They will consult thee for thy decision in certain cases; say unto them, God giveth you these determinations, concerning the more remote degrees of kindred.  If a man die without issue, and have a sister, she shall have the half of what he shall leave:[80] and he shall be heir to her,[81] in case she have no issue.  But if there be two sisters, they shall have between them two third-parts of what he shall leave; and if there be several, both brothers and sisters, a male shall have as much as the portion of two females.  God declareth unto you these precepts, lest ye err:  and God knoweth all things.

[Footnote 63:  This title was given to this chapter because it chiefly treats of matters relating to women:  as marriages, divorces, dower, prohibited degrees.]

[Footnote 64:  By legacies in this and the following passages, are chiefly meant those bequeathed to pious uses; for the Mohammedans approve not of a person’s giving away his substance from his family and near relations on any other account.]

[Footnote 65:  Their punishment, in the beginning of Mohammedanism, was to be immured till they died, but afterwards this cruel doom was mitigated, and they might avoid it by undergoing the punishment ordained in its stead by the Sonna, according to which the maidens are to be scourged with a hundred stripes, and to be banished for a full year; and the married women to be stoned.]

[Footnote 66:  According to this passage it is not lawful to marry a free woman that is already married, be she a Mohammedan or not, unless she be legally parted from her husband by divorce; but it is lawful to marry those who are slaves, or taken in war, after they shall have gone through the proper purifications, though their husbands be living.  Yet, according to the decision of Abu Hanifah, it is not lawful to marry such whose husbands shall be taken, or in actual slavery with them.]

[Footnote 67:  The reason of this is because they are not presumed to have had so good education.  A slave, therefore, in such a case, is to have fifty stripes, and to be banished for half a year; but she shall not be stoned, because it is a punishment which cannot be inflicted by halves.]

[Footnote 68:  These sins al Beidawi, from a tradition of Mohammed, reckons to be seven (equalling in number the sins called deadly by Christians), that is to say, idolatry, murder, falsely accusing modest women of adultery, wasting the substance of orphans, taking of usury, desertion in a religious expedition, and disobedience to parents.]

[Footnote 69:  Such as honor, power, riches, and other worldly advantages.]

[Footnote 70:  By this passage the Mohammedans are in plain terms allowed to beat their wives, in case of stubborn disobedience; but not in a violent or dangerous manner.]

[Footnote 71:  The Arabic is, in Tibt and Taghut.  The former is supposed to have been the proper name of some idol; but it seems rather to signify any false deity in general.  The latter we have explained already.]