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In fine, no subsequent distortions could entirely obliterate the fact that primitive Islam was the supreme expression of a freedom-loving folk whose religion must necessarily contain many liberal tendencies. Even the sheriat, or canon law, is, as Professor Lybyer states, "fundamentally democratic and opposed in essence to absolutism."

There is no doubt that a study of the Mohammedan sacred texts, particularly of the "sheriat" or canon law, together with a glance over Moslem history for the last thousand years, reveal an attitude on the whole quite incompatible with modern progress and civilization. But was not precisely the same thing true of Christendom at the beginning of the fifteenth century?

Students of the Sheriat have not inaptly compared the Koranic law to a dead man's hand, rigid and cold, and only to be loosened when the hand itself shall have been cut away.

I made acquaintance while at Jeddah with a young Arab from Shinghiat in Senegal who, Bedouin as he was, was an Alem, and one sufficiently well versed in the Sheriat to be referred to more than once in my presence on points of religious law and literature.

Western methods were studied and copied. The prohibitions of the sheriat were evaded or quietly ignored. The upshot has been a marked evolution toward Western economic standards. This evolution is of course still in its early stages, and is most noticeable in lands most exposed to Western influences like India, Egypt, and Algeria. Yet everywhere in the Moslem world the trend is the same.

The great difficulty which, as things now stand, besets reform is this: the Sheriat, or written code of law, still stands in orthodox Islam as an unimpeachable authority. The law in itself is an excellent law, and as such commends itself to the loyalty of honest and God-fearing men; but on certain points it is irreconcilable with the modern needs of Islam, and it cannot legally be altered.

No such thing as a liberal religious party then existed anywhere, and those who broke the law in the name of political reform were breakers of the law and nothing more. Every good man was their enemy, and if any spoke of liberty he was understood as meaning licence. It was not even conceived then that the Sheriat might be legally remodelled.

Since we are imagining many things we may imagine this one too, that our Caliph of the Koreysh, chosen by the faithful and installed at Mecca, should invite the Ulema of every land to a council at the time of the pilgrimage, and there, appointing a new Mujtahed, should propound to them certain modifications of the Sheriat, as things necessary to the welfare of Islam, and deducible from tradition.

A Caliph, as things stand, cannot legally govern, except by the old canon law of the Sheriat, and though a lapsus from strict observance may be tolerated in an ordinary prince, or even in a well established Caliph, a new Caliph putting forward a new claim would be more strictly bound. How could Mohammed Towfik's necessity to Islam be reconciled to his necessity to Europe?

This nucleus of Indian Moslem liberals rapidly grew in strength, producing able leaders like Moulvie Cheragh Ali and Syed Amir Ali, whose scholarly works in faultless English are known throughout the world. These men called themselves "Neo-Motazelites" and boldly advocated reforms such as a thorough overhauling of the sheriat and a general modernization of Islam.