Part 3

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.

_______________________