RELIGIOUS DUTIES

The performance of. Strictly according to Muḥammadan law, it is not lawful to accept any remuneration for the performance of religious duties. But these injunctions are now totally disregarded, and fees are taken for almost every religious duty performed by an Imām. The teaching of the Hidāyah on the subject is as follows:— “It is not lawful to accept a recompense for summoning the people to prayers, or for the performance of a pilgrimage, or of the duties of an Imam, or for teaching the Koran, or the law; for it is a general rule, with our doctors, that no recompense can be received for the performance of any duty purely of a religious nature . According to Shafei, it is allowed to receive pay for the performance of any religious duty which is not required of the hireling in virtue of a divine ordinance, as this is only accepting a recompense for a certain service; and as the acts above described are not ordained upon the hireling, it is consequently lawful to receive a recompense for them. The arguments of our doctors upon this point are twofold. First, the prophet has said, ‘Read the Koran, but do not receive any recompense for so doing’; and he also directed Othman-bin-Abeeyas, that if he were appointed a Mawzin [a cryer to prayer] he should not take any wages. Secondly, where an act of piety is performed, it springs solely from the performer (whence regard is had to his competency), and consequently he is not entitled to any recompense from another, as in the cases of fasting or prayer. A teacher of the Koran, moreover, is incapable of instructing another in it, but by means of qualities existing in his scholar, namely, capacity and docility, and therefore undertakes a thing the performance of which does not depend upon himself, which is consequently invalid. Some of our modern doctors, however, hold it lawful to receive wages for teaching the Koran in the present age, because an indifference has taken place with respect to religion, whence if people were to withhold from paying a recompense for instruction in the sacred writings, they would in time be disregarded;—and decrees pa accordingly. “It is not lawful to receive wages for singing or lamentation, or for any other species of public exhibition, as this is taking a recompense for an act which is of a criminal nature, and acts of that nature do not entitle to a recompense in virtue of a contract.”