ss war
against unbelief, against heresy and ungodly ways of living. While this
is surely no reason for entering into any compromise with doctrines which
depart but a hair's breadth from Qoran and Sunnah, it necessitates methods
of defence against heresy as unknown in Mohammed's time as heresy itself.
"Necessity knows no law" is a principle fully accepted in Islam; and heresy
is an enemy of the faith that can only be defeated with dialectic weapons.
So the religious truths preached by Mohammed have not been altered in
any way; but under the stress of necessity they have been clad in modern
armour, which has somewhat changed their aspect.

Moreover, Islam has a theory, which alone is sufficient to justify the
whole later development of doctrine as well as of law. This theory,
whose importance for the system can hardly be overestimated, and which,
nevertheless, has until very recent times constantly been overlooked by
Western students of Islam, finds its classical expression in the following
words, put into the mouth of Mohammed: "My community will never agree in an
error." In terms more familiar to us, this means that the Mohammedan Church
taken as a whole is infallible; that all the decisions on matters practical
or theoretical, on which it is agreed, are binding upon its members.
Nowhere else is the catholic instinct of Islam more clearly expressed.

A faithful Mohammedan student, after having struggled through a handbook of
law, may be vexed by a doubt as to whether these endless casuistic precepts
have been rightly deduced from the Qoran and the Sacred Tradition. His
doubt, however, will at once be silenced, if he bears in mind that Allah
speaks more plainly to him by this infallible Agreement (_Ijma'_) of the
Community than through Qoran and Tradition; nay, that the contents of both
those sacred sources, without this perfect intermediary, would be to a
great extent unintelligible to him. Even the differences between the
schools of law may be based on this theory of the Ijma'; for, does not the
infallible Agreement of the Community teach us that a certain diversity
of opinion is a merciful gift of God? It was through the Agreement that
dogmatic speculations as well as minute discussions about points of law
became legitimate. The stamp of Ijma' was essential to every rule of faith
and life, to all manners and customs.

All sorts of religious ideas and practices, which could not possibly be
deduced from Mohammed's mess