. but a caliph who openly denied the faith would be as impossible as an unbelieving pope. the caliph, therefore, is the highest executive officer of a system assumed to be definite and fixed. he, in a word, administers islam; and the content of islam is determined by the agreement of the moslem people, expressed immediately through the `ulema, and ultimately, if indirectly and half-consciously, by the people. to depose him a _fatwa_ (see mufti) would be required--in turkey from the sheikh-ul-islam--that he had violated some essential of the moslem faith, and no longer fulfilled the conditions of a caliph. the diwans. but it was impossible for the caliph personally to administer the affairs of the empire, and by degrees the supreme office was gradually put into commission, until the caliph himself became a mere figure-head, and vanished into the sacred seclusion of his palace. the history of the creation of government bureaus (_diwans_; see divan) must therefore now be sketched. the first need which appeared was that of a means of regulating and administering the system of taxation and the revenues of the state. immense sums flowed into medina from the arab conquests; the surplus, after the requirements of the state were met, was distributed among the believers. all moslems had a right to a certain share of this, which was regarded as booty. omar, the second caliph, regulated this distribution and also the system of taxation, and the result was the first divan and the constitution of omar, looked back to now by all sunnite moslems as an ideal. the sources of revenue were (i) the poor-rate (_zakat_), a tithe paid by every moslem; (ii) the fifth of all booty; (iii) the poll-tax (_jizya_) on non-moslems; and (iv) the land-tax (_kharaj_) also on non-moslems. thus the constitution determined the position of all non-moslems in a moslem state. the ideal was that the moslems should be kept apart as a superior, fighting caste, and that the non-moslems should support them (cf. caliphate, b. § 8, on the reign of omar ii.). the moslems, therefore, were forbidden to acquire land in conquered countries. the non-moslems must retain their lands, cultivate them and pay the land-tax (the arabic word is also used of revenue from the work of a slave) and the poll-tax (the arabic word means also \"ransom\"), and give contributions in kind to support the local moslem garrisons which were massed in great camp-cities at strategic points. if a non-moslem embraced islam he entered the ruling caste; his land was distributed among his non-moslem fellows, and he no longer paid the land-tax but rather received support from the public funds. the amount of these pensions varied with the standing of the pensioner from 10,000 dirhems (a dirhem equalled about a franc) to the widows and relations of the prophet down to 300. this bureau had, therefore, not only to keep the books of the state, but also to maintain a list of all moslems, classified genealogically and socially. its registers were kept by greeks, copts and persians; the arabs, it may be said in general, adopted the method of administration which they found in the captured countries and drew upon the trained services of their inhabitants. such a system led naturally to wholesale conversions to islam; and the consequent decline in revenue, combined with large donations of lands by othman, the third caliph, to his own family, gradually broke it down. the first patriarchal period of conquest, unearned wealth and the simple life--called by moslems the period of the \"four rightly guided caliphs,\" and very happily by sachau, _ein monchisches imperium_--passed rapidly into the genuinely arab empire of the omayyads, with whom came an immediate development of organization in the state. the constructive genius in this was moawiya, the first omayyad caliph. under him the old simplicity vanished. a splendid and ceremonious court was maintained at damascus. a chamberlain kept the door; a bodyguard surrounded the caliph, and even in the mosque the caliph, warned by the murder of othman and of ali, prayed in a railed-off enclosure. the beginning of the seclusion of the caliph had come, and he no longer walked familiarly among his fellow moslems. this seclusion increased still further when the administration of the state passed by delegation into other hands, and the caliph himself became a sacrosanct figure-head, as in the case of the later abbasids; when theories of semi-divine nature and of theocratic rule appeared, as in the case of the fatimites; and finally when all the elaborate court ritual of byzantium was inherited by the ottoman sultans. but moawiya i. was still a very direct and personal ruler. he developed a post-system for the carrying of government despatches by relays, and thus received secret information from and kept control of the most distant provinces. he established a sealing-bureau by which state papers were secured against change. he dealt arbitrarily with the revenues of the state and the pensions of the moslems. governors of provinces were given a much freer hand, and were required to turn over to the central treasury their surplus revenue only. as they were either conquerors or direct successors of conquerors they had an essentially military government, and were really semi-independent rulers, unhampered except by direct action of the caliph, acting on information sent by the postmaster, who was his local spy. being thus the heads of armies of occupation, they were not necessarily charged with the control of religious ritual and of justice. these, like every other function, inhered in the office of the caliph and he generally appointed in each province independent cadis over the courts and imams to be in charge of religious services. yet the governor was sometimes permitted to hold these two other offices (see cadi; imam). the vizierate. further administrative developments came with the abbasids. they created a new city, bagdad, between the tigris and the euphrates, where the three races, syrian, arab and persian, met and sought with bagdad as a capital to consolidate the empire. the arab empire, it is true, had passed away with the omayyads; yet there might be a chance to create a world-empire of all the moslem peoples. but not even the genius and administrative skill of the early abbasids could hold together that unwieldy mass. the semi-independent provinces soon became fully independent, or at most acknowledged the caliph as a spiritual head and paid a nominal tribute. his name might stand on the coinage and prayers be offered for him in the friday service, the two signs of sovereignty to this day in islam. with this crumbling of the empire went a more elaborate organization; bureaus took the place of principles and of the energy of individual rulers. as the system of moslem law was built on that of the roman codes, so was the machinery of administration on that of persia. and with the abbasids the chance of the persians had come. abu 'l-abbas, the first abbasid caliph, was the first to appoint a vizier (_wazir_, \"helper,\" so aaron is wazir to moses in the koran), a confidential minister to advise him and come between him and the people. advisers the caliphs had had before; but not a definite adviser with this name. he must, we are told, have a strain of the ruler in him and a strain of the people to be able to work with both. he must know how to be acceptable; fidelity and truthfulness are his capital; sagacity, firmness, generosity, clemency, dignity, effectiveness of speech are essential. it is plain that the vizier became as important as the caliph. but abu 'l-abbas was fortunate in early securing as his vizier the grandfather of the house of the barmecides (q.v.). on this persian family the fortunes of the abbasids hung, and it secured for them and for islam a short golden age, like that of the antonines, until the jealous madness of harun al-rashid cast them down. thereafter the vizierate had many vicissitudes. technically a vizier could be either limited or unlimited. the limited vizier had no initiative; he carried out the commands of the caliph. the unlimited vizier, often afterwards called the grand vizier, exercised full authority and was the _alter ego_ of the caliph, to whom he was required only to report. naturally the formal distinction is a later theorizing of history; for a weak ruler his vizier became absolute, for a strong ruler his vizier remained subordinate. here, as with regard to all moslem institutions, a marked distinction must be made between the historic facts and the speculative edifices raised by constitutional theorizers. compare especially mahommedan law. until the time of radi (934-940) the vizierate thus fluctuated in importance. in that caliphate the vizier lost all authority, and in his place came the _amir al-omara_--equivalent to the _major domus_ of the franks--the head of the turkish bodyguard, in terror of whom the caliph now stood. when in 945 the buyids captured bagdad and the caliph became a purely spiritual sovereign, they took the title \"vizier\" for their own chief minister, and the caliphs retained only a secretary (see caliphate, c. § 22). under the seljuks, however, they regained their viziers and some real authority. elsewhere, also the vizierate had its vicissitudes. under the mamelukes the vizier fell to be merely the court purveyor. under the omayyads of spain the title was given to several responsible officers of the state, but their chief was called _hajib_, chamberlain. under the almohades the chamberlain was called vizier. in the modern turkish empire the grand vizier (called generally _sadr a`zam_) is the sultan's representative in secular matters, and nominally stands between the sovereign and all the other officials. he is the president of the council of ministers, but abd-ul hamid ii. deprived the office of almost all its importance. other ministers. under the early abbasids the four most important ministers were the chief cadi, the chief of police or head of the life guards, the minister of finance and the postmaster, who was the head of the system of information and espionage which covered the empire. but at different times the different bureaus varied greatly. under motawakkil we find the bureau of taxes and finance; bureau of the crown estates; bureau of state book-keeping; bureau of war, i.e. of hired troops; bureau which kept reckoning and control of the pensions of the clients and slaves of the ruling family; bureau of the post system; bureau of expenditures. but in spite of this elaborate system, no moslem government has, except sporadically, been highly centralized. provided the taxes are paid, a large measure of local autonomy has always been enjoyed by the country districts. under the abbasids almost the only exception was the necessarily centralized control of the irrigation system of the tigris and euphrates. and similarly elsewhere. in the case of all these offices, we have delegation by the caliph, under necessity, of his too heavy burdens. but one duty of an oriental ruler he could not so easily lay aside. it had always to be possible for the oppressed to come into his presence and claim justice; he must sit in the gate and judge. therefore, when the caliph found it necessary to delegate the ordinary administration of justice, he found it also necessary to set up a special court of oppressions, which developed, to a certain extent, into a court of appeals. the first to establish such a separate court was abdalmalik the omayyad (685-705), and his example was followed by the more vigorous of the caliphs up to the time of mohtadi the abbasid (869-870). if any other than the caliph presided over this court it had to be a man whose dignity, independence and authority commanded respect. he was not bound by strict rules of evidence, method and literal application of law as was the cadi. rather, he applied a system of equity suited to the absolute source of authority which he represented. as the chief of police, mentioned above, was rather the head of the caliph's bodyguard, there was also a police system after our ideas, but more thoroughgoing. the _muhtasib_ had charge in the broadest sense of public order and morals in the streets, and had oversight as to weights, measures and adulterations; but had no right to interfere privately or enter houses save in the clearest and most necessary cases. he had a summary jurisdiction in all minor cases where no trial was necessary; but where witnesses and oaths entered the case must go to the cadi. slaves and beasts of burden were under his guardianship; he prevented public scandals, such as the sale of wine; he regulated the public conduct of jews and christians. in the interest of public morals he had to find suitable husbands for widows and see that they did not marry before the legal time; questions of paternity also he had to investigate. the outdoor costume of the people he could regulate. it should, of course, be remembered that the canon law of islam covers minutely all sides of life (see mahommedan law). it is impossible in islam to separate logically from the mass of institutions those which we should call religious, as islam on all sides is for the moslem equally religious. but perhaps the following may practically be separated under that rubric. islam, runs a tradition, is built on five things: testimony that there is no god save allah, and that mahomet is the apostle of allah; prayer; the poor-rate; pilgrimage; fasting. for these see mahommedan religion. the law and usage of religious foundations in perpetuity (_waqf_, mortmain) became as important in islam as monastic endowments in medieval europe, and such foundations tended similarly to absorb the greater part of the national wealth. it was the only safe way of providing for posterity. a pious foundation could be erected in such a way that either so much from its funds would be paid yearly in perpetuity to the descendants of the erector, or those descendants would be employed as officials of the foundation. the imam. when it became impossible for the caliph to lead the people personally in prayer in the mosque, he delegated that part of his duties to another, hence called imam (q.v.). naturally, then, the appointment of the imam would lie with the supreme ruler. this holds of the daily prayers in the principal mosque (_al-masjid al-jami'_) supported by the ruler where the friday service is held, but in the separate smaller mosques built by each community the community chooses its own imam. with regard to the friday service, the schools of law disagree as to the necessity of the presence of an imam appointed by the chief ruler. but the imam should certainly make mention of the ruler in his sermon and pray for him. at the occasional prayers, such as those for rain, &c., the presence of an imam appointed by the ruler is not necessary. the imam appoints the _muaddhin_, the announcer of the hour of prayer from the minaret, and both have a claim on the state treasury. another office exercised when possible by the caliph, but very frequently delegated to some high dignitary, such as the heir to the caliphate or a prince, was the leadership of the pilgrimage caravan to mecca and back. sometimes this official, called _amir-al-hajj_, was appointed imam as well. he then led all the pilgrimage ceremonies at mecca. when outside of towns where there was a cadi he exercised also over the caravan the rights of a judge. the cadi. mahommedan law (q.v.) is treated separately. here, again, as judging is a duty of the caliph, a cadi is the delegate, or, when appointed by a vizier or governor, a delegate of his delegate. he examines into disputes brought before him and enforces his judgments, he names administrators