Again, the code
containing these injunctions, social and ceremonial, as well as
doctrinal and didactic, is embodied with every particularity of detail,
as part of the divine law, in the Koran; and so defying, as sacrilege,
all human touch, it stands unalterable forever. From the stiff and rigid
shroud in which it is thus swathed the religion of Mohammed cannot
emerge. It has no plastic power beyond that exercised in its earliest
days. Hardened now and inelastic, it can neither adapt itself nor yet
shape its votaries, nor even suffer them to shape themselves to the
varying circumstances, the wants and developments, of mankind.
[Sidenote: Local ceremonies: pilgrimage.
Fast of Ramzan.]
We may judge of the local and inflexible character of the faith from one
or two of its ceremonies. To perform the pilgrimage to Mecca and Mount
Arafat, with the slaying of victims at Mina, and the worship of the
Kaaba, is an ordinance obligatory (with the condition only that they
have the means) on all believers, who are bound to make the journey even
from the furthest ends of the earth--an ordinance intelligible enough in
a local worship, but unmeaning and impracticable when required of a
world-wide religion.
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