http://www.arcamax.com/religion/b-1384-1
The Koran
The Koran
TRANSLATED FROM THE ARABIC BY THE REV. J.M. RODWELL, M.A. WITH AN
INTRODUCTION BY THE REV. G. MARGOLIOUTH, M.A.
Introduction Preface Index
Sura Number (this edition) Sura Number (Arabic text) Title
1 96 Thick Blood or Clots of Blood 2 74 The Enwrapped
3 73 The Enfolded 4 93 The Brightness 5 94 The
Opening 6 113 The Daybreak 7 114 Men 8 1 Sura
I. 9 109 Unbelievers 10 112 The Unity 11 111 Abu
Lahab 12 108 The Abundance 13 104 The Backbiter 14 107
Religion 15 102 Desire 16 92 The Night 17 68 The
Pen 18 90 The Soil 19 105 The Elephant 20 106 The
Koreisch 21 97 Power 22 86 The Night-Comer 23 91
The Sun 24 80 He Frowned 25 87 The Most High 26 95
The Fig 27 103 The Afternoon 28 85 The Starry 29 101
The Blow 30 99 The Earthquake 31 82 The Cleaving 32 81
The Folded Up 33 84 The Splitting Asunder 34 100 The
Chargers 35 79 Those Who Drag Forth 36 77 The Sent 37
78 The News 38 88 The Overshadowing 39 89 The
Daybreak 40 75 The Resurrection 41 83 Those Who Stint 42
69 The Inevitable 43 51 The Scattering 44 52 The
Mountain 45 56 The Inevitable 46 53 The Star 47 70
The Steps or Ascents 48 55 The Merciful 49 54 The Moon
50 37 The Ranks 51 71 Noah 52 76 Man 53 44
Smoke 54 50 Kaf 55 20 Ta. Ha. 56 26 The Poets 57
15 Hedjr 58 19 Mary 59 38 Sad 60 36 Ya. Sin
61 43 Ornaments of Gold 62 72 Djinn 63 67 The
Kingdom 64 23 The Believers 65 21 The Prophets 66 25
Al Furkan 67 17 The Night Journey 68 27 The Ant 69 18
The Cave 70 32 Adoration 71 41 The Made Plain 72 45
The Kneeling 73 16 The Bee 74 30 The Greeks 75 11
Houd 76 14 Abraham, On Whom Be Peace 77 12 Joseph, Peace
Be On Him 78 40 The Believer 79 28 The Story 80 39
The Troops 81 29 The Spider 82 31 Lokman 83 42
Counsel 84 10 Jonah, Peace Be On Him! 85 34 Saba 86 35
The Creator, or The Angels 87 7 Al Araf 88 46 Al Ahkaf
89 6 Cattle 90 13 Thunder 91 2 The Cow 92 98
Clear Evidence 93 64 Mutual Deceit 94 62 The Assembly 95
8 The Spoils 96 47 Muhammad 97 3 The Family of
Imran 98 61 Battle Array 99 57 Iron 100 4 Women
101 65 Divorce 102 59 The Emigration 103 33 The
Confederates 104 63 The Hypocrites 105 24 Light 106 58
She Who Pleaded 107 22 The Pilgrimage 108 48 The Victory
109 66 The Forbidding 110 60 She Who Is Tried 111 110
HELP 112 49 The Apartments 113 9 Immunity 114 5
The Table
MOHAMMED was born at Mecca in A.D. 567 or 569. His flight (hijra) to
Medina, which marks the beginning of the Mohammedan era, took place on
16th June 622. He died on 7th June 632.
INTRODUCTION
THE Koran admittedly occupies an important position among the great
religious books of the world. Though the youngest of the epoch-making
works belonging to this class of literature, it yields to hardly any
in the wonderful effect which it has produced on large masses of men.
It has created an all but new phase of human thought and a fresh type
of character. It first transformed a number of heterogeneous desert
tribes of the Arabian peninsula into a nation of heroes, and then
proceeded to create the vast politico-religious organisations of the
Muhammedan world which are one of the great forces with which Europe
and the East have to reckon to-day.
The secret of the power exercised by the book, of course, lay in the
mind which produced it. It was, in fact, at first not a book, but a
strong living voice, a kind of wild authoritative proclamation, a
series of admonitions, promises, threats, and instructions addressed
to turbulent and largely hostile assemblies of untutored Arabs. As a
book it was published after the prophet's death. In Muhammed's
life-time there were only disjointed notes, speeches, and the
retentive memories of those who listened to them. To speak of the
Koran is, therefore, practically the same as speaking of Muhammed, and
in trying to appraise the religious value of the book one is at the
same time attempting to form an opinion of the prophet himself. It
would indeed be difficult to find another case in which there is such
a complete identity between the literary work and the mind of the man
who produced it.
That widely different estimates have been formed of Muhammed is
well-known. To Moslems he is, of course, the prophet par excellence,
and the Koran is regarded by the orthodox as nothing less than the
eternal utterance of Allah. The eulogy pronounced by Carlyle on
Muhammed in Heroes and Hero Worship will probably be endorsed by not a
few at the present day. The extreme contrary opinion, which in a fresh
form has recently been revived1 by an able writer, is hardly likely to
find much lasting support. The correct view very probably lies between
the two extremes. The relative value of any given system of religious
thought must depend on the amount of truth which it embodies as well
as on the ethical standard which its adherents are bidden to follow.
Another important test is the degree of originality that is to be
assigned to it, for it can manifestly only claim credit for that which
is new in it, not for that which it borrowed from other systems.
With regard to the first-named criterion, there is a growing opinion
among students of religious history that Muhammed may in a real sense
be regarded as a prophet of certain truths, though by no means of
truth in the absolute meaning of the term. The shortcomings of the
moral teaching contained in the Koran are striking enough if judged
from the highest ethical standpoint with which we are acquainted; but
a much more favourable view is arrived at if a comparison is made
between the ethics of the Koran and the moral tenets of Arabian and
other forms of heathenism which it supplanted.
The method followed by Muhammed in the promulgation of the Koran also
requires to be treated with discrimination. From the first flash of
prophetic inspiration which is clearly discernible in the earlier
portions of the book he, later on, frequently descended to deliberate
invention and artful rhetoric. He, in fact, accommodated his moral
sense to the circumstances in which the r\oc\le he had to play
involved him.
On the question of originality there can hardly be two opinions now
that the Koran has been thoroughly compared with the Christian and
Jewish traditions of the time; and it is, besides some original
Arabian legends, to those only that the book stands in any close
relationship. The matter is for the most part borrowed, but the manner
is all the prophet's own. This is emphatically a case in which
originality consists not so much in the creation of new materials of
thought as in the manner in which existing traditions of various kinds
are utilised and freshly blended to suit the special exigencies of the
occasion. Biblical reminiscences, Rabbinic legends, Christian
traditions mostly drawn from distorted apocryphal sources, and native
heathen stories, all first pass through the prophet's fervid mind, and
thence issue in strange new forms, tinged with poetry and enthusiasm,
and well adapted to enforce his own view of life and duty, to serve as
an encouragement to his faithful adherents, and to strike terror into
the hearts of his opponents.
There is, however, apart from its religious value, a more general view
from which the book should be considered. The Koran enjoys the
distinction of having been the starting-point of a new literary and
philosophical movement which has powerfully affected the finest and
most cultivated minds among both Jews and Christians in the Middle
Ages. This general progress of the Muhammedan world has somehow been
arrested, but research has shown that what European scholars knew of
Greek philosophy, of mathematics, astronomy, and like sciences, for
several centuries before the Renaissance, was, roughly speaking, all
derived from Latin treatises ultimately based on Arabic originals; and
it was the Koran which, though indirectly, gave the first impetus to
these studies among the Arabs and their allies. Linguistic
investigations, poetry, and other branches of literature, also made
their appearance soon after or simultaneously with the publication of
the Koran; and the literary movement thus initiated has resulted in
some of the finest products of genius and learning.
The style in which the Koran is written requires some special
attention in this introduction. The literary form is for the most part
different from anything else we know. In its finest passages we indeed
seem to hear a voice akin to that of the ancient Hebrew prophets, but
there is much in the book which Europeans usually regard as faulty.
The tendency to repetition which is an inherent characteristic of the
Semitic mind appears here in an exaggerated form, and there is in
addition much in the Koran which strikes us as wild and fantastic. The
most unfavourable criticism ever passed on Muhammed's style has in
fact been penned by the prophet's greatest British admirer, Carlyle
himself; and there are probably many now who find themselves in the
same dilemma with that great writer.
The fault appears, however, to lie partly in our difficulty to
appreciate the psychology of the Arab prophet. We must, in order to do
him justice, give full consideration to his temperament and to the
condition of things around him. We are here in touch with an untutored
but fervent mind, trying to realise itself and to assimilate certain
great truths which have been powerfully borne in upon him, in order to
impart them in a convincing form to his fellow-tribesmen. He is
surrounded by obstacles of every kind, yet he manfully struggles on
with the message that is within him. Learning he has none, or next to
none. His chief objects of knowledge are floating stories and
traditions largely picked up from hearsay, and his over-wrought mind
is his only teacher. The literary compositions to which he had ever
listened were the half-cultured, yet often wildly powerful rhapsodies
of early Arabian minstrels, akin to Ossian rather than to anything
else within our knowledge. What wonder then that his Koran took a form
which to our colder temperaments sounds strange, unbalanced, and
fantastic?
