The forty paragraphs arranged on pp. 133-144, contain, it is believed,
all the definite ordinances of Mohammad as set forth in the Medina
speeches, with the exception of some regulations relating to women. The
bulk of the Medina speeches are indeed rather collections of separate
decisions or “rulings” put together for convenience of reference by
the Muslims themselves than separate and complete orations. But as
the practical teaching is interspersed with frequent and verbose
prophetical legends of the kind with which the reader is already
perhaps only too familiar and with animadversions on the political
parties of Medina, and similar ephemeral matters, it has been thought
best to extract the marrow of these lengthy and composite harangues,
and place them in some sort of connected order. Chapter II., for
instance, “The Cow,” contains 286 verses; the first half is filled with
the usual arguments and illustrations, and the old stories about Adam
and Moses; whilst the second half contains a certain number of laws
and precepts mixed with many repetitions of the proofs and appeals to
reason which occur in most of the preceding speeches: altogether, 29
verses out of 286 are needed for the purpose of showing what Mohammad
actually prescribed in civil and religious law. For an account of the
modern interpretation of this law, see LANE’S _Modern Egyptians_,
5th ed. Ch. III.; SELL’S _Faith of Islam_; and HUGHES’ _Notes on
Mohammadanism_, 2d ed. 1877.
P. 134. _Observe the prayer, and the middle prayer._ It is not easy to
make out the five daily prayers of Islam in the Korān. In the speech
entitled “Hūd” (Mekka, Third Period, xi. 116) it is enjoined: “Observe
prayer at two ends of the day, and at two parts of the night”; and
again, in “T. H.” (xx. 130), the praises of God are to be celebrated
“before the rising of the sun and before its setting, and at times
of the night and at the ends of the day”; and in “The Greeks” (xxx.
17) praise is ordained “in the evening and in the morning, and at
the evening and at noon.” The Muslim commentators differ as to the
application of these injunctions to the five times of prayer recognized
throughout the Mohammadan world; which are (1) just after sunset, (2)
at nightfall, (3) at daybreak, (4) just after noon, and (5) in the
middle of the afternoon.
_Turn thy face towards the Sacred Mosque_: _i.e._ towards the Kaaba of
Mekka. Originally Mohammad placed the Kibla, or direction of prayer,
at Jerusalem; but after his disagreement with the Jews of Medina he
reverted to the old Mekkan temple as the focus of Islām.
P. 135. It is enacted (ii. 183) that the fast is to be observed from
the time when you can distinguish a white thread from a black thread in
the morning, till night; but from nightfall till dawn the Muslim may
eat and drink and enjoy himself.
P. 136. _Make mention of God’s name over the beasts_: _i.e._ Sacrifice
them, saying, “In the name of God.”
P. 140. The Korān contains a list of prohibited degrees (“Women,”
iv. 26, 27), which comprises mothers and stepmothers, daughters,
sisters, aunts, nieces, fostermothers, fostersisters, mothers-in-law,
stepdaughters, daughters-in-law, and two sisters, and other men’s wives.
P. 142. _Keep the women in houses._ Immuring was afterwards changed to
stoning both the man and the woman.