of being "divorced" or turned adrift at a moment's notice, perhaps through no fault of her own, Mohammed realized the injustice of this method of divorce, and the Koran contains a large number of verses dealing with this divorce problem in great detail. To quote all of the matter relating to divorce would be impossible in a small booklet of this size; it is sufficient to cite a few of the rules and laws which Mohhamed laid down for the future treatment of wives by their husbands. The crime of adultery, if committed by a woman, was punished fiendishly by the old pagan Arabs: the victims were literally immured—walled up behind bricks and masonry, alive, and left to die a horrible slow death by starvation and gradual suffocation. If a wife did not give birth to a son within a reasonable time after "marriage," she was quite sure to be divorced; sons were considered a blessing, but daughters a curse; frequently girl babies were buried alive immediately after birth!
When ye divorce women, then divorce them at their term—(when they have had three periods of menstruation, or, if with child, after their delivery)—and calculate the term and fear God, your Lord. Do not drive them out of their houses, unless they have committed manifest adultery. And when they have reached their appointed time, then retain them with kindness or separate from them with kindness; and bring as witnesses men of equity from among you; and give upright testimony to God. . . . . And such of your women as despair of menstruation,—if ye doubt it, then their term is three months, and such as have not menstruated, too.
Let the divorced women dwell where ye dwell, according to your means and do not harm them, to reduce them to straits; and they be heavy with child, then pay for them until they lay down their burdens; and if they
