Adapted from a series of lectures delivered at the University of London in 1913, this is a strikingly clearheaded and articulate discussion of one of the great faiths of the world from a historical and sociological perspective. Discover. . the Koran as the basis of Islam . the Koran as legal code . the status cults in the Islamic faith . the development of Islamic ethics . asceticism and pantheism in Islam . Islamic philosophy . and more. DAVID S. MARGOLIOUTH (1858-1940) was professor of Arabic at Oxford University. He is also the author of Muhammad and the Rise of Islam (1905).