of the estates of minors, the insane, &c.; he supervises the _waqf_ property of mosques and schools in his district and inspects highways and public buildings; he watches over the execution of wills; he inflicts the due legal penalties for apostasy, neglect of religious duties, refusal to pay taxes, theft, adultery, outrages, murder; he can inflict the penalties of imprisonment, fine, corporal punishment, death; if there is no imam, he can perform his duty, as in fact can anyone who has the requisite knowledge. but it should be noticed that all this holds only of the un-europeanized moslem state. the army. for the existence of an army in islam, there are two grounds, the holy war (_jihad_, q.v.) against unbelievers without the state and the suppression of rebellion within. under the ordinance of omar the entire community was preserved and used as a weapon for the subduing of the world to islam, and every able-bodied male moslem was theoretically a fighting man, part of the national militia. this army was divided into corps situated in the conquered lands, as armies of occupation, where they eventually came to form military colonies in great camp-cities. the occupied countries had to support them, and they were bound to render military service at any time. but as the ideal of omar broke down before facts the use of mercenary and slave troops finally increased; although there has always continued in moslem armies acting against unbelievers a proportion of volunteers not paid a fixed wage but subsidized by the state from the poor-rate and alms funds. the generals were appointed by the caliph, and had either unlimited authority to act as his representatives, concluding peace, acting as cadi and imam, distributing booty; or were restricted within limits, e.g. to simple leading of the troops and carrying on military operations. they, in turn, appointed their subordinates; this principle of giving a head full powers and full responsibility was very generally applied in islam. it was controlled of course by the espionage of the postal system. as war by a moslem power is essentially sacred war, the regulations of _jihad_ must be considered here. unbelievers must first be invited to embrace islam and, if they follow a sacred book and are not idol-worshippers, are given a choice between (a) becoming moslems; or (b) submitting to the moslems and entering on a treaty with them of protection and tribute; or (c) fighting. if they accept islam, their lives, families and property are secure, and they form henceforth part of the moslem community. the ability of islam to create a common feeling between highly different races is one of its most striking features. if they submit and enter on treaty relations, they pay a poll-tax, for which their personal safety is assured, and assume a definitely inferior status, having no technical citizenship in the state, only the condition of protected clients (_dhimmis_). if they elect to fight, the door of repentance is open, even when the armies are face to face. but after defeat their lives are forfeit, their families are liable to slavery, and all their goods to seizure. it is open to the sovereign either to put them to death; or to enslave them; or to give them their liberty; or to exchange them for ransom or against moslem prisoners. the sovereign will choose that which is best for islam. as for their families and wealth, the sovereign can release them only with consent of the army that has captured them. apostates must be put to death. four-fifths of the booty after a battle goes to the conquering army. the technical art of war seems to have been little studied among moslems; they have treatises on archery but very little upon tactics. their writers recognize, however, the essential difference between the european and persian methods of charging in solid lines and holding the ground stubbornly, and the arab and berber method of flying attacks and retreats by clouds of cavalry. therefore, one explained, the custom grew of using a mass of european mercenaries as a fixed nucleus and rallying-point. the early moslem armies, too, had used the solid, unyielding charge, which may have been the secret of their success. for one of the greatest puzzles of history is the cause which changed the erratic, untrustworthy swarms of arab horsemen with their childish strategy into the ever-victorious legions of the first caliphs. they certainly learned rapidly. byzantium and persia taught them the use of military engines and the entrenched camp. before that they had been, at the best, single knights with mail-shirt, helmet, sword and lance. bowmen, too, they used, but the principal use of the bow seems to have come with the turks. education. the glory of moslem education was its university system, which fed the higher learning and did not serve everyday needs. its primary system was very poor, almost non-existent; and technical education has never been recognized in islam. primary teachers were despised as ignorant and foolish. apparently, if we may trust the many stories of how ignorant men set up for themselves, there was no control of them by the state. their pupils were young only; they taught the rudiments of reading, koran, catechism, prayer, writing and arithmetic, but very little of the latter. technical education was given by the gilds through their apprentice system, teaching mechanical arts and crafts. this was genuine instruction, but was not so regarded; it was looked upon rather as are the mysteries and secrets of operative masonry. it produced artisans of independent character, but not artists. thus there was no distinction between architect and builder; there was no sculpture; and painting, so far as it went, was like carving, a craft. all moslem university education, like all moslem science, revolved round theology. there were, apparently, only two outstanding exceptions to this rule, the academy of mamun (813-833) at bagdad, and the hall of wisdom of the fatimites at cairo (1004-1171); both of these are explained by their environment. from the earliest times, independent scholars instructed classes in mosques--the common places of meeting for the community--and gave their pupils personal certificates. their subjects were the reading and interpretation of the koran; the body of traditions from the prophet; the thence deduced system of theology; the canon law. but the interpretation of the koran involved grammatical and lexicographical studies of early arabic, and hence of the early arabic literature. theology came to involve metaphysical and logical studies. canon law required arithmetic and mensuration, practical astronomy, &c. but these last were strictly ancillary; the object of the instruction was primarily to give knowledge of value for the life of the next world, and, secondarily, to turn out theologians and lawyers. medicine was in jewish and christian hands; engineering, architecture, &c., with their mathematical bases, were crafts. then this instruction was gradually subsidized and organized by the state, or endowed by individuals. how early this took place is uncertain. but the individual teacher, with his certificate, remained the object of the student; there was nothing corresponding to our general degrees. thirdly, educational institutions came to be equipped with scholarships of money or in kind for the students. the first instance of this is generally ascribed to nishapur (naisabur) in 1066; but it soon became general in the system and afforded a means of control and centralization. a final, and most important, characteristic was the wide journeying of the students \"in search of knowledge.\" aided by arabic as the universal language of learning, students journeyed from teacher to teacher, and from samarkand to the atlantic, gathering on their way hundreds of personal certificates. scholars were thus kept in touch all over the moslem world, and intellectual unity was maintained. the sayyids. to the democratic equality of islam, in which the slave of to-day may be the prime minister of to-morrow, there is one outstanding exception. the descendants of the prophet and of his relatives (the family of hashim) formed and form a special class, held in social reverence, and guarded from contamination and injury. these are the _sayyids_ (lords), and genealogical registers of them are carefully preserved. they are of all degrees of wealth and poverty, but are guarded legally from _mesalliances_ with persons of ignoble origin or equivocal occupation. their influence is very great, and in some parts of the moslem world they have the standing and reverence of saints. see von kremer, _culturgeschichte des orients_, based largely on mawardi's _ahkam_, trans. in part by ostrorog; mcg. de slane's trans. of ibn khaldun, _prolegomenes_; lane, _manners and customs of the modern egyptians_; r. f. burton, _pilgrimage to mekka_; snouck hurgronje, _mekka_; hughes, _dictionary of islam_; juynboll, _de mohammedaansche wet_; macdonald, _development of muslim theology_, &c. for women in islam, see harem. (d. b. ma.) mahommedan law. the legal situation in the moslem world is of the highest complexity, and can be made intelligible only by tracing its historical development. first came the system (_fiqh_, _sharia_) which takes the place in islam of canon law in roman christendom. it begins with mahomet sitting as judge over the primitive moslem community at medina. he was the prophet of god, and judged, as he ruled, absolutely; any decision of his was valid. but he found it, in general, advisable and fitting to follow the local law or usage of medina when the new faith did not require a change. it thus came about that his decisions followed, at one time, the usage of the arab tribes of medina; at another, the law respected by the jewish tribes there--a rabbinic development of the law of moses, deeply affected by roman law; at another, the more developed commercial law of mecca, known to his followers who had fled thence with him; or, finally, his own personal judgment, stated it might be as his own sense of right or as the decision of allah and even incorporated in the koran. in his use of these he was an eclectic opportunist, and evidently, except as regards such frequently recurring subjects as inheritance, marriage, &c., had no thought of building up a system or code. at his death he left behind only a few specific prescriptions in the koran and a mass of recorded decisions of cases that had come before him. he had used himself, in our terms, common law, equity, legislation; to guide his followers he left his legislative enactments and the record of his use of common law. since his death there has been no new legislation in orthodox islam. with the death of mahomet began the development and codification of moslem law. it was at first entirely practical. cases had to be decided, and to decide them there was, first, the koran; secondly, if nothing _ad rem_ was found in the koran, there were the decisions of the prophet; thirdly, if these failed, there was the common law of medina; and, fourthly, if it, in turn, failed, the common sense of the judge, or equity. a knowledge of the decisions of mahomet came thus to be of great importance, and records of such decisions were eagerly sought and preserved. but this was simply a part of a much wider movement and tendency. as among primitive peoples in general, custom and usage have always been potent among the arabs. the ways of the fathers, the old paths, they love to tread. very early there arose a special reverence for the path and usage (_sunna_) of mahomet. whatever he did or said, or left unsaid or undone, and how he did it, has become of the first importance to the pious moslem, who would act in every way as did the prophet. there is evidence that for this purpose the immediate companions of mahomet took notes, either in memory or in writing, of his table talk and wise sayings, just as they took down or learned by heart for their private use the separate fragments of the koran. his sayings and doings, manners and customs, his answers to questions on religious life and faith, above all his decisions in legal disputes, came to be recorded on odd sheets in private notebooks. this was the beginning of the enormous literature of traditions (_hadith_) in islam. the collecting and preserving of these, which was at first private, for personal guidance and edification, finally became one of the most powerful weapons of political and theological propaganda, and coloured the whole method and fabric of moslem thought. all knowledge tended to be expressed in that form, and each element of it to be traced back to, and given in the words of, some master or other through a chain of transmitters. above all there grew up an enormous mass of evidently forged sayings put into the mouth of mahomet. at every important political or theological crisis each party would invent and put into circulation a tradition from him, supporting its view. by a study of these flatly opposed \"sayings\" it is possible to reconstruct the different controversies of islam in the past, and to discover what each party regarded as the essence of its position. the first collecting of traditions was for private purposes, and the first publication dealing with them was legal. this was the muwatta' of malik ibn anas (d. 795), a _corpus juris_ based partly on traditions, and a protest in its methods against the too speculative character of the books of canon law which preceded it. thereafter came collections of two different types. the earlier kind was arranged according to the companions of mahomet, on whose authority the traditions were transmitted; after each companion came the traditions going back to him. the best known example of this kind is the _musnad_ of ahmad ibn hanbal. the other kind, called _musannaf_ (classified), contains traditions arranged in chapters according to their subject matter. that of bukhari is the most famous, and is arranged to give a traditional basis for a complete system of canon law; its rubrics are those of such a system. another is that of muslim ibn al-hajjaj, who paid less attention to legal aspects and more to minute accuracy. there are many others of more or less acceptance and canonicity. bukhari's book enjoys a reverence only second to that of the koran. but in all these publications the primary object was to purify the mass of traditions of forged accretions and to give to the believer a sound basis for his knowledge of the usages of the prophet, whether for his personal or for public use. these two kinds were a natural development. in the moslem community there were from the first students of tradition proper whose interest lay in collecting, testing and transmitting, not in combining, systematizing and elucidating; whose preference was to take a single statement from the prophet and apply it to a case, without reasonings or questionings. and there were students of canon law who were interested rather in the system and results, and who, while they used traditions, used them only to an end and insisted on the free application of speculative principles. the conflict of the future was to be between these traditionalists, on the one hand, and rationalists, on the other; and the result was to be a compromise. with the wide sweep of moslem conquest another element came into the development. this was roman law, which the moslem jurist found at work in the conquered roman provinces and in the law courts of which they went to school. it is to be remembered that the arab armies were not devastating hordes; they recognized the need of law and order wherever they went, and it was the policy of their leaders to take over the administrative systems of the countries which they seized. even the arabic legal nomenclature shows evident signs of literal translation from latin, and many moslem principles can be traced to the roman codes. one important development was plainly influenced by the liberty involved in the _responsa prudentium_ of roman lawyers, and by the broad conception of the law of nature in the edict of the praetor. in its earliest stages moslem law recognized in the judge a liberty of opinion (_ra'y_) which went beyond even that of the _responsa_ and became plain equity, in the english sense, and one school (the hanifite) established as a basis the right of preference (_istihsan_) even when the analogy of the code dictated otherwise; while another (the malikite) used the term _istislah_, \"a seeking of (general) benefit\" to the community, in a similar situation. but these developments were bitterly contested, and the liberty of opinion was in the end narrowed down to a principle of analogy (_qiyas_), the nearest approach to which in western law is legal fiction. it is necessary now to return to the first successors of mahomet. \"for thirty years after my death,\" he is said to have declared, \"my people will tread in my path (_sunna_); thereafter will come kings and princes.