LECTURE XIV.

KHULA, IDDAT, raját and remARRIAGE.

Page

Khuld, or release from the marriage tie obtained by a wife on payment of
a consideration.

424

Iddat, or abstinence from sexual intercourse for a certain time observable

upon divorce or husband's death.

433

Raját, or rentention of a wife repudiated by one or two revocable

divorces

440

POWERS OF THE VOWELS USED IN SPELLING THE ARABIC

AND PERSIAN WORDS.

A: as a in salt.

Á:

1: asd in for.

E: as e in there.

I: as i in fit.

Í: as i in police.

O: as o in go.
U: as u in bush.
Ú: as u in rule.

Y: stands almost quiescent when preceded by a, as bayt, a house.

Ꭼ Ꭱ Ꭱ Ꭺ Ꭲ Ꭺ.

Page 70, line 2, for extending, read extends.

Page 121, line 25, for or marriage, read or of marriage.

Page 275, line 22, and in other places, for umm-ul-wald, read um-ul-walad, and for umm-i-walad, read um-i-walad.

Page 348, line 28, for in the husband's possession, read be in the husband's possession.

Page 401, line 6, for thy business in thy hand, read thy business is in thy hand.

Page 405, line 6, for authorized, read unauthorized.

Page 432, line 10, for or her dower, read on her dower,

LECTURE I

INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE.

Origin of Muhammadan Law-Its basis, viz., Ahádís, Ijmaa, and Kiyás-Text
books, Digests and Commentaries in Arabic-The authors of those works-
The four principal tribes, and the different sects of Musulmáns in general-
The different sects or classes of the Sunnis, their different doctrines, and books
inculcating those doctrines-Translations into Persian and English-Digests
in English-The people to whom Muhammadan Law applies.
HAVING had the honor to be appointed Tagore-Law-
Lecturer by the Senate of the Calcutta University, I have
been asked to deliver lectures on the Muhammadan Law,
"which," to use the words of Sir William Jones, "is
locked up, for the most part, in a very difficult language,
Arabic, which few Europeans will ever learn."* This law
had no existence before Muhammad became a Prophet.
History tells us, that Muhammad was born at Mecca in the
year of Christ 570, and that, after the age of twenty-five
years, he spent much of his time in solitude, making a
lonely cave his abode, where he is said to have been occu-
pied in prayer and meditation. He became a Prophet at
the fortieth year of his age, when, finding his countrymen,
in general, slaves to idolatry, he devoted himself to re-
planting (as he expressed it) the only true and ancient
religion, professed by Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus,
and all the Prophets.† In his endeavours to this end, he
met with the most bitter persecution from the idolators
whose faith he attacked. He was abused, spat upon,

* Vide Preface to Colebrooke's Digest.
+ Vide Sale's Kurán, chapter ii.

B

LECTURE covered with dust, and dragged from the temple of I. Mecca by the hair of his head; but still he assiduously per

severed in his undertaking, and ultimately succeeded in spreading his religion and power over a great portion of the Roman Empire, in converting the people of Persia, in advancing his dominion to the banks of the Indus and the Oxus, and in founding a sect of people that afterwards became the conquerors of India, and are at the present time one of the most numerous, if not the most powerful, races of men on the face of the earth.

Before his time there was no general law of the races inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula. Each tribe was governed by its own laws, and matters in dispute were either referred to the determination of the chief, or (more frequently) decided by an appeal to the sword. The sciences chiefly cultivated by them were-those of their genealogies and history, such knowledge of the stars as to foretell the changes of the weather, and the interpretation of dreams. Their only lasting memorials were the songs of their poets, transmitted orally from age to

*The traditions of the Arabs represent this temple, which they call "Kaaba" (place of worship or devotion), to be almost coeval with the world. It was, they say, first built, under the station of the original Kaaba in heaven, by Adam, who from that period made it his own Kaaba. After his death, his son Seth erected upon the same place a building, which, being destroyed by the deluge, was afterwards re-built by Abraham and his son Ismael, who married a daughter of Modad, a descendant of Jorham, and thus became the progenitor of the Koresh race to which belonged Muhammad as well as many nobles of Arabia, and members of which race now abound in Arabia and are to be found in some other parts of the world. The Koresh obtained possession of the above, and kept it in repair for several generations. In the infancy of Muhammad the old temple having fallen, or being pulled down, a new one was erected on the same foundation and after the same model. Again, in the twenty-fourth year of the Hijrah, the temple in question, sustaining some damage from the zeal of the Musulman reformers, in clearing it of the idols and images of fanatic worship, placed therein by Arabians and Egyptians, was once more pulled down and re-built, as, it now stands, by Abú Yusuf Ibn ul-Hijáj, the then Sharíf of Mecca.-Sec Hidayah, Prel. Disc., p. lvi.