5. _Mahommedan Law._--The Mahommedan law is always spoken of by Mahommedans as a sacred law, and as contained in the Koran. But the Koran itself could not have supplied the wants even of the comparatively rude tribes to whom it was first addressed. Still less has it proved sufficient to satisfy the requirements of successive generations. No doubt the great veneration which Mahommedans have for the Koran has caused them to be less progressive than members of other religious creeds. But in human affairs some change is inevitable, and the law of the Koran, like other sacred laws, has had to undergo the supplementary and transforming influence of custom and interpretation, though not of legislation. This direct method of changing the law by human agency, natural and simple as it appears to us, is scarcely acknowledged by Orientals even in the present day, except in the rare instances in which it has been forced upon them by Western authority. But besides custom and interpretation, another influence of a special kind has been brought to bear upon Mahommedan law. Besides those utterances which the Prophet himself announced as the inspired message of God, whatever he was supposed to have said and whatever he was supposed to have done have been relied upon as furnishing a rule for guidance. This tradition (_sunna_) is only to be accepted if it can be traced up to a narrator at first hand, though it would be rash to say that the chain of evidence is always very strong. Mahommedans also, in support of a legal rule for which there is no direct authority, resort to the argument from analogy (_kiyas_). The principle involved in a rule for which authority can be quoted is extended so as to cover other analogous cases. There have also been accepted amongst Mahommedans, as authoritative, certain opinions on points of law delivered by those who were actual companions of the Prophet; these opinions are spoken of collectively under the name of _ijma_. Some of these methods of extending and modifying the law have produced changes which it would be very difficult to reconcile with a strict adherence to the language of the Koran (see the Introduction to the _Corps de Droit Ottoman_, by George Young; Oxford, 1905). The Mahommedans of India generally are Sunnites of the Hanafite school. The two principal authorities on Mahommedan law to which recourse is had by the courts in India are the Hedaya and the Futwa Alumgiri. The Hedaya was translated into English by Mr Hamilton. The Futwa Alumgiri was compiled under the orders of the emperor Aurungzib Alumgir. It is a collection of the opinions of learned Mahommedans on points of law. It has not been translated, but it forms the basis of the _Digest of Mahommedan Law_ compiled by Neil Baillie. The Mahommedan law, like the Hindu law, is a personal law. It is essentially so in its nature. Persons of any other religion are to a large extent outside its pale. And in India, in civil matters, its application has been expressly