That the people of Asia have no laws, rights, or liberty, is a doctrine that wickedly is to be disseminated through this country.

But I again assert, every Mahomedan government is, by its principles, a government of law.
I shall now state, from what is known of the government of India, that it does not and cannot delegate, as Mr.Hastings has frequently declared, the whole of its powers and authority to him.

If they are absolute, as they must be in the supreme power, they ought to be arbitrary in none; they were, however, never absolute in any of their subordinate parts, and I will prove it by the known provincial constitutions of Hindostan, which are all Mahomedan, the laws of which are as clear, as explicit, and as learned as ours.
The first foundation of their law is the _Koran_.

The next part is the _Fetwah_, or adjudged cases by proper authority, well known there.

The next, the written interpretations of the principles of jurisprudence: and their books are as numerous upon the principles of jurisprudence as in any country in Europe.