\" this tradition crystallizes the later feeling of islam. the first thirty years were a golden age; the centre of the state was the prophet's own city of medina; the conditions of the state continued in close conformity to those of his own time. the study of tradition, i.e. of his usage, went hand in hand with the study of law. they were vital functions of the state, and it encouraged both. then came the great _debacle_. the _ancien regime_, a semi-monkish, theocratic empire, went down, and the omayyad dynasty, kings and princes of the old arab type, took its place (see caliphate, b). the public life of the state was no longer deeply religious; the pious said that it was godless. under these conditions law was indeed still needed; but it had to be opportunist. its development went on, but became speculative. the study of tradition was now private, and its students were more and more the personally pious. there were, thus, two results. on the one hand, the framers of systems of canon law--as it now was--no longer lived in contact with reality; hypothetical and ideal structures were reared which could never stand the touch of the practical law-court. and on another, traditions and law, even this hypothetical law, came to take separate roads. the interest of the students of tradition became the gathering of traditions for their own sake, going no farther than a striving to regulate each detail of life by some specific, concrete, prophetic dictum. they had no use for systems that went beyond the mere registering of these dicta. the feeling also became widespread that any system of government which did not simply reproduce the patriarchal form of medina was of the world and the devil--a thing with which no religious man could have aught to do. at every turn he would have to peril his soul. here we must place the transition of this law with which we have hitherto dealt from being the law of the land to being in essence a variety of canon law. it was always broader than any western secular law. it regulated all the aspects of life--duty to god, to one's neighbour, to one's self. it was really a system of duties, ethical, legal, religious. it did not limit itself to defining the forbidden (_haram_); but designated actions also as required (_fard_, _wajib_), recommended (_mandub_, _mustahabb_), indifferent (_ja`iz_, _mubah_), disliked (_makruh_). it played the part of, or rendered necessary, a religious director quite as much as a lawyer. and for a time at medina it was really the law of the land. but from the omayyad period on it has held the position of the canon law of the roman church in countries that will not recognize it and yet dare not utterly reject it. it governs, in one or other of its four schools, the private lives of all pious moslems; it regulates some semi-public relationships--e.g. marriage, divorce, inheritance; it compels respect, if not acceptance, from the state; and by its ideal standard the world, filled with righteousness by the mahdi, will be ruled in the moslem millennium. the rise of the abbasids brought a change, but not a great one. they had promised a return to the old religious attitudes, and the promise was formally kept. but in substance they were as much as the omayyads, and though the state was outwardly on a pious footing, and the religious sentiment of the people was respected, the old, absolute canon law was not restored. it was made possible for more theologians and lawyers to work with the state, but an irreconcilable party still remained, and the situation was fixed as it is to this day. it is true that the struggle to adapt such a single and detailed system to all the varying conditions, climates and times of the great empire was impossible; but the failure marked the great rent in the supposed unity of islam between the church and the world, religion and law. yet the abbasids did, in their way, encourage legal studies, and under them processes and results, long pursued in private, became public. almost within the first century of their dynasty the four legal schools, or rites, were formed and the principles established which survive to this day. the first school to take definite form was the hanifite, founded by abu hanifa (d. 767), who left behind him a definite system and many enthusiastic pupils. he was a man of means, in touch with commercial, but not with practical legal life, a speculative or philosophical jurist. being of non-arab origin, the usage of medina had small interest for him. he therefore used few traditions, and preferred to go back to the koran, and extract from it by reasoning the rulings which fitted his ideas. this he called the use of analogy (_qiyas_); but, in his hands, it became practically legal fiction, the application of a law in some sense undreamed by its first imposer. but he had another, and still freer instrument. the effect of differences in local conditions had been early observed and admitted in general terms. abu hanifa reduced it to a subjective formula. under such conditions he claimed the right of preference (_istihsan_) of a ruling suited to the local needs, even when the strict analogy indicated otherwise. this met and meets with vehement protest when formally stated, but the usage of islam has practically accepted it. his system, finally, was not developed through the exigencies of actual cases, but was worked out as a system of casuistry, though in a good sense. he tried, that is, to construct a system of rules to answer any conceivable question. after his death his pupils elaborated it still further, and accepted public office. the `abbasids adopted his school, and threw their influence on its side; its philosophic breadth and casuistic possibilities evidently commended it to them. later, the ottoman turks also adopted it, and it may be said to hold now a leadership among the four legal rites. its influence has undoubtedly tended to broaden and humanize moslem law. twenty-eight years after abu hanifa, malik ibn anas, the founder of the malikite school, died at medina. in many points his situation was precisely opposite to that of abu hanifa, and yet his results were very similar. he was a working jurist, in practical touch with actual life; he was in the centre of the tradition of the usage of the prophet, in the line, one might say, of the apostolic succession. he, therefore, used traditions much more generally than did abu hanifa, and when he, under pressure, took refuge in opinion, he certainly felt that he, under his conditions, had a better right to do so than any outsider. but two of his principles marked a distinct advance and showed that he was no mere traditionalist. for one, he laid down the conception of public advantage (_istislah_); when a rule founded on even a valid analogy would work a general injury it was to be set aside; justice must not be overcome by logic. and, for the other, he laid stress on the conception of the agreement (_ijma`_), an idea which was to have indefinite importance in the future. when the surviving companions of the prophet, after his death, agreed upon any point as belonging to their store of tradition and experience, their agreement was accepted as final. in the first instance they agreed that such had been the statement of the prophet. that easily passed over into an agreement that such was the true moslem view, and finally into an acceptance of the principle that the moslem church, when unanimous, could formulate truth--practically as in the canon of vincent of lerins, _quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_. but such a broadly catholic position was still in the future, and for malik, juristic agreement meant the agreement of medina, though there are signs that he permitted the same latitude to other places also. it was a way of allowing for local conditions rather than of reaching the voice of the church. his law book, the _muwatta'_, the earliest in our possession written by the founder of a school, has already been mentioned. it is a collection of about seventeen hundred traditions of juristic importance, arranged according to subject, with appended remarks on the usage of medina and on his own view of each matter. so far opinion and local usage had fully held their own, and the philosophical jurist had been free to work out his system. the difference between the _istihsan_ of abu hanifa and the _istislah_ of malik was not great; students attended the lectures of both and combined their systems. but a reaction now began, and the traditionalist party finally made itself felt. we have the inevitable rivalry between the historical-empirical and the speculative-philosophical schools of jurisprudence, rendered all the more bitter in that the historical lawyers believed, in this case, that they were defending a divine institution. there resulted, first, one of the most important schools, the shafi`ite; secondly, an extremely literal school for which ash-shafi`i did not go far enough, and which has now vanished; and thirdly, the hanbalite school, still surviving in small numbers, more moderately traditional than the last. the school founded by ash-shafi`i (d. 820), a pupil of malik, came first in order of time. the others were really revolts against the mildness of his compromise. his characteristics were a broad-minded, steady grasp of means and ends, a perception of what could and what could not be done, a willingness to admit all the tried principles in due balance, and, at one point especially, the insight of genius as to the possibilities of these principles. he laid great stress on tradition; a clear, authentic tradition he regarded as no less valid than the koran itself. if the tradition was chronologically later than a koranic passage and corrected that passage, he followed the tradition. but in this he was only regulating a fixed tendency. the koran may be regarded theoretically as the first of all the sources of law and theology; practically its clear statements have been over-ridden in many cases. most important of all, the principle of agreement (_ijma`_) came finally with him to its full rights. the agreement of the moslem peoples was to be the voice of god. \"my people,\" said a tradition from mahomet, \"will never agree in an error.\" and so, over traditions and over the koran itself, the agreement tacitly or explicitly ruled and rules. it stamps as authoritative that which the other principles lay down. at the head of each section of a shafi`ite law book we read, \"the basis of this, before the agreement, is such and such.\" but with the aid of a principle of this breadth it was easy to reject the opinion which was so objectionable to the traditionalist party. in its place he took analogy (_qiyas_), which, discreetly used, could serve almost the same purpose. the koranic passage or the tradition with which an analogy was suggested should, he taught, be examined to see if there was a reason clearly stated for the command. if so, that reason would give a basis for the analogy. analogy based on the mechanical or external could not hold. the four bases thus laid down by ash-shafi`i--koran; prophetic usage as expressed in traditions; analogy; agreement--have come to be accepted by all existing schools. this applies to all spheres of life, ethical, social, theological, legal, and it should never be forgotten that the koran is only one of the sources for moslem faith and conduct. few words are needed for the other, reactionary schools. one, now long extinct, was founded by a certain da`ud uz-zahiri, \"david the literalist,\" born three or four years before the death of ash-shafi`i, and so called because he insisted upon an absolutely literal interpretation of his texts--koran or tradition--without account of context or metaphor. in consequence he had to reject analogy, and limited agreement to that of the companions of mahomet; the church of islam was to have no constructive authority. in one point he showed great sanity of judgment, namely in his rejection of the principle _jurare in verba magistri_, otherwise regnant in islam. his school had long and interesting consequences, mostly theological, but is now extinct, and never took rank with the others. the moslem world found his positions too impossible, and now no one swears to his words. the other, the hanbalite school, was founded by the scholars of ahmad ibn hanbal after his death in 885. he himself would never have revolted against his master, ash-shafi`i, but it was soon felt that his system, so far as he had any, was in essential opposition. he had been no lawyer, but a theologian and a collector and student of traditions. all his life had been a protest against speculation in divine things. where the koran and traditions were silent, he, too, had been silent. for this agnostic principle he had witnessed and suffered, and his standing with the people was that of a saint. naturally, then, the last still existent school of traditionalist protest was launched in his name. it minimizes agreement and analogy, is literal in its interpretations, and is now by far the smallest of the four surviving schools. its external history is that of a testifying and violent minority. other men, such as tabari, the historian and commentator, have had dreams that they, too, might join the four imams (see imam) as founders of legal rites, but none has succeeded. the four remain the ultimate exponents of this canon law, and under the banner of one or other of them every moslem must range himself. as there is a principle of unity in islam, expressed in the alleged prophetic saying, \"my people will never agree in an error,\" so there is a principle of variety, also expressed in an alleged prophetic saying, \"the disagreement of my people is a mercy from god.