The Koran (Al-Qur'an). Anonymous

be maintained for two years, to be computed from the birth of the child; within which time she must not marry, unless the child die, or her milk be dried up.3 Whoredom, in single women as well as married, was, in the beginning Mohammedism, very severely punished; such being ordered to be shut up in prison till they died: but afterwards it was ordained by the Sonna, that an adulteress should be stoned,4 and an unmarried woman guilty of fornication scourged with a hundred stripes, and banished for a year.5 A she-slave, if convicted of adultery, is to suffer but half the punishment of a free woman,6 viz., fifty stripes, and banishment for six months; but is not to be put to death. To convict a woman of adultery, so as to make it capital, four witnesses are expressly required,7 and those, as the commentators say, ought to be men: and if a man falsely accuse a woman of reputation of whoredom of any kind, and is not able to support the charge by that number of witnesses, he is to receive fourscore stripes, and his testimony is to be held invalid for the future.8 Fornication, in either sex, is by the sentence of the Korân to be punished with a hundred stripes.9 If a man accuse his wife of infidelity, and is not able to prove it by sufficient evidence, and will swear four times that it is true, and the fifth time imprecate GOD'S vengeance on him if it be false, she is to be looked on as convicted, unless she will take the like oaths, and make the like imprecation, in testimony of her innocency; which is she do, she is free from punishment, though the marriage ought to be dissolved.10 In most of the last-mentioned particulars the decisions of the Korân also agree with those of the Jews. By the law of Moses, adultery, whether in a married women or a virgin betrothed, was punished with death; and the man who debauched them was to suffer the same punishment.1 The penalty of simple fornication was scourging, the

      8 Ibid. c. 33. 9 Ibid. c. 2, p. 25. 1 Ibid. c. 2, p. 25, and c. 65. 2 Mishna, tit. Yabimoth, c. 4. Gemar. Babyl. ad eund. tit. Maimon. in Halach. Girushin, Shylhan Aruch, part iii. 3 Mishna, and Gemara, and Maimon. ubi supra. Gem. Babyl. ad tit. Cetuboth, c. 5, and Jos. Karo, in Shylhân Aruch, c. 50, § 2. Vide Selden, Ux. Hebr. l. 2, c. II, and l. 3, c. 10, in fin. 4 And the adulterer also, according to a passage once extant in the Korân, and still in force, as some suppose. See the notes to Kor. c. 3, p. 34, and the Prel. Disc. p. 52. 5 Kor. c. 4, p. 55. See the notes there. 6 Ibid. p. 57. 7 Ibid. p. 55. 8 Ibid. c. 24. 9 Ibid. This law relates not to married people, as Selden supposes; Ux. Heb. l. 3, c. 12. 10 Ibid. p. 288. See the notes there. 1 Levit. xx. 10; Deut. xxii. 22. The kind of death to be inflicted on adulterers, in common cases being not expressed, the Talmudists generally suppose it to be strangling, which they think is designed wherever the phrase "shall be put to death," or "shall die the death," is used, as they imagine stoning is by the expression, "his blood shall be upon him;" and hence it has been concluded by some that the woman taken in adultery mentioned in the Gospel (John viii.) was a betrothed maiden, because such a one and her accomplice were plainly ordered to be stoned (Deut. xxii. 23, 24). But the ancients seem to have been of a different opinion,

      general punishment in cases where none is particularly appointed: and a betrothed bondmaid, if convicted of adultery, underwent the same punishment, being exempted from death, because she was not free.2 By the same law no person was to be put to death on the oath of one witness:3 and a man who slandered his wife was also to be chastised, that is scourged, and fined one hundred shekels of silver.4 The method of trying a woman suspected of adultery where evidence was wanting, by forcing her to drink the bitter water of jealousy,5 though disused by the Jews long before the time of Mohammed,6 yet, by reason of the oath of cursing with which the woman was charged, and to which she was obliged to say "Amen," bears great resemblance to the expedient devised by that prophet on the like occasion. The institutions of Mohammed relating to the pollution of women during their courses,7 the taking of slaves to wife,8 and the prohibiting of marriage within certain degrees,9 have likewise no small affinity with the institutions of Moses;10 and the parallel might be carried farther in several other particulars. As to the prohibited degrees, it may be observed, that the pagan Arabs abstained from marrying their mothers, daughters, and aunts both on the father's side and on the mother's, and held it a most scandalous thing to marry two sister, or for a man to take his father's wife;11 which last was, notwithstanding, too frequently practised,12 and is expressly forbidden in the Korân.13 Before I leave the subject of marriages, it may be proper to take notice of some peculiar privileges in relation thereto, which were granted by GOD to Mohammed, as he gave out, exclusive of all other Moslems. One of them was, that he might lawfully marry as many wives and have as many concubines as he pleased, without being confined to any particular number;1 and this he pretended to have been the privilege of the prophets before him. Another was, that he might alter the turns of his wives, and take such of them to his bed as he thought fit, without being tied to that order and equality which others are obliged to observe.2 A third privilege was, that no man might marry any of his wives,3 either such as he should divorce during his lifetime, or such as he should leave widows at his death: which last particular exactly agrees with what the Jewish doctors have determined concerning the wives of their princes; it being judged by them to be a thing very indecent, and for that reason unlawful, for another to marry either the divorced wife or the widow of a king;4 and Mohammed, it seems, thought an equal respect, at least, due to the prophetic as to the regal dignity, and therefore ordered that his relicts should pass the remainder of their lives in perpetual widowhood.

