[Sidenote: Social Morality]
The social morality of Islam is—notwithstanding the marriage
laws—very high, and is guided by such virtues as these: modesty,
honesty, kindness and brotherliness. When Muhammad fled from Mecca
with his followers, and settled in Madina, the little community was
a commonwealth, and that ideal has been retained in wonderful manner
throughout the centuries and the far wanderings. There is no caste
in Islam, neither the Eastern nor the Western form of that system.
Each man stands in the same relation to the God Who rules him, and
the consequent brotherhood is a very real thing. Poor and rich are
not divided, to be poor is in itself a claim, and if a poor man comes
to a rich man for aid, the rich man regards it as a favour. The laws
of hospitality are most noble; strangers are assured in any Muslim
house of a welcome, a meal, a rest, and if need be, even of clothing.
Hospitality is an act of worship.
The aged are held in a beautiful reverence; the poor, and especially
the orphan, is cared for as a religious duty; in the home the
patriarchal system still rules, the servant is a part of the family,
and is treated with kindness.—Is he not a brother in the Faith?
The position of woman remains as it was left by Muhammad thirteen
hundred years ago—for there is no growth in Islam—and it is not easy
to define it. On the one hand is the marriage law, which gives to the
husband full power over his wife or wives; on the other, the property
law, which grants to a woman holding property in her own right,
absolute control over it. In the latter respect, therefore, the law
of Islam is in advance of the law of Great Britain. I have known the
curious anomaly of a woman whose person was at the mercy of a brutal
drunken wretch, whom she yet held in some degree in check through his
dependence upon her for the means with which to live his chosen life.