In his fascinating book, _The Life and Teachings of Mohamed_, Mr. Ameer Ali has admirably summed up the Islamic teachings:--“Nothing can be simpler or more in accord with the advance of the human intellect than the teachings of the Arabian prophet. The few rules for religious ceremonial which he prescribed were chiefly with the object of maintaining discipline and uniformity, so necessary in certain stages of society, but they were by no means of an inflexible character. He allowed them to be broken in cases of illness or other causes. ‘God wishes to make things easy for you, for’ says the Qur´an ‘man was created weak.’ The legal principles which he enunciated were either delivered as answers to questions put to him as the Chief Magistrate of Medina or to remove or correct patent evils. The prophet’s Islam recognized no ritual likely to distract the mind from the thought of the one God, no law to keep enchained the conscience of advancing humanity.” Nothing was more distant from the prophet’s thought than to fetter the mind or to lay down fixed, immutable, unchanging laws for his followers. The Qur´an is a book of guidance to the faithful and not, to be sure, an obstacle in the path of their social, moral, legal and intellectual progress. The requirements of Islam are at once easy and simple and leave scope to Muslims to take part in their duties as subjects or citizens; to attend to their religious obligations without sacrificing their worldly prosperity and to adopt, whatever is good, in any community or civilisation, without any interference on the part of their religion. FOOTNOTES: [14] _Life and Teachings of Mohamed_ p. 226 Prof. Hirschfeld p. 14. [15] Gibbon, Bury’s Ed. Vol. V. p. 339. [16] Goldziher, _Muhammedanische Studien_. Vol. I. The chapter on Muruwwa und Din; Nicholson, _Literary History of the Arabs_ pp. 177-179; Browne _Literary History of Persia_ pp. 189 et Seq. [17] _Life and Teachings of Mohamed_ p. 263. [18] Margoliouth _Life of Mohamed_ p. 102. [19] Ibn Sad, Vol. IV. Part I. p. 159. [20] In Lane’s _Arabian Society in the Middle Ages_ the reader will find a detailed account of religious institutions of Islam pp. 1-24. [21] Vol. I. p. 10. [22] Surah. II. 3, 43, 83, 110, 177, 277, etc. [23] Von Kremer, Vol. I. p. 50. [24] Lane, _Arabian Society_ p. 14. IV.