the present day. The collected body of teaching acquired from these
sources is called the Sheriat (in Turkey the Sheriati Sherifeh) and is
the canon law of Islam. Nor is it lawful that this should be gainsaid;
while the Imams themselves may not inaptly be compared to the fathers of
our Christian Church. It is a dogma, too, with the Sunites that they are
not only an ecclesiastical but a political body, and that among them is
the living representative of the temporal power of the Prophet, in the
person of his Khalifeh or successor, though there is much division of
opinion as to the precise line of succession in the past and the
legitimate ownership of the title in the present. But this is too
intricate and important a matter to be entered on at present.

The Sunites are then the body of authority and tradition, and being more
numerous than the other three sects put together in a proportion of four
and a half to one, have a good right to treat these as heretics. It must
not, however, be supposed that even the Sunites profess absolutely
homogeneous opinions. The path of Orthodox Islam is no macadamised road
such as the Catholic Church of Christendom has become, but like one of
its own Haj routes goes winding on, a labyrinth of separate tracks, some
near, some far apart, some clean out of sight of the rest. All lead, it
is true, in the same main direction, and here and there in difficult
ground where there is a mountain range to cross or where some defile
narrows they are brought together, but otherwise they follow their own
ways as the idiosyncrasy of race and disposition may dictate. There is
no common authority in the world acknowledged as superior to the rest,
neither is there any office corresponding even remotely with the
infallible Papacy.

The Mohammedan nations have for the most part each its separate school,
composed of its own Ulema and presided over by its own Grand Mufti or