A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'

[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 God disburseth his wealth to his kindred; and to the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer, and those who ask, and for ransoming; who observeth the prayer, and payeth alms, and who is of those who are faithful to their engagements when they have engaged in them, and patient under ills and hardships, and in time of trouble, these are they who are just, and these are they who fear the Lord."--Ibid, 172.

[Sidenote: Amount of alms.]

In the place of a fixed amount of alms the Koran only says to give what ye can spare.

"They will ask thee also what shall they bestow in alms:

"Say: What ye can spare."--Ibid, 216, 217.

[Sidenote: Fasts.]

Instead of imposing a very strict fast, which in the middle of summer is extremely mortifying, the Koran makes its observance optional.

"And as for those who are able to keep it and yet observe it not, the expiation of this shall be the maintenance of a poor man. And he who of his own accord performeth a good work, shall derive good from it: and good shall it be for you to fast, if ye knew it."--Ibid, 180.

[Sidenote: No prescribed forms of prayer.]

The Koran does not teach any prescribed forms of worship and other ritualistic prayers. No attitude is fixed, and no outward observance of posture is required. There is no scrupulosity and punctiliousness, neither the change of posture in prayer nor the displacement of a single genuflexion calls any censure on the devotee in the Koran. Simply reading the Koran (Suras LXXIII, 20; XXIX, 44), and bearing God in mind, standing and sitting; reclining (III, 188; IV, 104) or bowing down or prostrating (XXII, 76) is the only form and ritual, if it may be called so, of prayer and worship taught in the Koran.