[147] Vide Islam and its Founder, by J.W.H. Stobart, B.A., page 229, London, 1878; and Mohammed, Buddha and Christ, by Marcus Dods, D.D., pp. 122-23, London, 1878. Major Osborn writes, "But to the polity erected on these rude lines was given the attribute of finality. In order to enforce obedience and eliminate the spirit of opposition, Mohammad asserted that it was, down to the minutest details, the work of a Divine Legislature."—Islam under the Arabs, pp. 45 and 46.
[148] Vide The Faith of Islam, by the Rev. Edward Sell, page 7, London, 1880.
[149] Vide Christianity and Islam, the Bible, and the Koran, by the Rev. W.R.W. Stephens, pp. 95 and 131, London, 1877.
[150] Vide Islam and its Founder, by J.W.H. Stobart, B.A., page 237; and Stephens' Christianity and Islam, page 121. Major Osborn writes: "From the hour of his birth the moslem becomes a member of a system in which every act of his life is governed by a minute ritual. He is beset on every side with a circle of inflexible formalities."—Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad, pp. 78-9. He further writes in a footnote, p. 79: "Thus prayer is absolutely useless if any matter, legally considered impure, adheres to the person of the worshipper, even though he be unconscious of its presence. Prayer also is null and void unless the men and women praying are attired in a certain prescribed manner."
[151] Vide Christianity and Islam, by W.R.W. Stephens, pp. 122-23. Major Osborn writes: "The Prophet knew of no religious life where the external rite was not deemed of greater importance than the inner state, and, in consequence, he gave that character to Islam also. Hence there are no moral gradations in the Koran. All precepts proceed from the will of God, and all are enforced with the same threatening emphasis. A failure of performance in the meanest trivialities of civil life involves the same tremendous penalties as apostacy and idolatry."—Islam under Khalifs, p. 5. He further says: "In their religious aspect, these traditions are remarkable for that strange confusion of thought which caused the Prophet to place on one level of wickedness serious moral crimes, breaches of sumptuary regulations, and accidental omissions in ceremonial observations. Sin, throughout, is regarded as an external pollution, which can, at once, be rectified by the payment of a fine of some kind." Ibid, page 62.
[152] "Occasionally our author would seem to write what he certainly does not mean; thus, in the middle of an excellent summary of the causes of Islam's decadence, it is stated,—'Swathed in the rigid bands of the Koran, Islam is powerless like the Christian dispensation to adapt itself to the varying circumstances of time and place.'"—The Saturday Review, June 23, 1883.
[153] Vide Annals of the Early Caliphate, by Sir W. Muir, K.C.S.I., LL.D., D.C.L., page 456, London, 1883.
[154] Reforms, Political, Social and Legal, under the Moslem Rule, Bombay Education Society's Press, 1883.
[155] "The cankerworm of polygamy, divorce, servile concubinage and veil lay at the root. They are bound up in the character of its existence. A reformed Islam which should part with the divine ordinances on which they rest, or attempt in the smallest degree to change them by a rationalistic selection, abetment or variation would be Islam no longer." Annals of the Early Caliphate by Sir W. Muir, page 458.
[156] The institution of pilgrimage is a harmless one, and conducive to unity in religion for Arabs, and gives moreover an impetus to trade at large.