Yet the Moslems themselves consider the book the finest that ever
appeared among men. They find no incongruity in the style. To them the
matter is all true and the manner all perfect. Their eastern
temperament responds readily to the crude, strong, and wild appeal
which its cadences make to them, and the jingling rhyme in which the
sentences of a discourse generally end adds to the charm of the whole.
The Koran, even if viewed from the point of view of style alone, was
to them from the first nothing less than a miracle, as great a miracle
as ever was wrought.
But to return to our own view of the case. Our difficulty in
appreciating the style of the Koran even moderately is, of course,
increased if, instead of the original, we have a translation before
us. But one is happy to be able to say that Rodwell's rendering is one
of the best that have as yet been produced. It seems to a great extent
to carry with it the atmosphere in which Muhammed lived, and its
sentences are imbued with the flavour of the East. The quasi-verse
form, with its unfettered and irregular rhythmic flow of the lines,
which has in suitable cases been adopted, helps to bring out much of
the wild charm of the Arabic. Not the least among its recommendations
is, perhaps, that it is scholarly without being pedantic that is to
say, that it aims at correctness without sacrificing the right effect
of the whole to over-insistence on small details.
Another important merit of Rodwell's edition is its chronological
arrangement of the Suras or chapters. As he tells us himself in his
preface, it is now in a number of cases impossible to ascertain the
exact occasion on which a discourse, or part of a discourse, was
delivered, so that the system could not be carried through with entire
consistency. But the sequence adopted is in the main based on the best
available historical and literary evidence; and in following the order
of the chapters as here printed, the reader will be able to trace the
development of the prophet's mind as he gradually advanced from the
early flush of inspiration to the less spiritual and more equivocal
r\oc\le of warrior, politician, and founder of an empire.
G. Margoliouth.
1 Mahommed and the Rise of Islam, in “Heroes of Nations” series.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS. From the original Arabic by G. Sale, 1734,
1764, 1795, 1801; many later editions, which include a memoir of the
translator by R. A. Davenport, and notes from Savary's version of the
Koran; an edition issued by E. M. Wherry, with additional notes and
commentary (Tr\du\ubner's Oriental Series), 1882, etc.; Sale's
translation has also been edited in the Chandos Classics, and among
Lubbock's Hundred Books (No. 22). The Holy Qur\da\an, translated by
Dr. Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan, with short notes, 1905; Translation by
J. M. Rodwell, with notes and index (the Suras arranged in
chronological order), 1861, 2nd ed., 1876; by E. H. Palmer (Sacred
Books of the East, vols. vi., ix.).
SELECTIONS: Chiefly from Sale's edition, by E. W. Lane, 1843; revised
and enlarged with introduction by S. Lane-Poole. (Tr\du\ubner's
Oriental Series), 1879; The Speeches and Table-Talk of the Prophet
Mohammad, etc., chosen and translated, with introduction and notes by
S. Lane-Poole, 1882 (Golden Treasury Series); Selections with
introduction and explanatory notes (from Sale and other writers), by
J. Murdock (Sacred Books of the East), 2nd ed., 1902; The Religion of
the Koran, selections with an introduction by A. N. Wollaston (The
Wisdom of the East), 1904. See also: Sir W. Muir: The Koran, its
Composition and Teaching, 1878; H. Hirschfeld: New Researches into the
Composition and Exegesis of the Qoran, 1902; W. St C. Tisdale: Sources
of the Qur’ân, 1905; H. U. W. Stanton: The Teaching of the Qur’án,
1919; A. Mingana: Syriac Influence on the Style of the Kur’ân, 1927.
TO
SIR WILLIAM MARTIN, K.T., D.C.L. LATE CHIEF JUSTICE OF NEW ZEALAND,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED,
WITH SINCERE FEELINGS OF ESTEEM FOR HIS PRIVATE WORTH,
PUBLIC SERVICES,
AND EMINENT LITERARY ATTAINMENTS,
BY
THE TRANSLATOR.
PREFACE
It is necessary that some brief explanation should be given with
reference to the arrangement of the Suras, or chapters, adopted in
this translation of the Koran. It should be premised that their order
as it stands in all Arabic manuscripts, and in all hitherto printed
editions, whether Arabic or European, is not chronological, neither is
there any authentic tradition to shew that it rests upon the authority
of Muhammad himself. The scattered fragments of the Koran were in the
first instance collected by his immediate successor Abu Bekr, about a
year after the Prophet's death, at the suggestion of Omar, who foresaw
that, as the Muslim warriors, whose memories were the sole
depositaries of large portions of the revelations, died off or were
slain, as had been the case with many in the battle of Yemâma, A.H.
12, the loss of the greater part, or even of the whole, was imminent.
Zaid Ibn Thâbit, a native of Medina, and one of the Ansars, or
helpers, who had been Muhammad's amanuensis, was the person fixed upon
to carry out the task, and we are told that he "gathered together" the
fragments of the Koran from every quarter, "from date leaves and
tablets of white stone, and from the breasts of men."1 The copy thus
formed by Zaid probably remained in the possession of Abu Bekr during
the remainder of his brief caliphate, who committed it to the custody
of Haphsa, one of Muhammad's widows, and this text continued during
the ten years of Omar's caliphate to be the standard. In the copies
made from it, various readings naturally and necessarily sprung up;
and these, under the caliphate of Othman, led to such serious disputes
between the faithful, that it became necessary to interpose, and in
accordance with the warning of Hodzeifa, "to stop the people, before
they should differ regarding their scriptures, as did the Jews and
Christians."2 In accordance with this advice, Othman determined to
establish a text which should be the sole standard, and entrusted the
redaction to the Zaid already mentioned, with whom he associated as
colleagues, three, according to others, twelve3 of the Koreisch, in
order to secure the purity of that Meccan idiom in which Muhammad had
spoken, should any occasions arise in which the collators might have
to decide upon various readings. Copies of the text formed were thus
forwarded to several of the chief military stations in the new empire,
and all previously existing copies were committed to the flames.
Zaid and his coadjutors, however, do not appear to have arranged the
materials which came into their hands upon any system more definite
than that of placing the longest and best known Suras first,
immediately after the Fatthah, or opening chapter (the eighth in this
edition); although even this rule, artless and unscientific as it is,
has not been adhered to with strictness. Anything approaching to a
chronological arrangement was entirely lost sight of. Late Medina
Suras are often placed before early Meccan Suras; the short Suras at
the end of the Koran are its earliest portions; while, as will be seen
from the notes, verses of Meccan origin are to be found embedded in
Medina Suras, and verses promulged at Medina scattered up and down in
the Meccan Suras. It would seem as if Zaid had to a great extent put
his materials together just as they came to hand, and often with
entire disregard to continuity of subject and uniformity of style. The
text, therefore, as hitherto arranged, necessarily assumes the form of
a most unreadable and incongruous patchwork; "une assemblage," says M.
Kasimirski in his Preface, "informe et incohérent de préceptes moraux,
religieux, civils et politiques, mêlés d'exhortations, de promesses,
et de menaces"-and conveys no idea whatever of the development and
growth of any plan in the mind of the founder of Islam, or of the
circumstances by which he was surrounded and influenced. It is true
that the manner in which Zaid contented himself with simply bringing
together his materials and transcribing them, without any attempt to
mould them into shape or sequence, and without any effort to supply
connecting links between adjacent verses, to fill up obvious chasms,
or to suppress details of a nature discreditable to the founder of
Islam, proves his scrupulous honesty as a compiler, as well as his
reverence for the sacred text, and to a certain extent guarantees the
genuineness and authenticity of the entire volume. But it is deeply to
be regretted that he did not combine some measure of historical
criticism with that simplicity and honesty of purpose which forbade
him, as it certainly did, in any way to tamper with the sacred text,
to suppress contradictory, and exclude or soften down inaccurate,
statements.
The arrangement of the Suras in this translation is based partly upon
the traditions of the Muhammadans themselves, with reference
especially to the ancient chronological list printed by Weil in his
Mohammed der Prophet, as well as upon a careful consideration of the
subject matter of each separate Sura and its probable connection with
the sequence of events in the life of Muhammad. Great attention has
been paid to this subject by Dr. Weil in the work just mentioned; by
Mr. Muir in his Life of Mahomet, who also publishes a chronological
list of Suras, 21 however of which he admits have "not yet been
carefully fixed;" and especially by Nöldeke, in his Geschichte des
Qôrans, a work to which public honours were awarded in 1859 by the
Paris Academy of Inscriptions. From the arrangement of this author I
see no reason to depart in regard to the later Suras. It is based upon
a searching criticism and minute analysis of the component verses of
each, and may be safely taken as a standard, which ought not to be
departed from without weighty reasons. I have, however, placed the
earlier and more fragmentary Suras, after the two first, in an order
which has reference rather to their subject matter than to points of
historical allusion, which in these Suras are very few; whilst on the
other hand, they are mainly couched in the language of self-communion,
of aspirations after truth, and of mental struggle, are vivid pictures
of Heaven and Hell, or descriptions of natural objects, and refer also
largely to the opposition met with by Muhammad from his townsmen of
Mecca at the outset of his public career. This remark applies to what
Nöldeke terms "the Suras of the First Period."
