Muslim Institutions

The Muslim world is today made up of a number of communities, each striving to raise itself to statehood, but seeking, at the same time, to preserve a measure of spiritual unity. This unity was, for centuries, confused with the idea of political unity, the caliph combining in his person temporal power and spiritual authority. During that period there existed a single Muslim community, the institutions of which were permeated with the spirit of religion. It is those institutions that the book endeavoures to describe, without omitting to point out that they have evolved, and that, at the period of their apparently most perfect unity, they were subject to the modifying influence of changing human moods and varying traditions.