\" the four rites may differ upon many points, yet the adherents of one never dream of regarding the adherents of the others as outside the church of islam; they are not \"dissenters\" in the english sense. god is merciful to his creatures, and gives them so much liberty of choice. yet in practice this liberty is not great. the principle of swearing to the words of the master is a dead hand laid upon islam. a man's legal rite is generally settled by the place and other conditions of his birth, and after he has once accepted a rite, he must, if good and pious, follow it in all its details. only the avowed sceptic or the recognized eccentric can be an eclectic. the geographical distribution of the rites is roughly as follows: moslems in central asia and northern india and the turks everywhere are hanifites; in lower egypt, syria, southern india and the malay archipelago they are shafi`ites; in upper egypt and in north africa, west of egypt, they are malikites; only the wahhabis (q.v.) in central arabia are hanbalites. but the will of the sovereign has also had a powerful influence and has frequently dictated the legal, as well as the theological, affiliations of his subjects. the turks, for example, have thrown their weight almost everywhere on the hanifite side. their policy is to appoint only hanifite judges (see cadi), although for private and personal questions they appoint and pay muftis (q.v.) of the other rites. in other cases, with a population of mixed legal adherence, the government has been known to appoint judges of different rites. the shi`ite canon law is dealt with separately, but some mention of two outstanding sects is here in place. the ibadites (see mahommedan religion: _sects_) have a system of canon law which in essentials is of older codification than that of any of the orthodox schools, going back to abdallah ibn ibad himself, of the first century of the hijra (hejira). its basis is above all the koran, then a sparing use of traditions, natural to their early origin, and finally the agreement of their own learned men, again natural to an extreme dissenting sect, and it still rules the ibadite communities at oman, zanzibar and the mzab in southern algeria. at all these places they, the last descendants of the kharijites, hold severely apart, while the other moslems shrink from them as heretics of the worst. not nearly so far from ordinary islam, but still of an extreme self-conscious puritanism are the wahhabis. they are really hanbalites, but apply the rules of that school with uncompromising, reforming energy. the doctrine of the agreement of the church of islam they reject; only that of the immediate companions of mahomet is valid. the people of mahomet can err and has erred; each man must, on his own responsibility, draw his doctrine from the koran and the traditions. here they follow the zahirites. all these schools of law administer a scheme of duties, which, as has already been remarked, comes nearest to the canon law of the roman church, and which for centuries has had only a partial connexion with the real legal systems of the moslem peoples. among the wahhabis and ibadites alone is it the whole of law. elsewhere, since the omayyad period, its courts have been in great part pushed aside by others, and its scheme has come to be regarded as an expression of impossible theory, to be realized at best with the coming of the millennium. the causes and methods of this change call now for detailed notice. as islam spread beyond the desert and the conditions in which the life of mahomet and his companions had been cast, it came to regions, climates, customs, where the arabian usages no longer held. not only were the prescripts of medina ill adapted to the new conditions; the new people had legal usages of their own to which they clung and which nothing could make them abandon. it was rather the moslem leaders who were compelled to abandon their ideas and for the sake of the spread of islam to accept and incorporate much that was diametrically opposed to the original legislation either of the koran or of mahomet's recorded decisions. as in religion the faiths of the conquered peoples were thinly veneered with moslem phrases, so in law there grew up a customary code (_`adat_) for each country, differing from every other, which often completely obscured and annulled the prescriptions of the canon law. the one was an ideal system, studied and praised by the pious learned; the other was the actual working of law in the courts. but besides the obstinate adherence of various peoples to their old paths, the will of individual rulers was a determining factor. when these ceased to be saints and students of divine things, and came to be worldly statesmen and opportunists, followers of their own objects and pleasures, no system could hold which set a limit to their authority. the oriental ruler must rule and judge on his own initiative, and the schools of canon law tended to reduce everything to an academic fixedness. there thus arose a new and specific statute law, emanating from the sovereign. at first he judged in the gate as seemed good in his eyes and as was his right and duty (cf. \"court of oppressions\"; see mahommedan institutions); later, his will was codified as in the turkish statute law (_qawanin_) derived from various european codes. thus there has grown up in almost every moslem country at least two systems of courts, the one administering this canon law, and taking cognisance of private and family affairs, such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, its officials also giving rulings on purely personal religious questions, such as details of the ritual law, the law of oaths and vows, &c.; the other, the true law courts of the land, administering codes based on local custom and the decrees of the local rulers. a rift almost as important entered the legal life of the moslem lands on another side. non-moslem communities, settled in moslem territory, have been uniformly permitted to administer and judge themselves according to their own customs and laws. save when they come into direct contact and conflict with moslems, they are left to themselves with a contemptuous tolerance. the origin of this attitude in islam appears to be threefold: (i) the islam of theory cannot conceive of a mixed state; it takes account, only, of a state containing none but moslems, and its ideal is that the whole world will, in the end, form such a state. in practice, then, moslems try to shut their eyes to the existence of non-moslems in their midst and make no provision for them until compelled. that a non-moslem should have the same civil position as a moslem is unthinkable. (ii) this, of course, produces an attitude of extreme contempt. the only citizens are moslems and all others are to be looked down upon and left to themselves. what they do or think among themselves does not matter; they are outside the ring-fence of islam. (iii) a different, but equally important, cause is the moslem indolence. when the arabs conquered, they knew that they must administer the conquered lands, and they, very wisely, sought help from the machinery which they found in operation. but besides the ordinary organization of the state, they found also various ecclesiastical organizations, christian and jewish, and to these they gave over the administration of the non-moslem sections of the community, making their rabbis and bishops their responsible heads and the links of contact with the moslem rulers. they, unquestionably, found the same method in use by the byzantine government; but in moslem hands it went so far as to make a number of little states (_millet_, _milal_) within the state and effectually to preclude the possibility of ever welding all the inhabitants of the land into one corporate life. but this indolence, when applied to resident aliens, had consequences still more serious, because external as well as internal. following the same method of leaving the unbeliever to settle his affairs for himself, the european merchant, living and trading in the east, was put first by usage and finally by treaty under the jurisdiction and control of his own consul. thus there grew up the extra-territorial law of the capitulations and conventions, by which the sanctity of the person and household of an ambassador is extended to every european. and this in turn, has reacted on the status of the non-moslem subject races, and has come to be the indirect but chief support on which they lean. through it, an element has developed which makes it practically impossible for a moslem state to introduce legal changes even remotely affecting its non-moslem population, alien or subject, without the consent of the european embassies. any change may be upset by their refusal to accept it as incompatible with the capitulations and conventions. the embassies have thus, as interpreters of a part, at least, of the constitution, come to hold a position remarkably, if absurdly, like that of the supreme court of the united states (see young, _corps de droit ottoman, passim_). there may be said, then, in short, to be three elements in the legal life of a moslem state: the sacred and fixed canon law of islam; the civil law, based on the usages of the different peoples, moslem and non-moslem, and on statutes going back to the will of rulers; the international law of the capitulations, with a contractual sanction of its own. the hope for the future in islam, there can be little doubt, lies in the principle of the agreement of the moslem people, with its conception of catholic unity, and its ability, through that unity, to make and abrogate laws. as the moslem peoples advance, their law can, thus, advance with them, and the grasp of the dead hand of the canon law be gradually and legally released. see i. goldziher, _muhammedanische studien_, i. and ii. (halle a.s., 1889-1890); _zahiriten_ (leipzig, 1884); e. sachau, _zur altesten geschichte des muhammedanischen rechts_ (vienna akad., 1870) and _muhammedanisches recht_ (stuttgart and berlin, 1897); snouck hurgronje, review of preceding in _z.d.m.g._ liii. 125 seq. and \"le droit musulman\" (_rev. de l'hist. des religions_, xxxvii. 1 seq. and 174 seq.); juynboll, _handleiding tot de kennis von de mohammedaansche wet_ (leiden, 1903); von kremer, _culturgeschichte des orients unter den chalifen_, i. 470 seq. (vienna, 1875-1877); hughes, _dictionary of islam_, pp. 285 seq. (london, 1896); d. b. macdonald, _development of muslim theology_, &c., pp. 65 seq. (new york, 1903); bukhari, _les traditions islamiques traduites ... par o. houdas et w. marcel_ (paris, 1906); n. b. e. bailie, _digest of moohummadan law_ (2 vols., london, 1875-1887). a good bibliography appeared in the _bulletin of the new york public library_ for january 1907. (d. b. ma.) mahommedan religion. the mahommedan religion is generally known as _islam_--the name given to it by mahomet himself--and meaning the resigning or submitting oneself to god. the participle of the same arabic verb, _muslim_ (in english usually spelt moslem), is used for one who professes this religion. the expression \"mahommedan religion\" has arisen in the west probably from analogy with \"christian religion,\" but is not recognized as a proper one by moslem writers. islam claims to be a divinely revealed religion given to the world by mahomet, who was the last of a succession of inspired prophets. its _doctrine_ and _practices_ are to be found in (i) the book of god--the koran--which was sent down from the highest heaven to gabriel in the lowest, who in turn revealed it in sections to mahomet; (2) the collections of tradition (_hadith_) containing the sayings and manner of life (_sunna_) of the prophet; (3) the use of analogy (_qiyas_) as applied to (i) and (2); and (4) the universal consent (_ijma'_) of the believers. the _worship_ of islam consists in (1) the recital of the creed; (2) the recital of the ordained prayers; (3) the fast during the month of ramadhan; (4) alms-giving; (5) the _hajj_, the pilgrimage to mecca. the _theology_ of islam finds its first public expression among the orthodox in the teaching of al-ash`ari (d. after 932), but had its real beginning among the sects that arose soon after the death of mahomet. islam is the latest of the so-called world-religions, and as several of the others were practised in arabia at the time of mahomet, and the prophet undoubtedly borrowed some of his doctrines and some of his practices from these, it is necessary to enumerate them and to indicate the extent to which they prevailed in the arabian world. _relations with other religions._--the religions practised in arabia at the time of mahomet were heathenism, judaism, christianity, and zoroastrianism. i. _heathenism_ was the religion of the majority of the arabs. in the cities of south arabia it was a survival from the forms represented in the sabaean, minaean and himyaritic inscriptions of south arabia (see arabia: _antiquities_). the more popular form current among the nomads is known very imperfectly from the remains of pre-islamic poetry and such works as the _kitab ul-asnam_ contained in yaqut's geography, from shahrastani's work on the sects, and from the few references in classical writers. from these we have mostly names of local deities (cf. j. wellhausen, _reste arabischen heidentums_, 2nd ed., berlin, 1897) and ancient religious customs, which remained in part after the introduction of islam (cf. w. robertson smith, _the religion of the semites_, edinburgh, 1889, and _kinship and marriage in early arabia_, cambridge, 1885). from these sources we learn that arabian religion was a nature-worship associated with fetishism. sun, moon and stars were worshipped, some tribes being devoted to the worship of special constellations. certain stones, wells and trees were regarded as sacred and as containing a deity. many (perhaps most) tribes had their own idols. hobal was the chief god of the ka`ba in mecca with its sacred stone, but round him were grouped a number of other tribal idols. it was against this association (_shirk_) of gods that mahomet inveighed in his attempt to unify the religion and polity of the arabs. but there were features in this heathenism favourable to unity, and these mahomet either simply took over into islam or adapted for his purpose. the popularity of the ka`ba in mecca as a place of resort for worshippers from all parts of arabia led mahomet not only to institute the _hajj_ as a duty, but also to take over the customs connected with the heathen worship of these visits, and later to make mecca the _qibla_, i.e. the place to which his followers turned when they prayed. the name of allah, who seems to have been the god of the koreish (cf. d. s. margoliouth, _mohammed_, p. 19, london, 1905), was accepted by mahomet as the name of the one god, though he abandoned the corresponding female deity al-lat. 2. _judaism_ had long been known in arabia at the time of the prophet. whether hebrews settled in arabia as early as the time of david (cf. r. dozy, _die israeliten zu mecca_, leipzig, 1864), or not, is of little importance here as judaism cannot be said to have existed until the end of the 5th century b.c. the seleucid persecutions and the political troubles that ended with the fall of jerusalem (a.d. 70) probably sent many jews to arabia. in the 5th and 6th centuries the history of south arabia and of nejran is largely that of the strife between jews and christians. in the north-west the jews possessed tema, khaibar, yathrib (medina), fadak, and other smaller settlements. in these they lived as self-contained communities, not seeking to proselytize but working at their trades, especially concerned with money and jewelry. mahomet seems to have expected their help in his proclamation of monotheism, and his first _qibla_ was jerusalem. it was only when they refused to accept him as prophet that he turned in anger against them. they had, however, supplied him with much material from the old testament, and the stories of creation, the patriarchs and early kings and prophets occur continually in the koran, told evidently as they were recited by the common people and with many mistakes caused by his own misunderstanding. 