11 FEBRUARY 1888, Page 3

We publish in our correspondence columns to-day a remark- able

paper, being nothing less than an authoritative statement by the Sheikh-nl-Islam himself of the Mahommedan theology as accepted by its modern doctors. This statement, though not, of course, infallible, is nearly as authoritative as would be a summary by the Pope of Catholic theology. It adds, of course, little to the knowledge of students, but even they may be sur- prised at the unhesitating way in which the chief "Expositor of the Faith" asserts the doctrine that God is the cause of evil as well as good. That doctrine follows, no doubt, from the essential proposition of Islam, that God's will makes an action good or evil; but it is not often stated with that defiant nakedness. It will be observed that the Sacred Judge, though saying much of the necessity of obeying revelation, says nothing of the thing revealed, alluding neither to polygamy nor to the doctrine that unbelievers may be coerced into belief. That is natural enough from his point of view, which is, that if God has ordered lying, lying is righteous ; but to Europeans it will seem a cardinal omission.