initial commit of ebook 44515HEADmain

1 files changed, 10930 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/44515-0.txt b/44515-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..727a1f1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/44515-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,10930 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44515 ***
+
+TRÜBNER’S
+
+ORIENTAL SERIES.
+
+VII.
+
+
+   Ballantyne Press
+   BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
+   EDINBURGH AND LONDON
+
+[Illustration: MECCA.]
+
+
+   SELECTIONS FROM THE ḲUR-ÁN
+
+   BY
+
+   EDWARD WILLIAM LANE,
+
+   HON. DOCTOR OF LITERATURE, LEYDEN;
+   CORRESPONDENT OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE;
+   HON. MEMBER OF THE GERMAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY, THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY,
+   THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE, ETC.;
+   AUTHOR OF “THE MODERN EGYPTIANS,” AND “AN ARABIC-ENGLISH LEXICON;”
+   TRANSLATOR OF “THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS.”
+
+   A New Edition, Revised and Enlarged,
+
+   _WITH AN INTRODUCTION_,
+
+   BY
+
+   STANLEY LANE POOLE.
+
+   LONDON:
+   TRÜBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL.
+
+   1879.
+
+   [_All rights reserved._]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+There are several translations of the Ḳur-án in several languages; but
+there are very few people who have the strength of mind to read any of
+them through. The chaotic arrangement and frequent repetitions, and
+the obscurity of the language, are sufficient to deter the most
+persistent reader, whilst the nature of a part of its contents renders
+the Ḳur-án unfit for a woman’s eye.
+
+Yet there always has been a wish to know something about the sacred
+book of the Mohammadans, and it was with the design of satisfying this
+wish, whilst avoiding the weariness and the disgust which a complete
+perusal of the Ḳur-án must produce, that Mr. Lane arranged the
+‘Selections’ which were published in 1843. In spite of many printer’s
+errors, due to the author’s absence from England, the book was so far
+successful that the edition was exhausted, and it is now very
+difficult to obtain a copy. But partly owing to the obstructions to
+the reading offered by an interwoven native commentary, and partly by
+reason of the preference shown for the doctrinal over the poetical
+passages, the book went into scholars’ hands rather than into the
+libraries of the general reading public. It has proved of
+considerable service to students of Arabic, who have found it the most
+accurate rendering in existence of a large part of the Ḳur-án; and
+even native Muslims of India, ignorant of Arabic, have used Lane’s
+‘Selections’ as their Bible.
+
+In this edition I have endeavoured rather to carry out the original
+intention of the translator. Experience has shown that the first plan
+was over-learned to commend itself to the average reader, for whom Mr.
+Lane had destined the book; in this edition I have therefore omitted
+many of the notes, which will not be missed by the reader for whom the
+book is intended, and for which the Arabic scholar has only to refer
+to the first edition, or to Sale’s _Koran_, whence most of them were
+derived. Again, the text of the first edition was obscured and
+interrupted by an interwoven commentary, which destroyed the pleasure
+of the language and often made the meaning less intelligible than
+before. This commentary has been thinned. Where it added nothing to
+the text, it has been erased; where it gave a curious or valuable
+explanation, it has been thrown into a footnote; where it merely
+supplied a necessary word to complete the sense, that word has been
+left in the text distinguished by a different type[1]. Once more, the
+early and wilder _soorahs_ were almost wholly omitted in the first
+edition, whilst the later more dogmatic and less poetical _soorahs_
+were perhaps too fully represented. I have endeavoured to establish
+the balance between the two.
+
+In this edition the Selections are divided into two parts. The first
+is Islám; the second, other religions as regarded in Islám. In the
+first are grouped, under distinctive headings, the more important
+utterances of Moḥammad on what his followers must believe and do; in
+the second are his versions of the history of the patriarchs and other
+personages of the Jewish and Christian writings.
+
+It is only in the First Part that I have made much alteration, either
+by adding fresh extracts (distinguished by a sign), or by making a few
+merely verbal alterations in the original extracts, or by the
+suppression or transposition of the commentary. Any alterations that
+go beyond this—new renderings, for instance—are duly recorded in the
+footnotes.
+
+The Second Part is almost unchanged from the first edition. In this
+part the interwoven commentary is left entire, for the traditions of
+the commentators about Abraham and Moses and Christ are as curious as
+the traditions of Moḥammad, and about as credible; and the narrative
+style of the Second Part allows the introduction of parentheses more
+easily than the rhetorical form which many of the extracts in the
+First Part present.
+
+Mr. Lane’s Introduction was abridged from Sale’s Preliminary
+Discourse, with but little addition from his own knowledge. Sale’s
+Discourse abounds in information, but it is too detailed and lengthy
+for the purpose of this volume. I have, then, substituted a short
+sketch of the beginnings of Islám. I have tried to bring home to the
+reader the little we know of the early Arabs; then to draw the picture
+of the great Arab prophet and his work; to show what are the salient
+points of Islám; and finally to explain something of the history of
+the Ḳur-án and its contents. I am conscious of having drawn the
+picture with a weak hand, but I hope the sketch may serve as a not
+quite useless introduction to a volume of typical selections from a
+book which, in the peculiar character of its contents and the
+extraordinary power of its influence, has not its parallel in the
+world.
+
+   S. L. P.
+
+   _June 1878._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+        _INTRODUCTION._
+
+                                                 PAGE
+      I. THE ARABS BEFORE MOḤAMMAD                 xi
+     II. MOḤAMMAD                              xxxvii
+    III. ISLÁM                                 lxxvii
+     IV. THE ḲUR-ÁN                                 c
+
+
+        _PART THE FIRST._
+
+      I. THE OPENING PRAYER                         3
+     II. PREMONITION                                4
+    III. GOD                                        5
+     IV. MOḤAMMAD AND THE ḲUR-ÁN                   13
+      V. THE RESURRECTION, PARADISE, AND HELL      21
+     VI. PREDESTINATION                            32
+    VII. ANGELS AND JINN                           33
+   VIII. TRUE RELIGION AND FALSE                   34
+     IX. BELIEVERS AND UNBELIEVERS                 38
+
+
+        _PART THE SECOND._
+
+      I. PROPHETS, APOSTLES, AND DIVINE BOOKS      47
+     II. ADAM AND EVE                              49
+    III. ABEL AND CAIN                             53
+     IV. NOAH AND THE FLOOD                        55
+      V. ´ÁD AND THAMOOD                           60
+     VI. DHU-L-ḲARNEYN                             63
+    VII. ABRAHAM, ISHMAEL, ISAAC                   66
+   VIII. JACOB, JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN            77
+     IX. JOB                                       93
+      X. SHO´EYB                                   95
+     XI. MOSES AND HIS PEOPLE                      97
+    XII. SAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON                     132
+   XIII. JONAH                                    146
+    XIV. EZRA                                     148
+     XV. THE MESSIAH                              149
+
+         INDEXES                                  167
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+I.—_THE ARABS BEFORE MOḤAMMAD._
+
+
+     ‘Oh, our manhood’s prime vigour! No spirit feels waste,
+   Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced.
+   Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,
+   The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock
+   Of the plunge in the pool’s living water, the hunt of the bear,
+   And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair.
+   And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold-dust divine,
+   And the locust flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of wine,
+   And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell
+   That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.
+   How good is man’s life, the mere living! how fit to employ
+   All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy!’
+
+   —BROWNING, _Saul_.
+
+
+Between Egypt and Assyria, jostled by both, yielding to neither, lay a
+strange country, unknown save at its marches even to its neighbours,
+dwelt-in by a people that held itself aloof from all the earth—a
+people whom the great empires of the ancient world in vain essayed to
+conquer, against whom the power of Persia, Egypt, Rome, Byzantium was
+proven impotence, and at whose hands even the superb Alexander, had he
+lived to test his dream, might for once have learnt the lesson of
+defeat. Witnessing the struggle and fall of one and another of the
+great tyrannies of antiquity, yet never entering the arena of the
+fight;—swept on its northern frontier by the conflicting armies of
+Khusru and Cæsar, but lifting never a hand in either cause;—Arabia was
+at length to issue forth from its silent mystery, and after baffling
+for a thousand years the curious gaze of strangers, was at last to
+draw to itself the fearful eyes of all men. The people of whom almost
+nothing before could certainly be asserted but its existence was
+finally of its own free will to throw aside the veil, to come forth
+from its fastnesses, and imperiously to bring to its feet the kingdoms
+of the world.
+
+It is not all Arabia of which I speak. The story to tell has nothing
+as yet to say to the ‘happy’ tilled lands of the south, nor to the
+outlying princedoms of El-Ḥeereh and Ghassán bordering the territories
+and admitting the suzerainty of Persia and Rome. These lands were not
+wrapped in mystery: the Himyerite’s kingdom in the Yemen, the rule of
+Zenobia at Palmyra, were familiar to the nations around. But the
+cradle of Islám was not here.
+
+Along the eastern coast of the Red Sea, sometimes thrusting its spurs
+of red sandstone and porphyry into the waves, sometimes drawing away
+and leaving a wide stretch of lowland, runs a rugged range of
+mountain. One above another, the hills rise from the coast, leaving
+here and there between them a green valley, where you may see an Arab
+settlement or a group of Bedawees watering their flocks. Rivers there
+are none; and the streams that gather from the rainfall are scarcely
+formed but they sink into the parched earth. Yet beneath the dried-up
+torrent-beds a rivulet trickles at times, and straightway there
+spreads a rich oasis dearly prized by the wanderers of the desert. All
+else is bare and desolate. Climb hill after hill, and the same sight
+meets the eye—barren mountain-side, dry gravelly plain, and the rare
+green valleys. At length you have reached the topmost ridge; and you
+see, not a steep descent, no expected return to the plain, but a vast
+desert plateau, blank, inhospitable, to all but Arabs unindwellable.
+You have climbed the Ḥijáz—the ‘barrier’—and are come to the steppes
+of the Nejd—the ‘highland.’ In the valleys of this barrier-land are
+the Holy Cities, Mekka and Medina. Here is the birthplace of Islám:
+the Arab tribes of the Ḥijáz and the Nejd were the first disciples of
+Moḥammad.
+
+One may tell much of a people’s character from its home. Truism as it
+seems, there is yet a meaning in the saying that the Arabs are
+peculiarly the people of Arabia. Those who have travelled in this
+wonderful land tell us of the quickening influence of the air and
+scene of the desert. The fresh breath of the plain, the glorious sky,
+the still of the wide expanse, trod by no step but your own, looked
+upon only by yourself and perhaps yonder solitary eagle or the wild
+goat leaping the cliffs you have left behind, the absolute stillness
+and aloneness, bring about a strange sense of delight and exultation,
+a bounding-up of spirits held in long restraint, an unknown nimbleness
+of wit and limb. The Arabs felt all this and more in their bright
+imaginative souls. A few would settle in villages, and engage in the
+trade which came through from India to the West; but such were held in
+poor repute by the true Bedawees, who preferred above all things else
+the free life of the desert. It is a relief to turn from the hurry and
+unrest of modern civilisation, from the never-ending strife for
+wealth, for ‘position,’ for pleasure, even for knowledge, and look for
+a moment on the careless life of the Bedawee. He lived the aimless,
+satisfied life of some child; he sought no change; he was supremely
+content with the exquisite sense of simple existence; he was happy
+because he lived. He wished no more. He dreaded the dark After-death;
+he thrust it from his thoughts as often as it would force itself
+unwelcome upon him. Utterly fearless of man and fortune, he took no
+thought for the morrow: whatever it brought forth, he felt confidently
+his strength to enjoy or endure; only let him seize the happiness of
+to-day while it shall last, and drain to the dregs the overbrimming
+cup of his life. He was ambitious of glory and victory, but it was not
+an ambition that clouded his joy. Throughout a life that was full of
+energy, of passion, of strong endeavour after his ideal of desert
+perfectness, there was yet a restful sense of satisfied enjoyment, a
+feeling that life was of a surety well worth living.
+
+For the Arab had his ideal of life. The true son of the desert must in
+the old times do more than stretch his limbs contentedly under the
+shade of the overhanging rock. He must be brave and chivalrous,
+generous, hospitable; ready to sacrifice himself and his substance for
+his clan; prompt to help the needy and the traveller; true to his
+word, and, not least, eloquent in his speech.
+
+Devotion to the clan was the strongest tie the Arab possessed. Though
+tracing their descent from a common traditional ancestor, the great
+northern family of Bedawees was split up into numerous clans, owning
+no central authority, but led, scarcely governed, each by its own
+chief, who was the most valiant and best-born man in it. The whole
+clan acted as one being; an injury done to one member was revenged by
+all, and even a crime committed by a clansman was upheld by the whole
+brotherhood. Though a small spark would easily light-up war between
+even friendly clans, it was rarely that those of kin met as enemies.
+It is told how a clan suffered long and oft-repeated injuries from a
+kindred clan without one deed of revenge. ‘They are our brothers,’
+they said; ‘perhaps they will return to better feelings; perhaps we
+shall see them again as they once were.’ To be brought to poverty or
+even to die for the clan, the Arab deemed his duty—his privilege. To
+add by his prowess or his hospitality or his eloquence to the glory of
+the clan was his ambition.
+
+   A mountain[2] we have where dwells he whom we shelter there,
+     lofty, before whose height the eye falls back blunted:
+   Deep-based is its root below ground, and overhead there soars
+     its peak to the stars of heaven whereto no man reaches.
+   A folk are we who deem it no shame to be slain in fight,
+     though that be the deeming thereof of Salool and ´Ámir;
+   Our love of death brings near to us our days of doom,
+     but their dooms shrink from death and stand far distant.
+   There dies among us no lord a quiet death in his bed,
+     and never is blood of us poured forth without vengeance.
+   Our souls stream forth in a flood from the edge of the whetted swords:
+     no otherwise than so does our spirit leave its mansion.
+   Pure is our stock, unsullied: fair is it kept and bright
+     by mothers whose bed bears well, and fathers mighty.
+   To the best of the uplands we wend, and when the season comes
+     we travel adown to the best of fruitful valleys.
+   Like rain of the heaven are we: there is not in all our line
+     one blunt of heart, nor among us is counted a niggard.
+   We say nay when so we will to the words of other men,
+     but no man to us says nay when we give sentence.
+   When passes a lord of our line, in his stead there rises straight
+     a lord to say the say and do the deeds of the noble.
+   Our beacon is never quenched to the wanderer of the night,
+     nor has ever a guest blamed us where men meet together.
+   Our Days[3] are famous among our foemen, of fair report,
+     branded and blazed with glory like noble horses.
+   Our swords have swept throughout all lands both west and east,
+     and gathered many a notch from the steel of hauberk-wearers;
+   Not used are they when drawn to be laid back in the sheaths
+     before that the folk they meet are spoiled and scattered.
+   If thou knowest not, ask men what they think of us and them
+     —not alike are he that knows and he that knows not.
+   The children of Ed-Dayyán are the shaft of their people’s mill,
+     —around them it turns and whirls, while they stand midmost.[4]
+
+The renown of the clan was closely wrapped up with the Arab
+chieftain’s personal renown. He was keenly sensitive on the point of
+honour, and to that notion he attached a breadth of meaning which can
+scarcely be understood in these days. Honour included all the
+different virtues that went to make up the ideal Bedawee. To be proved
+wanting in any of these was to be dishonoured. Above all things, the
+man who would ‘keep his honour and defile it not’ must be brave and
+hospitable—
+
+   A rushing rain-flood when he gave guerdons:
+     when he sprang to the onset, a mighty lion.
+
+The Arab warrior was a mighty man of valour. He would spend whole days
+in the saddle, burdened with heavy armour, in the pursuit of a foe,
+seeking the life of the slayer of his kin, or sweeping down upon the
+caravan of rich merchandise which his more peaceful countrymen of the
+towns were carrying through the deserts. The Arab lived mainly by
+plunder. His land did not yield him food—unless it were dates, the
+Bedawee’s bread—and he relied on the success of his foraging
+expeditions for his support. These he conducted with perfect
+good-breeding; he used no violence when it could be avoided; he merely
+relieved the caravan from the trouble of carrying any further the
+goods that he was himself willing to take charge of, urging, if
+necessary, the unfair treatment of his forefather Ishmael as an
+excellent reason for pillaging the sons of Isaac. ‘When a woman is the
+victim, no Bedouin brigand, however rude, will be ill-mannered enough
+to lay hands upon her. He begs her to take off the garment on which he
+has set his heart, and he then retires to a distance and stands with
+eyes averted, lest he should do violence to her modesty.’
+
+The poems of the early Arabs are full of the deeds of their warriors,
+the excitement of the pitched battle, the delight of the pursuit, the
+nightly raid on the camp, the trial of skill between rival chiefs, and
+the other pictures of a warrior’s triumph. Here we find little of the
+generosity of war: mercy was rarely exercised and hatred was carried
+to its extremest limits; quarter was neither asked nor given; to
+despatch a wounded man was no disgrace; the families of the vanquished
+were enslaved. Notwithstanding his frank genial nature, the Arab was
+of a dangerously quick temper, derived, he boasted, from the flesh he
+lived on of the camel, the surliest and most ill-conditioned of
+beasts. If he conceived himself insulted, he was bound to revenge
+himself to the full, or he would have been deemed dishonoured for
+ever. And since his fiery temper easily took offence, the history of
+the early Arabs is full of the traditions of slight quarrels and their
+horrible results—secret assassination and the long-lasting blood-feud.
+
+   Many the warriors, noon-journeying, who, when
+     night fell, journeyed on and halted at dawning—
+   Keen each one of them, girt with a keen blade
+     that when one drew it flashed forth like the lightning—
+   They were tasting of sleep by sips, when, as
+     they nodded, thou didst fright them, and they were scattered.
+   Vengeance we did on them: there escaped us
+     of the two houses none but the fewest.
+   And if Hudheyl[5] broke the edge of his[6] sword-blade—
+     many the notch that Hudheyl gained from him!
+   Many the time that he made them kneel down on
+     jagged rocks where the hoof is worn with running!
+   Many the morning he fell on their shelter,
+     and after slaughter came plunder and spoiling!
+   Hudheyl has been burned by me, one valiant
+     whom Evil tires not though they be wearied—
+   Whose spear drinks deep the first draught, and thereon
+     drinks deep again of the blood of foemen.
+   Forbidden was wine, but now it is lawful:
+     hard was the toil that made it lawful!
+   Reach me the cup, O Sawád son of ´Amr!
+     my body is spent with gaining my vengeance.
+   To Hudheyl we gave to drink Death’s goblet,
+     whose dregs are disgrace and shame and dishonour.
+   The hyena laughs over the slain of Hudheyl, and
+     the wolf—see thou—grins by their corpses,
+   And the vultures flap their wings, full-bellied
+     treading their dead, too gorged to leave them.
+
+The contempt which the Arab, with a few noble exceptions, felt for the
+gentler virtues is seen in these lines:—
+
+   Had I been a son of Mázin, there had not plundered my herds
+     the sons of the Child of the Dust, Dhuhl son of Sheybán!
+   There had straightway arisen to help me a heavy-handed kin,
+     good smiters when help is needed, though the feeble bend to the blow:
+   Men who, when Evil bares before them his hindmost teeth,
+     fly gaily to meet him, in companies or alone.
+   They ask not their brother, when he lays before them his wrong
+     in his trouble, to give them proof of the truth of what he says.
+   But as for my people, though their number be not small,
+     they are good for nought against evil, however light it be;
+   They requite with forgiveness the wrong of those that do them wrong,
+     and the evil deeds of the evil they meet with kindness and love;
+   As though thy Lord had created among the tribes of men
+     themselves alone to fear Him, and never one man more.
+   Would that I had in their stead a folk who, when they ride forth,
+     strike swiftly and hard, on horse or on camel borne!
+
+A point on which the temper of the Bedawee was easily touched was his
+family pride. The Arab prized good blood as much in men as in his
+horses and camels. In these he saw the importance of breed, and in men
+he firmly believed the same principle held good. With the tenacious
+memory of his race, he had no difficulty in remembering the whole of a
+complicated pedigree, and he would often proudly dwell on the purity
+of his blood and the gallant deeds of his forefathers. He would
+challenge another chief to prove a more noble descent, and hot
+disputes and bitter rivalries often came of these comparisons.
+
+But if noble birth brought rivalry and hatred, it brought withal
+excellent virtues. The Arab nobleman was not a man who was richer and
+more idle and luxurious than his inferiors: his position, founded upon
+descent, depended for its maintenance on personal qualities. Rank
+brought with it onerous obligations. The chief, if he would retain and
+carry on the repute of his line, must not only be fearless and ready
+to fight all the world; he must be given to hospitality, generous to
+kith and kin, and to all who cry unto him. His tent must be so pitched
+in the camp that it shall not only be the first that the enemy
+attacks, but also the first the wayworn stranger approaches; and at
+night fires must be kindled hard by to guide wanderers in the desert
+to his hospitable entertainment. If a man came to an Arab noble’s
+tent and said, ‘I throw myself on your honour,’ he was safe from his
+enemies until they had trampled on the dead body of his host. Nothing
+was baser than to give up a guest; the treachery was rare, and brought
+endless dishonour upon the clan in which the shame had taken place.
+The poet extols the tents—
+
+   Where dwells a kin great of heart, whose word is enough to shield
+     whom they shelter when peril comes in a night of fierce strife
+     and storm;
+   Yea, noble are they: the seeker of vengeance gains not from them
+     the blood of his foe, nor is he that wrongs them left without
+     help.
+
+The feeling lasted even under the debased rule of Muslim despots; for
+it is related that a governor was once ordering-out some prisoners to
+execution, when one of them asked for a drink of water, which was
+immediately given him. He then turned to the governor and said, ‘Wilt
+thou slay thy guest?’ and was forthwith set free. A pledge of
+protection was inferred in the giving of hospitality, and to break his
+word was a thing not to be thought upon by an Arab. He did not care to
+give an oath; his simple word was enough, for it was known to be
+inviolable. Hence the priceless worth of the Arab chief’s word of
+welcome: it meant protection, unswerving fidelity, help, and succour.
+
+There was no bound to this hospitality. It was the pride of the Arab
+to place everything he possessed at the service of the guest. The last
+milch-camel must be killed sooner than the duties of hospitality be
+neglected. The story is told of Ḥátim, a gallant poet-warrior of the
+tribe of Ṭayyi, which well illustrates the Arab ideal of hostship.
+Ḥátim was at one time brought to the brink of starvation by the dearth
+of a rainless season. For a whole day he and his family had eaten
+nothing, and at night, after soothing the children to sleep by telling
+them some of those stories in which the Arabs have few rivals, he was
+trying by his cheerful conversation to make his wife forget her
+hunger. Just then they heard steps without, and a corner of the tent
+was raised. ‘Who is there?’ said Ḥátim. A woman’s voice replied, ‘I am
+such a one, thy neighbour. My children have nothing to eat, and are
+howling like young wolves, and I have come to beg help of thee.’
+‘Bring them here,’ said Ḥátim. His wife asked him what he would do,
+for if he could not feed his own children, how should he find food for
+this woman’s? ‘Do not disturb thyself,’ he answered. Now Ḥátim had a
+horse renowned far and wide for the purity of his stock and the
+fleetness and beauty of his paces. He would not kill his favourite for
+himself nor even for his own children; but now he went out and slew
+him, and prepared him with fire for the strangers’ need. And when he
+saw them eating with his wife and children, he exclaimed, ‘It were a
+shame that you alone should eat whilst all the camp is perishing of
+hunger;’ and he went and called the neighbours to the meal, and in the
+morning there remained of the horse nothing but his bones. But as for
+himself, wrapped in his mantle, he sat apart in a corner of the tent.
+
+This Ḥátim is a type of the Arab nature at its noblest. Though
+renowned for his courage and skill in war, he never suffered his
+enmity to overcome his generosity. He had sworn an oath never to take
+a man’s life, and he strictly observed it, and always withheld the
+fatal last blow. In spite of his clemency, he was ever successful in
+the wars of his clan, and brought back from his raids many a rich
+spoil, only to spend it at once in his princely fashion. His
+generosity and faithful observance of his word at times placed him in
+positions of great danger; but the alternative of denying his
+principles seems never to have occurred to his mind. For instance, he
+had imposed upon himself as a law never to refuse a gift to him that
+asked it of him. Once, engaged in single combat, he had disarmed and
+routed his opponent, who then turned and said, ‘Ḥátim, give me thy
+spear.’ At once he threw it to him, leaving himself defenceless; and
+had he not met an adversary worthy of himself, this had been the last
+of his deeds. Happily Ḥátim was not the only generous warrior of the
+Arabs, and his foe did not avail himself of his advantage. When
+Ḥátim’s friends remonstrated with him on the rashness of an act which,
+in the spirit of shopkeepers, they regarded as quixotic, Ḥátim said,
+‘What would you have me to do? He asked of me a gift!’
+
+It was Ḥátim’s practice to buy the liberty of all captives who sought
+his aid: it was but another application of the Arab virtue of
+hospitality. Once a captive called to him when he was on a journey and
+had not with him the means of paying the ransom. But he was not wont
+to allow any difficulties to baulk him of the exercise of his duty,
+and he had the prisoner released, stepping meanwhile into his chains
+until his own clan should send the ransom.
+
+Brave, chivalrous, faithful, and generous beyond the needful of Arab
+ideal—so that his niggard wife, using the privilege of high dames,
+repudiated him because he was ever ruining himself and her by his open
+hand—Ḥátim filled up the measure of Arab virtue by his eloquence, and
+such of his poems as have come down to us reflect the nobility of his
+life. As a youth he had shown a strong passion for poetry, and would
+spare no means of doing honour to poets. His grandfather, in despair
+at the boy’s extravagance, sent him away from the camp to guard the
+camels, which were pastured at a distance. Sitting there in a state of
+solitude little congenial to his nature, Ḥátim lifted his eyes and saw
+a caravan approaching. It was the caravan of three great poets who
+were travelling to the court of the King of El-Ḥeereh. Ḥátim begged
+them to alight and to accept of refreshment after the hot and dreary
+journey. He killed them a camel each, though one would have more than
+sufficed for the three; and in return they wrote him verses in praise
+of himself and his kindred. Overjoyed at the honour, Ḥátim insisted on
+the poets each accepting a hundred camels; and they departed with
+their gifts. When the grandfather came to the pasturing and asked
+where the camels were gone, Ḥátim answered, ‘I have exchanged them for
+a crown of honour, which will shine for all time on the brow of thy
+race. The lines in which great poets have celebrated our house will
+pass from mouth to mouth, and will carry our glory over all Arabia.’
+[7]
+
+This story well illustrates the Arab’s passionate love of poetry. He
+conceived his language to be the finest in the world, and he prized
+eloquence and poetry as the goodliest gifts of the gods. There were
+three great events in Arab life, when the clan was called together and
+great feastings and rejoicings ensued. One was the birth of a son to a
+chief; another the foaling of a generous mare; the third was the
+discovery that a great poet had risen up among them. The advent of the
+poet meant the immortality of the deeds of the clansmen and the
+everlasting contumely of their foes; it meant the raising up of the
+glory of the tribe over all the clans of Arabia, and the winning of
+triumphs by bitterer weapons than sword and spear—the weapons of
+stinging satire and scurrilous squib. No man might dare withstand the
+power of the poets among a people who were keenly alive to the point
+of an epigram, and who never forgot an ill-natured jibe if it were
+borne upon musical verse. Most of the great heroes of the desert were
+poets as well as warriors, and their poesy was deemed the chiefest gem
+in their crown, and, like their courage, was counted a proof of
+generous birth. The Khalif ´Omar said well, ‘The kings of the Arabs
+are their orators and poets, those who practise and who celebrate all
+the virtues of the Bedawee.’
+
+This ancient poetry of the Arabs is the reflection of the people’s
+life. Far away from the trouble of the world, barred by wild wastes
+from the stranger, the Bedawee lived his happy child’s life, enjoying
+to the uttermost the good the gods had sent him, delighting in the
+face that Nature showed him, inspired by the glorious breath of the
+deserts that were his home. His poetry rings of that desert life. It
+is emotional, passionate, seldom reflective. Not the end of life, the
+whence and the whither, but the actual present joy of existence, was
+the subject of his song. Vivid painting of nature is the
+characteristic of this poetry: it is natural, unpolished, unlaboured.
+The scenes of the desert—the terrors of the nightly ride through the
+hill-girdled valley where the Ghools and the Jinn have their haunts;
+the gloom of the barren plain, where the wolf, ‘like a ruined
+gamester,’ roams ululating; the weariness of the journey under the
+noonday sun; the stifling of the sand-storm, the delusions of the
+mirage; or again, the solace of the palm-tree’s shade, and the
+delights of the cool well;—such are the pictures of the Arab poet. The
+people’s life is another frequent theme: the daily doings of the
+herdsman, the quiet pastoral life, on the one hand; on the other, the
+deeds of the chiefs—war, plunder, the chase, wassail, revenge,
+friendship, love. There were satires on rival tribes, panegyrics on
+chiefs, laments for the dead. This poetry is wholly objective,
+artless, childlike; it is the outcome of a people still in the
+freshness of youth, whom the mysteries and complications of life have
+not yet set a-thinking. ‘Just as his language knows but the present
+and the past, so the ancient Arab lived but in to-day and yesterday.
+The future is nought to him; he seizes the present with too thorough
+abandonment to have an emotion left for anything beyond. He troubles
+himself not with what fate the morrow may bring forth, he dreams not
+of a beautiful future,—only he revels in the present, and his glance
+looks backward alone. Rich in ideas and impressions, he is poor in
+thought. He drains hastily the foaming cup of life; he feels deeply
+and passionately; but it is as if he were never conscious of the
+coming of the thoughtful age which, while it surveys the past, as
+often turns an anxious look to the unknown future.’
+
+It is very difficult for a Western mind to enter into the real beauty
+of the old Arab poetry. The life it depicts is so unlike any we can
+now witness, that it is almost removed beyond the pale of our
+sympathies. The poetry is loaded with metaphors and similes, which to
+us seem far-fetched, though they are drawn from the simplest daily
+sights of the Bedawee. Moreover, it is only in fragments that we can
+read it; for the change in the whole character of Arab life and in the
+current of Arab ideas which followed the conquests of Islám
+extinguished the old songs, which were no longer suitable to the new
+conditions of things; and as they were seldom recorded in writing, we
+possess but a little remnant of them.[8] Yet ‘these fragments may be
+broken, defaced, dimmed, and obscured by fanaticism, ignorance, and
+neglect; but out of them there arises anew all the freshness, bloom,
+and glory of desert-song, as out of Homer’s epics rise the glowing
+spring-time of humanity and the deep blue heavens of Hellas. It is not
+a transcendental poetry, rich in deep and thoughtful legend and lore,
+or glittering in the many-coloured prisms of fancy, but a poetry the
+chief task of which is to paint life and nature as they really are;
+and within its narrow bounds it is magnificent. It is chiefly and
+characteristically full of manliness, of vigour, and of a chivalrous
+spirit, doubly striking when compared with the spirit of abjectness
+and slavery found in some other Asiatic nations. It is wild and vast
+and monotonous as the yellow seas of its desert solitudes; it is
+daring and noble, tender and true.’ [9]
+
+There was one place where, above all others, the Ḳaṣeedehs of the
+ancient Arabs were recited: this was ´Okáḍh, the Olympia of Arabia,
+where there was held a great annual Fair, to which not merely the
+merchants of Mekka and the south, but the poet-heroes of all the land
+resorted. The Fair of ´Okáḍh was held during the sacred months,—a sort
+of ‘God’s Truce,’ when blood could not be shed without a violation of
+the ancient customs and faiths of the Bedawees. Thither went the poets
+of rival clans, who had as often locked spears as hurled rhythmical
+curses. There was little fear of a bloody ending to the poetic
+contest, for those heroes who might meet there with enemies or
+blood-avengers are said to have worn masks or veils, and their poems
+were recited by a public orator at their dictation. That these
+precautions and the sacredness of the time could not always prevent
+the ill-feeling evoked by the pointed personalities of rival singers
+leading to a fray and bloodshed is proved by recorded instances; but
+such results were uncommon, and as a rule the customs of the time and
+place were respected. In spite of occasional broils on the spot, and
+the lasting feuds which these poetic contests must have excited, the
+Fair of ´Okáḍh was a grand institution. It served as a focus for the
+literature of all Arabia: every one with any pretensions to poetic
+power came, and if he could not himself gain the applause of the
+assembled people, at least he could form one of the critical audience
+on whose verdict rested the fame or the shame of every poet. The Fair
+of ´Okáḍh was a literary congress, without formal judges, but with
+unbounded influence. It was here that the polished heroes of the
+desert determined points of grammar and prosody; here the seven Golden
+Songs were recited, although (alas for the charming legend!) they were
+_not_ afterwards ‘suspended’ on the Kaạbeh; and here ‘a magical
+language, the language of the Ḥijáz,’ was built out of the dialects of
+Arabia, and was made ready to the skilful hand of Moḥammad, that he
+might conquer the world with his Ḳur-án.
+
+The Fair of ´Okáḍh was not merely a centre of emulation for Arab
+poets: it was also an annual review of Bedawee virtues. It was there
+that the Arab nation once-a-year inspected itself, so to say, and
+brought forth and criticised its ideals of the noble and the beautiful
+in life and in poetry. For it was in poetry that the Arab—and for that
+matter each man all the world over—expressed his highest thoughts, and
+it was at ´Okáḍh that these thoughts were measured by the standard of
+the Bedawee ideal. The Fair not only maintained the highest standard
+of poetry that the Arabic language has ever reached: it also upheld
+the noblest idea of life and duty that the Arab nation has yet set
+forth and obeyed. ´Okáḍh was the press, the stage, the pulpit, the
+Parliament, and the Académie Française of the Arab people; and when,
+in his fear of the infidel poets (whom Imra-el-Ḳeys was to usher to
+hell), Moḥammad abolished the Fair, he destroyed the Arab nation even
+whilst he created his own new nation of Muslims;—and the Muslims
+cannot sit in the places of the old pagan Arabs.
+
+It is very difficult for the Western mind to dissociate the idea of
+Oriental poetry from the notion of amatory odes, and sonnets to the
+lady’s eyebrow: but even the few extracts that have been given in this
+chapter show that the Arab had many other subjects besides love to
+sing about, and though the divine theme has its place in almost every
+poem, it seldom rivals the prominence of war and nature-painting, and
+it is treated from a much less sensual point of view than that of
+later Arab poets. Many writers have drawn a gloomy picture of the
+condition of women in Arabia before the coming of Moḥammad, and there
+is no doubt that in many cases their lot was a miserable one. There
+are ancient Arabic proverbs that point to the contempt in which
+woman’s judgment and character were held by the Arabs of ‘the Time of
+Ignorance,’ and Moḥammad must have derived his mean opinion of women
+from a too general impression among his countrymen. The marriage tie
+was certainly very loose among the ancient Arabs. The ceremony itself
+was of the briefest. The man said _khiṭb_ (_i.e._ I am an
+asker-in-marriage), and the giver-away answered _nikḥ_ (_i.e._, I am a
+giver-in-marriage), and the knot was thus tied, only to be undone with
+equal facility and brevity. The frequency of divorce among the Arabs
+does not speak well for their constancy, and must have had a degrading
+effect upon the women. Hence it is argued that women were the objects
+of contempt rather than of respect among the ancient Arabs.
+
+Yet there is reason to believe that the evidence upon which this
+conclusion is founded is partial and one-sided. There was a wide gulf
+between the Bedawee and the town Arab. It is not impossible that the
+view commonly entertained as to the state of women in preïslamic times
+is based mainly on what Moḥammad saw around him in Mekka, and not on
+the ordinary life of the desert. To such a conjecture a curiously
+uniform support is lent by the ancient poetry of the desert; and
+though the poets were then—as they always are—men of finer mould than
+the rest, yet their example, and still more their poems passing from
+mouth to mouth, must have created a widespread belief in their
+principles. It is certain that the roaming Bedawee, like the mediæval
+knight, entertained a chivalrous reverence for women, although he,
+too, like the knight, was not always above a career of promiscuous
+gallantry; but there was always a certain glamour of romance about the
+intrigues of the Bedawee. He did not regard the object of his love as
+a chattel to be possessed, but as a divinity to be assiduously
+worshipped. The poems are full of instances of the courtly respect
+displayed by the heroes of the desert toward defenceless maidens, and
+the mere existence of so general an ideal of conduct in the poems is a
+strong argument for Arab chivalry: for with the Arabs the abyss
+between the ideal accepted of the mind and the attaining thereof in
+action was narrower than it is among ‘more advanced’ nations.
+
+Whatever was the condition of women in the trading cities and
+villages, it is certain that in the desert woman was regarded as she
+has never since been among Muslims. The modern ḥareem system was there
+as yet undreamt of; the maid of the desert was unfettered by the
+ruinous restrictions of modern life in the East. She was free to
+choose her own husband, and to bind him to have no other wife than
+herself. She might receive male visitors, even strangers, without
+suspicion: for her virtue was too dear to her and too well assured to
+need the keeper. It was the bitterest taunt of all to say to a hostile
+clan that their men had not the heart to give nor their women to deny;
+for the chastity of the women of the clan was reckoned only next to
+the valour and generosity of the men. In those days bastardy was an
+indelible stain. It was the wife who inspired the hero to deeds of
+glory, and it was her praise that he most valued when he returned
+triumphant. The hero of desert song thought himself happy to die in
+guarding some women from their pursuers. Wounded to the death,
+´Antarah halted alone in a narrow pass, and bade the women press on to
+a place of safety. Planting his spear in the ground, he supported
+himself on his horse, so that when the pursuers came up they knew not
+he was dead, and dared not approach within reach of his dreaded arm.
+At length the horse moved, and the body fell to the ground, and the
+enemies saw that it was but the corpse of the hero that had held the
+pass. In death, as in a life _sans peur et sans reproche_, ´Antarah
+was true to the chivalry of his race.
+
+There are many instances like this of the knightly courtesy of the
+Arab chief in ‘the Time of Ignorance.’ In the old days, as an ancient
+writer says, the true Arab had but one love, and her he loved till
+death, and she him. Even when polygamy became commoner, especially in
+the towns, it was not what is meant by polygamy in a modern Muslim
+state: it was rather the patriarchal system of Abram and Sarai.
+
+There is much in the fragments of the ancient poetry which reflects
+this fine spirit. It is ofttimes ‘tender and true,’ and even Islám
+could not wholly root out the real Arab sentiment, which reappears in
+Muslim times in the poems of Aboo-Firás. Especially valuable is the
+evidence of the old poetry with regard to the love of a father for his
+daughters. Infanticide, which is commonly attributed to the whole Arab
+nation of every age before Islám, was in reality exceedingly rare in
+the desert, and after almost dying out only revived about the time of
+Moḥammad. It was probably adopted by poor and weak clans, either from
+inability to support their children, or in order to protect themselves
+from the stain of having their children dishonoured by stronger
+tribes, and the occasional practice of this barbarous and suicidal
+custom affords no ground for assuming an unnatural hatred and contempt
+for girls among the ancient Arabs. These verses of a father to his
+daughter tell a different story:—
+
+   If no Umeymeh were there, no want would trouble my soul,
+     no labour call me to toil for bread through pitchiest night;
+   What moves my longing to live is but that well do I know
+     how low the fatherless lies, how hard the kindness of kin.
+   I quake before loss of wealth lest lacking fall upon her,
+     and leave her shieldless and bare as flesh set forth on a board.
+   My life she prays for, and I from mere love pray for her death—
+     yea death, the gentlest and kindest guest to visit a maid.
+   I fear an uncle’s rebuke, a brother’s harshness for her;
+     my chiefest end was to spare her heart the grief of a word.
+
+Once more, the following lines do not breathe the spirit of
+infanticide:—
+
+   Fortune has brought me down (her wonted way)
+     from station great and high to low estate;
+   Fortune has rent away my plenteous store:
+     of all my wealth, honour alone is left.
+   Fortune has turned my joy to tears: how oft
+     did Fortune make me laugh with what she gave!
+   But for these girls, the Ḳaṭa’s downy brood,
+     unkindly thrust from door to door as hard,
+   Far would I roam and wide to seek my bread
+     in earth that has no lack of breadth and length;
+   Nay, but our children in our midst, what else
+     but our hearts are they walking on the ground?
+   If but the wind blow harsh on one of them,
+     mine eye says no to slumber all night long.
+
+Hitherto we have been looking at but one side of Arab life. The
+Bedawees were indeed the bulk of the race, and furnished the swords of
+the Muslim conquests; but there was also a vigorous town-life in
+Arabia, and the citizens waxed rich with the gains of their
+trafficking. For through Arabia ran the trade-route between East and
+West: it was the Arab traders who carried the produce of the Yemen to
+the markets of Syria; and how ancient was their commerce one may
+divine from the words of a poet of Judæa spoken more than a thousand
+years before the coming of Moḥammad.
+
+   Wedan and Javan from San´a paid for thy produce:
+     sword-blades, cassia, and calamus were in thy trafficking.
+   Dedan was thy merchant in saddle-cloths for riding;
+   Arabia and all the merchants of Kedar, they were the merchants
+     of thy hand:
+     in lambs and rams and goats, in these were they thy merchants.
+   The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants,
+     with the chief of all spices, and with every precious stone,
+       and gold,
+          they paid for thy produce.
+   Haran, Aden, and Canneh, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur and
+     Chilmad were thy merchants;
+   They were thy merchants in excellent wares,
+     in cloth of blue and broidered work,
+     in chests of cloth of divers colours, bound with cords
+        and made fast among thy merchandize.[10]
+
+Mekka was the centre of this trading life, the typical Arab city of
+old times—a stirring little town, with its caravans bringing the silks
+and woven stuffs of Syria and the far-famed damask, and carrying away
+the sweet-smelling produce of Arabia, frankincense, cinnamon,
+sandal-wood, aloe, and myrrh, and the dates and leather and metals of
+the south, and the goods that come to the Yemen from Africa and even
+India; its assemblies of merchant-princes in the Council Hall near the
+Kaạbeh; and again its young poets running over with love and
+gallantry; its Greek and Persian slave-girls brightening the luxurious
+banquet with their native songs, when as yet there was no Arab school
+of music, and the monotonous but not unmelodious chant of the
+camel-driver was the national song of Arabia; and its club, where busy
+men spent their idle hours in playing chess and draughts, or in
+gossiping with their acquaintance. It was a little republic of
+commerce, too much infected with the luxuries and refinements of the
+states it traded with, yet retaining enough of the free Arab nature to
+redeem it from the charge of effeminacy.
+
+Mekka was a great home of music and poetry, and this characteristic
+lasted into Muslim times. There is a story of a certain stonemason who
+had a wonderful gift of singing. When he was at work the young men
+used to come and importune him, and bring him gifts of money and food
+to induce him to sing. He would then make a stipulation that they
+should first help him in his work; and forthwith they would strip off
+their cloaks, and the stones would gather round him rapidly. Then he
+would mount a rock and begin to sing, whilst the whole hill was
+coloured red and yellow with the variegated garments of his audience.
+Singers were then held in the highest admiration, and the greatest
+chiefs used to pay their court to ladies of the musical profession.
+One of them used to give receptions, open to the whole city, in which
+she would appear in great state, surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting,
+each dressed magnificently, and wearing ‘an elegant artificial
+chignon.’ It was in this town-life that the worse qualities of the
+Arab came out; it was here that his raging passion for dicing and his
+thirst for wine were most prominent. In the desert there was little
+opportunity for indulging in either luxury; but in a town which often
+welcomed a caravan bringing goods to the value of twenty thousand
+pound, such excesses were to be looked for. Excited by the song of the
+Greek slave-girl and the fumes of mellow wine, the Mekkan would throw
+the dice till, like the Germans of Tacitus, he had staked and lost his
+own liberty.
+
+But Mekka was more than a centre of trade and of song. It was the
+focus of the religion of the Arabs. Thither the tribes went up every
+year to kiss the black stone which had fallen from heaven in the
+primeval days of Adam, and to make the seven circuits of the Kaạbeh
+naked,—for they would not approach God in the garments in which they
+had done their sins,—and to perform the other ceremonies of the
+pilgrimage. The Kaạbeh, a cubical building in the centre of Mekka, was
+the most sacred temple in all Arabia, and it gave its sanctity to all
+the district around. It had been, saith tradition, first built by Adam
+from a heavenly model, and then rebuilt from time to time by Seth and
+Abraham and Ishmael, and less reverend persons, and it contained the
+sacred things of the land. Here was the black stone, here the great
+god of red agate, Hubal, and the three hundred and sixty idols, one
+for each day of the year, which Moḥammad afterwards destroyed in one
+day. Here was Abraham’s stone and that other which marked the tomb of
+Ishmael, and hard by Zemzem, the god-sent spring which gushed from the
+sand when the forefather of the Arabs was perishing of thirst.
+
+The religion of the ancient Arabs, little as we know of it, is
+especially interesting, inasmuch as the Arabs longest retained the
+original Semitic character, and hence probably the original Semitic
+religion: and so in the ancient religion of Arabia we see the religion
+once professed by Chaldeans, Canaanites, Phœnicians. This ancient
+religion ‘rises little higher than animistic polydaemonism. It is a
+collection of tribal religions standing side by side, only loosely
+united, though there are traces of a once closer connection.’ [11]
+The great objects of worship were the sun and the stars and the three
+moon-goddesses—El-Lát the bright moon, Menáh the dark, and El-´Uzzà
+the union of the two; whilst a lower cultus of trees, stones, and
+mountains, supposed to be dwelt-in by souls, shows that the religion
+had not yet quite risen above simple fetishism. At the time of
+Moḥammad the Arabs worshipped numerous images, which may have been
+merely a development from the previous stone-worship, or may have been
+introduced from intercourse with Christians. There are traces of a
+belief in a supreme God behind this pantheon, and the moon-goddesses
+and other divinities were regarded as daughters of _the most high God_
+(Alláh ta´ála)—a conception also possibly derived from Christianity.
+The various deities (but not the Supreme Allah) had their fanes, where
+human sacrifices, though rare, were not unknown; and their cultus was
+superintended by a hereditary line of seers, who were held in great
+reverence, but never developed into a priestly caste.
+
+Besides the tribal gods, individual households had their special
+Penates, to whom was due the first and the last salám of the returning
+or outgoing host. But in spite of all this superstitious apparatus the
+Arabs were never a religious people. In the old days, as now, they
+were reckless, skeptical, materialistic. They had their gods and their
+divining-arrows, but they were ready to demolish both if the responses
+proved contrary to their wishes. A great majority believed in no
+future life nor in a reckoning-day of good and evil. If a few tied
+camels to the graves of the dead that the corpse might ride mounted to
+the judgment-seat, it must have been the exception; and if there are
+some doubtful traces of the doctrine of metempsychosis, this again
+must have been the creed of the very few.
+
+Christianity and Judaism had made but small impress upon the Arabs.
+There were Jewish tribes in the north, and there is evidence in the
+Ḳur-án and elsewhere that the traditions and rites of Judaism were
+widely known in Arabia. But the creed was too narrow and too
+exclusively national to commend itself to the majority of the people.
+Christianity fared even worse. Whether or not St. Paul went there, it
+is at least certain that very little effect was produced by the
+preaching of Christianity in Arabia. We hear of Christians on the
+borders, and even two or three among the Mekkans, and bishops and
+churches are spoken of at Dhafár and Nejrán. But the Christianity that
+the Arabs knew was, like the Judaism of the northern tribes, a very
+imperfect reflection of the faith it professed to set forth. It had
+become a thing of the head instead of the heart, and the refinements
+of monophysite and monothelite doctrines gained no hold upon the Arab
+mind.
+
+Thus Judaism and Christianity, though they were well known, and
+furnished many ideas and ceremonies to Islám, were never able to
+effect any general settlement in Arabia. The common Arabs did not care
+much about any religion, and the finer spirits found the wrangling
+dogmatism of the Christian and the narrow isolation of the Jew little
+to their mind. For there were before the time of Moḥammad men who were
+dissatisfied with the low fetishism in which their countrymen were
+plunged, and who protested emphatically against the idle and often
+cruel superstitions of the Arabs. Not to refer to the prophets, who,
+as the Ḳur-án relates, were sent in old time to the tribes of ´Ád and
+Thamood to convert them, there was, immediately before the preaching
+of Moḥammad, a general feeling that a change was at hand; a prophet
+was expected, and women were anxiously hoping for male children if so
+be they might mother the Apostle of God; and the more thoughtful
+minds, tinged with traditions of Judaism, were seeking for what they
+called ‘the religion of Abraham.’ These men were called _‘Ḥaneefs,’_
+or skeptics, and their religion seems to have consisted chiefly in a
+negative position, in denying the superstition of the Arabs, and in
+only asserting the existence of one sole-ruling God whose absolute
+slaves are all mankind, without being able to decide on any minor
+doctrines, or to determine in what manner this one God was to be
+worshipped. So long as the Ḥaneefs could give their countrymen no more
+definite creed than this, their influence was limited to a few
+inquiring and doubting minds. It was reserved for Moḥammad to
+formulate the faith of the Ḥaneefs in the dogmas of Islám. For the
+leader of these few ‘skeptics’ was Zeyd ibn ´Amr, to whom Moḥammad
+often resorted, and another, Waraḳah, was the cousin of the Prophet
+and his near neighbour: and thus the Ḥaneefs were the forerunners of
+the man who was to change the destinies of the Arabs.
+
+We can no longer see the true Arab as he was in ‘the Time of
+Ignorance,’ and we cannot but regret our loss; for the Pagan Arab is a
+noble type of man, though there be nobler. There is much that is
+admirable in his high mettle, his fine sense of honour, his
+knightliness, his ‘open-handed, both-handed,’ generosity, his frank
+friendship, and his manly independent spirit; and the faults of this
+wild reckless nature are not to be weighed against its many
+excellencies. When Moḥammad turned abroad the current of Arab life, he
+changed the character of the people. The mixture with foreign nations,
+and the quiet town-life that succeeded to the tumult of conquest,
+gradually effaced many of the leading ideas of the old Arab nature,
+and the remnant that still dwell in the land of their fathers have
+lost much of that nobleness of character which in their ancestors
+covered a multitude of sins. Moḥammad in part destroyed the Arab and
+created the Muslim. The last is no amends for the first. The modern
+Bedawee is neither the one nor the other; he has lost the greatness
+of the old type without gaining that of the new. As far as the Arabs
+alone are concerned, Moḥammad effected a temporary good and a lasting
+harm. As to the world at large, that is matter for another chapter.
+
+
+
+
+II.—_MOḤAMMAD._
+
+   For every fiery prophet in old times,
+   And all the sacred madness of the bard,
+   When God made music through them, could but speak
+   His music by the framework and the chord;
+   And as _he_ saw it _he hath_ spoken truth.
+
+   —THE HOLY GRAIL.
