As has been seen, Mahomet claimed to introduce a wholly new dispensation, and a maxim of his law is that Islam cancels all that preceded it, except, indeed, pecuniary debts; it is not certain that even this exception always held good. Hence his system swept away a number of practices (chiefly connected with the camel) that were associated with pagan superstitions. The most celebrated of these is the arrow-game, a form of gambling for shares in slaughtered camels, to which poetic allusions are very frequent. More important than this was his attitude towards the blood-feud, or system of tribal responsibility for homicide (whether intentional or accidental), whereby one death regularly led to protracted wars, it being considered dishonourable to take blood-money (usually in the form of camels) or to be satisfied with one death in exchange. This system he endeavoured to break down, chiefly by sinking all earlier tribal distinctions in the new brotherhood of Islam; but also by limiting the vengeance to be demanded to such as was no more than the equivalent of the offence committed, and by urging the acceptance of money-compensation instead, or complete forgiveness of the offence. The remembrance of pre-Islamic quarrels was visited by him with condign punishment on those who had embraced Islam; and though it was long before the tribal system quite broke down, even in the great cities which rose in the new provinces, and the old state of things seems to have quickly been resumed in the desert, his legislation on this subject rendered orderly government among Arabs possible. Next in importance to this is the abolition of infanticide, which is condemned even in early Suras of the Koran. The scanty notices which we have of the practice are not altogether consistent; at times we are told that it was confined to certain tribes, and consisted in the burying alive of infant daughters; at other times it is extended to a wider area, and said to have been carried out on males as well as females. After the taking of Mecca this prohibition was included among the conditions of Islam.