4 Vide Chardin, ubi supra, p. 212. 5 Chardin, ubi sup. p. 344. 6 Abd'alkâder Mohammed al Ansâri has written a treatise concerning Coffee, wherein he argues for its lawfulness. Vide D'Herbel. Art. Cahvah. 7 Vide Le Traité Historique de l'Origine et du Progrès du Café, à la fin du Voy. de l'Arabie heur. de la Roque. 1 Reland. Dissert. Miscell. t. 2, p. 280. Vide Chardin, Voy. de Perse, t. 2, p. 14 and 66. 2 Vide Chardin, ibid. p. 68, &c., and D'Herbel. p. 200. 3 Vide Prid. Life of Mah. p. 82, &c.; Busbeq. Epist. 3, p. 255; and Maundeville's Travels, p. I, c. 4 Kor. c. 2, p. 23, c. 5, p. 84, and c. 4, p. 59. See Prov. xxiii 29, &c. 5 Levit. x. 9. 6 Numb. vi. 2. 7 Jerem. xxxv. 5 &c. many pious persons among the Jews and primitive Christians, wholly abstained therefrom; nay, some of the latter went so far as to condemn the use of wine as sinful.8 But Mohammed is said to have had a nearer example than any of these, in the more devout persons of his own tribe.9 Gaming is prohibited by the Korân10 in the same passages, and for the same reasons, as wine. The word al Meisar, which is there used, signifies a particular manner of casting lots by arrows, much practised by the pagan Arabs, and performed in the following manner. A young camel being bought and killed, and divided into ten or twenty-eight parts, the persons who cast lots for them, to the number of seven, met for that purpose; and eleven arrows were provided, without heads or feathers, seven of which were marked, the first with one notch, the second with two, and so on, and the other four had no mark at all.11 These arrows were put promiscuously into a bag, and then drawn by an indifferent person, who had another near him to receive them, and to see he acted fairly; those to whom the marked arrows fell won shares in proportion to their lot, and those to whom the blanks fell were entitled to no part of the camel at all, but were obliged to pay the full price of it. The winners, however, tasted not of the flesh, any more than the losers, but the whole was distributed among the poor; and this they did out of pride and ostentation, it being reckoned a shame for a man to stand out, and not venture his money on such an occasion.1 This custom, therefore, though it was of some use to the poor and diversion to the rich, was forbidden by Mohammed2 as the source of great inconveniences, by occasioning quarrels and heart-burnings, which arose from the winners insulting of those who lost. Under the name of lots the commentators agree that all other games whatsoever, which are subject to hazard or chance, are comprehended and forbidden, as dice, cards, tables, &c. And they are reckoned so ill in themselves, that the testimony of him who plays at them, is by the more rigid judged to be of no validity in a court of justice. Chess is almost the only game which the Mohammedan doctors allow to be lawful (though it has been a