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| | Schacht. Law and Justice |
 | | The law was magical in so far as the rules of investigation and evidence were dominated by sacral procedures, such as divination, oath, and curse; and it was profane in so far as even penal law was reduced to questions of compensation and payment. |
 | | It is, of course, true that many rules of Islamic law, particularly in the law of family and in the law of inheritance, not to mention worship and ritual, were, in the nature of things, based on the Qur'an and, we must assume, on the example of Muhammad from the very beginning. |
 | | The pious specialists on the sacred law were heId in respect both by the public and the rulers, and they owed their authority to their singleminded concern with the ideal of a life according to the tenets of Islam. |
| www.fordham.edu /halsall/med/schacht.html (9323 words) |
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