3. _christianity_, though later than judaism, had a sure footing in arabia. it had suffered persecution in nejran and had been supported in the south by the abyssinian invasions. the kingdom of hira was largely christian; the same is true of the north arabian tribes of bakr and taghlib, and east of the jordan and on the syrian boundary as well as in yemama christianity had made progress. pre-islamic literature contains many allusions to the teaching and practices of christianity. of the time of its introduction little is known; little also of the form in which it was taught, save that it came from the eastern church and probably to a large extent through monophysite and nestorian sects. tradition says that mahomet heard christian preaching at the fair of ukaz, and he probably heard more when he conducted the caravans of khadija. gospel stories derived apparently from uncanonical works, such as the gospel of the nativity, occur in the koran. the asceticism of the monks attracted his admiration. a mistaken notion of the trinity was sharply attacked by him. it is curious that his followers in the earliest times were called by the heathen arabs, sabians (q.v.), this being the name of a semi-christian sect. in the time of the omayyads christianity led to some of the earliest theological sects of islam (see below). 4. _zoroastrianism_ was known to the arab tribes in the north-east, but does not seem to have exercised any influence in mecca or medina except indirectly through judaism in its angelology. as soon, however, as the armies of islam conquered mesopotamia it began to penetrate the thought and practices of islam (see below). _sources of authority._--islam, as we have said, is founded on: (1) the koran; (2) the tradition or rather the _sunna_ (manner of life of mahomet) contained in the tradition (_hadith_); (3) _ijma`_; the universal agreement; (4) _qiyas_ (analogy). 1. the _koran_[1] (properly _qur'an_ from _qara'a_ to collect, or to read, recite) is the copy of an uncreated original preserved by god (see below), sent down from the seventh heaven to gabriel in the first heaven, and revealed to mahomet in sections as occasion required. these revelations were recited by the prophet and in many cases written down at once, though from ii. 100 it would seem that this was not always the case. god is the speaker throughout the revelations. it seems probable that the whole koran was written in mahomet's lifetime, but not brought together as a whole or arranged in order. as it exists now the koran consists of 114 chapters called _suras_ (from _sura_, a row of bricks in a wall, a degree or step). the first is the _fatiha_ (opening), which occupies the place of the lord's prayer in christianity. the others are arranged generally in order of length, the longest coming first, the shortest (often the earliest in date) coming at the end. certain groups, however, indicated by initial unvowelled letters, seem to have been kept together from the time of the prophet. at the head of each _sura_ is a title, the place of its origin (mecca or medina) and the number of its verses (_ayat_) together with the formula, \"in the name of god the merciful, the compassionate\" (except in _sura 9_). for liturgical purposes the whole book is divided into 60 sections (_ahzab_) or into 30 divisions (_ajza_), each subdivided into a number of prostrations (_ruk`a_ or _sajda_). the origin of the collected and written koran is due to omar, who in the caliphate of abu bekr pointed out that many possessors of _suras_ were being slain in the battles of islam and their property lost, that there was a danger in this way that much of the revelation might disappear, and that men were uncertain what was to be accepted as genuine revelation. accordingly zaid ibn thabit who had been secretary to mahomet, was commissioned to collect all he could find of the revelation. his work seems to have been simply that of a collector. he seems to have done his work thoroughly and made a copy of the whole for abu bekr. the collection was thus chiefly a private matter, and this copy passed after abu bekr's death into the hands of omar, and after his death to hafsa, daughter of omar, a widow of mahomet. in the caliphate of othman it was discovered that there were serious differences between the readings of the koran possessed by the syrian troops and those of the eastern soldiers, and othman was urged to have a copy prepared which should be authoritative for the moslem world. he appointed zaid ibn thabit and three members of the tribe of koreish (quraish) to do the work. each of these made a copy of abu bekr's collection, carefully preserving koreishite forms of words. how far the text was amended by the help of other copies is doubtful; in any case the mode of procedure was undoubtedly very conservative. the four similar manuscripts were sent, one each to medina, cufa (kufa), basra and damascus, and an order was issued that all differing copies should be destroyed. in spite of the personal unpopularity of othman this recension was adopted by the moslem world and remains the only standard text. a few variant readings and differences of order of the _suras_ in the collections of ubay ibn ka`b and of ibn mas`ud were, however, known to later commentators. the only variants after the time of othman were owing to different possible ways of pronouncing the consonantal text. these are usually of little importance for the meaning. as the text is now always vowelled, variations are found in the vowels of different copies, and the opinions of seven leading \"readers\" are regarded as worthy of respect by commentators (see th. noldeke, _geschichte des qorans_, pp. 279 seq., gottingen, 1860). various characteristics enable one to establish with more or less certainty the relative chronological order of the _suras_ in the koran, at any rate so far as to place them in the first or second meccan period or that of medina. the form of the sentences is a guide, for the earliest parts are usually written in the _saj`_ form (see arabia: _literature_). the expressions used also help; thus the \"o ye people\" of the meccan period is replaced in the medina _suras_ by \"o ye who believe.\" the oaths in the first meccan period are longer, in the second shorter, and are absent in the medinan. in the earliest period the style is more elevated and passionate. occasionally the time of origin is determined by reference to historical events. in accordance with such principles of criticism two leading scholars, noldeke (_loc. cit._) and h. grimme (in his _mohammed zweiter teil_. _einleitung in den koran. system der koranischen theologie_, munster, 1895), have arranged the _suras_ as follows:-- _order of suras in koran._ noldeke. _mecca._ 1st to 5th yr. (a). 96. 74. 111. 106. 108. 104. 107. 102. 105. 92. 90. 94. 93. 97. 86. 91. 80. 68. 87. 95. 103. 85. 73. 101. 99. 82. 81. 53. 84. 100. 79. 77. 78. 88. 89. 75. 83. 69. 51. 52. 56. 70. 55. 112. 109. 113. 114. 1. 5th and 6th yr. (b). 54. 37. 71. 76. 44. 50. 20. 26. 15. 19. 38. 36. 43. 72. 67. 23. 21. 25. 17. 27. 18. 7th yr. to flight (c). 32. 41. 45. 16. 30. 11. 14. 12. 40. 28. 39. 29. 31. 42. 10. 34. 35. 7. 46. 6. 13. _medina._ 2. 98. 64. 62. 8. 47. 3. 61. 57. 4. 65. 59. 33. 63. 24. 58. 22. 48. 66. 60. 110. 49. 9. 5. grimme. _mecca_, (1). [2] in old saj` form: 111. 107. 106. 105. 104. [103=]. 102. 101. 100. 99. 108. 96. 95. 94. 93. 92. 91. 90. 89. 88. [87=]. 86. [85=]. [84=]. 83. 82. [81.=] 80. 79. [78=]. 77. [76=]. 75. [74=]. [73=]. 70. 69. 68. 114. 113. 36. 55. 54. [53=]. 52. 51. 50. 15. [22=]. [14=]. (2). in loosened _saj`_ form: 46. 72. 45. 44. 41. 97. 40. 39. 38. 37. 36. 35. 34. 32. 31. 67. 30. [29=]. 28. 27. 26. 71. 25. 20. 23. 43. 21. 19. 1. 42. 18. 17. _medina._ [16=]. 13. 12. 11. 10. [7=]. 6. 98. (112. 109). from the flight to badr. [2=]. 62. 5_(15.88.108-120). 47 and some interpolations in meccan _suras_. from badr to ohod 8. 24. 59. from ohod to capture of mecca. 3. 29_(1-12). 4. 57. 64. 61. 60. 58. 65. 33. 63. 49. 110. 48. 5_(1-14). 66. 9_(1-24). after capture of mecca. 9_(25-124). theology. on the supposition that the arrangements given above are at any rate approximately correct, it is possible to trace a certain development in the teaching of the koran on some of the chief dogmas. it must, however, be borne in mind that orthodox islam recognizes the koran as the work not of mahomet but of god. yet moslem theologians recognize that some revelations are inconsistent with others, and so have developed the doctrine of _nasikh_ and _mansukh_ (\"abrogating\" and \"abrogated\"), whereby it is taught that in certain definite cases a later revelation supersedes an earlier. a critical study of the koran shows in the earlier revelations the marks of a reflective mind trained under the influence of arabian education and stirred by an acquaintance (somewhat imperfect) with judaism and christianity. the later revelations seem to be influenced by the now dominant position of the prophet and a desire after the capture of mecca to incorporate such heathen religious ceremonies as are national. god is one and universal from the beginning. his unity is emphasized as against the mistaken conception of the christian trinity. at first his might is taught by the name _rabb_ (lord) which is generally used with an attribute as \"the highest lord,\" \"lord of the worlds,\" \"lord of men,\" \"lord of heaven and earth,\" \"lord of the east and west,\" or \"our lord.\" then he is identified with the god allah (see above) and the first part of the later moslem creed is announced--_la ilaha illa-llaha_, \"there is no god but allah.\" but every act of creation is a proof not only of god's power but also of his beneficence (xiv. 37), and so he becomes known as _ar-rahman_, \"the compassionate.\" the attributes of god may all be arranged in the three classes of his power, unity and goodness. they are expressed by the ninety-nine \"beautiful names\" applied to him in the koran (see e. h. palmer, _the quran_ in \"sacred books of the east,\" vol. vi., introd. pp. 67-68, oxford, 1880). in the medina period of mahomet's life the nature of god is not so clear, and the description of it varies according to the moods of the prophet. spirits. beside god are two other uncreated beings: (1) the original of the koran, the \"mother of the book\" (xliii. 3) on a \"preserved tablet\" (_lauh mahfuz_) (lxxxv. 22), in accordance with which god acts, and (2) the throne (_kursi_) (ii. 256). when the heavens are created, god sits on his throne in the seventh heaven; around him are angels, pure, sexless beings, some of whom bear the throne, while some are engaged in praising him continually. they are also his messengers and are sent to fight with the believers against the heathen. some are the guardian angels of men, others are the watchmen of hell. mediate beings between god and man are the \"word\" (_amr_) and from it the \"spirit\" (_ruh_) or \"holy spirit\" (_ruh ul-qudus_). another manifestation of god to the believers only is the \"glory\" (_sakina_). cosmology. ethics. god created the world in six days according to the plan of the book. each new life was created by god's breathing into it a soul. the duality of soul and body is maintained. in each man is a good and a bad impulse. the bad impulse which was latent in adam was roused to action by satan (_iblis_). adam by his fall lost the grace of god, which was restored to him solely by the gracious choice of god. between men and angels in their nature are the genii (_jinn_) male and female, inhabitants of desert places, created from smokeless fire. they had been accustomed to spy round heaven, but in mahomet's time could learn no more of its secrets. some of them were converted by the prophet's teaching. lowest of creation in his estate is satan (_shaitan_), who was an angel but was expelled from heaven because he refused to worship adam at his lord's command. god has revealed himself to man by (1) writing (_kitab_), and (2) prophets. as he had given to the jews the law (_taurat_) and to the christians the gospel (_injil_) so he revealed to mahomet the koran (qur`an, known also by other names, e.g. _al-furqan_, _at-tafsil_, &c.), each single revelation being called an aya. with his revelation god has also sent an apostle or prophet to each people. several of these are mentioned in the koran, moses the prophet of the jews, jesus (_isa_) that of the christians. mahomet is not only the apostle of the moslems but the \"seal of the prophets,\" i.e. the final member of the class. his mission at first was to warn men of imminent judgment. later he became more of a teacher. at first he seems to have relied for the salvation of men on his natural faculties, but later announced the doctrine of god's election. the ethics of the koran are based on belief (_iman_) and good works, the latter alone occurring in the early meccan _suras_. fear of the judgment of god was a motive of action; this is followed by repentance and turning to god. a complete surrender to god's will (_islam_) is the necessary condition of religious life and is expressed in the phrase so common in everyday speech among the moslems--_inshallah_, \"if god will.\" god has full power to overlook evil deeds if he will. unbelievers can acquire no merit, however moral their actions. a short account of the chief ethical requirements of the koran is given in xvii. 23-40:-- \"put not god with other gods, or thou wilt sit despised and forsaken. thy lord has decreed that ye shall not serve other than him; and kindness to one's parents, whether one or both of them reach old age with thee, and say not to them, 'fie,' and do not grumble at them, but speak to them a generous speech. and lower to them the wing of humility out of compassion, and say, 'o lord! have compassion on them as they brought me up when i was little!' your lord knows best what is in your souls if ye be righteous, and, verily, he is forgiving unto those who come back penitent. \"and give thy kinsman his due and the poor and the son of the road; and waste not wastefully, for the wasteful were ever the devil's brothers, and the devil is ever ungrateful to his lord. \"but if thou dost turn away from them to seek after mercy from thy lord, which thou hopest for, then speak to them an easy speech. \"make not thy hand fettered to thy neck, nor yet spread it out quite open, lest thou shouldest have to sit down blamed and straightened in means. verily, thy lord spreads out provision to whomsoever he will or he doles it out. verily, he is ever well aware of and sees his servants. \"and slay not your children for fear of poverty; we will provide for them; beware! for to slay them is ever a great sin. \"and draw not near to fornication; verily, it is ever an abomination, and evil is the way thereof. \"and slay not the soul that god has forbidden you, except for just cause; for he who is slain unjustly we have given his next of kin authority; yet let him not exceed in slaying; verily, he is ever helped. \"and draw not near to the wealth of the orphan, save to improve it, until he reaches the age of puberty, and fulfil your compacts; verily, a compact is ever enquired of. \"and give full measure when ye measure out, and weigh with a right balance; that is better and a fairer determination. \"and do not pursue that of which thou hast no knowledge; verily, the hearing, the sight and the heart, all of these shall be enquired of. \"and walk not on the earth proudly; verily, thou canst not cleave the earth, and thou shalt not reach the mountains in height. \"all this is ever evil in the sight of your lord and abhorred.