The contrast between the earlier, middle, and later Suras is very
striking and interesting, and will be at once apparent from the
arrangement here adopted. In the Suras as far as the 54th, p. 76, we
cannot but notice the entire predominance of the poetical element, a
deep appreciation (as in Sura xci. p. 38) of the beauty of natural
objects, brief fragmentary and impassioned utterances, denunciations
of woe and punishment, expressed for the most part in lines of extreme
brevity. With a change, however, in the position of Muhammad when he
openly assumes the office of "public warner," the Suras begin to
assume a more prosaic and didactic tone, though the poetical ornament
of rhyme is preserved throughout. We gradually lose the Poet in the
missionary aiming to convert, the warm asserter of dogmatic truths;
the descriptions of natural objects, of the judgment, of Heaven and
Hell, make way for gradually increasing historical statements, first
from Jewish, and subsequently from Christian histories; while, in the
29 Suras revealed at Medina, we no longer listen to vague words, often
as it would seem without positive aim, but to the earnest disputant
with the enemies of his faith, the Apostle pleading the cause of what
he believes to be the Truth of God. He who at Mecca is the admonisher
and persuader, at Medina is the legislator and the warrior, who
dictates obedience, and uses other weapons than the pen of the Poet
and the Scribe. When business pressed, as at Medina, Poetry makes way
for Prose, and although touches of the Poetical element occasionally
break forth, and he has to defend himself up to a very late period
against the charge of being merely a Poet, yet this is rarely the case
in the Medina Suras; and we are startled by finding obedience to God
and the Apostle, God's gifts and the Apostle's, God's pleasure and the
Apostle's, spoken of in the same breath, and epithets and attributes
elsewhere applied to Allah openly applied to himself as in Sura ix.,
118, 129.
The Suras, viewed as a whole, strike me as being the work of one who
began his career as a thoughtful enquirer after truth, and an earnest
asserter of it in such rhetorical and poetical forms as he deemed most
likely to win and attract his countrymen, and who gradually proceeded
from the dogmatic teacher to the politic founder of a system for which
laws and regulations had to be provided as occasions arose. And of all
the Suras it must be remarked that they were intended not for readers
but for hearers-that they were all promulgated by public recital-and
that much was left, as the imperfect sentences shew, to the manner and
suggestive action of the reciter. It would be impossible, and indeed
it is unnecessary, to attempt a detailed life of Muhammad within the
narrow limits of a Preface. The main events thereof with which the
Suras of the Koran stand in connection, are-The visions of Gabriel,
seen, or said to have been seen, at the outset of his career in his
40th year, during one of his seasons of annual monthly retirement, for
devotion and meditation to Mount Hirâ, near Mecca,-the period of
mental depression and re-assurance previous to the assumption of the
office of public teacher-the Fatrah or pause (see n. p. 20) during
which he probably waited for a repetition of the angelic vision-his
labours in comparative privacy for three years, issuing in about 40
converts, of whom his wife Chadijah was the first, and Abu Bekr the
most important: (for it is to him and to Abu Jahl the Sura xcii. p.
32, refers)-struggles with Meccan unbelief and idolatry followed by a
period during which probably he had the second vision, Sura liii. p.
69, and was listened to and respected as a person "possessed" (Sura
lxix. 42, p. 60, lii. 29, p. 64)-the first emigration to Abyssinia in
A.D. 616, in consequence of the Meccan persecutions brought on by his
now open attacks upon idolatry (Taghout)-increasing reference to
Jewish and Christian histories, shewing that much time had been
devoted to their study the conversion of Omar in 617-the journey to
the Thaquifites at Taief in A.D. 620-the intercourse with pilgrims
from Medina, who believed in Islam, and spread the knowledge thereof
in their native town, in the same year-the vision of the midnight
journey to Jerusalem and the Heavens-the meetings by night at Acaba, a
mountain near Mecca, in the 11th year of his mission, and the pledges
of fealty there given to him-the command given to the believers to
emigrate to Yathrib, henceforth Medinat-en-nabi (the city of the
Prophet) or El-Medina (the city), in April of A.D. 622-the escape of
Muhammad and Abu Bekr from Mecca to the cave of Thaur-the FLIGHT to
Medina in June 20, A.D. 622-treaties made with Christian
tribes-increasing, but still very imperfect acquaintance with
Christian doctrines-the Battle of Bedr in Hej. 2, and of Ohod-the
coalition formed against Muhammad by the Jews and idolatrous Arabians,
issuing in the siege of Medina, Hej. 5 (A.D. 627)-the convention, with
reference to the liberty of making the pilgrimage, of Hudaibiya, Hej.
6- the embassy to Chosroes King of Persia in the same year, to the
Governor of Egypt and to the King of Abyssinia, desiring them to
embrace Islam-the conquest of several Jewish tribes, the most
important of which was that of Chaibar in Hej. 7, a year marked by the
embassy sent to Heraclius, then in Syria, on his return from the
Persian campaign, and by a solemn and peaceful pilgrimage to Mecca-the
triumphant entry into Mecca in Hej. 8 (A.D. 630), and the demolition
of the idols of the Caaba-the submission of the Christians of Nedjran,
of Aila on the Red Sea, and of Taief, etc., in Hej. 9, called "the
year of embassies or deputations," from the numerous deputations which
flocked to Mecca proffering submission-and lastly in Hej. 10, the
submission of Hadramont, Yemen, the greater part of the southern and
eastern provinces of Arabia-and the final solemn pilgrimage to Mecca.
While, however, there is no great difficulty in ascertaining the Suras
which stand in connection with the more salient features of Muhammad's
life, it is a much more arduous, and often impracticable task, to
point out the precise events to which individual verses refer, and out
of which they sprung. It is quite possible that Muhammad himself, in a
later period of his career, designedly mixed up later with earlier
revelations in the same Suras not for the sake of producing that
mysterious style which seems so pleasing to the mind of those who
value truth least when it is most clear and obvious but for the
purpose of softening down some of the earlier statements which
represent the last hour and awful judgment as imminent; and thus
leading his followers to continue still in the attitude of
expectation, and to see in his later successes the truth of his
earlier predictions. If after-thoughts of this kind are to be traced,
and they will often strike the attentive reader, it then follows that
the perplexed state of the text in individual Suras is to be
considered as due to Muhammad himself, and we are furnished with a
series of constant hints for attaining to chronological accuracy. And
it may be remarked in passing, that a belief that the end of all
things was at hand, may have tended to promote the earlier successes
of Islam at Mecca, as it unquestionably was an argument with the
Apostles, to flee from "the wrath to come." It must be borne in mind
that the allusions to contemporary minor events, and to the local
efforts made by the new religion to gain the ascendant are very few,
and often couched in terms so vague and general, that we are forced to
interpret the Koran solely by the Koran itself. And for this, the
frequent repetitions of the same histories and the same sentiments,
afford much facility: and the peculiar manner in which the details of
each history are increased by fresh traits at each recurrence, enables
us to trace their growth in the author's mind, and to ascertain the
manner in which a part of the Koran was composed. The absence of the
historical element from the Koran as regards the details of Muhammad's
daily life, may be judged of by the fact, that only two of his
contemporaries are mentioned in the entire volume, and that Muhammad's
name occurs but five times, although he is all the way through
addressed by the Angel Gabriel as the recipient of the divine
revelations, with the word SAY. Perhaps such passages as Sura ii. 15,
p. 339, and v. 246, p. 365, and the constant mention of guidance,
direction, wandering, may have been suggested by reminiscences of his
mercantile journeys in his earlier years.
It may be considered quite certain that it was not customary to reduce
to writing any traditions concerning Muhammad himself for at least the
greater part of a century. They rested entirely on the memory of those
who have handed them down, and must necessarily have been coloured by
their prejudices and convictions, to say nothing of the tendency to
the formation of myths and to actual fabrication, which early shews
itself, especially in interpretations of the Koran, to subserve the
purposes of the contending factions of the Ommeyads and Abbâsides. It
was under the 5th Caliph, Al- Mâmûn, that three writers (mentioned
below) on whom we mainly depend for all really reliable information,
flourished: and even their writings are necessarily coloured by the
theological tendencies of their master and patron, who was a decided
partizan of the divine right of Ali and of his descendants. The
incidents mentioned in the Koran itself, for the interpretation of
which early tradition is available, are comparatively few, and there
are many passages with which it is totally at variance; as, for
instance, that Muhammad worked miracles, which the Koran expressly
disclaims. Traditions can never be considered as at all reliable,
unless they are traceable to some common origin, have descended to us
by independent witnesses, and correspond with the statements of the
Koran itself-always of course deducting such texts as (which is not
unfrequently the case) have themselves given rise to the tradition. It
soon becomes obvious to the reader of Muslim traditions and
commentators that both miracles and historical events have been
invented for the sake of expounding a dark and perplexing text; and
that even the earlier traditions are largely tinged with the mythical
element.
The first biographer of Muhammad of whom we have any information was
Zohri, who died A.H. 124, aged 72; but his works, though abundantly
quoted by later writers, are no longer extant. Much of his information
was derived from Orwa, who died A.H. 94, and was a near relative of
Ayesha, the prophet's favourite wife.
Ibn Ishaq, who died in A.H. 151, and who had been a hearer of Zohri,
composed a Biography of Muhammad for the use of the Caliph Al Mánsûr.