+
+
+A prophet for the Arabs must fulfil two conditions if he will bring
+with his good tidings the power of making them accepted: he must
+spring from the traditional centre of Arabian religion, and he must
+come of a noble family of pure Arab blood. Moḥammad fulfilled both.
+His family was that branch of the Ḳureysh which had raised Mekka to
+the dignity of the undisputed metropolis of Arabia, and which, though
+impoverished, still held the chief offices of the sacred territory.
+Moḥammad’s grandfather was the virtual chief of Mekka; for to him
+belonged the guardianship of the Kaạbeh, and he it was who used the
+generous privilege of giving food and water to the pilgrims who
+resorted to the ‘House of God.’ His youngest son, after marrying a
+kinswoman belonging to a branch of the Ḳureysh, settled at Yethrib
+(Medina), died before the birth of his son (571), and this son,
+Moḥammad, lost his mother when he was only six years old. The orphan
+was adopted by his grandfather, ´Abd-el-Muṭṭalib; and a tender
+affection sprang up between the chief of eighty years and his little
+grandson. Many a day the old man might be seen sitting at his wonted
+place near the Kaạbeh, and sharing his mat with his favourite. He
+lived but two years more; and at his dying request, his son Aboo-Ṭálib
+took charge of Moḥammad, for whom he too ever showed a love as of
+father and mother.
+
+Such is the bare outline of Moḥammad’s childhood; and of his youth we
+know about as little, though the Arabian biographies abound in
+legends, of which some may be true and most are certainly false. There
+are stories of his journeyings to Syria with his uncle, and his
+encounter with a mysterious monk of obscure faith; but there is
+nothing to show for this tale, and much to be brought against it. All
+we can say is, that Moḥammad probably assisted his family in the war
+of the Fijár, and that he must many a time have frequented the annual
+Fair of ´Oḳádh, hearing the songs of the desert chiefs and the praise
+of Arab life, and listening to the earnest words of the Jews and
+Christians and others who came to the Fair. He was obliged at an early
+age to earn his own living; for the noble family of the Háshimees, to
+which he belonged, was fast losing its commanding position, whilst
+another branch of the Ḳureysh was succeeding to its dignities. The
+princely munificence of Háshim and ´Abd-el-Muṭṭalib was followed by
+the poverty and decline of their heirs. The duty of providing the
+pilgrims with food was given up by the Háshimees to the rival branch
+of Umeyyeh, whilst they retained only the lighter office of serving
+water to the worshippers. Moḥammad must take his share in the labour
+of the family, and he was sent to pasture the sheep of the Ḳureysh on
+the hills and valleys round Mekka; and though the people despised the
+shepherd’s calling, he himself was wont to look back with pleasure to
+these early days, saying that God called never a prophet save from
+among the sheep-folds. And doubtless it was then that he developed
+that reflective disposition of mind which at length led him to seek
+the reform of his people, whilst in his solitary wanderings with the
+sheep he gained that marvellous eye for the beauty and wonder of the
+earth and sky which resulted in the gorgeous nature-painting of the
+Ḳur-án. Yet he was glad to change this menial work for the more
+lucrative and adventurous post of camel-driver to the caravans of his
+wealthy kinswoman Khadeejeh; and he seems to have taken so kindly to
+the duty, which involved responsibilities, and to have acquitted
+himself so worthily, that he attracted the notice of his employer, who
+straightway fell in love with him, and presented him with her hand.
+The marriage was a singularly happy one, though Moḥammad was scarcely
+twenty-five and his wife nearly forty, and it brought him that repose
+and exemption from daily toil which he needed in order to prepare his
+mind for his great work. But beyond that, it gave him a loving woman’s
+heart, that was the first to believe in his mission, that was ever
+ready to console him in his despair and to keep alive within him the
+thin flickering flame of hope when no man believed in him—not even
+himself—and the world was black before his eyes.
+
+We know very little of the next fifteen years. Khadeejeh bore him sons
+and daughters, but only the daughters lived. We hear of his joining a
+league for the protection of the weak and oppressed, and there is a
+legend of his having acted with wise tact and judgment as arbitrator
+in a dispute among the great families of Mekka on the occasion of the
+rebuilding of the Kaạbeh. During this time, moreover, he relieved his
+still impoverished uncle of the charge of his son ´Alee—afterwards the
+Bayard of Islám,—and he freed and adopted a certain captive, Zeyd; and
+these two became his most devoted friends and disciples. Such is the
+short but characteristic record of these fifteen years of manhood. We
+know very little about what Moḥammad did, but we hear only one voice
+as to what he was. Up to the age of forty his unpretending modest way
+of life had attracted but little notice from his townspeople. He was
+only known as a simple upright man, whose life was severely pure and
+refined, and whose true desert sense of honour and faith-keeping had
+won him the high title of El-Emeen, ‘the Trusty.’
+
+Let us see what fashion of man this was, who was about to work a
+revolution among his countrymen, and change the conditions of social
+life in a vast part of the world. The picture[12] is drawn from an
+older man than we have yet seen; but Moḥammad at forty and Moḥammad at
+fifty or more were probably very little different. ‘He was of the
+middle height, rather thin, but broad of shoulders, wide of chest,
+strong of bone and muscle. His head was massive, strongly developed.
+Dark hair, slightly curled, flowed in a dense mass down almost to his
+shoulders. Even in advanced age it was sprinkled by only about twenty
+grey hairs—produced by the agonies of his “Revelations.” His face was
+oval-shaped, slightly tawny of colour. Fine, long, arched eyebrows
+were divided by a vein which throbbed visibly in moments of passion.
+Great black restless eyes shone out from under long, heavy eyelashes.
+His nose was large, slightly aquiline. His teeth, upon which he
+bestowed great care, were well set, dazzling white. A full beard
+framed his manly face. His skin was clear and soft, his complexion
+“red and white,” his hands were as “silk and satin,” even as those of
+a woman. His step was quick and elastic, yet firm, and as that of one
+“who steps from a high to a low place,” In turning his face he would
+also turn his full body. His whole gait and presence were dignified
+and imposing. His countenance was mild and pensive. His laugh was
+rarely more than a smile....
+
+‘In his habits he was extremely simple, though he bestowed great care
+on his person. His eating and drinking, his dress and his furniture,
+retained, even when he had reached the fulness of power, their almost
+primitive nature. The only luxuries he indulged in were, besides arms,
+which he highly prized, a pair of yellow boots, a present from the
+Negus of Abyssinia. Perfumes, however, he loved passionately, being
+most sensitive of smell. Strong drinks he abhorred.
+
+‘His constitution was extremely delicate. He was nervously afraid of
+bodily pain; he would sob and roar under it. Eminently unpractical in
+all common things of life, he was gifted with mighty powers of
+imagination, elevation of mind, delicacy and refinement of feeling.
+“He is more modest than a virgin behind her curtain,” it was said of
+him. He was most indulgent to his inferiors, and would never allow his
+awkward little page to be scolded, whatever he did. “Ten years,” said
+Anas, his servant, “was I about the Prophet, and he never said as much
+as ‘uff’ to me.” He was very affectionate towards his family. One of
+his boys died on his breast in the smoky house of the nurse, a
+blacksmith’s wife. He was very fond of children. He would stop them in
+the streets and pat their little cheeks. He never struck any one in
+his life. The worst expression he ever made use of in conversation
+was, “What has come to him?—may his forehead be darkened with mud!”
+When asked to curse some one he replied, “I have not been sent to
+curse, but to be a mercy to mankind.” “He visited the sick, followed
+any bier he met, accepted the invitation of a slave to dinner, mended
+his own clothes, milked his goats, and waited upon himself,” relates
+summarily another tradition. He never first withdrew his hand out of
+another man’s palm, and turned not before the other had turned.... He
+was the most faithful protector of those he protected, the sweetest
+and most agreeable in conversation; those who saw him were suddenly
+filled with reverence; those who came near him loved him; they who
+described him would say, “I have never seen his like either before or
+after.” He was of great taciturnity; but when he spoke it was with
+emphasis and deliberation, and no one could ever forget what he said.
+He was, however, very nervous and restless withal, often low-spirited,
+downcast as to heart and eyes. Yet he would at times suddenly break
+through these broodings, become gay, talkative, jocular, chiefly among
+his own. He would then delight in telling little stories, fairy tales,
+and the like. He would romp with the children and play with their
+toys.’
+
+‘He lived with his wives in a row of humble cottages, separated from
+one another by palm-branches, cemented together with mud. He would
+kindle the fire, sweep the floor, and milk the goats himself. ´Áïsheh
+tells us that he slept upon a leathern mat, and that he mended his
+clothes, and even clouted his shoes, with his own hand. For months
+together ... he did not get a sufficient meal. The little food that he
+had was always shared with those who dropped in to partake of it.
+Indeed, outside the Prophet’s house was a bench or gallery, on which
+were always to be found a number of the poor, who lived entirely on
+his generosity, and were hence called the “people of the bench.” His
+ordinary food was dates and water or barley-bread; milk and honey were
+luxuries of which he was fond, but which he rarely allowed himself.
+The fare of the desert seemed most congenial to him, even when he was
+sovereign of Arabia.’ [13]
+
+Moḥammad was full forty before he felt himself called to be an apostle
+to his people. If he did not actually worship the local deities of the
+place, at least he made no public protest against the fetish worship
+of the Ḳureysh. Yet in the several phases of his life, in his contact
+with traders, in his association with Zeyd and other men, he had
+gained an insight into better things than idols and human sacrifices,
+divining-arrows and mountains and stars. He had heard a dim echo of
+some ‘religion of Abraham;’ he had listened to the stories of the
+Haggadah: he knew a very little about Jesus of Nazareth. He seems to
+have suffered long under the burden of doubt and self-distrust. He
+used to wander about the hills alone, brooding over these things; he
+shunned the society of men, and ‘solitude became a passion to him.’
+
+At length came the crisis. He was spending the sacred months on Mount
+Ḥirá, ‘a huge barren rock, torn by cleft and hollow ravine, standing
+out solitary in the full white glare of the desert sun, shadowless,
+flowerless, without well or rill.’ Here in a cave Moḥammad gave
+himself up to prayer and fasting. Long months or even years of doubt
+had increased his nervous excitable disposition. He had had, they say,
+cataleptic fits during his childhood, and was evidently more
+delicately and finely constituted than those around him. Given this
+nervous nature, and the grim solitude of the hill where he had almost
+lived for long weary months, blindly feeling after some truth upon
+which to rest his soul, it is not difficult to believe the tradition
+of the cave, that Moḥammad heard a voice say, ‘Cry!’ ‘What shall I
+cry?’ he answers—the question that has been burning his heart during
+all his mental struggles—
+
+   Cry[14]! in the name of thy Lord, who hath created;
+   He hath created man from a clot of blood.
+   Cry! and thy Lord is the Most Bountiful,
+   Who hath taught [writing] by the pen:
+   He hath taught man that which he knew not.
+
+Moḥammad arose trembling, and went to Khadeejeh, and told her what he
+had seen; and she did her woman’s part, and believed in him and
+soothed his terror, and bade him hope for the future. Yet he could not
+believe in himself. Was he not perhaps mad, possessed by a devil? Were
+these voices of a truth from God? And so he went again on his solitary
+wanderings, hearing strange sounds, and thinking them at one time the
+testimony of Heaven, at another the temptings of Satan or the ravings
+of madness. Doubting, wondering, hoping, he had fain put an end to a
+life which had become intolerable in its changings from the heaven of
+hope to the hell of despair, when again he heard the voice, ‘Thou art
+the messenger of God, and I am Gabriel.’ Conviction at length seized
+hold upon him; he was indeed to bring a message of good tidings to
+the Arabs, the message of God through His angel Gabriel. He went back
+to Khadeejeh exhausted in mind and body. ‘Wrap me, wrap me,’ he said;
+and the word came unto him—
+
+   O thou enwrapped in thy mantle
+   Arise and warn!
+   And thy Lord,—magnify Him!
+   And thy raiment,—purify it!
+   And the abomination,—flee it!
+   And bestow not favours that thou mayest receive again with increase,
+   And for thy Lord wait thou patiently.
+
+There are those who see imposture in all this; for such I have no
+answer. Nor does it matter whether in a hysterical fit or under any
+physical disease soever Moḥammad saw these visions and heard these
+voices. We are not concerned to draw the lines of demarcation between
+enthusiasm and ecstasy and inspiration. It is sufficient that Moḥammad
+_did_ see these things—the subjective creations of a tormented mind.
+It is sufficient that he believed them to be a message from on high,
+and that for years of neglect and persecution and for years of triumph
+and conquest he acted upon his belief.
+
+Moḥammad now (612) came forward as the Apostle of the One God to the
+people of Arabia: he was at last well assured that his God was of a
+truth _the_ God, and that He had indeed sent him with a message to his
+people, that they too might turn from their idols and serve the living
+God. He was in the minority of one, but he was no longer afraid; he
+had learnt that self-trust which is the condition of all true work. At
+first he spoke to his near kinsmen and friends; and it is impossible
+to overrate the importance of the fact that his closest relations and
+those who lived under his roof were the first to believe and the
+staunchest of faith. The prophet who is _with_ honour in his own home
+need appeal to no stronger proof of his sincerity, and that Moḥammad
+_was_ ‘a hero to his own valet’ is an invincible argument for his
+earnestness. The motherly Khadeejeh had at once, with a woman’s
+instinct, divined her husband’s heart and confirmed his fainting hope
+by her firm faith in him. His dearest friends, Zeyd and ´Alee, were
+the next converts; and though, to his grief, he could never induce his
+lifelong protector, Aboo-Ṭálib, to abandon the gods of his fathers,
+yet the old man loved him none the less, and said, when he heard of
+´Alee’s conversion, ‘Well, my son, he will not call thee to aught save
+what is good; wherefore thou art free to cleave unto him.’ A priceless
+aid was gained in the accession of Aboo-Bekr, who succeeded Moḥammad
+as the first Khalif of Islám, and whose calm judgment and quick
+sagacity, joined to a gentle and compassionate heart, were of
+incalculable service to the faith. Aboo-Bekr was one of the wealthiest
+merchants of Mekka, and exercised no small influence among his
+fellow-citizens, no less by his character than his position. Like
+Moḥammad, he had a nickname, Eṣ-Ṣiddeeḳ, ‘The True:’ _The True_ and
+_The Trusty_,—no mean augury for the future of the religion!
+
+Five converts followed in Aboo-Bekr’s steps; among them ´Othmán, the
+third Khalif, and Ṭalḥah, the man of war. The ranks of the faithful
+were swelled from humbler sources. There were many negro slaves in
+Mekka, and of them not a few had been predisposed by earlier teaching
+to join in the worship of the One God; and of those who were first
+converted was the Abyssinian Bilál, the original Muëddin of Islám, and
+ever a devoted disciple of the Prophet. These and others from the
+Ḳureysh raised the number of Muslims to more than thirty souls by the
+fourth year of Moḥammad’s mission—thirty in three long years, and few
+of them men of influence!
+
+This small success had been achieved with very little opposition from
+the idolaters. Moḥammad had not spoken much in public; and when he did
+speak to strangers, he restrained himself from attacking their
+worship, and only enjoined them to worship the One God who had
+created all things. The people were rather interested, and wondered
+whether he were a soothsayer or madman, or if indeed there were truth
+in his words. But now (A.D. 615) Moḥammad entered upon a more public
+career. He summoned the Ḳureysh to a conference at the hill of
+Eṣ-Ṣafá, and said, ‘I am come to you as a warner, and as the
+forerunner of a fearful punishment.... I cannot protect you in this
+world, nor can I promise you aught in the next life, unless ye say,
+There is no God but Alláh.’ He was laughed to scorn, and the assembly
+broke up; but from this time he ceased not to preach to the people of
+a punishment that would come upon the unbelieving city. He told them,
+in the fiery language of the early soorahs, how God had punished the
+old tribes of the Arabs who would not believe in His messengers, how
+the Flood had swallowed up the people who would not hearken to Noah.
+He swore unto them, by the wonderful sights of nature, by the noonday
+brightness, by the night when she spreadeth her veil, by the day when
+it appeareth in glory, that a like destruction would assuredly come
+upon them if they did not turn away from their idols and serve God
+alone. He enforced his message with every resource of language and
+metaphor, till he made it burn in the ears of the people. And then he
+told them of the Last Day, when a just reckoning should be taken of
+the deeds they had done; and he spoke of Paradise and Hell with all
+the glow of Eastern imagery. The people were moved, terrified;
+conversions increased. It was time the Ḳureysh should take some step.
+If the idols were destroyed, what would come to them, the keepers of
+the idols, and their renown throughout the land? How should they
+retain the allegiance of the neighbouring tribes who came to worship
+their several divinities at the Kaạbeh? That a few should follow the
+ravings of a madman or magician who preferred one god above the
+beautiful deities of Mekka was little matter; but that some leading
+men of the city should join the sect, and that the magician should
+terrify the people in open day with his denunciations of the worship
+which _they_ superintended, was intolerable. The chiefs were seriously
+alarmed, and resolved on a more active policy. Hitherto they had
+merely ridiculed the professors of this new faith; they would now take
+stronger measures. Moḥammad himself they dared not touch; for he
+belonged to a noble family, which, though it was reduced and
+impoverished, had deserved well of the city, and which, moreover, was
+now headed by a man who was reverenced throughout Mekka, and was none
+other than the adoptive father and protector of Moḥammad himself. Nor
+was it safe to attack the other chief men among the Muslims, for the
+blood-revenge was no light risk. They were thus compelled to content
+themselves with the mean satisfaction of torturing the black slaves
+who had joined the obnoxious faction. They exposed them on the
+scorching sand, and withheld water till they recanted—which they did,
+only to profess the faith once more when they were let go. The first
+Muëddin alone remained steadfast: as he lay half stifled he would only
+answer, ‘Aḥad! Aḥad!’—‘One [God]! One!’—till Aboo-Bekr came and bought
+his freedom, as he was wont to do for many of the miserable victims.
+Moḥammad was very gentle with these forced renegades: he knew what
+stuff men are made of, and he bade them be of good cheer for their
+lips, so that their hearts were sound.
+
+At last, moved by the sufferings of his lowly followers, he advised
+them to seek a refuge in Abyssinia—‘a land of righteousness, wherein
+no man is wronged;’ and in the fifth year of his mission (616) eleven
+men and four women left Mekka secretly, and were received in Abyssinia
+with welcome and peace. These first emigrants were followed by more
+the next year, till the number reached one hundred. The Ḳureysh were
+very wroth at the escape of their victims, and sent ambassadors to the
+Nejáshee, the Christian king of Abyssinia, to demand that the refugees
+should be given up to them. But the Nejáshee assembled his bishops
+and sent for the Muslims and asked them why they had fled; and one of
+them answered and said—
+
+‘O king! we lived in ignorance, idolatry, and unchastity; the strong
+oppressed the weak; we spoke untruth; we violated the duties of
+hospitality. Then a prophet arose, one whom we knew from our youth,
+with whose descent and conduct and good faith and morality we are all
+well acquainted. He told us to worship one God, to speak truth, to
+keep good faith, to assist our relations, to fulfil the rights of
+hospitality, and to abstain from all things impure, ungodly,
+unrighteous. And he ordered us to say prayers, give alms, and to fast.
+We believed in him; we followed him. But our countrymen persecuted us,
+tortured us, and tried to cause us to forsake our religion; and now we
+throw ourselves upon thy protection. Wilt thou not protect us?’ And he
+recited a chapter of the Ḳur-án, which spoke of Christ; and the king
+and the bishops wept upon their beards. And the king dismissed the
+messengers and would not give up the men.
+
+The Ḳureysh, foiled in their attempt to recapture the slaves, vented
+their malice on those believers who remained. Insults were heaped upon
+the Muslims, and persecution grew hotter each day. For a moment
+Moḥammad faltered in his work. Could he not spare his people these
+sufferings? Was it impossible to reconcile the religion of the city
+with the belief in one supreme God? After all, was the worship of
+those idols so false a thing? did it not hold the germ of a great
+truth? And so Moḥammad made his first and last concession. He recited
+a revelation to the Ḳureysh, in which he spoke respectfully of the
+three moon-goddesses, and asserted that their intercession with God
+might be hoped for: ‘Wherefore bow down before God and serve Him;’ and
+the whole audience, overjoyed at the compromise, bowed down and
+worshipped at the name of the God of Moḥammad—the whole city was
+reconciled to the double religion. But this Dreamer of the Desert was
+not the man to rest upon a lie. At the price of the whole city of
+Mekka he would not remain untrue to himself. He came forward and said
+he had done wrong—the devil had tempted him. He openly and frankly
+retracted what he had said: and ‘As for their idols, they were but
+empty names which they and their fathers had invented.’
+
+Western biographers have rejoiced greatly over ‘Moḥammad’s fall.’ Yet
+it was a tempting compromise, and few would have withstood it. And the
+life of Moḥammad is not the life of a god, but of a man: from first to
+last it is intensely human. But if for once he was not superior to the
+temptation of gaining over the whole city and obtaining peace where
+before there was only bitter persecution, what can we say of his
+manfully thrusting back the rich prize he had gained, freely
+confessing his fault, and resolutely giving himself over again to the
+old indignities and insults? If he was once insincere—and who is
+not?—how intrepid was his after-sincerity! He was untrue to himself
+for a while, and he is ever referring to it in his public preaching
+with shame and remorse; but the false step was more than atoned for by
+his magnificent recantation.
+
+Moḥammad’s influence with the people at large was certainly weakened
+by this temporary change of front, and the opposition of the leaders
+of the Ḳureysh, checked for the moment by the Prophet’s concession,
+now that he had repudiated it, broke forth into fiercer flame. They
+heaped insults upon him, and he could not traverse the city without
+the encounter of a curse. They threw unclean things at him, and vexed
+him in his every doing. The protection of Aboo-Ṭálib alone saved him
+from personal danger. This refuge the Ḳureysh determined to remove.
+They had attempted before, but had been turned back with a soft
+answer. They now went to the chief, of fourscore years, and demanded
+that he should either compel his nephew to hold his peace, or else
+that he should withdraw his protection. Having thus spoken they
+departed. The old man sent for Moḥammad, and told him what they had
+said. ‘Now therefore save thyself and me also, and cast not upon me a
+burden heavier than I can bear;’ for he was grieved at the strife
+between his family and his wider kindred, and would fain have seen
+Moḥammad temporize with the Ḳureysh. But though the Prophet believed
+that at length his uncle was indeed about to abandon him, his courage
+and high resolve never faltered. ‘Though they should set the sun on my
+right hand and the moon on my left to persuade me, yet while God
+commands me I will not renounce my purpose.’ But to lose his uncle’s
+love!—he burst into tears, and turned to go. But Aboo-Ṭálib called
+aloud, ‘Son of my brother, come back.’ So he came. And he said,
+‘Depart in peace, my nephew, and say whatsoever thou desirest; for, by
+the Lord, I will never deliver thee up.’
+
+The faithfulness of Aboo-Ṭálib was soon to be tried. At first, indeed,
+things looked brighter. The old chief’s firm bearing overawed the
+Ḳureysh, and they were still more cowed by two great additions that
+were now joined to the Muslim ranks. One was Moḥammad’s uncle, Ḥamzeh,
+‘the Lion of God,’ a mighty hunter and warrior of the true Arab
+mettle, whose sword was worth twenty of weaker men to the cause of
+Islám. The other was ´Omar, afterwards Khalif, whose fierce impulsive
+nature had hitherto marked him as a violent opponent of the new faith,
+but who afterwards proved himself one of the mainstays of Islám. The
+gain of two such men first frightened then maddened the Ḳureysh. The
+leaders met together and consulted what they should do. It was no
+longer a case of an enthusiast followed by a crowd of slaves and a few
+worthy merchants; it was a faction led by stout warriors, such as
+Ḥamzeh, Ṭalḥah, ´Omar,—half-a-dozen picked swordsmen; and the Muslims,
+emboldened by their new allies, were boldly surrounding the Kaạbeh,
+and performing the rites of their religion in the face of all the
+people. The Ḳureysh resolved on extreme measures. They determined to
+shut off the obnoxious family of the Háshimees from the rest of their
+kindred. The chiefs drew up a document, in which they vowed that they
+would not marry with the Háshimees, nor buy and sell with them, nor
+hold with them any communication soever; and this they hung up in the
+Kaạbeh.
+
+The Háshimees were not many enough to fight the whole city, so they
+went every man of them, save one, to the shi-b (or quarter) of
+Aboo-Ṭálib,—a long, narrow mountain defile on the eastern skirts of
+Mekka, cut off by rocks or walls from the city, except for one narrow
+gateway,—and there shut themselves up. For though the ban did not
+forbid them to go about as heretofore, they knew that no soul would
+speak with them, and that they would be subject to the maltreatment of
+any vagabond they met. So they collected their stores and waited.
+Every man of the family, Muslim or Pagan, cast in his lot with their
+common kinsman, Moḥammad, saving only his own uncle, Aboo-Lahab, a
+determined enemy to Islám, to whom a special denunciation is justly
+consecrated in the Ḳur-án.
+
+For two long years the Háshimees remained shut up in their quarter.
+Only at the pilgrimage-time—when the blessed institution of the sacred
+months made violence sacrilege—could Moḥammad come forth and speak
+unto the people of the things that were in his heart to say. Scarcely
+any converts were made during this weary time; and most of those who
+had previously been converted, and did not belong to the doomed clan,
+took refuge in Abyssinia; so that in the seventh year of Moḥammad’s
+mission there were probably not more than twelve Muslims of any weight
+who remained by him. Still the Háshimees remained in their quarter. It
+seemed as if they must all perish: their stores were almost gone, and
+the cries of starving children could be heard outside. Kind-hearted
+neighbours would sometimes smuggle-in a camel’s load of food, but it
+availed little. The Ḳureysh themselves were getting ashamed of their
+work, and were wishing for an excuse for releasing their kinsmen. The
+excuse came in time. It was discovered that the deed of ban was eaten
+up by worms, and Aboo-Ṭálib turned the discovery to his advantage. The
+venerable old chief went out and met the Ḳureysh at the Kaạbeh, and
+pointing to the crumbling leaf he bitterly reproached them with their
+hardness of heart towards their brethren: then he departed. And
+straightway there rose up five chiefs, heads of great families, and,
+amid the murmurs of the fiercer spirits who were still for no quarter,
+they put on their armour, and going to the shi-b of Aboo-Ṭálib, bade
+the Háshimees come forth in peace. And they came forth.
+
+It was now the eighth year of Moḥammad’s mission; and for the last two
+years, wasted in excommunication, Islám had almost stood still, at
+least externally. For though Moḥammad’s patient bearing under the ban
+had gained over a few of his imprisoned clan to his side, he had made
+no converts beyond the walls of his quarter. During the sacred months
+he had gone forth to speak to the people,—to the caravans of strangers
+and the folk at the fairs,—but he had no success; for hard behind him
+followed Aboo-Lahab, the squinter, who mocked at him, and told the
+people he was only ‘a liar and a sabian.’ And the people answered that
+his own kindred must best know what he was, and they would hear
+nothing from him. The bold conduct of the five chiefs had indeed
+secured for Moḥammad a temporary respite from persecution; but this
+relief was utterly outweighed by the troubles that now fell upon him
+and fitly gave that year the name of ‘The Year of Mourning.’ For soon
+after the revoking of the ban Aboo-Ṭálib died, and five weeks later
+Khadeejeh. In the first Moḥammad lost his ancient protector, who,
+though he would never give up his old belief, had yet faithfully
+guarded the Prophet from his childhood upwards, and, with the true
+Arab sentiment of kinship, had subjected himself and his clan to years
+of persecution and poverty in order to defend his brother’s son from
+his enemies. The death of Khadeejeh was even a heavier calamity to
+Moḥammad. She first had believed in him, and she had ever been his
+angel of hope and consolation. To his death he cherished a tender
+regret for her; and when his young bride ´Áïsheh, the favourite of his
+declining years, jealously abused ‘that toothless old woman,’ he
+answered with indignation, ‘When I was poor, she enriched me; when
+they called me a liar, she alone believed in me; when all the world
+was against me, she alone remained true.’
+
+Moḥammad might well feel himself alone in the world. Most of his
+followers were in Abyssinia; only a few tried friends remained at
+Mekka. All the city was against him; his protector was dead, and his
+faithful wife. Dejected, almost hopeless, he would try a new field. If
+Mekka rejected him, might not Et-Ṭáïf give him welcome? He set out on
+foot on his journey of seventy miles, taking only Zeyd with him; and
+he told the people of Et-Ṭáïf his simple message. They stoned him out
+of the city for three miles. Bleeding and fainting, he paused to rest
+in an orchard, to recover strength before he went back to the insults
+of his own people. The owners of the place sent him some grapes; and
+he gathered up his strength once more, and bent his weary feet towards
+Mekka. On the way, as he slept, his fancy called up a strange dream:
+men had rejected him, and now he thought he saw the Jinn, the spirits
+of the air, falling down and worshipping the One God, and bearing
+witness to the truth of Islám. Heartened by the vision, he pushed on;
+and when Zeyd asked him if he did not fear to throw himself again into
+the hands of the Ḳureysh, he answered, ‘God will protect His religion
+and help His prophet.’
+
+So this lonely man came back to dwell among his enemies. Though a
+brave Arab gentleman, compassionating his aloneness, gave him the
+Bedawee pledge of protection, yet he well knew that the power of his
+foes made such protection almost useless, and at any time he might be
+assassinated. But the Ḳureysh had not yet come to think of the last
+resource, and meanwhile a new prospect was opening out for Moḥammad.
+That same year, as he was visiting the caravans of the pilgrims who
+had come from all parts of Arabia to worship at the Kaạbeh, he found a
+group of men of Yethrib who were willing to listen to his words. He
+expounded to them the faith he was sent to preach, and he told them
+how his people had rejected him, and asked them whether Yethrib would
+receive him. The men were impressed with his words and professed
+Islám, and promised to bring news the next year; then they returned
+home and talked of this matter to their brethren. Now at Yethrib,
+besides two pagan tribes that had migrated upwards from the south,
+there were three clans of Jewish Arabs. Between the pagans and Jews,
+and then between the two pagan clans, there had been deadly wars; and
+now there were many parties in the city, and no one was master. The
+Jews, on the one hand, were expecting their Messiah; the pagans looked
+for a prophet. If Moḥammad were not the Messiah, the Jews thought that
+he might at least be their tool to subdue their pagan rivals. ‘Whether
+he is a prophet or not,’ said the pagans, ‘he is our kinsman by his
+mother, and will help us to overawe the Jews; and if he is the coming
+prophet, it is our policy to recognise him before those Jews who are
+always threatening us with their Messiah.’ The teaching of Moḥammad
+was so nearly Jewish, that a union of the two creeds might be hoped
+for; whilst to the pagan Arabs of Yethrib monotheism was no strange
+doctrine. All parties were therefore willing to receive Moḥammad and
+at least try the experiment of his influence. As a peace-maker,
+prophet, or messiah, he would be equally welcome in a city torn
+asunder by party jealousies.
+
+When the time of pilgrimage again came round, Moḥammad waited at the
+appointed place in a secluded glen, and there met him men from the two
+pagan tribes of Yethrib—the clans of Khazraj and Aws—ten from one and
+two from the other. They told him of the willingness of their people
+to embrace Islám, and their hope to make ready the city for his
+welcome. They plighted their faith with him in these words: ‘We will
+not worship save one God; we will not steal, nor commit adultery, nor
+kill our children; we will in nowise slander, nor will we disobey the
+prophet in anything that is right.’ This is the first pledge of the
+´Aḳabeh.
+
+The twelve men of Yethrib went back and preached Islám to their
+people. ‘So prepared was the ground, so zealous the propagation, and
+so apt the method, that the new faith spread rapidly from house to
+house and from tribe to tribe. The Jews looked on in amazement at the
+people, whom they had in vain endeavoured for generations to convince
+of the errors of Polytheism and dissuade from the abominations of
+idolatry, suddenly and of their own accord casting away their idols
+and professing belief in God alone.’ They asked Moḥammad to send them
+a teacher versed in the Ḳur-án, so anxious were they to know Islám
+truly; and Muṣ´ab was sent, and taught them and conducted their
+worship; so that Islám took deep root at Yethrib.
+
+Meanwhile Moḥammad was still among the Ḳureysh at Mekka. His is now an
+attitude of waiting; he is listening for news from his distant
+converts. Resting his hopes upon them, and despairing of influencing
+the Mekkans, he does not preach so much as heretofore. He holds his
+peace mainly, and bides his time. One hears little of this interval of
+quietude. Islám seems stationary at Mekka, and its followers are
+silent and reserved. The Ḳureysh are joyful at the ceasing of those
+denunciations which terrified whilst they angered them, yet they are
+not quite satisfied. The Muslims have a waiting look, as though there
+were something at hand.
+
+It was during this year of expectation that the Prophet’s celebrated
+‘Night Journey’ took place. This Mi´ráj has been the subject of
+extravagant embellishments on the part of the traditionists and
+commentators, and the cause of much obloquy to the Prophet from his
+religious opponents. Moḥammad dreamed a dream, and referred to it
+briefly and obscurely in the Ḳur-án. His followers persisted in
+believing it to have been a reality—an ascent to heaven in the
+body—till Moḥammad was sick of repeating his simple assertion that it
+was a dream. The traditional form of this wonderful vision may be read
+in any life of Moḥammad, and though it is doubtless very different
+from the story the Prophet himself gave, it is still a grand vision,
+full of glorious imagery, fraught with deep meaning.
+
+Again the time of pilgrimage came round, and again Moḥammad repaired
+to the glen of the Mountain-road. Muṣ´ab had told him the good tidings
+of the spread of the faith at Yethrib, and he was met at the
+rendezvous by more than seventy men. They came by twos and threes
+secretly for fear of the Ḳureysh, ‘waking not the sleeper, nor
+tarrying for the absent.’ Then Moḥammad recited to them verses from
+the Ḳur-án, and in answer to their invitation that he should come to
+them, and their profession that their lives were at his service, he
+asked them to pledge themselves to defend him as they would their own
+wives and children. And a murmur of eager assent rolled round about
+from the seventy, and an old man, one of their chiefs, stood forth and
+said, ‘Stretch out thy hand, O Moḥammad.’ And the chief struck his own
+hand into Moḥammad’s palm in the frank Bedawee fashion, and thus
+pledged his fealty. Man after man the others followed, and struck
+their hands upon Moḥammad’s. Then he chose twelve of them as leaders
+over the rest, saying, ‘Moses chose from among his people twelve
+leaders. Ye shall be the sureties for the rest, even as the apostles
+of Jesus were; and I am the surety for my people.’ A voice of some
+stranger was heard near by, and the assembly hastily dispersed and
+stole back to their camp. This is the second pledge of the ´Aḳabeh.
+
+The Ḳureysh knew that some meeting had taken place, and though they
+could not bring home the offence to any of the Yethrib pilgrims, they
+kept a stricter watch on the movements of Moḥammad and his friends
+after the pilgrims had returned homeward. It was clear that Mekka was
+no longer a safe place for the Muslims, and a few days after the
+second pledge Moḥammad told his followers to betake themselves
+secretly to Yethrib. For two months at the beginning of the eleventh
+year of the mission (622) the Muslims were leaving Mekka in small
+companies to make the journey of 250 miles to Yethrib. One hundred
+families had gone, and whole quarters of the city were deserted, left
+with empty houses and locked doors, ‘a prey to woe and wind.’ There
+were but three believers now remaining in Mekka—these were Moḥammad,
+Aboo-Bekr, and ´Alee. Like the captain of a sinking ship, the Prophet
+would not leave till all the crew were safe. But now they were all
+gone save his two early friends, and everything was ready for the
+journey; still the Prophet did not go. But the Ḳureysh, who had been
+too much taken by surprise to prevent the emigration, now prepared
+measures for a summary vengeance on the disturber of their peace and
+the emptier of their city. They set a watch on his house, and, it is
+said, commissioned a band of armed youths of different families to
+assassinate him together, that the blood recompense might not fall on
+one household alone. But Moḥammad had warning of his danger, and
+leaving ´Alee to deceive the enemy, he was concealed with Aboo-Bekr in
+a narrow-mouthed cave on Mount Thór, an hour-and-a-half’s journey from
+Mekka, before the Ḳureysh knew of his escape. For three days they
+remained hidden there, while their enemies were searching the country
+for them. Once they were very near, and Aboo-Bekr trembled:—‘We are
+but two.’ ‘Nay,’ answered Moḥammad, ‘we are three, for God is with
+us.’ And a spider, they say, wove its web over the entrance of the
+cave, so that the Ḳureysh passed on, thinking that no man had entered
+there.
+
+On the third night the pursuit had been almost given over, and the two
+fugitives took up their journey again. Mounted on camels they
+journeyed to Yethrib. In eight days they reached the outskirts of the
+city (September 622). Moḥammad was received with acclamation, and took
+up his residence among his kindred. The seat of Islám was transferred
+from Mekka to Yethrib, henceforward to be known as
+Medina,—_Medeenet-en-Nebee_, ‘the City of the Prophet.’
+
+This is the _Hijreh_, or Flight of the Prophet, from which the Muslims
+date their history. Their first year began on the 16th day of June of
+the Year of Grace 622.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A great change now comes over the Prophet’s life. It is still the same
+man, but the surroundings are totally different; the work to be done
+is on a wider, rougher stage. Thus far we have seen a gentle,
+thoughtful boy tending the sheep round Mekka;—a young man of little
+note, of whom the people only knew that he was pure and upright and
+true;—then a man of forty whose solitary communion with his soul has
+pressed him to the last terrible questions that each man, if he will
+think at all, must some time ask himself—What is life? What does this
+world mean? What is reality, what is truth? Long months, years
+perhaps, we know not how long and weary, filled with the tortures of
+doubt and the despair of ever attaining to the truth, filled with the
+dreary thought of his aloneness in the relentless universe, and the
+longing to end it all, brought at last their fruits—sure conviction of
+the great secret of life, a firm belief in the Creator in whom all
+things live and move and have their being, whom to serve is man’s
+highest duty and privilege, the one thing to be done. And then ten
+years of struggling with careless, unthinking idolators; ten years of
+slow results, the gaining over of a few close friends, the devoted
+attachment of some slaves and men of the meaner rank; finally, the
+conversion of half-a-dozen great citizen chiefs, ending in the flight
+of the whole brotherhood of believers from their native city and their
+welcome to a town of strangers, where the faith had forced itself home
+to the hearts of perhaps two hundred citizens. It was but little that
+was done; so many years of toil, of indomitable courage and
+perseverance and long-suffering, and only about three hundred converts
+at the end! But it was the seed of a great harvest. Moḥammad had shown
+men what he was; the nobility of his character, his strong friendship,
+his endurance and courage, above all, his earnestness and fiery
+enthusiasm for the truth he came to preach,—these things had revealed
+the hero, the master whom it was alike impossible to disobey and
+impossible not to love. Henceforward it is only a question of time. As
+the men of Medina come to know Moḥammad, they too will devote
+themselves to him body and soul; and the enthusiasm will catch fire
+and spread among the tribes till all Arabia is at the feet of the
+Prophet of the One God. ‘No emperor with his tiaras was obeyed as this
+man in a cloak of His own clouting.’ He had the gift of influencing
+men, and he had the nobility only to influence them for good.
+
+We have now to see Moḥammad as king. Though he came as a fugitive,
+rejected as an impostor by his own citizens, yet it was not long
+before his word was supreme in his adopted city. He had to rule over a
+mixed and divided people, and this must have helped him to the supreme
+voice. There were four distinct parties at Medina. First, the
+‘Refugees’ (Muḥájiroon), who had fled from Mekka; on these Moḥammad
+could always rely with implicit faith. But he attached equal
+importance to the early converts of Medina, who had invited him among
+them and given him a home when the future seemed very hopeless before
+him, and who were thenceforward known by the honourable title of the
+‘Helpers’ (Anṣár). How devoted was the affection of these men is
+shown by the well-known scene at El-Ji´ráneh, when the Helpers were
+discontented with their share of the spoils, and Moḥammad answered,
+‘Why are ye disturbed in mind because of the things of this life
+wherewith I have sought to incline the hearts of these men of Mekka
+into Islám, whereas ye are already steadfast in the faith? Are ye not
+satisfied that others should obtain the flocks and the camels, while
+ye carry back the Prophet of the Lord unto your homes? Nay, I will not
+leave you for ever. If all mankind went one way, and the men of Medina
+went another way, verily I would go the way of the men of Medina. The
+Lord be favourable unto them, and bless them, and their sons, and
+their sons’ sons, for ever!’ And the ‘Helpers’ wept upon their beards,
+and cried with one voice, ‘Yea, we are well satisfied, O Prophet, with
+our lot.’ To retain the allegiance of the Refugees and the Helpers was
+never a trouble to Moḥammad; the only difficulty was to rein in their
+zeal and hold them back from doing things of blood and vengeance on
+the enemies of Islám. To prevent the danger of jealousy between the
+Refugees and the Helpers, Moḥammad assigned each Refugee to one of the
+Anṣár to be his brother; and this tie of gossipry superseded all
+nearer ties, till Moḥammad saw the time was over when it was needed.
+The third party in Medina was that of the ‘Disaffected,’ or in the
+language of Islám the ‘Hypocrites’ (Munáfiḳoon). This was composed of
+the large body of men who gave in their nominal allegiance to Moḥammad
+and his religion when they saw they could not safely withstand his
+power, but who were always ready to turn about if they thought there
+was a chance of his overthrow. Moḥammad treated these men and their
+leader ´Abdallah ibn Ubayy (who himself aspired to the sovranty of
+Medina) with patient courtesy and friendliness, and, though they
+actually deserted him more than once at vitally critical moments, he
+never retaliated, even when he was strong enough to crush them, but
+rather sought to win them over heartily to his cause by treating them
+as though they were what he would have them be. The result was that
+this party gradually diminished and became absorbed in the general
+mass of earnest Muslims, and though up to its leader’s death it
+constantly called forth Moḥammad’s powers of conciliation, after that
+it vanished from the history of parties.
+
+The fourth party was the real thorn in the Prophet’s side. It
+consisted of the Jews, of whom three tribes were settled in the
+suburbs of Medina. They had at first been well disposed to Moḥammad’s
+coming. He could not indeed be the Messiah, because he was not of the
+lineage of David; but he would do very well to pass off upon their
+neighbours, the pagan Arabs, as, if not the Messiah, at least a great
+prophet; and by his influence the Jews might regain their old
+supremacy in Medina. Moḥammad’s teaching was very nearly Jewish—they
+had taught him the fables of their Haggadah, and he believed in their
+prophets—why should he not be one of them and help them to the
+dominion? When Moḥammad came, they found out their mistake; instead of
+a tool they had a master. He told the people, indeed, the stories of
+the Midrash, and he professed to revive the religion of Abraham: but
+he added to this several damning articles; he taught that Jesus _was_
+the Messiah, and that no other Messiah was to be looked for; and,
+moreover, whilst reverencing and inculcating the doctrine of the
+Hebrew prophets and of Christ, as he knew it, he yet insisted on his
+own mission as in nowise inferior to theirs—as, in fact, the seal of
+prophecy by which all that went before was confirmed or abrogated. The
+illusion was over; the Jews would have nothing to say to Islám: they
+set themselves instead to oppose it, ridicule it, and vex its Preacher
+in every way that their notorious ingenuity could devise.
+
+The step was false: the Jews missed their game, and they had to pay
+for it. Whether it was possible to form a coalition,—whether the Jews
+might have induced Moḥammad to waive certain minor points if they
+recognised his prophetic mission,—it is difficult to say. It seems
+most probable that Moḥammad would not have yielded a jot to their
+demands, and would have accepted nothing short of unconditional
+surrender to his religion. And it is at least doubtful whether Islám
+would have gained anything by a further infusion of Judaism. It
+already contained all that it could assimilate of the Hebrew faith;
+the rest was too narrow for the universal scope of Islám. The religion
+of Moḥammad lost little, we may be sure, by the standing aloof of the
+Arabian Jews; but the Jews themselves lost much. Moḥammad, indeed,
+treated them kindly so long as kindness was possible. He made a treaty
+with them, whereby the rights of the Muslims and the Jews were
+defined. They were to practise their several religions unmolested;
+protection and security were promised to all the parties to the
+treaty, irrespective of creed; each was to help the other if attacked;
+no alliance was to be made with the Ḳureysh; war was to be made in
+common, and no war could be made without the consent of Moḥammad:
+crime alone could do away with the protection of this treaty.
+
+But the Jews would not content themselves with standing aloof; they
+must needs act on the offensive. They began by asking Moḥammad hard
+questions out of their law, and his answers they easily refuted from
+their books. They denied all knowledge of the Jewish stories in the
+Ḳur-án—though they knew that they came from their own Haggadah, which
+was ever in their mouths in their own quarter,—and they showed him
+their Bible, where, of course, the Haggadistic legends were not to be
+found. Moḥammad had but one course open to him—to say they had
+suppressed or changed their books; and he denounced them accordingly,
+and said that his was the true account of the patriarchs and prophets,
+revealed from heaven. Not satisfied with tormenting Moḥammad with
+questions on that Tórah which they were always wrangling about
+themselves, they took hold of the every day formulas of Islám, the
+daily prayers and ejaculations, and, ‘twisting their tongues,’
+mispronounced them so that they meant something absurd or blasphemous.
+When asked which they preferred, Islám or idolatry, they frankly
+avowed that they preferred idolatry. To lie about their own religion
+and to ridicule another religion that was doing a great and good work
+around them was not enough for these Jews; they must set their poets
+to work to lampoon the women of the believers in obscene verse, and
+such outrages upon common decency, not to say upon the code of Arab
+honour and chivalry, became a favourite occupation among the poets of
+the Jewish clans.
+
+These were offences against the religion and the persons of the
+Muslims. They also conspired against the state. Moḥammad was not only
+the preacher of Islám, he was also the king of Medina, and was
+responsible for the safety and peace of the city. As a prophet, he
+could afford to ignore the jibes of the Jews, though they maddened him
+to fury; but as the chief of the city, the general in a time of almost
+continual warfare, when Medina was kept in a state of military defence
+and under a sort of military discipline, he could not overlook
+treachery. He was bound by his duty to his subjects to suppress a
+party that might (and nearly did) lead to the sack of the city by
+investing armies. The measures he took for this object have furnished
+his European biographers with a handle for attack. It is, I believe,
+solely on the ground of his treatment of the Jews that Moḥammad has
+been called ‘a bloodthirsty tyrant:’ it would certainly be difficult
+to support the epithet on other grounds.
+
+The bloodthirstiness consists in this: some half-dozen Jews, who had
+distinguished themselves by their virulence against the Muslims, or by
+their custom of carrying information to the common enemy of Medina,
+were executed; two of the three Jewish clans were sent into exile,
+just as they had previously come into exile, and the third was
+exterminated—the men killed, and the women and children made slaves.
+The execution of the half-dozen marked Jews is generally called
+assassination, because a Muslim was sent secretly to kill each of the
+criminals. The reason is almost too obvious to need explanation. There
+were no police or law-courts or even courts-martial at Medina; some
+one of the followers of Moḥammad must therefore be the executor of the
+sentence of death, and it was better it should be done quietly, as the
+executing of a man openly before his clan would have caused a brawl
+and more bloodshed and retaliation, till the whole city had become
+mixed up in the quarrel. If secret assassination is the word for such
+deeds, secret assassination was a necessary part of the internal
+government of Medina. The men must be killed, and best in that way. In
+saying this I assume that Moḥammad was cognisant of the deed, and that
+it was not merely a case of private vengeance; but in several
+instances the evidence that traces these executions to Moḥammad’s
+order is either entirely wanting or is too doubtful to claim our
+credence.
+
+Of the sentences upon the three whole clans, that of exile, passed
+upon two of them, was clement enough. They were a turbulent set,
+always setting the people of Medina by the ears; and finally a brawl
+followed by an insurrection resulted in the expulsion of one tribe;
+and insubordination, alliance with enemies, and a suspicion of
+conspiracy against the Prophet’s life, ended similarly for the second.
+Both tribes had violated the original treaty, and had endeavoured in
+every way to bring Moḥammad and his religion to ridicule and
+destruction. The only question is whether their punishment was not too
+light. Of the third clan a fearful example was made, not by Moḥammad,
+but by an arbiter appointed by themselves. When the Ḳureysh and their
+allies were besieging Medina, and had well-nigh stormed the defences,
+this Jewish tribe entered into negotiations with the enemy, which were
+only circumvented by the diplomacy of the Prophet. When the besiegers
+had retired, Moḥammad naturally demanded an explanation of the Jews.
+They resisted in their dogged way, and were themselves besieged and
+compelled to surrender at discretion. Moḥammad, however, consented to
+the appointing of a chief of a tribe allied to the Jews as the judge
+who should pronounce sentence upon them. The man in question was a
+fierce soldier, who had been wounded in the attack on the Jews, and
+indeed died from his wound the same day. This chief gave sentence that
+the men, in number some six hundred, should be killed, and the women
+and children enslaved; and the sentence was carried out. It was a
+harsh, bloody sentence, worthy of the episcopal generals of the army
+against the Albigenses, or of the deeds of the Augustan age of
+Puritanism; but it must be remembered that the crime of these men was
+high treason against the State, during time of siege; and those who
+have read how Wellington’s march could be traced by the bodies of
+deserters and pillagers hanging from the trees, need not be surprized
+at the summary execution of a traitorous clan.
+
+Whilst Moḥammad’s supremacy was being established and maintained among
+the mixed population of Mekka, a vigorous warfare was being carried on
+outside with his old persecutors, the Ḳureysh. On the history of this
+war, consisting as it did mainly of small raids and attacks upon
+caravans, I need not dwell; its leading features were the two battles
+of Bedr and Oḥud, in the first of which three hundred Muslims, though
+outnumbered at the odds of three to one, were completely victorious
+(A.D. 624, A.H. 2); whilst at Oḥud, being outnumbered in the like
+proportion and deserted by the ‘Disaffected’ party, they were almost
+as decisively defeated (A.H. 3). Two years later the Ḳureysh,
+gathering together their allies, advanced upon Medina and besieged it
+for fifteen days; but the foresight of Moḥammad in digging a trench,
+and the enthusiasm of the Muslims in defending it, resisted all
+assaults, and the coming of the heavy storms for which the climate of
+Medina is noted drove the enemy back to Mekka. The next year (A.H. 6)
+a ten years’ truce was concluded with the Ḳureysh, in pursuance of
+which a strange scene took place in the following spring. It was
+agreed that Moḥammad and his people should perform the Lesser
+Pilgrimage, and that the Ḳureysh should for that purpose vacate Mekka
+for three days. Accordingly, in March 629, about two thousand Muslims,
+with Moḥammad at their head on his famous camel El-Ḳaṣwá—the same on
+which he had fled from Mekka—trooped down the valley and performed the
+rites which every Muslim to this day observes.
