[5] This is not the normal doctrine of Islam and the commentators have to explain this passage away. Consult in the chapters on theology, the whole Sufi development and especially the views of al-Ghazzali. Al-Mataridi was greatly influenced by Abu Hanifa, who was hostile to mystics. Notice, too, the philosophical basis and beginning of this creed.

[6] A sect of the Mu‘tazilites held that a man could have two ajals, one his end by a natural death appointed by God, the other his end by a violent death, not so appointed. The “Philosophers” are said to have held that one ajal would be when the mechanism of the body ceased to work through the failing of its essential moisture and heat, and another ajal might come through sicknesses and accident generally.

[7] See in bibliography, S. Keijzer, Précis, etc. Much help as to details of religious ritual and law will be found in Hughes’s Dictionary of Islam, Sachau’s Muhammedanisches Recht, Lane’s Modern Egyptians, and commentary to his translation of the Arabian Nights, Burton’s Pilgrimage, and Sell’s Faith of Islam.

INDEX OF NAMES AND ARABIC WORDS

The Semitic Series

Edited by JAMES ALEXANDER CRAIG, Professor of Semitic Languages and Literature and Hellenistic Greek, University of Michigan