Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - Mohammedanism (1916).djvu/132

 Rh other enjoyments from daybreak until sunset, is at a disadvantage when he has to enter into competition with non-Mussulmans for getting work of any kind. But since most of the Moslims have become subjects of foreign powers and religious police has been practically abolished in Mohammedan states, there is no external compulsion. The ever smaller minority of strict practisers make use of a right which nobody can contest.

Drinking wine or other intoxicating drinks, taking interest on money, gambling—including even insurance contracts according to the stricter interpretation—are things which a Moslim may abstain from without hindering non-Mohammedans; or which in our days he may do, notwithstanding the prohibition of divine law, even without losing his good name.

Those who want to accentuate the antithesis between Islâm and modern civilization point rightly to the personal law; here is indeed a great stumbling-block. The allowance of polygamy up to a maximum of four wives is represented by Mohammedan authors as a progress if compared with the irregularity of pagan Arabia and even with the acknowledgment of unlimited polygamy during certain periods of Biblical history. The following subtle argument is to be found in some schoolbooks on Mohammedan law: The law of Moses was exceedingly benevolent to males by permitting them to have an