+
+‘It was surely a strange sight which at this time presented itself in
+the vale of Mekka,—a sight unique in the history of the world. The
+ancient city is for three days evacuated by all its inhabitants, high
+and low, every house deserted; and, as they retire, the exiled
+converts, many years banished from their birthplace, approach in a
+great body, accompanied by their allies, revisit the empty homes of
+their childhood, and within the short allotted space fulfil the rites
+of pilgrimage. The ousted inhabitants, climbing the heights around,
+take refuge under tents or other shelter among the hills and glens;
+and, clustering on the overhanging peak of Aboo-Ḳubeys, thence watch
+the movements of the visitors beneath, as with the Prophet at their
+head they make the circuit of the Kaạbeh and the rapid procession
+between Eṣ-Ṣafá and Marwah; and anxiously scan every figure if
+perchance they may recognise among the worshippers some long-lost
+friend or relative. It was a scene rendered possible only by the
+throes which gave birth to Islám.’[15]
+
+When the three days were over, Moḥammad and his party peaceably
+returned to Medina; and the Mekkans re-entered their homes. But this
+pilgrimage, and the self-restraint of the Muslims therein, advanced
+the cause of Islám among its enemies. Converts increased daily, and
+some leading men of the Ḳureysh now went over to Moḥammad. The clans
+around were sending in their deputations of homage. But the final
+keystone was set in the eighth year of the flight (A.D. 630), when a
+body of Ḳureysh broke the truce by attacking an ally of the Muslims;
+and Moḥammad forthwith marched upon Mekka with ten thousand men, and
+the city, defence being hopeless, surrendered. Now was the time for
+the Prophet to show his bloodthirsty nature. His old persecutors are
+at his feet. Will he not trample on them, torture them, revenge
+himself after his own cruel manner? Now the man will come forward in
+his true colours: we may prepare our horror, and cry shame beforehand.
+
+But what is this? Is there no blood in the streets? Where are the
+bodies of the thousands that have been butchered? Facts are hard
+things; and it is a fact that the day of Moḥammad’s greatest triumph
+over his enemies was also the day of his grandest victory over
+himself. He freely forgave the Ḳureysh all the years of sorrow and
+cruel scorn they had inflicted on him: he gave an amnesty to the whole
+population of Mekka. Four criminals, whom justice condemned, made up
+Moḥammad’s proscription list when he entered as a conqueror the city
+of his bitterest enemies. The army followed his example, and entered
+quietly and peaceably; no house was robbed, no woman insulted. One
+thing alone suffered destruction. Going to the Kaạbeh, Moḥammad stood
+before each of the three hundred and sixty idols and pointed to it
+with his staff, saying, ‘Truth is come and lying is undone,’ and at
+these words his attendants hewed it down; and all the idols and
+household gods of Mekka and round about were destroyed.
+
+It was thus that Moḥammad entered again his native city. Through all
+the annals of conquest, there is no triumphant entry like unto this
+one.
+
+The taking of Mekka was soon followed by the adhesion of all Arabia.
+Every reader knows the story of the spread of Islám. The tribes of
+every part of the peninsula sent embassies to do homage to the
+Prophet. Arabia was not enough: the Prophet had written in his bold
+uncompromising way to the great kings of the East, to the Persian
+Khusru, and the Greek Emperor; and these little knew how soon his
+invitation to the faith would be repeated, and how quickly Islám would
+be knocking at their doors with no faltering hand.
+
+The Prophet’s career was near its end. In the tenth year of the
+Flight, twenty years after he had first felt the Spirit move him to
+preach to his people, he resolved once more to leave his adopted city
+and go to Mekka to perform a farewell pilgrimage. And when the rites
+were done in the valley of Miná, the Prophet spoke unto the
+multitude—the forty thousand pilgrims—with solemn last words.[16]
+
+‘YE PEOPLE! Hearken to my words; for I know not whether after this
+year I shall ever be amongst you here again.
+
+‘Your Lives and your Property are sacred and inviolable amongst one
+another until the end of time.
+
+‘The Lord hath ordained to every man the share of his inheritance: a
+Testament is not lawful to the prejudice of heirs.
+
+‘The child belongeth to the Parent; and the violator of Wedlock shall
+be stoned.
+
+‘Ye people! Ye have rights demandable of your Wives, and they have
+rights demandable of you. Treat your women well.
+
+‘And your Slaves, see that you feed them with such food as ye eat
+yourselves, and clothe them with the stuff ye wear. And if they commit
+a fault which ye are not willing to forgive, then sell them, for they
+are the servants of the Lord, and are not to be tormented.
+
+‘Ye people! Hearken unto my speech and comprehend it. Know that every
+Muslim is the brother of every other Muslim. All of you are on the
+same equality: ye are one Brotherhood.’
+
+Then, looking up to heaven, he cried, ‘O Lord! I have delivered my
+message and fulfilled my mission.’ And all the multitude answered,
+‘Yea, verily hast thou’!—‘O Lord! I beseech Thee, bear Thou witness to
+it’! and, like Moses, he lifted up his hands and blessed the people.
+
+
+Three months more and Moḥammad was dead.
+
+   A.H. 11. June, 632.
+
+
+It is a hard thing to form a calm estimate of the Dreamer of the
+Desert. There is something so tender and womanly, and withal so
+heroic, about the man, that one is in peril of finding the judgment
+unconsciously blinded by the feeling of reverence and well-nigh love
+that such a nature inspires. He who, standing alone, braved for years
+the hatred of his people, is the same who was never the first to
+withdraw his hand from another’s clasp, the beloved of children, who
+never passed a group of little ones without a smile from his wonderful
+eyes and a kind word for them, sounding all the kinder in that
+sweet-toned voice. The frank friendship, the noble generosity, the
+dauntless courage and hope of the man, all tend to melt criticism in
+admiration.
+
+In telling in brief outline the story of Moḥammad’s life I have
+endeavoured to avoid controversial points. I have tried to convey in
+the simplest manner the view of that life which a study of the
+authorities must force upon every unbiassed mind. Many of the events
+of Moḥammad’s life have been distorted and credited with ignoble
+motives by European biographers; but on the facts they mainly agree,
+and these I have narrated, without encumbering them with the
+ingenious adumbrations of their learned recorders. But there are some
+things in the Prophet’s life which have given rise to charges too
+weighty to be dismissed without discussion. He has been accused of
+cruelty, sensuality, and insincerity; he has been called a
+‘bloodthirsty tyrant,’ a voluptuary, and an impostor.
+
+The charge of cruelty scarcely deserves consideration. I have already
+spoken of the punishment of the Jews, which forms the ground of the
+accusation. One has but to refer to Moḥammad’s conduct to the
+prisoners after the battle of Bedr, to his patient tolerance towards
+his enemies at Medina, his gentleness to his people, his love of
+children and the dumb creatures, and above all, his bloodless entry
+into Mekka, and the complete amnesty he gave to those who had been his
+bitter enemies during eighteen years of insult and persecution and
+finally open war, to show that cruelty was no part of Moḥammad’s
+nature.
+
+To say that Moḥammad, or any other Arab, was sensual in a higher
+degree than an ordinary European is simply to enounce a well-worn
+axiom: the passions of the men of the sunland are not as those of the
+chill north. But to say that Moḥammad was a voluptuary is false. The
+simple austerity of his daily life, to the very last, his hard mat for
+sleeping on, his plain food, his self-imposed menial work, point him
+out as an ascetic rather than a voluptuary in most senses of the word.
+Two things he loved, perfumes and women; the first was harmless
+enough, and the special case of his wives has its special answer. A
+great deal too much has been said about these wives. It is a
+melancholy spectacle to see professedly Christian biographers gloating
+over the stories and fables of Moḥammad’s domestic relations like the
+writers and readers of ‘society’ journals. It is, of course, a fact
+that whilst the Prophet allowed his followers only four wives he took
+more than a dozen himself; but be it remembered that, with his
+unlimited power, he need not have restricted himself to a number
+insignificant compared with the ḥareems of some of his successors,
+that he never divorced one of his wives, that all of them save one
+were widows, and that one of these widows was endowed with so terrific
+a temper that Aboo-Bekr and ´Othmán had already politely declined the
+honour of her alliance before the Prophet married her: the
+gratification of living with a vixen cannot surely be excessive.
+Several of these marriages must have been entered into from the
+feeling that those women whose husbands had fallen in battle for the
+faith, and who had thus been left unprotected, had a claim upon the
+generosity of him who prompted the fight. Other marriages were
+contracted from motives of policy, in order to conciliate the heads of
+rival factions. It was not a high motive, but one does not look for
+very romantic ideas about love-matches from a man who regarded women
+as ‘crooked ribs,’ and whose system certainly does its best to make
+marriage from love impossible; yet, on the other hand, it was not a
+sensual motive. Perhaps the strongest reason—one of which it is
+impossible to over-estimate the force—that impelled Moḥammad to take
+wife after wife was his desire for male offspring. It was a natural
+wish that he should have a son who should follow in his steps and
+carry on his work; but the wish was never gratified, Moḥammad’s sons
+died young. After all, the overwhelming argument is his fidelity to
+his first wife. When he was little more than a boy he married
+Khadeejeh, who was fifteen years older than himself, with all the
+added age that women gain so quickly in the East. For five-and-twenty
+years Moḥammad remained faithful to his elderly wife, and when she was
+sixty-five, and they might have celebrated their ‘silver wedding,’ he
+was as devoted to her as when first he married her. During all those
+years there was never a breath of scandal. Thus far Moḥammad’s life
+will bear microscopic scrutiny. Then Khadeejeh died; and though he
+married many women afterwards, some of them rich in youth and beauty,
+he never forgot his old wife, and loved her best to the end: ‘when I
+was poor she enriched me, when they called me a liar she alone
+believed in me, when all the world was against me she alone remained
+true.’ This loving, tender memory of an old wife laid in the grave
+belongs only to a noble nature; it is not to be looked for in a
+voluptuary.[17]
+
+When, however, all has been said, when it has been shown that Moḥammad
+was not the rapacious voluptuary some have taken him for, and that his
+violation of his own marriage-law may be due to motives reasonable and
+just from his point of view rather than to common sensuality, there
+remains the fact that some of the soorahs of the Ḳur-án bear
+unmistakable marks of self-accommodation and personal convenience;
+that Moḥammad justified his domestic excesses by words which he gave
+as from God. And hence the third and gravest charge, the charge of
+imposture. We must clearly understand what is meant by this
+accusation. It is meant that the Prophet _consciously_ fabricated
+speeches, and palmed them off upon the people as the very word of God.
+The question, it will at once be perceived, has nothing whatever to
+do with the truth or untruth of the revelations. Many an earnest
+enthusiast has uttered prophecies and exhortations which he firmly
+believed to be the promptings of the Spirit, and no man can charge
+such an one with imposture. He thoroughly believes what he says, and
+the fault is in the judgment, not the conscience. The question is
+clearly narrowed to this: Did Moḥammad believe he was speaking the
+words of God equally when he declared that permission was given him to
+take unto him more wives, as when he proclaimed ‘There is no god but
+God’? It is a question that concerns the conscience of man; and each
+must answer it for himself. How far a man may be deluded into
+believing everything he says is inspired it is impossible to define.
+There are men to-day who would seem to claim infallibility; and in
+Moḥammad’s time it was so much easier to believe in one’s self. Now,
+one never wants a friend to remind him of his weakness; then, there
+were hundreds who would fain have made the man think himself God. It
+is wonderful, with his temptations, how great a humility was ever his,
+how little he assumed of all the god-like attributes men forced upon
+him. His whole life is one long argument for his loyalty to truth. He
+had but one answer for his worshippers, ‘I am no more than a man, I am
+only human.’ ‘Do none enter Paradise save by the mercy of God?’ asked
+´Áïsheh. ‘None, none, none,’ he answered. ‘Not even thou by thy own
+merits?’ ‘Neither shall I enter Paradise unless God cover me with His
+mercy.’ He was a man like unto his brethren in all things save one,
+and that one difference served only to increase his humbleness, and
+render him the more sensitive to his shortcomings. He was sublimely
+confident of this single attribute, that he was the messenger of the
+Lord of the Daybreak, and that the words he spake came verily from
+Him. He was fully persuaded—and no man dare dispute his right to the
+belief—that God had sent him to do a great work among his people in
+Arabia. Nervous to the verge of madness, subject to hysteria, given to
+wild dreamings in solitary places, his was a temperament that easily
+leads itself to religious enthusiasm. He felt a subtle influence
+within him which he believed to be the movings of the Spirit: he
+thought he heard a voice; it became real and audible to him, awed and
+terrified him, so that he fell into frantic fits. Then he would arise
+and utter some noble saying; and what wonder if he thought it came
+straight from highest heaven? It was not without a sore struggle that
+he convinced himself of his own inspiration; but once admitted, the
+conviction grew with his years and his widening influence for good,
+and nothing then could shake his belief that he was the literal
+mouthpiece of the All-Merciful. When a man has come to this point, he
+cannot be expected to discriminate between this saying and that. As
+the instrument of God he has lost his individuality; he believes God
+is ever speaking through his lips; he dare not question the
+inspiration of the speech lest he should seem to doubt the Giver.
+
+Yet there must surely be a limit to this delusion. There are some
+passages in the Ḳur-án which it is difficult to think Moḥammad truly
+believed to be the voice of the Lord of the Worlds. Moḥammad’s was a
+sensitive conscience in the early years of his teaching, and it is
+hard to think that it could have been so obscured in later times that
+he could really believe in the inspired source of some of his
+revelations. He may have thought the commands they conveyed necessary,
+but he could hardly have deemed them divine. In some cases he could
+scarcely fail to be aware that the object of the ‘revelation’ was his
+own comfort or pleasure or reputation, and not the _major Dei gloria_,
+nor the good of the people.
+
+The truth would seem to be that in the latter part of his life
+Moḥammad was forced to enlarge the limits of his revelations as the
+sphere of his influence increased. From a private citizen of Mekka he
+had become the Emeer, the chief of the Arabs, the ruler of a
+factious, jealous, turbulent people; and the change must have had its
+effect upon his character. The man who from addressing a few devout
+followers in a tent in the desert finds himself the head of a nation
+of many tribes, king of a country twice the size of France, will find
+many things difficult that before seemed easy. As a statesman Moḥammad
+was as great as he was as a preacher of righteousness; but as his
+field of work enlarged, his mind had to accommodate itself to the
+needs of commoner minds. He learnt to see the expedient where before
+he knew only the right. His revelations now deal with the things of
+earth, when before they looked only towards the things of heaven; and
+petty social rules, ‘general orders,’ selfish permissions, are
+promulgated with the same authority and as from the same divine source
+as the command to worship one God alone. He governed the nation as a
+prophet and not as a king, and as a prophet his ordinances must be
+endorsed with the divine afflatus. He found he must regulate the
+meanest details of the people’s life, and he believed he could only do
+this by using God’s name for his decrees. He doubtless argued himself
+into the belief that even these petty, and to us sometimes immoral,
+regulations, being for the good of the people, as he conceived the
+good, were really God’s ordinances; but even thus he had lowered the
+standard of his teaching, and alloyed with base metal the pure gold of
+his early ideal. It was a temptation that few men have withstood, but
+it was, nevertheless, a falling-off from the Moḥammad we loved at
+Mekka, the simple truth-loving bearer of good tidings to the Arabs.
+
+Yet behind this engrafted character, formed by the difficulties of his
+position, by the invincible jealousy and treachery of the tribes he
+governed, the old nature still lived, and ever and anon broke forth in
+fervid words of faith and hope in the cause and the promises that had
+been the light and support of his early years of trial. In the late
+chapters of the Ḳur-án, among complicated directions for the Muslim’s
+guidance in all the circumstances of life, we suddenly hear an echo of
+the old fiery eloquence and the expression of the strong faith which
+never deserted him.
+
+Surely the character of Moḥammad has been misjudged. He was not the
+ambitious schemer some would have him, still less the hypocrite and
+sham prophet others have imagined. He was an enthusiast in that
+noblest sense when enthusiasm becomes the salt of the earth, the one
+thing that keeps men from rotting whilst they live. Enthusiasm is
+often used despitefully, because it is joined to an unworthy cause, or
+falls upon barren ground and bears no fruit. So was it not with
+Moḥammad. He was an enthusiast when enthusiasm was the one thing
+needed to set the world aflame, and his enthusiasm was noble for a
+noble cause. He was one of those happy few who have attained the
+supreme joy of making one great truth their very life-spring. He was
+the messenger of the One God, and never to his life’s end did he
+forget who he was, or the message which was the marrow of his being.
+He brought his tidings to his people with a grand dignity, sprung from
+the consciousness of his high office, together with a most sweet
+humility, whose roots lay in the knowledge of his own weakness. Well
+did Carlyle choose him for his prophet-hero! There have been purer
+lives and higher aspirations than Moḥammad’s; but no man was ever more
+thoroughly filled with the sense of his mission or carried out that
+mission more heroically.
+
+
+
+
+III.—ISLAM.
+
+   ‘Your turning your faces in prayer towards the east and the
+   west is not piety; but the pious is he who believeth in God
+   and the Last Day, and in the Angels, and the Scripture, and
+   who giveth money, notwithstanding his love thereof, to
+   relations and orphans, and to the needy and the son of the
+   road, and to the askers, and for the freeing of slaves, and
+   who performeth prayer and giveth the appointed alms; and those
+   who perform their covenant when they covenant, and the patient
+   in adversity and affliction and in the time of violence. These
+   are they who have been true: and these are they who fear
+   God.’—_Ḳur-án_, ii. 172.
+
+When it was noised abroad that the Prophet was dead, ´Omar, the
+fiery-hearted, the Simon Peter of Islám, rushed among the people, and
+fiercely told them they lied, it could not be true, Moḥammad was not
+dead. And Aboo-Bekr came and said, ‘Ye people! he that hath worshipped
+Moḥammad, let him know that Moḥammad is dead; but he that hath
+worshipped God,—that the Lord liveth, and doth not die.’
+
+Many have sought to answer the questions—Why was the triumph of Islám
+so speedy and so complete? Why have so many millions embraced the
+religion of Moḥammad, and scarcely a hundred ever recanted? Why do a
+thousand Christians become Muslims to one Muslim who adopts
+Christianity? Why do a hundred and fifty millions of human beings
+still cling to the faith of Islám? Some have attempted to explain the
+first overwhelming success of the Moḥammadan religion by the argument
+of the sword. They forget Carlyle’s laconic reply, ‘First get your
+sword.’ You must win men’s hearts before you can induce them to peril
+their lives for you, and the first conquerors of Islám must have been
+made Muslims before they were made ‘fighters on the path of God.’
+Others allege the low morality of the religion and the sensual
+paradise it promises as a sufficient cause for the zeal of its
+followers; but even were these admitted to the full, to say that such
+reasons could win the hearts of millions of men who have the same
+hopes and longings after the right and the noble as we, is to libel
+mankind. No religion has ever gained a lasting hold upon the souls of
+men by the force of its sensual permissions and fleshly promises. It
+is urged, again, that Islám met no fair foe, that the worn-out forms
+of Christianity and Judaism it encountered were no test of its power
+as a quickening faith, and that it prevailed simply because there was
+nothing to prevent it; and this was undoubtedly a help to the progress
+of the new creed, but it could not have been the cause of its victory.
+
+In all these reasons the religion itself is left out of the question.
+Decidedly Islám itself was the main cause of its triumph. By some
+strange intuition Moḥammad succeeded in finding the one form of
+Monotheism that has ever commended itself to any wide section of the
+Eastern world. It was only a remnant of the Jews that learned to
+worship the one God of the prophets after the hard lessons of the
+Captivity. Christianity has never gained a hold upon the East. Islám
+not only was at once accepted (partly in earnest, partly in name, but
+accepted) by Arabia, Syria, Persia, Egypt, Northern Africa, and
+Southern Spain at its first outburst, but, with the exception of
+Spain, it has never lost its vantage-ground; it has seen no country
+that has once embraced its doctrine turn to another faith; it has
+added great multitudes in India and China and Turkestan to its
+subjects; and in quite recent times it has been spreading in wide and
+swiftly—following waves over Africa, and has left but a small part of
+that vast continent unconverted to its creed. Admitting the mixed
+causes that contributed to the rapidity of the first torrent of
+Moḥammadan conquest, they do not account for the duration of Islám.
+There must be something in the religion itself to explain its
+persistence and increase, and to account for its present hold over so
+large a proportion of the dwellers on the earth.
+
+Men trained in European ideas of religion have always found a
+difficulty in understanding the fascination which the Muslim faith has
+for so many minds in the East. ‘There is no god but God, and Moḥammad
+is His Prophet.’ There is nothing in this, they say, to move the
+heart. Yet this creed has stirred an enthusiasm that has never been
+surpassed. Islám has had its martyrs, its self-tormentors, its
+recluses, who have renounced all that life offered and have accepted
+death with a smile for the sake of the faith that was in them. It is
+idle to say the eternity of happiness will explain this. The truest
+martyrs of Islám, as well as of Christianity, did not die to gain
+paradise. And if they did, the belief in the promises of the creed
+must follow the hearty belief in the creed. Islám must have possessed
+a power of seizing men’s belief before it could have inspired them
+with such a love of its paradise.
+
+Moḥammad’s conception of God has, I think, been misunderstood, and its
+effect upon the people consequently under-estimated. The God of Islám
+is commonly represented as a pitiless tyrant, who plays with humanity
+as on a chessboard, and works out his game without regard to the
+sacrifice of the pieces; and there is a certain truth in the figure.
+There is more in Islám of the potter who shapes the clay than of the
+father pitying his children. Moḥammad conceived of God as the Semitic
+mind has always preferred to think of Him: his God is the All-Mighty,
+the All-Knowing, the All-Just. Irresistible Power is the first
+attribute he thinks of: the Lord of the Worlds, the Author of the
+Heavens and the Earth, who hath created Life and Death, in whose hand
+is Dominion, who maketh the Dawn to appear and causeth the Night to
+cover the Day, the Great, All-Powerful Lord of the glorious Throne;
+the Thunder proclaimeth His perfection, the whole earth is His
+handful, and the Heavens shall be folded together in His right hand.
+And with the Power He conceives the Knowledge that directs it to
+right ends. God is the Wise, the Just, the True, the Swift in
+reckoning, who knoweth every ant’s weight of good and of ill that each
+man hath done, and who suffereth not the reward of the faithful to
+perish.
+
+   ‘God! There is no God but He, the Ever-Living, the
+   Ever-Subsisting. Slumber seizeth Him not nor sleep. To Him
+   belongeth whatsoever is in the Heavens and whatsoever is in
+   the Earth. Who is he that shall intercede with Him, save by
+   His permission? He knoweth the things that have gone before
+   and the things that follow after, and men shall not compass
+   aught of His knowledge, save what He willeth. His Throne
+   comprehendeth the Heavens and the Earth, and the care of them
+   burdeneth Him not. And He is the High, the Great.’—_Ḳur-án_,
+   ii. 256.
+
+But with this Power there is also the gentleness that belongs only to
+great strength. God is the Guardian over His servants, the Shelterer
+of the orphan, the Guider of the erring, the Deliverer from every
+affliction; in His hand is Good, and He is the Generous Lord, the
+Gracious, the Hearer, the Near-at-Hand. Every soorah of the Ḳur-án
+begins with the words, ‘In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the
+Merciful,’ and Moḥammad was never tired of telling the people how God
+was Very-Forgiving, that His love for man was more tender than the
+mother-bird for her young.
+
+It is too often forgotten how much there is in the Ḳur-án of the
+loving-kindness of God, but it must be allowed that these are not the
+main thoughts in Moḥammad’s teaching. It is the doctrine of the Might
+of God that most held his imagination, and that has impressed itself
+most strongly upon Muslims of all ages. The fear rather than the love
+of God is the spur of Islám. There can be no question which is the
+higher incentive to good; but it is nearly certain that the love of
+God is an idea absolutely foreign to most of the races that have
+accepted Islám, and to preach such a doctrine would have been to
+mistake the leaning of the Semitic mind.
+
+The leading doctrine of Moḥammad, then, is the belief in One
+All-Powerful God. Islám is the self-surrender of every man to the will
+of God. Its danger lies in the stress laid on the power of God, which
+has brought about the stifling effects of fatalism. Moḥammad taught
+the foreknowledge of God, but he did not lay down precisely the
+doctrine of Predestination. He found it, as all have found it, a
+stumbling-block in the way of man’s progress. It perplexed him, and he
+spoke of it, but often contradicted himself; and he would become angry
+if the subject were mooted in his presence: ‘Sit not with a disputer
+about fate,’ he said, ‘nor begin a conversation with him.’ Moḥammad
+vaguely recognised that little margin of Free Will which makes life
+not wholly mechanical.
+
+This doctrine of one Supreme God, to whose will it is the duty of
+every man to surrender himself, is the kernel of Islám, the truth for
+which Moḥammad lived and suffered and triumphed. But it was no new
+teaching, as he himself was constantly saying. His was only the last
+of revelations. Many prophets—Abraham, Moses, and Christ—had taught
+the same faith before; but people had hearkened little to their words.
+So Moḥammad was sent, not different from them, only a messenger, yet
+the last and greatest of them, the ‘seal of prophecy,’ the ‘most
+excellent of the creation of God.’ This is the second dogma of Islám:
+Moḥammad is the apostle of God. It is well worthy of notice that it is
+not said, ‘Moḥammad is the only apostle of God.’ Islám is more
+tolerant in this matter than other religions. Its prophet is not the
+sole commissioner of the Most High, nor is his teaching the only true
+teaching the world has ever received. Many other messengers had been
+sent by God to guide men to the right, and these taught the same
+religion that was in the mouth of the preacher of Islám. Hence Muslims
+reverence Moses and Christ only next to Moḥammad. All they claim for
+their founder is that he was the last and best of the messengers of
+the one God.[18]
+
+After the belief in God and his prophets and scriptures, the Muslim
+must believe in angels, good and evil genii, in the resurrection and
+the judgment, and in future rewards and punishments. What the teaching
+of the Ḳur-án is upon these points may be seen in the First Part of
+the ‘Selections.’ They form a very common weapon of attack on the
+ground of their superstition, their anthropomorphism, and their
+sensuality. Yet these minor beliefs have their place in all religions,
+and they are conceived in scarcely more absurdly realistic a manner in
+Islám than in any other creed. Every religion seems to need an
+improbable, almost a ludicrous, side, in order to provide material for
+the faith of the masses. Moḥammad himself was what is called a
+superstitious man, and the improbable side thus found its way easily
+into his creed. With all the fancies floating in Arabia in his time,
+it would have been strange if he had introduced nothing of the
+superstitious into Islám. The Jinn, the Afreets, and the other beings
+of the air and water, have not done much harm to the Mohammadan mind;
+and they have given so many a delightful fable to the West, that we
+must feel a certain grateful respect for them. The realistic pictures
+of paradise and hell have exercised a more serious influence. The
+minute details of these infernal and celestial pictures must move
+alternately the disgust and the contemptuous amusement of a Western
+reader; yet these same things were very real facts to Moḥammad, and
+have been of the utmost importance to generation after generation of
+Muslims. In the present day there are cultured men who receive these
+descriptions in the same allegorical sense as some Christians accept
+the Revelation of S. John—which, indeed, in some respects offers a
+close parallel to the pictorial parts of the Ḳur-án; but the vast
+majority of believers (like many Christians in the parallel case) take
+the descriptions literally, and there can be no doubt that the belief
+founded on such pictures, accepted literally, must work an ill effect
+on the professors of the faith of which these doctrines form a minor,
+but a too prominent, part; and it is the aim of rational Muslims to
+sweep away such cobwebs from their sky.
+
+Islám lies more in doing than in believing. That ‘faith without works
+is dead’ is a doctrine which every day’s routine must bring home to
+the mind of the devout Muslim. The practical duties of the Mohammadan
+religion, beyond the actual profession of faith, are the performance
+of prayer, the giving of alms, the keeping of the fasts, and the
+accomplishing the pilgrimage. Mr. Lane has so minutely described the
+regular prayers used over all the Mohammadan East, that it is only
+necessary here to refer to his account of them in the ‘Modern
+Egyptians.’ There it will be seen that they form no light part of the
+religious duties of the Muslim, especially since they involve careful
+preparatory ablutions; for Moḥammad impressed upon his followers the
+salutary doctrine that cleanliness is an essential part of godliness,
+and the scrupulous cleanliness of the Mohammadan, which contrasts so
+favourably with the unsavoury state of Easterns of other creeds, is an
+excellent feature in the practical influence of Islám. The charge
+which missionaries and the like are fond of bringing against the
+Muslim prayers, that they are merely lifeless forms and vain
+repetitions, is an exaggeration. There is a vast deal of repetition in
+the Mohammadan ritual, just as the paternoster is repeated again and
+again in the principal Christian liturgies; but iteration does not
+necessarily kill devotion. There is plenty of real fervour in the
+prayers of the Mosque, and they are joined-in by the worshippers with
+an earnest attention which shames the listless sleepy bearing of most
+congregations in England. It is true the greater part of the prayers
+are laid down in prescribed forms; but there is an interval set apart
+for private supplication, and the original congregations in the
+mosques availed themselves of this permission more generally than is
+now the case, when the old fervour has become comparatively cool; and
+Moḥammad frequently enjoins private prayer at home, and specially
+praises him who ‘passeth his night worshipping God.’
+
+Almsgiving was originally compulsory, and the tax was collected by the
+officers of the Khalif; but now the Muslim is merely expected to give
+voluntarily about a fortieth part of his income in charity each year.
+The great fast of Ramaḍán is too well known to need more than a
+passing mention here; but it is not so well known that Moḥammad,
+ascetic as he was himself in this as in many other matters, whilst he
+ordained the month of fasting for the chastening of his able-bodied
+followers, was a determined enemy to useless mortification of the
+flesh, and boldly affirmed that God took no pleasure in a man’s
+wantonly injuring himself; and so if one that was weakly and sick
+could not keep the fast without bodily detriment he was to omit it.
+And the same wise leniency was shown by the Arab prophet in respect of
+prayer,—which may be curtailed or omitted in certain cases,—and with
+regard to the pilgrimage, which no one was to perform to his hurt.
+This same pilgrimage is often urged as a sign of Moḥammad’s tendency
+to superstition and even idolatry. It is asked how the destroyer of
+idols could have reconciled his conscience to the circuits of the
+Kaạbeh and the veneration of the black stone covered with adoring
+kisses. The rites of the pilgrimage cannot certainly be defended
+against the charge of superstition; but it is easy to see why Moḥammad
+enjoined them. They were hallowed to him by the memories of his
+ancestors, who had been the guardians of the sacred temple, and by the
+traditional reverence of all his people; and besides this tie of
+association, which in itself was enough to make it impossible for him
+to do away with the rites, Moḥammad perceived that the worship in the
+Kaạbeh would prove of real value to his religion. He swept away the
+more idolatrous and immoral part of the ceremonies, but he retained
+the pilgrimage to Mekka and the old veneration of the temple for
+reasons of which it is impossible to dispute the wisdom. He well knew
+the consolidating effect of forming a centre to which his followers
+should gather; and hence he reasserted the sanctity of the black stone
+that ‘came down from Heaven;’ he ordained that everywhere throughout
+the world the Muslim should pray looking towards the Kaạbeh, and he
+enjoined him to make the pilgrimage thither. Mekka is to the Muslim
+what Jerusalem is to the Jew. It bears with it all the influence of
+centuries of associations. It carries the Muslim back to the cradle of
+his faith, the childhood of his prophet; it reminds him of the
+struggle between the old faith and the new, of the overthrow of the
+idols, and the establishment of the worship of the One God. And, most
+of all, it bids him remember that all his brother Muslims are
+worshipping towards the same sacred spot; that he is one of a great
+company of believers, united by one faith, filled with the same hopes,
+reverencing the same things, worshipping the same God. Moḥammad showed
+his knowledge of the religious emotions in man when he preserved the
+sanctity of the temple of Islám.
+
+It would take too much space to look closely into the lesser duties of
+Islám, many of which suggest exceedingly wholesome lessons to Western
+civilisation. But we must not pass over one of these minor duties, for
+it reflects the highest credit upon the founder and the professors of
+Mohammadanism—I mean the humane treatment of animals.
+
+‘There is no religion which has taken a higher view in its
+authoritative documents of animal life, and none wherein the precept
+has been so much honoured by its practical observance. ‘There is no
+beast on earth,’ says the Ḳur-án, ‘nor bird which flieth with its
+wings, but the same is a people like unto you—unto the Lord shall they
+return;’ and it is the current belief that animals will share with men
+the general resurrection, and be judged according to their works. At
+the slaughter of an animal, the Prophet ordered that the name of God
+should always be named; but the words, ‘the Compassionate, the
+Merciful,’ were to be omitted; for, on the one hand, such an
+expression seemed a mockery to the sufferer, and, on the other, he
+could not bring himself to believe that the destruction of any life,
+however necessary, could be altogether pleasing to the All-Merciful.
+‘In the name of God,’ says a pious Musalman before he strikes the
+fatal blow; ‘God is most great; God give thee patience to endure the
+affliction which He hath allotted thee!’ In the East there has been no
+moralist like Bentham to insist in noble words on the extension of the
+sphere of morality to all sentient beings, and to be ridiculed for it
+by people who call themselves religious; there has been no naturalist
+like Darwin, to demonstrate by his marvellous powers of observation
+how large a part of the mental and moral faculties which we usually
+claim for ourselves alone we share with other beings; there has been
+no Oriental ‘Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.’ But
+one reason of this is not far to seek. What the legislation of the
+last few years has at length attempted to do, and, from the mere fact
+that it is legislation, must do ineffectually, has been long effected
+in the East by the moral and religious sentiment which, like almost
+everything that is good in that part of the world, can be traced back,
+in part at least, to the great Prophet of Arabia. In the East, so far
+as it has not been hardened by the West, there is a real sympathy
+between man and the domestic animals; they understand one another; and
+the cruelties which the most humane of our countrymen unconsciously
+effect in the habitual use, for instance, of the muzzle or the
+bearing-rein on the most docile, the most patient, the most faithful,
+and the most intelligent of their companions, are impossible in the
+East. An Arab _cannot_ ill-treat his horse; and Mr. Lane bears
+emphatic testimony to the fact that in his long residence in Egypt he
+never saw an ass or a dog (though the latter is there looked upon as
+an unclean animal) treated with cruelty, except in those cities which
+were overrun by Europeans.’[19]
+
+There are some very beautiful traditions of the Prophet, showing the
+tenderness with which he always treated animals and which he ever
+enjoined on his people. A man once came to him with a carpet and said,
+‘O Prophet, I passed through a wood and heard the voices of the young
+of birds, and I took and put them into my carpet, and their mother
+came fluttering round my head.’ And the Prophet said, ‘Put them down;’
+and when he had put them down the mother joined the young. And the
+Prophet said, ‘Do you wonder at the affection of the mother towards
+her young? I swear by Him who has sent me, Verily God is more loving
+to his servants than the mother to these young birds. Return them to
+the place from which ye took them, and let their mother be with them.’
+‘Fear God with regard to animals,’ said Moḥammad; ‘ride them when they
+are fit to be ridden, and get off when they are tired. Verily there
+are rewards for our doing good to dumb animals, and giving them water
+to drink.’
+
+
+Such, in brief outline, is the religion of Moḥammad. It is a form of
+pure theism, simpler and more austere than the theism of most forms of
+modern Christianity, lofty in its conception of the relation of man to
+God, and noble in its doctrine of the duty of man to man, and of man
+to the lower creation. There is little in it of superstition, less of
+complexity of dogmas; it is an exacting religion, without the
+repulsiveness of asceticism; severe, but not merciless. On the other
+hand, it is over-rigid and formal; it leaves too little to the
+believer and too much to his ritual; it places a prophet and a book
+between man and God, and practically discourages the desire for a
+direct relation between the Deity and his servant; it draws the
+picture of that God in too harsh outlines, and leaves out too much of
+the tenderness and loving-kindness of the God of Christ’s teaching,
+and hence it has been the source of more intolerance and fanatical
+hatred than most creeds.
+
+This religion is Islám as understood and taught by its Prophet, so far
+as we can gather it from the Ḳur-án, aided by those traditions which
+seem to have the stamp of authenticity. It need hardly be said that it
+is not identical with the Islám with which the philosophers of Baghdád
+amused themselves, nor with the fantastic creed which the Fáṭimee
+Khalifs of Egypt represented, and brought in the person of El-Ḥákim to
+its limit of extravagance; nor is it the Islám with which as much as
+with their ferocity the Karmaṭees aroused the fear and abhorrence of
+all good Muslims. Neither the Soofism of Persia nor the dervish
+sensation-religion of Turkey conform to this ancient Islám, to which
+perhaps a modification of the Waḥḥábee puritanism would be the
+nearest approach. The original faith of Moḥammad has not gained by its
+development in foreign lands and alien minds, and perhaps the best we
+can hope for modern Islám is that it may try the experiment of
+retrogression, or rather seek to regain the simplicity of the old form
+without losing the advantages (if there be any) which it has acquired
+from contact with Western civilisation.
+
+
+Islám is unfortunately a social system as well as a religion; and
+herein lies the great difficulty of fairly estimating its good and its
+bad influence on the world. It is but in the nature of things that the
+teacher who lays down the law of the relation of man to God should
+also endeavour to appoint the proper relation between man and his
+neighbour. Christianity was undoubtedly a social even more than a
+religious reform, but the social regulations were too indefinite, or
+at all events too impracticable, for any wide acceptance among the
+professors of the religion. Islám was less fortunate. Moḥammad not
+only promulgated a religion; he laid down a complete social system,
+containing minute regulations for a man’s conduct in all circumstances
+of life, with due rewards or penalties according to his fulfilment of
+these rules. As a religion Islám is great: it has taught men to
+worship one God with a pure worship who formerly worshipped many gods
+impurely. As a social system Islám is a complete failure: it has
+misunderstood the relations of the sexes, upon which the whole
+character of a nation’s life hangs, and, by degrading women, has
+degraded each successive generation of their children down an
+increasing scale of infamy and corruption, until it seems almost
+impossible to reach a lower level of vice.
+
+The fatal spot in Islám is the degradation of women. The true test of
+a nation’s place in the ranks of civilisation is the position of its
+women. When they are held in reverence, when it is considered the most
+infamous of crimes to subject a woman to dishonour, and the highest
+distinction to protect her from wrong; when the family life is real
+and strong, of which the mother-wife is the heart; when each man’s
+pulse beats loyal to womanhood, then is a nation great. When women are
+treated as playthings, toys, drudges, worth anything only if they have
+beauty to be enjoyed or strength to labour; when sex is considered the
+chief thing in a woman, and heart and mind are forgotten; when a man
+buys women for his pleasure and dismisses them when his appetite is
+glutted, then is a nation despicable.
+
+And so is it in the East. Yet it would be hard to lay the blame
+altogether on Moḥammad. The real roots of the degradation of women lie
+much deeper. When Islám was instituted, polygamy was almost
+necessitated by the number of women and their need of support; and the
+facility of divorce was quite necessitated by the separation of the
+sexes, and the consequence that a man could not know or even see the
+woman he was about to marry before the marriage ceremony was
+accomplished. It is not Moḥammad whom we must blame for these great
+evils, polygamy and divorce; it is the state of society which demanded
+the separation of the sexes, and in which it was not safe to allow men
+and women freely to associate; in other words, it was the sensual
+constitution of the Arab that lay at the root of the matter. Moḥammad
+might have done better. He might boldly have swept away the traditions
+of Arab society, unveiled the women, intermingled the sexes, and
+punished by the most severe measures any license which such
+association might at first encourage. With his boundless influence, it
+is possible that he might have done this, and, the new system once
+fairly settled, and the people accustomed to it, the good effects of
+the change would have begun to show themselves. But such an idea could
+never have occurred to him. We must always remember that we are
+dealing with a social system of the seventh century, not of the
+nineteenth. Moḥammad’s ideas about women were like those of the rest
+of his contemporaries. He looked upon them as charming snares to the
+believer, ornamental articles of furniture difficult to keep in order,
+pretty playthings; but that a woman should be the counsellor and
+companion of a man does not seem to have occurred to him. It is to be
+wondered that the feeling of respect he always entertained for his
+first wife, Khadeejeh, (which, however, is partly accounted for by the
+fact that she was old enough to have been his mother,) found no
+counterpart in his general opinion of womankind: ‘Woman was made from
+a crooked rib, and if you try to bend it straight, it will break;
+therefore treat your wives kindly.’ Moḥammad was not the man to make a
+social reform affecting women, nor was Arabia the country in which
+such a change should be made, nor Arab ladies perhaps the best
+subjects for the experiment. Still he did something towards bettering
+the condition of women: he limited the number of wives to four; laid
+his hand with the utmost severity on the incestuous marriages that
+were then rife in Arabia; compelled husbands to support their divorced
+wives during their four months of probation; made irrevocable divorce
+less common by adding the rough, but deterring, condition that a woman
+triply divorced could not return to her husband without first being
+married to some one else—a condition exceedingly disagreeable to the
+first husband; and required four witnesses to prove a charge of
+adultery against a wife—a merciful provision, difficult to be
+fulfilled. The evil permitted by Moḥammad in leaving the number of
+wives four instead of insisting on monogamy was not great. Without
+considering the sacrifice of family peace which the possession of a
+large harem entails, the expense of keeping several wives, each of
+whom must have a separate suite of apartments or a separate house, is
+so great that not more than one in twenty can afford it. It is not so
+much in the matter of wives as in that of concubines that Moḥammad
+made an irretrievable mistake. The condition of the female slave in
+the East is indeed deplorable. She is at the entire mercy of her
+master, who can do what he pleases with her and her companions; for
+the Muslim is not restricted in the number of his concubines, as he is
+in that of his wives. The female white slave is kept solely for the
+master’s sensual gratification, and is sold when he is tired of her,
+and so she passes from master to master, a very wreck of womanhood.
+Her condition is a little improved if she bear a son to her tyrant;
+but even then he is at liberty to refuse to acknowledge the child as
+his own, though it must be owned he seldom does this. Kind as the
+Prophet was himself towards bondswomen, one cannot forget the
+unutterable brutalities which he suffered his followers to inflict
+upon conquered nations in the taking of slaves. The Muslim soldier was
+allowed to do as he pleased with any ‘infidel’ woman he might meet
+with on his victorious march. When one thinks of the thousands of
+women, mothers and daughters, who must have suffered untold shame and
+dishonour by this license, he cannot find words to express his horror.
+And this cruel indulgence has left its mark on the Muslim character,
+nay, on the whole character of Eastern life. Now, as at the first,
+young Christian girls are dragged away from their homes and given over
+to the unhallowed lusts of a Turkish voluptuary; and not only to
+Turks, but to Englishmen; for the contagion has spread, and
+Englishmen, even those who by their sacred order should know better,
+instead of uttering their protest, as men of honour and Christians,
+against the degradation, have followed the example of the Turk, and
+helped in the ruin of women. Concubinage is the black stain in Islám.
+With Moḥammad’s views of women, we could hardly expect him to do
+better; but, on the other hand, he could scarcely have done worse.
+There are, however, one or two alleviating circumstances. One is the
+fact that the canker has not eaten into the whole of Eastern society;
+it is chiefly among the rich that the evil effects of the system are
+felt. And another fact which shows that the Mohammadan system, bad as
+it is, is free from a defect which social systems better in other
+respects than Moḥammad’s are subject to is the extreme rarity of
+prostitution in Muslim towns. The courtesan forms a very small item in
+the census of a Mohammadan city, and is retained more for strangers
+from Europe than for the Muslim inhabitants. Instances are frequently
+occurring in the Indian law courts which show the strong feeling that
+exists on the subject among the Mohammadans of India. They consider it
+quite inconceivable that a Muslim should have illicit intercourse with
+a free Muslimeh woman, and this inconceivableness of the action is
+urged as evidence in trials of the legitimacy of children. But whilst
+admitting the importance of this remarkable feature in Islám, it must
+not be forgotten that the liberty allowed by their law to Muslims in
+the matter of concubines does not very materially differ from
+prostitution, and whilst the latter is directly forbidden by the
+dominant religion of Europe, concubinage is as directly permitted by
+Islám.
+
+One would think that long intercourse with Europeans might have
+somewhat raised the estimation of women in the East; but either
+because travellers in the East are not always the best specimens of
+Western morality, or because the Eastern mind has an unequalled
+aptitude for assimilating the bad and rejecting the good in any system
+it meets, it is certain that women are no better off now than they
+were in the East. A well-known correspondent of a leading daily print
+writes thus of Turkish home life:—
+
+   ‘It is obvious that the home life of any people will depend
+   almost entirely on the position which is assigned to women. It
+   is not necessary to inquire what this position is according to
+   the teaching of the sacred books of a race. Between
+   Christianity and Islám it is enough to notice that there is
+   apparently no country where the first is the prevailing
+   religion in which woman is hindered by religion from obtaining
+   a position almost, if not quite, on an equality with man, and
+   similarly, no country where the second prevails where woman is
+   not in a degraded position.... Under Christianity she is
+   everywhere free. Under Islám she is everywhere a slave. The
+   pious Mohammadan, like the pious Jew, thanks God that he has
+   not been made a woman. The pious Mohammadan woman, like the
+   pious Jewess, thanks God that she has been made according to
+   the Creator’s will. Man and woman alike recognise that to be a
+   woman is to be in an inferior condition. This feeling of the
+   degradation of woman so pervades Turkey that the poorer
+   classes of Christians have even become infected by it. When a
+   son is born there is nothing but congratulations. When a
+   daughter, nothing but condolences. A polite Turk, if he has
+   occasion to mention his wife, will do so with an apology....
+   He regards it as a piece of rudeness to mention the fact to
+   you, and it would be equally rude for him to inquire after
+   your wife, or to hint that he knew you were guilty of anything
+   so unmentionable as to have one. Charles the Twelfth told his
+   queen that she had been chosen to give children, and not
+   advice. The Turk regards woman as destined solely for the same
+   purpose and for his pleasure. Probably polygamy is of itself
+   sufficient to account for the way in which Mohammadans regard
+   woman. But whether this is so or not, there is one influence
+   which polygamy asserts which accounts for the low ideal of
+   woman prevalent in all Muslim countries. When a man has a
+   number of wives it is impossible that they can all become his
+   companions and his confidantes, or that one of them can become
+   his companion or confidante to the same extent as if the man
+   had only one wife. Hence a man who is limited to one will not
+   be contented with beauty alone. He must have a certain amount
+   of intelligence and education. The Turk, on the other hand,
+   has no reason whatever to think of anything except beauty. As
+   he never means to see much of his wife, intelligence or
+   education is a matter of small account. If he can afford it he
+   will have a Circassian wife, a woman who has been reared with
+   the intention of being sold, who has not an idea in her head,
+   who has seen nothing, and knows nothing. Such a woman would be
+   as objectionable as a wife to the great majority of Europeans
+   as a South Sea Island beauty. But she satisfies the ideal of
+   the Turk. She is beautiful, and beauty is all that he
+   requires.’
+
+It is this sensual and degraded view of woman that destroys to so
+great an extent the good influence which the better part of the
+teaching of Islám might exert in the East. So long as women are held
+in so light an esteem, they will remain ignorant, and bigoted, and
+sensual; and so long as mothers are what most Muslim mothers are now,
+their children will be ignorant and fanatical and vicious. In Turkey
+there are other influences at work besides the Mohammadan social
+system; but Turkish women may serve as an instance of the state of
+things which that system encourages. ‘In those early years spent at
+home, when the child ought to have instilled into him some germ of
+those principles of conduct by which men must walk in the world if
+they are to hold up their heads among civilised nations, the Turkish
+child is only taught the first steps towards those vicious habits of
+mind and body which have made his race what it is. The root of the
+evil is partly found in the harem system. So long as that system keeps
+Turkish women in their present depressed state, so long will Turkish
+boys and girls be vicious and ignorant.’ As I have said elsewhere,[20]
+‘It is quite certain that there is no hope for the Turks so long as
+Turkish women remain what they are, and home-training is the
+initiation of vice.’ If the mother is ignorant and vicious, the son
+cannot form a high ideal of womanhood, and thus is barred off from the
+chivalrous spirit wherewith alone a man may reach to the highest
+love:—that
+
+           ‘Subtle master under heaven,
+   Not only to keep down the base in man,
+   But teach high thought, and amiable words,
+   And courtliness, and the desire of fame,
+   And love of truth, and all that makes a man.’
+
+The Muslin has no ideal of chivalry like this to make his life pure
+and honourable: his religion encourages an opposite view, and the
+women among whom he is brought up only confirm it.
+
+If Islám is to be a power for good in the future, it is imperatively
+necessary to cut off the social system from the religion. At the
+beginning, among a people who had advanced but a little way on the
+road of civilisation, the defects of the social system were not so
+apparent; but now, when Easterns are endeavouring to mix on equal
+terms with Europeans, and are trying to adopt the manners and customs
+of the West, it is clear that the condition of their women must be
+radically changed if any good is to come of the Europeanising
+tendency. The difficulty lies in the close connection between the
+religious and social ordinances in the Ḳur-án: the two are so
+intermingled that it is hard to see how they can be disentangled
+without destroying both. The theory of revelation would have to be
+modified. Muslims would have to give up their doctrine of the syllabic
+inspiration of the Ḳur-án and exercise their moral sense in
+distinguishing between the particular and the general, the temporary
+and the permanent: they would have to recognise that there was much in
+Moḥammad’s teaching which, though useful at the time, is inapplicable
+to the present conditions of life; that his knowledge was often
+partial, and his judgment sometimes at fault; that the moral sense is
+capable of education as much as the intellect, and, therefore, that
+what was apparently moral and wise in the seventh century may quite
+possibly be immoral and suicidal in a society of the nineteenth
+century. Moḥammad himself said, according to tradition, ‘I am no more
+than a man: when I order you anything respecting religion, receive it;
+and when I order you about the affairs of the world, then I am nothing
+more than man.’ And he seemed to foresee that the time would come when
+his minor regulations would call for revision: ‘Ye are in an age,’ he
+said, ‘in which, if ye abandon one-tenth of what is ordered, ye will
+be ruined. After this, a time will come when he who shall observe
+one-tenth of what is now ordered will be redeemed.’[21]
+
+If Muslims would take these warnings of their prophet to heart, there
+would be some hope for Islám. Some few of the higher intellects among
+them have already admitted the principle of moral criticism applied to
+the Ḳur-án; but it is very doubtful whether ‘rational Islám’ will ever
+gain a wide following, any more than ‘rational Christianity.’ People
+in general do not care to think for themselves in matters religious.
+They like their creed served up to them as cooked meat, not raw flesh.
