become Moslems—are treated as members of the household and feel themselves to be such; so that the institution is of a much milder form than slavery in the Roman Empire or in Christian countries like America in modern times. It has always been a meritorious act to set slaves free, and this is often done by the owner in his lifetime, or in the anticipation of death. Many slaves are allowed by their owners to carry on trade or business on their own account, and are thus enabled to purchase their freedom.

Gambling, which was evidently a favourite pastime of the heathen Arabs, is strictly forbidden in the Koran, and the lawyers have construed the prohibition as extending to forms of chance to which even the most rigorous of Christian moralists would hardly stretch the definition; for example, to life insurance and fire insurance; this, in connection with the similar casuistic extension of the laws against usury, which are made to forbid everything that lies under the remotest suspicion of speculation in future values, constitutes a serious hindrance to the economic development of Moslem countries. The lawyers, however, like their kind in all the world, have been fertile in legal fictions by which the excessive stringency of their own casuistry is more or less circuitously evaded.

The Koran contains different and not altogether consistent prescriptions in regard to drinking, and even the final prohibition of drinking wine left room for abundant con-f troversy in the legal schools. Was the prohibition to be construed strictly as applying only to wine, that is, the fermented juice of the grape? Or should it be assumed that the lawgiver's intention was to prevent drunkenness, and the prohibition consequently be extended to all other kinds of fermented drinks containing alcohol, and to all narcotics, Indian hemp, opium, and tobacco? The straightest sect of Islamic pharisees, the Wahhabis, put the "drinking of tobacco" under the same ban with intoxicating liquors; while at least one unimpeachably orthodox creed declares the drinking of nabidh, an intoxicating drink made from the

fermentation of dates or other fruit, not to be prohibited. Contrary to prevalent opinion-most prevalent opinions about Islam are wrong the prohibitory laws of the Moslem religion have proved, on the whole, as ineffective as modern Christian experiments in the same direction. There is probably not a literature in the world so reeking of wine as that of the golden age of the highly religious Abbasid caliphate in Bagdad, and this odour clings to the literature of later times, such as the stories of the Arabian Nights, for example, the scene of many of which is laid in Bagdad. It is true nowadays, and doubtless always has been true, that many pious Moslems, with puritan strictness in morals, abhor the use of intoxicants of every kind as a great sin; and it is also true that in Mohammedan cities the drinkshops, like the bagnios, have always been kept by Christians or Jews; but that, as is sometimes said, a single verse in the Koran has made the Moslem world a world of total abstainers has not a shadow of warrant in the facts.

In the cultivation of personal religion in Islam the first place belongs to the public and private prayers, which are always said with decorum and apparent devoutness. When the appointed hour of prayer arrives and the call of the fcrier is heard, the Moslem, wherever he may be, performs his ablutions, spreads his prayer-carpet, and goes through the number of rounds of prayer prescribed by his rite and such supererogatory ones as he may prescribe to himself. He has not the least of the feeling common to many Christians that private devotions are a thing for the privacy of the closet. The set forms of prayer which constitute the Moslem liturgy are accompanied by short personal prayers, for which there are special manuals. Thus, before beginning the ablutions: "I am about to cleanse myself of my bodily impurities to prepare myself for prayer, a sacred act which will bring me near to the Most High. In the name of the great and exalted God, Praise be to God who has graciously made us Moslems! Islam is truth; unbelief is falsehood." Every subsequent stage of ablution is accompanied

by a brief ejaculatory prayer, appropriate to the particular act, as, for example, when it comes to the ears: "O my God! make me of the number of those who hear thy word and faithfully follow it." "O my God! let me hear, one day, the invitation to enter Paradise with the upright." At the end of the ablutions is recited a confession of sin and a prayer for forgiveness.