\" (e. h. palmer's translation.) eschatology. the eschatology of the koran is especially prominent in its earlier parts. the resurrection, last judgment, paradise and hell are all described. at death the body again becomes earth, while the soul sinks into a state of sleep or unconsciousness. at a time decreed, known as \"the hour\" (_as-sa`a_), \"the day of resurrection\" (_yaum ul-qiyyama_), \"day of judgment\" (_yaum-ud-din_), &c., an angel will call or will sound a trumpet, the earth will be broken up, and the soul will rejoin the body. god will appear on his throne with angels. the great book will be opened, and a list of his deeds will be given to every man, to the good in his right hand, to the evil in his left (_sura 69_). a balance will be used to weigh the deeds. the _jinn_ will testify against the idolaters. the righteous will then obtain eternal peace and joy in the garden (_al-janna_) and the wicked will be cast into the fiery ditch (_jahannam_), where pains of body and of soul are united. 2. the _tradition._--the revelation of god is twofold--in a writing and by a prophet. the former was contained in the koran, the latter was known from the actions of mahomet in the different circumstances of life. the manner of life of the prophet (_sunna_) was contained in the tradition (_al-hadith_). the information required was at first naturally obtained by word of mouth from the companions and helpers of mahomet. these in turn bequeathed their information to their younger companions, who quoted traditions and gave decisions in their names. for long these traditions circulated orally, the authority of each depending on the person who first gave it and the reliability of the chain (_isnad_) of men who had passed it on from him. at first this tradition was regarded as explanatory of, or at the most supplementary to, the teaching of the koran. early moslem teachers pointed to the jews as having two law-books--the _taurat_ and the _mishna_--while islam had only one--the koran. but opinion changed, the value of tradition as an independent revelation came to be more highly esteemed until at last it was seriously discussed whether a tradition might not abrogate a passage of the koran with which it was at variance. the writing of traditions was at first strongly discouraged, and for more than a century the stories of the prophet's conduct passed from mouth to mouth. had all the narrators been pious men, this might have been tolerable, but this was not the case. the omayyad dynasty was not a pious one. men who were not religious but wished to appear so invented traditions to justify their manner of life. the sectarians did not hesitate to adopt the same means of spreading their own teaching. many moslem writers testify to the fact that forged traditions were circulated, and that religious opinion was confused thereby. the need for some sort of authoritative collection seems to have been felt by the one pious omayyad caliph, omar ii. (717-720), who is said to have ordered ibn shihab uz-zuhri to make such a collection. of this work, if it was carried out, we know nothing further. it was, however, by a man born during this reign that the first systematic collection of traditions was made--the _muwatta`_ of malik ibn anas (q.v.). yet this work is not a book of tradition in the religious sense, it is really a corpus juris and not a complete one. the object of malik was simply to record every tradition that had been used to give effect to a legal decision. the work of sifting the vast mass of traditions and arranging them according to their relation to the different parts of religious life and practice was first undertaken in the 3rd century of islam (a.d. 815-912). in this century all the six collections afterwards regarded as canonical by the sunnites (orthodox) were made. by this time an immense number of traditions was in circulation. bukhari in the course of sixteen years' journeying through moslem lands collected 600,000, and of these included 7275 (or, allowing for repetitions, 4000) in his work. the six collections of tradition received by the sunnites as authoritative are: (i) the _kitab ul-jami` us-sahih_ of bukhari (q.v.) (810-870). this is the most respected throughout the moslem world and most carefully compiled (ed. l. krehl and t. w. juynboll, leiden, 1862--and frequently in the east; also with many commentaries. french translation by o. houdas and w. marcais, paris, 1903 sqq.). (ii) the _sahih_ of muslim (817-875) with an introduction on the science of tradition (ed. calcutta, 1849, &c.). (iii) the _kitab us-sunan_ of abu da`ud (817-888) (ed. cairo, 1863, lucknow, 1888, delhi, 1890). (iv) the _jami` us-sahih_ of tirmidhi (q.v.). (v) _the kitab us-sunan_ of nasa` i (830-915) (ed. cairo, 1894). (vi) the _kitab us-sunan_ of ibn maja (824-866) (ed. delhi, 1865 and 1889). the last four are not held in the same repute as the first two. 3. _ijma`_ is the universal consent which is held to justify practices or beliefs, although they are not warranted by the koran or tradition, and may be inconsistent with the apparent teaching of one or both of these. these beliefs and practices, which had often come from the pre-islamic customs of those who had become believers, seem to have escaped notice until the abbasid period. they were too deeply rooted in the lives of men to be abolished. it became necessary either to find a tradition to abrogate the earlier forbidding one, or to acknowledge that _ijma`_ is higher than the tradition. the former expedient was resorted to by some later theologians (e.g. nawawi) by a fiction that such a tradition existed though it was not found now in writing. but in earlier times some (as ibn qutaiba) had adopted the latter alternative, saying that the truth can be derived much earlier from the _ijma`_ than from the tradition, because it is not open to the same chances of corruption in its transmission as the latter. tradition itself was found to confirm this view, for the prophet is related to have said, \"my people does not agree to an error.\" but _ijma`_ itself has been used in different senses: (i) the _ijma`_ of medina was used to indicate the authority coming from the practices of the people of medina (see below). (ii) the _ijma`_ of the whole community of moslems is that most commonly recognized. it was used to support fealty to the abbasid dynasty. by it the six books of tradition mentioned above are recognized as authoritative, and it is the justification of the conception of mahomet as superhuman. (iii) some of the more thoughtful theologians recognize only the _ijma`_ of the doctors or the teachers of islam (the _mujtahidun_), these being restricted by the orthodox to the first few generations after mahomet, while the shi`ites allow the existence of such up to the present time. 4. the fourth basis of islam is _qiyas_, i.e. analogy. it is that process by which a belief or practice is justified on the ground of something similar but not identical in the koran, the tradition or _ijma`_. originally it seems to have been instituted as a check upon the use of private opinion (_ra'y_) in the teaching of doctrine. the extent to which it may be used is a subject of much discussion among theologians. some would apply it only to a \"material similarity,\" others to similarity of motive or cause as well. _worship and ritual._--the acts of worship required by islam are five in number: (i) the recital of the creed; (ii.) observance of the five daily prayers; (iii) the fast in the month of ramadhan; (iv) giving of the legal alms; (v) the pilgrimage to mecca. creed. i. the creed is belief--\"la ilaha illa-llahu, muhammad rasul allahi,\" \"there is no god but god (allah), mahomet is the apostle of god.\" it is required that this shall be recited at least once in a lifetime aloud, correctly, with full understanding of its meaning and with heartfelt belief in its truth. it is to be professed without hesitation at any time until death. prayer. ii. every man who professes islam is required in ordinary life to pray five times in each day. in the koran these prayers are commanded, though four only are mentioned. \"wherefore glorify god, when the evening overtaketh you, and when ye rise in the morning, and unto him be praise in heaven and earth; and in the evening and when ye rest at noon\" (xxx. 16-17), but commentators say the \"evening\" includes the sunset and after sunset. the five times therefore are: (1) dawn or just before sunrise, (2) just after noon, (3) before sunset, (4) just after sunset, and (5) just after the day has closed. tradition decides within what limits the recitals may be delayed without impairing their validity. prayer is preceded by the lesser ablution (_wadu_) consisting in the washing of face, hands (to the elbows) and feet in prescribed manner. complete washing of the body (_ghusl_) is required only after legal pollution. in prayer the worshipper faces the _qibla_ (direction of prayer), which was at first jerusalem, but was changed by the prophet to mecca. in a mosque the _qibla_ is indicated by a niche (_mihrab_) in one of the walls. the prayers consist of prescribed ejaculations, petitions, and the recital of parts of the koran, always including the first _sura_, accompanied by prostrations of the body. detailed physical positions are prescribed for each part of the worship; these vary slightly in the four orthodox schools (see below). on a journey, in time of war or in other special circumstances, the set form of prayers may be modified in accordance with appointed rules. besides these private prayers, there is the prayer of the assembly, which is observed on a friday (_yaum ul-jam'a_, \"the day of assembly\") in a mosque, and is usually accompanied by an address or declamation (_khutba_) delivered from a step of the pulpit (_minbar_). special prayers are also prescribed for certain occasions, as on the eclipse of the sun or the moon, &c. among the sufis special attention is given to informal prayer, consisting chiefly in the continual repetition of the name of god (_dhikr_) (see sufi'ism). this is still a characteristic of some of the dervish (q.v.) communities. fasting. iii. the command to fast begins with the words, \"o ye who believe! there is prescribed for you the fast, as it was prescribed for those before you.\" the expression \"those before you\" has been taken to refer to the jews, who fasted on the day of atonement, but more probably refers to the long fast of thirty-six days observed by the eastern christians. in the passage of the koran referred to (ii. 179-181) moslems are required to fast during the month of ramadhan, \"wherein the koran was revealed,\" but if one is on a journey or sick he may fast \"another number of days,\" and if he is able to fast and does not, \"he may redeem it by feeding a poor man,\" but \"if ye fast, it is better for you.\" this fast was probably instituted in the second year at medina. at that time the corrected lunar year was in use and ramadhan, the ninth month, was always in the winter. a few years later mahomet decreed the use of the uncorrected lunar year, which remains the standard of time for the moslem world, so that the month of fasting now occurs at all seasons of the year in turn. the fast is severe, and means entire abstinence from food and drink from sunrise to sunset each day of the month. the fast is associated with the statement that in this month god sent down the koran from the seventh heaven to gabriel in the lowest that it might be revealed to the prophet. alms. iv. alms are of two kinds: (1) the legal and determined (_zakat_), and (2) voluntary (_sadaqat_). the former were given in cattle, grain, fruit, merchandise and money once a year after a year's possession. for cattle a somewhat elaborate scale is adopted. of grain and fruit a tenth is given if watered by rain, a twentieth if the result of irrigation. of the value of merchandise and of money a fortieth is prescribed. in the early days of islam the alms were collected by officials and used for the building of mosques and similar religious purposes. at the present time the carrying of these prescriptions is left to the conscience of the believers, who pay the alms to any needy fellow-moslem. a good example of a _sadaqa_ is found in a gift to an unbeliever (see c. m. doughty, _arabia deserta_, i. 446, ii. 278, cambridge, 1888). pilgrimage. v. the fifth religious duty of the moslem is the pilgrimage (_hajj_) to mecca, which should be performed once by every moslem \"if he is able,\" that is if he can provide or obtain the means to support himself on pilgrimage and his family during his absence, and if he is physically capable. the pilgrimage is made at one time of the (moslem) year, namely, from the 7th to the 10th of the month dhu'l-hijja. for the arrangements for the journey from various countries to mecca see caravan. when the pilgrim arrives within five or six miles of the holy city he puts off his ordinary dress after ablution and prayer, and puts on the two seamless wrappers which form the dress of the pilgrim (the _ihram_), who goes without head-covering or boots or shoes. he must not shave at all, or trim the nails or anoint the head during the ceremonial period. the chief parts of the ceremonial are the visit to the sacred mosque (_masjid ul-haram_), the kissing of the black stone, the compassing of the ka`ba (the _tawaf_) seven times, three times running, four times slowly, the visit to the maqam ibrahim, the ascent of mount safa and running from it to mount marwa seven times, the run to mount `arafat, hearing a sermon, and going to muzdalifa, where he stays the night, the throwing of stones at the three pillars in mina on the great feast day, and the offering of sacrifice there (for the localities see mecca). after the accomplishment of these ceremonies the ordinary dress is resumed, the pilgrimage is finished, but the pilgrim usually remains another three days in mecca, then visits medina to pay his respects to the tomb of mahomet. beside the _hajj_ (great pilgrimage) islam also recognizes the merit of the _`umra_ (or lesser pilgrimage), i.e. a religious visit to mecca at any time accompanied by most of the ceremonies of the _hajj_. the ceremonies of the _hajj_ have been described by several european travellers who have witnessed them, such as j. l. burckhardt in 1814, sir richard burton in 1853 (see bibliography to mecca). a concise account of them is given in t. p. hughes, _notes on muhammadanism_ (3rd ed., london, 1894). details in vol. i. of bukhari's traditions (houdas and marcais's french translation, i. 493-567). _the development of islam._--the battle of siffin (657) between `ali and moawiya was the occasion of the first breach in the unity of islam, and the results remain to this day. the occasion was in the first case political, but politics were at that time too intimately connected with religion to be considered apart from it. after the battle (see caliphate) `ali was practically compelled to submit his claims to arbitration, whereupon a number of his supporters broke away from him, saying that there should have been no appeal save to the book of god. these men were for the most part country arabs, and, inspired by the free spirit of the desert, were democratic, claiming that the caliph should be elected by the whole community from any family (and not from the koreish alone), and that the caliph might be deposed for sin. a few extremists were republicans and would do without a caliph altogether. the whole party was known as the kharijites (kharijiyya or khawarij). the moslems who disagreed with them were regarded by them as renegades and were to be put to death. they were soon divided into extremists and moderates. the former put to death the children of unbelievers and refused to hold intercourse in daily life with unbelievers. the moderates, who came to be known as ibadites (from their leader `abdallah ibn `ibad), would allow the children of unbelievers to grow up, and would then deal with them according to their choice. in ordinary life they would mix with all men, but marriage with other moslems outside their own ranks was forbidden. these