+They must have definite texts and hard-and-fast commandments to appeal
+to. They will not believe in the spirit, but prefer the letter. They
+will have nothing to say to tendencies, but must have facts. It is of
+no avail to speak to them of the spirit of a life or of a whole book;
+they must hang their doctrine on a solitary sentence. They will either
+believe every letter of their scripture, or they will believe nothing.
+
+Such people make up the majority of the professors of Islám; and with
+them no reform, within Islám, seems possible. Among the upper (I will
+not call them the higher) classes, they are either fanatics or
+concealed infidels; and their lives are a proof of the
+incompatibility of ordinary Mohammadanism, real or nominal, with a
+high social and national life. Among the poorer classes, the social
+system has a more restricted field of operation, for the poor are
+naturally less able to avail themselves of the permissions of their
+Prophet. In a poor community Islám exerts an eminently salutary
+influence, as the condition of the Mohammadan converts in Western
+Africa conclusively proves. An able observer,[22] whose African birth
+and training qualify him in a high degree for properly understanding
+the true state of his countrymen, whilst his Christian profession
+serves as a guarantee against excessive prejudice in favour of Islám,
+has recorded his experience of the work of Mohammadan missionaries in
+Liberia and the neighbouring parts of Africa. ‘All careful and candid
+observers,’ he remarks, ‘agree that the influence of Islám in Central
+and West Africa has been, upon the whole, of a most salutary
+character.... As an eliminatory and subversive agency it has displaced
+or unsettled nothing as good as itself.’ It has inculcated habits of
+moderation and soberness over the whole of the vast region covered by
+its emissaries; and so great is the influence of its teaching, that
+where there are Muslim inhabitants, even in pagan towns, it is a very
+rare thing to see a person intoxicated. The Mohammadan converts drink
+nothing but water. ‘From Senegal to Lagos, over two thousand miles,
+there is scarcely an important town on the seaboard where there is not
+at least one mosque and active representatives of Islám, side by side
+with the Christian teacher. And as soon as a pagan, however obscure or
+degraded, embraces the Muslim faith, he is at once admitted as an
+equal to the society.... The pagan village possessing a Muslim teacher
+is always found to be in advance of its neighbours in all the elements
+of civilisation.... The introduction of Islám into Central and West
+Africa has been the most important, if not the sole, preservative
+against the desolations of the slave trade. Mohammadanism furnished a
+protection to the tribes who embraced it, by effectually binding them
+together in one strong religious fraternity, and enabling them by
+their united efforts to baffle the attempts of powerful slave-hunters.
+Enjoying this comparative immunity from sudden hostile incursion,
+industry was stimulated among them; industry diminished their poverty;
+and as they increased in worldly substance, they also increased in
+desire for knowledge. Receiving a desire of letters by a study of the
+Arabic language, they acquired loftier views, wider tastes, and those
+energetic habits which so pleasingly distinguish them from their pagan
+neighbours.’ Students often travel on foot from the west coast right
+across Africa to study at the great mosque of the Azhar in Cairo. It
+must be remembered that these results were observed in the very centre
+of African Christianity, in Sierra Leone and other coast settlements.
+It is said that in Sierra Leone three-fourths of the Muslim population
+were not born Muslims, but were converted from Christianity or
+paganism; and this, although ‘all liberated Africans are always handed
+over to Christian missionaries for instruction, and their children are
+baptized and brought up at the public expense in Christian schools,
+and are thus, in a sense, ready-made Christians.’
+
+These facts show that, even in the present day, and with the
+competition of Christian missionary societies, Islám may be a power
+for good in poor communities—that it can not only give them a pure
+instead of a degraded faith, but can raise them socially and
+intellectually. The effects of a simple form of Islám on these African
+converts may give one some notion of its influence on its hearers in
+the early days, before the theologians had corrupted it.
+
+But this good influence is very partial and limited, even among the
+poorer classes. In communities where all are poor, Islám is an
+excellent agent for improvement; but in countries where there are
+many grades of wealth and rank, the poor only ape in a humble manner
+the vices of those whom they are taught to regard as their ‘betters.’
+In all civilised and wealthy countries the social system of Islám
+exerts a ruinous influence on all classes, and if there is to be any
+great future for the Mohammadan world, that system of society must be
+done away.
+
+   THE WOMAN’S CAUSE IS MAN’S; THEY RISE OR SINK
+   TOGETHER, DWARFED OR GODLIKE, BOND OR FREE.
+
+
+
+
+IV.—_THE ḲUR-ÁN._
+
+   The Muslim who reads the Ḳur-án is like the orange-fruit,
+   whose smell and taste are sweet; and the Muslim who reads not
+   the Ḳur-án is like the date, which hath no smell, but its
+   taste is sweet; and the Hypocrite who reads not the Ḳur-án is
+   like the colocynth, without a smell, and with a bitter taste;
+   and the Hypocrite who reads it is like the sweet bazil, whose
+   smell is sweet, but its taste bitter.—_Tradition._
+
+
+It is an immense merit in the Ḳur-án that there is no doubt as to its
+genuineness. The ‘Word of the Lord’ came to Moḥammad, and he uttered
+it, and the people wrote it down or committed it to memory; and that
+very word we can now read with full confidence that it has remained
+unchanged through nearly thirteen hundred years.
+
+The revelations came to Moḥammad in many ways and at all times, but
+never ‘in visions bright, transcendant, exalted. They came ghastly,
+weird, most horrible. After long solitary broodings, a something used
+to move Moḥammad, all of a sudden, with frightful vehemence. He
+“roared like a camel,” his eyes rolled and glowed like red coals, and
+on the coldest day terrible perspirations would break out all over his
+body. When the terror ceased, it seemed to him as if he had heard
+bells ringing, “the sound whereof seemed to rend him to pieces”—as if
+he had heard the voice of a man—as if he had seen Gabriel—or as if
+words _had been written in his heart_. Such was the agony he endured,
+that some of the verses revealed to him well-nigh made his hair turn
+white.’
+
+No collection of these revelations was made during Moḥammad’s
+lifetime; at his death, the Ḳur-án existed only as scattered
+chaotically among the believers. But about a year later, the death in
+battle of some of the men who had specially committed passages of the
+Ḳur-án to memory, and the dread that the whole of Moḥammad’s teaching
+might vanish at the end of a generation or two, induced Aboo-Bekr to
+make the innovation from which every one shrank, and he gave orders to
+the Prophet’s secretary, Zeyd ibn Thábit, to collect the fragments of
+the Ḳur-án in one book. So Zeyd gathered the Ḳur-án from palm-leaves,
+skins, shoulder-blades, stones, and the hearts of men, arranged the
+chapters in a certain order, and presented Aboo-Bekr with a Ḳur-án
+which probably differed in no essential particular from the book we
+have now. All scholars are agreed that Zeyd did his work faithfully,
+and neither inserted nor omitted anything from party motives. But he
+seems to have occasionally mixed up fragments of very different date
+in one chapter—Moḥammad himself countenanced this—and may possibly
+have omitted some portions that were not found till afterwards.
+
+Some twenty years later a second recension was ordered by the Khalif
+´Othmán. Slight varieties of reading, mainly dialectal, had arisen;
+swords were near being drawn over them; and it was evident that a
+serious schism would come about if a uniform authorised text of the
+Ḳur-án were not provided. These slight dialectal differences were not
+sufficiently settled, it would seem, in Aboo-Bekr’s edition, so this
+new recension was made by Zeyd and three men of the Ḳureysh, for they
+would best know the original dialect of the Ḳur-án. The new edition
+followed the first one, apparently, both in order and in matter;
+definitely fixing, however, the true text in the dialect of the
+Ḳureysh, and possibly adding any verses that might have been
+discovered since Zeyd’s first edition. This second recension was
+conducted with the same careful fidelity and scrupulous impartiality
+as the first; and it was accepted by all the different parties that
+were then disputing the supremacy. Copies of this edition were then
+distributed to the principal cities of the empire, and the old copies
+and fragments were called-in and burned.
+
+This edition of ´Othmán, made about A.D. 660, is the one that has ever
+since been the authorised and only version of the Ḳur-án throughout
+the Muslim world and in the studies of European linguists. The only
+differences that have since crept into the text are certain
+unimportant varieties in vocalisation and orthography and in the
+division of verses.
+
+It was a singular system these early revisers went upon. They seem,
+indeed, to have established the authenticity of each saying
+satisfactorily; but in the arrangement of them they showed an
+extraordinary dulness. The tradition of the year when each revelation
+was spoken appears to have been lost even in the short time that had
+elapsed since it had been spoken. People remembered the words, but
+seldom the occasion of the words. Hence the revisers had to devise an
+artificial order; not according to subject, nor after the development
+of the style, but simply in order of length! They put the longest
+chapters first and the shortest last; that is to say, they inverted,
+roughly speaking, the true order, for the early soorahs were short and
+the later ones long.
+
+Read in this order, the Ḳur-án is an unintelligible jumble. Carlyle
+may well say that ‘nothing but a sense of duty could carry any
+European through the Ḳur-án.’ You can trace no development of mind or
+doctrine in the present arrangement; it is indeed a confused mass of
+‘endless iterations, long-windedness, entanglement, most crude,
+incondite.’ But scholars have long discovered certain signs of a true
+order—several kinds of evidence by which a chronological arrangement
+of the Ḳur-án may be attempted. These are—(1.) The _references to
+historical events_ in the Ḳur-án, as identified by tradition. These,
+however, are but few, and occur chiefly in quite the latest soorahs;
+and tradition is apt to identify any reference with any event it
+chooses. A much more important test is (2.) the _style_; for a
+distinct development can be traced in the rime, in the length of
+verses, and in the words employed. And then there is (3.) the
+_matter_ test, based on what we know of Moḥammad’s life, from which we
+can argue a certain change in his preaching at Mekka, and still more
+when, from addressing idolaters in his birthplace, he came to preach
+to Jews and Christians at Medina. The danger of this last test is that
+each man forms his own theory of Moḥammad’s mental and religious
+growth, and may arrange the soorahs in accordance with that theory.
+Even with these three tests, used by the most accomplished critics, it
+is impossible to arrive at an exact order, and to determine the
+precise chronological position of each soorah. But whilst it is
+admitted that an exact chronological arrangement of each individual
+chapter of the Ḳur-án is impossible, it is yet no less certain that
+the soorahs may be roughly grouped together, and that these groups can
+be definitely assigned to certain periods of Moḥammad’s career.
+
+Professor Th. Nöldeke’s _Geschichte des Qorâns_ has established his
+right to the first place in this science of Ḳur-án arrangement, and
+his order of soorahs may fairly be accepted as authoritative. Of this
+order Mr. Rodwell’s English version of the Ḳur-án is an example,
+except that a few of the earliest soorahs are transposed. Nöldeke has
+two great divisions of the soorahs: those revealed at Mekka, and those
+revealed during the Medina period. Further, he divides the Mekkan
+division into three groups.[23]
+
+
+         {   I. A.D. 612-617 (Rodwell, pp. 1-64)—To the Abyssinian
+         {         exile (fifth year).
+         {
+         {  II. A.D. 617-619 (Rodwell, pp. 64-192)—Fifth and sixth
+   Mekka {         years of Moḥammad’s mission.
+         {
+         { III. A.D. 619-622 (Rodwell, pp. 193-366)—From the
+         {         seventh year to the Flight.
+
+   Medina       A.D. 622-633 (Rodwell, pp. 366-555)—At Medina.
+
+
+Read in this order the Ḳur-án becomes intelligible. It is still
+confused in its progression and strangely mixed in its contents; but
+the development of Moḥammad’s faith can be traced in it, and we can
+see dimly into the workings of his mind, as it struggles with the deep
+things of God, wrestles with the doubts which echoed the cavils of the
+unbelievers, soars upwards on the wings of ecstatic faith, till at
+last it gains the repose of fruition. Studied thus, the Ḳur-án is no
+longer dull reading to one who cares to look upon the working of a
+passionate troubled human soul, and who can enter into its trials and
+share in the joy of its triumphs.
+
+In the soorahs revealed at Mekka, Moḥammad has but one theme—God; and
+one object—to draw his people away from their idols and bring them to
+the feet of that God. He tells them of Him in glowing language, that
+comes from the heart’s white heat. He points to the glories of nature,
+and tells them these are God’s works. With all the brilliant imagery
+of the Arab, he tries to show them what God is, to convince them of
+His power and His wisdom and His justice. The soorahs of this period
+are short, for they are pitched in too high a key to be long
+sustained. The language has the ring of poetry, though no part of the
+Ḳur-án complies with the demands of Arab metre. The sentences are
+short and full of half-restrained energy, yet with a musical cadence.
+The thought is often only half expressed; one feels the speaker has
+essayed a thing beyond words, and has suddenly discovered the
+impotence of language, and broken off with the sentence unfinished.
+There is the fascination of true poetry about these earliest soorahs;
+as we read them we understand the enthusiasm of the Prophet’s
+followers, though we cannot fully realise the beauty and the power,
+inasmuch as we cannot hear them hurled forth with Moḥammad’s fiery
+eloquence. From first to last the Ḳur-án is essentially a book to be
+heard, not read, but this is especially the case with the earliest
+chapters.
+
+In the soorahs of the second period of Mekka we begin to trace the
+decline of the Prophet’s eloquence. There are still the same earnest
+appeals to the people, the same gorgeous pictures of the Last Day and
+the world to come; but the language begins to approach the quiet of
+prose, the sentences become longer, the same words and phrases are
+frequently repeated, and the wearisome stories of the Jewish prophets
+and patriarchs, which fill so large a place in the later portion of
+the Ḳur-án, now make their appearance. The fierce passion of the
+earliest soorahs, that could not out save in short burning verses,
+gives place to a calmer more argumentative style. Moḥammad appeals
+less to the works of God as proofs of his teaching, and more to the
+history of former teachers, and the punishments of the people who
+would not hear them. And the characteristic oaths of the first period,
+when Moḥammad swears by all the varied sights of nature as they
+mirrored themselves in his imagination, have gone, and in their place
+we find only the weaker oath ‘by the Ḳur-án.’ And this declension is
+carried still further in the last group of the soorahs revealed at
+Mekka. The style becomes more involved and the sentences longer, and
+though the old enthusiasm bursts forth ever and anon, it is rather an
+echo of former things than a new and present intoxication of faith.
+The fables and repetitions become more and more dreary, and but for
+the rich eloquence of the old Arabic tongue, which gives some charm
+even to inextricable sentences and dull stories, the Ḳur-án at this
+period would be unreadable. As it is, we feel we have fallen the whole
+depth from poetry to prose, and the matter of the prose is not so
+superlative as to give us amends for the loss of the poetic thought
+of the earlier time and the musical fall of the sentences.
+
+In the soorahs of the Medina period these faults reach their climax.
+We read a singularly varied collection of criminal laws, social
+regulations, orders for battle, harangues to the Jews, first
+conciliatory, then denunciatory, and exhortations to spread the faith,
+and such-like heterogeneous matters. Happily the Jewish stories
+disappear in the latest soorahs, but their place is filled by scarcely
+more palatable materials. The chapters of this period are interesting
+chiefly as containing the laws which have guided every Muslim state,
+regulated every Muslim society, and directed in their smallest acts
+every Mohammadan man and woman in all parts of the world from the
+Prophet’s time till now. The Medina part of the Ḳur-án is the most
+important part for Islám, considered as a scheme of ritual and a
+system of manners; the earliest Mekka revelations are those which
+contain what is highest in a great religion and what was purest in a
+great man.
+
+The word _Ḳur-án_ means the _crying_, _reciting_, _reading_, and is
+applied not only to the whole book, but to any chapter or section of
+it. The Ḳur-án is also called El-Furḳán, ‘the Distinguisher,’ and
+El-Muṣḥaf, ‘the Volume,’ and El-Kitáb, ‘the Book,’ and Edh-Dhikr, ‘the
+Admonition.’ The Ḳur-án contains, in its ordinary form, 114 chapters
+(_soorahs_), 6616 verses (_áyát_, literally ‘signs’ or ‘wonders’),
+77,934 words, and 323,671 letters, according to the estimates of
+laborious Muslim divines, which differ, however, in a slight manner in
+consequence of the various divisions of verses. After the first
+chapter, which is a short prayer (the Fátiḥah), the soorahs gradually
+decrease in length from 289 verses in the second to from three to six
+in the ten concluding chapters. Each chapter is headed by a title,
+taken from same prominent word in it (as the ‘Chapter of the
+Striking,’ ‘of the Cow,’ &c.); beneath which is noted whether it was
+promulgated (according to tradition) at Mekka or Medina, and the
+number of its verses. Then follow the words:—‘In the Name of God, the
+Compassionate, the Merciful;’ after which the chapter begins. To
+twenty-nine chapters are prefixed certain letters (_e.g._, ch. ii. on
+p. 4), or a single letter, which have never been successfully
+interpreted. The Muslims believe them to conceal profound mysteries.
+In Soorah 55 a refrain is found, and traces of a like imitation in
+Soorahs 54 and 17. It is probable that the Ḳur-án was originally
+_chanted_ in somewhat the same manner as it is in the present day.
+
+The Ḳur-án is also divided in thirty sections, and these are again
+subdivided; and from this division rather than from chapter and verse
+do the Muslims generally quote.
+
+‘The Muslims absolutely deny that the Ḳur-án was composed by their
+Prophet himself, or by any other for him; it being their general and
+orthodox belief that it is of divine original; nay, that it is eternal
+and uncreated, remaining, as some express it, in the very essence of
+God; that the first transcript has been from everlasting by God’s
+throne, written on a tablet of vast size, called the Preserved Tablet,
+in which are also recorded the divine decrees, past and future; that a
+copy from this tablet, in one volume on paper, was, by the ministry of
+the angel Gabriel, sent down to the lowest heaven, in the month of
+Ramaḍán, on the Night of Power;[24] whence Gabriel revealed it to
+Moḥammad by parcels, some at Mekka, and some at Medina, at different
+times during the space of twenty-three years, as the exigency of
+affairs required; giving him, however, the consolation to show him the
+whole (which they tell us was bound in silk, and adorned with gold and
+precious stones of Paradise) once a year; but in the last year of his
+life he had the favour to see it twice. They say that few chapters
+were delivered entire, the most part being revealed piecemeal, and
+written down from time to time by the Prophet’s amanuensis, in such or
+such a part of such or such a chapter, till they were completed,
+according to the directions of the angel. The first parcel that was
+revealed is generally agreed to have been the first five verses of the
+ninety-sixth chapter. After the new revealed passages had been from
+the Prophet’s mouth taken down in writing by his scribe, they were
+published to his followers, several of whom took copies for their
+private use; but the far greater number got them by heart. The
+originals, when returned, were put promiscuously into a chest, without
+regard to any order of time, for which reason it is uncertain when
+many passages were revealed.
+
+‘The Ḳur-án being the Muslims’ rule of faith and practice, it is no
+wonder its expositors and commentators are so very numerous; and it
+may not be amiss to take notice of the rules they observe in
+expounding it.
+
+‘One of the most learned commentators distinguishes the contents of
+the Ḳur-án into allegorical and literal. The former comprehends the
+more obscure, parabolical, and enigmatical passages, and such as are
+repealed or abrogated; the latter, those which are plain, perspicuous,
+liable to no doubt, and in full force.
+
+‘To explain these severally in a right manner, it is necessary, from
+tradition and study, to know the time when each passage was revealed,
+its circumstances, state, and history, and the reasons or particular
+emergencies for the sake of which it was revealed. Or, more
+explicitly, whether the passage was revealed at Mekka or at Medina;
+whether it be abrogated, or does itself abrogate any other passage;
+whether it be anticipated in order of time or postponed; whether it be
+distinct from the context or depend thereon; whether it be particular
+or general; and lastly, whether it be implicit by intention, or
+explicit in words.
+
+‘By what has been said, the reader may easily believe that this book
+is held by the Muslims in the greatest reverence and esteem. The more
+strict among them dare not touch it without being first washed or
+legally purified; which lest they should do by inadvertence, they
+sometimes write these words of the book itself on the cover or label,
+“None shall touch it but they who are purified.” They read it with
+great care and respect, never holding it below their girdles. They
+swear by it, consult it in their weighty occasions, carry it with them
+to war, inscribe sentences from it on their banners, sometimes adorn
+it with gold and precious stones, and knowingly suffer it not to be in
+the possession of any person of a different persuasion. It is the
+foundation of their education; and the children in the schools are
+taught to chant it, and commit the whole of it to memory.’
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS.
+
+
+In reading a large number of works bearing upon the subjects of this
+Introduction, I have remarked a curious freedom of quotation in most
+of the writers. I find the same sentence, or at least the same
+thought, repeated in several books without any reference to the author
+who first put it forth. Each writer seems to have studied his
+predecessors with such minuteness that he can quote their very words,
+but he does not appear to remember whence the words came. When a
+thought has once been perfectly expressed, it were a ridiculous vanity
+to seek to frame it in different words, and so far it is undoubtedly
+wise to make use of the best of what has preceded us; nevertheless, it
+is well to acknowledge our debt. Yet thoughts, and even phrases,
+impress themselves on the memory till one unconsciously comes to
+appropriate them as his own; and this, I doubt not, is the cause of
+much of the plagiarism I have noticed. It is extremely probable that I
+have been guilty of the same sin. I have crowded my pages with marks
+of quotation, sometimes with foot references, sometimes without (for
+the student of the subject will know where to look for them), but it
+is quite likely that I have often unconsciously used another’s phrase
+or metaphor without rendering thanks. So I now append a list of the
+principal European books I have used, and beg once and for all to
+record my indebtedness to their writers. The original Arabic
+authorities will dispense with my acknowledgments, and the catalogue
+of them would not assist the English reader who wishes to proceed
+further in the study of the subject, for whom this list may prove
+useful.
+
+   BURCKHARDT, J. L. _Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys._ 2 vols.
+       1831.
+
+   DEUTSCH, EMANUEL. _Literary Remains._ 1874.
+
+   DOZY, R. _Essai sur l´Histoire de l´Islamisme_, trad. par V.
+       Chauvin. 1879.
+
+   FRESNEL, F. _Lettres sur l´Histoire des Arabes avant
+       l´Islamisme._ 1836-38.
+
+   HUGHES, REV. T. P. _Notes on Muhammadanism._ 2d ed. 1877.
+
+   KREMER, A. VON. _Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen des
+       Isláms._ 1868.
+
+   —— _Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen._ 2 vols.
+   1876, 1877.
+
+   LANE, E. W. _The Modern Egyptians._ 5th ed. 1 vol. 1860.
+
+   —— _The Thousand and One Nights_ (notes). 2d ed. 3 vols.
+       1859, 1860.
+
+   —— _Selections from the Kur-án._ 1st ed. 1843.
+
+   —— _Arabic-English Lexicon_, Preface, &c. 1863.
+
+   LYALL, C. J. _Translations from the Hamâseh and the Aghânî; The
+       Mo´allaqah of Zuheyr._ (Journal As. Soc. of Bengal, 1878.)
+
+   MUIR, SIR W. _The Life of Mahomet._ 4 vols. New edition.[25]
+       1867.
+
+   NÖLDEKE, TH. _Geschichte des Qorâns._ 1860.
+
+   —— _Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Poesie der alten Araber._
+       1864.
+
+   PALGRAVE, W. GIFFORD. _Central and Eastern Arabia._ 6th ed.
+       1871.
+
+   PERCEVAL, A.-P. CAUSSIN DE. _Essai sur l´Histoire des Arabes
+       avant l´Islamisme._ 3 vols. 1847, 1848.
+
+   POOLE, R. STUART. _Pagan and Muslim Arabs._ (Fortnightly
+       Review, October 15, 1865.)
+
+   RODWELL, J. M. _El-Korân._ 2d ed. 1876.
+
+   SALE, G. _The Koran._ 1836.
+
+   SÉDILLOT, L.-A. _Histoire Générale des Arabes._ 2d ed. 2 vols.
+       1877.
+
+   SMITH, R. BOSWORTH. _Mohammed and Mohammedanism._ 2d ed. 1876.
+
+   SPRENGER, A. _Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammad._ 2d ed. 3
+       vols. 1869.
+
+   ST. HILAIRE, T.-BARTHÉLEMY. _Mahomet et le Coran._ 2d ed.
+   1865.
+
+   TIELE, C. P. _Outlines of the History of Religion_, translated
+       by J. E. Carpenter. (Trübner’s Philosophical Library. Vol.
+       vii. 1877.)
+
+   WEIL, G. _Das Leben Mohammed’s nach Ibn Ishak_ bearbeitet von
+       Ibn Hischam. 2 vols. 1864.
+
+
+
+
+SELECTIONS FROM THE ḲUR-ÁN.
+
+_PART THE FIRST._
+
+NOTE.
+
+
+The following extracts were all translated by Mr. Lane, with the
+exception of those to which an obelus (†) is prefixed, for
+which I alone am responsible. In the text, the words in italics are
+inserted from the commentary of the Jeláleyn; words in square brackets
+[] are Mr. Lane’s additions, inserted where the difference between the
+Arabic and English idioms required them.
+
+In the foot-notes, words in italics are from the commentary of the
+Jeláleyn; notes followed by the initial S., from Sale’s _Koran_; the
+letters B., Z., and A. F., following S. in parenthesis, point to the
+authorities from which Sale’s note was derived, the great commentaries
+of El-Beydáwee and Ez-Zamakhsharee, and Abu-l-Fidá’s Life of Moḥammad,
+respectively. The other notes are Mr. Lane’s, either from the original
+edition or extracted from his _Modern Egyptians_ (5th 1 vol. ed.
+1860), or his notes to the _Thousand and One Nights_ (2d ed. 1859);
+except those enclosed in square brackets, which are due to myself.
+
+The numbers at the end of each extract refer to the chapter (soorah)
+and verse in Flügel’s text of the Ḳur-án (Lipsiæ, 1869).
+
+   S. L. P.
+
+
+
+
+_PART THE FIRST._
+
+
+_THE OPENING PRAYER._[26]
+
+_EL-FÁTIḤAH._
+
+
+I.
+
+   In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
+
+   Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds,[27]
+   The Compassionate, the Merciful,
+   The King of the day of judgment.
+   Thee do we worship, and of Thee seek we help.[28]
+   Guide us in the right way,
+   The way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious,
+   Not of those with whom Thou art wroth, nor of the erring.
+
+   (i.)
+
+
+
+
+_PREMONITION._
+
+
+II.
+
+A.L.M.[29] Respecting this Book there is no doubt;[30] _it is_ a
+guidance for them that fear Him,
+
+Who believe in the unseen,[31] and perform the prayer, and of what We
+have bestowed on them expend,
+
+And who believe in that which hath been sent down to thee,[32] and
+what hath been sent down before thee,[33] and have firm assurance of
+the life to come.
+
+Those follow a right direction from their Lord, and those are they who
+shall prosper.
+
+As for those who have disbelieved, it will be equal to them whether
+thou admonish them or admonish them not: they will not believe.
+
+God hath sealed their hearts and their ears, and over their eyes is a
+covering, and for them is [ordained] a great punishment.
+
+   (ii. 1-6.)
+
+
+
+
+_GOD._
+
+
+III.
+
+   SAY, He is God, One [God];
+   God, the Eternal.
+   He begetteth not nor is begotten,
+   And there is none equal unto Him.
+
+   (cxii.)[34]
+
+
+IV.
+
+_The Throne-Verse._[35]
+
+God! There is no God but He, the _Ever_-Living, the Ever-Subsisting.
+Slumber seizeth Him not, nor sleep. To Him belongeth whatsoever is in
+the Heavens and whatsoever is in the Earth. Who is he that shall
+intercede with Him, unless by His permission? He knoweth what [hath
+been] before them and what [shall be] after them, and they shall not
+compass aught of His knowledge save what He willeth. His Throne
+comprehendeth the Heavens and the Earth,[36] and the care of them
+burdeneth Him not. And He is the High, the Great.
+
+   (ii. 256.)
+
+
+V.
+
+†SAY, O God, to whom belongeth dominion, Thou givest dominion
+to whom Thou wilt, and from whom Thou wilt Thou takest it away; Thou
+exaltest whom Thou wilt, and whom Thou wilt Thou humblest. In Thy hand
+is good. Verily Thou art all-powerful.
+
+Thou causest the night to pass into the day, and Thou causest the day
+to pass into the night; and Thou bringest forth the living from the
+dead, and Thou bringest forth the dead from the living; and thou
+givest sustenance to whom Thou wilt without measure.
+
+   (iii. 25, 26.)
+
+
+VI.
+
+Blessed be He in whose hand is the dominion and who is
+all-powerful;[37]
+
+Who hath created death and life, that He may prove you, which of you
+[will be] best in works: and He is the Mighty, the Very-Forgiving:
+
+Who hath created seven heavens, one above another. Thou seest not any
+fault in the creation of the Compassionate. But lift up the eyes again
+_to heaven_. Dost thou see any fissures?
+
+Then lift up the eyes again twice; the sight shall return unto thee
+dull and dim.
+
+   (lxvii. 1-4.)
+
+
+VII.
+
+Verily your Lord is God, who created the heavens and the earth in six
+days: then He ascended the throne. He causeth the night to cover the
+day; it followeth it swiftly: and _He created_ the sun and the moon
+and the stars, made subject utterly to His command. Do not the _whole_
+creation and command belong to Him? Blessed be God, the Lord of the
+Worlds.
+
+   (vii. 52.)
+
+
+VIII.
+
+We have placed in heaven _the twelve_ signs _of the Zodiac_, and
+adorned them for the beholders _with the constellations_;
+
+And We have guarded them (_by means of shooting stars_) from every
+accursed devil,[38]
+
+Excepting him who listeneth by stealth, whom a manifest shooting star
+pursueth.
+
+We have also spread forth the earth, and thrown thereon firm
+_mountains_,[39] and We have caused to spring forth in it every kind
+[of green thing] weighed.[40]
+
+And We have provided for you therein necessaries of life, and _for_
+him whom ye do not sustain;[41]
+
+And there is not a thing but the storehouses thereof are with Us, and
+We send it not down save in determined quantities.
+
+We also send the fertilizing winds,[42] and We send down water from
+heaven, and give you to drink thereof; and ye are not the storers of
+it.
+
+And verily We give life and death, and We are the heirs _of all the
+creation_.
+
+We also know those who have gone before you, and We know those who
+follow after [you].
+
+And verily thy Lord will assemble them together: for He is Wise,
+Knowing.
+
+   (xv. 16-25.)
+
+
+IX.
+
+And your God is One God: there is no god but He, the Compassionate,
+the Merciful.
+
+Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the varying
+of night and day, and the ships that course upon the sea _laden_ with
+what is profitable to mankind, and the water that God hath sent down
+from heaven, quickening the earth thereby after its death, and
+scattering about it all kinds of beasts; and in the changing of the
+winds, and the clouds that are compelled to do service between heaven
+and earth, are signs unto a people who understand.
+
+Yet among men are those who take to themselves, beside God, idols,
+which they love as _with_ the love for God: but those who have
+believed are more loving towards God _than these towards their idols_.
+
+   (ii. 158-160.)
+
+
+X.
+
+Verily God causeth the grain to come forth, and the date-stone: He
+bringeth forth the living from the dead,[43] and He bringeth forth the
+dead from the living:[44] This is God; then wherefore are ye turned
+away?
+
+He causeth the dawn to appear, and hath ordained the night for rest,
+and the sun and the moon for reckoning _time_: this is the appointment
+of the Mighty, the Wise.
+
+And it is He who hath ordained for you the stars, that ye may be
+guided by them in the darknesses of the land and of the sea: We have
+clearly shown the signs _of Our power_ unto the people who know.[45]
+
+And it is He who hath produced you from one soul, and _there is_ a
+place of rest and of storing:[46] We have clearly shown the signs to
+the people who understand.
+
+And it is He who hath sent down water from heaven, and We have
+produced thereby the germs of everything, and We have caused the
+green thing to come forth therefrom, from which We draw forth grains
+massed; and from the palm-tree, from its fruit-branch, clusters of
+dates heaped together:[47] and gardens of grapes, and the olive and
+the pomegranate, like one another[48] and not like.[49] Look ye at
+their fruits when they bear fruit, and their ripening. Verily therein
+are signs unto the people who believe.
+
+Yet they have set up the Jinn[50] as partners of God, though He hath
+created them, and without knowledge have they falsely attributed to
+Him sons and daughters. Extolled be His purity, and high be He exalted
+above that which they attribute [to Him]!
+
+_He is_ the Author of the heavens and the earth. How then should He
+have offspring, when He hath no consort, and hath created everything
+and knoweth everything?
+
+This is God your Lord. There is no God but He, the Creator of
+everything: therefore worship ye Him;[51] and He is guardian over
+everything.
+
+The eyes see Him not, but He seeth the eyes: and He is the Gracious,
+the Knowing.
+
+   (vi. 95-103.)
+
+
+XI.
+
+It is He who maketh the lightning to appear unto you, [causing] fear
+and hope _of rain_, and formeth the pregnant clouds.
+
+And the thunder proclaimeth His perfection with His praise; and
+[likewise] the angels, in fear of Him. And He sendeth the
+thunderbolts, and striketh with them whom He pleaseth, whilst they
+dispute concerning God; for He is mighty in power.[52]
+
+   (xiii. 13, 14.)
+
+
+XII.
+
+With Him are the keys of the hidden things: none knoweth them but He:
+and He knoweth whatsoever is on the land and in the sea, and there
+falleth not a leaf but He knoweth it, nor a grain in the dark parts of
+the earth, nor a moist thing nor a dry thing, but [it is noted] in a
+distinct writing.[53]
+
+And it is He who taketh your souls at night, and knoweth what ye have
+gained in the day; then He reviveth you therein,[54] that an appointed
+time[55] may be fulfilled. Then unto Him shall ye return: then will He
+declare unto you what ye have done.
+
+And He is the Supreme[56] over His servants, and He sendeth watchers
+over you,[57] until when death cometh unto any one of you, Our
+messengers take his soul, and they fail not.
+
+Then are they[58] returned unto God their Lord, the True.[59] Doth not
+judgment belong to Him? And He is the most quick of reckoners.
+
+SAY,[60] Who delivereth you from the darknesses of the land and of the
+sea, _when_ ye supplicate Him humbly and in secret, _saying_, ‘If Thou
+deliver us from these _dangers_, we will assuredly be of [the number
+of] the thankful’?
+
+SAY, God delivereth you from them and from every affliction.
+
+   (vi. 59-64.)
+
+
+XIII.
+
+Verily God will not forgive the associating with Him [any other being
+as a god], but will forgive other _sins_ unto whom He pleaseth; and
+whoso associateth [another] with God hath wrought a great wickedness.
+
+   (iv. 51.)
+
+
+XIV.
+
+They[61] say, ‘The Compassionate hath gotten offspring:’ Ye have done
+an impious thing.
+
+It wanteth little but that the heavens be rent thereat, and that the
+earth cleave asunder, and that the mountains fall down in pieces.[62]
+
+_For_ that they have attributed offspring to the Compassionate, when
+it beseemeth not the Compassionate to get offspring.
+
+There is none of all that are in the heavens and the earth but he
+shall come unto the Compassionate as a servant.[63] He hath known them
+and numbered them with an _exact_ numbering.
+
+And each of them shall come unto Him on the day of resurrection,
+alone.[64]
+
+†Verily those who have believed and have done the things that
+are right, on them the Compassionate will bestow [His] love.
+
+   (xix. 91-96.)
+
+
+XV.
+
+O men _of Mekkeh_, a parable is propounded, wherefore hearken unto it.
+Verily, those _idols_ which ye invoke beside God can never create a
+fly, although they assembled for it: and if the fly carry off from
+them aught,[65] they cannot recover the same from it. Weak are the
+seeker and the sought!
+
+   (xxii. 72.)
+
+
+XVI.
+
+The likeness of those who take to themselves Tutelars[66] instead of
+God is as the likeness of the spider, which maketh for herself a
+dwelling; and the frailest of dwellings surely is the dwelling of the
+spider! If they knew[67]——!
+
+Verily God knoweth whatever thing they invoke in His stead; and He is
+the Mighty, the Wise.
+
+And these parables[68] we propound unto men; but none understand them
+except the wise.
+
+God hath created the heavens and the earth in truth: verily therein is
+a sign unto the believers.
+
+   (xxix. 40-43.)
+
+
+
+
+_MOḤAMMAD AND THE ḲUR-ÁN._
+
+
+XVII.
+
+   †O thou enwrapped _in thy mantle_,[69]
+   Arise and warn!
+   And thy Lord—magnify Him!
+   And thy raiment—purify it!
+   And the abomination[70]—flee it!
+   And bestow not favours that thou mayest receive again with increase.
+   And for thy Lord wait thou patiently.[71]
+
+   (lxxiv. 1-7.)
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+   †By the morning-brightness,
+   And by the still of night,[72]
+   Thy Lord hath not forsaken thee, neither hath He hated thee.
+   And surely the Future will be better for thee than the Present,
+   And thy Lord will give to thee, and thou wilt be well-pleased.
+   Did He not find thee an orphan, and sheltered thee?
+   And He found thee erring, and guided thee,
+   And found thee needy, and enriched thee.
+   Then, as to the orphan, oppress him not;
+   And as to him that asketh of thee, chide him not away;
+   And as for the bounty of thy Lord, tell it then [abroad].
+
+   (xciii.)
+
+
+XIX.
+
+SAY, I do not say unto you, ‘With me[73] are the treasures of God,’
+nor, ‘I know what is unseen,’ nor do I say unto you, ‘Verily I am an
+angel.’ I follow not [aught] but what is revealed unto me.
+
+   (vi. 50.)
+
+
+XX.
+
+†SAY, I am only a man like unto you. It is only revealed unto
+me that your God is One God. He then that hopeth to meet his Lord, let
+him work a righteous work, and in the worship of his Lord let him not
+associate any [other god].
+
+   (xviii. 110.)
+
+
+XXI.
+
+†SAY, If I err, only against myself shall I err, but if I am
+rightly-guided, it [is] of what my Lord hath revealed to me. Verily,
+He is the Hearer, the Near-at-hand!
+
+   (xxxiv. 49.)
+
+
+XXII.
+
+Moḥammad is nought but a Messenger.[74] The Messengers have passed
+away before him. If then he die or be slain, will ye turn round upon
+your heels?[75] But he who turneth round upon his heels will not
+injure God a whit;[76] and God will reward the thankful.
+
+   (iii. 138.)
+
+
+XXIII.
+
+Verily We have revealed unto thee as we revealed unto Noah and the
+prophets after him, and _as_ We revealed unto Abraham, and Ishmael,
+and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and Jesus, and Job, and Jonah,
+and Aaron, and Solomon; and We gave unto David the Psalms.
+
+   (iv. 161.)
+
+
+XXIV.
+
+[77] SAY _unto them_, Do ye argue with us concerning God, when
+He is our Lord and your Lord,[78] and when we have our works and ye
+have your works, and when we are sincere towards Him?
+
+Nay, do ye say that Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the
+tribes were Jews or Christians? SAY _unto them_, Are ye the more
+knowing, or is God?[79] And who is more unrighteous than they who
+conceal a testimony that they have from God?[80] But God is not
+heedless of that which ye do.
+
+   (ii. 133, 134.)
+
+
+XXV.
+
+_Remember_, when Jesus the son of Mary said, ‘O children of Israel,
+Verily I am the Messenger of God unto you, confirming the Law which
+[was] before me, and giving good tidings of a Messenger who shall come
+after me, whose name [shall be] Aḥmad.’[81] But when he (_Aḥmad_) came
+unto them with evident proofs, they said, ‘This is manifest magic!’
+
+And who is more unrighteous than he who forgeth falsehood against God,
+when he is invited unto El-Islám? And God directeth not the
+unrighteous people.
+
+They desire to put out the light of God with their mouths: but God
+will perfect His light, though the unbelievers be loth _thereto_.
+
+It is He who hath sent His messenger with the direction and the
+religion of truth, that He may exalt above every religion, though the
+polytheists be loth _thereto_.
+
+   (lxi. 6-9.)
+
+
+XXVI.
+
+Those to whom We have given the Scripture know him (_Moḥammad_) as
+they know their children.[82] But a party of them do conceal the
+truth[83] while they know.
+
+   (ii. 141.)
+
+
+XXVII.
+
+_The Jews said unto Moḥammad_, ‘Verily God hath enjoined us[84] that
+we should not believe an apostle until he bring us a sacrifice which
+fire shall devour.’
+
+SAY, Apostles have come unto you before me with manifest proofs,[85]
+and with that ye have mentioned:[86] then wherefore did ye slay them,
+if ye be speakers of truth?
+
+   (iii. 179, 180.)
+
+
+XXVIII.
+
+_The unbelievers of Mekkeh_ have sworn by God, with the mightiest of
+their oaths, that if a sign come unto them they will assuredly believe
+therein. SAY, Signs are only with God. And what will make you to
+know?[87] Verily if they come they will not believe.
+
+And We will turn away their hearts and their eyes,[88] as they
+believed not therein the first time; and We will leave them in their
+transgression, wandering about in perplexity.
+
+And though We had sent down unto them the angels, and the dead had
+spoken unto them, and We had gathered together about them everything
+in tribes, they had not believed unless God had pleased; but the
+greater number of them know not.
+
+   (vi. 109-111.)
+
+
+XXIX.
+
+And they have said, ‘O thou unto whom the Admonition[89] hath been
+sent down, thou art certainly possessed by a Jinnee.[90]
+
+Why dost thou not come unto us with the angels, if thou be of those
+that speak truth?’
+
+We send not down the angels save with justice,[91] nor would they then
+be respited.
+
+Verily, We have sent down the Admonition, and We will surely preserve
+it.
+
+And We have sent _Messengers_ before thee among the sects of the
+former generations;
+
+And there came not unto them any Messenger but they had him in
+derision:
+
+In like manner will We put it into the hearts of the sinners _of
+Mekkeh to do so_;
+
+They shall not believe in him, and the punishment of the former
+generations hath passed.
+
+And if We should open above them a gate in heaven, and they should
+pass the day mounting up to it,
+
+They would say, ‘Our eyes are only intoxicated, or rather we are a
+people enchanted.’
+
+   (xv. 6-15.)
+
+
+XXX.
+
+   †Verily, it is the excellent Ḳur-án,
+   Written in the Preserved Book.[92]
+   None shall touch it but they who are purified.[93]
+   It is a revelation from the Lord of the Worlds.
+
+   (lvi. 76-79.)
+
+
+XXXI.
+
+SAY, Verily if mankind and the Jinn assembled together for the purpose
+of producing the like of this Ḳur-án,[94] they could not produce the
+like thereof, although they helped one another.[95]
+
+And We have explained unto men in this Ḳur-án every _kind of_
+parable,[96] but the greater number of men have refused [all else]
+save unbelief,
+
+And have said, ‘We will by no means believe in thee until thou cause a
+fountain to gush forth for us from the earth,
+
+_Or_ thou have a garden of palm-trees and grapes, and thou cause
+rivers to spring forth in the midst thereof in abundance,
+
+_Or_ thou cause heaven to fall down upon us, as thou hast pretended,
+in pieces, or thou bring God and the angels before _us_,
+
+_Or_ thou have a house of gold, or thou ascend into heaven, and we
+will not believe thy ascending until thou cause a book to descend unto
+us which we may read.’ SAY, Extolled be the perfection of my Lord! Am
+I [aught] save a man, [sent] as a Messenger?
+
+And nothing hath hindered men from believing when the direction hath
+come unto them, but their saying, ‘Hath God sent a man as a
+Messenger?’[97]
+
+SAY, If there were upon the earth angels walking at ease,[98] We had
+sent down unto them from heaven an angel as a Messenger.[99]
+
+SAY, God is a sufficient witness between me and you: for He knoweth
+and seeth His servants.
+
+   (xvii. 90-98.)
+
+
+XXXII.
+
+And this Ḳur-án is not an invention[100] of one who is not God, but
+_it hath been sent down_ as a confirmation of those _books which have
+been_ before it, and an explanation of the Scripture—there is no doubt
+thereof—from the Lord of the Worlds.
+
+Do they say, ‘He[101] hath forged it?’ SAY, Then bring ye a
+Soorah[102] like unto it and call whom ye can,[103] other than God, if
+ye speak truth.
+
+Nay they have charged with falsehood that which they comprehend not,
+and the explanation thereof[104] hath not yet come unto them. In like
+manner did those who were before them charge _their Messengers_ with
+falsehood; but see how was the end of the offenders!
+
+   (x. 38-40.)
+
+
+XXXIII.
+
+If ye be in doubt concerning that which We have sent down unto Our
+servant _Moḥammad_,[105] bring ye a Soorah like unto it,[106] and
+invoke your witnesses,[107] other than God, if ye be speakers of
+truth.
+
+But if ye do _it_ not (and do _it_ ye shall not), fear the fire whose
+fuel is men and stones: it is prepared for the unbelievers.
+
+   (ii. 21, 22.)
+
+
+XXXIV.
+
+Whatsoever[108] verse We abrogate or cause _thee_ to forget, We will
+produce one better than it or like unto it. Dost thou not know that
+God is all-powerful?
+
+Dost thou not know that to God _belongeth_ the dominion of the heavens
+and the earth, and that beside God ye have no protector or defender?
+
+   (ii. 100, 101.)
+
+
+XXXV.
+
+When We substitute a verse in the stead of a verse (and God best
+knoweth what He revealeth), they say, ‘Thou art but a forger!’—but the
+greater number of them know not!
+
+SAY, The Holy Spirit _Gabriel_ hath brought it down from thy Lord with
+truth, to stablish those who have believed, and as a direction and
+good tidings unto the Muslims.
+
+And We well know that they say, ‘Only a man[109] teacheth him.’ The
+tongue of him to whom they incline is foreign, and this _is the_
+perspicuous Arabic tongue.
+
+   (xvi. 103-105).
+
+
+XXXVI.
+
+SAY, If the sea were ink, for _writing_ the words of my Lord, the sea
+would be dried up or ever the words of my Lord were exhausted; and
+[so] if we brought its like in aid.[110]
+
+   (xviii. 109).
+
+
+
+
+_THE RESURRECTION, PARADISE, AND HELL._
+
+
+XXXVII.
+
+   †The Striking! what is the Striking?
+   And what shall teach thee what the Striking is?
+   _It is_ a day when men shall be like scattered moths,
+   And the mountains like carded wool!
+   Then as for him whose balances are heavy, his shall be a life
+     well-pleasing.
+   As for him whose balances are light, his abode shall be the Pit.
+   And what shall teach thee what that is?
+   A raging fire!
+
+   (ci.)
+
+
+XXXVIII.
+
+   †When the earth is shaken with her shaking,
+   And the earth hath cast forth her dead,[111]
+   And man shall say, ‘What aileth her?’
+   On that day shall she tell out her tidings,
+   Because thy Lord hath inspired her.
+   On that day shall men come one by one to behold their works,
+   And whosoever shall have wrought an ant’s weight of good shall
+     behold it,
+   And whosoever shall have wrought an ant’s weight of ill shall
+     behold it.
+
+   (xcix.)
+
+
+XXXIX.
+
+
+   †When the heaven shall be cloven asunder,
+   And when the stars shall be scattered,
+   And when the seas shall be let loose,
+   And when the graves shall be turned upside-down,
+   _Every_ soul shall know what it hath done and left undone.
+   O man! what hath seduced thee from thy generous Lord,
+   Who created thee and fashioned thee and disposed thee aright?
+   In the form which pleased Him hath He fashioned thee.
+   Nay, but ye treat the Judgment as a lie.
+   Verily there are watchers over you,
+   Worthy recorders,
+   Knowing what ye do.
+   Verily in delight shall the righteous dwell;
+   And verily the wicked in Hell[-Fire];
+   They shall be burnt at it on the day of doom,
+   And they shall not be hidden from it.
+   And what shall teach thee what the Day of Judgment is?
+   Again: What shall teach thee what is the Day of Judgment?
+   _It is_ a day when one soul shall be powerless for another soul;
+     and all on that day shall be in the hands of God.
+
+   (lxxxii.)
+
+
+XL.
+
+   When the sun shall be wrapped up,
+   And when the stars shall fall down,
+   And when the mountains shall be made to pass away,
+   And when the camels ten months gone with young[112] shall be neglected,
+   And when the wild beasts shall be gathered together,
+   And when the seas shall overflow,[113]
+   And when the souls shall be joined _to their bodies_,
+   And when the child[114] that hath been buried alive shall be asked
+   For what crime she was put to death,
+   And when the books[115] shall be laid open,
+   And when the heaven shall be removed,[116]
+   And when Hell shall be made to burn,
+   And when Paradise shall be brought near,—
+   _Then every_ soul shall know what it hath done.
+
+   (lxxxi. 1-14.)
+
+
+XLI.
+
+
+   Hath the news of the Overwhelming reached thee?
+   Countenances on that day [shall be] abased,
+   Labouring, toiling:
+   They shall feel the heat of scorching fire,
+   They shall be given to drink from a fountain fiercely boiling,
+   There shall be no food for them but of daree’,[117]—
+   It shall not fatten nor satisfy hunger.
+
+   (lxxxviii. 1-7.)
+
+
+XLII.
+
+   When one blast shall be blown on the trumpet,
+   And the earth shall be raised and the mountains, and be broken to
+     dust with one breaking,
+   On that day the Calamity shall come to pass:
+   And the heaven shall cleave asunder, being frail on that day,
+   And the angels on the sides thereof; and over them on that day
+     eight _of the angels_[118] shall bear the throne of thy Lord.
+   On that day ye shall be presented _for the reckoning_; none of
+     your secrets shall be hidden.
+   And as to him who shall have his book given to him in his right
+     hand, he shall say,[119] ‘Take ye, read my book;
+   Verily I was sure I should come to my reckoning.
+   And his [shall be] a pleasant life
+   In a lofty garden,
+   Whose clusters [shall be] near at hand.
+   [120]‘Eat ye and drink with benefit on account of that which ye paid
+      beforehand in the past days.’
+
+
+   But as to him who shall have his book given to him in his left
+     hand, he shall say, ‘O would that I had not had my book given
+     to me,
+   Nor known what [was] my reckoning!
+   O would that _my death_ had been the ending _of me_!
+   My wealth hath not profited me!
+   My power is passed away from me!’
+   ‘[121]Take him and chain him,
+   Then cast him into hell to be burnt,
+   Then in a chain of seventy cubits bind him:
+   For he believed not in God, the Great,
+   Nor urged to feed the poor;
+   Therefore he shall not have here this day a friend,
+   Nor any food save filth
+   Which none but the sinners shall eat.’
+
+   (lxix. 13-37.)
+
+
+XLIII.
+
+   When the Calamity shall come to pass
+   There shall not be _a soul_ that will deny its happening,[122]
+   [It will be] an abaser _of some_, an exalter _of others_;
+   When the earth shall be shaken with a _violent_ shaking,
+   And the mountains shall be crumbled with a [violent] crumbling,
+   And shall become fine dust scattered abroad;
+   And ye shall be three classes.