      and to have understood stoning to be the punishment of adulterers in general. Vide Selden, Ux. Hebr. l. 3, c. 11 and 12. 2 Levit. xix. 20. 3 Deut. xix. 15, xvii. 6, and Numb. xxxv. 30. 4 Deut. xxii. 13–19. 5 Numb. v. 11, &c. 6 Vide Selden, ubi sup. l. 3, c. 15, and Leon. Modena, de' Riti Hebraici, parte iv. c. 6. 7 Kor. c. 2, p. 23. 8 Ibid. c. 4, p. 53 and 57, &c. 9 Ibid. p. 56 10 See Levit. xv. 24, xviii. 19, and xx. 18; Exod. xxi. 8–11; Deut. xxi. 10–14; Levit. xviii. and xx. 11 Abulfed. Hist. Gen. al Shahrestani, apud Poc. Spec. p. 321 and 338. 12 Vide Poc. ibid. p. 337, &c. 13 Cap. 4, p. 56. 1 Kor. c. 33. See also c. 66, and the notes there. 2 Kor. c. 33. See the notes there. 3 Ibid. 4 Mishna, tit. Sanhedr. c. 2, and Gemar, in eund. tit. Maimon. Halachoth Melachim, c. 2. Vide Selden, Ux. Hebr. l. I, c. 10. Prid. Life of Mah. p. 118.

      The laws of the Korân concerning inheritances are also in several respects conformable to those of the Jews, though principally designed to abolish certain practices of the pagan Arabs, who used to treat widows and orphan children with great injustice, frequently denying them any share in the inheritance of their fathers or their husbands, on pretence that the same ought to be distributed among those only who were able to bear arms, and disposing of the widows, even against their consent, as part of their husbands' possessions.5 To prevent such injuries for the future, Mohammed ordered that women should be respected, and orphans have no wrong done them; and in particular that women should not be taken against their wills, as by right of inheritance, but should themselves be entitled to a distributive part of what their parents, husbands, and near relations should leave behind them, in a certain proportion.6 The general rule to be observed in the distribution of the deceased's estate is, that a male shall have twice as much as a female:1 but to this rule there are some few exceptions; a man's parents, for example, and also his brothers and sisters, where they are entitled not to the whole, but a small part of the inheritance, being to have equal shares with one another in the distribution thereof, without making any difference on account of sex.2 The particular proportions, in several cases, distinctly and sufficiently declare the intention of Mohammed; whose decisions expressed in the Korân3 seem to be pretty equitable, preferring a man's children first, and then his nearest relations. If a man dispose of any part of his estate by will, two witnesses, at the least, are required to render the same valid; and such witnesses ought to be of his own tribe, and of the Mohammedan religion, if such can be had.4 Though there be no express law to the contrary, yet the Mohammedan doctors reckon it very wrong for a man to give away any part of his substance from his family, unless it be in legacies for pious uses; and even in that case a man ought not to give all he has in charity, but only a reasonable part in proportion to his substance. On the other hand, though a man make no will, and bequeath nothing for charitable uses, yet the heirs are directed, on the distribution of the estate, if the value will permit, to bestow something on the poor, especially such as are of kin to the deceased, and to the orphans.5 The first law, however, laid down by Mohammed touching inheritances, was not very equitable; for he declared that those who had fled with him from Mecca, and those who had received and assisted him at Medina, should be deemed the nearest of kin, and consequently heirs to one another, preferably to and in exclusion of their relations by blood; nay, though