when required of a world-wide religion.  The same may be said of the fast of Ramzan.  It is prescribed in the Koran to be observed by all with undeviating strictness during the whole day, from earliest dawn till sunset throughout the month, with specified exemptions for the sick and penalties for every occasion on which it is broken.  The command, imposed thus with an iron rule on male and female, young and old, operates with excessive inequality in different seasons, lands, and climates.  However suitable to countries near the equator, where the variations of day and night are immaterial, the fast becomes intolerable to those who are far removed either toward the north or the south; and still closer to the poles, where night merges into day and day into night, impracticable.  Again, with the lunar year (itself an institution divinely imposed), the month of Ramzan travels in the third of a century from month to month over the whole cycle of a year.  The fast was established at a time when Ramzan fell in winter, and the change of season was probably not foreseen by the Prophet.  But the result is one which, under some conditions of time and place, involves the greatest hardship.  For when the fast comes round to summer the trial in a sultry climate, like that of the burning Indian plains, of passing the whole day without a morsel of bread or a drop of water becomes to many the occasion of intense suffering.  Such is the effect of the Arabian legislator’s attempt at circumstantial legislation in matters of religious ceremonial.

[Sidenote:  Political and social depression owing to relations between the sexes.] Nearly the same is the case with all the religions obligations of Islam, prayer, lustration, etc.  But although the minuteness of detail with which these are enjoined tends toward that jejune and formal worship which we witness every-where in Moslem lands, still there is nothing in these observances themselves which (religion apart) should lower the social condition of Mohammedan populations and prevent their emerging from that normal state of semi-barbarism and uncivilized depression in which we find all Moslem peoples.  For the cause of this we must look elsewhere; and it may be recognized, without doubt, in the relations established by the Koran between the sexes.  Polygamy, divorce, servile concubinage, and the veil are at the root of Moslem decadence.

[Sidenote:  Depression of the female sex.  Divorce.] In respect of married life the condition allotted by the Koran to woman is that of an inferior dependent creature, destined only for the service of her master, liable to be cast adrift without the assignment of a single reason or the notice of a single hour.  While the husband possesses the power of a divorce—­absolute, immediate, unquestioned—­no privilege of a corresponding nature has been reserved for the wife.  She hangs on, however unwilling, neglected, or superseded, the perpetual slave of her lord, if such be his will.  When actually divorced