+   And the people of the right hand,[123] what [shall be] the people
+     of the right hand![124]
+   And the people of the left hand, what the people of the left
+     hand![125]
+   And the Preceders,[126] the Preceders!
+   These [shall be] the brought-nigh [unto God]
+   In the gardens of delight,—
+   A crowd of the former generations,
+   And a few of the latter generations,
+   Upon inwrought couches
+   Reclining thereon, face to face.
+   Youths ever-young[127] shall go unto them round about
+   With goblets and ewers and a cup of flowing wine,
+   Their [heads] shall ache not with it neither shall they be drunken;
+   And with fruits of the [sorts] which they shall choose,
+   And the flesh of birds of the [kinds] which they shall desire.
+   And damsels[128] with eyes[129] like pearls laid up
+   _We will give them_ as a reward for that which they have done.
+   Therein shall they hear no vain discourse nor accusation of sin,
+   But [only] the saying, ‘Peace! Peace!’
+
+   And the people of the right hand—what [shall be] the people of
+     the right hand!
+   [They shall dwell] among lote-trees without thorns
+   And bananas loaded with fruit,[130]
+   And a shade _ever_-spread,
+   And water _ever_-flowing,
+   And fruits abundant
+   Unstayed and unforbidden,
+   And couches raised.
+   Verily we have created them[131] by a [peculiar] creation,
+   And have made them virgins,
+   Beloved of their husbands, of equal age [with them],
+   For the people of the right hand,
+   A crowd of the former generations
+   And a crowd of the latter generations.
+
+   And the people of the left hand—what [shall be] the people of
+     the left hand!
+   [They shall dwell] amidst burning wind and scalding water,
+   And a shade of blackest smoke,
+   Not cool and not grateful.
+   For before this they were blest with worldly goods,
+   And they persisted in heinous sin,[132]
+   And said, ‘When we shall have died and become dust and bones,
+     shall we indeed be raised to life,
+   And our fathers the former generations?’
+   SAY, Verily the former and the latter generations
+   Shall be gathered together for the appointed time of a known day.
+   Then ye, O ye erring, belying [people],
+   Shall surely eat of the tree of Ez-Zaḳḳoom,
+   And fill therewith [your] bellies,
+   And drink thereon boiling water,
+   And ye shall drink as thirsty camels drink.—
+   This [shall be] their entertainment on the day of retribution.
+
+   (lvi. 1-56.)
+
+
+XLIV.
+
+Verily We have prepared for the offenders fire, the smoke of which
+shall encompass them; and if they ask relief, they shall be relieved
+with water like the dregs of oil, which shall scald _their_ faces.
+Miserable shall be the drink, and evil shall be the couch.
+
+As for those who have believed and done the things that are right,
+verily We will not suffer the reward of him that hath done well to
+perish:
+
+For these are gardens of perpetual abode, beneath them[133] shall
+rivers run; they shall be adorned therein with bracelets of gold, and
+shall wear green garments of fine brocade and of thick brocade,
+reclining therein on the thrones. Excellent shall be the reward, and
+pleasant shall be the couch.
+
+   (xviii. 28-30.)
+
+
+XLV.
+
+_Call to mind_ the day when We will cause the mountains to pass away
+and thou shalt see the earth plain; and We will assemble them[134] and
+not leave of them any one.
+
+And they shall be set before thy Lord in ranks: ‘Now are ye come unto
+Us as We created you the first time.[135] Nay, ye thought that We
+would not perform [Our] promise to you.’[136]
+
+And the book shall be put [in every man’s hand], and thou shalt see
+the sinners fearful because of that which is [written] therein, and
+they shall say, ‘O woe is us! what meaneth this book? It leaveth
+neither a small _sin_ nor a great _sin_, but it enumerateth it!’ And
+they shall find that which they shall have wrought present;[137] and
+thy Lord will not deal unjustly with any one.
+
+   (xviii. 45-47.)
+
+
+XLVI.
+
+They have not esteemed God with the estimation due unto Him, since the
+whole earth [shall be] His handful on the day of resurrection, and the
+heavens [shall be] folded together by His right hand. Extolled be His
+perfection and high be He exalted above the [things] they associate
+_with Him_!
+
+And the trumpet shall be blown, and they that are in the heavens and
+they that are in the earth shall die, except those whom God shall
+please. Then it shall be blown another time; and lo, they shall arise,
+waiting.
+
+And the earth shall shine with the light of its Lord. And the book
+shall be placed, and the prophets shall be brought and the witnesses,
+and judgment shall be given between them with truth, and they shall
+not be treated unjustly.
+
+And every soul shall be fully paid _the reward_ of what it hath done,
+and He well knoweth what they do.
+
+And those who have disbelieved shall be driven in troops unto hell,
+until when they come to it, its gates shall be opened, and its
+guardians shall say unto them, ‘Did not Messengers from among you come
+unto you rehearsing the signs of your Lord, and warning you of the
+meeting of this your day?’ They shall answer, ‘Yea:’ (But the sentence
+of punishment[138] hath been justly pronounced against the
+unbelievers:)
+
+It shall be said, ‘Enter ye the gates of hell to remain therein for
+ever:’ and evil shall be the abode of the proud.
+
+
+And those who have feared their Lord shall be urged on in troops unto
+paradise, until when they come unto it, its gates are already opened,
+and its guardians say unto them: ‘Peace be on you! Ye have been good:
+therefore enter it to abide _therein_ for ever.’
+
+And they shall say, ‘Praise be to God, who hath performed unto us His
+promise, and hath made us to inherit the land, that we may dwell in
+Paradise wheresoever we please; and how excellent is the reward of the
+workers!’[139]
+
+And thou shalt see the angels encompassing the throne, extolling the
+perfection with the praise of their Lord. And judgment shall be given
+between them[140] with truth: and it shall be said,‘Praise be to God,
+the Lord of the Worlds!’
+
+   (xxxix. 67-75.)
+
+
+XLVII.
+
+Paradise shall be brought near unto the pious, _to a place_ not
+distant _from them, so that they shall see it_.
+
+_And it shall be said unto them_, ‘This is what ye have been promised,
+unto every one who hath earnestly turned himself unto God and kept
+_His laws_,
+
+Who hath feared the Compassionate in secret, and come with a penitent
+heart:
+
+Enter it in peace: this is the Day of Eternity.’
+
+   (l. 30-33.)
+
+
+XLVIII.
+
+†Fairseeming to men is the love of pleasures from women and
+children, and hoarded riches of gold and silver, and pastured[141]
+horses, and flocks, and corn-fields. Such is the enjoyment of this
+world’s life! But God, goodly is the home with Him!
+
+SAY, Shall I tell you of better things than these prepared in the
+presence of their Lord for those that fear [God]? Theirs shall be
+gardens beneath which rivers run, and in which they shall abide for
+ever, and stainless wives, and acceptance with God: for God regardeth
+His servants,
+
+—Who say, ‘O our Lord, verily we have believed; forgive us then our
+sins, and keep us from the torment of the fire,’—
+
+The patient, and the truthful, and the lowly, and the charitable, and
+they who seek pardon at each daybreak.
+
+   (iii. 12-15.)
+
+
+XLIX.
+
+†And repute not those slain in God’s cause[142] to be dead:
+nay, alive with their Lord, they are provided for;
+
+Joyful in what God of His bounty hath vouchsafed them, and rejoicing
+for those that follow after them, but have not yet overtaken them,
+that on them no fear shall come, neither shall they grieve;
+
+Rejoicing at the favour of God and His bounty, and that God suffereth
+not the reward of the faithful to perish.
+
+   (iii. 163-165.)
+
+
+L.
+
+Whosoever doeth the things that are right, whether male or female,
+being a believer,—these shall enter paradise, and shall not be wronged
+in the least degree.
+
+   (iv. 123.)
+
+
+LI.
+
+For those who have disbelieved in their Lord [is prepared] the
+punishment of hell; and evil [shall be] the journey.[143]
+
+When they shall be cast into it they shall hear it braying,[144] while
+it boileth, well-nigh bursting with fury.
+
+   (lxvii. 6-8.)
+
+
+LII.
+
+If thou shouldst see[145] those who have offended[146] when they see
+the punishment![147]—for power belongeth altogether unto God, and God
+is severe in punishing:
+
+When those who have been followed will declare themselves clear of
+those who have followed [them],[148] when they have seen the
+punishment, and the ties [that bound them together] shall be severed
+from them:
+
+And those who have followed shall say, ‘O that there were for us a
+return _to the world_! then would we declare ourselves clear of them,
+like as they have _now_ declared themselves clear of us!’ After this
+manner will God show them their _evil_ works, for which [they shall
+pour forth] lamentations; and they shall not come forth from the fire.
+
+   (ii. 160-162.)
+
+
+LIII.
+
+And the Devil[149] shall say, when the matter shall have been
+determined,[150] ‘Verily God promised you the promise of truth;[151]
+and I promised you,[152] but I deceived you: yet had I no power over
+you;
+
+But I only called you and ye answered me. Therefore blame not me, but
+blame your own selves. I am not a helper of you, neither are ye
+helpers of me. Verily I renounce your having associated me _with God_
+heretofore.’
+
+   (xiv. 26, 27).
+
+
+LIV.
+
+Verily the hypocrites shall be in the lowest abyss of the fire, and
+thou shalt not find for them any defender.
+
+   (iv. 144.)
+
+
+LV.
+
+They[153] will ask thee respecting the Hour,[154] at what time is its
+coming fixed. SAY, The knowledge of it is only with my Lord: none
+shall manifest it in its time but He. It is grievous in the heavens
+and in the earth. It shall not come upon you otherwise than suddenly.
+
+They will ask thee as though thou wert well acquainted therewith. SAY,
+The knowledge of it is only with God: but the greater number of men
+know not!
+
+SAY, I possess not for myself _power to procure_ advantage nor _to
+avert_ mischief, save as God pleaseth: and if I knew things unseen, I
+should obtain abundance of good, and evil should not happen unto me. I
+am only a denouncer of threats _unto the unbelievers_, and an
+announcer of good tidings unto the people who believe.
+
+   (vii. 186-188.)
+
+
+
+
+_PREDESTINATION._
+
+
+LVI.
+
+A soul cannot die unless by permission of God, according to a writing
+_of God_, definite _as to time_.
+
+   (iii. 139.)
+
+
+LVII.
+
+They say [whose companions were slain at the battle of Oḥod], ‘If
+aught of the affair had been _submitted_ to us we had not been slain
+here.’[155] SAY, Had ye been in your houses, those _of you_ who were
+decreed to be slain had gone forth to the places where they lie.
+
+   (iii. 148.)
+
+
+LVIII.
+
+Wheresoever ye be, death will overtake you, although you be in lofty
+towers. If good fortune betide them,[156] they say, ‘This is from
+God!’ But if evil betide them, they say, ‘This is from thee, _O
+Moḥammad_!’ SAY, All is from God. And what aileth this people that
+they are not near to understanding what is said _unto them_?
+
+Whatsoever good betideth thee, _O man, it is_ from God; and whatsoever
+evil betideth thee, from thyself _is it_.
+
+   (iv. 80, 81.)
+
+
+LIX.
+
+†No soul can believe but by the permission of God.
+
+   (x. 100.)
+
+
+LX.
+
+†And whoso willeth taketh the way to his Lord: But ye shall
+not will it, unless God will it.
+
+   (lxxvi. 29, 30.)
+
+
+LXI.
+
+†Expend in the way of God, and throw not yourselves into
+destruction.[157]
+
+   (ii. 191.)
+
+
+_ANGELS AND JINN._[158]
+
+
+LXII.
+
+They say, ‘The Compassionate hath gotten offspring.’[159] Extolled be
+His purity! Nay, _they are_ honoured servants.
+
+They prevent Him not in speech,[160] and according to His command they
+act.
+
+He knoweth what is before them and what is behind them, and they shall
+not intercede
+
+Save for whom He shall please, and they fear in dread of Him.
+
+And him[161] among them who saith, ‘I am a god beside Him,’ that
+[angel] We will recompense with Hell.
+
+   (xxi. 26-30.)
+
+
+LXIII.
+
+†SAY, It hath been revealed to me that a company of the Jinn
+listened [to me] and said, ‘Verily we have heard a wonderful
+discourse[162]
+
+Which guideth unto right: wherefore we believed in it, and we will by
+no means associate any one with our Lord....
+
+We tried the heaven, but we found it filled with a mighty garrison and
+darting flames;
+
+We sat on some of its seats to listen, but whosoever listeneth now
+findeth a darting flame in ambush for him.
+
+We know not whether evil be meant for them that are on the earth, or
+whether their Lord intendeth for them a right guidance.
+
+There are among us the good, and among us _those who are_ not so,—we
+are of various ways.
+
+   (lxxii. 1, 2, 8-11.)
+
+
+
+
+_TRUE RELIGION AND FALSE._
+
+
+LXIV.
+
+Verily God commandeth justice and the doing of good and the giving
+unto the relation: and He forbiddeth wickedness and iniquity and
+oppression. He admonisheth you that ye may reflect.
+
+   (xvi. 92.)[163]
+
+
+LXV.
+
+
+   †By the Night when she spreadeth her veil,
+   By the Day when it appeareth in glory,
+   By Him who made male and female;
+   Verily your aims are indeed different!
+   As then for him who giveth [alms] and feareth [God],
+   And yieldeth assent to the Good,
+   To him will We therefore make easy the path to happiness.
+   But as to him who is covetous and bent on riches,
+   And calleth the Good a lie,
+   To him will We make easy the path to distress;
+   And what shall his wealth avail him when he goeth down headlong?
+   Truly man’s guidance is with Us,
+   And Ours the next Life and this life Present.
+   I warn you therefore of the flaming fire;
+   None shall be burned at it but the most wretched,—
+   Who hath called the truth a lie and turned his back.
+   But the greatly God-fearing shall escape it,—
+   Who giveth away his substance that he may become pure,
+   And who [offereth] not favours to any one for the sake
+     of recompense,
+   But only as seeking the face of his Lord the Most High.
+   And assuredly in the end he shall be well content.[1]
+
+   (xcii.)
+
+
+LXVI.
+
+   †What thinkest thou of him who treateth the day of judgment as a lie?
+   It is he who thrusteth away the orphan,
+   And stirreth not [others] up to feed the poor.
+   Woe, then, to those who pray,
+   Who in their prayer are careless,
+   Who make a show [of devotion],
+   But refuse help [to the needy].[164]
+
+   (cvii.)
+
+
+LXVII.
+
+Your turning your faces _in prayer_ towards the east and the west is
+not piety: but the pious is he who believeth in God and the Last Day,
+and in the angels, and the Scripture, and the prophets, and who giveth
+money, notwithstanding his love _of it_, to relations and orphans, and
+to the needy and the son of the road,[165] and to the askers and for
+_the freeing_ of slaves, and who performeth prayer and giveth the
+[appointed] alms, and those who perform their covenant when they
+covenant, and the patient in adversity and affliction and in the time
+of violence. These are they who have been true: and these are they who
+fear God.
+
+   (ii. 172.)
+
+
+LXVIII.
+
+†He only shall visit the temples of God who believeth in God
+and the Last Day, and observeth prayer, and payeth the [appointed]
+alms, and dreadeth none but God: for these are among the
+rightly-guided.
+
+   (ix. 18.)
+
+
+LXIX.
+
+O ye who have believed, make not your alms of no effect by reproach
+and harm, like him who expendeth his wealth to make a vain show unto
+men, and believeth not in God and the Last Day. For his likeness is as
+the likeness of a smooth stone upon which was earth, and a violent
+rain hath fallen upon it, and left it smooth and hard. [Such] cannot
+have aught that they have gained, and God directeth not the
+unbelieving people.
+
+And the likeness of those who expend their wealth from a desire of
+God’s being pleased, and from assurance on their part,[166] is as the
+likeness of a garden upon a hill, on which a violent rain hath fallen,
+and it hath produced its fruit twofold: and if a violent rain fall not
+upon it, a gentle rain _falleth_.
+
+   (ii. 266, 267.)
+
+
+LXX.
+
+If ye manifest alms, good will it be: but if ye conceal them and give
+them to the poor, it will be better for you; and it will expiate
+_some_ of your sins.
+
+   (ii. 273.)
+
+
+LXXI.
+
+A kind speech and forgiveness are better than alms which hurt[167]
+followeth.
+
+   (ii. 265.)
+
+
+LXXII.
+
+Revile not what they invoke in preference to God,[168] lest they
+revile God evilly without knowledge.
+
+   (vi. 108.)
+
+
+LXXIII.
+
+Turn away _evil_ by that which is better: and lo, he between whom and
+thyself [was] enmity [shall become] as though he were a warm friend:
+
+But none is endowed with this[169] except those who have been patient,
+and none is endowed with it except he who is greatly favoured.[170]
+
+   (xli. 34, 35.)
+
+
+LXXIV.
+
+†If ye are greeted with a greeting, then greet ye with a
+better greeting, or at least return it: verily God taketh count of all
+things.
+
+   (iv. 88.)
+
+
+LXXV.
+
+†If there be any [debtor] under a difficulty [of paying his
+debt], let [his creditor] wait until it be easy: but if ye remit it as
+alms, it will be better for you.
+
+   (ii. 280.)[171]
+
+
+
+
+_BELIEVERS AND UNBELIEVERS._
+
+
+LXXVI.
+
+†Dispute not with the people of the Scripture[172] unless in
+the kindliest[173] manner, except against such of them as deal evilly
+[with you]; and say [unto them], We believe in that which hath been
+sent down unto us and [that which] hath been sent down unto you, and
+our God and your God is one, and to Him are we self-surrendered.[174]
+
+   (xxix. 45.)
+
+
+LXXVII.
+
+Verily those who have believed,[175] and those who have become Jews,
+and the Christians, and the Sabians, whosoever hath believed in God
+and the Last Day, and hath done that which is right,—they shall have
+their reward with their Lord, and _there shall come_ no fear upon
+them, neither shall they grieve.
+
+   (ii. 59.)[176]
+
+
+LXVIII.
+
+Whoso desireth any other religion than El-Islám, it shall not be
+accepted of him, and in the world to come he [shall be] of those that
+perish.
+
+   (iii. 79.)
+
+
+LXXIX.
+
+The likeness of those who have disbelieved[177] is as the likeness of
+him who crieth out to that which heareth not [aught] save a calling
+and a voice. _They are_ deaf, dumb, blind: therefore they do not
+understand.
+
+   (ii. 166.)
+
+
+LXXX.
+
+[As to] the unbelievers, their works are like a vapour[178] in a
+plain, which the thirsty imagineth to be water, until when he cometh
+to it he findeth it not aught:[179] (but he findeth God there, and He
+fully payeth him his account: and God is swift in reckoning:)
+
+Or, like darknesses in a deep sea, covered by waves over waves,—over
+them clouds,—darknesses one over another: when [one] putteth forth his
+hand he is not nearly able to see it. And unto whomsoever God giveth
+not light, he hath no light.
+
+   (xxiv. 39, 40.)
+
+
+LXXXI.
+
+Propound unto them as a parable two men, on one of whom[180] We
+bestowed two gardens of grape-vines, and We surrounded them with
+palm-trees, and put corn between them; each of the gardens brought
+forth its fruit, and failed not thereof at all;
+
+And We caused a river to flow between them; and he had abundance. And
+he said unto his companion, disputing with him, ‘I am greater than
+thou in wealth and more mighty in family.’
+
+And he entered his garden, being unjust to his own soul.[181] He said,
+‘I do not think that this will ever perish,
+
+And I do not think that the [Last] Hour will come; and if I should be
+taken back unto my Lord, I shall assuredly find a better [garden] than
+it in return.’
+
+His companion said unto him, disputing with him, ‘Dost thou disbelieve
+in Him who created thee of dust, then completely fashioned thee into a
+man?
+
+God is my Lord, and I will not associate any one with my Lord.
+
+And why when thou enteredst thy garden didst thou not say, ‘What God
+willeth[182] [cometh to pass]: there is no power but in God?’ If thou
+seest me to be inferior to thee in amount of wealth and in number of
+children,
+
+Perhaps my Lord may give me [what will be] better than thy garden; and
+may send upon [thine] thunderbolts from heaven, so that it shall
+become a smooth and slippery ground;
+
+Or its water may become deep-sunk [in the earth], so that thou shalt
+not be able to draw it.’—
+
+And his possessions were encompassed _with destruction_, and he began
+to turn down the palms of his hands for that which he had expended
+thereon; for it[s vines were] falling down upon its trellises; and he
+said, ‘O would that I had not associated any one with my Lord!’
+
+And there was no party for him to assist him instead of God, nor was
+he able to defend himself.
+
+In that case[183] protection [belongeth] unto God, the True; He is the
+best rewarder and the best giver of success.
+
+   (xviii. 31-42.)
+
+
+LXXXII.
+
+Thou shalt certainly find[184] the Jews and those who have attributed
+partners to God[185] the most violent of men in hatred of those who
+have believed; and thou shalt certainly find the nearest of them to
+friendship to those who have believed those who say, ‘We are
+Christians.’ This is because there are among them priests and monks,
+and because they are not proud.[186]
+
+And when they hear that which hath been sent down unto the Apostle,
+thou seest their eyes overflow with tears because of the truth that
+they know: they say, ‘O our Lord, we believe, therefore write us down
+among those who bear witness.’
+
+   (v. 85, 86.)
+
+
+LXXXIII.
+
+The likeness of those who were charged to bear in mind the Law [of
+Moses], then bore it not in mind,[187] is as the likeness of the ass
+that beareth books. Evil is the likeness of the people who have
+charged the signs of God with falsehood: and God directeth not the
+unjust people.
+
+   (lxii. 5.)
+
+
+LXXXIV.
+
+[188] Among men are those who say, We believe in God and in
+the Last Day: but they are not believers.
+
+They try to deceive God and those who have believed; but they deceive
+not any except themselves, and they know [it] not.
+
+In their hearts is a disease, and God hath increased their disease,
+and for them [is ordained] a painful punishment, because they have
+charged with falsehood _the prophet of God_.
+
+And when it is said unto them, Corrupt not in the earth, they reply,
+‘We are only rectifiers.’
+
+Assuredly they are the corrupters; but they know [it] not.
+
+And when it is said unto them, Believe ye as _other_ men have
+believed, they say, ‘Shall we believe as the fools have believed?’
+Assuredly they are the fools; but they know it not.
+
+And when they meet those who have believed, they say, ‘We believe:’
+but when they retire privately to their devils,[189] they say, ‘We
+_hold_ with you: we only mock _at them_.’
+
+God will mock at them, and keep them in their exceeding wickedness,
+wandering about in perplexity.
+
+These are they who have purchased error in exchange for right
+guidance: but their traffic hath not been profitable; and they have
+not been rightly guided.
+
+Their likeness is as the likeness of those who have kindled a fire _in
+the dark_, and when it hath enlightened what is around them, God
+taketh away their light and leaveth them in darkness, seeing not.
+
+_They are_ deaf, dumb, blind: therefore they will not turn back.
+
+Or _they are_ like _people in_ a storm of rain from heaven, wherein
+are darkness and thunder and lightning: they put their fingers in
+their ears because of the vehement sounds of the thunder, for fear of
+death. And God encompasseth the unbelievers.
+
+The lightning almost snatcheth away their eyes: whenever it shineth on
+them they walk in _the light of_ it, but when darkness cometh on them
+they stand still. And if God pleased He would certainly take away
+their ears and eyes: for God is all-powerful.
+
+   (ii. 7-19.)
+
+
+LXXXV.
+
+O ye who have believed, take not the Jews and Christians as friends.
+They are friends one to another; and whosoever of you taketh them as
+his friends, verily he is _of the number_ of them.
+
+O ye who have believed, take not as friends those who have made your
+religion a laughing-stock and a jest, of those who have received the
+Scripture before you, and the unbelievers: (But fear God if ye be
+believers:)
+
+And _those who_ when ye call to prayer make it a laughing-stock and a
+jest. This _they do_ because they are a people who do not understand.
+
+   (v. 56, 62, 63.)
+
+
+LXXXVI.
+
+†The servants of the Merciful are they that walk upon the
+earth softly; and when the ignorant speak unto them, they reply
+‘Peace!’—
+
+And they that pass the night worshipping their Lord, prostrate and
+standing;—
+
+And that say, ‘O our Lord, turn away from us the torment of Hell:
+verily its torment is endless; verily it is an ill abode and
+resting-place!’—
+
+And those who when they spend are neither lavish nor niggard, but keep
+the mean;—
+
+And those who call on no other gods with God, nor slay whom God hath
+forbidden to be slain, except for a just cause; nor are unchaste;—
+
+And they who bear not witness to a lie, and when they pass by vain
+discourse pass it by with dignity;—
+
+These shall be rewarded with the highest Heaven, for that they
+persevered, and they shall be accosted therein with ‘Welcome and
+Peace,’ to live therein for ever—a fair abode and resting-place!
+
+   (xxv. 64-75.)
+
+
+
+
+_PART THE SECOND._
+
+_PROPHETS, APOSTLES, AND DIVINE BOOKS._[190]
+
+
+SAY YE, We believe in God, and in that which hath been sent down unto
+us (_namely, the Ḳur-án_), and what hath been sent down unto Abraham
+(_the ten books_), and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes,
+_his children_, and what Moses received (_namely, the Pentateuch_),
+and Jesus (_namely, the Gospel_), and what the prophets received from
+their Lord (_namely, books and signs_): we make no separation of any
+of them, _believing in some, and disbelieving in some, like the Jews
+and the Christians_; and we resign ourselves unto Him.
+
+   (ii. 130.)
+
+
+
+
+_ADAM AND EVE._
+
+
+_Remember, O Moḥammad_, when thy Lord said unto the angels, I am about
+to place in the earth a vicegerent _to act for me in the execution of
+my ordinances therein, namely, Adam_,—they said, Wilt Thou place in it
+one who will corrupt in it _by disobediences_, and will shed blood
+(_as did the sons of El-Jánn,[191] who were in it; wherefore, when
+they acted corruptly, God sent to them the angels, who drove them away
+to the islands and the mountains_), when we [on the contrary]
+celebrate the divine perfection, _occupying ourselves_ with Thy
+praise, and extol Thy holiness? _Therefore we are more worthy of the
+vicegerency._—_God_ replied, Verily, I know that which ye know not,
+_as to the affair of appointing Adam vicegerent, and that among his
+posterity will be the obedient and the rebellious, and the just will
+be manifest among them. And He created Adam from the surface of the
+earth, taking a handful of every colour that it comprised, which was
+kneaded with various waters; and He completely formed it, and breathed
+into it the soul: so it became an animated sentient being._[192] And
+He taught Adam the names of all things, _infusing the knowledge of
+them into his heart_. Then He showed them (_namely, the things_) to
+the angels, and said, Declare unto me the names of these _things_, if
+ye say truth _in your assertion that I will not create any more
+knowing than ye, and that ye are more worthy of the vicegerency_. They
+replied, [_We extol_] Thy perfection! We have no knowledge excepting
+what Thou hast taught us; for Thou art the Knowing, the Wise.—_God_
+said, O Adam, tell them their names. And when he had told them their
+names, _God_ said, Did I not say unto you that I know the secrets of
+the heavens and the earth, and know what ye reveal _of your words,
+saying, Wilt thou place in it_, etc., and what ye did conceal _of your
+words, saying, He will not create any more generous towards Him than
+we, nor any more knowing_?
+
+   (ii. 28-31.)
+
+
+We created you; _that is, your father Adam_: then we formed you; _we
+formed him, and you in him_: then We said unto the angels, Prostrate
+yourselves unto Adam, _by way of salutation_; whereupon they
+prostrated themselves, except Iblees, _the father of the jinn, who was
+amid the angels_: he was not of those who prostrated themselves. _God_
+said, What hath hindered thee from prostrating thyself, when I
+commanded thee? He answered, I am better than he: Thou hast created me
+of fire, and Thou hast created him of earth. [God] said, Then descend
+thou from it; _that is, from Paradise; or, as some say, from the
+heavens_; for it is not fit for thee that thou behave thyself proudly
+therein: so go thou forth: verily thou [shalt be] of the contemptible.
+He replied, Grant me respite until the day when they (_that is,
+mankind_) shall be raised from the dead. He said, Thou shalt be of
+those [who are] respited: _and, in another verse_ [in xv. 38, it is
+said], _until the day of the known period; that is, until the period
+of the first blast_ [of the trumpet]. [And the devil] said, Now, as
+Thou hast led me into error, I will surely lay wait for them (_that
+is, for the sons of Adam_) in Thy right way, _the way that leadeth to
+Thee_: then I will surely come upon them, from before them, and from
+behind them, and from their right hands, and from their left, _and
+hinder them from pursuing the way_ (_but, saith Ibn-´Abbás, he cannot
+come upon them above, lest he should intervene between the servant and
+God’s mercy_), and Thou shalt not find the greater number of them
+grateful, _or believing_. [God] said, Go forth from it, despised and
+driven away _from mercy_. Whosoever of them (_that is, of mankind_)
+shall follow thee, I will surely fill hell with you all; _with thee,
+and thy offspring, and with men_.
+
+   (vii. 10-17.)
+
+
+And we said, O Adam, dwell thou and thy wife (_Howwá_ [or Eve], _whom
+God created from a rib of his left side_) in the garden, and eat ye
+therefrom plentifully, wherever ye will; but approach ye not this
+tree, _to eat thereof_; (_and it was wheat, or the grape-vine, or some
+other tree_;) for _if ye do so_, ye will be of _the number of_ the
+offenders. But the devil, _Iblees_, caused them to slip from it, _that
+is, from the garden, by his saying unto them, Shall I show you the way
+to the tree of eternity? And he swore to them by God that he was one
+of the faithful advisers to them: so they ate of it_, and He ejected
+them from that _state of delight_ in which they were. And We said,
+Descend ye[193] _to the earth, ye two with the offspring that ye
+comprise_ [yet unborn], one of you (_that is, of your offspring_) an
+enemy to another; and there shall be for you, in the earth, a place of
+abode, and a provision, _of its vegetable produce_, for a time, _until
+the period of the expiration of your terms of life_. And Adam learned,
+from his Lord, words, _which were these_:—_O Lord, we have acted
+unjustly to our own souls, and if Thou do not forgive us, and be
+merciful unto us, we shall surely be of those who suffer loss_.[194]
+_And he prayed in these words_; and He became propitious towards him,
+_accepting his repentance_; for He is the Very Propitious, the
+Merciful. We said, Descend ye from it (_from the garden_) altogether;
+and if there come unto you from Me a direction (_a book and an
+apostle_), those who follow my direction, _there shall come_ no fear
+on them, nor shall they grieve _in the world to come; for they shall
+enter paradise_: but they who disbelieve and accuse our signs[195] of
+falsehood, these shall be the companions of the fire: they shall
+remain therein for ever.
+
+   (ii. 33-37.)
+
+
+
+
+_ABEL AND CAIN._
+
+
+Recite, _O Moḥammad_, unto them (_that is, to thy people_) the history
+of the two sons of Adam, _namely, Abel and Cain_,[196] with truth.
+When they offered [their] offering _to God_[197] (_Abel’s being a ram,
+and Cain’s being produce of the earth_), and it was accepted from one
+of them (_that is, from Abel; for fire descended from heaven, and
+devoured his offering_), and it was not accepted from the other, _Cain
+was enraged; but he concealed his envy until Adam performed a
+pilgrimage, when_ he said _unto his brother_, I will assuredly slay
+thee. _Abel said, Wherefore? Cain answered, Because of the acceptance
+of thine offering to the exclusion of mine. Abel_ replied, God only
+accepteth from the pious. If thou stretch forth to me thy hand to slay
+me, I will not stretch forth to thee my hand to slay thee; for I fear
+God, the Lord of the worlds. I desire that thou shouldst bear the sin
+[which thou intendest to commit] against me, _by slaying me_, and thy
+sin _which thou hast committed before_, and thou wilt be of the
+companions of the fire.—And that is the recompense of the
+offenders.—But his soul suffered him to slay his brother: so he slew
+him; and he became of [the number of] those who suffer loss. _And he
+knew not what to do with him; for he was the first dead person upon
+the face of the earth of the sons of Adam. So he carried him upon his
+back._ And God sent a raven, which scratched up the earth _with its
+bill and its talons and raised it over a dead raven that was with it
+until it hid it_, to show him how he should hide the corpse of his
+brother. He said, O my disgrace! Am I unable to be like this raven,
+and to hide the corpse of my brother?—And he became of [the number of]
+the repentant. _And he digged_ [a grave] _for him, and hid him_.—On
+account of this _which Cain did_ We commanded the children of Israel
+that he who should slay a soul (not for _the latter’s having slain_ a
+soul or _committed_ wickedness in the earth, _such as infidelity, or
+adultery, or intercepting the way, and the like_) [should be regarded]
+as though he had slain all mankind; and he who saveth it alive, _by
+abstaining from slaying it_, as though he had saved alive all mankind.
+
+   (v. 30-35.)
+
+
+
+
+_NOAH AND THE FLOOD._
+
+
+We formerly sent Noah [Nooḥ] unto his people, _saying_, Verily I am
+unto you a plain admonisher that ye worship not [any] but God. Verily
+I fear for you, _if ye worship any other_, the punishment of an
+afflictive day _in this world and in the world to come_.—But the
+chiefs who disbelieved among his people replied, We see thee not to be
+other than a man, like unto us; and we see not any to have followed
+thee except the meanest of us, _as the weavers and the cobblers_, at
+first thought (_or rashly_), nor do we see you to have any excellence
+above us: nay, we imagine you to be liars _in your claim to the
+apostolic commission_. He said, O my people, tell me, if I have an
+evident proof from my Lord and He hath bestowed on me mercy (_the gift
+of prophecy_) from Himself which is hidden from you, shall we compel
+you to _receive_ it when ye are averse thereto? _We cannot do so._
+And, O my people, I ask not of you any riches for it; _namely, for
+delivering my message_. My reward is not due from any but God; and I
+will not drive away those who have believed _as ye have commanded me_
+[because they are poor people]. Verily they shall meet their Lord _at
+the resurrection, and He will recompense them, and will exact for
+them_ [reparation] _from those who have treated them with injustice,
+and driven them away_. But I see you [to be] a people who are ignorant
+_of the end of your case_. And, O my people, who will defend me
+against God if I drive them away? Will ye not then consider? And I do
+not say unto you, I have the treasures of God; nor [do I say], I know
+the things unseen; nor do I say, Verily I am an angel; nor do I say,
+of those whom your eyes contemn, God will by no means bestow on them
+good: (God best knoweth what is in their minds:) verily I should in
+that case be [one] of the offenders.—They replied, O Noah, thou hast
+disputed with us and multiplied disputes with us: now bring upon us
+that _punishment_ wherewith thou threatenest us, if thou be of those
+that speak truth. He said, Only God will bring it upon you, if He
+please _to hasten it unto you; for it is His affair, not mine_; and ye
+shall not escape _God_: nor will my counsel profit you, if I desire to
+counsel you, if God desire to lead you into error. He is your Lord;
+and unto Him shall ye be brought back.
+
+   (xi. 27-36.)
+
+
+And it was said by revelation unto Noah, Verily there shalt not
+believe of thy people [any] but they who have already believed;
+therefore be not grieved for that which they have done.
+
+   (xi. 38.)
+
+
+_And he uttered an imprecation upon them, saying_, O my Lord, leave
+not upon the earth any one of the unbelievers; for if Thou leave them,
+they will lead Thy servants into error, and will not beget [any] but a
+wicked, ungrateful [offspring]. O my Lord, forgive me and my parents
+(_for they were believers_), and whomsoever entereth my house (_my
+abode, or my place of worship_), being a believer, and the believing
+men, and the believing women, (_to the day of resurrection_), and add
+not to the offenders [aught] save destruction.
+
+   (lxxi. 27-29.)
+
+
+_And God answered his prayer, and said_, Construct the ark in our
+sight and according to our revelation, and speak not unto Me
+concerning those who have offended, _to beg Me not to destroy them_;
+for they [shall be] drowned. And he constructed the ark; and whenever
+a company of his people passed by him, they derided him. He said, If
+ye deride us, we will deride you, like as ye deride, _when we are
+saved and ye are drowned_, and ye shall know on whom shall come a
+punishment which shall render him vile, and whom shall befall a
+lasting punishment. [Thus he was employed] until when Our decree _for
+their destruction_ came to pass, and the _baker’s_ oven overflowed
+_with water_[198] (_for this was a signal unto Noah_), We said, Carry
+into it (_that is, into the ark_) of every pair, _male and female, of
+each of these descriptions_, two (_and it is related that God
+assembled for Noah the wild beasts and the birds and other creatures,
+and he proceeded to put his hands upon each kind, and his right hand
+fell always upon the male, and his left upon the female, and he
+carried them into the ark_), and thy family (excepting him upon whom
+the sentence _of destruction_ hath already been pronounced, _namely,
+Noah’s wife, and his son Canaan: but Shem and Ham and Japheth and
+their three wives he took_), and those who have believed; but there
+believed not with him save a few: _they were six men and their wives:
+and it is said that all who were in the ark were eighty, half of whom
+were men and half women_. And _Noah_ said, Embark ye therein. In the
+name of God [be] its course and its mooring.[199] Verily my Lord is
+very forgiving [and] merciful.—And it moved along with them amid
+waves like mountains; and Noah called unto his son, _Canaan_, who was
+apart _from the ark_, O my child, embark with us, and be not with the
+unbelievers! He replied, I will betake me to a mountain which will
+secure me from the water. [Noah] said, There is nought that will
+secure to-day from the decree of God [any] but him on whom He hath
+mercy. And the waves intervened between them; so he became [one] of
+the drowned. And it was said, O earth, swallow up thy water
+(_whereupon it drank it up, except what had descended from heaven,
+which became rivers and seas_), and, O heaven, cease _from
+raining_;—and the water abated, and the decree was fulfilled, and it
+(_namely, the ark_) rested on El-Joodee (_a mountain of El-Jezeereh,
+near El-Mósil_); and it was said, Perdition to the offending
+people![200]
+
+   (xi. 38-46.)
+
+
+And Noah called upon his Lord, and said, O my Lord, verily my son is
+of my family, _and Thou hast promised me to save them_, and verily Thy
+promise is true, and Thou art the most just of those who exercise
+judgment. _God_ replied, O Noah, verily he is not of thy family _who
+should be saved, or of the people of thy religion_. Verily it
+(_namely, thine asking me to save him_) is not a righteous act; _for
+he was an unbeliever, and there is no safety for the unbelievers_;
+therefore ask not of me that wherein thou hast no knowledge. I
+admonish thee, lest thou become [one] of the ignorant.—_Noah_ said, O
+my Lord, I beg Thee to preserve me from asking Thee that wherein I
+have no knowledge; and if Thou do not forgive me and have mercy upon
+me, I shall be of those who suffer loss.—It was said, O Noah, descend
+_from the ark_,[201] with peace from Us, and blessings, upon thee and
+upon peoples [that shall proceed] from those who are with thee _in the
+ark_ (_that is, their believing posterity_); but peoples [that shall
+proceed] _from those who are with thee_ We will permit to enjoy _the
+provisions of this world_; then a painful punishment shall befall them
+from Us, _in the world to come; they being unbelievers_.
+
+   (xi. 47-50.)
+
+
+
+
+_´AD AND THAMOOD._
+
+
+And _we sent_ unto _the former_ [tribe of] ´Ád[202] their brother
+Hood.[203] He said, O my people, worship God: _assert His unity_. Ye
+have no other deity than Him. Will ye not then fear _Him, and
+believe_?—The chiefs who disbelieved among his people answered, Verily
+we see thee to be in a foolish way, and verily we esteem thee one of
+the liars _with respect to the apostolic commission_. He replied, O my
+people, there is no folly in me; but I am an apostle from the Lord of
+the worlds. I bring unto you the messages of my Lord, and I am unto
+you a counsellor, intrusted _with the apostolic office_. Do ye wonder
+that an admonition hath come unto you from your Lord by _the tongue
+of_ a man from among you, that he may warn you? And remember how He
+hath appointed you vicegerents _in the earth_ after the people of
+Noah, and increased you in tallness of stature. (_For the tall among
+them was a hundred cubits, and the short among them sixty._) Remember,
+then, the benefits of God, that ye may prosper. They said, Art thou
+come unto us that we may worship God alone, and relinquish what our
+fathers worshipped? Then bring upon us that _punishment_ with which
+thou threatenest us, if thou be of those who speak truth.—He replied,
+Punishment and indignation from your Lord have become necessary for
+you. Do ye dispute with me concerning names which ye and your fathers
+have given _to idols which ye worship_, concerning which (_that is,
+the worship of which_) God hath not set down any convincing proof?
+Then await ye _the punishment_. I am with you, of those who await
+_that, for your accusing me of falsehood. And the unprofitable wind
+was sent upon them._ But We delivered him (_namely, Hood_) and them
+who were with him (_of the believers_) by Our mercy; and We cut off
+the uppermost part of those who charged Our signs with falsehood and
+who were not believers.
+
+   (vii. 63-70.)
+
+
+And _We sent_ unto _the tribe of_ Thamood[204] their brother Ṣáliḥ.
+He said, O my people, worship God. Ye have no other deity than Him. A
+_miraculous_ proof _of my veracity_ hath come unto you from your Lord,
+this she-camel of God being a sign unto you. [He had caused her, at
+their demand, to come forth from the heart of a rock.] Therefore let
+her feed in God’s earth, and do her no harm, lest a painful punishment
+seize you. And remember how He hath appointed you vicegerents _in the
+earth_ after [the tribe of] ´Ád, and given you a habitation in the
+earth: ye make yourselves, on its plains, pavilions _wherein ye dwell
+in summer_, and cut the mountains into houses _wherein ye dwell in
+winter_. Remember then the benefits of God, and do not evil in the
+earth, acting corruptly.—The chiefs who were elated with pride, among
+his people, said unto those who were esteemed weak, _namely_, to those
+who had believed among them, Do ye know that Ṣáliḥ hath been sent
+_unto you_ from his Lord? They answered, _Yea_: verily we believe in
+that wherewith he hath been sent. Those who were elated with pride
+replied, Verily we disbelieve in that wherein ye have believed.—_And
+the she-camel had a day to water; and they had a day; and they became
+weary of this._ And they hamstrung the she-camel (_Ḳudár_ [the son of
+Sálif] _doing so by their order and slaying her with the sword_);[205]
+and they impiously transgressed the command of their Lord,[206] and
+said, O Ṣáliḥ, bring upon us that _punishment_ with which thou
+threatenest us _for killing her_, if thou be [one] of the apostles.
+And the violent convulsion (_a great earthquake, and a cry from
+heaven_[207]) assailed them, and in the morning they were in their
+dwellings prostrate _and dead_. So he turned away from them, and said,
+O my people, I have brought unto you the message of my Lord and given
+you faithful counsel; but ye loved not faithful counsellors.
+
+   (vii. 71-77.)
+
+
+
+
+_DHU-L-ḲARNEYN._
+
+
+They (_namely, the Jews_) will ask thee concerning Dhu-l-Ḳarneyn.[208]
+(_His name was El-Iskender, and he was not a prophet._) Answer, I will
+recite unto you an account of him. We gave him ability in the earth,
+_by facilitating his journeying therein_, and gave him a way to
+_attain_ everything _that he required_. And he followed a way _towards
+a place where the sun setteth_, until, when he came to the place where
+the sun setteth, he found that it set in a spring of black mud, _as it
+appeared to the eye; but really that spring was greater than the
+world_; and he found near it a people _who were unbelievers_.[209] We
+said, _by inspiration_, O Dhu-l-Ḳarneyn, either punish _the people by
+slaughter_, or proceed against them gently, _taking them captive_. He
+said, As to him who offendeth _by polytheism_, we will punish him _by
+slaughter_: then he shall be taken back to his Lord, and He will
+punish him with a severe punishment, _in the fire of hell_. But as
+to him who believeth, and doeth that which is right, he shall have as
+a reward paradise, and We will say unto him, in Our command, _that
+which will be_ easy _unto him_.—Then he followed a way _towards the
+place where the sun riseth_, until, when he came to the place where
+the sun riseth, he found that it rose upon a people (_namely, the
+Zenj_) unto whom We had not given anything wherewith to shelter
+themselves therefrom, _neither clothing nor roof; for their land bore
+no building; but they had subterranean dwellings, into which they
+retired at sunrise, and they came forth when the sun was high_. Thus
+_was the case_; and We comprehended with Our knowledge what were with
+him (_namely, Dhu-l-Ḳarneyn_), _of weapons and forces and other
+things_.—Then he followed a way until, when he came between the two
+barriers (_or mountains, at the confines of the country of the Turks,
+between which is the barrier of El-Iskender, as will be related
+presently_), he found before them a people who could scarce understand
+speech. They said, O Dhu-l-Ḳarneyn, verily Yájooj and Májooj [Gog and
+Magog[210]] are corrupting in the earth, _by plunder and tyranny, when
+they came forth unto us_. Shall we therefore pay thee tribute, on the
+condition that thou make a barrier between us and them?—He answered,
+The ability which my Lord hath given me, _by wealth and other things_,
+is better _than your tribute, which I need not. I will make the
+barrier for you gratuitously_: but assist me strenuously _by doing
+that which I desire_: I will make between you and them a strong
+barrier. Bring me pieces of iron _of the size of the blocks of stone
+used in building.—And he built with them, and placed amid them
+firewood and charcoal_, until, when it [the mass] filled up the space
+between the upper parts of the two mountains, _and he had put the
+bellows and fire around that mass_, he said, Blow ye [with the
+bellows]. _So they blew_ until, when he had made it (_that is, the
+iron_) _like_ fire, he said, Bring me molten brass, that I may pour
+upon it. _And he poured the molten brass upon the heated iron, so that
+it entered between its pieces and the whole became one mass._ And they
+(_namely, Yájooj and Májooj_) were not able to ascend to its top _by
+reason of its height and smoothness_; nor were they able to perforate
+it _by reason of its hardness and thickness_. _Dhu-l-Ḳarneyn_ said,
+This (_namely, the barrier, or the gift of the ability to construct
+it_) is a mercy from my Lord: but when the promise of my Lord, _as to
+the eruption of Yájooj and Májooj shortly before the resurrection_,
+shall come _to be fulfilled_, He will reduce it (_namely, the
+barrier_) to dust; and the promise of my Lord concerning _their
+eruption and other events_ is true. And We will suffer some of them,
+on that day (_the day of their eruption_), to pour tumultuously among
+others: and the trumpet shall be blown _for the resurrection_, and We
+will gather them (_namely, all creatures_) together in a body, _in one
+place_. And We will set hell, on that day, _near_ before the
+unbelievers, whose eyes have been veiled from my admonition (_the
+Ḳur-án_), _and who, being blind, have not been directed by it_, and
+who could not hear _what the prophet recited unto them, by reason of
+their hatred of him; wherefore they believed not in him_.
+
+   (xviii. 82-101.)
+
+
+
+
+_ABRAHAM, ISHMAEL, ISAAC._
+
+
+_Remember_ when Abraham [Ibráheem] said to his father A´zar (_this was
+the surname of Terah_), Dost thou take images as deities?[211] Verily
+I see thee and thy people to be in a manifest error.—(And thus, _as We
+showed him the error of his father and his people_, did We show
+Abraham the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and [We did so] that
+he might be of [the number of] those who firmly believe.) And when the
+night overshadowed him, he saw a star (_it is said that it was
+Venus_), [and] he said _unto his people, who were astrologers_, This
+is my Lord, _according to your assertion_.—But when it set, he said, I
+like not those that set, _to take them as Lords, since it is not meet
+for a Lord to experience alteration and change of place, as they are
+of the nature of accidents_. _Yet this had no effect upon them._ And
+when he saw the moon rising, he said _unto them_, This is my Lord.—But
+when it set, he said, Verily if my Lord direct me not (_if He confirm
+me not in the right way_), I shall assuredly be of the erring
+people.—_This was a hint to his people that they were in error; but it
+had no effect upon them._ And when he saw the sun rising, he said,
+This is my Lord. This is greater _than the star and the moon_.—But
+when it set, _and the proof had been rendered more strong to them, yet
+they desisted not_, he said, O my people, verily I am clear of the
+[things] which ye associate _with God; namely, the images and the
+heavenly bodies_. _So they said unto him, What dost thou worship? He
+answered_, Verily I direct my face unto Him who hath created the
+heavens and the earth, following the right religion, and I am not of
+the polytheists.—And his people argued with him; [but] he said, Do ye
+argue with me respecting God, when He hath directed me, and I fear not
+what ye associate with Him, unless my Lord will _that_ aught
+_displeasing should befall me_? My Lord comprehendeth everything by
+_His_ knowledge. Will ye not therefore consider? And wherefore should
+I fear what ye have associated _with God_, when ye fear not for your
+having associated with God that of which He hath not sent down unto
+you a proof? Then which of the two parties is the more worthy of
+safety? _Are we, or you?_ If ye know _who is the more worthy of it,
+follow him_.—_God saith_, They who have believed, and not mixed their
+belief with injustice (_that is, polytheism_), for these shall be
+safety _from punishment_, and they are rightly directed.
+
+   (vi. 74-82.)
+
+
+Relate _unto them_, in the book (_that is, the Ḳur-án_), _the history
+of_ Abraham. Verily he was a person of great veracity, a prophet. When
+he said unto his father _A´zar, who worshipped idols_, O my father,
+wherefore dost thou worship that which heareth not, nor seeth, nor
+averteth from thee aught, _whether of advantage or of injury_? O my
+father, verily [a degree] of knowledge hath come unto me, that hath
+not come unto thee: therefore follow me: I will direct thee into a
+right way. O my father, serve not the devil, _by obeying him in
+serving idols_; for the devil is very rebellious unto the
+Compassionate. O my father, verily I fear that a punishment will
+betide thee from the Compassionate, _if thou repent not_, and that
+thou wilt be unto the devil an aider, _and a companion in
+hell-fire_.—He replied, Art thou a rejector of my Gods, O Abraham,
+_and dost thou revile them_? If thou abstain not, I will assuredly
+assail thee _with stones or with ill words; therefore beware of me_,
+and leave me for a long time.—_Abraham_ said, Peace _from me_ be on
+thee! I will ask pardon for thee of my Lord; for He is gracious unto
+me: and I will separate myself from you and from what ye invoke
+instead of God; and I will call upon my Lord: perhaps I shall not be
+unsuccessful in calling upon my Lord, _as ye are in calling upon
+idols_.—And when he had separated himself from them, and from what
+they worshipped instead of God, _by going to the Holy Land_, We gave
+him _two sons, that he might cheer himself thereby, namely_, Isaac and
+Jacob; and each [of them] We made a prophet; and We bestowed upon them
+(_namely, the three_), of our mercy, _wealth and children_; and We
+caused them to receive high commendation.
+
+   (xix. 42-51.)
