This decision of the final interpreter of the Mohammedan law
will sound to most Englishmen like some sort of ghastly opera bouffe, but it would be most unwise to treat it altogether in such a spirit. Undoubtedly the Grand Mufti's decision will seem not only good law, but good morals and good religion, to a very considerable portion of the Egyptian population. It is one of the great difficulties against which Mohammedan States struggle that the Sacred Law cannot be altered by a hair's-breadth by orthodox Mohammedans, even though that law commits the true believer to such apppalling paradoxes as those propounded by the Grand Mufti. Curiously enough, however, this fact helps to make many Mohammedans acquiesce contentedly, if not gladly, in British rule. A good Mohammedan may always yield to superior force, and, if other people will take the responsibility of transgressing the Mohammedan law, he need not excite himself about it, but may acquiesce in the social convenience produced by such transgression.
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