The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎110v] (225/244)

710
THE NINETEENTH
April
It is astonishing how few of the formal rites and even dogmas of
mediaeval and modern Islam are to be found laid down in the Koran.
Definite enough in its main teaching, it is the vaguest book in the
world in lesser points of doctrine and forms ; and if a coach and four
may be driven through the statute book, there is no conceivable
vehicle too cumbrous to be manoeuvred through the many open
gates of the Mohammedan Scripture. But it is in no such spirit of
evasion that Syed Ameer Ali declares that the law of the Koran
does not provide for the final settlement of various details of social
and religious conduct. He is a strict believer in the inspiration of the
holy book and the superiority of the teaching of Mohammed over
all other religions, and he would not wilfully minimise any express
ordinance of his master's. He simply states a fact when he says that
many of these minor elements of modern Islam are not in the Koran
and therefore are not articles of faith. Still, there are a certain
number of regulations which are in the Koran but which hardly
accord with the standard of modern ethics, and so honest a thinker
as Syed Ameer Ali would be the last to ignore them. He admits the
difficulty frankly enough, and argues that it is due entirely to the
limitations and peculiarities of the people to whom the Koran was
spoken; that the minor ordinances in question, when not too vague
to be capable of definition, are
rules and regulations enunciated for the common exigencies of the day, in an infant
society. But to suppose that the greatest Eeformer the world has ever produced,
the greatest upholder of the sovereignty of Reason, the man who proclaimed that
the world was governed and guided by law and order, and that the law of nature
meant progressive development, ever contemplated that even those injunctions
which were called forth by the passing necessities of a semi-civilised people should
become immutable to the end of the world, is doing an injustice to the Prophet of
Islam.
And again;
The wonderful adaptability of the Islamic precepts to all ages and nations; their
entire concordance with the light of reason; the absence of all mysterious doc
trines to cast a shade of sentimental ignorance round the primal truths implanted in
the human breast;—all prove that Islam represents the latest development of the
religious faculties of our being. Those who have ignored the historic significance
of some of its precepts have deemed that their seeming harshness or inadaptability
to present modes of thought ought to exclude it from any claim to universality.
But a little inquiry into the historic value of laws and precepts, a little more fair
ness in the examination of facts, would evince the temporary character of such
rules, as may appear scarcely consonant with the requirements or prejudices of
modern times The catholicity of Islam, its expansiveness, and its charity to all
KX 0 Sriv«^eh" erl7 mistaken ' perTerted ' or Wilfu ^ C01KeaM
We are not prepared to follow Syed Ameer Ali implicitly in all
he addnces m snpport of his argument. As a MnsUm he natnrally
assumes a wider grasp and foresight in his Prophet than we are dis-