still remain in oman, parts of algeria and east africa. another party, consisting mainly of city arabs infected with persian ideas as to the divinity of the ruler, clung to `ali with inconvenient affection. they regarded `ali and his descendants as the only legitimate caliphs, and came to be known as shi`ites (q.v.). they remain to-day the largest part of islam outside orthodoxy. during the omayyad caliphate (661-750) there were three centres of religious thought and influence; students and teachers often passed from one to the other, thus making universal the teachings which in their origin were due to local circumstances. these centres were damascus (the seat of the caliphate), medina and the east (irak, &c.). in damascus the court was worldly and indifferent to the interests of islam. the early omayyads were distinguished for their striving after dominion (_mulk_). instead of attempting to propagate islam, they tolerated other religions and favoured christians who were distinguished as poets (e.g. akhtal) or officials (john of damascus), or men likely to be of use to them in any way. the doctrines of christianity began to influence even serious moslems and to affect their way of stating moslem belief. john of damascus (d. before 767), the greek theologian, and his pupil, theodorus abucara (d. 826), have written controversial works on islam, from which it seems probable that disputations on subjects pertaining to religion were held between christians and moslems. two schools of heretical moslem sects arose under these influences--that of the murjiites and that of the qadarites. the murjiites (\"postponers\") were so called because they postponed the judgment of human actions until the day of judgment. in politics they accepted the omayyads as _de facto_ rulers, since they were moslems, and left the judgment of their actions to god. as theologians they taught that religion consists in belief (_iman_) in the unity of god and in his apostle, and in that alone, consequently no one who held this faith would perish eternally, though he had been a sinner. this was opposed to the kharijite doctrine that the unrepentant sinner would perish eternally, even though he had professed islam. the qadarites were concerned with the doctrine of predestination and free-will. so long as moslems were fighting the battles of islam they naturally paid most attention to those revelations which laid stress on the absolute determination of a man's destiny by god. they fought with great bravery because they believed that god had foreordained their death or life and they could not escape his will. in the quieter realm of town and court life and in their disputations with christians they were called upon to reconcile this belief with the appeals made in the koran to man's own self-determination to good, to courage, &c. mahomet was not a systematic theologian and had done nothing to help them. the qadarites declared that man had power over his own actions. but the teaching of predestination had gained too great a hold on moslems to be thus displaced. the teaching of the qadarites was held to be heresy, and one of its first professors, ma`bad ul-juhani, was put to death in 699.[3] during this period medina was the home of tradition. those who had been in closest relation with the prophet dwelt there. the very people of the city derived a certain splendour and authority from the fact that mahomet had lived and was buried there. free thought in religion had little chance of arising, less of expressing itself, in the holy city. but the koran was diligently studied, traditions were collected (and invented) though not yet written in books, and innovation (_bid`a_) was resolutely avoided. at the same time it really did contribute a new element to religious practice, for the custom (_ijma`_, see above) of medina gained a certain authority even in syria and the east. in the east, on the other hand, there was more mental activity, and the religious teachers who came from medina had to be prepared to meet with many questions. the wits of the moslems were sharpened by daily contact with christians, buddhists, manichaeans and zoroastrians. hasan ul-basri (q.v.), who has been claimed as one of the first mystics, also as one of the first systematic theologians of islam, was remarkable alike for his personal piety and his orthodoxy. yet it was among his pupils that the great rationalist movement originated. its founder was wasil ibn `ata, who separated himself (whence his followers were called motazilites, strictly mu`tazilites, \"separatists\") from his teacher and founded a school which became numerous and influential. the mu`tazilites objected to the attributes of god being considered in any way as entities beside god; they explained away the anthropomorphisms used in speaking of the deity; they regarded the koran as created and as a product of mahomet writing under the divine influence. briefly, they asserted the supremacy of reason (_`aql_) as distinct from faith received by tradition (_naql_). they also called themselves \"the people of justice and unity\" (_ahl ul-`adl wat-tauhid_). such a faith as this naturally found favour rather with the thinking classes than with the uneducated multitude, and so went through many vicissitudes. at the time of its appearance and until the reign of ma`mun its adherents were persecuted as heretics. after discussions among the theologians ma`mun took the decided step of proclaiming that the koran was created, and that a belief in this dogma was necessary. other mu`tazilite doctrines were proclaimed later. mu`tazilites were appointed to official posts, and an inquisition (_mihna_) was appointed to enforce belief in their doctrines. this movement was strongly opposed by the orthodox and especially by ahmad ibn hanbal (q.v.). by him the founding of theology on reason was rejected, and he suffered persecution for his faith (see w. n. patton, _ahmed ibn hanbal and the mihna_, leiden, 1897). mu`tazilism retained its sway until 849, when the caliph motawakkil again declared the koran uncreate and restored orthodoxy. it was during the early years of the abbasid rule that the four legal schools of abu hanifa (d. 767), malik ibn anas (d. 795), ash-shafi'i (d. 819) and ibn hanbal (d. 855) came into existence (see mahommedan law). as the bases of religion and law were the same, so the methods applied in the treatment of the one affected the other. abu hanifa depended little on tradition, but referred back to the koran, making use of individual opinion (_ra`y_) as controlled by analogy (_qiyas_) with a written ordinance. malik ibn anas supplemented the koran and sunna by customary law founded largely on the custom (_ijma`_) of medina, and by what he conceived to be for the public good (_istislah_). shafi`i recognized tradition as equal to the koran, and even as being able to supersede its ordinances, while he also recognized the universal custom (_ijma`_) of the moslem world as divine and binding. his four bases of religion--koran, sunna, qiyas and ijma`--have been generally accepted in islam (see above). ibn hanbal's position has been already mentioned. all these four schools are reckoned orthodox, and all orthodox moslems belong to one or another of them. another teacher of this time, who founded a school which did not succeed in being recognized as orthodox, was da`ud uz-zahiri. trained as a shafi`ite, he became too strict for this school, rejected analogy, restricted _ijma`_ to the agreement or custom of the companions of mahomet, and accepted the whole of the koran and tradition in the most literal and external sense. his followers were called zahirites (i.e. externalists). after ash`ari's time these principles were applied to theology by ibn hazm (q.v.) see i. goldziher, _die zahiriten, ihr lehrsystem und ihre geschichte_ (leipzig, 1884). before turning to the reform of ash`ari and the introduction into orthodox theology of scholastic philosophy it is necessary to notice another phase of religious life which became the common property of orthodox and heretics. this was the introduction of asceticism in religions practice and of mysticism in religious thought. sufi`ism (q.v.), which combined these two, is rightly not counted among the sects of islam. asceticism seems to have won a certain amount of approval from mahomet himself, who much respected the christian monks. the attention paid in early islam to the joys and punishments of the future life led to self-denial and simple living in this world. an arabian writer, speaking of the simplicity of manners of the first four caliphs, says that their affairs were conducted with more consideration of the future life than of this world. many moslems went even farther than these caliphs, and gave up all concern as far as possible with the affairs of this world and lived in poverty, in wanderings or in retirement (see dervish). for the historical development of this movement, with its accompanying mysticism, see sufi`ism. ash`ari (d. before 942) was for forty years a mu`tazilite, then became orthodox (see ash`ari), and at once applied rational methods for the support and interpretation of the orthodox faith. before him, reason had not been allowed any scope in orthodox theology. he was not the first to use it; some teachers (as al-junaid) had employed it in teaching, but only in secret and for the few. the methods of scholastic philosophy were now introduced into moslem theology. the chief characteristic of his religious teaching was the adoption of the _via media_ between materialistic grossness and the ideas of pure speculative philosophy. thus he taught, as to the attributes of god, that they exist, but are not to be compared with human attributes; as to his visibility, that he can be seen but without the limitations of human sight. as to the great question of free will, he denied man's power but asserted his responsibility. so he passed in review the doctrines of god, faith, the koran, sin, intercession, &c., and for the first time in the history of islam produced a systematic theology. the teaching of ash`ari was taken up and propagated by the buyids soon after his death, and was developed and perfected by abu bekr ul-baqilani, the cadi (d. 1012), but up to the middle of the 5th century of islam (c. a.d. 1058) was suspected elsewhere and confounded with mu`tazilism. the ash`arite al-juwaini (known as imam ul-haramain) was persecuted under toghrul beg (c. 1053) and exiled, but was restored under alp arslan by the vizier nizam ul-mulk, who founded an ash`arite college (the nizamiyya). in the west, ibn hazm (q.v.) fiercely opposed the system, but ghazali established its orthodoxy in the east, and it spread from persia to syria and egypt under the ayyubites and mamelukes and thence to the almohades in africa under ibn tumart (1130). it remains the predominating influence to the present day, its only serious rival being the theological system of al-mataridi, a hanifite (d. 945), whose creed as represented in that of an-nasafi is still used largely by the turks. since the 12th century no great theological movement has been made in islam. the quiet of religious life has twice been broken, once by wahhabism (q.v.) in arabia, once by babism (q.v.) in persia. the sects according to an early tradition mahomet said that islam would be divided into seventy-three parties (sects),[4] of which seventy-two would perish and one would be saved. the orthodox arabian writers on heretical sects of islam feel compelled by this tradition to make up their number to seventy-two, and, as different writers adopt different divisions or are familiar with different parties, the names of sects amount to some hundreds. each writer, however, adopts certain main classes under which he attempts to group the others. abu muti` makhul at the beginning of the 10th century in his \"refutation\" (ms. in bodleian library) has six such chief classes: harurites (i.e. kharijites), rafidites (i.e. shi`ites), qadarites, jabarites, jahmites and murjiites. ibn hazm (q.v.) adopts four classes: mu`tazilites (motazilites), murjiites, shi`ites and kharijites. shahrastani (q.v.) complains of the want of system in earlier writers, and suggests as bases of classification the position of parties with regard to the doctrines as to (1) the divine attributes, (2) predestination and free-will (3) promises and threats, faith and error, (4) revelation, reason, the imamate. in one part of his preface he gives as the chief parties the qadarites, sifatites, kharijites and shi`ites, proposing to divide these classes according to leaders who agreed with the main doctrines of their class but differed in some points. in another place he mentions four opposite pairs of sects: (1) the qadarites with their doctrine of free-will, and the jabarites, who are necessitarians; (2) the sifatites, who maintain the eternal nature of the attributes of god, and the mu`tazilites, who deny it; (3) the murjiites, who postpone judgment of actions until the last day, and the wa`idites, who condemn in this life; (4) the kharijites, who consider the caliphate a human institution, and the shi`ites, who deify their ruler. in his detailed treatment of the sects shahrastani arranged them under the headings: mu`tazilites, jabarites, sifatites, kharijites, murjiites and shi`ites. about the same time as shahrastani two other arabian writers wrote on the sects--tahir ul-isfaraini (d. 1078), whose ms. is in the berlin library, and `abd ul-qadir ul-jilani (1078-1166) in his _kitab ul-ghaniyya li-talibi tariq il-haqqi_ (cairo, 1871). both adopt as main classes rafidites (or shi`ites), qadarites (or mu`tazilites), kharijites, murjiites, najjarites, dirarites, jahmites, mushabbiha, to which tahir adds bakrites, karramites, and a class including those sects which are not reckoned as moslem though they have sprung from islam. jilani adds to the eight the kilabites. the following list is not a complete list of names of sects but is founded on that of shahrastani.