to contribute to what was inside the covers. Islamic law was re-
garded as of speculative rather than of practical interest and
received attention from a relatively few specialists and scholars.
But a review of the reasons we have deemed such knowledge too
alien to be useful to us may show that they really are reasons why
we should abandon the smug belief that the Muslim experience
has nothing to teach us. This comprehensive and authoritative
exposition of "Law in the Middle East" ought to dispel that im-
pression wherever it still exists.

In any broad sense, Islamic law offers the American lawyer a
study in dramatic contrasts. Even casual acquaintance and super-
ficial knowledge--all that most of us at bench or bar will be able
to acquire--reveal that its striking features relative to our law are
not likenesses but inconsistencies, not similarities but contrarie-
ties. In its source, its scope and its sanctions, the law of the Middle
East is the antithesis of Western law. We may find divergence in
legal experience as instructive as parallelism if instead of allowing
it to repel our inquiry we accept it as a challenge to understanding.

To the American, the most fundamental of differences lies in
the relation between law and religion. In the West, even those
countries which do not accept the idea of rigid separation of
church and state still regard the legal system as mainly a secular
concern in which expediency plays a large part. Of course, reli-
gious influences have been powerful in shaping the law. The
Hebrew law of the Pentateuch, the teachings of Christ, the canon
law--each has contributed to our legal thought. In earlier times it
was not uncommon to draw influential statesmen, chancellors and
legislators from the ranks of the churchmen. But, in spite of all
this, the law has remained a temporal affair, the legislatures for its
making and the courts for its enforcement--worldly institutions,
identified with and responsible to the state and not the church.
Hence, our American law does not prescribe religious duties; in-
deed, it consciously omits them. It does not make more than a
limited approach to enforcing ethical duties. Indeed, one may at
the same time be a law-abiding citizen and a thoroughly shabby
character.

Islamic law, on the contrary, finds its chief source in the will of
Allah as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. It contemplates one
community of the faithful, though they may be of various tribes
and in widely separated locations. Religion, not nationalism or
geography, is the proper cohesive force. The state itself is subordi-
nate to the Qur'ān, which leaves little room for additional legisla-

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