The actual legal residue in the Medina chapters is singularly small. Chapters ii., iv., and v., contain nearly all the law of the Korān; but it must be allowed they are very long chapters, and form nearly a tenth part of it. Their practical import,--the definite ruling of Mohammad on dogmatic, ritual, civil, and criminal matters,--is collected in pp. 133-144, and need not be repeated here. The conclusion, however, is worth pointing clearly. The Korān does not contain, even in outline, the elaborate ritual and complicated law which now passes under the name of Islām. It contains merely those decisions which happened to be called for at Medina. Mohammad himself knew that it did not provide for every emergency, and recommended a principle of analogical deduction to guide his followers when they were in doubt. This analogical deduction has been the ruin of Islām. Commentators and jurists have set their nimble wits to work to extract from the Korān legal decisions which an ordinary mind could never discover there; and the whole structure of modern Mohammadanism has been built upon this foundation of sand. The Korān is not responsible for it. There is, however, another source of information about Mohammad’s teaching and practice which is largely responsible for the present form of the once simple creed of Mekka. Besides the public speeches which were held to be directly inspired by God, and indeed copied from a book supposed to exist in the handwriting of God,--the chapters of the Korān,--there were many sayings of Mohammad which were said in a private unofficial way in his circle of intimate friends, and which were almost as carefully treasured up as the others. These are the Traditions, or as I may call them, the Table-Talk of Mohammad, for they correspond more nearly to what we mean by table-talk than any other form of composition. The Table-Talk of Mohammad deals with the most minute and delicate circumstances of life, and is much more serviceable to the lawyer than the Korān itself. The sayings are very numerous and very detailed; but how far they are genuine it is not easy to determine. The Korān is known beyond any doubt to be at this moment, in all practical respects, identical with the prophet’s words as collected immediately after his death. How it was edited and collected may be read elsewhere. The only point to be here insisted on is that its genuineness is above suspicion. Unfortunately, as much cannot be said for the Traditions. They were collected at a late period, subjected to a totally useless and preposterous criticism, and thus reduced from 600,000 to 7275, without becoming in the least more trustworthy in the process. It is almost impossible now to sift them with any certainty. All we can go upon is internal evidence, and a few obvious contradictions in date--as when people relate things which they apparently heard before they were born. Beyond this, criticism is helpless, and all we can do is what I have done here--to collect