Divorce is a comparatively light matter with the Mohammedans. Twice, a man may send away his wife and take her back again without any ceremony; the third thee, how ever—if he unite the triple divorce in one sentence at once—he dare not receive her again in wedlock until she have been married properly to another man in the meantime. Mere dislike is sufficient reason for a man to dissolve the conjugal ties, and his saying: "Thou art divorced," or "1 divorce thee," together with the payment of part of the wife's dowry, is all that is required from him by the law. A wife, on the other hand, is bound to her husband forever, unless she can prove some flagrant ill-usage or neglect of conjugal duty on his part; and, even then, she forfeits part, or the whole, of her dowry. A divorced woman is obliged to wait, like a widow, for a certain period before marrying again: if pregnant, until delivery; three months, or four months and ten days, according to circumstances. If she have a young child, she is to suckle it until it be two years old, and the father is to bear all the expenses of the maintenance of mother and child. A woman proving disobedient to her husband, may be declared by the kadi " nashizeh," i.e. rebellious, and the husband is no longer bound to maintain her. Yet, be cannot be forced to divorce her under these circumstances, so that the woman is gen erally in so sore a plight that she is obliged to promise good behavior for the future, and the husband has then either to take her back to his house, or to set her free by a formal divorce. On the other hand, it often happens that a woman prefers a mere separation, to continuing to live with her husband; in which case she gets herself, of her own accord, inscribed a " ntishizeh." If a slave becomes a mother by her master, and lie acknowledges the child to be his own, the latter is free, and the mother is to be emanci pated at the master's death, and may not be given away, or otherwise disposed of by him, during his lifetime. A free person, wishing to marry his or her slave, must first emancipate this slave; and if the slave of another person has been married by a free man or woman, and afterward becomes the latter's property, the marriage becomes illegal. and can only be renewed by a legal contract and emancipation.
The privilege of prhnogeniture does not exist in the Mohammedan law, but males generally receive a double share. A person may not bequeath more than one-third of his property, unless there be no legal heirs. Children, whether begotten with the legal wife, or slave, or concubine, or only adopted and their descendants, are the first heirs; next come the claims of wives, parents, brothers, sisters, in their order. Where there is no legal heir, the property falls to the crown.
The law is very lenient toward debtors, the Koran recommending the creditor to remit a debt " as alms." Insolvency and inability to work for the discharge of the claim, solve all further obligations. Vhe most conscientious performance of all private con tracts, however, is constantly recommended in the Koran.
Murder is either punished with death, or by the payment of a to the family of the deceased, according to their own pleasure. There must, however, be palliating circum stances in the latter case. The Bedouins, however, have expanded the law of blood revenge in a terrible manner, and up to this day the "vendetta" often rages not only between family and family, but between whole tribes, villages, and provinces. Unin tentional homicide is expiated by freeing a believer from slavery, and paying to the family a certain sum in proportion to the rank and sex of the deceased. he who has not the means of freeing a believer, is to fast for two months by way of penance. According to the strict letter of the law, a man is not liable to capital punishment for killing his own child or an infidel; but, practically, no difference is generally made by the Mohammedan governments (chiefly the Turkish) in our day. Murder is punished with death, and no fine frees the culprit.
The Mosaic law of retaliation, in case of intentional wounds and mutilation, holds good also for Islam; that is (not, as has ignorantly been supposed, that the corresponding limb of the offender is to be cut off), a certain proportionate fine in money is to be paid to the injured. The payment for any of the single limbs of the human body—e.g. the
nose—is the full price of blood, as for a homicide; for a limb which is found twice, like hand or foot, half; for a finger or toe, the tenth part, etc. Women and slaves have smaller claim's. Injuries of a dangerous, or otherwise grievous nature, pay the full price; those of an inferior kind, however, bring the perpetrator within the province of the lash or cudgel, which is supposed to have " come down from heaven, to be used by the judge for the promotion of virtue and duty." The Koran orders theft—of no less than the value of half a crown—to be punished by cutting off the chief offending limb: the right hand; the second theft is punishable by the loss of the left foot; the third, of the left hand; the fourth, of the right foot, etc.; but the ordinary punishments of imprisonment, hard labor, and the bastinado, have been sub stituted in our days. , must not,;hop.ever, have been of easy access to the thief, nor must' it have consisted of .food, SinCithe'rnity this to satisfy the craving of his hunger Unchastity on the part of a woman was, in the commencement of Islam, punished by imprisonment for life, for which afterward, however, stoning was substituted in the case of a married woman; and a hundred stripes and a year's exile in the case of an unmarried free woman; a slave to undergo only half of that punishment. Yet, it is neces sary that he who accuses a " woman of reputation" of adultery or fornication, shall pro duce four (male) witnesses, and if he be not able to do so, he is to receive fourscore stripes, nor is his testimony ever after to be received, for he is considered an "infamous prevaricator"—unless he swear four times that lie speaks the truth, and the fifth time imprecate God's vengeance if he speak false. Yet, even this testimony may be over thrown by the wife's swearing four times that he is a liar, and imprecating the fifth time the wrath of God upon herself, if he speak the truth. In the latter case, she is free from punishment; the marriage, however, is to be dissolved. FOrnication in either sex is, by the law of the Koran, to be visited with a hundred stripes, Infidelity, or apostacy from Islam, is a crime to be visited by the death of the offen der, if he have been warned thrice without recanting. Severer still, that is, not to be averted by repentance or revocation of any kind, is the punishment inflicted for blas phemy—against God, Mohammed, Christ, Moses, or any other prophet. Instantaneous death is the doom of the offender; for if apostacy may be caused by error and misguid ance. " blasphemy is the sign of complete wickedness and thorough corruption of the soul." A further injunction of the Koran. for the carrying out of which, however, the time has well-nigh gone by, is that of making war against the infidels. He who is slain while fighting in defense and for the propagation of Islam, is reckoned a martyr; while a deserter from the holy war is held up as an object of execration, and has forfeited his life in this world as well as in the world to come. At first, all the enemies taken in battle were ruthlessly slain; later, however, it became the law to give the people of a different faith against whom war was declared the choice of three things; either to embrace Islam—in which case they became Moslems at once, free in their persons and fortunes, and entitled to all the privileges of Moskins; or to submit to pay tribute—in which case they were allowed to continue in their religion, if it did not imply gross idolatry or otherwise offended against the moral law; or to decide the quarrel by the fortune of war —in which case the captive women and chiMren were made slaves, and the men either slain, unless they became converts at the last moment, or otherwise disposed of by the prince. The fifth part of the spoil belongs "to God," that is, the sanctuary (Kaaba, etc.), to the apostle and Iris kindred, to the orphans, the poor, and the traveler.