meet any case and to which all cases must be adjusted by legal fiction or equity, the conception which we owe to the genius and experience of the Roman lawyers, was foreign to his thought. From time to time he got into difficulties. A revelation proved too wide or too narrow, or left out some important possibility. Then there came another to supplement or correct, or even to set the first quite aside—Muhammad had no scruples about progressive revelation as applied to himself. Thus, through these interpretive acts, as we may call them, many flat contradictions have come into the Qur'an and have proved the delight of generations of Muslim jurisconsults.

Such, then, was the state of things legal in al-Madina during the ten years of Muhammad's rule there until his death in A.D. 632. Of law there was, strictly speaking, none. In his decisions, Muhammad could follow certainly the customary law of the town; but to do so there was no necessity upon him other than prudence, for his authority was absolute. Yet even with such authority and such freedom, his task was a hard one. The Jews, the native Arabs of al-Madina, and his fellow fugitives from Mecca lived in more or less of friction. He had to see to it that his decisions did not bring that friction to the point of throwing the whole community into a flame. The Jews, it is true, were soon eliminated, but the influence of their law lasted in the customary law of the town long after they themselves had become insignificant. Still, with all this, the suitor before Muhammad had no certainty on what basis his claims would be judged; whether it would be the old law of

the town, or a rough equity based on Muhammad's own ideas, or a special revelation ad hoc. So far, then, we may be said to have the three elements—common law, equity, legislation. Legal fiction we shall meet later; Muhammad had no need of it.

But with the death of Muhammad in A.D. 632 the situation was completely changed. We can now speak of Muslim law; legislation plays no longer any part; the process of collecting, arranging, correlating, and developing has begun. Consider the situation as it must have presented itself to one of the immediate successors of Muhammad as he sat in his place and judged the people. When a case came up for decision, there were several sources from which a law in point might be drawn. First among them was the Qur'an. It had been collected from the fragmentary state in which Muhammad had left it by Abu Bakr, his first Khalifa, some two years after his death. Again, some ten years later, it was revised and given forth in a final public recension by Uthman the third Khalifa. This was the absolute word of God—thoughts and language—and stood and, in theory, still stands first of all sources for theology and law. If it contained a law clearly applying to the case in hand there was no more to be said; divine legislation had settled the matter. If not, recourse was next had to the decisions of the Prophet. Had a similar one come before him, and how had he ruled? If the Memories of the Companions of the Prophet, the Sahibs, could adduce nothing similar from one of his decisions, then the judge had to look further for an authority. But the decisions of Muhammad had