The public worship of Islam, however sincere and devout it may be, has in it no mystical element. This side of religion, which has had so large a development in Islam, not only among the Sufis, but through their influence among the masses of the people, is cultivated particularly by the various Dervish orders. In the early centuries those who addicted themselves to the spiritual life put themselves under the direction of a teacher or guide, by whom they were inducted into the mystical way; they lived with him, followed his instruction, and imitated his example. AlGhazali put himself under such a director at Damascus, and in his later years presided over a group of disciples at Tus, who lived together in a common habitation, a kind of monastery. In these older associations there was no continuity; the death of the master dissolved them. In the century after al-Ghazali, however, they developed into orders bearing the name of the founder, and perpetuating his teaching and methods. One of the oldest of these Dervish orders, and still one of the largest and most influential, is that founded by Abd al-Kadir al-Jilani (d. 1166). It has many branches, and is widely distributed through the Moslem world. The Dervish orders claim for themselves all the Sufi saints, and carry back their origin to the beginnings of Islam, most of them claiming Ali as the original founder, though a minority trace their spiritual pedigree to Abu Bekr.

Each of these has a rule ascribed to the founder, and a ritual of its own, differing in particulars, though not in general character, from that of the others. They have monasteries in which the professed members of the order live to

gether under the direction of their Sheikh, and where they perform together their common religious exercises. Some of the members are celibates, but, with rare exceptions, celibacy is not a part of the rule. The exercises consist primarily of the recitation of Dhikrs, repetitions of names and praises of God, in the particular form in use in the order, accompanied by movements of the head or of the whole body. The end and effect of these performances is to induce an exaltation which may go to the length of autohypnosis. The so-called Whirling Dervishes (Maulawi), who derive from Jelal al-Din Rumi, and the Howling Dervishes (Refaii), are familiar to all readers of books of travel in the Ottoman Empire. Each order has a distinctive dress or badge by which its members are recognised. Many of the monasteries were originally pious foundations, but their endowments have in modern times greatly diminished. Most of the inmates live by their own labour, or upon the charity of religious persons; many of them are beggars and go about with a begging basket, as it were the sign of their trade. In some orders, on the contrary, begging is forbidden.

Besides the professed members of the Dervish fraternities, many laymen are associated with them in a relation which has been not inaptly compared to that of the Tertiaries of the Franciscan order. They live in the world and pursue their ordinary occupations, but assemble weekly, or sometimes daily, usually in the evening, at the house of the order, to take part in such religious exercises as have already been described, under the direction of the Dervish Sheikh. By these means they strive to attain a personal experience of religion, a sense of the nearness and the power of God, which they do not feel in the same way in the staid and decorous worship of the mosque; or, beyond that, a state of enthusiasm or ecstasy. In the monasteries the practice of secluded meditation at certain seasons is still perpetuated by a few of the inmates who have progressed farthest in the way.

CHAPTER XXII

MOHAMMEDANISM

EXTRAVAGANT SECTS AND DERIVATIVE RELIGIONS

The Ismailis-Doctrine of the Sect-Karmatians-Assassins-Druses -Sheikhis-Babis and Bahais-The Ahmediyya.

IN a former chapter the general characteristics of Shia Mohammedanism have been described, and its main divisions enumerated. Some of these are far removed from common Moslem orthodoxy, but may, notwithstanding these departures, properly be covered by the name of Islam. There are, however, offshoots of the Shia which have deviated so widely from the type that they are not to be classed as heretical Moslem sects, but as distinct religions, which have grown out of Mohammedanism, or in whose comprehensive syncretism the most important elements-or those which they themselves think it expedient to put in the foreground-are derived from Shiite Mohammedanism. Some of these call themselves Moslem, and even proclaim themselves the only true Moslems, while others wear the name only as a disguise, which they throw off when they venture to speak freely.

The common stock from which most of these religions have sprung may best be designated by the name Ismaili. Their line of historical Imams contains seven names: Ali, Hasan, Husein, Ali ibn Husein, Mohammed ibn Ali, Jafar ibn Mohammed, and Ismail ibn Jafar.1 Ismail died in his father's lifetime, leaving as his successor in the Imamate, a son, Mohammed, who disappeared in India; according to others, Ismail did not die. In the former view it is Moham

1 The "Twelvers" count as their seventh Imam, Musa, a younger son of Jafar, holding that Ismail had been excluded by his father from the succession because he was addicted to drunkenness.