+
+
+We gave unto Abraham his direction formerly, _before he had attained
+to manhood_; and We knew him _to be worthy of it_. When he said unto
+his father and his people, What are these images, to _the worship of_
+which ye are devoted?—they answered, We found our fathers worshipping
+them, _and we have followed their example_. He said _unto them_,
+Verily ye and your fathers have been in a manifest error. They said,
+Hast thou come unto us with truth _in saying this_, or art thou of
+those who jest? He answered, Nay, your Lord (_the being who deserveth
+to be worshipped_) is the Lord of the heavens and the earth, who
+created them, _not after the similitude of anything pre-existing_; and
+I am of those who bear witness thereof. And, by God, I will assuredly
+devise a plot against your idols after ye shall have retired, turning
+your backs.—So, _after they had gone to their place of assembly, on a
+day when they held a festival_, he brake them in pieces _with an axe_,
+except the chief of them, _upon whose neck he hung the axe_; that they
+might return unto it (_namely, the chief_) _and see what he had done
+with the others_. They said, _after they had returned and seen what he
+had done_, Who hath done this unto our gods? Verily he is of the
+unjust.—_And some of them_ said, We heard a young man mention them
+_reproachfully_: he is called Abraham. They said, Then bring him
+before the eyes of the people, that they may bear witness _against him
+of his having done it_. They said _unto him, when he had been
+brought_, Hast thou done this unto our gods, O Abraham? He answered,
+Nay, this their chief did it: and ask ye them, if they [can] speak.
+And they returned unto themselves, _upon reflection_, and said _unto
+themselves_, Verily ye are the unjust, _in worshipping that which
+speaketh not_. Then they reverted to their obstinacy, _and said_,
+Verily thou knowest that these speak not: _then wherefore dost thou
+order us to ask them?_ He said, Do ye then worship, instead of God,
+that which doth not profit you at all, nor injure you _if ye worship
+it not_? Fy on you, and on that which ye worship instead of God! Do ye
+not then understand?—They said, Burn ye him, and avenge your gods, if
+ye will do _so_. _So they collected abundance of firewood for him, and
+set fire to it; and they bound Abraham, and put him into an engine,
+and cast him into the fire. But, saith God_, We said, O fire, be
+thou cold, and a security unto Abraham! _So nought of him was burned
+save his bonds: the heat of the fire ceased, but its light remained;
+and by God’s saying, Security,—Abraham was saved from dying, by reason
+of its cold._ And they intended against him a plot; but he caused them
+to be the sufferers.[212] And We delivered him and Lot, _the son of_
+_his brother Haran, from El-´Eráḳ_, [bringing them] unto the land
+which we blessed for the peoples, _by the abundance of its rivers and
+trees, namely, Syria. Abraham took up his abode in Palestine, and Lot
+in El-Mu-tekifeh, between which is a day’s journey._ And _when Abraham
+had asked a son_, We gave unto him Isaac, and Jacob as an additional
+gift, _beyond what he had asked, being a son’s son_; and all of them
+We made righteous persons _and prophets_. And We made them models of
+religion who directed _men_ by Our command _unto Our religion_; and We
+commanded them by inspiration to do good works and to perform prayer
+and to give the appointed alms; and they served Us. And unto Lot We
+gave judgment and knowledge; and We delivered him from the city which
+committed filthy actions; for they were a people of evil, shameful
+doers; and We admitted him into our mercy; for he was [one] of the
+righteous.
+
+   (xxi. 52-75.)
+
+
+Hast thou not considered him who disputed with Abraham concerning his
+Lord, because God had given him the kingdom? _And he was Nimrod._ When
+Abraham said, (_upon his saying unto him, Who is thy Lord, unto whom
+thou invitest us?_), My Lord is He who giveth life and causeth to
+die,—he replied, I give life and cause to die.—_And he summoned two
+men, and slew one of them, and left the other. So when he saw that he
+understood not_, Abraham said, And verily God bringeth the sun from
+the east: now do thou bring it from the west.—And he who disbelieved
+was confounded; and God directeth not the offending people.
+
+   (ii. 260.)
+
+
+And Our messengers came formerly unto Abraham with good tidings _of
+Isaac and Jacob, who should be after him_. They said, Peace. He
+replied, _Peace be on you_. And he tarried not, but brought a roasted
+calf. And when he saw that their hands touched it not, he disliked
+them and conceived a fear of them. They said, Fear not: for we are
+sent unto the people of Lot, _that we may destroy them_. And his wife
+_Sarah_ was standing _serving them_, and she laughed, _rejoicing at
+the tidings of their destruction_. And we gave her good tidings of
+Isaac [Isḥáḳ]; and after Isaac, Jacob [Yaạḳoob]. She said, Alas! shall
+I bear a child when I am an old woman, _of nine and ninety years_, and
+when this my husband is an old man, _of a hundred or a hundred and
+twenty years_? Verily this [would be] a wonderful thing.—They said,
+Dost thou wonder at the command of God? The mercy of God and His
+blessings be on you, O people of the house (_of Abraham_)! for He is
+praiseworthy, glorious.—And when the terror had departed from Abraham,
+and the good tidings had come unto him, he disputed with Us (_that is,
+with Our messengers_) respecting the people of Lot; for Abraham was
+gentle, compassionate, repentant. _And he said unto them, Will ye
+destroy a city wherein are three hundred believers? They answered, No.
+He said, And will ye destroy a city wherein are two hundred believers?
+They answered, No. He said, And will ye destroy a city wherein are
+forty believers? They answered, No. He said, And will ye destroy a
+city wherein are fourteen believers? They answered, No. He said, And
+tell me, if there be in it one believer? They answered, No. He said,
+Verily in it is Lot. They replied, We know best who is in it. And when
+their dispute had become tedious, they said_, O Abraham, abstain from
+this _disputation_; for the command of thy Lord hath come _for their
+destruction_, and a punishment not [to be] averted is coming upon
+them.
+
+   (xi. 72-78.)
+
+
+And when Our decree for _the destruction of the people of Lot_ came
+[to be executed], We turned them (_that is, their cities_)
+upside-down; _for Gabriel raised them to heaven, and let them fall
+upside-down to the earth_;[213] and We rained upon them stones of
+baked clay, sent one after another, marked with thy Lord, _each with
+the name of him upon whom it should be cast_: and they [are] not far
+distant from the offenders; _that is, the stones are not, or the
+cities of the people of Lot were not, far distant from the people of
+Mekkeh_.
+
+   (xi. 84.)
+
+
+And [Abraham] said [after his escape from Nimrod], Verily I am going
+unto my Lord, who will direct me _unto the place whither He hath
+commanded me to go, namely, Syria. And when he had arrived at the Holy
+Land, he said_, O my Lord, give me _a son_ [who shall be one] of the
+righteous. Whereupon We gave him the glad tidings of a mild youth. And
+when he had attained to the age when he could work with him (_as some
+say, seven years; and some, thirteen_), he said, O my child, verily I
+have seen in a dream that I should sacrifice thee (_and the dreams of
+prophets are true; and their actions, by the command of God_);
+therefore consider what thou seest advisable _for me to do_. He
+replied, O my father, do what thou art commanded: thou shalt find me,
+if God please, [of the number] of the patient. And when they had
+resigned themselves, and he had laid him down on his temple, _in_ [the
+valley of] _Mind, and had drawn the knife across his throat_ (_but it
+produced no effect, by reason of an obstacle interposed by the divine
+power_), We called unto him, O Abraham, thou hast verified the vision.
+Verily thus do We reward the well-doers. Verily this was the manifest
+trial. And We ransomed him _whom he had been commanded to sacrifice_
+(_and he was Ishmȧel_ [Ismá´eel] _or Isaac; for there are two
+opinions_)[214] with an excellent victim, _a ram from Paradise, the
+same that Abel had offered: Gabriel_ (_on whom be peace!_) _brought
+it, and the lord Abraham sacrificed it, saying, God is most great!_
+And We left _this salutation_ [to be bestowed] on him by the latter
+generations, Peace [be] on Abraham! Thus do We reward the well-doers:
+for he was of our believing servants.
+
+   (xxxvii. 97-111.)
+
+
+_Remember_ when Abraham said, O my Lord, show me how Thou will raise
+to life the dead.[215]—He said, Hast thou not believed? He answered,
+Yea: but _I have asked Thee_ that my heart may be at ease. He replied,
+Then take four birds and draw them towards thee, _and cut them in
+pieces and mingle together their flesh and their feathers_; then place
+upon each mountain _of thy land_ a portion of them, then call them
+_unto thee_: they shall come unto thee quickly: and know thou that God
+is mighty [and] wise.—_And he took a peacock and a vulture and a raven
+and a cock, and did with them as hath been described, and kept their
+heads with him, and called them; whereupon the portions flew about,
+one to another, until they became complete: then they came to their
+heads._
+
+   (ii. 262.)
+
+
+_Remember_ when his Lord had tried Abraham by [certain] words,
+_commands and prohibitions_, and he fulfilled them, _God_ said _unto
+him_, I constitute thee a model of religion unto men.[216] He replied,
+And of my offspring _constitute models of religion_. [God] said, My
+covenant doth not apply to the offenders, _the unbelievers among
+them_.—And when We appointed the house (_that is, the Kaạbeh_) to be a
+place for the resort of men, and a place of security (_a man would
+meet the slayer of his father there and he would not provoke him_ [to
+revenge],) and [said], Take, _O men_, the station of Abraham (_the
+stone upon which he stood at the time of building the House_) as a
+place of prayer, _that ye may perform behind it the prayers of the two
+rek´ahs_[217] [which are ordained to be performed after the ceremony]
+_of the circuiting_ [of the Kaạbeh].—And We commanded Abraham and
+Ishmael, [saying], Purify my House (_rid it of the idols_) for those
+who shall compass [it], and those who shall abide _there_, and those
+who shall bow down and prostrate themselves.—And when Abraham said, O
+my Lord, make this _place_ a secure territory (_and God hath answered
+his prayer, and made it a sacred place, wherein the blood of man is
+not shed, nor is any one oppressed in it, nor is its game hunted_ [or
+shot], _nor are its plants cut or pulled up_), and supply its
+inhabitants with fruits _which hath been done by the transporting of
+Eṭ-Ṭáïf from Syria thither, when it_ [that is, the territory of
+Mekkeh] _was desert, without sown land or water_,[218] such of them as
+shall believe in God and the last day.—_He mentioned them peculiarly
+in the prayer agreeably with the saying of God, My covenant doth not
+apply to the offenders._—_God_ replied, And _I will supply_ him who
+disbelieveth: I will make him to enjoy _a supply of food in this
+world_, a little _while_: then I will force him, _in the world to
+come_, to the punishment of the fire; and evil shall be the transit.
+
+   (ii. 118-120.)
+
+
+And _remember_ when Abraham was raising the foundations of the
+House[219] (_that is, building it_), together with Ishmael, _and they
+said_, O our Lord, accept of us _our building_; for Thou art the
+Hearer _of what is said_, the Knower _of what is done_. O our Lord,
+also make us resigned[220] unto Thee, and _make_ from among our
+offspring a people resigned unto Thee, and show us our rites (_the
+ordinances of our worship, or our pilgrimage_), and be propitious
+towards us; for Thou art the Very Propitious, the Merciful. (_They
+begged Him to be propitious to them, notwithstanding their honesty,
+from a motive of humility, and by way of instruction to their
+offspring._) O our Lord, also send unto them (_that is, the people of
+the House_) an apostle from among them (_and God hath answered their
+prayer by sending Moḥammad_), who shall recite unto them Thy signs
+(the Ḳur-án), and shall teach them the book (_the Ḳur-án_), and the
+knowledge _that it containeth_, and shall purify them _from
+polytheism_; for Thou art the Mighty, the Wise.—And who will be averse
+from the religion of Abraham but he who maketh his soul foolish, _who
+is ignorant that it is God’s creation, and that the worship of Him is
+incumbent on it; or who lightly esteemeth it and applieth it to vile
+purposes_; when We have chosen him in this world _as an apostle and a
+friend_, and he shall be in the world to come one of the righteous
+_for whom are high ranks?—And remember_ when his lord said unto
+him, Resign thyself:—he replied, I resign myself unto the Lord of the
+worlds.—And Abraham commanded his children to follow it (_namely, the
+religion_); and Jacob,_ his children; saying_, O my children, verily
+God hath chosen for you the religion _of El-Islám_;[221] therefore die
+not without your being Muslims.—_It was a prohibition from abandoning
+El-Islám and a command to persevere therein unto death._
+
+   (ii. 121-126.)
+
+
+_When the Jews said, Abraham was a Jew, and we are of his
+religion,—and the Christians said the like_, [the following] _was
+revealed_:—O people of the Scripture, wherefore do ye argue respecting
+Abraham, _asserting that he was of your religion_, when the Pentateuch
+and the Gospel were not sent down but after him _a long time_? Do ye
+not then understand the _falsity of your saying_? So ye, O people,
+have argued respecting that of which ye have knowledge, _concerning
+Moses and Jesus, and have asserted that ye are of their religion_:
+then wherefore do ye argue respecting that of which ye have no
+knowledge, _concerning Abraham_? But God knoweth _his case_, and ye
+know _it_ not. Abraham was not a Jew nor a Christian: but he was
+orthodox, a Muslim [or one resigned], _a unitarian_, and he was not of
+the polytheists.
+
+   (iii. 58-60.)
+
+
+
+
+_JACOB, JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHREN._
+
+
+_Remember_, when Joseph [Yoosuf] said unto his father, O my father,
+verily I saw _in sleep_ eleven stars and the sun and the moon: I saw
+them making obeisance unto me. He replied, O my child, relate not thy
+vision to thy brethren, lest they contrive a plot against thee,
+_knowing its interpretation to be that they are the stars and that the
+sun is thy mother and the moon thy father_; for the devil is unto man
+a manifest enemy. And thus, _as thou sawest_, thy Lord will choose
+thee, and teach thee the interpretation of events, _or dreams_, and
+will accomplish his favour upon thee _by the gift of prophecy_, and
+upon the family of Jacob, as He accomplished it upon thy fathers
+before, Abraham and Isaac; for thy Lord is knowing [and] wise.—Verily
+in _the history of_ Joseph and his brethren are signs to the
+inquirers.—When they (_the brethren of Joseph_) said, _one to
+another_, Verily Joseph and his brother _Benjamin_ are dearer unto our
+father than we, and we are a number of men; verily our father is in a
+manifest error; slay ye Joseph, or drive him away into a _distant_
+land; so the face of your father shall be directed alone unto you,
+_regarding no other_, and ye shall be after it a just people:—a
+speaker among them, _namely, Judah_, said, Slay not Joseph, but throw
+him to the bottom of the well; then some of the travellers may light
+upon him, if ye do _this_. _And they were satisfied therewith_. They
+said, O our father, wherefore dost thou not intrust us with Joseph,
+when verily we are faithful unto him? Send him with us tomorrow _into
+the plain_, that he may divert himself and sport; and we will surely
+take care of him.—He replied, Verily your taking him away will grieve
+me, and I fear lest the wolf devour him while ye are heedless of him.
+They said, Surely if the wolf devour him, when we are a number of men,
+we shall in that case be indeed weak. _So he sent him with them._ And
+when they went away with him, and agreed to put him at the bottom of
+the well, _they did so_.[222] _They pulled off his shirt, after they
+had beaten him and had treated him with contempt and had desired to
+slay him; and they let him down; and when he had arrived half-way down
+the well they let him fall, that he might die; and he fell into the
+water. He then betook himself to a mass of rock; and they called to
+him; so he answered them, imagining that they would have mercy upon
+him. They however desired to crush him with a piece of rock; but Judah
+prevented them._ And We said unto him by revelation, _while he was in
+the well (and he was seventeen years of age, or less), to quiet his
+heart_, Thou shalt assuredly declare unto them this their action, and
+they shall not know _thee at the time_.[223] And they came to their
+father at nightfall weeping. They said, O our father, we went to run
+races,[224] and left Joseph with our clothes, and the wolf devoured
+him; and thou wilt not believe us, though we speak truth. And they
+brought false blood upon his shirt. _Jacob_ said _unto them_, Nay,
+your minds have made a thing seem pleasant unto you, _and ye have done
+it_;[225] but patience is seemly, and God’s assistance is implored
+with respect to that which ye relate.
+
+And travellers came _on their way from Midian (Medyen) to Egypt, and
+alighted near the well_;[226] and they sent their drawer of
+water,[227] and he let down his bucket _into the well: so Joseph
+caught hold upon it, and the man drew him forth; and when he saw him_,
+he said, O good news! This is a young man!—_And his brethren thereupon
+knew his case; wherefore they came unto him_, and they[228] concealed
+his case, _making him_ as a piece of merchandise; _for they said, He
+is our slave who hath absconded. And Joseph was silent, fearing lest
+they should slay him._ And God knew that which they did. And they sold
+him for a mean price, [for] some dirhems counted down, _twenty, or
+two-and-twenty_; and they were indifferent to him. _The travellers
+then brought him to Egypt, and he who had bought him sold him for
+twenty deenárs and a pair of shoes and two garments._ And the Egyptian
+who bought him, _namely, Ḳiṭfeer_,[229] said unto his wife _Zeleekha_,
+Treat him hospitably; peradventure he may be advantageous to us, or
+we may adopt him as a son. _For he was childless._ And thus We
+prepared an establishment for Joseph in the land _of Egypt_, to teach
+him the interpretation of events, _or dreams_; for God is well able to
+effect His purpose; but the greater number of men, _namely, the
+unbelievers_, know not _this_. And when he had attained his age of
+strength (_thirty years, or three-and-thirty_), We bestowed on him
+wisdom and knowledge _in matters of religion, before he was sent as a
+prophet_; for thus do We recompense the well-doers. (xii. 4-22.—_Then
+follows an account of his temptation by his mistress, Zeleekha._)
+
+Then it seemed good unto them,[230] after they had seen the signs of
+_his innocence, to imprison him_. They will assuredly imprison him for
+a time, _until the talk of the people respecting him cease_. _So they
+imprisoned him._ And there entered with him into the prison two young
+men, _servants of the king, one of whom was his cup-bearer and the
+other was his victualler_. _And they found that he interpreted dreams;
+wherefore_ one of them, _namely, the cup-bearer_, said, I dreamed that
+I was pressing grapes: and the other said, I dreamed that I was
+carrying upon my head some bread, whereof the birds did eat: acquaint
+us with the interpretation thereof; for we see thee to be [one] of the
+beneficent.—He replied, There shall not come unto you any food
+wherewith ye shall be fed _in a dream_, but I will acquaint you with
+the interpretation thereof _when ye are awake_, before _the
+interpretation of_ it come unto you. This is _a part_ of that which my
+Lord hath taught me. Verily I have abandoned the religion of a people
+who believe not in God and who disbelieve in the world to come; and I
+follow the religion of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. It is
+not _fit_ for us to associate anything with God. This _knowledge of
+the unity_ [hath been given us] of the bounty of God towards us and
+towards mankind; but the greater number of men are not thankful. O ye
+two companions (_or inmates_) of the prison, are sundry lords better,
+or is God, the One, the Almighty? Ye worship not, beside Him, [aught]
+save names which ye and your fathers have given _to idols_, concerning
+which God hath not sent down any convincing proof. Judgment belongeth
+not [unto any] save unto God _alone_. He hath commanded that ye
+worship not [any] but Him. This is the right religion; but the greater
+number of men know not. O ye two companions of the prison, as to one
+of you, _namely, the cup-bearer_, he will serve wine unto his lord _as
+formerly_; and as to the other, he will be crucified, and the birds
+will eat from off his head.—_Upon this they said, We dreamed not
+aught. He replied_, The thing is decreed concerning which ye [did]
+ask a determination, _whether ye have spoken truth or have lied_. And
+he said unto him whom he judged to be the person who should escape of
+them two, _namely the cup-bearer_, Mention me unto thy Lord, _and say
+unto him, In the prison is a young man imprisoned unjustly.—And he
+went forth._ But the devil caused him to forget to mention _Joseph_
+unto his lord:[231] so he remained in the prison some years: _it is
+said, seven; and it is said, twelve._
+
+And the king of _Egypt,[232] Er-Reiyán the son of El-Weleed_ said,
+Verily I saw [in a dream] seven fat kine which seven lean _kine_
+devoured, and seven green ears of corn and _seven_ other _ears_ dried
+up. O ye nobles, explain unto me my dream, if ye interpret a
+dream.—They replied, _These are_ confused dreams, and we know not the
+interpretation of dreams. And he who had escaped, of the two _young
+men, namely the cup-bearer_, said (for he remembered after a time _the
+condition of Joseph_), I will acquaint you with the interpretation
+thereof; wherefore send me. _So they sent him; and he came unto
+Joseph, and said_, O Joseph, O thou of great veracity, give us an
+explanation respecting seven fat kine which seven lean [kine]
+devoured, and seven green ears of corn and other [seven] dried up,
+that I may return unto the men (_the king and his companions_), that
+they may know _the interpretation thereof_. He replied, Ye shall sow
+seven years as usual: (_this is the interpretation of the seven fat
+kine_:) and what ye reap do ye leave in its ear, _lest it spoil_;
+except a little, whereof ye shall eat. Then there shall come, after
+that, seven grievous [years]: (_this is the interpretation of the
+seven lean kine_:) they shall consume what ye shall have provided for
+them, _of the grain sown in the seven years of plenty_, except a
+little which ye shall have kept. Then there shall come, after that, a
+year wherein men shall be aided _with rain_, and wherein they shall
+press _grapes and other fruits_.—And the king said, _when the
+messenger came unto him and acquainted him with the interpretation of
+the dream_, Bring unto me him _who hath interpreted it_.
+
+   (xii. 35-50.)
+
+
+And when he had spoken unto him,[233] he said _unto him_, Thou art
+this day firmly established with us, and intrusted _with our affairs_.
+_What then seest thou fit for us to do?—He answered, Collect
+provision, and sow abundant seed in these plentiful years, and
+store up the grain in its ear: then the people will come unto thee
+that they may obtain provision from thee. The king said, And who
+will act for me in this affair? Joseph_ said, Set me over the
+granaries of the land; for I am careful [and] knowing.—Thus did We
+prepare an establishment for Joseph in the land, that he might take
+for himself a dwelling therein wherever he pleased.—_And it is related
+that the king crowned him, and put a ring on his finger, and instated
+him in the place of Ḳiṭfeer, whom he dismissed from his office; after
+which, Ḳiṭfeer died, and thereupon the king married him to his wife
+Zeleekha, and she bore him two sons._[234] We bestow Our mercy on whom
+We please, and We cause not the reward of the well-doers to perish:
+and certainly the reward of the world to come is better for those who
+have believed and have feared.
+
+_And the years of scarcity began, and afflicted the land of Canaan and
+Syria_, and the brethren of Joseph came, _except Benjamin, to procure
+provision, having heard that the governor of Egypt gave food for its
+price_.[235] And they went in unto him, and he knew them; but they
+knew him not; _and they spake unto him in the Hebrew language;
+whereupon he said, as one who distrusted them, What hath brought you
+to my country? So they answered, For corn. But he said, Perhaps ye are
+spies. They replied, God preserve us_ [_from being spies_]! _He said,
+Then whence are ye? They answered, From the land of Canaan, and our
+father is Jacob, the prophet of God. He said, And hath he sons beside
+you? They answered, Yea: we were twelve; but the youngest of us went
+away, and perished in the desert, and he was the dearest of us unto
+him; and his uterine brother remained, and he retained him that he
+might console himself thereby for the loss of the other._[236] _And
+Joseph gave orders to lodge them, and to treat them generously._ And
+when he had furnished them with their provision, _and given them their
+full measure_, he said, Bring me your brother from your father,
+_namely, Benjamin, that I may know your veracity in that ye have
+said_. Do ye not see that I give full measure, and that I am the most
+hospitable of the receivers of guests? But if ye bring him not, there
+shall be no measuring _of corn_ for you from me, nor shall ye approach
+me.—They replied, We will solicit his father for him, and we will
+surely perform _that_. And he said unto his young men, Put their
+money,[237] _which they brought as the price of the corn_, in their
+sacks, that they may know it when they have returned to their family:
+peradventure they will return _to us; for they will not deem it lawful
+to keep it_.—And when they returned to their father, they said, O our
+father, the measuring [of corn] is denied us _if thou send not our
+brother unto him_; therefore send with us our brother, that we may
+obtain measure; and we will surely take care of him. He said, Shall I
+intrust you with him otherwise than as I intrusted you with his
+brother _Joseph_ before? But God is the best guardian, and He is the
+most merciful of those who show mercy.—And when they opened their
+goods, they found their money had been returned unto them. They said,
+O our father, what desire we _of the, generosity of the king greater
+than this?_ This our money hath been returned unto us; and we will
+provide corn for our family, and will take care of our brother, and
+shall receive a camel-load more, _for our brother_. This is a quantity
+easy _unto the king, by reason of his munificence_.—He said, I will by
+no means send him with you until ye give me a solemn promise by God
+that ye will assuredly bring him back unto me unless _an inevitable
+and insuperable impediment_ encompass you. _And they complied with
+this his desire._ And when they had given him their solemn promise, he
+said, God is witness of what we say. _And he sent him with them_; and
+he said, O my sons, enter not _the city of Miṣr_ by one gate; but
+enter by different gates; _lest the_ [evil] _eye fall upon you_.[238]
+But I shall not avert from you, _by my saying this_, anything _decreed
+to befall you_ from God: _I only say this from a feeling of
+compassion._ Judgment belongeth not [unto any] save unto God _alone_.
+On Him do I rely, and on Him let those rely who rely.
+
+And when they entered as their father had commanded them,
+_separately_, it did not avert from them anything _decreed to befall
+them_ from God, but [only satisfied] a desire in the soul of Jacob,
+which he accomplished; _that is, the desire of averting the_ [evil]
+_eye, arising from a feeling of compassion:_ and he was endowed with
+knowledge, because We had taught him: but the greater number of men,
+_namely the unbelievers_, know not _God’s inspiration of His saints_.
+And when they went in unto Joseph, he received unto him (_or pressed
+unto him_) his brother. He said, Verily I am thy brother;[239]
+therefore be not sorrowful for that which they did _from envy to us_.
+_And he commanded him that he should not inform them, and agree with
+him that he should employ a stratagem to retain him with him._ And
+when he had furnished them with their provision, he put the cup,
+_which was a measure made of gold set with jewels_,[240] in the sack
+of his brother _Benjamin_. Then a crier cried, _after they had gone
+forth from the chamber of Joseph_, O company of travellers, ye are
+surely thieves. They said (and turned unto them), What is it that ye
+miss? They answered, We miss the king’s measure; and to him who shall
+bring it [shall be given] a camel-load _of corn_, and I am surety for
+it, _namely the load_. They replied, By God! ye well know that we have
+not come to act corruptly in the land, and we have not been thieves.
+_The crier and his companions said_, Then what shall be the recompense
+of him _who hath stolen it_, if ye be liars _in your saying, We have
+not been thieves,—and it be found among you?_ They answered, His
+recompense [shall be that] he in whose sack it shall be found _shall
+be made a slave:_ he, _the thief_, shall be compensation for it;
+_namely, for the thing stolen. Such was the usage of the family of
+Jacob._ Thus do We recompense the offenders _who are guilty of
+theft.—So they turned towards Joseph, that he might search their
+sacks._ And he began with their sacks, _and searched them_ before the
+sack of his brother [Benjamin], _lest he should be suspected_. Then he
+took it forth (_namely, the measure_) from the sack of his brother.
+Thus, _saith God_, did We contrive a stratagem for Joseph. It was not
+[lawful] for him to take his brother _as a slave for theft_ by the law
+of the king of _Egypt_ (_for his recompense by his law was beating,
+and a fine of twice the value of the thing stolen; not the being made
+a slave_), unless God had pleased, _by inspiring him to inquire of his
+brethren and inspiring them to reply according to their usage_. We
+exalt unto degrees [of knowledge and honour] whom We please, _as
+Joseph_; and [there is who is] knowing above every one [else] endowed
+with knowledge.—They said, If he steal, a brother of his hath stolen
+before; _namely, Joseph;[241] for he stole an idol of gold belonging
+to the father of his mother, and broke it, that he might not worship
+it._ And Joseph concealed it in his mind, and did not discover it to
+them. He said _within himself_, Ye are in a worse condition _than
+Joseph and his brother, by reason of your having stolen your brother
+from your father and your having treated him unjustly_; and God well
+knoweth what ye state _concerning him_.—They said, O prince, verily he
+hath a father, a very old man, _who loveth him more than us, and
+consoleth himself by him for the loss of his son who hath perished,
+and the separation of him grieveth him_; therefore take one of us _as
+a slave_ in his stead; for we see thee [to be one] of the beneficent.
+He replied, God preserve us from taking [any] save him in whose
+possession we found our property; for then (_if we took another_), we
+[should be] unjust.
+
+And when they despaired of [obtaining] him, they retired to confer
+privately together. The chief of them _in age_ (_namely, Reuben, or in
+judgment, namely, Judah_), said, Do ye not know that your father hath
+obtained of you a solemn promise in the name of God, _with respect of
+your brother_, and how ye formerly failed of your duty with respect to
+Joseph? Therefore I will by no means depart from the land _of Egypt_
+until my father give me permission _to return to him_, or God decide
+for me _by the delivery of my brother_; and He is the best, _the most
+just_, of those who decide. Return ye to your father, and say, O our
+father, verily thy son hath committed theft, and we bore not testimony
+_against him_ save according to that which we knew _of a certainty, by
+our seeing the cup in his sack_; and we were not acquainted with what
+was unseen _by us when we gave the solemn promise: had we known that
+he would commit theft, we had not taken him. And send thou_, and ask
+_the people of_ the city in which we have been (_namely, Miṣr_)[242]
+and the company of travellers with whom we have arrived (_who were a
+people of Canaan_): and we are surely speakers of truth.—_So they
+returned to him, and said unto him those words_. He replied, Nay, your
+minds have made a thing seem pleasant unto you, _and ye have done it_
+(_he suspected them, on account of their former conduct in the case of
+Joseph_); but patience is seemly: peradventure God will bring them
+back (_namely, Joseph and his brother_) unto me, together; for He is
+the Knowing _with respect to my case_, the Wise _in His acts_. And
+he turned from them, and said, O! my sorrow for Joseph! And his eyes
+became white in consequence of mourning, and he was oppressed with
+silent grief. They said, By God, thou wilt not cease to think upon
+Joseph until thou be at the point of death, or be of [the number of]
+the dead. He replied, I only complain of my great and unconcealable
+grief and my sorrow unto God; _not unto any beside Him; for He it is
+unto whom complaint is made with advantage_; and I know [by
+revelation] from God what ye know not; _namely, that the dream of
+Joseph was true, and that he is living_. _Then he said_, O my sons, go
+and seek news of Joseph and his brother; and despair not of the mercy
+of God; for none despaireth of the mercy of God except the unbelieving
+people.
+
+_So they departed towards Egypt, unto Joseph_; and when they went in
+unto him, they said, O Prince, distress (_that is, hunger_) hath
+affected us and our family, and we have come with paltry money (_it
+was base money, or some other sort_): yet give us full measure, and be
+charitable to us, _by excusing the badness of our money_; for God
+recompenseth those who act charitably. _And he had pity upon them, and
+compassion affected him, and he lifted up the curtain that was between
+him and them: then_ he said _unto them in reproach_, Do ye know what
+ye did unto Joseph, _in beating and selling and other actions_, and
+his brother, _by your injurious conduct to him after the separation of
+his brother_, when ye were ignorant _of what would be the result of
+the case of Joseph?_[243] They replied, _after they had recognised him
+(desiring confirmation)_, Art thou indeed Joseph? He answered, I am
+Joseph, and this is my brother. God hath been gracious unto us, _by
+bringing us together_; for whosoever feareth _God_ and is patient
+[will be rewarded]: God will not suffer the reward of the well-doers
+to perish. They replied, By God, verily God hath preferred thee above
+us, and we have been indeed sinners. He said, [There shall be] no
+reproach [cast] on you this day: God forgive you; for He is the most
+merciful of those that show mercy. _And he asked them respecting his
+father: so they answered, His eyes are gone. And he said_, Go ye
+with this my shirt (_it was the shirt of Abraham, which he wore when
+he was cast into the fire: it was on his_ [that is, Joseph’s] _neck_
+[appended as an amulet] _in the well; and it was from paradise:
+Gabriel commanded him to send it, and said, In it is its odour_ [that
+is, the odour of paradise], _and it shall not be cast upon any one
+afflicted_ [with a disease] _but he shall be restored to health_), and
+cast it [said Joseph] upon the face of my father: he shall recover his
+sight; and bring unto me all your family.—And when the company of
+travellers had gone forth _from El-´Areesh[244] of Egypt_, their
+father said, _unto those who were present of his offspring_, Verily I
+perceive the smell of Joseph (_for the zephyr had conveyed it to him,
+by permission of Him whose name be exalted, from the distance of three
+days’ journey, or eight, or more_): were it not that ye think I dote,
+_ye would believe me._ They replied, By God, thou art surely in thine
+old error. And when the messenger of good tidings (_namely, Judah_)
+came _with the shirt_ (_and he had borne the bloody shirt; wherefore
+he desired to rejoice him, as he had grieved him_), he cast it upon
+his face, and he recovered his sight. [Thereupon Jacob] said, Did I
+not say unto you, I know, from God, what ye know not? They said, O our
+father, ask pardon of our crimes for us; for we have been sinners. He
+replied, I will ask pardon for you of my Lord; for He is the Very
+forgiving, the Merciful.—_He delayed doing so until the first
+appearance of the dawn_, _that the prayer might be more likely to be
+answered; or, as some say, until the night of_ [that is, preceding]
+_Friday_.
+
+_They then repaired to Egypt, and Joseph and the great men came forth
+to meet them_; and when they went in unto Joseph, _in his pavilion or
+tent_, he received unto him (_or pressed unto him_) his parents (_his
+father and his mother and his maternal aunt_), and said unto _them_,
+Enter ye Miṣr, if God please, in safety.[245] _So they entered; and
+Joseph seated himself upon his couch_, and he caused his parents to
+ascend upon the seat of state, and they (_that is, his parents and his
+brethren_) fell down, bowing themselves unto him[246] (_bending, but
+not putting the forehead_) [upon the ground]: _such being their mode
+of obeisance in that time_. And he said, O my father, this is the
+interpretation of my dream of former times: my Lord hath made it true;
+and He hath shown favour unto me, since He took me forth from the
+prison (_he said not, from the well,—from a motive of generosity, that
+his brethren might not be abashed_), and hath brought you from the
+desert, after that the devil had excited discord between me and my
+brethren; for my Lord is gracious unto whom He pleaseth; for He is the
+Knowing, the Wise.—_And his father resided with him four and twenty
+years, or seventeen; and the period of his separation was eighteen, or
+forty, or eighty years. And death came unto him; and thereupon he
+charged Joseph that he should carry him and bury him by his fathers.
+So he went himself and buried him. Then he returned to Egypt and
+remained after him three and twenty years; and when his case was
+ended, and he knew that he should not last_ [upon earth], _and his
+soul desired the lasting possession, he said_, O my Lord, Thou hast
+given me dominion, and taught me the interpretation of events (_or
+dreams_): Creator of the heavens and the earth, Thou art my guardian
+in this world and in the world to come. Make me to die a Muslim, and
+join me with the righteous _among my forefathers. And he lived after
+that a week, or more, and died a hundred and twenty years old. And the
+Egyptians disputed concerning his burial: so they put him in a chest
+of marble, and buried him in the upper part of the Nile, that the
+blessing_ [resulting from him] _might be general to the tracts on each
+side of it.[247] Extolled be the perfection of Him to whose dominion
+there is no end!_
+
+   (xii. 54-102).
+
+
+
+
+JOB.
+
+
+And remember Our servant Job [Eiyoob[248]] when he called unto his
+Lord, Verily the devil hath afflicted me with calamity and pain. (_The
+affliction is attributed to the devil, though all was from God._) _And
+it was said unto him_, Strike _the earth_ with thy foot. _And he did
+so; whereupon a fountain of water sprang forth.[249] And it was said_,
+This _is_ cool _water for thee_ to wash with, and to drink. _So he
+washed himself and drank; and every disease that he had, external and
+internal, quitted him._ And We gave unto him his family, and as many
+more with them (_that is, God raised to life for him those of his
+children who had died, and blest him with as many more_),[250] in Our
+mercy and as an admonition unto those who are endowed with faculties
+of understanding. [And We said unto him,] Take in thy hand a handful
+_of dry grass, or of twigs_,[251] and strike with it _thy wife_ (_for
+he had sworn that he would inflict upon her a hundred blows, because
+she had staid away from him too long one day_[252]) and break not
+thine oath _by abstaining from striking her._—_So he took a hundred
+stalks of schoemanthus, or some other plant, and gave her one blow
+with them._ Verily We found him a patient person. How excellent a
+servant _was he_! For he was one who earnestly turned himself unto
+God.
+
+   (xxxviii. 40-44.)
+
+
+
+
+SHO´EYB.
+
+
+And _we sent_ unto Midian [Medyen] their brother Sho´eyb.[253] He
+said, O my people, worship God; _assert His unity_. Ye have no other
+deity but Him. And give not short measure and weight. Verily I see you
+[to be] in a state of prosperity _that placeth you above the need of
+doing so_; and verily I fear for you, _if ye believe not_, the
+punishment of a day that will encompass _you with destruction_. And, O
+my people, give full measure and weight with equity; and diminish not
+unto men _aught_ of their things nor commit injustice in the earth,
+acting corruptly, _by murder or other offences_. The residue of God
+(_His supply that remaineth to you after the completion of the
+measure_) will be better for you _than diminution_, if ye be
+believers. And I am not a guardian over you, _to recompense you for
+your actions: I have only been sent as an admonisher_.—They replied,
+_in mockery_, O Sho´eyb, do thy prayers command thee that we are to
+leave what our fathers worshipped, or _cease_ to do with our riches
+what we please? Verily thou art the mild, the right director. _This
+they said in mockery._—He said, O my people, tell me, if I act
+according to an evident proof from my Lord, and He hath supplied me
+with a good _lawful_ provision, shall I mix it up with what is
+forbidden, and shall I not desire to oppose you, _and shall I betake
+myself_ to that which I forbid you? I desire not [aught] but _your_
+reformation, as far as I am able [to effect it], and my help is not
+[in any] but in God: on Him do I rely, and unto Him do I turn me. And,
+O my people, let not the opposition of me procure for you the
+befalling you of the like of that which befell the people of Noah or
+the people of Hood or the people of Ṣáliḥ. And _the abodes of the_
+people of Lot [are] not distant from you: (_or the time of their
+destruction was not long ago:_) _therefore be admonished_. And ask ye
+forgiveness of your Lord, and turn unto Him with repentance; for my
+Lord is merciful _to the believers_, loving _to them_. They replied, O
+Sho´eyb, we understand not much of what thou sayest, and verily we see
+thee to be weak[254] among us; and were it not for thy family, we had
+stoned thee; for thou art not, in our estimation, an honourable
+person: _thy family only are the honourable_. He said, O my people,
+are my family more honourable in your estimation than God, _and do ye
+abstain from slaying me for their sake, and not preserve me for God_,
+and have ye cast Him behind you as a thing neglected? Verily my Lord
+comprehendeth that which ye do, _and He will recompense you_. And, O
+my people, act ye according to your condition: verily I will act
+_according to mine_. Ye shall know on whom shall come a punishment
+that shall render him vile, and who is a liar: and await ye _the issue
+of your case_: verily I await with you.—And when Our degree _for their
+destruction_ came [to be executed], we delivered Sho´eyb and those who
+believed with him, in our mercy, and the cry _of Gabriel_ assailed
+those who had offended, so that in the morning they were in their
+abodes prostrate _and dead_, as though they had not dwelt therein. Was
+not Midian removed as Thamood had been removed?
+
+   (xi. 85-98.)
+
+
+
+
+MOSES AND HIS PEOPLE.
+
+
+We will rehearse unto thee, [O Moḥammad, somewhat] of the history of
+Moses [Moosá] and Pharaoh [Fir´own or Far´oon],[255] with truth, for
+_the sake of_ people who believe. Verily Pharaoh exalted himself in
+the land _of Egypt_, and divided its inhabitants into parties _to
+serve him_. He rendered weak one class of them, _namely the children
+of Israel_, slaughtering their male children, and preserving alive
+their females, _because one of the diviners said unto him, A child
+will be born among the children of Israel, who will be the means of
+the loss of thy kingdom;_—for he was [one] of the corrupt doers. And
+We desired to be gracious unto those who had been deemed weak in the
+land, and to make them models of religion, and to make them the heirs
+_of the possessions of Pharaoh_, and to establish them in the land _of
+Egypt, and in Syria_, and to show Pharaoh and Hámán[256] and their
+forces what they feared from them. And We said, by revelation, unto
+the mother of Moses, _the child above-mentioned, of whose birth none
+knew save his sister_, Suckle him; and when thou fearest for him cast
+him in the river _Nile_, and fear not _his being drowned_, nor mourn
+_for his separation_; for We will restore him unto thee, and will make
+him [one] of the apostles.[257] _So she suckled him three months,
+during which he wept not; and then she feared for him, wherefore she
+put him into an ark pitched within and furnished with a bed for him,
+and she closed it and cast it in the river Nile by night._ And the
+family (_or servants_) of Pharaoh lighted upon him _in the ark on the
+morrow of that night_;[258] _so they put it before him, and it was
+opened, and Moses was taken forth from it, sucking milk from his
+thumb:_ [this happened] that he might be unto them _eventually_ an
+enemy (_slaying their men_) and an affliction (_making slaves of their
+women_); for Pharaoh and Hámán (_his Wezeer_) and their forces were
+sinners; _wherefore they were punished by his hand_. And the wife of
+Pharaoh said, _when he and his servants had proposed to kill him_, He
+_is_ delight of the eye unto me and unto thee: do not ye kill him:
+peradventure he may be serviceable unto us, or we may adopt him as a
+son. _And they complied with her desire_; and they knew not _the
+consequence_.
+
+And the heart of the mother of Moses, _when she knew of his having
+been lighted upon_, became disquieted; and she had almost made him
+known _to be her son_, had We not fortified her heart with patience,
+that she might be [one] of the believers _in Our promise_. And she
+said unto his sister _Maryam_ [or Mary], Trace him, _that thou mayest
+know his case_. And she watched him from a distance, while they knew
+not _that she was his sister and that she was watching him_. And We
+forbade him the breasts, _preventing him from taking the breast of any
+nurse except his mother_, before _his restoration to her_: so _his
+sister_ said, Shall I direct you unto the people of a house who will
+nurse him for you, and who will be faithful unto him? _And her offer
+was accepted; therefore she brought his mother, and he took her
+breast: so she returned with him to her house, as God hath said_,—And
+We restored him to his mother, that her eye might be cheerful and that
+she might not grieve, and that she might know that the promise of God
+_to restore him unto her_ was true: but the greater number of them
+(_that is, of mankind_) know not _this_. _And it appeared not that
+this was his sister and this his mother; and he remained with her
+until she had weaned him; and her hire was paid her, for every day a
+deenár, which she took_ [without scruple] _because it was the wealth
+of a hostile person. She then brought him unto Pharaoh, and he was
+brought up in his abode, as God hath related of him in the Chapter of
+the Poets,_[259] [where Pharaoh said unto Moses,] _Have we not brought
+thee up among us a child, and hast thou not dwelt among us_ [thirty]
+_years of thy life?_
+
+And when he had attained his age of strength (_thirty years or thirty
+and three_), and had become of full age (_forty years_), We bestowed
+on him wisdom and knowledge _in religion, before he was sent as a
+prophet_; and thus do We reward the well-doers. And he entered the
+city _of Pharaoh, which was Munf_ [or Memphis], _after he had been
+absent from him a while_, at a time when its inhabitants were
+inadvertent, _at the hour of the noon-sleep_, and he found therein two
+men fighting; this [being] of his party (_namely an Israelite_), and
+this of his enemies (_an Egyptian_), _who was compelling the Israelite
+to carry firewood to the kitchen of Pharaoh without pay_: and he who
+was of his party begged him to aid him against him who was of his
+enemies. _So Moses said unto the latter, Let him go. And it is said
+that he replied to Moses, I have a mind to put the burden upon thee._
+And Moses struck him with his fist, and killed him. _But he intended
+not to kill him; and he buried him in the sand._ He said, This is of
+the work of the devil, _who hath excited my anger_; for he is an enemy
+_unto the son of Adam_, a manifest misleader _of him_. He said, _in
+repentance_, O my Lord, verily I have acted injuriously unto mine own
+soul, _by killing him_; therefore forgive me. So He forgave him: for
+He is the Very Forgiving, the Merciful.—He said, O my Lord, by the
+favours with which Thou hast favoured me, _defend me_, and I will by
+no means be an assistant to the sinners _after this_.—And the next
+morning he was afraid in the city, watching _for what might happen
+unto him on account of the slain man_; and lo, he who had begged his
+assistance the day before was crying out to him for aid _against
+another Egyptian_. Moses said unto him, Verily thou art a person
+manifestly in error, _because of that which thou hast done yesterday
+and to-day_. But when he was about to lay violent hands upon him who
+was an enemy unto them both, (_namely unto Moses and him who begged
+his aid_,) _the latter_ said, _imagining that he would lay violent
+hands upon him, because of that which he had said unto him_, O Moses,
+dost thou desire to kill me, as thou killedst a soul yesterday? Thou
+desirest not [aught] but to be an oppressor in the land, and thou
+desirest not to be [one] of the reconcilers.—_And the Egyptian heard
+that: so he knew that the killer was Moses; wherefore he departed
+unto Pharaoh and acquainted him therewith, and Pharaoh commanded the
+executioners to slay Moses, and they betook themselves to seek him._
+But a man _who was a believer of the family of Pharaoh_[260] came from
+the furthest part of the city, running _by a way that was nearer than
+the way by which they had come_: he said, O Moses, verily the chiefs
+_of the people of Pharaoh_ are consulting respecting thee, to slay
+thee; therefore go forth _from the city_: verily I am unto thee [one]
+of the admonishers. So he went forth from it in fear, watching _in
+fear of pursuer, or for the aid of God_. He said, O my Lord, deliver
+me from the unjust people _of Pharaoh_![261]
+
+And when he was journeying towards Medyen, _which was the city of
+Sho´eyb, eight days’ journey from Miṣr (named after Medyen the son of
+Abraham), and he knew not the way unto it_, he said, Peradventure my
+Lord will direct me unto the right way, _or the middle way. And God
+sent unto him an angel, having in his hand a short spear; and he went
+with him thither._[262] And when he came unto the water (_or well_) of
+Medyen, he found at it a company of men watering _their animals_; and
+he found besides them two women keeping away _their sheep from the
+water_. He said _unto them_ (_namely the two women_), What is the
+matter with you _that ye water not_? They answered, We shall not water
+until the pastors shall have driven away _their animals_; and our
+father is a very old man, _who cannot water the sheep_. And he watered
+for them _from another well near unto them, from which he lifted a
+stone that none could lift but ten persons._ Then he retired to the
+shade _of an Egyptian thorn-tree on account of the violence of the
+heat of the sun; and he was hungry_, and he said, O my Lord, verily I
+am in need of the good _provision_ which Thou shalt send down unto me.
+_And the two women returned unto their father in less time than they
+were accustomed to do: so he asked them the reason thereof; and they
+informed him of the person who had watered for them; whereupon he said
+unto one of them, Call him unto me._
+
+And one of them[263] came unto him, walking bashfully, _with the
+sleeve of her shift over her face, by reason of her abashment at him_:
+she said, My father calleth thee, that he may recompense thee with the
+reward of thy having watered for us. _And he assented to her call,
+disliking in his mind the receiving of the reward: but it seemeth that
+she intended the compensation if he were of such as desired it. And
+she walked before him; and the wind blew her garment, and her legs
+were discovered: so he said unto her, Walk behind me and direct me in
+the way. And she did so, until she came unto her father, who was
+Sho´eyb, on whom be peace! and with him was_ [prepared] _a supper. He
+said unto him, Sit and sup. But he replied, I fear lest it be a
+compensation for my having watered for them, and we are a family who
+seek not a compensation for doing good. He said, Nay, it is my custom
+and hath been the custom of my fathers to entertain the guest and to
+give food. So he ate; and acquainted, him with his case._ And when he
+had come unto him, and had related to him the story _of his having
+killed the Egyptian and their intention to kill him and his fear of
+Pharaoh_, he replied, Fear not: thou hast escaped from the unjust
+people. (_For Pharaoh had no dominion over Medyen._) One of them
+[namely of the women] said (_and she was the one who had been sent_),
+O my father, hire him _to tend our sheep in our stead_; for the best
+whom thou canst hire is the strong, the trustworthy. _So he asked her
+respecting him, and she acquainted him with what hath been above
+related, his lifting up the stone of the well, and his saying unto
+her, Walk behind me;—and moreover, that when she had come unto him,
+and he knew of her presence, he hung down his head and raised it not._
+He _therefore_ said, Verily I desire to marry thee unto one of these
+my two daughters, on the condition that thou shalt be a hired servant
+to me, _to tend my sheep_, eight years; and if thou fulfil ten
+_years_, it shall be of thine own will; and I desire not to lay a
+difficulty upon thee _by imposing as a condition the ten years_: thou
+shalt find me, if God please, [one] of the just, _who are faithful to
+their covenants_. He replied, This [be the covenant] between me and
+thee: whichever of the two terms I fulfil, there shall be no injustice
+against me _by demanding an addition thereto_; and God is witness of
+what we say. _And the marriage-contract was concluded according to
+this; and Sho´eyb ordered his daughter to give unto Moses a rod
+wherewith to drive away the wild beasts from his sheep: and the rods
+of the prophets were in his possession; and the rod of Adam, of the
+myrtle of paradise, fell into her hand; and Moses took it, with the
+knowledge of Sho´eyb._
+
+   (xxviii. 21-28.)