On this work, considerable remains of which have come down to us, Ibn
Hisham, who died A.H. 213, based his Life of Muhammad.
Waquidi of Medina, who died A.H. 207, composed a biographical work,
which has reached us in an abbreviated form through his secretary
(Katib). It is composed entirely of traditions.
Tabari, "the Livy of the Arabians" (Gibbon, 51, n. 1), who died at
Baghdad A.H. 310, composed annals of Muhammad's life and of the
progress of Islam.
These ancient writers are the principal sources whence anything like
authentic information as to the life of Muhammad has been derived. And
it may be safely concluded that after the diligent investigations
carried on by the professed collectors of traditions in the second
century after the Hejira, that little or nothing remains to be added
to our stores of information relative to the details of Muhammad's
life, or to facts which may further illustrate the text of the Koran.
But however this may be, no records which are posterior in date to
these authorities can be considered as at all deserving of dependance.
"To consider," says Dr. Sprenger, "late historians like Abulfeda as
authorities, and to suppose that an account gains in certainty because
it is mentioned by several of them, is highly uncritical." Life of
Mohammad, p. 73.
The sources whence Muhammad derived the materials of his Koran are,
over and above the more poetical parts, which are his own creation,
the legends of his time and country, Jewish traditions based upon the
Talmud, or perverted to suit his own purposes, and the floating
Christian traditions of Arabia and of S. Syria. At a later period of
his career no one would venture to doubt the divine origin of the
entire book. But at its commencement the case was different. The
people of Mecca spoke openly and tauntingly of it as the work of a
poet, as a collection of antiquated or fabulous legends, or as
palpable sorcery.4 They accused him of having confederates, and even
specified foreigners who had been his coadjutors. Such were Salman the
Persian, to whom he may have owed the descriptions of Heaven and Hell,
which are analogous to those of the Zendavesta; and the Christian monk
Sergius, or as the Muhammadans term him, Boheira. From the latter, and
perhaps from other Christians, especially slaves naturalised at Mecca,
Muhammad obtained access to the teaching of the Apocryphal Gospels,
and to many popular traditions of which those Gospels are the concrete
expression. His wife Chadijah, as well as her cousin Waraka, a reputed
convert to Christianity, and Muhammad's intimate friend, are said to
have been well acquainted with the doctrines and sacred books both of
Jews and Christians. And not only were several Arab tribes in the
neighbourhood of Mecca converts to the Christian faith, but on two
occasions Muhammad had travelled with his uncle, Abu Talib, as far as
Bostra, where he must have had opportunities of learning the general
outlines of Oriental Christian doctrine, and perhaps of witnessing the
ceremonial of their worship. And it appears tolerably certain that
previous to and at the period of his entering into public life, there
was a large number of enquirers at Mecca, who like Zaid, Omayah of
Taief, Waraka, etc., were dissatisfied equally with the religion of
their fathers, the Judaism and the Christianity which they saw around
them, and were anxiously enquiring for some better way. The names and
details of the lives of twelve of the "companions" of Muhammad who
lived in Mecca, Medina, and Taief, are recorded, who previous to his
assumption of the Prophetic office, called themselves Hanyfs, i.e.,
converts, puritans, and were believers in one God, and regarded
Abraham as the founder of their religion. Muhammad publicly
acknowledged that he was a Hanyf-and this sect of the Hanyfites (who
are in no way to be confounded with the later sect of the same name)
were among his Meccan precursors. See n. pp. 209, 387. Their history
is to be found in the Fihrist- MS. Paris, anc. fonds, nr. 874 (and in
other treatises)-which Dr. Sprenger believes to have been in the
library of the Caliph El-Mâmûn. In this treatise, the Hanyfs are
termed Sabeites, and said to have received the Volumes (Sohof) or
Books of Abraham, mentioned in Sura lxxxvii. 19, p. 40, 41, which most
commentators affirm to have been borrowed from them, as is also the
case with the latter part of Sura liii. 37, ad f. p. 71; so that from
these "Books" Muhammad derived the legends of Ad and Themoud, whose
downfall, recent as it was (see note p. 300), he throws back to a
period previous to that of Moses, who is made to ask (Sura xiv. 9, p.
226) "whether their history had reached his hearers." Muhammad is said
to have discovered these "Books" to be a recent forgery, and that this
is the reason why no mention of them occurs after the fourth year of
his Prophetic function, A.D. 616. Hence too, possibly, the title Hanyf
was so soon dropped and exchanged for that of Muslim, one who
surrenders or resigns himself to God. The Waraka above mentioned, and
cousin of Chadijah, is said to have believed on Muhammad as long as he
continued true to the principles of the Hanyfs, but to have quitted
him in disgust at his subsequent proceedings, and to have died an
orthodox Christian.
It has been supposed that Muhammad derived many of his notions
concerning Christianity from Gnosticism, and that it is to the
numerous gnostic sects the Koran alludes when it reproaches the
Christians with having "split up their religion into parties." But for
Muhammad thus to have confounded Gnosticism with Christianity itself,
its prevalence in Arabia must have been far more universal than we
have any reason to believe it really was. In fact, we have no
historical authority for supposing that the doctrines of these
heretics were taught or professed in Arabia at all. It is certain, on
the other hand, that the Basilidans, Valentinians, and other gnostic
sects had either died out, or been reabsorbed into the orthodox
Church, towards the middle of the fifth century, and had disappeared
from Egypt before the sixth. It is nevertheless possible that the
gnostic doctrine concerning the Crucifixion was adopted by Muhammad as
likely to reconcile the Jews to Islam, as a religion embracing both
Judaism and Christianity, if they might believe that Jesus had not
been put to death, and thus find the stumbling-block of the atonement
removed out of their path. The Jews would in this case have simply
been called upon to believe in Jesus as being what the Koran
represents him, a holy teacher, who, like the patriarch Enoch or the
prophet Elijah, had been miraculously taken from the earth. But, in
all other respects, the sober and matter-of-fact statements of the
Koran relative to the family and history of Jesus, are altogether
opposed to the wild and fantastic doctrines of Gnostic emanations, and
especially to the manner in which they supposed Jesus, at his Baptism,
to have been brought into union with a higher nature. It is quite
clear that Muhammad borrowed in several points from the doctrines of
the Ebionites, Essenes, and Sabeites. Epiphanius (H‘r. x.) describes
the notions of the Ebionites of Nabath‘a, Moabitis, and Basanitis with
regard to Adam and Jesus, almost in the very words of Sura iii. 52. He
tells us that they observed circumcision, were opposed to celibacy,
forbad turning to the sunrise, but enjoined Jerusalem as their Kebla
(as did Muhammad during twelve years), that they prescribed (as did
the Sabeites), washings, very similar to those enjoined in the Koran,
and allowed oaths (by certain natural objects, as clouds, signs of the
Zodiac, oil, the winds, etc.), which we find adopted in the Koran.
These points of contact with Islam, knowing as we do Muhammad's
eclecticism, can hardly be accidental.
We have no evidence that Muhammad had access to the Christian
Scriptures, though it is just possible that fragments of the Old or
New Testament may have reached him through Chadijah or Waraka, or
other Meccan Christians, possessing MSS. of the sacred volume. There
is but one direct quotation (Sura xxi. 105) in the whole Koran from
the Scriptures; and though there are a few passages, as where alms are
said to be given to be seen of men, and as, none forgiveth sins but
God only, which might seem to be identical with texts of the New
Testament, yet this similarity is probably merely accidental. It is,
however, curious to compare such passages as Deut. xxvi. 14, 17; 1
Peter v. 2, with Sura xxiv. 50, p. 448, and x. 73, p. 281 John vii.
15, with the "illiterate" Prophet-Matt. xxiv. 36, and John xii. 27,
with the use of the word hour as meaning any judgment or crisis, and
The last judgment-the voice of the Son of God which the dead are to
hear, with the exterminating or awakening cry of Gabriel, etc. The
passages of this kind, with which the Koran abounds, result from
Muhammad's general acquaintance with Scriptural phraseology, partly
through the popular legends, partly from personal intercourse with
Jews and Christians. And we may be quite certain that whatever
materials Muhammad may have derived from our Scriptures, directly or
indirectly, were carefully recast. He did not even use its words
without due consideration. For instance, except in the phrase "the
Lord of the worlds," he seems carefully to have avoided the expression
the Lord, probably because it was applied by the Christians to Christ,
or to God the Father.
It should also be borne in mind that we have no traces of the
existence of Arabic versions of the Old or New Testament previous to
the time of Muhammad. The passage of St. Jerome-"Hæc autem translatio
nullum de veteribus sequitur interpretem; sed ex ipso Hebraico,
Arabicoque sermone, et interdum Syro, nunc verba, nunc sensum, nunc
simul utrumque resonabit," (Prol. Gal.) obviously does not refer to
versions, but to idiom. The earliest Ar. version of the Old Testament,
of which we have any knowledge, is that of R. Saadias Gaon, A.D. 900;
and the oldest Ar. version of the New Testament, is that published by
Erpenius in 1616, and transcribed in the Thebais, in the year 1171, by
a Coptic Bishop, from a copy made by a person whose name is known, but
whose date is uncertain. Michaelis thinks that the Arabic versions of
the New Testament were made between the Saracen conquests in the
seventh century, and the Crusades in the eleventh century-an opinion
in which he follows, or coincides with, Walton (Prol. in Polygl. §
xiv.) who remarks-"Plane constat versionem Arabicam apud eas
(ecclesias orientales) factam esse postquam lingua Arabica per
victorias et religionem Muhammedanicam per Orientem propagata fuerat,
et in multis locis facta esset vernacula." If, indeed, in these
comparatively late versions, the general phraseology, especially in
the histories common to the Scriptures and to the Koran, bore any
similarity to each other, and if the orthography of the proper names
had been the same in each, it might have been fair to suppose that
such versions had been made, more or less, upon the basis of others,
which, though now lost, existed in the ages prior to Muhammad, and
influenced, if they did not directly form, his sources of information.
