Then the legal difficulty will at last be
overcome. The dead hand of the law will be no longer dead, but will be
inspired by a living voice and will.
Since we are imagining many things we may imagine this one too,--that
our Caliph of the Koreysh, chosen by the faithful and installed at
Mecca, should invite the Ulema of every land to a council at the time of
the pilgrimage, and there, appointing a new Mujtahed, should propound to
them certain modifications of the Sheriat, as things necessary to the
welfare of Islam, and deducible from tradition. No point of doctrine
need in any way be touched, only the law. The Fakh ed din would need
hardly a modification. The Fakh esh Sheriat would, in certain chapters,
have to be rewritten. Who can doubt that an Omar or an Haroun, were they
living at the present day, would authorize such changes, or that the
faithful of their day would have accepted them as necessary and
legitimate developments of Koranic teaching?
It would be an interesting study to pursue this inquiry further, and to
see how it might be worked out in detail. The crying necessity of
civilized Islam is a legal _modus vivendi_ with Europe, and such an
adaptation of its law on points where Europe insists as shall suffice to
stave off conflict.
Pages:
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172