+
+
+Hath the history of Moses been related to thee? when he saw fire,[264]
+_during his journey from Medyen, on his way to Egypt_, and said unto
+his family, _or his wife_, Tarry ye _here_; for I have seen fire:
+perhaps I may bring you a brand from it, or find at the fire a guide
+_to direct me in the way. For he had missed the way in consequence of
+the darkness of the night._ And when he came unto it (_and it was a
+bramble-bush_), he was called to [by a voice saying], O Moses, verily
+I am thy Lord; therefore pull off thy shoes;[265] for thou art in the
+holy valley of Ṭuwa. And I have chosen thee _from among thy people_;
+wherefore hearken attentively unto that which is revealed _unto thee
+by Me_. Verily I am God: there is no Deity except Me; therefore
+worship Me, and perform prayer in remembrance of Me. Verily the hour
+is coming: I will manifest it _unto mankind, and its nearness shall
+appear unto them by its signs_, that every soul may be recompensed
+_therein_ for its good and evil work: therefore let not him who
+believeth not in it, and followeth his lust, hinder thee from
+_believing in_ it, lest thou perish. And what is that in thy right
+hand, O Moses?—He answered, It is my rod, whereon I lean and wherewith
+I beat down leaves for my sheep _that they may eat them_; and I have
+other uses for it, _as the carrying of provision and the water-skin,
+and the driving away of reptiles_. He said, Cast it down, O Moses. So
+he cast it down; and lo, it was a serpent,[266] running along. _God_
+said, Take it, and fear _it_ not:[267] we will restore it to its
+former state. _And he put his hand into its mouth; whereupon it became
+again a rod._ [And God said,] And put thy _right_ hand to thy _left_
+arm-pit, _and take it forth_: it shall come forth white, without evil,
+(_that is, without leprosy; shining like the rays of the sun, dazzling
+the sight,_) as another sign, that We may show thee the greatest of
+our signs _of thine apostleship_. (_And when he desired to restore his
+hand to its first state, he put it as before described, and drew it
+forth._) Go _as an apostle_ unto Pharaoh _and those who are with
+him_; for he hath acted with exceeding impiety _by arrogating to
+himself divinity_.—_Moses_ said, O my Lord, dilate my bosom, _that it
+may hear the message_, and make my affair easy unto me, and loose the
+knot of my tongue (_this had arisen from his having been burned in his
+mouth by a live coal when he was a child_),[268] that they may
+understand my speech _when I deliver the message_. And appoint unto me
+a Wezeer of my family, _namely_ Aaron [Hároon] my brother. Strengthen
+my back by him, and make him a colleague in my affair, that we may
+glorify Thee much, and remember Thee much; for Thou knowest us.
+
+God replied, Thou hast obtained thy petition, O Moses, and We have
+been gracious unto thee another time: forasmuch as We revealed unto
+thy mother what was revealed, _when she gave birth to thee and feared
+that Pharaoh would kill thee among the others that were born_,
+[saying,] Cast him into the ark, and then cast him, _in the ark_, into
+the river _Nile_, and the river shall throw him on the shore; then an
+enemy unto Me and an enemy unto him (_namely Pharaoh_) shall take him.
+And I bestowed on thee, _after he had taken thee_, love from Me, _that
+thou mightest be loved by men, so that Pharaoh and all that saw thee
+loved thee_; and that thou mightest be bred up in Mine eye. [Also]
+forasmuch as thy sister _Maryam_ went _that she might learn what
+became of thee, after they had brought nurses and thou hadst refused
+to take the breast of any one of them_, and she said, Shall I direct
+you unto one who will nurse him? (_whereupon her proposal was_
+_accepted, and she brought his mother_): so We restored thee to thy
+mother, that her eye might become cheerful and that she might not
+grieve. And thou slewest a soul, _namely the Copt in Egypt, and wast
+sorry for his slaughter, on account of Pharaoh_, and We delivered thee
+from sorrow; and We tried thee with _other_ trial, _and delivered thee
+from it_.[269] And thou stayedst _ten_ years among the people of
+Medyen, _after thou hadst come thither from Egypt, at the abode of
+Sho´eyb the prophet, and he married thee to his daughter._ Then thou
+camest according to _My_ decree, _as to the time of thy mission, when
+thou hadst attained the age of forty years_, O Moses; and I have
+chosen thee for Myself. Go thou and thy brother[270] _unto the
+people_, with My _nine_ signs, and cease ye not to remember Me. Go ye
+unto Pharaoh; for he hath acted with exceeding impiety, _by arrogating
+to himself divinity_, and speak unto him with gentle speech,
+_exhorting him to relinquish that conduct_: peradventure he will
+consider, or will fear _God, and repent_. (_The_ [mere] _hope with
+respect to the two_ [results is expressed] _because of God’s knowledge
+that he would not repent._)—They replied, O our Lord, verily we fear
+that he may be precipitately violent against us, _hastening to punish
+us_, or that he may act with exceeding injustice _towards us_. He
+said, Fear ye not; for I am with you: I will hear and will see.
+Therefore go ye unto him, and say, Verily we are the apostles of thy
+Lord: therefore send with us the children of Israel _unto Syria_, and
+do not afflict them, _but cease to employ them in thy difficult works,
+such as digging and building and carrying the heavy burden_. We have
+come unto thee with a sign from thy Lord, _attesting our veracity in
+asserting ourselves apostles_: and peace be on him who followeth the
+right direction:—_that is, he shall be secure from punishment_. Verily
+it hath been revealed unto us that punishment [shall be inflicted]
+upon him who chargeth with falsehood _that wherewith we have come_,
+and turneth away _from it_.
+
+   (xx. 8-50.)
+
+
+Then We sent after them, _namely the apostles before mentioned_ [who
+were Sho´eyb and his predecessors], Moses, with Our signs unto Pharaoh
+and his nobles, and they acted unjustly with respect to them,
+_disbelieving in the signs_: but see what was the end of the corrupt
+doers. And Moses said, O Pharaoh, verily I am an apostle from the Lord
+of the worlds _unto thee_. _But he charged him with falsehood: so he
+said, I am_ right not to say of God aught but the truth. I have come
+unto you with a proof from your Lord: therefore send with me _to
+Syria_ the children of Israel.—_Pharaoh_ said _unto him_, If thou hast
+come with a sign _confirmatory of thy pretension_, produce it, if thou
+be of those who speak truth, So he cast down his rod; and lo, it was a
+manifest serpent.[271] And he drew forth his hand _from his bosom_;
+and lo, it was white _and radiant_ unto the beholders.[272] The nobles
+of the people of Pharaoh said, Verily this is a knowing enchanter: he
+desireth to expel you from your land. What then do ye command?—They
+answered, Put off for a time him and his brother, and send unto the
+cities collectors [of the inhabitants], that they may bring unto thee
+every knowing enchanter. And the enchanters came unto Pharaoh. They
+said, Shall we surely have a reward if we be the party who overcome?
+He answered, Yea; and verily ye shall be of those who are admitted
+near [unto my person]. They said, O Moses, either do thou cast down
+_thy rod_, or we will cast down _what we have with us_. He replied,
+Cast ye. And when they cast down _their cords and their rods_, they
+enchanted the eyes of the men, _diverting them from the true
+perception of them_; and they terrified them; _for they imagined them
+to be serpents running_; and they performed a great enchantment.[273]
+And We spake by revelation unto Moses, [saying,] Cast down thy rod.
+And lo, it swallowed up what they had caused to appear changed.[274]
+So the truth was confirmed, and that which they had wrought became
+vain; and they were overcome there, and were rendered contemptible.
+And the enchanters cast themselves down prostrate:[275] they said, We
+believe in the Lord of the worlds, the Lord of Moses and Aaron.
+Pharaoh said, Have ye believed in Him before I have given you
+permission? Verily this is a plot that ye have contrived in the city,
+that ye may cause its inhabitants to go forth from it. But ye shall
+know _what shall happen unto you at my hand_. I will assuredly cut off
+your hands and your feet on the opposite sides—_the right hand of each
+and his left foot_: then I will crucify you all.—They replied. Verily
+unto our Lord shall we return, _after our death, of whatever kind it
+be_; and thou dost not take vengeance on us but because we believed in
+the signs of our Lord when they came unto us. O our Lord, pour upon us
+patience, and cause us to die Muslims![276]
+
+   (vii. 101-123.)
+
+
+And Pharaoh said, Let me alone, that I may kill Moses, (_for they had
+diverted him from killing him_,) and let him call upon his Lord _to
+defend him from me_. Verily I fear lest he change your religion, _and
+prevent your worshipping me_, or that he may cause corruption to
+appear in the earth (_that is, slaughter, and other offences_).—And
+Moses said _unto his people, having heard this_, Verily I have
+recourse for defence unto my Lord and your Lord from every proud
+person who believeth not in the day of account. And a man [who was] a
+believer, of the family of Pharaoh (_it is said that he was the son of
+his paternal uncle_,)[277] who concealed his faith, said, Will ye kill
+a man because he saith, My Lord is God,—when he hath come unto you
+with evident proofs from your Lord? And if he be a liar, on him [will
+be] _the evil consequence of_ his lie; but if he be a speaker of
+truth, somewhat of that _punishment with_ which he threateneth you
+will befall you _speedily_. Verily God directeth not him who is a
+transgressor, _or polytheist_, [and] a liar. O my people, ye have the
+dominion to-day, being overcomers in the land _of Egypt_; but who will
+defend us from the punishment of God _if ye kill his favourite
+servants_, if it come unto us?[278]—Pharaoh said, I will not advise
+you to do [aught] save what I see to be advisable, _which is, to kill
+Moses_; and I will not direct you save into the right way. And he who
+had believed said, O my people, verily I fear for you the like of the
+day of the confederates,[279] the like of the condition of the people
+of Noah and ´Ád and Thamood and those who [have lived] after them: and
+God willeth not injustice unto [His] servants. And, O my people,
+verily I fear for you the day of calling (_that is, the day of
+resurrection, when the people of Paradise and those of Hell shall
+often call one to another_). On the day when ye shall turn back _from
+the place of reckoning unto hell_, ye shall have no protector against
+God. And he whom God shall cause to err shall have no director.
+Moreover, Joseph (_who was Joseph the son of Jacob according to one
+opinion, and who lived unto the time of Moses; and Joseph the son of
+Abraham the son of Joseph the son of Jacob, according to another
+opinion_) came unto you before _Moses_, with evident _miraculous_
+proofs; but ye ceased not to be in doubt respecting that wherewith he
+came unto you, until, when he died, ye said _without proof_ God will
+by no means send an apostle after him. Thus God causeth to err him who
+is a transgressor, _or polytheist_, [and] a sceptic. They who dispute
+respecting the signs of God, without any convincing proof having come
+unto them, _their disputing_ is very hateful with God and with those
+who have believed. Thus God sealeth every heart (_or the whole heart_)
+of a proud contumacious person.
+
+And Pharaoh said, O Hámán, build for me a tower, that I may reach the
+avenues, the avenues of the heavens, and ascend unto the God of
+Moses;[280] but verily I think him, _namely Moses_, a liar _in his
+assertion that he hath any god but myself_. And thus the wickedness of
+his deed was made to seem comely unto Pharaoh, and he was turned away
+from the path _of rectitude_; and the artifice of Pharaoh [ended] not
+save in loss. And he who had believed said, O my people, follow me: I
+will direct you into the right way. O my people, this present life is
+only a temporary enjoyment; but the world to come is the mansion of
+firm continuance. Whosoever doeth evil, he shall not be recompensed
+save with the like of it; and whosoever doeth good, whether male or
+female, and is a believer, these shall enter Paradise; they shall be
+provided for therein without reckoning. And, O my people, how is it
+that I invite you unto salvation, and ye invite me unto the Fire? Ye
+invite me to deny God, and to associate with Him that of which I have
+no knowledge; but I invite you unto the Mighty, the Very Forgiving.
+[There is] no doubt but that the [false gods] _to the worship of_
+which ye invite me are not to be invoked in this world, nor in the
+world to come, and that our return [shall be] unto God, and that the
+transgressors [shall be] the companions of the Fire. And ye shall
+remember, _when ye see the punishment_, what I say unto you; and I
+commit my case unto God; for God seeth [His] servants.—_This he said
+when they threatened him for his opposing their religion._ Therefore
+God preserved him from the evils which they had artfully devised
+(_namely slaughter_), and a most evil punishment encompassed the
+people of Pharaoh,[281] _with Pharaoh himself (namely the
+drowning); then_ they shall be exposed to the Fire morning and
+evening;[282] and on the day when the hour [of judgment] shall come,
+_it shall be said unto the angels_, Introduce the people of Pharaoh
+into the most severe punishment.
+
+   (xl. 27-49.)
+
+
+And the nobles of the people of Pharaoh said _unto him_, Wilt thou let
+Moses and his people go that they may act corruptly in the earth, _by
+inviting to disobey thee_, and leave thee and thy gods? (_For he had
+made for them little idols for them to worship, and he said, I am your
+Lord and their Lord;—and therefore he said, I am your Lord the Most
+High._) He answered, We will slaughter their male children and will
+suffer their females to live: and verily we shall prevail over them.
+_And thus they did unto them; wherefore the children of Israel
+complained, and_ Moses said unto his people, Seek aid of God, and be
+patient; for the earth belongeth unto God: He causeth whomsoever He
+will of His servants to inherit it; and the _prosperous_ end is for
+those who fear _God_. They replied, We have been afflicted before thou
+camest unto us and since thou hast come unto us. He said, Perhaps your
+Lord will destroy your enemy and cause you to succeed [him] in the
+earth, and He will see how ye will act _therein_.—And We had punished
+the family of Pharaoh with dearth and with scarcity of fruits, that
+they might be admonished _and might believe_. But when good betided
+them, they said, This is ours:—_that is, we deserve it;—and they were
+not grateful for it_; and if evil befell them, they ascribed it to
+the ill luck of Moses and those _believers_ who were with him. Nay,
+their ill luck was only with God: _He brought it upon them_: but the
+greater number of them know not _this_. And they said _unto Moses_,
+Whatsoever sign thou bring unto us, to enchant us therewith, we will
+not believe in thee. _So he uttered an imprecation upon them_, and We
+sent upon them the flood, _which entered their houses and reached to
+the throats of the persons sitting, seven days_,[283] and the locusts,
+_which ate their corn and their fruits_, and the ḳummal, _or grubs, or
+a kind of tick, which sought after what the locusts had left_, and the
+frogs, _which filled their houses and their food_, and the blood _in
+their waters_; distinct signs: but they were proud, _refusing to
+believe in them_, and were a wicked people. And when the punishment
+fell upon them, they said, O Moses, supplicate for us thy Lord,
+according to that which He hath covenanted with thee, _namely that He
+will withdraw from us the punishment if we believe_: verily, if thou
+remove from us the punishment, we will assuredly believe thee, and we
+will assuredly send with thee the children of Israel. But when We
+removed from them the punishment until a period at which they should
+arrive, lo, they brake their promise. Wherefore We took vengeance on
+them, and drowned them in the sea, because they charged our signs with
+falsehood and were heedless of them. And We caused the people who had
+been rendered weak, _by being enslaved_, to inherit the eastern parts
+of the earth and its western parts,[284] which we blessed _with water
+and trees, (namely Syria)_; and the gracious word of thy Lord was
+fulfilled on the children of Israel, because they had been patient;
+and We destroyed the _structures_ which Pharaoh and his people had
+built and what they had erected.[285]
+
+   (vii. 124-133.)
+
+
+We brought the children of Israel across the sea, and Pharaoh and his
+troops pursued them with violence and hostility, until, when drowning
+overtook him, he said, I believe that there is no deity but He in whom
+the children of Israel believe, and I am [one] of the Muslims. _But
+Gabriel thrust into his mouth some of the mire of the sea, lest mercy
+should be granted him, and said_, Now _thou believest_, and thou hast
+been rebellious hitherto, and wast [one] of the corrupters. But to-day
+we will raise thee with thy lifeless body _from the sea_, that thou
+mayest be a sign unto those [who shall come] after thee. (_It is
+related, on the authority of Ibn-´Abbás, that some of the children of
+Israel doubted his death; wherefore he was brought forth to them that
+they might see him._)[286] But verily many men are heedless of Our
+signs.
+
+   (x. 90-92.)
+
+
+And We brought the children of Israel across the sea; and they came
+unto a people who gave themselves up to _the worship of_ idols
+belonging to them;[287] [whereupon] they said, O Moses, make for us a
+god (_an idol for us to worship_), like as they have gods. He replied,
+Verily ye are a people who are ignorant, _since ye have requited God’s
+favour towards you with that which ye have said_; for that [religion]
+in which these are [occupied shall be] destroyed, and vain is that
+which they do. He said, Shall I seek for you any other deity than God,
+when He hath preferred you above the peoples _of your time_?
+
+   (vii. 134-136.)
+
+
+And We caused the thin clouds to shade you _from the heat of the sun
+in the desert_, and caused the manna and the quails[288] to descend
+upon you, _and said_, Eat of the good things which We have given you
+for food, _and store not up.—But they were ungrateful for the benefit,
+and stored up; wherefore it was cut off from them_. And they injured
+not Us _thereby_; but they did injure their own souls.
+
+   (ii. 54.)
+
+
+[Remember, O children of Israel,] when ye said, O Moses, we will not
+bear patiently the having one _kind of_ food, _the manna and the
+quails_; therefore supplicate for us thy Lord, that He may produce for
+us _somewhat_ of that which the earth bringeth forth, of its herbs and
+its cucumbers and its wheat and its lentils and its onions:—he said
+_unto them_, Will ye take in exchange that which is worse for that
+which is better?—_But they refused to recede; therefore he supplicated
+God, and He said_, Get ye down into a great city;[289] for ye shall
+have _therein_ what ye have asked.—And the _marks of_ abjection and
+poverty were stamped upon them: _so these characteristics necessarily
+belong to them, even if they are rich, as necessarily as the stamped
+coin belongeth to its die_; and they returned with indignation from
+God. This was because they did disbelieve in the signs of God, and
+slay the prophets (_as Zechariah and John_) unjustly: this was because
+they rebelled and did transgress.
+
+   (ii. 58.)
+
+
+And _remember_ when Moses asked drink for his people, _who had become
+thirsty in the desert_, and We said, Strike with thy rod the stone.
+(_It was the stone that fled away with his garment:[290] it was
+light, square, like the head of a man, marble or kedhdhán._[291])
+_Accordingly he struck it_; and there gushed out from it twelve
+fountains, _according to the number of the tribes_, all men (_each
+tribe of them_) knowing their drinking-place. _And We said unto them_,
+Eat ye and drink of the supply of God, and commit not evil in the
+earth, acting corruptly.
+
+   (ii. 57.)
+
+
+_Remember_ also when We obtained your bond _that ye would do according
+to that which is contained in the Law_, and _had_ lifted up over you
+the mountain [namely Mount Sinai], _pulled it up by the roots and
+raised it over you when ye had refused to accept the Law, and We
+said_, Receive that which We have given you, with resolution, and
+remember that which is contained in it, _to do according thereto_:
+peradventure ye will fear _the Fire, or acts of disobedience_.—Then ye
+turned back after that; and had it not been for the grace of God
+towards you and His mercy, ye had certainly been of those who perish.
+And ye know those of you who transgressed on the Sabbath, _by catching
+fish, when We had forbidden them to do so_ (_and they were the people
+of Eyleh_[292],) and We said unto them, Be ye apes, driven away from
+the society of men.—_Thereupon they became such, and they perished
+after three days._—And We made it (_namely that punishment_) an
+example unto those who were contemporary with them and those who came
+after them, and a warning to the pious.
+
+   (ii. 60-62.)
+
+
+And We appointed unto Moses thirty nights, _at the expiration of which
+We would speak to him, on the condition of his fasting during them;
+and they were_ [the nights of the month of] _Dhu-l-Ḳaạdeh; and he
+fasted during them: but, when they were ended, he disliked the smell
+of his breath; so he used a tooth-stick; whereupon God commanded him
+to fast ten other nights, that He might speak to Him with the odour of
+his breath,[293] as He whose name be exalted hath said_,—and We
+completed them by [adding] ten _nights of Dhu-l-Ḥijjeh_: so the stated
+time of his Lord was completed, forty nights. And Moses said unto his
+brother Aaron, _at his departure to the mountain for the private
+collocution_, Be thou my deputy among my people, and act rightly, and
+follow not the way of the corrupt doers _by agreeing with them in acts
+of disobedience_. And when Moses came at Our appointed time, and his
+Lord spake unto him _without an intermediary_, he said, O my Lord,
+show me _Thyself_, that I may see Thee. He replied, Thou shalt not see
+Me: but look at the mountain, _which is stronger than thou_; and if it
+remain firm in its place, then shalt thou see Me. And when his Lord
+displayed Himself to the mountain (_that is, when there appeared, of
+His light, half of the tip of His little finger, as related in a
+tradition which El-Ḥákim hath verified_), He reduced it to powder,
+_levelling it even with the ground around it_; and Moses fell down in
+a swoon. And when he recovered, he said, Extolled be Thy perfection! I
+turn unto Thee repenting, and I am the first of the believers _in my
+time_.—_God_ said _unto him_, O Moses, I have chosen thee above the
+people _of thy time_ [by honouring thee] by My commissions and by My
+speaking _unto thee_: therefore receive what I have given thee, and be
+of those who are grateful. And We wrote for him upon the tables of
+_the Law_[294] (_which were of the lote-tree of Paradise, or of
+chrysolite, or of emerald; in number seven, or ten_) an admonition
+concerning every _requisite_ matter _of religion_, and a distinct
+explanation of everything; _and said_, Therefore receive it with
+resolution, and command thy people to act according to the most
+excellent [precepts] thereof.
+
+   (vii. 138-142.)
+
+
+And the people of Moses, after it (_that is, after his departure for
+the private collocution_), made, of their ornaments (_which they had
+borrowed of the people of Pharaoh_), a corporeal calf[295] _which
+Es-Sámiree cast for them,_[296] _and_ which lowed; _for he had the
+faculty of doing so in consequence of their having put into its mouth
+some dust taken from_ [beneath] _the hoof of the horse of Gabriel; and
+they took it as a god_. Did they not see that it spake not to them,
+nor directed them in the way? They took it _as a god_, and were
+offenders. But when they repented, and saw that they had erred, _which
+was after the return of Moses_, they said, Verily if our Lord do not
+have mercy upon us and forgive us, we shall assuredly be of those who
+perish.
+
+   (vii. 146-148.)
+
+
+And Moses returned unto his people[297] enraged _against them_,
+exceedingly sorrowful. He said, O my people, did not your Lord promise
+you a good _true_ promise, _that He would give you the Law?_ But did
+the time of _my absence_ seem tedious to you, or did ye desire that
+indignation from your Lord should befall you, and therefore did ye
+break your promise to me, _and abstain from coming after one?_—They
+answered, We did not break our promise to thee of our own authority;
+but we were made to carry loads of the ornaments of the people _of
+Pharaoh_ (_which the children of Israel had borrowed of them under
+pretence of_ [requiring them for] _a wedding, and which remained in
+their possession_), and we cast them _into the fire, by order of
+Es-Sámiree_. And in like manner also Es-Sámiree cast _their ornaments
+which he had, and some of the dust which he had taken from the traces
+of the hoofs of the horse of Gabriel;_ and he produced unto them a
+corporeal calf, _of flesh and blood_, which lowed, _by reason of the
+dust, the property of which is to give life to that into which it is
+put; and he had put it, after he had moulded the calf, into its
+mouth_. And they (_namely, Es-Sámiree and his followers_) said, This
+is your god, and the god of Moses; but he hath forgotten _his lord
+here, and gone to seek him. God saith_, But did they not see that it
+returned them not an answer, nor was able to cause them hurt or
+profit? And Aaron had said unto them, before _the return of Moses_, O
+my people, ye are only tried by it; and verily your Lord is the
+Compassionate; therefore follow me, _by worshipping Him_, and obey my
+command. They replied, We will by no means cease to be devoted to _the
+worship of_ it until Moses return unto us. _Moses_ said _after his
+return_, O Aaron, what hindered thee, when thou sawest that they had
+gone astray, from following me? Hast thou then been disobedient to my
+command, _by remaining among them who worshipped another than God_?
+—He answered, O son of my mother, seize me not by my beard (_for he
+had taken hold of his beard with his left hand_), nor by [the hair of]
+my head (_for he had taken hold of his hair with his right hand, in
+anger_). Verily I feared lest _if I followed thee (for a company of
+those who worshipped the calf would inevitably have followed me)_ thou
+shouldst say, Thou hast made a division among the children of Israel,
+and hast not waited for my sentence. _Moses_ said, And what was thy
+motive _for doing as thou hast_, O Sámiree? He answered, I saw that
+which they saw not;[298] therefore I took a handful _of dust_ from the
+foot-marks _of the horse_ of the apostle _Gabriel_, and cast it _into
+the molten calf_; and thus my soul allured me _to take a handful of
+the dust above-mentioned, and to cast it upon that which had no life,
+that it might have life; and I saw that thy people had demanded of
+thee that thou wouldst make them a god; so my soul suggested to me
+that this calf should be their god. Moses_ said _unto him_, Then get
+thee gone _from among us_, and [the punishment] for thee during _the
+period of thy_ life [shall be], that thou shalt say _unto whomsoever
+thou shalt see_, Touch _me_ not:—(_so he used to wander about the
+desert, and when he touched any one, or any one touched him, they both
+became affected with a burning fever:_) and verily for thee is a
+threat which thou shalt by no means find to be false. And look at thy
+god, to _the worship of_ which thou hast continued devoted. We will
+assuredly burn it: then we will assuredly reduce it to powder and
+scatter it in the sea. (_And Moses, after he had slaughtered it, did
+this._) Your deity is God only, except whom there is no deity. He
+comprehendeth all things by _His_ knowledge.—Thus, _O Moḥammad_, do We
+relate unto thee accounts of what hath happened heretofore; and We
+have given thee, from Us, an admonition; _namely the Ḳur-án_.
+
+   (xx. 88-99.)
+
+
+And they were made to drink down the calf into their hearts,[299]
+(_that is, the love of it mingled with their hearts as drink
+mingleth_,) because of their unbelief.
+
+   (ii. 87.)
+
+
+[Remember, O children of Israel,] when Moses said unto his people _who
+worshipped the calf_, O my people, verily ye have injured your own
+souls by your taking to yourselves the calf _as a god_; therefore turn
+with repentance unto your Creator _from the worship of it_, and slay
+one another: (_that is, let the innocent among you slay the
+criminal_:) this will be best for you in the estimation of your
+Creator. _And He aided you to do that, sending upon you a black cloud,
+lest one of you should see another and have compassion on him, until
+there were slain of you about seventy thousand._ And _thereupon_ He
+became propitious towards you, _accepting your repentance_; for He is
+the Very Propitious, the Merciful.
+
+   (ii. 51.)
+
+
+[Remember also, O children of Israel,] when ye said, _having gone
+forth with Moses to beg pardon of God for your worship of the calf,
+and having heard his words_, O Moses, we will not believe thee until
+we see God manifestly:—whereupon the vehement sound assailed you, _and
+ye died_, while ye beheld _what happened to you_. Then We raised you
+to life after ye had been dead, that peradventure ye might give
+thanks.[300]
+
+   (ii. 52, 53.)
+
+
+And Moses chose _from_ his people seventy men, _of those who had not
+worshipped the calf, by the command of God_, at the time appointed by
+Us _for their coming to ask pardon for their companions’ worship of
+the calf; and he went forth with them_; and when the convulsion (_the
+violent earthquake_) took them away (_because, saith Ibn-´Abbás, they
+did not separate themselves from their people when the latter
+worshipped the calf_), _Moses_ said, O my Lord, if Thou hadst pleased,
+Thou hadst destroyed them before _my going forth with them, that the
+children of Israel might have beheld it and might not suspect me_; and
+me [also]. Wilt Thou destroy us for that which the foolish among us
+have done? It is naught but Thy trial: Thou wilt cause to err thereby
+whom Thou pleasest, and Thou wilt rightly guide whom Thou pleasest.
+Thou art our guardian; and do Thou forgive us and have mercy upon us;
+for Thou art the best of those who forgive: and appoint for us in this
+world what is good, and in the world to come; for unto Thee have we
+turned with repentance.—_God_ replied, I will afflict with My
+punishment whom I please, and My mercy extendeth over everything _in
+the world_; and I will appoint it, _in the world to come_, for those
+who fear and give the legal alms, and those who believe on Our signs,
+who shall follow the apostle, the illiterate [or Gentile, _i.e._, Arab]
+prophet, _Moḥammad_, whom they shall find written down with them in the
+Pentateuch and the Gospel, _by his name and his description_. He will
+command them that which is right, and forbid them that which is evil;
+and will allow them as lawful the good things _among those forbidden in
+their law_, and prohibit them the impure, _as carrion and other things_,
+and will take off from them their burden and the yokes that were upon
+them, _as the slaying of a soul_ [for an atonement] _in repentance, and
+the cutting off of the mark left by impurity_. And those who shall
+believe in him and honour him and assist him and follow the light which
+shall be sent down with him, _namely the Ḳur-án_, these shall be the
+prosperous.
+
+   (vii. 154-156).
+
+
+And _remember_ when Moses said unto his people, O my people, remember
+the favour of God towards you, since He hath appointed prophets from
+among you, and made you princes (_masters of servants and other
+attendants_), and given you what He hath not given any [other] of the
+peoples (_as the manna and the quails and other things_). O my people,
+enter the Holy Land which God hath decreed for you (_namely Syria_),
+and turn not back, lest ye turn losers.—They replied, O Moses, verily
+there is in it a gigantic people, _of the remains of the tribe of
+´Ad_, and we will not enter it until they go forth from it; but if
+they go forth from it, then we will enter.—[Thereupon] two men, of
+those who feared _to disobey God, namely Joshua and Caleb, of the
+chiefs whom Moses sent to discover the circumstances of the giants,
+and_ upon whom God had conferred favour, _and who had concealed what
+they had seen of the state of the giants, excepting from Moses,
+wherefore the other chiefs became cowardly_, said _unto them_, Enter
+ye upon them through the gate _of the city, and fear them not; for
+they are bodies without hearts_; and when ye enter it, ye overcome;
+and upon God place your dependence, if ye be believers.—[But] they
+said, O Moses, we will never enter it while they remain therein.
+Therefore go thou and thy Lord, and fight: for we remain here.—_Then
+Moses_ said, O my Lord, verily I am not master of any but myself and
+my brother: therefore distinguish between us and the unrighteous
+people.—_God_ replied, Verily it (_namely the Holy Land_) shall be
+forbidden them forty years; they shall wander in perplexity in the
+land: and be not thou solicitous for the unrighteous people.—_The
+land_ [through which they wandered] _was_ [only] _nine leagues_ [in
+extent]. _They used to journey during the night with diligence; but in
+the morning they found themselves in the place whence they had set
+forth; and they journeyed during the day in like manner. Thus they did
+until all of them had become extinct, excepting those who had not
+attained the age of twenty years; and it is said that they were six
+hundred thousand. Aaron and Moses died in the desert; and mercy was
+their lot: but punishment was the lot of those. And Moses begged his
+Lord, when he was about to die, that He would bring him as near as a
+stone’s throw to the Holy Land: wherefore He did so. And Joshua was
+made a prophet after the forty [years], and he gave orders to fight
+against the giants. So he went with those who were with him, and
+fought against them: and it was Friday; and the sun stood still for
+him awhile, until he had made an end of fighting against them._
+
+   (v. 23-29).
+
+
+Ḳároon[301] [or Korah] was of the people of Moses (_he was the son of
+his paternal uncle, and the son of his maternal aunt, and he believed
+in him_); but he behaved insolently towards them; for We had bestowed
+upon him such treasures that their keys were heavy burdens for a
+company of men endowed with strength, _in number, as some say,
+seventy; and some, forty; and some, ten; and some, another number.
+Remember when his people (the believers among the children of Israel)_
+said unto him, Rejoice not _exultingly in the abundance of thy
+wealth_; for God loveth not those who _so_ rejoice; but seek to
+attain, by means of the _wealth_ which God hath given thee, the latter
+abode [of Paradise], _by expending thy wealth in the service of God_;
+and neglect not thy part in this world, _to work therein for the world
+to come_; but be beneficent _unto mankind, by bestowing alms_, as God
+hath been beneficent unto thee; and seek not to act corruptly in the
+earth; for God loveth not the corrupt doers. He replied, I have only
+been given it on account of the knowledge that I possess. _For he was
+the most learned of the children of Israel in the Law, after Moses and
+Aaron. God saith_, Did he not know that God had destroyed before him,
+of the generations, those that were mightier than he in strength and
+who had amassed more abundance _of wealth_? And the wicked shall not
+be asked respecting their sins, _because God knoweth them: therefore
+they shall be sent into the Fire without a reckoning_. And _Ḳároon_
+went forth unto his people in his pomp, _with his many dependants
+mounted, adorned with garments of gold and silk, upon decked horses
+and mules_. Those who desired the present life said, O would that we
+had the like of that which hath been bestowed on Ḳároon _in this
+world_! Verily he is possessed of great good fortune!—But those unto
+whom knowledge _of what God hath promised in the world to come_ had
+been given, said _unto them_, Woe to you! The reward of God _in the
+world to come_ (_which is Paradise_) is better for him who believeth
+and worketh righteousness _than that which hath been bestowed on
+Ḳároon in the present world_; and none shall receive it but the
+patient _in the service of God_. And We caused the earth to cleave
+asunder and swallow up him and his mansion,[302] and he had no forces
+to defend him, in the place of God, nor was he of the [number of the]
+saved. And the next morning, those who had wished for his place the
+day before said, Aha! God enlargeth provision unto whom He pleaseth of
+His servants, and is sparing _of it unto whom He pleaseth!_ Had not
+God been gracious unto us, He had caused [the earth] to cleave asunder
+and swallow up us! Aha! the ungrateful _for His benefits_ do not
+prosper!
+
+   (xxviii. 76-82.)
+
+
+_Remember_, [O children of Israel,] when Moses said unto his people
+(_when one of them had been slain, whose murderer was not known, and
+they asked him to beg God that He would discover him to them,
+wherefore he supplicated Him_), Verily God commandeth you to sacrifice
+a cow. They said, Dost thou make a jest of us? He said, I beg God to
+preserve me from being _one_ of the foolish. _So when they knew that
+he decidedly intended_ [what he had ordered], they said, Supplicate
+for us thy Lord, that He may manifest to us what she is; _that is,
+what is her age_. _Moses_ replied, He saith, She is a cow neither old
+nor young; _but_ of a middle age, between those _two_: therefore do as
+ye are commanded. They said, Supplicate for us thy Lord, that He may
+manifest to us what is her colour. He replied, He saith, She is a
+red[303] cow: her colour is very bright: she rejoiceth the beholders.
+They said, Supplicate for us thy Lord, that He may manifest to us what
+she is, _whether she be a pasturing or a working cow_; for cows _of
+the description mentioned_ are to us like one another; and we, if God
+please, shall indeed be rightly directed _to her_. (_In a tradition it
+is said, Had they not said, ‘If God please,’—she had not ever been
+manifested to them._) He replied, He saith, She is a cow not subdued
+_by work_ that plougheth the ground, nor doth she water the field:
+[she is] free _from defects and the marks of work_; there is no colour
+in her different from the rest of her colour. They said, Now thou hast
+brought the truth. _And they sought her, and found her in the
+possession of the young man who acted piously towards his mother, and
+they bought her for as much gold as her hide would contain._[304]
+Then they sacrificed her; but they were near to leaving it undone, on
+_account of the greatness of her price_. (_And in a tradition it is
+said, Had they sacrificed any cow whatever, He had satisfied them: but
+they acted hardly towards themselves; so God acted hardly towards
+them._) And when ye slew a soul, and contended together respecting it,
+(and God brought forth [to light] that which ye did conceal—_this is
+the beginning of the story_ [and was the occasion of the order to
+sacrifice this particular cow,]) We said, Strike him (_that is, the
+slain person_) with part of her. _So he was struck with her tongue, or
+the root of her tail, or, as some say, with her right thigh; whereupon
+he came to life, and said, Such-a-one and such-a-one slew me,—to the
+two sons of his uncle. And he died. They two_ [the murderers] _were
+therefore deprived of the inheritance, and were slain._[305] Thus God
+raiseth to life the dead, and showeth you His signs (_the proof of His
+power_), that peradventure ye may understand, _and know that He who is
+able to raise to life one soul is able to raise to life many souls._
+Then your hearts became hard, _O ye Jews, so as not to accept the
+truth_, after that, and they [were] as stones, or more hard: for of
+stones there are indeed some from which rivers gush forth; and of them
+there are indeed some that cleave asunder and water issueth from them;
+and of them there are indeed some that fall down through fear of God;
+_whereas your hearts are not impressed, nor do they grow soft, nor do
+they become humble._ But God is not heedless of that which ye do: _He
+only reserveth you unto your time._
+
+   (ii. 63-69.)
+
+
+_Remember_ when Moses said to his young man _Joshua the son of Nun,
+who served him and acquired knowledge from him_, I will not cease _to
+go forward_ until I reach the place where the two seas (_the Sea of
+Greece and the Sea of Persia_) meet, or travel for a long space of
+time. And when they reached the place where they (_the two seas_) met
+they forgot their fish: _Joshua forgot to take it up, on their
+departure; and Moses forgot to remind him_; and it made its way in the
+sea by a hollow passage, _God withholding the water from it_. And when
+they had passed beyond _that place, and proceeded until the time of
+the morning-meal on the following day_, [Moses] said unto his young
+man, Bring us our morning-meal: we have experienced fatigue from this
+our journey. He replied, What thinkest thou? When we repaired to the
+rock to rest _at that place_, I forgot the fish, and none made me
+forget to mention it but the devil; and it made its way in the sea in
+a wonderful manner.—_Moses_ said, That (_namely our loss of the fish_)
+is what we were desiring; _for it is a sign unto us of our finding him
+whom we seek_. And they returned by the way that they had come,
+following the footsteps, _and came to the rock_. And they found one of
+Our servants (_namely El-Khiḍr_[306]) unto whom We had granted mercy
+from Us (_that is the gift of prophecy in the opinion of some, and the
+rank of a saint according to another opinion which most of the learned
+hold_), and whom We had taught knowledge from Us respecting things
+unseen.—_El-Bukháree hath related a tradition stating that Moses
+performed the office of a preacher among the children of Israel, and
+was asked who was the most knowing of men; to which he answered,
+I:—whereupon God blamed him for this, because he did not refer the
+knowledge thereof to Him. And God said unto him by revelation,
+Verily I have a servant at the place where the two seas meet, and he
+is more knowing than thou. Moses said, O my Lord, and how shall I meet
+with him? He answered, Thou shalt take with thee a fish, and put it
+into a measuring-vessel, and where thou shalt lose the fish, there is
+he. So he took a fish, and put it into a vessel. Then he departed, and
+Joshua the son of Nun departed with him, until they came to the rock,
+where they laid down their heads and slept. And the fish became
+agitated in the vessel, and escaped from it, and fell into the sea,
+and it made its way in the sea by a hollow passage, God withholding
+the water from the fish so that it became like a vault over it: and
+when Moses’ companion awoke, he forgot to inform him of the fish._
+
+Moses said unto him [namely El-Khiḍr], Shall I follow thee, that thou
+mayest teach me [part] of that which thou hast been taught, for a
+direction _unto me_? He answered, Verily thou canst not have patience
+with me. For how canst thou be patient with respect to that whereof
+thou comprehendest not the knowledge?—He replied, Thou shalt find me,
+if God please, patient; and I will not disobey any command of thine.
+He said, Then if thou follow me, ask me not respecting anything: _but
+be patient_ until I give thee an account thereof. _And Moses assented
+to his condition._ And they departed, _walking along the shore of the
+sea_, until, when they embarked in the ship _that passed by them_, he
+(El-Khiḍr) made a hole in it, _by pulling out a plank or two planks
+from it on the outside by means of an axe when it reached the middle
+of the sea. Moses_ said _unto him_, Hast thou made a hole in it that
+thou mayest drown its people? Thou hast done a grievous thing.—(_But
+it is related that the water entered not the hole._) He replied, Did I
+not say that thou couldst not have patience with me? [Moses] said,
+Chastise me not for my forgetfulness, nor impose on me a difficulty in
+my case.—And they departed, _after they had gone forth from the
+vessel_, _walking on_, until, when they found a boy _who had not
+attained the age of knowing right and wrong, playing with other
+children, and he was the most beautiful of them in countenance_, and
+he (_El-Khiḍr_) slew him, _Moses_ said _unto him_, Hast thou slain an
+innocent soul, without _his having slain_ a soul? Thou hast done an
+iniquitous thing.—He replied, Did I not say that thou couldst not have
+patience with me? [Moses] said, If I ask thee concerning anything
+after this _time_, suffer me not to accompany thee. Now hast thou
+received from me an excuse _for thy separating thyself from me_.—And
+they departed [and proceeded] until, when they came to the people of a
+city (_which was Antioch[307]_), they asked food of its people; but
+they refused to entertain them: and they found therein a wall, _the
+height whereof was a hundred cubits_, which was about to fall down;
+whereupon he (_El-Khiḍr_) set it upright _with his hand_. _Moses_ said
+_unto him_, If thou wouldst, thou mightest have obtained pay for it,
+_since they did not entertain us, notwithstanding our want of food_.
+_El-Khiḍr_ said _unto him_, This shall be a separation between me and
+thee; _but before my separation from thee_, I will declare unto thee
+the interpretation of that which thou couldst not bear with patience.
+
+As to the vessel, it belonged to _ten_ poor men,[308] who pursued
+their business on the sea; and I desired to render it unsound; for
+there was behind them a king, _an unbeliever_, who took every _sound_
+vessel by force. And as to the boy, his parents were believers, and we
+feared that he would transgress against them rebelliously and
+impiously: _for, according to a tradition related by Muslim, he was
+constituted by nature an unbeliever, and had he lived he had so
+acted_; wherefore we desired that their Lord should create for them a
+better than he in virtue, and [one] more disposed than he to filial
+piety. _And God created for them a daughter, who married a prophet,
+and gave birth to a prophet, by means of whom God directed a people
+to the right way_. And as to the wall, it belonged to two orphan
+youths in the city, and beneath it was a treasure _buried_, _of gold
+and silver_, belonging to them; and their father was a righteous man;
+and thy Lord desired that they should attain their age of strength and
+take forth their treasure through the mercy of thy Lord. And I did it
+not (_namely what hath been mentioned_) of mine own will, _but by
+direction of God_. This is the interpretation of that which thou
+couldst not bear with patience.
+
+   (Chap. xviii. 59-81.)
+
+
+
+
+SAUL, DAVID, SOLOMON.
+
+
+Hast thou not considered the assembly of the children of Israel after
+_the death of_ Moses, when they said unto a prophet of theirs, _namely
+Samuel_, Set up for us a king, _under whom_ we will fight in the way
+of God? He said _unto them_, If fighting be prescribed as incumbent on
+you, will ye, peradventure, abstain from fighting? They replied, And
+wherefore should we not fight in the way of God, since we have been
+expelled from our habitations and our children _by their having been
+taken prisoners and slain?_—_The people of Goliath_ [Jáloot] _had done
+thus unto them_.—But when fighting was commanded them, they turned
+back, excepting a few of them, _who crossed the river with Saul_
+[Ṭáloot], _as will be related_. And God knoweth the offenders. _And
+the prophet begged his Lord to send a king; whereupon he consented to
+send Saul._ And their prophet said unto them, Verily God hath set up
+Saul as your king. They said, How shall he have the dominion over us,
+when we are more worthy of the dominion than he, (_for he was not of
+the royal lineage, nor of the prophetic, and he was a tanner, or a
+tender of flocks or herds,_) and he hath not been endowed with ample
+wealth? He replied, Verily God hath chosen him _as king_ over you, and
+increased him in largeness of knowledge and of body, (_for he was the
+wisest of the children of Israel at that time, and the most comely of
+them, and the most perfect of them in make,_) and God giveth his
+kingdom unto whom He pleaseth; and God is ample _in His beneficence_,
+knowing _with respect to him who is worthy of the kingdom_.—And their
+prophet said unto them, _when they demanded of him a sign in proof of
+his kingship_, Verily the sign of his kingship shall be that the ark
+shall come unto you (_in it were the images of the prophets: God sent
+it down unto Adam, and it passed into their possession; but the
+Amalekites took it from them by force: and they used to seek victory
+thereby over their enemy, and to advance it in the fight, and to trust
+in it, as He—whose name be exalted!—hath said_); therein [shall be]
+tranquillity from your Lord,[309] and relics of what the family of
+Moses and the family of Aaron have left: _namely, the two shoes (or
+sandals) of Moses, and his rod, and the turban of Aaron, and a measure
+of the manna that used to descend upon them, and the fragments of the
+tables_ [of the Law]: the angels shall bear it. Verily in this shall
+be a sign unto you _of his kingship_, if ye be believers. _Accordingly
+the angels bore it between heaven and earth, while they looked at it,
+until they placed it by Saul; whereupon they acknowledged his
+kingship, and hastened to the holy war; and he chose of their young
+men seventy thousand._
+
+And when Saul went forth with the troops _from Jerusalem, and it was
+violently hot weather, and they demanded of him water_, he said,
+Verily God will try you by a river, _that the obedient among you, and
+the disobedient, may appear_, (_and it was between the Jordan and
+Palestine_,) and whoso drinketh thereof, he is not of my party (but he
+who tasteth not thereof, he is of my party), excepting him who taketh
+forth a draught in his hand, _and is satisfied therewith, not adding
+to it; for he is of my party_;—then they drank thereof abundantly,
+excepting a few of them, _who were content only with the handful of
+water. It is related that it sufficed them for their own drinking and
+for their beasts, and they were three hundred, and somewhat more
+than ten._ And when he had passed over it, he and those who believed
+with him, they (_that is, those who had drunk_ [plentifully]) said, We
+have no power to-day _to contend_ against Goliath and his troops. _And
+they were cowardly, and passed not over it._ They [however] who held
+it as certain that they should meet God _at the resurrection_ (_and
+they were those who had passed over it_) said, How many a small body
+of men hath overcome a great body by the permission (_or will_) of
+God! And God is with the patient, _to defend and aid_.—And when they
+went forth to battle against Goliath and his troops, they said, O our
+Lord, pour upon us patience, and make firm our feet, _by strengthening
+our hearts for the holy war_, and help us against the unbelieving
+people!—And they routed them by the permission (_or will_) of God, and
+David [Dáwood, vulg. Dáood], _who was in the army of Saul_, slew
+Goliath. And God gave him (_David_) the kingship _over the children of
+Israel_, and wisdom (_that is prophecy_), _after the death of Samuel
+and Saul, and they_ [namely these two gifts] _had not been given
+together to any one before him_; and He taught him what He
+pleased,[310] _as the art of making coats of mail, and the language of
+birds_. And were it not for God’s repelling men, one by another,
+surely the earth had become corrupt _by the predominance of the
+polytheists and the slaughter of the Muslims and the ruin of the
+places of worship_: but God is beneficent to the peoples, _and hath
+repelled some by others_.
+
+   (ii. 247-252.)
+
+
+Hath the story of the two opposing parties come unto thee, _O
+Moḥammad_, when they ascended over the walls of the oratory of _David,
+having been prevented going in unto him by the door, because of his
+being engaged in devotion?_ When they went in unto David, and he was
+frightened at them, they said, Fear not: _we are_ two opposing
+parties. _It is said that they were two parties of more than one each;
+and it is said that they were two individuals, angels, who came as two
+litigants, to admonish David, who had ninety-nine wives, and had
+desired the wife of a person who had none but her, and married her and
+taken her as his wife._[311] [One of them said,] One of us hath
+wronged the other; therefore judge between us with truth, and be not
+unjust, but direct us into the right way. Verily this my brother _in
+religion_ had nine-and-ninety ewes, and I had one ewe; and he said,
+Make me her keeper. And he overcame me in the dispute.—_And the other
+confessed him to have spoken truth._—[David] said, Verily he hath
+wronged thee in demanding thy ewe _to add her_ to his ewes; and verily
+many associates wrong one another, except those who believe and do
+righteous deeds: and few indeed are they.—_And the two angels said,
+ascending in their_ [proper or assumed] _forms to heaven, The man hath
+passed sentence against himself. So David was admonished._ And David
+perceived that We had tried him _by his love of that woman_; wherefore
+he asked pardon of his Lord, and fell down bowing himself (_or
+prostrating himself_), and repented. So We forgave him that; and
+verily for him [was ordained] a high rank with Us (_that is, an
+increase of good fortune in this world_), and [there shall be for
+him] an excellent retreat _in the world to come_.
+
+   (xxxviii. 20-24.)
+
+
+We compelled the mountains to glorify Us, with David, and the birds
+_also, on his commanding them to do so, when he experienced languor_;
+and We did _this_. And We taught him the art of making coats of mail
+(_for before his time plates of metal were used_) for you _among
+mankind in general_, that they might defend you from your suffering
+_in warring with your enemies_.—Will ye then, _O people of Mekkeh_, be
+thankful _for My favours, believing the apostles_?—And _We subjected_
+unto Solomon [Suleymán] the wind, blowing strongly, _and being light
+at his desire_, which ran at his command[312] to the land that We
+blessed (_namely Syria_);[313] and We knew all things (_knowing that
+what We gave him would stimulate him to be submissive to his Lord_).
+And _We subjected_, of the devils, those who should dive for him _in
+the sea and bring forth from it jewels for him_, and do other work
+besides that; _that is, building, and performing other services_; and
+We watched over them, _that they might not spoil what they executed;
+for they used, when they had finished a work before night, to spoil
+it, if they were not employed in something else_.
+
+   (xxi. 79-82.)
+
+
+We gave unto David Solomon _his son_. How excellent a servant _was
+he_! For he was one who earnestly turned himself unto God, _glorifying
+and praising Him at all times_. [Remember] when, in the latter part of
+the day, _after the commencement of the declining of the sun_, the
+_mares_ standing on three feet and touching the ground with the edge
+of the fourth foot, swift in the course, were displayed before him.
+_They were a thousand mares, which were displayed before him after he
+had performed the noon-prayers, on the occasion of his desiring to
+make use of them in a holy war; and when nine hundred of them had been
+displayed, the sun set, and he had not performed the
+afternoon-prayers. So he was grieved_, and he said, Verily I have
+preferred the love of [earthly] goods above the remembrance of my
+Lord, (_that is, the performance of the afternoon-prayers_,) so that
+_the sun_ is concealed by the veil. Bring them (_namely the horses_)
+back unto me. _Therefore they brought them back._ And he began to
+sever _with his sword_ the legs and the necks, _slaughtering them,
+and_ [then] _cutting off their legs, as a sacrifice unto God, and gave
+their flesh in alms; and God gave him in compensation what was better
+than they were and swifter, namely the wind, which travelled by his
+command whithersoever he desired._—And We tried Solomon _by depriving
+him of his kingdom. This was because he married a woman of whom he
+became enamoured, and she used to worship an idol in his palace
+without his knowledge. His dominion was in his signet; and he pulled
+it off once and deposited it with his wife, who was named El-Emeeneh;
+and a jinnee came unto her in the form of Solomon, and took it from
+her._ And We placed upon his throne a [counterfeit] body; _namely that
+jinnee, who was Ṣakhr, or another. He sat upon the throne of
+Solomon, and the birds and other creatures surrounded him; and Solomon
+went forth, with a changed appearance, and saw him upon his throne,
+and said unto the people, I am Solomon:—but they denied him._ Then he
+returned _unto his kingdom, after some days, having obtained the
+signet and put it on, and seated himself upon his throne._[314] He
+said, O my Lord, forgive me, and give me a dominion that may not be
+to any one after me (_or beside me_); for Thou art the Liberal Giver.
