connection
with the possibility of reforms in a Muslim state. A modern Muhammadan
writer[31] seeking to show that Islam does possess a capacity for progress
and that so far from being a hard and fast system, it is able to adapt
itself to new circumstances, because the Prophet ushered in {26} "an age of
active principles," uses the story I have already related when describing
the origin of Ijtihad (Ante. p. 17) to prove the accuracy of his statement.
He makes Mu'az to say:--"I will look first to the Quran, then to precedents
of the Prophet, and lastly rely upon my _own judgment_." It is true that
Ijtihad literally means 'great effort,' it is true that the Companions and
Mujtahidin of the first class had the power of exercising their judgment in
doubtful cases, and of deciding them according to their sense of the
fitness of things, provided always, that their decision contravened no law
of the Quran or the Sunnat; but this in no way proves that Islam has any
capacity for progress, or that "an age of active principles" was ushered in
by Muhammad, or that his "words breathe energy and force, and infuse new
life into the dormant heart of humanity." For, though the term Ijtihad
might, in reference to the men I have mentioned, be somewhat freely
translated as "one's own judgment," it can have no such meaning now. It is
a purely technical term, and its use and only use now is to express the
"referring of a difficult case to some analogy drawn from the Quran and the
Sunnat." But even were the meaning not thus restricted, even though it
meant now as it sometimes meant at first, "one's own judgment;" still Syed
Amir 'Ali's position would remain to be proved for, since the days of the
four Imams, the orthodox believe that there has been no Mujtahid of the
first class, and to none but men of this rank has such power ever been
accorded. Thus granting, for the sake of argument merely, that the Syed's
translation is grammatically and technically correct, all that results from
it is that the "age of active principles" lasted only for two centuries. I
do not admit that there ever was such an age in Islam, and certainly
neither its theological development, nor its political growth negative the
opposite assertion, _viz._, that Muhammad gave precepts rather than
principles. The Turks are included in "the dormant heart of humanity," but
it is difficult to see what "energy and {27} force" is breathed, what "new
life is infused" into them by the