But5 this does not appear to be the case. The phraseology of our
existing versions is not that of the Koran-and these versions appear
to have been made from the Septuagint, the Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic,
and Greek; the four Gospels, says Tischendorf6 originem mixtam habere
videntur.
From the Arab Jews, Muhammad would be enabled to derive an abundant,
though most distorted, knowledge of the Scripture histories. The
secrecy in which he received his instructions from them, and from his
Christian informants, enabled him boldly to declare to the ignorant
pagan Meccans that God had revealed those Biblical histories to him.
But there can be no doubt, from the constant identity between the
Talmudic perversions of Scripture histories and Rabbinic moral
precepts, that the Rabbins of the Hejaz communicated their legends to
Muhammad. And it should be remembered that the Talmud was completed a
century previous to the era of Muhammad,7 and cannot fail to have
extensively influenced the religious creed of all the Jews of the
Arabian peninsula. In one passage,8 Muhammad speaks of an individual
Jew-perhaps some one of note among his professed followers, as a
witness to his mission; and there can be no doubt that his relations
with the Jews were, at one time, those of friendship and intimacy,
when we find him speak of their recognising him as they do their own
children, and hear him blaming their most colloquial expressions.9 It
is impossible, however, for us at this distance of time to penetrate
the mystery in which this subject is involved. Yet certain it is,
that, although their testimony against Muhammad was speedily silenced,
the Koreisch knew enough of his private history to disbelieve and to
disprove his pretensions of being the recipient of a divine
revelation, and that they accused him of writing from the dictation of
teachers morning and evening.10 And it is equally certain, that all
the information received by Muhammad was embellished and recast in his
own mind and with his own words. There is a unity of thought, a
directness and simplicity of purpose, a peculiar and laboured style, a
uniformity of diction, coupled with a certain deficiency of
imaginative power, which proves the ayats (signs or verses) of the
Koran at least to be the product of a single pen. The longer
narratives were, probably, elaborated in his leisure hours, while the
shorter verses, each claiming to be a sign or miracle, were
promulgated as occasion required them. And, whatever Muhammad may
himself profess in the Koran11 as to his ignorance, even of reading
and writing, and however strongly modern Muhammadans may insist upon
the same point an assertion by the way contradicted by many good
authors12-there can be no doubt that to assimilate and work up his
materials, to fashion them into elaborate Suras, to fit them for
public recital, must have been a work requiring much time, study, and
meditation, and presumes a far greater degree of general culture than
any orthodox Muslim will be disposed to admit.
In close connection with the above remarks, stands the question of
Muhammad's sincerity and honesty of purpose in coming forward as a
messenger from God. For if he was indeed the illiterate person the
Muslims represent him to have been, then it will be hard to escape
their inference that the Koran is, as they assert it to be, a standing
miracle. But if, on the other hand, it was a Book carefully concocted
from various sources, and with much extraneous aid, and published as a
divine oracle, then it would seem that the author is at once open to
the charge of the grossest imposture, and even of impious blasphemy.
The evidence rather shews, that in all he did and wrote, Muhammad was
actuated by a sincere desire to deliver his countrymen from the
grossness of its debasing idolatries-that he was urged on by an
intense desire to proclaim that great truth of the Unity of the
Godhead which had taken full possession of his own soul-that the end
to be attained justified to his mind the means he adopted in the
production of his Suras-that he worked himself up into a belief that
he had received a divine call-and that he was carried on by the force
of circumstances, and by gradually increasing successes, to believe
himself the accredited messenger of Heaven. The earnestness of those
convictions which at Mecca sustained him under persecution, and which
perhaps led him, at any price as it were, and by any means, not even
excluding deceit and falsehood, to endeavour to rescue his countrymen
from idolatry,-naturally stiffened at Medina into tyranny and
unscrupulous violence. At the same time, he was probably, more or
less, throughout his whole career, the victim of a certain amount of
self-deception. A cataleptic13 subject from his early youth,
born-according to the traditions-of a highly nervous and excitable
mother, he would be peculiarly liable to morbid and fantastic
hallucinations, and alternations of excitement and depression, which
would win for him, in the eyes of his ignorant countrymen, the credit
of being inspired. It would be easy for him to persuade himself that
he was "the seal of the Prophets," the proclaimer of a doctrine of the
Divine Unity, held and taught by the Patriarchs, especially by
Abraham-a doctrine that should present to mankind Judaism divested of
its Mosaic ceremonial, and Christianity divested of the Atonement and
the Trinity14-doctrine, as he might have believed, fitted and destined
to absorb Judaism, Christianity, and Idolatry; and this persuasion,
once admitted into his mind as a conviction, retained possession of
it, and carried him on, though often in the use of means, towards the
end of his career, far different from those with which he commenced
it, to a victorious consummation. It is true that the state of Arabia
previous to the time of Muhammad was one of preparedness for a new
religion that the scattered elements were there, and wanted only the
mind of a master to harmonise and enforce them and that Islam was, so
to speak, a necessity of the time.15 Still Muhammad's career is a
wonderful instance of the force and life that resides in him who
possesses an intense Faith in God and in the unseen world; and
whatever deductions may be made-and they are many and serious-from the
noble and truthful in his character, he will always be regarded as one
of those who have had that influence over the faith, morals, and whole
earthly life of their fellow-men, which none but a really great man
ever did, or can, exercise; and as one of those, whose efforts to
propagate some great verity will prosper, in spite of manifold
personal errors and defects, both of principle and character.
The more insight we obtain, from undoubted historical sources, into
the actual character of Muhammad, the less reason do we find to
justify the strong vituperative language poured out upon his head by
Maracci, Prideaux, and others, in recent days, one of whom has found,
in the Byzantine "Maometis," the number of the Beast (Rev. xii)! It is
nearer to the truth to say that he was a great though imperfect
character, an earnest though mistaken teacher, and that many of his
mistakes and imperfections were the result of circumstances, of
temperament, and constitution; and that there must be elements both of
truth and goodness in the system of which he was the main author, to
account for the world-wide phenomenon, that whatever may be the
intellectual inferiority (if such is, indeed, the fact) of the Muslim
races, the influence of his teaching, aided, it is true, by the vast
impulse given to it by the victorious arms of his followers, has now
lasted for nearly thirteen centuries, and embraces more than one
hundred millions of our race-more than one-tenth part of the
inhabitants of the globe.
It must be acknowledged, too, that the Koran deserves the highest
praise for its conceptions of the Divine nature, in reference to the
attributes of Power, Knowledge, and universal Providence and
Unity-that its belief and trust in the One God of Heaven and Earth is
deep and fervent-and that, though it contains fantastic visions and
legends, teaches a childish ceremonial, and justifies bloodshedding,
persecution, slavery, and polygamy, yet that at the same time it
embodies much of a noble and deep moral earnestness, and sententious
oracular wisdom, and has proved that there are elements in it on which
mighty nations, and conquering though not, perhaps, durable-empires
can be built up. It is due to the Koran, that the occupants in the
sixth century of an arid peninsula, whose poverty was only equalled by
their ignorance, become not only the fervent and sincere votaries of a
new creed, but, like Amru and many more, its warlike propagators.
Impelled possibly by drought and famine, actuated partly by desire of
conquest, partly by religious convictions, they had conquered Persia
in the seventh century, the northern coasts of Africa, and a large
portion of Spain in the eighth, the Punjaub and nearly the whole of
India in the ninth. The simple shepherds and wandering Bedouins of
Arabia, are transformed, as if by a magician's wand, into the founders
of empires, the builders of cities, the collectors of more libraries
than they at first destroyed, while cities like Fostât, Baghdad,
Cordova, and Delhi, attest the power at which Christian Europe
trembled. And thus, while the Koran, which underlays this vast energy
and contains the principles which are its springs of action, reflects
to a great extent the mixed character of its author, its merits as a
code of laws, and as a system of religious teaching, must always be
estimated by the changes which it introduced into the customs and
beliefs of those who willingly or by compulsion embraced it. In the
suppression of their idolatries, in the substitution of the worship of
Allah for that of the powers of nature and genii with Him, in the
abolition of child murder, in the extinction of manifold superstitious
usages, in the reduction of the number of wives to a fixed standard,
it was to the Arabians an unquestionable blessing, and an accession,
though not in the Christian sense a Revelation, of Truth; and while
every Christian must deplore the overthrow of so many flourishing
Eastern churches by the arms of the victorious Muslims, it must not be
forgotten that Europe, in the middle ages, owed much of her knowledge
of dialectic philosophy, of medicine, and architecture, to Arabian
writers, and that Muslims formed the connecting link between the West
and the East for the importation of numerous articles of luxury and
use. That an immense mass of fable and silly legend has been built up
upon the basis of the Koran is beyond a doubt, but for this Muhammad
is not answerable, any more than he is for the wild and bloodthirsty
excesses of his followers in after ages. I agree with Sale in thinking
that, "how criminal soever Muhammad may have been in imposing a false
religion on mankind, the praises due to his real virtues ought not to
be denied him" (Preface), and venture to think that no one can rise
from the perusal of his Koran without argeeing with that motto from
St. Augustin, which Sale has prefixed to his title page, "Nulla falsa
doctrina est, quæ non aliquid veri permisceat." Qu‘st. Evang. ii. 40.
