Almsgiving was originally compulsory, and the tax was collected by the officers of the Khalif; but now the Muslim is merely expected to give voluntarily about a fortieth part of his income in charity each year. The great fast of Ramaḍán is too well known to need more than a passing mention here; but it is not so well known that Moḥammad, ascetic as he was himself in this as in many other matters, whilst he ordained the month of fasting for the chastening of his able-bodied followers, was a determined enemy to useless mortification of the flesh, and boldly affirmed that God took no pleasure in a man’s wantonly injuring himself; and so if one that was weakly and sick could not keep the fast without bodily detriment he was to omit it. And the same wise leniency was shown by the Arab prophet in respect of prayer,—which may be curtailed or omitted in certain cases,—and with regard to the pilgrimage, which no one was to perform to his hurt. This same pilgrimage is often urged as a sign of Moḥammad’s tendency to superstition and even idolatry. It is asked how the destroyer of idols could have reconciled his conscience to the circuits of the Kaạbeh and the veneration of the black stone covered with adoring kisses. The rites of the pilgrimage cannot certainly be defended against the charge of superstition; but it is easy to see why Moḥammad enjoined them. They were hallowed to him by the memories of his ancestors, who had been the guardians of the sacred temple, and by the traditional reverence of all his people; and besides this tie of association, which in itself was enough to make it impossible for him to do away with the rites, Moḥammad perceived that the worship in the Kaạbeh would prove of real value to his religion. He swept away the more idolatrous and immoral part of the ceremonies, but he retained the pilgrimage to Mekka and the old veneration of the temple for reasons of which it is impossible to dispute the wisdom. He well knew the consolidating effect of forming a centre to which his followers should gather; and hence he reasserted the sanctity of the black stone that ‘came down from Heaven;’ he ordained that everywhere throughout the world the Muslim should pray looking towards the Kaạbeh, and he enjoined him to make the pilgrimage thither. Mekka is to the Muslim what Jerusalem is to the Jew. It bears with it all the influence of centuries of associations. It carries the Muslim back to the cradle of his faith, the childhood of his prophet; it reminds him of the struggle between the old faith and the new, of the overthrow of the idols, and the establishment of the worship of the One God. And, most of all, it bids him remember that all his brother Muslims are worshipping towards the same sacred spot; that he is one of a great company of believers, united by one faith, filled with the same hopes, reverencing the same things, worshipping the same God. Moḥammad showed his knowledge of the religious emotions in man when he preserved the