The great difficulty which, as things now stand, besets
reform is this: the Sheriat, or written code of law, still stands in
orthodox Islam as an _unimpeachable_ authority. The law in itself is an
excellent law, and as such commends itself to the loyalty of honest and
God-fearing men; but on certain points it is irreconcilable with the
modern needs of Islam, and it cannot legally be altered.
When it was framed it was not suspected that Mohammedans would ever be
subjects of a Christian power, or that the Mohammedan State would ever
need to accommodate itself to Christian demands in its internal policy.
It contemplated, too, mainly a state of war, and it accepted slavery and
concubinage as war's natural concomitants. It did not understand that
some day Islam would have to live at peace with its neighbours, if it
would live at all, or that the general moral sense of the world would
be brought to bear upon it with such force that the higher instincts of
Moslems themselves should feel the necessity of restricting its old and
rather barbarous licence as to marriage and divorce. Yet these things
have come to pass, or are rapidly coming; and the best thinkers in Islam
now admit that changes in the direction indicated must sooner or later
be made.
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