Similar acts may have different moral values in different cases because of the intention of the worshippers. And, in the performance of acts which are in themselves commendable, it is the condition of the heart of the believer which makes the act an act of true obedience and worship. All moral and ethical and humanitarian actions must spring from a true recognition of who God is, and what one's personal relation to Him ought to be; and they must be performed out of a desire to please Him, and so to comfort oneself before Him as to be worthy of His acceptance. They must be done, in other words, out of regard to Him, and from a desire to meet with His approval. And by contrast, we draw the conclusion that, according to Muhammad's teaching, what is displeasing to God is the want of this desire to please Him, especially that attitude of heart which sets a man in opposition to Him.

Thus, from a consideration of the characteristics and qualities of the man who is pleasing to God, we come again to the same conclusion which we formerly reached; that, so far as any principle can be said to underlie the Qur'anic conception of sin, it is a spirit of rebellious self-sufficiency which either ignores God and His claims, and sets itself in opposition to Him in overweening pride and insolent self-satisfaction. Sin may thus be said to be a certain attitude of the heart, a rebellious act of will, which leads a man to resist his rightful Lord and Master; and all actions done by one who takes up this attitude, whether they be in outward conformity to the divine commands or not, are sinful. Obedience without that inner submission of the heart is not righteousness, but sinful hypocrisy.

We now pass on to consider what the Qur'an teaches as to the position or condition of man with regard to sin, and ask, does the Qur'an teach that man as man is sinful? I have shown ¹ that the teaching of the Qur'an on the nature of man leads to the conclusion that in Muhammad's eyes, mankind did not fall in Adam. Man's nature as inherited is not sinful; it is simply weak and readily gives way to evil. Mankind, by nature, is not in a state of sin, and there is nothing in his nature, even as he now inherits it, which necessarily shuts him out from God's favour. He has lost paradise, but he is not estranged from God. The Muhammadan theologians have had recourse to tradition to explain why all men are sinners, not having found in the Qur'an itself anything which clearly teaches that men are by birth and nature sinful. Sin is not then a state into which man is born. He (the soul) is born pure and upright, but is weighed down with a body whose appetites and passions are a constant drag to his higher and purer aspirations. He is weak and easily falls into sin, but this weakness and liability to sin does not, in the Qur'anic teaching, involve any personal guilt. By proneness to sin we have already seen is meant simply the fact that sin is an evil ever-present, and a supremely powerful temptation. All men are sinners, not because they have been born under sin, but because, being born weak, they have all as individuals fallen and become guilty. Yet even thus, it hardly appears to be the fact that the Qur'an knows anything of a sinful disposition. Sin is an attitude of the heart and soul towards God, not a disposition of mankind. The rebellious thought is hardly