[5] _aftahites._--shi`ites of the imamite class, who ascribe the imamate to `abdallah ul-aftahi, the son of sadiq. _ajarida._--kharijites, followers of ibn `ajarrad, who agreed for the most part with the najadat (below), considered grave sins as equivalent to unbelief, but remained friendly with those who professed islam but did not fight for it. they rejected _sura_ 7 as a fable. shahrastani enumerates seven divisions of this sect. _akhnasites._--a section of the tha`aliba not so strict in treatment of those who fear to fight for islam. _ash`arites._--followers of ash`ari (q.v.) who are counted by shahrastani among the sifatites. _atrafites._--a division of the `ajarida who agree with the hamzites except that they excuse the lower classes for inaction when they are ignorant of the law. _azraqites._--kharijites who followed al-azraq in the days of ibn zubair. they held `ali to be an unbeliever; those who did not fight were unbelievers; the children of unbelievers were to be put to death and went to hell. sin is unbelief. _bahshamites._--mu`tazilites akin to the jubba`ites. _baihasites._--kharijites, followers of abu baihas ul-haitham, who was put to death by the caliph walid. they asserted the necessity of knowledge for religion. _baqirites._--shi`ites who followed abu ja`far ul-baqir, the fifth imam, and looked for his return. _batinites._--isma`ilites, so called because they believe that every external has an internal (_batin_), and every passage in the koran has an allegoric meaning. _bishrites._--mu`tazilites, followers of bishr ibn mu`tamir, one of the most learned men of his party. his teaching was philosophical and was distinguished by his doctrine of \"origination\" (_tawallud_). _bunanites._--kaisanites, followers of bunan ibn sim`an un-nahdi, who claimed that the imamate passed from abu hashim to himself and that he had also acquired the divine element of `ali. _butrites._--zaidites, followers of kathir un-nawa ul-abtar, who agreed with the suleimanites (sulaimanites) except that he suspended judgment as to whether othman was a believer or not. _dirarites._--jabarites who empty god of his attributes, and assert that man has a sixth sense by which he will see god on the day of resurrection. the actions of man are \"created\" and acquired by him. a caliph need not be chosen from the koreish. _ghaliites_ (ghula) are the extreme shi`ites (q.v.) in ascribing deity to the imams. their heresies are said to be four in number: (1) making god resemble man, (2) ascribing change of mind to god, (3) looking for the return of the imam, (4) metempsychosis. they are divided by shahrastani into ten classes. _ghassanites._--murjiites, followers of ghassan ibn ul-kufi, who say that faith consists of knowledge of god, his apostle, and the koran in general not in detail, and that faith increases but is not diminished. _habities_ = hayitites (below). _hadathites_ (hudabites) are mu`tazilites, followers of fadl ibn ul-hadathi, who agreed with the hayitites (below). _hafsites._--ibadites, followers of hafs ibn abi-l-miqdam, who distinguished between idolatry (_shirk_) and unbelief (_kufr_). _hamzites._--`ajarida, followers of hamza ibn adrak in sijistan. they agree with the maimunites, but condemn the children of unbelievers to hell. _harithites._--ibadites who differ from others in holding the mu`tazilite doctrine of free-will. _harurites._--a name given to the first kharijites, who rebelled against `ali, and met in harura near kufa. _hashimites._--shi`ites who supported abu hashim, son of mahommed ibn ul-hanafiyya, although they held that his father had gone astray. _hashwiites._--a party who asserted the eternity even of the letters of the koran. they are not mentioned as a separate sect by shahrastani; cf. van vloten, \"_les hachwia et nabita_,\" in the _acts of the 11th oriental congress_ (paris, 1899), pt. iii., pp. 99 sqq. _hayitites._--mu`tazilites who agreed with the nazzamites, but added three heresies of their own: (1) the divinity of the messiah, (2) metempsychosis, (3) the interpretation of all references to the vision of god as referring to the \"first reason\" or \"creative reason.\" _hishamites._--a name given to two sects: (1) mu`tazilites, strong in their assertion of man's free-will, even opposing the statement of the koran. (2) shi`ites of the extreme kind, who attributed to god a body with quantities (measurements) and qualities. _hudabites._--see hadathites. _hudhailites_ (hodhailites).--mu`tazilites, followers of abu-l hudhail hamdan, who was a leading teacher of his party and developed the philosophical side of its teaching. ten of his main doctrines are given by shahrastani. _ibadites._--kharijites of moderate tendencies (see above). _ilbaites._--ghaliites who put `ali above mahomet and blamed the latter because he called men to himself instead of to `ali. _imamites._--one of the chief divisions of the shi`ites (q.v.). _ishaqites._--ghaliites agreeing with the nusairites except that they incline to speak of the imams' participation in the prophetic office rather than of their divinity. _isma`ilites._--this name is applied to all who consider isma`il ibn ja`far the last imam, some believing that he did not die but will return, others, that at his death his son mahommed became imam (see assassins); it is also used as equivalent to the batinites. _ithna`asharites._--imamites who accept the twelve imams (see shi`ites). _jabarites._--those who deny all actions and power to act to man and ascribe all to god (see above). _ja`farites._--imamites who carry the imamate no farther than ja`far us-sadiq. _jahizites._--mu`tazilites, followers of the celebrated writer jahiz (q.v.), who indulged in philosophical speculations, believed in the eternity of matter, and was regarded as a naturalist (_taba`i_) rather than a theist (_allahi_). _jahmites._--jabarites, followers of jahm ibn safwan, who was put to death at merv toward the close of the omayyad period. he was extreme in his denial of the attributes of god. _jarudites._--zaidites who held that mahomet designated `ali as imam, not by name but by his attributes, and that the moslem sinned by not taking sufficient trouble to recognize these attributes. _jubba`ites._--mu`tazilites who followed the philosophical teaching of abu `ali mahommed ul-jubba`i of basra. _kaisanites._--a main class of the shi`ites (q.v.). _kamilites._--ghaliites, followers of abu kamil, who condemned the companions (_ansar_) because they did not do allegiance to `ali, and `ali because he surrendered his claims. _karramites._--sifatites, followers of ibn karram, who went so far as to ascribe a body to god, and assimilated his nature to human nature. _kayyalites._--ghaliites, followers of ahmad ibn kayyal, who, after supporting a propaganda for an aliite, claimed to be the imam himself on the ground of his power over the spheres. _khalafites._--`ajarida of kerman and multan, who believed that god wills good and evil, but condemned the children of unbelievers to hell. _kharijites._--one of the earliest sects of islam (see above). _kharimites._--`ajarida, agreeing mostly with the shu`aibites and teaching that the relation of god to a man depends on what he professes at the end of his life. _khattabites._--ghaliites, followers of abu-l khattab, who was put to death by ibn musa at kufa. he was a violent supporter of ja`far us-sadiq, who however disowned him. _khayyatites._--mu`tazilites, followers of abu-l hosain ul-khayyat, a teacher in bagdad, part of whose philosophical teaching was that the non-existent is a thing. _ma`badites._--tha`labites who differed from the akhnasites on the question of the marriage of believing women and from tha`lab on the question of taking alms from slaves. _maimunites._--`ajarida, followers of maimun ibn khalid, who believed that god wills good only and that man determines his actions. _majhulites._--tha`labites, agreeing generally with the kharimites, but teaching that he who knows some names and attributes of god and is ignorant of some knows god. _ma`lumites._--tha`labites agreeing generally with the kharimites but alleging that a believer must know all the names and attributes of god. _mansurites._--ghaliites, followers of abu mansur ul-`ijli, who at first supported al-baqir, but, rejected by him, claimed the imamate for himself. he was crucified by the caliph hisham ibn `abd ul-malik (abdalmalik). _mu`ammarites._[6]--mu`tazilites who strongly denied the predestination of god, and affirmed that god created bodies only, and that the accidents spring naturally from them. _mufaddalites._[6]--the same as the musaites (q.v.). _mughirites._[6]--ghaliites, followers of mughira ibn sa`id ul-`ijli, who claimed the imamate and prophetic office and held extremely gross views of god. _muhakkima_[6] (the first).--another name for the harurites (above). _mukarramites._[6]--tha`labites who taught that sin consists in ignorance of god. _mukhtarites._[6]--kaisanites, followers of al-mukhtar ibn `ubaid, who held to mahommed ibn ul-hanafiyya but was disowned by him. he allowed the possibility of change of mind on the part of god. _murjiites._--those who postponed judgment of actions until the day of judgment. see above. _musaites._--imamites who held to the imamate of musa ibn ja`far, who was imprisoned by harun al-rashid and poisoned. _mushabbiha._[6]--sifatites who compared god's actions with human actions. they said that the koran was eternal with all its letters, accents and written signs. _mu`tazilites._[6]--the rationalists of islam. see above, cf. also h. steiner, _die mu`taziliten oder die freidenker im islam_ (leipzig, 1865). _muzdarites._[6]--mu`tazilites, followers of al-muzdar, a pupil of bishr (cf. bishrites) whose teaching he developed further. he taught that god has power to do evil, but, if he acted thus, would be an evil god; also that man can produce the equal of the koran. _najadat_ (also known as _`adhirites_).--kharijites, who followed najda ibn `amir of yemama as he went to join the azraqites but withdrew from these, being more orthodox than they. he held that fear of fighting was not sin. _nawisites_ take their name from a person or a place. they are ja`farites who believe in sadiq as the mahdi. _nazzamites._--mu`tazilites, followers of ibrahim ibn sayyar un-nazzam, who was an extremist in his teaching of man's free-will and other philosophical doctrines. _nu`manites._[6]--ghaliites agreeing in some points with hishamites, but holding that god is a light in the form of a man, yet not a body. _nusairites._[6]--ghaliites who agree with the ishaqites except that they lay more stress on the incorporation of the deity. _qadarites._--the upholders of free-will (see above). _qata`ites._--musaites who regard the rank of the imams as closed with the death of musa. _rafidites._--a term used by some writers to denote the shi`ites as a whole; by others given to a class of the shi`ites who forsook zaid ibn `ali because he forbade them to abuse the companions. _rashidites._--tha`labites, followers of rashid ut-tusi, sometimes called `ushrites (\"tithers\") because they differed from others on the question of tithing the produce of land watered by rivers and canals. _rizamites._--kaisanites of khorasan at the time of abu muslim, to whom they ascribed the imamate and the spirit of god. they also believed in metempsychosis. _saba`ites._--ghaliites, who followed `abdallah ibn saba (see shi`ites). _salihites._--(a) zaidites, followers of al-hasan ibn salih, who agreed with the teachings of the butrites (above); (b) murjiites, followers of salih ibn amr, who united with the doctrines of their own party those of the qadarites. _saltites._--`ajarida who had nothing to do with the children of believers until they had grown up and professed islam. _shaibanites._--tha`labites, followers of shaiban ibn salama, who was killed in the time of abu muslim (moslem). they arose chiefly in jorjan and armenia and agreed in doctrine with the jahmites. _shamitites._--ja`farites, followers of yahya ibn abu shamit. _shi`ites._--see separate article. _shu`aibites._--`ajarida who said that god creates the actions of men, and men appropriate them. _sifatites_ are those who ascribe eternity to all the attributes of god, whether they denote essence or action, or are of the class called descriptive attributes. _sifrites_, the same as ziyadites (below). _sulaimanites_ (suleimanites).--zaidites, followers of suleiman ibn jarir, who held that the appointment to the imamate was a matter of consultation and that the imamates of abu bekr and omar were legal although `ali had a better claim. _tha`labites._--a party of the kharijites, followers of tha`lab ibn amir, who agreed with the `ajarida except that he was friendly with children until they actually denied the faith. he also took alms from slaves when they were rich, and gave alms to poor slaves. _thaubanites._--murjiites who said that faith consists in the knowledge and confession of god and his apostle, and what the intellect is not capable of doing. what the intellect can do (or leave) is not of faith. _thumamites._--mu`tazilites, followers of thumama ibn ashras in the days of mamun, who taught that all non-moslems would become dust on the day of resurrection. _tumanites._--murjiites who taught that faith depends on obedience rather to the principles than to the commands of islam. _`ubaidites._--murjiites who believed that anything but idolatry might be forgiven, and that if a man died professing the unity of god his sins would not hurt him. _wa`idites._--those who, opposed to the murjiites, pronounced judgment in this life; they are not counted as a separate sect by shahrastani (see above). _wasilites._--a name given to those who followed wasil ibn `ata, the founder of mu`tazilitism, who denied the attributes of god, asserted the power of man over his own actions, taught the existence of a middle place between heaven and hell, and despised the parties of othman and `ali alike. _yazidites._--ibadites who said that they followed the religion of the sabians in the koran, and believed that god would send an apostle from the persians. _yunusites._--murjiites who taught that faith consists in knowledge of god, subjection to him, abandonment of pride before him, and love in the heart. obedience apart from knowledge is not of faith. _zaidites._--the moderate shi`ites (see shi`ites). _ziyadites._--kharijites, followers of ziyad ibn ul-asfar, who did not regard those who abstained from fighting for islam as unbelievers, and did not kill the children of idolaters or condemn them to hell. authorities.--for the philosophy and theology of ash`ari see m. a. f. mehren, _expose de la reforme de l'islamisme par abou-`l hasan ali el-ash`ari_ (leiden, 1878); w. spitta, _zur geschichte abu-l hasan al-ash`aris_ (leipzig, 1876); m. schreiner, _zur geschichte des ash`aritenthums_ (leiden, 1891); d. b. macdonald, _development of muslim theology, jurisprudence and constitutional theory_ (london, 1903). the last work contains translations of the creeds of ash`ari and nasafi (mataridite). a further bibliography of works on the faith and outlook of islam will be found in d. b. macdonald's _muslim theology_. the text of the koran has been edited by g. flugel, leipzig, various dates; and by g. m. redslob, paris, 1868 and 1880. there are also hundreds of eastern editions. concordances have been published by g. flugel, leipzig, 1842 (several times reprinted), also in egypt, palestine and india. a dictionary and glossary were published by j. penrice, london, 1873. english translations have been made by g. sale, london, 1734 (the fullest edition is that with notes by e. m. wherry, 4 vols., london, 1882-1886); by j. m. rodwell with notes, london, 1861 and 1876; and by e. h. palmer in vols, vi. and ix. of the \"sacred books of the east,\" oxford, 1880-1882. among the best or best-known arabic commentaries are those of tabari (q.v.), zamakhshari (q.v.), baidhawi (q.v.), the jalalain (see suyuti), and such later ones as the mafatih ul-ghaib of ar-razi (d. 1210). the composition and theology of the koran are treated in the works of noldeke and grimme referred to above. on the eschatology of islam see m. wolff, _muhammedanische eschatologie_ (leipzig, 1872); and on the doctrine of revelation. otto pautz, _muhammeds lehre von der offenbarung_ (leipzig, 1898). (g. w. t.) footnotes: [1] see also koran. [2] underlined = with interpolations. [3] for the doctrines of these two sects see shahrastani's _book of sects_, and for the qadarites, a. de vlieger's _kitab ul-qadr, materiaux pour servir a l'etude de la doctrine de la predestination dans la theologie musulmane_ (leiden, 1903). [4] for the origin and significance of this number see m. steinschneider, \"die kanonische zahl der muhammedanischen secten und die symbolik der zahl, 70-73,\" _in zeitschr. d. deutschen morgenl. gesellschaft_, iv., 145-170 (1850); and i. goldziher, \"le denombrement des sectes mohametanes\" in _revue de l'hist. des religions_, xxvi. 129-137 (1892). [5] the names are given throughout in the anglicized form on the analogy of shi`ites, which is recognized in common usage. the strict termination according to the scheme of transliteration adopted in this work is _iyya_, or _iya_, e.g. hishamiyya for hishamites. for information regarding the important sects see separate articles and the preceding portion of this article. [6] all these names are alternatively spelt mo- instead of mu-.",
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