tempt in the smallest degree to change them by
a rationalistic selection, abetment or variation would be Islam no
longer." Annals of the Early Caliphate by Sir W. Muir, page 458.]

[Sidenote: Positive precepts.]

[Sidenote: Ceremonial law.]

40. (2) In fact the Koran deals with positive precepts as well as with
principles, but it never teaches a precise system of precepts regulating
in minute details the social relations of life and the ceremonial of
worship. On the contrary, its aim has been to counteract the tendency to
narrowness, formality, and severity which is the consequence of a living
under a rigid system of positive precepts. Mohammad had to transform the
character of the Arab barbarians who had no religious or moral teacher
or a social reformer before his advent. It was therefore necessary to
give them a few positive precepts, moulding and regulating their moral
and social conduct, to make them 'new creatures' with new notions and
new purposes, and to remodel the national life. (3) But lest they should
confuse virtue as identical with obedience to the outward requirements
of the ceremonial law,--the formal ablutions, the sacrifices in
pilgrimages, the prescribed forms of prayers, the fixed amount of alms,
and the strict fasts, the voice of the Koran has ever and anon been
lifted up to declare that a rigid conformity to practical precepts,
whether of conduct or ceremonial, would not extenuate, but rather
increase in the eyes of God the guilt of an unprincipled heart and an
unholy life.

[Sidenote: Pilgrimage.]

Regarding the pilgrimage[156] or the sacrifices (its chief ceremony),
the Koran says:--

"By no means can their flesh reach unto God, neither their blood,
but piety on your part reacheth him. Thus hath he subjected them to
you, that ye might magnify God for his guidance: and announce glad
tidings to the doers of good."--Sura XXII, 38.

[Sidenote: Kibla.]

Regarding the _Kibla_ in prayers it is said in the Koran:--

"The west and the east is God's: therefore whichever way ye turn
there is the face of God."--Sura II, 109.

"All have a quarter of the Heavens to which they turn them; but
wherever ye be, hasten emulously after good."--_Ibid_, 143.

"There is no piety in turning your faces toward the east or west,
but he is pious who believeth in God and the last day, and the
angels and the scripture, and the prophets; who for the love of G