The Arabic text from which this translation has been made is that of
Fluegel. Leips. 1841. The translations of Sale, Ullmann, Wahl, Hammer
von Purgstall in the Fundgruben des Orients, and M. Kasimirski, have
been collated throughout; and above all, the great work of Father
Maracci, to whose accuracy and research search Sale's work mainly owes
its merits. Sale has, however, followed Maracci too closely,
especially by introducing his paraphrastic comments into the body of
the text, as well as by his constant use of Latinised instead of Saxon
words. But to Sale's "Preliminary Discourse" the reader is referred,
as to a storehouse of valuable information; as well as to the works of
Geiger, Gerock, and Freytag, and to the lives of Muhammad by Dr. Weil,
Mr. Muir, and that of Dr. Sprenger now issuing from the press, in
German. The more brief and poetical verses of the earlier Suras are
translated with a freedom from which I have altogether abstained in
the historical and prosaic portions; but I have endeavoured nowhere to
use a greater amount of paraphrase than is necessary to convey the
sense of the original. "Vel verbum e verbo," says S. Jerome (Præf. in
Jobum) of versions, "vel sensum e sensu, vel ex utroque commixtum, et
medie temperatum genus translationis." The proper names are usually
given as in our Scriptures: the English reader would not easily
recognise Noah as Nûh, Lot as Lût, Moses as Musa, Abraham as Ibrahym,
Pharaoh as Firaun, Aaron as Harun, Jesus as Isa, John as Yahia, etc.;
and it has been thought best to give different renderings of the same
constantly recurring words and phrases, in order more fully to convey
their meaning. For instance, the Arabic words which mean Companions of
the fire, are also rendered inmates of, etc., given up to, etc.; the
People of the Book, i.e. Jews, Christians and Sabeites, is sometimes
retained, sometimes paraphrased. This remark applies to such words as
tanzyl, lit. downsending or Revelation; zikr, the remembrance or
constant repetition or mention of God's name as an act of devotion;
saha, the Hour of present or final judgment; and various epithets of
Allah.
I have nowhere attempted to represent the rhymes of the original. The
"Proben" of H. v. Purgstall, in the Fundgruben des Orients, excellent
as they are in many respects, shew that this can only be done with a
sacrifice of literal translation. I subjoin as a specimen Lieut.
Burton's version of the Fatthah, or opening chapter of previous
editions. See Sura [viii.] p. 28.
1 In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate! 2 Praise be
to Allah, who the three worlds made. 3 The Merciful, the
Compassionate, 4 The King of the day of Fate. 5 Thee alone do we
worship, and of thee alone do we ask aid. 6 Guide us to the path that
is straight- 7 The path of those to whom thy love is great, Not
those on whom is hate, Nor they that deviate. Amen.
"I have endeavoured," he adds, "in this translation to imitate the
imperfect rhyme of the original Arabic. Such an attempt, however, is
full of difficulties. The Arabic is a language in which, like Italian,
it is almost impossible not to rhyme." Pilgr. ii. 78.
1 Mishcât, vol. i. p. 524. E. Trans. B. viii. 3, 3.
2 Mishcât, as above. Muir, i. p. xiii. Freyt. Einl., p. 384.
Memoires de l’Acad. T. 50, p. 426. Nöld. p. 205.
3 Kitâb al Waquidi, p. 278
4 See Suras xxxvi. xxv. xvii.
5 See Walton’s Prol. ad Polygl. Lond. § xiv. 2.
6 Prol. in N.T. p. lxxviii.
7 The date of the Bab. Gemara is A.D. 530; of the Jerusalem Gamara,
A.D. 430; of the Mischina A.D. 220; See Gfrörer’s Jahrhundert des
Heils, pp. 11- 44.
8 Sura xlvi. 10, p. 314.
9 Sura vi. 20, p. 318. Sura ii. 13 (p. 339), verse 98, etc.
10 Sura xxv. 5, 6, p. 159.
11 Sura. vii. 156, p. 307; xxix. 47, p. 265.
12 See Dr. Sprenger’s “Life,” p. 101.
13 Or, epileptic.
14 A line of argument to be adopted by a Christian missionary in
dealing with a Muhammadan should be, not to attack Islam as a mass of
error, but to shew that it contains fragments of disjointed truth-that
it is based upon Christianity and Judaism partially
understood-especially upon the latter, without any appreciation of its
typical character pointing to Christianity as a final dispensation.
15 Muhammad can scarcely have failed to observe the opportunity
offered for the growth of a new power, by the ruinous strifes of the
Persians and Greeks. Abulfeda (Life of Muhammad, p. 76) expressly says
that he had promised his followers the spoils o Chosroes and Cæsar.
SURA1 XCVI.-THICK BLOOD, OR CLOTS OF BLOOD [I.]
MECCA.-19 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful2
RECITE3 thou, in the name of thy Lord who created;-
Created man from CLOTS OF BLOOD:-
Recite thou! For thy Lord is the most Beneficent,
Who hath taught the use of the pen;-
Hath taught Man that which he knoweth not.
Nay, verily,4 Man is insolent,
Because he seeth himself possessed of riches.
Verily, to thy Lord is the return of all.
What thinkest thou of him that holdeth back
A servant5 of God when he prayeth?
What thinkest thou?6 Hath he followed the true Guidance, or enjoined
Piety?
What thinkest thou? Hath he treated the truth as a lie and turned his
back?
What! doth he not know how that God seeth?
Nay, verily, if he desist not, We shall seize him by the forelock,
The lying sinful forelock!
Then let him summon his associates;7
We too will summon the guards of Hell:
Nay! obey him not; but adore, and draw nigh to God.8
_______________________
1 The word Sura occurs nine times in the Koran, viz. Sur. ix. 65, 87,
125, 128; xxiv. 1; xlvii. 22 (twice); ii. 21; x. 39; but it is not
easy to determine whether it means a whole chapter, or part only of a
chapter, or is used in the sense of "revelation." See Weil's Mohammed
der Prophet, pp. 361- 363. It is understood by the Muhammadan
commentators to have a primary reference to the succession of subjects
or parts, like the rows of bricks in a wall. The titles of the Suras
are generally taken from some word occurring in each, which is printed
in large type throughout, where practicable.
2 This formula-Bismillahi 'rrahmani 'rrahim-is of Jewish origin. It
was in the first instance taught to the Koreisch by Omayah of Taief,
the poet, who was a contemporary with, but somewhat older than,
Muhammad; and who, during his mercantile journeys into Arabia Petr‘a
and Syria, had made himself acquainted with the sacred books and
doctrines of Jews and Christians. (Kitab al-Aghâni, 16. Delhi.)
Muhammad adopted and constantly used it, and it is prefixed to each
Sura except the ninth. The former of the two epithets implies that the
mercy of God is exercised as occasions arise, towards all his
creatures; the latter that the quality of mercy is inherent in God and
permanent, so that there is only a shade of difference between the two
words. Maracci well renders, In Nomine Dei Miseratoris, Misericordis.
The rendering I have adopted is that of Mr. Lane in his extracts from
the Koran. See also Freytag's Lex. ii. p. 133. Perhaps, In the name of
Allah, the God of Mercy, the Merciful, would more fully express the
original Arabic. The first five verses of this Sura are, in the
opinion of nearly all commentators, ancient and modern, the earliest
revelations made to Muhammad, in the 40th year of his life, and the
starting point of El-Islam. (See the authorities quoted in detail in
Nöldeke's Geschichte des Qorâns, p. 62, n.)
3 The usual rendering is read. But the word qaraa, which is the root
of the word Koran, analogous to the Rabbinic mikra, rather means to
address, recite; and with regard to its etymology and use in the
kindred dialects to call, cry aloud, proclaim. Compare Isai. lviii. 1;
1 Kings xviii. 37; and Gesen. Thesaur. on the Hebrew root. I
understand this passage to mean, "Preach to thy fellow men what thou
believest to be true of thy Lord who has created man from the meanest
materials, and can in like manner prosper the truth which thou
proclaimest. He has taught man the art of writing (recently introduced
at Mecca) and in this thou wilt find a powerful help for propagating
the knowledge of the divine Unity." The speaker in this, as in all the
Suras, is Gabriel, of whom Muhammad had, as he believed, a vision on
the mountain Hirâ, near Mecca. See note 1 on the next page. The
details of the vision are quite unhistorical.
4 This, and the following verses, may have been added at a later
period, though previous to the Flight, and with special reference, if
we are to believe the commentators Beidhawi, etc., to the opposition
which Muhammad experienced at the hands of his opponent, Abu Jahl, who
had threatened to set his foot on the Prophet's neck when prostrate in
prayer. But the whole passage admits of application to mankind in
general.
