General Grant had served two terms (1869-1877), and the unwritten law of custom condemned his being given another.
If there was thus only a customary and unwritten law (and William of Tyre definitely speaks of a jus consuetudinarium under Baldwin III., quo regnum regebatur), then the "Letters of the Sepulchre" are a myth - or rather, if they ever existed, they existed not as a code of written law, but, perhaps, as a register of fiefs, like the Sicilian Defetarii.
By them a written law has been substituted for that unwritten law which nations had been wont to construe with a latitude more or less corresponding to their power.
All of them recognize a common code or unwritten law called Pukhtunwali, which appears to be similar in general character to the old Hebraic law, though modified by Mahommedan ordinances, and strangely similar in certain particulars to Rajput custom.
Justice.By the theory of a Mahommedan state there should be no other courts of justice except those established for the administration of the shar, the divine or written law, but in Persia there is another judicature, which is called urf and represents the customary or known and unwritten law.