the Quran alone is to no
Muslim the sole guide of life. The fetters of a dogmatic system fasten
alike around the individual and the community. Islam is sterile, it gives
no new birth to the spirit of a man, leads him not in search of new forms
of truth, and so it can give no real life, no lasting vitality to a
nation.[34]

{32}

NOTE TO CHAPTER I.

IJTIHAD.

Questions connected with Ijtihad are so important in Islam, that I
think it well to give in the form of a note a fuller and more technical
account of it, than I could do in the Chapter just concluded. This
account which I shall now give is that of a learned Musalman, and is,
therefore, of the highest value. It consists of extracts from an
article in the Journal Asiatique, Quatrieme Serie, tome, 15, on "Le
Marche et les Progres de la Jurisprudence parmi les Sectes orthodoxes
Musalmanes" by Mirza Kazim Beg, Professor in the University of St.
Petersburg. It entirely supports all that has been said of the rigid
character of Muhammadan Law, and of the immobility of systems founded
thereon.

"Orthodox Musalmans admit the following propositions as axioms.

1. God the only legislator has shown the way of felicity to the people
whom He has chosen, and in order to enable them to walk in that way He
has shown to them the precepts which are found, partly in the eternal
Quran, and partly in the sayings of the Prophet transmitted to
posterity by the Companions and preserved in the Sunnat. That way is
called the "Shari'at." The rules thereof are called Ahkam.

2. The Quran and the Sunnat, which since their manifestation are the
primitive sources of the orders of the Law, form two branches of study,
_viz._, Ilm-i-Tafsir, or the interpretation of the Quran and
Ilm-i-Hadis, or the study of Tradition.

3. All the orders of the Law have regard either to the actions (Din),
or to the belief (Iman) of the Mukallifs.[35]

4. As the Quran and the Sunnat are the principal sources from whence
the precepts of the Shari'at have been drawn, so the rules recognized
as the principal elements of actual jurisprudence are the subject of
Ilm-i-Fiqh, or the science of Law.

Fiqh in its root signifies conception, comprehension. Thus Muhammad
prayed for Ibn Mas'ud: "May God make him {33} comprehend (Faqqihahu),
and make him know the interpretation of the Quran."