5 That is Muhammad. Nöldeke, however, proposes to render "a slave."
And it is certain that the doctrines of Islam were in the first
instance embraced by slaves, many of whom had been carried away from
Christian homes, or born of Christian parents at Mecca. "Men of this
description," says Dr. Sprenger (Life of Mohammad. Allahabad. p. 159),
"no doubt prepared the way for the Islam by inculcating purer notions
respecting God upon their masters and their brethren. These men saw in
Mohammad their liberator; and being superstitious enough to consider
his fits as the consequence of an inspiration, they were among the
first who acknowledged him as a prophet. Many of them suffered torture
for their faith in him, and two of them died as martyrs. The
excitement among the slaves when Mohammad first assumed his office was
so great, that Abd Allah bin Jod'an, who had one hundred of these
sufferers, found it necessary to remove them from Makkah, lest they
should all turn converts." See Sura xvi. 105, 111; ii. 220.
6 Lit. hast thou seen if he be upon the guidance.
7 The principal men of the Koreisch who adhered to Abu Jahl.
8 During a period variously estimated from six months to three years
from the revelation of this Sura, or of its earliest verses, the
prophetic inspiration and the revelation of fresh Suras is said to
have been suspended. This interval is called the Fatrah or
intermission; and the Meccan Suras delivered at its close show that at
or during this period Muhammad had gained an increasing and more
intimate acquaintance with the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. "The
accounts, however," says Mr. Muir (vol. ii. 86) "are throughout
confused, if not contradictory; and we can only gather with certainty
that there was a time during which his mind hung in suspense, and
doubted the divine mission." The idea of any supernatural influence is
of course to be entirely excluded; although there is no doubt that
Muhammad himself had a full belief in the personality and influence of
Satans and Djinn. Profound meditation, the struggles of an earnest
mind anxious to attain to truth, the morbid excitability of an
epileptic subject, visions seen in epileptic swoons, disgust at Meccan
idolatry, and a desire to teach his countrymen the divine Unity will
sufficiently account for the period of indecision termed the Fatrah,
and for the determination which led Muhammad, in all sincerity, but
still self-deceived, to take upon himself the office and work of a
Messenger from God. We may perhaps infer from such passages as Sura
ii. 123, what had ever been the leading idea in Muhammad's mind.
SURA LXXIV.-THE ENWRAPPED1 [II.]
MECCA.-55 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
O THOU, ENWRAPPED in thy mantle!
Arise and warn!
Thy Lord-magnify Him!
Thy raiment-purify it!
The abomination-flee it!
And bestow not favours that thou mayest receive again with increase;
And for thy Lord wait thou patiently.
For when there shall be a trump on the trumpet,2
That shall be a distressful day,
A day, to the Infidels, devoid of ease.
Leave me alone to deal with him3 whom I have created,
And on whom I have bestowed vast riches,
And sons dwelling before him,
And for whom I have smoothed all things smoothly down;-
Yet desireth he that I should add more!
But no! because to our signs he is a foe
I will lay grievous woes upon him.
For he plotted and he planned!
May he be cursed! How he planned!
Again, may he be cursed! How he planned!
Then looked he around him,
Then frowned and scowled,
Then turned his back and swelled with disdain,
And said, “This is merely magic that will be wrought;
It is merely the word of a mortal.”
We will surely cast him into Hell-fire.
And who shall teach thee what Hell-fire is?
It leaveth nought, it spareth nought,
Blackening the skin.
Over it are nineteen angels.
None but angels have we made guardians of the fire:4 nor have we made
this to be their number but to perplex the unbelievers, and that they
who possess the Scriptures may be certain of the truth of the Koran,
and that they who believe may increase their faith;
And that they to whom the Scriptures have been given, and the
believers, may not doubt;
And that the infirm of heart and the unbelievers may say, What meaneth
God by this parable?
Thus God misleadeth whom He will, and whom He will doth He guide
aright: and none knoweth the armies of thy Lord but Himself: and this
is no other than a warning to mankind.
Nay, by the Moon!
By the Night when it retreateth!
By the Morn when it brighteneth!
Hell is one of the most grievous woes,
Fraught with warning to man,
To him among you who desireth to press forward, or to remain behind.5
For its own works lieth every soul in pledge. But they of God’s right
hand
In their gardens shall ask of the wicked;-
“What hath cast you into Hell-fire?”6
They will say, “We were not of those who prayed,
And we were not of those who fed the poor,
And we plunged into vain disputes with vain disputers,
And we rejected as a lie, the day of reckoning,
Till the certainty7 came upon us”-
And intercession of the interceders shall not avail them.
Then what hath come to them that they turn aside from the Warning
As if they were affrighted asses fleeing from a lion?
And every one of them would fain have open pages given to him out of
Heaven.
It shall not be. They fear not the life to come.
It shall not be. For this Koran is warning enough. And whoso will,
it warneth him.
But not unless God please, shall they be warned. Meet is He to be
feared. Meet is forgiveness in Him.
_______________________
1 This Sura is placed by Muir in the “second stage” of Meccan Suras,
and twenty-first in chronological order, in the third or fourth year
of the Prophet’s career. According, however, to the chronological
list of Suras given by Weil (Leben M. p. 364) from ancient tradition,
as well as from the consentient voice of tradionists and commentaries
(v. Nöld. Geschichte, p. 69; Sprenger’s Life of Mohammad, p. 111) it
was the next revealed after the Fatrah, and the designation to the
prophetic office. The main features of the tradition are, that
Muhammad while wandering about in the hills near Mecca, distracted by
doubts and by anxiety after truth, had a vision of the Angel Gabriel
seated on a throne between heaven and earth, that he ran to his wife,
Chadijah, in the greatest alarm, and desired her, perhaps from
superstitious motives (and believing that if covered with clothes he
should be shielded from the glances of evil spirits-comp. Stanley on I
Cor. xi. 10), to envelope him in his mantle; that then Gabriel came
down and addressed him as in v. I. This vision, like that which
preceded Sura xcvi., may actually have occurred during the
hallucinations of one of the epileptic fits from which Muhammad from
early youth appears to have suffered. Hence Muhammad in Sura lxxxi.
appeals to it as a matter of fact, and such he doubtless believe it to
be. It may here be observed, that however absurd the Muslim
traditions may be in many of their details, it will generally be found
that where there is an ancient and tolerably universal consent, there
will be found at the bottom a residuum of fact and historical truth.
At the same time there can be no doubt but that the details of the
traditions are too commonly founded upon the attempt to explain or to
throw light upon a dark passage of the Koran, and are pure inventions
of a later age.
2 The Arabic words are not those used in later Suras to express the
same idea.
3 Said to be Walid b. Mogheira, a person of note among the
unbelieving Meccans. This portion of the Sura seems to be of a
different date from the first seven verses, though very ancient, and
the change of subject is similar to that at v. 9 of the previous Sura.
4 This and the three following verses wear the appearance of having
been inserted at a later period to meet objections respecting the
number of the angels who guard hell, raised by the Jews; perhaps at
Medina, as the four classes of persons specified are those whom
Muhammad had to deal with in that city, viz., the Jews, Believers, the
Hypocrites, or undecided, and Idolaters. These are constantly
mentioned together in the Medina Suras.
5 That is, who believe, and do not believe.
6 As the word sakar disturbs the rhyme, it may have been inserted by a
mistake of the copyist for the usual word, which suits it.
7 That is, death. Beidh. Comp. Sura xv. 99.
SURA LXXIII. THE ENFOLDED1 [III.]
MECCA. 20 Verses.
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
O THOU ENFOLDED in thy mantle,
Stand up all night, except a small portion of it, for prayer:
Half; or curtail the half a little,-
Or add to it: And with measured tone intone the Koran,2
For we shall devolve on thee weighty words.
Verily, at the oncoming of night are devout impressions strongest, and
words are most collected;3
But in the day time thou hast continual employ-
And commemorate the name of thy Lord, and devote thyself to Him with
entire devotion.
Lord of the East and of the West! No God is there but He! Take Him for
thy protector,
And endure what they say with patience, and depart from them with a
decorous departure.
And let Me alone with the gainsayers, rich in the pleasures of this
life; and bear thou with them yet a little while:
For with Us are strong fetters, and a flaming fire,
And food that choketh, and a sore torment.
The day cometh when the earth and the mountains shall be shaken; and
the mountains shall become a loose sand heap.
Verily, we have sent you an Apostle to witness against you, even as we
sent an Apostle to Pharaoh:
But Pharaoh rebelled against the Apostle, and we therefore laid hold
on him with a severe chastisement.
And how, if ye believe not, will you screen yourselves from the day
that shall turn children greyheaded?
The very heaven shall be reft asunder by it: this threat shall be
carried into effect.
Lo! this is a warning. Let him then who will, take the way to his
Lord.
Of a truth,4 thy Lord knoweth that thou prayest almost two-thirds, or
half, or a third of the night, as do a part of thy followers. But God
measureth the night and the day: He knoweth that ye cannot count its
hours aright, and therefore, turneth to you mercifully. Recite then so
much of the Koran as may be easy to you. He knoweth that there will be
some among you sick, while others travel through the earth in quest of
the bounties of God; and others do battle in his cause. Recite
therefore so much of it as may be easy. And observe the Prayers and
pay the legal Alms,5 and lend God a liberal loan: for whatever good
works ye send on before for your own behoof, ye shall find with God.
