Introduction

The importance of the "Koran" lies in the fact that it is a religious book of the East, read and stored in the memory of a hundred millions of people of different races and civilizations, inhabiting countries extending from the western borders of China to the pillars of Hercules. It is considered by the Mohammedan to contain all the knowledge and all the literature necessary for men. When it was demanded of Mohammed to confirm the authority of his mission by some work of wonder, he pointed to the "Koran," and exclaimed, "Behold the greatest miracle of all." The learned men of Alexandria asked the Caliph Omar to give to them the vast library at Alexandria. "If those books," he replied, "contain anything which is contrary to the 'Koran' they deserve to be destroyed. If they contain what is written in the 'Koran,' they are unnecessary." He ordered them to be distributed among the baths of the city, to serve as fuel for their furnaces.

The composition of the "Koran" is all the work of Mohammed. He himself claimed that he spoke merely as the oracle of God. The commands and injunctions are in the first person, as if spoken by the Divine Being. The passionate enthusiasm and religious earnestness of the prophet are plainly seen in these strange writings. Sometimes, however, he sinks into the mere Arabian story-teller, whose object is the amusement of his people. He is not a poet, but when he deals with the unity of God, with the beneficence of the Divine Being, with the wonders of Nature, with the beauty of resignation, he exhibits a glowing rhetoric, a power of gorgeous imagery, of pathos, and religious devotion, that make the "Koran" the first written work in the Arabian tongue.

If we take Mohammed's own account of the composition of the volume, we must believe that the completed "Koran" existed from all eternity, on a tablet preserved in the upper heavens. Once a year, during the period of the prophet's active work, fragments of this tablet were brought down by the angel Gabriel to the lower heavens of the moon, and imparted to the prophet, who was periodically transported to that celestial sphere. The words were recited by the angel, and dictated by the prophet to his scribe. These detached scraps were written on the ribs of palm leaves, or the shoulder-blades of sheep, or parchment, and were stored in a chest, in which they were kept until the caliphat of Abu Bekr, in the seventh century, when they were collected in one volume. Such marvels of revelation were made at different periods to the prophet, and were called Surahs, and formed separate chapters in the Koran as we have it to-day. Some of these Surahs contradict what had previously been uttered by the prophet, but this discrepancy is obviated by the expedient of what is called "abrogation," and the more recent utterances were held to supersede and rescind those which were contradictory to it in the earlier revelation.

It may well be believed that these sibylline leaves of Mohammedanism make up a heterogeneous jumble of varied elements. Some of the chapters are long, others are short; now the prophet seems to be caught up by a whirlwind, and is brought face to face with ineffable mysteries, of which he speaks in the language of rhapsody. At other times he is dry and prosaic, indulging in wearisome iterations, and childish trivialities. Now he assumes the plain, clear voice of the law-giver, or raises his accents into the angry threatenings of the relentless and bloodthirsty fanatic. Yet throughout the whole volume there is a strain of religious resignation, of trust in God, of hopefulness under adversity, of kindliness towards men, which reveal a nobility of ideal, a simplicity and purity in the conception of the Divine Being, and the relations of human life, which make the work not without inspiration, even to the thoughtful man of the nineteenth century. The Koran must always be considered one of the most potent of religious books, one of the greatest documents which reveal the struggle of the human heart after a knowledge of God, and of faithful accomplishment of the Divine will. Perhaps the essence of the work as furnishing a philosophy of life, is contained in the axioms of Abu Bekr, one of the most exalted in character of Mohammed's successors. "Good actions," he says, "are a guard against the blows of adversity." And again, "Death is the easiest of all things after it, and the hardest of all things before it." To which we may add the sentence of Ali, "Riches without God are the greatest poverty and misery."

There are twenty-nine chapters of the "Koran," which begin with certain letters of the alphabet: some with a single one, others with more. These letters the Mohammedans believe to be the peculiar marks of the "Koran," and to conceal several profound mysteries, the certain understanding of which, the more intelligent confess, has not been communicated to any mortal, their prophet only excepted. Notwithstanding which, some will take the liberty of guessing at their meaning by that species of Cabbala called by the Jews, Notarikon, and suppose the letters to stand for as many words expressing the names and attributes of God, his works, ordinances, and decrees; and therefore these mysterious letters, as well as the verses themselves, seem in the "Koran" to be called signs. Others explain the intent of these letters from their nature or organ, or else from their value in numbers, according to another species of the Jewish Cabbala called Gematria; the uncertainty of these conjectures sufficiently appears from their disagreement. Thus, for example, five chapters, one of which is the second, begin with the letters A.L.M., which some imagine to stand for Allah latîf magîd—"God is gracious and to be glorified"—or, Ana li minni—"to me and from me"—belongs all perfection, and proceeds all good; or else for Ana Allah âlam—"I am the most wise God"—taking the first letter to mark the beginning of the first word, the second the middle of the second word, and the third the last of the third word: or for "Allah, Gabriel, Mohammed," the author, revealer, and preacher of the "Koran." Others say that as the letter A belongs to the lower part of the throat, the first of the organs of speech; L to the palate, the middle organ: and M to the lips, which are the last organs; so these letters signify that God is the beginning, middle, and end, or ought to be praised in the beginning, middle, and end of all our words and actions; or, as the total value of those three letters in numbers is seventy-one, they signify that in the space of so many years, the religion preached in the "Koran" should be fully established. The conjecture of a learned Christian is, at least, as certain as any of the former, who supposes those letters were set there by the amanuensis, for Amar li Mohammed—"at the command of Mohammed"—as the five letters prefixed to the nineteenth chapter seem to be there written by a Jewish scribe, for Cob yaas—"thus he commanded."

The general contents of the "Koran" may be divided under three heads: First, precepts and laws in matters of religion, such as prayer, fasting, pilgrimage; there are laws also given in the affairs of the civil life, such as marriage, the possession and bequeathing of property, and the administration of justice. The second division would include histories, which consist in a great part of incidents from the Bible, as Christians know it. Mohammed probably picked up a good deal of hearsay knowledge in this department from Jews and Christians. Some of his historical incidents are purely fabulous, others are perversions or falsifications of the Scriptural narrative. This portion of the "Koran," interesting and anecdotic as it is, is the least satisfactory of the work, and shows the writer in his true ignorance, and disregard for historic verification. When, for instance, he confounds Miriam, the sister of Moses, with Mary the Mother of Christ, he shows himself lost in truly Oriental clouds of mystic error. The third element in the "Koran" is a large body of admonitions, many of them addressed to the outside world, and to unbelievers who are exhorted to accept the creed that there is one God and Mohammed is His prophet. War is put forth as a legitimate method of propagating the faith. The duties of life, such as justice, temperance, resignation and industry, are enforced. Hell is threatened to infidels and immoral people; and from whatever sources the writer derived his materials there can be no doubt that the moral scheme he promulgated was in every sense a revelation to the degraded idolaters and fire-worshippers, amongst whom he discharged the mission of his life. Mohammed preached what he called the truth, with the sword in one hand and the "Koran" in the other. But the empire established by the sword would long since have crumbled into dust like that of Alexander or Augustus, unless the "Koran" had fixed its teaching in the minds of the conquered, had regulated by its precepts their social and political life, had supported and exalted their faith with the doctrine of one Almighty and beneficent God; had cheered them with the hope of a Resurrection, and illuminated their minds with the vision of a Paradise, the grossest of whose delights were afterwards to be interpreted by Arabic commentators in accordance with the highest spiritual capabilities of the human race.

E.W.