These and the other institutions of Islam form an integral part of its teaching. They are bound up in the Corân, the charter of its existence. A re-formed 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, abatement, or variation, would be Islam no longer. That they tend to keep the professors of the Moslem faith in a backward, and in some respects a barbarous state, cannot be doubted. It is still true that, as at Damascus, Baghdad, and Cordova, an era of great magnificence has at times prevailed. Commerce and speculation (notwithstanding the ban placed by the Corân on the receipt of interest) prospered; the arts of peace were cultivated; travel and intercourse promoted liberality of national sentiment: learning and literature advanced apace. But it was all short-lived, because superficial. Civilisation did not penetrate the family. It failed to leaven domestic life. The canker-worm of polygamy, divorce, servile concubinage and the veil, lay at the root. And society, withering under the influence of these, soon relapsed into barbarism again. [Sidenote: The Caliphate a thing of the past.] To speak of the Caliphate as existing, or likely ever again to exist, in modern times, is but a dream of the past, a fond anachronism. The conditions which rendered the Caliphate possible, have been exhausted long centuries ago, and are beyond the possibility of resuscitation. [Sidenote: Islam may prosper apart from political ascendency.] The political ascendency of Islam is doomed. Every year witnesses a sensible degree of subsidence. In the close connection of the Moslem faith with the civil power, this cannot but in some measure affect the prestige of Islam itself. Nevertheless, the religion may long retain its hold upon the people, unimpaired by the decline of its sway in the State. [Sidenote: Conclusion.] As regards the spiritual, social, and dogmatic aspect of Islam, there has been neither progress nor material change since the third century of the Hegira. Such as we found it to have been then, such is it also at the present day. The nations may advance in civilisation and morality, in philosophy, science, and the arts; but Islam stands still. And thus stationary, so far as the lessons of this history avail, it will remain. INDEX. Aámir, _Beni_, 26 Abbâs, prays for rain, 233 Abbassides, 432, 448, 450 _et seq._ Abd al Cays, _Beni_, 51, 360 Abdallah Abbâs (_see_ Ibn Abbâs) Abdallah, son of Abu Bekr, 65 „ „ Hosein, 440 „ „ Khâlid, 37, 319 „ „ Omar, 46, 281, 287, 288, 325, 355, 392, 394, 430, 434 Abdallah, son of Zobeir (_see_ Ibn Zobeir) Abd al Malik, 446, 447 Abd al Masîh, 80, 82 Abd al Rahmân, first Caliph in Spain, 449