This will be best and richest in the recompense. And seek the
forgiveness of God: verily, God is forgiving, Merciful.
_______________________
1 From the first line of this Sura, and its expressions concerning the
Koran, Prayer, and Future Punishment: from the similarity of the
tradition with regard to its having been preceded by a vision of
Gabriel (Beidh., etc.), it seems to belong to, or at least to
describe, a period, perhaps immediately succeeding the Fatrah, during
which the hours of night were spent by Muhammad in devotion and in the
labour of working up his materials in rhythmical and rhyming Suras,
and in preparation for the public assumption of the prophetic office.
Comp. especially verses 11, 19, 20, at the end, with 11, 54, 55, of
the preceding Sura.
2 Singe den Koran laut. H.v.P. Psalle Alcoranum psallendo. Mar. Singe
den Koran mit singender und lauter Stimme ab. Ullm.
3 Lit. most firm, perhaps, distinct.
4 This verse, according to a tradition of Ayesha, was revealed one
year later than the previous part of the Sura. Nöldeke says it is
"offenbar ein Medinischer."
5 The reader will not be surprised to find in the very outset of
Muhammad's career a frequent mention of Alms, Prayer, Heaven, Hell,
Judgment, Apostles, etc., in their usual sense, when he remembers that
Judaism was extensively naturalised in Arabia, and Christianity, also,
although to a smaller extent. The words and phrases of these religions
were doubtless familiar to the Meccans, especially to that numerous
body who were anxiously searching after some better religion than the
idolatries of their fathers (v. on Sura iii. 19, 60), and provided
Muhammad with a copious fund from which to draw.
SURA XCIII.1-THE BRIGHTNESS [IV.]
MECCA.-11 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
BY the noon-day BRIGHTNESS,
And by the night when it darkeneth!
Thy Lord hath not forsaken thee, neither hath he been displeased.
And surely the Future shall be better for thee than the Past,
And in the end shall thy Lord be bounteous to thee and thou be
satisfied.
Did he not find thee an orphan2 and gave thee a home?
And found thee erring and guided thee,3
And found thee needy and enriched thee.
As to the orphan therefore wrong him not;
And as to him that asketh of thee, chide him not away;
And as for the favours of thy Lord tell them abroad.
_______________________
1 This and the six following Suras are expressions of a state of deep
mental anxiety and depression, in which Muhammad seeks to reassure
himself by calling to mind the past favours of God, and by fixing his
mind steadfastly on the Divine Unity. They belong to a period either
before the public commencement of his ministry or when his success was
very dubious, and his future career by no means clearly marked out.
2 The charge of the orphaned Muhammad was undertaken by
Abd-al-Mutalib, his grandfather, A.D. 576. Hishami, p. 35; Kitab al
Wakidi, p. 22, have preserved traditions of the fondness with which
the old man of fourscore years treated the child, spreading a rug for
him under the shadow of the Kaaba, protecting him from the rudeness of
his own sons, etc.
3 Up to his 40th year Muhammad followed the religion of his
countrymen. Waq. Tabari says that when he first entered on his office
of Prophet, even his wife Chadijah had read the Scriptures, and was
acquainted with the History of the Prophets. Spreng. p. 100. But his
conformity can only have been partial.
SURA XCIV.-THE OPENING [V.]
MECCA.-8 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
HAVE we not OPENED thine heart for thee?
And taken off from thee thy burden,
Which galled thy back?
And have we not raised thy name for thee?
Then verily along with trouble cometh ease.
Verily along with trouble cometh ease.
But when thou art set at liberty, then prosecute thy toil.
And seek thy Lord with fervour.
SURA CXIII.-THE DAYBREAK [VI.]
MECCA OR MEDINA.-5 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
SAY: I betake me for refuge to the Lord of the DAY BREAK
Against the mischiefs of his creation;
And against the mischief of the night when it overtaketh me;
And against the mischief of weird women;1
And against the mischief of the envier when he envieth.
_______________________
1 Lit. who blow on knots. According to some commentators an allusion
to a species of charm. Comp. Virg.Ec. vi. But the reference more
probably is to women in general, who disconcert schemes as thread is
disentangled by blowing upon it. Suras cxiii. are called the el
mouwwidhetani, or preservative chapters, are engraved on amulets,etc.
SURA CXIV.-MEN [VII.]
MECCA OR MEDINA.-6 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
SAY: I betake me for refuge to the Lord of MEN,
The King of men,
The God of men,
Against the mischief of the stealthily withdrawing whisperer,1
Who whispereth in man's breast-
Against djinn and men.
_______________________
1 Satan.
SURA I.1 [VIII.]
MECCA.-7 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
PRAISE be to God, Lord of the worlds!
The compassionate, the merciful!
King on the day of reckoning!
Thee only do we worship, and to Thee do we cry for help.
Guide Thou us on the straight path,2
The path of those to whom Thou hast been gracious;-with whom thou art
not angry, and who go not astray.3
_______________________
1 This Sura, which Nöldeke places last, and Muir sixth, in the
earliest class of Meccan Suras, must at least have been composed prior
to Sura xxxvii. 182,where it is quoted, and to Sura xv. 87, which
refers to it. And it can scarcely be an accidental circumstance that
the words of the first, second, and fifth verses do not occur in any
other Suras of the first Meccan period as given by N”ldeke, but
frequently in those of the second, which it therefore, in N”ldeke,
opinion, immediately precedes. But this may be accounted for by its
having been recast for the purposes of private and public devotion by
Muhammad himself, which is the meaning probably of the Muhammadan
tradition that it was revealed twice. It should also be observed
that, including the auspicatory formula, there are the same number of
petitions in this Sura as in the Lord's Prayer. It is recited several
times in each of the five daily prayers, and on many other occassions,
as in concluding a bargain, etc. It is termed "the Opening of the
Book," "the Completion," "the Sufficing Sura," the Sura of Praise,
Thanks, and Prayer," "the Healer," "the Remedy," "the Basis," "the
Treasure," "the Mother of the Book," "the Seven Verses of Repetition."
The Muhammadans always say "Amen" after this prayer, Muhammad having
been instructed, says the Sonna, to do so by the Angel Gabriel.
2 Islam
3 The following transfer of this Sura from the Arabic into the
corresponding English characters may give some idea of the rhyming
prose in which the Koran is written:
Bismillahi 'rahhmani 'rrahheem. El-hamdoo lillahi rabi 'lalameen.
Arrahhmani raheem. Maliki yowmi-d-deen. Eyaka naboodoo, wa‚yaka nest
aeen. Ihdina 'ssirat almostakeem. Sirat alezeena anhamta aleihim,
gheiri-'l mughdoobi aleihim, wala dsaleen. Ameen.
SURA CIX.-UNBELIEVERS [IX.]
MECCA.-6 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
SAY: O ye UNBELIEVERS!
I worship not that which ye worship,
And ye do not worship that which I worship;
I shall never worship that which ye worship,
Neither will ye worship that which I worship.
To you be your religion; to me my religion.1
_______________________
1 This Sura is said to have been revealed when Walîd urged Muhammad to
consent that his God should be worshipped at the same time with the
old Meccan deities, or alternately every year. Hishâmi, p. 79; Tabari,
p. 139. It is a distinct renunciation of Meccan idolatry, as the
following Sura is a distinct recognition of the Divine Unity.
SURA CXII.-THE UNITY [X.]
MECCA.-4 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
SAY: He is God alone:
God the eternal!
He begetteth not, and He is not begotten;
And there is none like unto Him.
SURA CXI. ABU LAHAB [XI.]
MECCA. 5 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
LET the hands of ABU LAHAB1 perish,and let himself perish!
His wealth and his gains shall avail him not.
Burned shall he be at the fiery flame,2
And his wife laden with fire wood,-
On her neck a rope of palm fibre.
_______________________
1 Undoubtedly one of the earliest Suras, and refers to the rejection
of Muhammad's claim to the prophetic office by his uncle, Abu Lahab,
at the instigation of his wife, Omm Djemil, who is said to have strewn
the path of Muhammad on one occasion with thorns. The following six
Suras, like the two first, have special reference to the difficulties
which the Prophet met with the outset of his career, especially from
the rich.
2 In allusion to the meaning of Abu Lahab, father of flame.
SURA CVIII.-THE ABUNDANCE [XII.]
MECCA.-3 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
TRULY we have given thee an ABUNDANCE;
Pray therefore to the Lord, and slay the victims.
Verily whose hateth thee shall be childless.1
_______________________
1 A reply to those who had taunted Muhammad with the death of his
sons, as a mark of the divine displeasure.
SURA CIV.-THE BACKBITER [XII.]
MECCA.-9 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Woe to every BACKBITER, Defamer!
Who amasseth wealth and storeth it against the future!
He thinketh surely that his wealth shall be with him for ever.
Nay! for verily he shall be flung into the Crushing Fire;
And who shall teach thee what the Crushing Fire is?
It is God's kindled fire,
Which shall mount above the hearts of the damned;
It shall verily rise over them like a vault,
On outstretched columns.
SURA CVII.-RELIGION [XIV.]
MECCA.-7 Verses
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
WHAT thinkest thou of him who treateth our RELIGION as a lie?
He it is who trusteth away the orphan,
And stirreth not others up to feed the poor.
Woe to those who pray,
But in their prayer are careless;
Who make a shew of devotion,
But refuse help to the needy.