l direction from heaven required that four witnesses should
swear positively to the _fact_.

Ayesha and her paramour were, of course, acquitted, and the
witnesses, being less than four, received the same punishment which
would have been inflicted upon the criminals had the fact been proved
by the direct testimony of the prescribed number--that is, eighty
stripes of the 'kora', almost equal to a sentence of death. (See
Koran, chap. 24, and chap. 4.)[7] This became the law among all
Muhammadans. Ayesha's father succeeded Muhammad, and Omar succeeded
Abu Bakr.[8] Soon after his accession to the throne, Omar had to sit
in judgement upon Mughira, a companion of the prophet, the governor
of Basrah,[9] who had been accidentally seen in an awkward position
with a lady of rank by four men while they sat in an adjoining
apartment. The door or window which concealed the criminal parties
was flung open by the wind, at the time when they wished it most to
remain closed. Three of the four men swore directly to the point.
Mughira was Omar's favourite, and had been appointed to the
government by him, Zaid, the brother of one of the three who had
sworn to the fact, hesitated to swear to the entire fact.

'I think', said Omar, 'that I see before me a man whom God would not
make the means of disgracing one of the companions of the holy
prophet.'

Zaid then described circumstantially the most unequivocal position
that was, perhaps, ever described in a public court of justice; but,
still hesitating to swear to the entire completion of the crime, the
criminals were acquitted, and his brother and the two others received
the punishment described. This decision of the _Brutus of his age_
and country settled the law of evidence in these matters; and no
Muhammadan judge would now give a verdict against any person charged
with adultery, without the four witnesses to the _entire fact_. No
man hopes for a conviction for this crime in our courts; and, as he
would have to drag his wife or paramour through no less than three--
that of the police officer, the magistrate, and the judge--to seek
it, he has recourse to poison, either secretly or with his wife's
consent. She will commonly rather die than be turned out into the
streets a degraded outcast. The seducer escapes with impunity, while
his victim suffers all that human nature is capable of enduring.
Where husbands are in the habit of poisoning their guilty wives from
the want of _legal_ means o