+So We subjected unto him the wind, which ran gently at his command
+whithersoever he desired; and the devils [also], every builder _of
+wonderful structures_, and diver _that brought up pearls from the
+sea_, and others bound in chains _which connected their hands to their
+necks. And We said unto him_, This is Our gift, and bestow thou
+_thereof upon whomsoever thou wilt_, or refrain _from bestowing_,
+without _rendering_ an account. And verily for him [was ordained] a
+high rank with Us, and an excellent retreat.
+
+   (xxxviii. 29-39.)
+
+
+We bestowed on David and Solomon knowledge _in judging men and in the
+language of the birds and other matters_; and they said, Praise be to
+God who hath made us to excel many of His believing servants, _by the
+gift of prophecy and by the subjection of the jinn and mankind and the
+devils_. And Solomon inherited from David _the gift of prophecy and
+knowledge_; and he said, O men, we have been taught the language of
+the birds,[315] and have had bestowed on us of everything _wherewith
+prophets and kings are gifted_. Verily this is manifest
+excellence.—And his armies of jinn and men and birds were gathered
+together unto Solomon, and they were led on in order, until, when they
+came unto the valley of ants, (_which_ [was] _at Eṭ-Ṭáïf or in Syria,
+the ants whereof_ [were] _small or great_,) an ant (_the queen of the
+ants_), _having seen the troops of Solomon_, said, O ants, enter your
+habitations, lest Solomon and his troops crush you violently, while
+they perceive not. And _Solomon_ smiled, _afterwards_ laughing at her
+saying, _which he heard from the distance of three miles, the wind
+conveying it to him: so he withheld his forces when he came in sight
+of their valley, until the ants had entered their dwellings: and his
+troops were on horses and on foot in this expedition_. And he said, O
+my Lord, inspire me to be thankful for Thy favour which Thou hast
+bestowed upon me and upon my parents, and to do righteousness which
+Thou shalt approve, and admit me, in Thy mercy, among Thy servants,
+the righteous, _the prophets and the saints_.
+
+And he examined the birds,[316] _that he might see the lapwing, that
+saw the water beneath the earth, and directed to it by pecking the
+earth, whereupon the devils used to draw it forth when Solomon wanted
+it_ [to perform the ablution] _for prayer; but he saw it not_: and he
+said, Wherefore do I not see the lapwing? Is it [one] of the
+absent?—_And when he was certain of the case he said_, I will
+assuredly punish it with a severe punishment, _by plucking out its
+feathers and its tail and casting it in the sun so that it shall not
+be able to guard against excessive thirst_; or I will slaughter it; or
+it shall bring me a manifest convincing proof _showing its
+excuse_.—And it tarried not long _before it presented itself unto
+Solomon submissively, and raised its head and relaxed its tail and its
+wings: so he forgave it; and he asked it what it had met with during
+its absence_; and it said, I have become acquainted with that
+wherewith thou hast not become acquainted, and I have come unto thee
+from Seba (_a tribe of El-Yemen_) with a sure piece of news. I found a
+woman reigning over them, _named Bilḳees_, and she hath been gifted
+with everything _that princes require_, and hath a magnificent throne.
+_(Its length was eighty cubits; and its breadth, forty cubits; and its
+height, thirty cubits: it was composed of gold and silver set with
+fine pearls and with rubies and chrysolites, and its legs were of
+rubies and chrysolites and emeralds: upon it_ [were closed] _seven
+doors: to each chamber_ [through which one passed to it was] _a closed
+door_.) I found her and her people worshipping the sun instead of God,
+and the devil hath made their works to seem comely unto them, so that
+he hath hindered them from the _right_ way, wherefore they are not
+rightly directed to the worship of God, who produceth what is hidden
+(_namely the rain and vegetables_) in the heavens and the earth, and
+knoweth what they [that is, mankind and others] conceal _in their
+hearts_, and what they reveal _with their tongues_. God: there is no
+deity but He, the Lord of the magnificent throne, _between which and
+the throne of Bilḳees is a vast difference_.
+
+_Solomon_ said _to the lapwing_, We will see whether thou hast spoken
+truth or whether thou art of the liars. _Then the lapwing guided them
+to the water, and it was drawn forth_ [by the devils]; _and they
+quenched their thirst and performed the ablution and prayed. Then
+Solomon wrote a letter, the form whereof was this:—From the servant of
+God, Solomon the son of David, to Bilḳees the queen of Seba. In the
+name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Peace be on whomsoever
+followeth the right direction. After_ [this salutation, I say], _Act
+ye not proudly towards me; but come unto me submitting.—He then sealed
+it with musk, and stamped it with his signet, and said unto the
+lapwing_, Go with this my letter and throw it down unto them (_namely
+Bilḳees and her people_): then turn away from them, _but stay near
+them_, and see what _reply_ they will return. _So the lapwing took it,
+and came unto her, and around her were her forces; and he threw it
+down into her lap; and when she saw it, she trembled with fear. Then
+she considered what was in it, and_ she said _unto the nobles of her
+people_, O nobles, an honourable (_sealed_) letter hath been thrown
+down unto me. It is from Solomon; and it is _this_:—In the name of
+God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Act ye not proudly towards me:
+but come unto me submitting.—She said, O nobles, advise me in mine
+affair. I will not decide upon a thing unless ye bear me
+witness.—They replied, We are endowed with strength and endowed with
+great valour; but the command [belongeth] to thee; therefore see what
+thou wilt command _us to do, and we will obey thee_. She said, Verily
+kings, when they enter a city, waste it, and render the mighty of its
+inhabitants abject; and thus will they do _who have sent the letter_.
+But I will send unto them with a gift, and I will see with what the
+messengers will return, _whether the gift will be accepted, or whether
+it will be rejected. If he be_ [merely] _a king, he will accept it;
+and if he be a prophet, he will not accept it.—And she sent male and
+female servants, a thousand in equal numbers_ [five hundred of each
+sex], _and five hundred bricks of gold, and a crown set with jewels,
+and musk and ambergris and other things, by a messenger with a
+letter.[317] And the lapwing hastened unto Solomon, to tell him the
+news; on hearing which, he commanded that bricks of gold and silver
+should be cast, and that a horse-course should be extended to the
+length of nine leagues from the place where he was, and that they
+should build around it a wall with battlements, of gold and silver,
+and that the handsomest of the beasts of the land and of the sea
+should be brought with the sons of the jinn on the right side of the
+horse-course and on its left._
+
+And when _the messenger_ came _with the gift, and with him his
+attendants_, unto Solomon, he [Solomon] said, Do ye aid me with
+wealth? But what God hath given me (_namely the gift of prophecy and
+the kingdom_) is better than what He hath given you, _of worldly
+goods_; yet ye rejoice in your gift, _because ye glory in the showy
+things of this world_. Return unto them _with the gift that thou hast
+brought_; for we will surely come unto them with forces with which
+they have not power [to contend], and we will surely drive them out
+from it, (_that is, from their country, Seba, which was named after
+the father of their tribe_,) abject and contemptible, _if they come
+not unto us submitting. And when the messenger returned unto her with
+the gift, she placed her throne within seven doors, within her palace,
+and her palace was within seven palaces; and she closed the doors, and
+set guards to them, and prepared to go unto Solomon, that she might
+see what he would command her to do. She departed with twelve thousand
+kings, each king having with him many thousands, and proceeded until
+she came as near to him as a league’s distance; when he knew of her_
+[approach,] he said, O nobles, which of you will bring unto me her
+throne before they come unto me submitting? An ´efreet, of the jinn,
+answered, I will bring it unto thee before thou shalt arise from thy
+place _wherein thou sittest to judge from morning until mid-day_; for
+I am able to do it, [and] trustworthy _with respect to the jewels that
+it compriseth and other matters. Solomon said, I desire it more
+speedily._ [And thereupon] he with whom was knowledge of the
+_revealed_ scripture (_namely_ [his Wezeer] _Áṣaf the son of Barkhiya,
+who was a just person, acquainted with the most great name of God,
+which ensured an answer to him who invoked thereby_[318]) said, I will
+bring it unto thee before thy glance can be withdrawn _from any
+object. And he said unto him, Look at the sky. So he looked at it;
+then he withdrew his glance, and found it placed before him: for
+during his look towards the sky, Áṣaf prayed, by the most great name,
+that God would bring it; and it so happened, the throne passing under
+the ground until it came up before the throne of Solomon._ And when he
+saw it firmly placed before him, he said, This is of the favour of my
+Lord, that He may try me, whether I shall be thankful or whether I
+shall be unthankful. And he who is thankful is thankful for _the sake
+of_ his own soul, _which will have the reward of his thankfulness_;
+and [as to] him who is ungrateful, my Lord is independent [and]
+bountiful.
+
+[Then Solomon] said, Alter ye her throne so that it may not be known
+by her, that we may see whether she be rightly directed _to the
+knowledge thereof_, or whether she be of those who are not rightly
+directed _to the knowledge of that which is altered. He desired
+thereby to try her intelligence. So they altered it, by adding to it,
+or taking from it, or in some other manner._ And when she came, it was
+said _unto her_, Is thy throne like this? She answered, As though it
+were the same. (_She answered them ambiguously like as they had
+questioned her ambiguously, not saying, Is this thy throne?—and had
+they so said, she had answered, Yes._) _And when Solomon saw her
+knowledge, he said_, And we have had knowledge bestowed on us before
+her, and have been Muslims. But what she worshipped instead of God
+hindered her _from worshipping Him_; for she was of an unbelieving
+people.—It was said unto her _also_, Enter the palace. _It had a floor
+of white, transparent glass, beneath which was running water, wherein
+were fish. Solomon had made it on its being said unto him that her
+legs and feet were_ [hairy] _like the legs of an ass._ And when she
+saw it, she imagined it to be a great water, and she uncovered her
+legs, _that she might wade through it; and Solomon was on his throne
+at the upper end of the palace, and he saw that her legs and her feet
+were handsome_. He said _unto her_, Verily it is a palace evenly
+spread with glass. _And he invited her to embrace El-Islám_,
+[whereupon] she said, O my Lord, verily I have acted unjustly towards
+mine own soul, _by worshipping another than Thee_, and I resign
+myself, with Solomon, unto God, the Lord of the worlds. _And he
+desired to marry her; but he disliked the hair upon her legs; so the
+devils made for him the depilatory of quick-lime, wherewith she
+removed the hair, and he married her; and he loved her, and confirmed
+her in her kingdom. He used to visit her every month once, and to
+remain with her three days; and her reign expired on the expiration
+of the reign of Solomon. It is related that he began to reign when he
+was thirteen years of age, and died at the age of three and fifty
+years. Extolled be the perfection of Him to the duration of whose
+dominion there is no end!_
+
+   (xxvii. 15-45.)
+
+
+_We subjected_ unto Solomon the wind, which travelled in the morning
+(_unto the period when the sun began to decline_) _the distance of_ a
+month’s _journey_, and in the evening _from the commencement of the
+declining of the sun into its setting_ a month’s _journey_. And We
+made the fountain of molten brass to flow for him _three days with
+their nights_ [in every month], _as water floweth;[319] and the people
+worked until the day_ [of its flowing], _with that which had been
+given into Solomon_. And of the jinn [were] those who worked in his
+presence, by the will of his Lord; and such of them as swerved from
+_obedience to_ Our command We will cause to taste of the punishment of
+hell _in the world to come_ (_or, as it is said by some, We cause to
+taste of its punishment in the present world, an angel beating them
+with a scourge from hell, the stripe of which burneth them_). They
+made for him whatever he pleased, of lofty halls (_with steps whereby
+to ascend to them_), and images (_for they were not forbidden by his
+law_[320]), and large dishes, like great tanks for watering camels,
+_around each of which assembled a thousand men, eating from it_, and
+cooking-pots standing firmly _on their legs, cut out from the
+mountains in El-Yemen, and to which they ascended by ladders_. _And We
+said_, Work, O family of David, _in the service of God_, with
+thanksgiving _unto Him for what He hath given you_:—but few of My
+servants are the thankful. And when We decreed that he (_namely,
+Solomon_) should die, _and he died, and remained standing, and leaning
+upon his staff for a year, dead, the jinn meanwhile performing those
+difficult works as they were accustomed to do, not knowing of his
+death, until the worm ate his staff, whereupon he fell down_, nothing
+showed them his death but the eating reptile (_the worm_) that ate his
+staff.[321] And when he fell down, the jinn plainly perceived that if
+they had known things unseen (_of which things was the death of
+Solomon_), they had not continued in the ignominious affliction (_that
+is, in their difficult works_), _imagining that he was alive,
+inconsistently with their opinion that they knew things unseen. And
+that the period was a year was known by calculating what the worm had
+eaten of his staff since his death in each day and night or other
+space of time._ (xxxiv. 11-13.)
+
+
+
+
+_JONAH._
+
+
+Verily Jonah [Yoonus] was one of the apostles. [Remember] when he fled
+unto the laden ship, _being angry with his people, because the
+punishment wherewith he had threatened them did not fall upon them;
+wherefore he embarked in the ship; and it became stationary in the
+midst of the sea: so the sailors said, Here is a slave who hath fled
+from his master, and the lot will discover him_:—and he cast lots
+_with those who were in the ship_, and he was [the] one upon whom the
+lot fell. _They therefore cast him into the sea_, and the fish
+swallowed him; and he was reprehensible, _for having gone to the sea,
+and embarked in the ship, without the permission of his Lord_. And had
+he not been of those who glorified God (_by his saying often in the
+belly of the fish, There is no god but Thou! I extol Thy perfection!
+Verily I have been of the offenders!_), he had remained in his belly
+until the day of resurrection.[322] And We cast him on the plain land,
+_the same day, or after three or seven days, or twenty or forty days_;
+and he was sick; and We caused a gourd plant[323] to grow up over him,
+_to shade him_. _It had a trunk, contrary to what is the case of
+gourds in general, being miraculously produced for him._[324] _And a
+wild she-goat came to him evening and morning, of whose milk he
+drank until he became strong._ And We sent him _after that, as
+before_, unto _his people in Nineveh, in the land of El-Moṣil_, a
+hundred thousand, or they were a greater number by _twenty or thirty
+or seventy thousand_; and they believed _on beholding the punishment
+wherewith they had been threatened_;[325] wherefore We allowed them
+enjoyment _of their goods_ for a time, _until the expiration of their
+terms of life_.
+
+   (xxxvii. 139-148.)
+
+
+
+
+_EZRA._
+
+
+[Hast thou not considered] him who passed by a city (_which was
+Jerusalem_), _riding upon an ass, and having with him a basket of figs
+and a vessel of the juice of grapes_ (_and he was ´Ozeyr_ [Ezra]), and
+it was falling down upon its roofs, _Nebuchadnezzar having ruined it_?
+He said, _wondering at the power of God_, How will God quicken this
+after its death?—And God caused him to die for a hundred years. Then
+He raised him to life: [and] He said _unto him_, How long hast thou
+tarried _here_?—He answered I have tarried a day, or part of a
+day.—_For he slept in the first part of the day, and was deprived of
+his life, and was reanimated at sunset._ He said Nay, thou hast
+tarried a hundred years: but look at thy food and thy drink: they have
+not become changed by time: and look at thine ass.—_And he beheld it
+dead, and its bones white and shining.—We have done this that thou
+mayest know_, and that We may make thee a sign _of the resurrection_
+unto men. And look at the bones _of thine ass_, how We will raise
+them; then We will clothe them with flesh.—_So he looked at them, and
+they had become put together, and were clothed with flesh, and life
+was breathed into it, and it brayed._ Therefore when it had been made
+manifest to him he said, I know that God is able to accomplish
+everything. (ii. 261.)
+
+
+
+
+_THE MESSIAH._
+
+
+_Remember_ when the wife of ´Imrán[326] said, (_when she had become
+aged, and desired offspring, wherefore she supplicated God, and became
+sensible of pregnancy_,) O my Lord, verily I devote unto Thee what is
+in my womb, to be dedicated _to the service of Thy holy house_: then
+accept [it] from me; for Thou art the Hearer _of prayer_, the Knower
+_of intentions_. _And ´Imrán perished while she was pregnant._ And
+when she gave birth to it, (_namely her daughter; and she was hoping
+that it might be a boy; since none but boys were dedicated_,) she
+said, O my Lord, verily I have brought forth a female, (and God well
+knew what she had brought forth,) and the male is not as the female,
+_the latter not being fit for the service_ [of the temple]; and I have
+named her Mary [Maryam]; and I beg thy protection for her and her
+offspring from the accursed devil.[327] (_In the traditions_ [it is
+said], _No child is born but the devil hath touched it at the time of
+its birth, wherefore it first raiseth its voice by crying, excepting
+Mary and her son._[328]) And her Lord accepted her (_that is, He
+accepted Mary from her mother_) with a gracious acceptance, and caused
+her to grow with an excellent growth, _as though she grew in a day as
+a child_ [generally] _groweth in a month_. _Her mother took her to the
+doctors, the keepers of the Holy House, and said, Receive ye this
+devoted child. And they eagerly desired her, because she was the
+daughter of their chief. But Zechariah said, I am more worthy of
+having her; for her maternal aunt is with me. They however replied,
+Nay, but we will cast lots.—So they departed (and they were nine and
+twenty) to the river Jordan, and cast their divining arrows on the
+understanding that he whose arrow should become steady in the water
+and rise should be_ [acknowledged] _most worthy of her; and the arrow
+of Zechariah became steady, and he took her, and built for her a
+chamber in the temple, with stairs to which no one ascended but
+himself. And he used to bring her her food and her drink and her
+ointment; and used to find with her the fruits of winter in summer,
+and the fruits of summer in winter, as He—whose name be exalted!—hath
+said_, And Zechariah maintained her. Whenever Zechariah went in to her
+in the chamber, he found with her provisions. He said, O Mary, whence
+came to thee this? She answered, (_being then a little child_,) It is
+from God: _He bringeth it to me from Paradise_: for God supplieth whom
+He pleaseth without reckoning.
+
+Then, _when he saw this, and knew that He who was able to produce a
+thing out of its season was able to give a child in old age, (and the
+people of his house had become extinct,)_ Zechariah supplicated his
+Lord, _when he had entered the chamber to pray in the latter part of
+the night_. He said, O my Lord, give me from Thee a good offspring (_a
+righteous son_); for Thou art the Hearer of prayer.—And the angels
+(_by which is meant Gabriel_) called to him as he stood praying in the
+chamber (_that is, the temple_), saying, God promiseth thee John
+[Yaḥyá], who shall be a verifier of [the] Word _which cometh_ from
+God, (_that is, Jesus_ [´Eesa]; _for he is the Spirit of God, and was
+named_ [the] _Word because he was created by the word Be_,) and a
+chief, (_or one followed_,) and chaste, and a prophet, of the
+righteous. (_It is related that he neither did any sin nor intended
+any._)—He said, O my Lord, how shall I have a son, when old age hath
+come upon me, _when I have attained the utmost age, a hundred and
+twenty years_, and my wife is barren, _and hath attained the age of
+eight and ninety_?—He answered, _It shall be_ thus. God will do what
+He pleaseth.—He said, O my Lord, give me a sign.—He replied, Thy sign
+[shall be] that thou shalt not speak unto men for three days, except
+by signal; but remember thy Lord often, and glorify [Him] in the
+evening and in the morning.
+
+   (iii. 31-36.)
+
+
+And he went forth unto his people from the chamber, and made a sign
+unto them, [as though he would say] Glorify [God] in the morning and
+in the evening _as usual_. _And he knew by his being prevented from
+speaking unto them that his wife had conceived John. And after his
+birth, by some years, God said unto him_, O John, receive the book
+(_that is, the Law_) with resolution. And We bestowed on him wisdom
+(_the gift of prophecy_) [when he was yet] a child, _three years of
+age_, and compassion from Us _for mankind_, and [a disposition to
+bestow] alms _upon them_. And he was pious, and dutiful to his
+parents, and was not proud [nor] rebellious _toward his Lord_; and
+peace _from Us_ [was] on him on the day when he was born, and on the
+day of his death, and [shall be] on the day when he shall be raised to
+life. (xix. 12-15.)
+
+And _remember_ when the angels (_that is, Gabriel_) said, O Mary,
+verily God hath chosen thee and hath purified thee and hath chosen
+thee above the women of the peoples _of thy time_. O Mary, be devout
+towards thy Lord and prostrate thyself and bow down with those who bow
+down: _pray with those who pray_.—This is [one] of the announcements
+of things unseen _by thee_: We reveal it unto thee, _O Moḥammad_; for
+thou wast not with them when they cast their divining arrows _that it
+might appear to them_ which of them should rear Mary, and thou wast
+not with them when they disputed together _as to rearing
+her_.—_Remember_ when the angels (_that is, Gabriel_) said, O Mary,
+verily God promiseth thee [the] Word from Him, whose name [shall be]
+the Messiah [El-Meseeḥ], Jesus the son of Mary, honourable in this
+world _by his prophetic office_, and in the world to come _by his
+intercession and high stations_, and of those admitted near _unto
+God_; and he shall speak unto men in the cradle, and when of full
+age,[329] and [he shall be] of the righteous.—She said, O my Lord, how
+shall I have a son, when a man hath not touched me?—He answered, _It
+shall be_ thus; God will create what He pleaseth: when He determineth
+a thing, He only saith unto it, Be,—and it is. And He will teach him
+writing and wisdom and the Law and the Gospel, and _constitute him_ an
+apostle to the children of Israel, _in youth or after adolescence_.
+_And Gabriel breathed into the bosom of her shift; whereupon she
+conceived; and those events of her history which are related in the
+Soorat Maryam_ [Ḳur. xix.] _happened_.
+
+   (iii. 37-43.)
+
+
+Relate in the book (_that is, the Ḳur-án_) _the history of_ Mary, when
+she retired from her family to a place towards the east, _in the
+house_, and she took a veil [to conceal herself] from them; and We
+sent unto her our spirit _Gabriel_, and he appeared unto her as a
+perfect man. She said, I beg the Compassionate to preserve me from
+thee! If thou be a pious person, _thou wilt withdraw from me_.—He
+replied, I am only the messenger of thy Lord [to inform thee] that He
+will give thee a pure son, _endowed with the gift of prophecy_. She
+said, How shall I have a son, when a man hath not touched me, and I am
+not a harlot? He answered, Thus _shall it be: a son shall be created
+unto thee without a father_. Thy Lord saith, This is easy unto Me; and
+_thus shall it be_ that We may make him a sign unto men, _showing Our
+power_, and a mercy from Us _unto him who shall believe in him_: for
+it is a thing decreed.—And she conceived him; and she retired with
+him [yet unborn] to a distant place _far from her family_; and the
+pains of childbirth urged her to repair to the trunk of a palm-tree
+_that she might lean against it_. _And she gave birth to the child,
+which was conceived and formed and born in an hour._[330] She said,
+Oh! would that I had died before this _event_, and had been a thing
+forgotten [and] unnoticed!—But he who was below her (_namely Gabriel,
+who was on a lower place than she_) called to her, Grieve not. God
+hath made below thee a rivulet: and shake thou towards thee the trunk
+of the palm-tree (_which was dried-up_); it shall let fall upon thee
+ripe dates, fresh-gathered: therefore eat _of the dates_, and drink
+_of the water of the rivulet_, and be of cheerful eye _on account of
+the child_: and if thou see any one of mankind, _asking thee
+concerning the child_, say, I have vowed unto the Compassionate an
+abstinence _from speech with mankind respecting him and other
+matters_; therefore I will not speak to-day unto a man _after this_.
+
+And she brought him [namely the child] unto her people, carrying him.
+They said, O Mary, thou hast done a strange thing. O sister of Aaron,
+(_he was a righteous man; and the meaning is, O thou who art like him
+in chastity_,[331]) thy father was not a man of wickedness, nor was
+thy mother a harlot. _Then whence gottest thou this child?_—And she
+made a sign _to them_, [pointing] towards him, [namely the child, as
+though she would say,] _Speak ye unto him._ They said, How shall we
+speak unto him who is in the cradle, an infant? He [however] said,
+Verily I am the servant of God:[332] He hath given me the book _of the
+Gospel_, and hath appointed me a prophet; and He hath made me blessed
+wherever I shall be, and hath commanded me to observe prayer and give
+alms as long as I shall live, and _hath made me_ dutiful to my mother,
+and hath not made me proud [nor] wicked. And peace _from God_ [was] on
+me on the day when I was born, and [will be] on the day when I shall
+die, and on the day when I shall be raised to life.—This [was] Jesus
+the son of Mary. _I have spoken_ the saying of truth, concerning which
+they (_namely the Christians_) doubt, _saying that Jesus is the son of
+God_. It is not [meet] for God to get a son. Extolled be His purity
+_from that_ [imputation]! When He decreeth a thing _that He desireth
+to bring into existence_, He only saith unto it, Be,—and it is: _and
+thus He created Jesus the son of Mary without a father_.—And _say_,
+Verily God is my Lord and your Lord: therefore worship ye Him: this is
+a right way, _leading to Paradise_. But the sects have differed among
+themselves; _that is, the Christians have differed concerning Jesus,
+as to whether he be the son of God, or a deity with Him, or the third
+of three_. And woe unto them who have disbelieved _in that which hath
+been stated, or in other matters_, on account of the assembly of a
+great day, _the day of resurrection, and its terrors_. How will they
+hear, and how _will they_ see, on the day when they shall come unto Us
+_in the world to come_! But the offenders to-day (_that is, in the
+present world_) are in a manifest error: _they are deaf, so that they
+hear not the truth; and blind, so that they see it not_. And do thou,
+_O Moḥammad_, warn them (_namely the unbelievers of Mekkeh_) of the
+day of sighing (_the day of resurrection, when the evil-doer shall
+sigh for his having neglected to do good in the present world_),
+when the command _for their punishment_ shall be fulfilled, while they
+(_in the present world_) are in a state of heedlessness _with respect
+to it_, and while they believe not _therein_. Verily We shall inherit
+the earth and whomsoever are upon it (_the heedless and others; they
+being destroyed_); and unto Us shall they be brought back _to be
+recompensed_.
+
+   (xix. 16-41.)
+
+
+_And when God sent him_ [Jesus] _to the children of Israel, he said
+unto them, Verily I am the apostle of God unto you_; for I have come
+unto you with a sign from your Lord; for I will make for you of earth
+the similitude of a bird, and will breathe into it, and it shall be a
+bird,[333] by the permission (_or will_) of God;[334] (_and he made
+for them a bat; for it is the most perfect of birds in make; and it
+flew, while they looked at it; but when it had gone out of their
+sight, it fell down dead_;) and I will cure the blind from his birth,
+and the leper; (_and he cured in one day fifty thousand, by prayer, on
+the condition of faith_;) and I will raise to life the dead, by the
+permission of God; (_this he repeated to deny his divinity: and he
+raised to life ´Áriz_ [Lazarus] _a friend of his; and a son of the old
+woman, and the daughter of the publican; and they lived, and children
+were born to them; and Shem the son of Noah, who died immediately_;)
+and I will tell you what ye eat and what ye store up in your houses.
+Verily therein will be a sign unto you, if ye be believers. And _I
+have come unto you_ as a verifier of that which was before me, of the
+Law, and to make lawful unto you part of what was made unlawful to
+you _therein_; (_and he made lawful to them, of fish and fowls,
+whatsoever is without fin or spur; and it is said that he made lawful
+all, and that ‘part’ is used in the sense of ‘the whole:’_) and I have
+come unto you with a sign from your Lord; therefore fear ye God, and
+obey me _in that which I command you, as to the confession of the
+unity of God and the service of Him_. Verily God is my Lord and your
+Lord; therefore worship Him. This is [the] right way. _But they
+accused him of falsehood and believed not in him._ And when Jesus
+perceived their unbelief, he said, Who [will be] my helpers for God?
+The apostles[335] answered, We [will be] the helpers of God. We have
+believed in God; and bear thou witness, _O Jesus_, that we are Muslims
+[or resigned]. O our Lord, we have believed in that which Thou hast
+sent down _of the Gospel_, and we have followed the Apostle, _Jesus_;
+therefore write us down among those who bear witness _of Thy unity and
+of the truth of Thine apostle_.—And they (_that is, the unbelievers
+among the children of Israel_) devised a stratagem _against Jesus, to
+slay him treacherously_; but God devised a stratagem _against them;
+for He put the likeness of Jesus upon one who intended his slaughter,
+and they slew him; and Jesus was taken up_ [into heaven],[336] and
+God is the best of those who devise stratagems.... _It is related that
+God sent a cloud to Jesus, and it took him up; but his mother clung
+unto him and wept: whereupon he said unto her, Verily the resurrection
+will unite us.—It is also related that he will descend shortly before
+the resurrection and judge according to the law of our prophet_
+[Moḥammad], _slay Antichrist and the swine, break the cross, and
+impose the capitation-tax_ [on unbelievers].—_Also, that he will
+remain, according to one tradition, seven years; according to another,
+forty years; and die, and be prayed over: but it is probable that_ [by
+the latter period] _is meant the whole time of his tarrying upon the
+earth, before the ascension and after_.
+
+   (iii. 43—47.)
+
+
+_Remember_ when the apostle said, O Jesus, son of Mary, is thy Lord
+able to cause a table to descend unto us from heaven?[337] He replied,
+Fear God, _in demanding signs_, if ye be believers. They said, We
+desire that we may eat therefrom, and that our hearts may be at ease
+_in consequence of additional evidence_, and we may know, _with
+increased knowledge_, that thou hast spoken truth unto us _in
+asserting thyself to be a prophet_, and may be witnesses
+thereof.—Jesus the son of Mary said, O God, our Lord, cause a table to
+descend unto us from heaven, that it (_namely the day of its descent_)
+may be unto us a festival,[338] unto the first of us and the last of
+us (_or those who shall come after us_), and a sign from Thee _of Thy
+power, and of my prophetic office_; and provide us with food
+_thereby_; for Thou art the best of providers.—God said, _in reply to
+him_, Verily I will cause it to descend unto you; but whosoever of you
+shall disbelieve after _its descent_, I will surely punish him with a
+punishment wherewith I will not punish any [other] of the
+peoples.—_And the angels descended with it from heaven: upon it
+were seven cakes of bread and seven fishes; and they ate of them until
+they were satisfied. And in a tradition related by Ibn-´Abbás it is
+said that the table brought down from heaven bread and flesh, and they
+were commanded not to act deceitfully, nor to store up for the morrow;
+but they_ [that is, some of the people] _did so, and were transformed
+into apes and swine_.
+
+   (v. 112-115.)
+
+
+Propound unto them, as an example, the inhabitants of the city _of
+Antioch_, when the apostles _of Jesus_ came unto it;[339] when We sent
+unto them two,[340] and they charged them with falsehood; wherefore
+We strengthened _them_ with a third;[341] and they said, Verily we are
+sent unto you. They replied, Ye are not [aught] save men like us, and
+the Compassionate hath not revealed anything: ye do nothing but lie.
+They said, Our Lord knoweth that we are indeed sent unto you; and
+naught is imposed on us but the delivering of a plain message, _shown
+to be true by manifest proofs, namely the cure of him who hath been
+born blind and of the leper and the sick, and the raising of the
+dead_. [The people of Antioch] said, Verily we presage evil from you;
+_for the rain is withheld from us on your account_: if ye desist not,
+we will assuredly stone you, and a painful punishment shall surely
+betide you from us. [The apostles] replied, Your evil luck is with you
+_because of your unbelief_. If ye have been warned, _will ye presage
+evil and disbelieve_? Nay, ye are an exorbitant people.—And there came
+from the furthest part of the city a man (_namely Ḥabeeb the
+carpenter, who had believed in the apostles_) running: he said, O my
+people, follow the apostles: follow those who ask not of you a
+recompense, and who are rightly directed. _And it was said unto him,
+Art thou of their religion? He replied_, And why should I not worship
+Him who hath created me, and unto whom ye shall be brought back _after
+death_? Shall I take deities beside Him? If the Compassionate be
+pleased to afflict me, their intercession will not avert from me
+aught, nor will they deliver. Verily, in that case (_if I worshipped
+aught but God_), I should be in a manifest error. Verily I believe in
+your Lord; therefore hear ye me.—_But they stoned him, and he
+died;[342] and_ it was said _unto him at his death_, Enter thou into
+Paradise. _And it is said that he entered it alive._ He said, O would
+that my people knew my Lord’s forgiveness of me and His having made me
+[one] of those who are honoured?—And We sent not down against his
+people after him (_that is, after his death_) an army _of angels_ from
+heaven _to destroy them_, nor were We sending down _angels to destroy
+any one_. It (_namely their punishment_) was naught but one cry _which
+Gabriel uttered against them_; and lo, they were extinct.
+
+   (xxxvi. 12-28.)
+
+
+_We have cursed the Jews_ ... for their disbelief _in Jesus_ and their
+uttering against Mary a great calumny and their saying, We have killed
+the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, the apostle of God,—Yet they
+killed him not nor crucified him; but one (_namely the person whom
+they crucified_) was made to appear to them like _Jesus_; and verily
+those who disagreed respecting him were in doubt concerning him, _or
+his slaughter; for some of them said, when they saw the slain person,
+The face is the face of Jesus; but the body is not his body:—and
+others said, It is he_:[343]—they had no knowledge of him; but only
+followed an opinion. And they did not really kill him; but God took
+him up unto Himself; and God is mighty [and] wise. And there is not of
+the people of the Scripture _one_ but he shall assuredly believe in
+him (_namely Jesus_) before his death; _that is, before his own death,
+or before the death of Jesus, when he descendeth shortly before the
+resurrection_;[344] and on the day of resurrection he (_namely
+Jesus_) shall be a witness against them.
+
+   (iv. 155-157.)
+
+
+When God shall say, _on the day of resurrection_, O Jesus, son of
+Mary, hast thou said unto men, Take me and my mother as two deities,
+beside God?—_Jesus_ shall answer, _after being agitated_ (_or after it
+shall have thundered_), Extolled be Thy purity _from the imputation of
+aught that is unsuitable to Thee, as the having a partner, and other
+things_! It is not for me to say that which is not right for me. Had I
+said it, Thou hadst known it. Thou knowest what is in me; but I know
+not what is in Thee; for Thou well-knowest things unseen. I said not
+unto them aught but that which Thou commandedst me; _namely_ Worship
+ye God, my Lord and your Lord;—and I was a watcher over them,
+_commanding them to abstain from what they said_, while I remained
+among them: but since Thou hast taken me to Thyself,[345] Thou hast
+been the watcher over them, and Thou art the witness of all things. If
+Thou punish them, (_that is, such of them as have continued in
+unbelief_,) they are Thy servants _and Thou mayest do with them as
+Thou pleasest_; and if Thou forgive them, (_that is, such of them as
+have believed_,) Thou art the Mighty, the Wise.
+
+   (v. 116-118.)
+
+
+When the son of Mary was proposed as an instance (_when the saying of
+God was revealed, Verily ye and what ye worship beside God_ [shall be]
+_fuel of hell_ [Kur. xxi. 98], _and the polytheists said, We are
+content for our gods to be with Jesus, for he hath been worshipped
+beside God_,[346]) lo, thy people, _the polytheists_, cried out _in
+joy_ thereat, and they said, [Are] our gods better, or [is] he? _We
+are content for our gods to be with him._—They proposed not it
+(_namely the instance_) unto thee otherwise than as a cause of dispute
+(_knowing that the word ‘what’ applieth to that which is not endowed
+with reason; so that it doth not reflect upon Jesus, on whom be
+peace!_): yea, they are a contentious people. He (_namely Jesus_) is
+no other than a servant whom We favoured _with the gift of prophecy_;
+and We proposed him, _by reason of his having come into existence
+without a father_, as an instance _of the divine power_ unto the
+children of Israel. And if We pleased, We would substitute for you
+angels to succeed in the earth.[347] And verily he (_namely Jesus_)
+_shall be_ a sign of the [last] hour:[348] _it shall be known by his
+descending_: wherefore doubt not thereof.—And _say unto them_, Follow
+ye me _in confessing the unity of God_: this, _which I command you to
+follow_, is a right way. And let not the devil turn you away _from the
+religion of God_; for he is unto you a manifest enemy.—And when Jesus
+came with manifest proofs (_with miracles and ordinances_), he said, I
+have come unto you with wisdom (_with prophecy and with the ordinances
+of the Gospel_), and to explain unto you part of [the things]
+concerning which ye disagree: therefore fear ye God, and obey me.
+Verily God is my Lord and your Lord; wherefore worship ye Him: this is
+a right way.—But the parties disagreed among themselves _respecting
+Jesus, whether he were God, or the son of God, or the third of three_:
+and woe unto them that transgressed _in that which they said
+respecting Jesus_, because of the punishment of an afflicting day!
+
+   (xliii. 57-65.)
+
+
+Verily the similitude of Jesus in the sight of God is as the
+similitude of Adam. He created him (_Adam_) of earth: then He said
+unto him, Be,—and he was. _In like manner he said unto Jesus, Be,
+without a father,—and he was. This is_ the truth from thy Lord:
+therefore be not thou of those who doubt. And whosoever _of the
+Christians_ argueth with thee respecting him, after the knowledge that
+hath come unto thee _concerning him_, say, Come ye, let us call our
+sons and your sons and our wives and your wives, and ourselves and
+yourselves _will assemble_: then we will invoke, and will lay the
+curse of God on those who lie, _saying, O God, curse the liar
+respecting the nature of Jesus!—And the prophet invited a company from
+Nejrán to do so, when they had argued with him respecting Jesus; and
+they said_, [Wait] _until we consider our case: then we will come unto
+thee. And their counsellor said, Ye know his prophetic office, and
+that no people have execrated a prophet but they have perished. They
+however quieted the man, and departed, and came unto the prophet. And
+he had come forth, having with him El-Ḥasan and El-Ḥoseyn and Fáṭimeh
+and ´Alee; and he said unto them, When I pray, say ye Amen. But they
+refused to execrate, and made peace with him on the condition of their
+paying tribute._—Verily this is indeed the true history, and there is
+no deity but God, and verily God is indeed the Mighty, the Wise.
+
+   (iii. 52-55.)
+
+
+O people of the Scripture (_that is, of the Gospel_), exceed not the
+just bounds in your religion,[349] nor say of God [aught] but the
+truth. The Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, [was] only the apostle of
+God, and His Word, which he transmitted unto Mary, and a spirit (_that
+is, a being possessing a spirit_) from Him. (_He is mentioned in
+conjunction with God, in order to show him honour, and is not, as ye
+assert, the son of God, or a God with Him, or the third of three; for
+the being possessing a spirit is compound, and the Deity must be
+confessed to be pure from the imputation of composition and the
+relationship of a compound being to Him._) Therefore believe in God
+and His apostles, and say not, _There are_ three _gods, God and Jesus
+and his mother_.[350] Abstain _from this, and say what will be_ better
+for you; _that is, assert the unity of God_. God is only one god.
+Extolled be His purity from the imputation of His having a son! To Him
+belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth:
+and God is a sufficient witness _thereof_. The Messiah doth not
+disdain to be a servant unto God, nor do the angels who are admitted
+near _unto Him_. (iv. 169, 170.)
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] See prefatory note, p. 2.
+
+[2] _i.e._, the glory of the clan.
+
+[3] Battles.
+
+[4] This and the other verses quoted in this chapter are taken from
+the translations of old Arab poetry contributed by Mr. C. J. Lyall to
+the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal (Translations from
+the Hamâseh and the Aghânî; The Mo`allaqah of Zuheyr)_. They imitate
+the metres of the original Arabic verse, but are nevertheless as
+literal as need be. The transliteration of proper names in the verses
+(and in other quotations) has been assimilated to the system adopted
+by Mr. Lane, from which in this work I only depart in the case of
+names which by frequent use have become almost the property of the
+English language.
+
+[5] A tribe.
+
+[6] The subject of the poem, mentioned in the second hemistich of the
+third verse as ‘thou,’ whose death the supposed author (‘one valiant’)
+avenged.
+
+[7] For these and other stories about Ḥátim, see Caussin de Perceval’s
+_Essai sur l’Histoire des Arabes_, ii. 607-628: a book which is a
+treasury of Arab life, and abounds in those anecdotes which reveal
+more of the character of the people than whole volumes of ethnological
+treatise.
+
+[8] The later Arabic poets were mostly incapable of the genius of the
+old singers: the times had changed, and the ancient poetry appeared
+almost as exotic to their ideas as it does to our own. No greater
+mistake can be made than to judge of the old poets by such a writer as
+Behá-ed-deen Zoheyr, of whom Professor E. H. Palmer has lately given
+us so beautiful a version. There is nothing in common between El-Behá
+and ´Antarah—scarcely even the language.
+
+[9] Deutsch, _Lit. Remains_, 453, 454: cp. Nöldeke, _Beiträge zur
+Kennt. d. Poesie d. alten Araber_, xxiii., xxiv.
+
+[10] Ezekiel xxvii. 19-24. The identifications of the various names
+with Arabian towns are partly conjectural, but the general reference
+is clearly to Arabia. Cf. the ‘Speaker’s’ _Commentary_, vi. 122; and
+the interpretations of Hitzig, Movers, Tuch, and Ménant.
+
+[11] C. P. Tiele, _Outlines of the History of Religion_: tr. J. E.
+Carpenter, p. 63.
+
+[12] Deutsch. _Lit. Remains_, pp. 70-72.
+
+[13] R. Bosworth Smith, _Mohammed and Mohammedanism_, 2d ed. p. 131.
+
+[14] Or ‘read,’ ‘recite.’ These lines are the beginning of the 96th
+Soorah of the Ḳur-án.
+
+[15] Sir W. Muir,_ Life of Mahomet_, 402.
+
+[16] The following is an abridgment: cp. Muir 485, and the
+_Seeret-er-Rasool_, tr. Weil, ii. 316, 317.
+
+[17] An attempt has been made to explain away Moḥammad’s fidelity to
+Khadeejeh, by adducing the motive of pecuniary prudence. Moḥammad,
+they say, was a poor man, Khadeejeh rich and powerfully connected; any
+_affaire de cœur_ on the husband’s part would have been followed by
+a divorce and the simultaneous loss of property and position. It is
+hardly necessary to point out that the fear of poverty—a matter of
+little consequence in Arabia and at that time—would not restrain a
+really sensual man for five-and-twenty years; especially when it is by
+no means certain that Khadeejeh, who loved him with all her heart in a
+motherly sort of way, would have procured a divorce for any cause
+soever. And this explanation leaves Moḥammad’s loving remembrance of
+his old wife unaccounted for. If her money alone had curbed him for
+twenty-five years, one would expect him at her death to throw off the
+cloak, thank Heaven for the deliverance, and enter at once upon the
+rake’s progress. He does none of those things. The story of Zeyneb,
+the divorced wife of Zeyd, is a favourite weapon with Moḥammad’s
+accusers. It is not one to enter upon here; but I may say that the
+lady’s own share in the transaction has never been sufficiently
+considered. In all probability Zeyd, the freed slave, was glad enough
+to get rid of his too well-born wife, and certainly he bore no rancour
+against Moḥammad. The real point of the story is the question of
+forged revelations, which is discussed below.
+
+[18] ‘The Prophet said: Whosoever shall bear witness that there is one
+God; and that Moḥammad is His servant and messenger; and that Jesus
+Christ is His servant and messenger, and that he is the son of the
+hand-maid of God, and that he is the Word of God, the word which was
+sent to Mary, and Spirit from God; and [shall bear witness] that there
+is truth in Heaven and Hell, will enter into paradise, whatever sins
+he may be chargeable with.’—_Mishkát-el-Masábeeh_, i. 11.
+
+[19] R. Bosworth Smith: _Mohammed and Mohammedanism_, 2d ed., 255-257.
+
+[20] _The People of Turkey_, by a Consul’s Daughter, preface, xxii.
+
+[21] _Mishkát-el-Masábeeh_, i. 46, 51.
+
+[22] Dr. E. Blyden. See his article on Mohammadanism in Western Africa
+in _The People of Africa_. (New York, 1871.)
+
+[23] It may be interesting to some readers to judge for themselves of
+the different characteristics of these four groups of soorahs; and
+though in a series of translated selections it will hardly be possible
+to gain a thorough appreciation of the change of style or matter, some
+notion may nevertheless be obtained by reading the First Part of these
+Selections in the following order (the numbers referring to the
+figures at the head of each extract):—
+
+Mekka—First Period:—xvii., lxvi., lxv., xviii., xxxvii., xxxviii.,
+xxxix., xl., xli., xlii., xliii., xxx., iii., i.
+
+Second Period:—lx., xlvii., xxix., viii., xiv., lxiii., vi., li.,
+lxii., xxxi., xliv., lxxxvi., lxxxi., xlv., xxxvi., xx.
+
+Third Period:—lxxiii., lxiv., xxxv., liii., xlvi., xvi., lxxvi.,
+xxxii., lix., xxi., vii., lv., xix., xii., x., lxxii., xxviii., xi.
+
+Medina:—ii., lxxxiv., xxxiii., lxxvii., xxxiv., xxiv., xxvi., ix.,
+lii., lxxix., lxvii., lxi., iv., lxxi., lxix., lxx., lxxv., lxxxiii.,
+xlviii., v., lxxviii., xxii., lvi., lvii., xlix., xxvii., xxv., xiii.,
+lviii., lxxiv., l., liv., xxiii., lxxx., xv., lxviii., lxxxv., lxxxii.
+
+[24] This is generally believed to be the night of (that is,
+preceding) the 27th day of the month.
+
+[25] In the Introduction, the references are to the new one volume
+edition, 1877. Since writing my chapter on the early Arabs, Sir W.
+Muir has published an interesting essay on old Arabic poetry in the
+_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_ (xi part i. 1879).
+
+[26] The ‘Lord’s Prayer’ of the Muslims, recited several times in each
+of the five daily prayers, and on many other occasions.
+
+[27] _That is, of all creatures._
+
+[28] [‘Do we beg assistance,’ in the original ed.]
+
+[29] _God knoweth best what He meaneth by these letters._
+
+[30] _That it is from God._
+
+[31] _In the resurrection and paradise and hell._
+
+[32] _The Ḳur-án._
+
+[33] _The Pentateuch and the Gospel and other books._
+
+[34] This chapter is held in particular veneration by the Moḥammadans,
+and declared, by a tradition of their prophet, to be equal in value to
+a third part of the whole Korân.—S.
+
+[35] One of the most admired passages in the Ḳur-án, recited (though
+not by all Muslims) at the close of each of the five daily prayers,
+and often engraved on an ornament of gold or silver or a precious
+stone to be worn as an amulet.
+
+[36] ‘The seven heavens and earths in comparison with the Throne are
+nought but as seven dirhems [silver coins] cast into a shield.’—Trad.
+
+[37] [‘Able to do everything,’ orig. ed. Lit. ‘potent over
+everything.’]
+
+[38] Lit. ‘driven away with stones.’ This expression alludes to a
+tradition, that Abraham, when the devil tempted him to disobey God, in
+not sacrificing his son, drove the fiend away by throwing stones at
+him; in memory of which, the Moḥammadans, at the pilgrimage of Mecca,
+throw a certain number of stones at the devil, with certain
+ceremonies, in the valley of Mina.—S. The devils, or evil jinn, it is
+said, had liberty to enter any of the seven heavens till the birth of
+Jesus, when they were excluded from three of them; on the birth of
+Moḥammad they were forbidden the other four. They continue, however,
+to ascend to the confines of the lowest heaven, and there, listening
+to the conversation of the angels respecting things decreed by God,
+obtain knowledge of futurity, which they sometimes impart to men, who
+by means of talismans or certain invocations make them to serve the
+purposes of magical performances. Shooting stars are often hurled at
+the devils when they thus listen.
+
+[39] _That it may not move with its inhabitants._
+
+[40] _Or determined._
+
+[41] _Slaves and beasts and cattle: for it is God only who sustaineth
+them._
+
+[42] _Which cause the clouds to fill with water._
+
+[43] _As the bird from the egg._
+
+[44] _As the egg from the bird._
+
+[45] _Or consider._
+
+[46] _For you previously to birth._
+
+[47] [‘Compacted,’ orig. ed. Strictly, words such as ‘come forth’
+should be supplied before ‘clusters.’]
+
+[48] _In leaf._
+
+[49] _In fruit._
+
+[50] [Genii.] _since they have obeyed them in worshipping idols_. See
+p. 33.
+
+[51] _Alone._
+
+[52] _This was revealed with reference to a man unto whom the Prophet
+sent one to invite him_ to the faith; _but he said, Who is the apostle
+of God, and what is God? Is he of gold, or silver, or brass? Whereupon
+a thunderbolt fell upon him, and struck off his skull_.
+
+[53] _On the Preserved Tablet._
+
+[54] _Restoring your souls in the daytime._
+
+[55] _The term of life._
+
+[56] [‘Predominant,’ orig. ed.]
+
+[57] _Angels who register your deeds._
+
+[58] _The creatures._
+
+[59] _That He may recompense them._
+
+[60] _O Moḥammad, to the people of Mekkeh._
+
+[61] _Namely, the Jews and the Christians, and those_ [Arabs] _who
+assert that the angels are daughters of God_.
+
+[62] [‘Demolished,’ orig. ed.]
+
+[63] _On the day of resurrection._
+
+[64] _Without wealth or helper._
+
+[65] _Of the perfume and saffron with which they are overdaubed._
+
+[66] _Idols._
+
+[67] _This they would not worship them._
+
+[68] [‘Similitudes,’ orig. ed. It is the plural of the same word as
+that translated ‘parable’ at the beginning of the preceding extract,
+and ‘likeness’ twice in this extract.]
+
+[69] [It is said that Moḥammad, when a revelation came down to him,
+used to say, ‘Cover ye me with something whereby I may become warm.’
+Lane: Lexicon, voce _dathara_.]
+
+[70] [Idolatry.]
+
+[71] [This rendering is Mr. Rodwell’s. I do not think it can be
+bettered.]
+
+[72] [Lit. ‘And by the night when it becometh still;’ or (but this is
+less strongly supported) ‘when it darkeneth.’]
+
+[73] [‘In my possession,’ orig. ed.]
+
+[74] [‘Apostle,’ in the orig. ed.; but Christian associations have
+somewhat restricted the original meaning of the word, and I have
+therefore in this and other instances substituted ‘Messenger,’ which
+exactly represents the Arabic _rasool_.]
+
+[75] _To unbelief._
+
+[76] _He will only injure himself._
+
+[77] _The Jews said unto the Muslims, We are the people of the first
+book_ (the Pentateuch), _and our Ḳibleh_ (the point to which we turn
+our faces in praying) _is the more ancient, and the prophets have not
+been of the Arabs, and if Moḥammad were a prophet, he had been of us_.
+_Therefore_ the following _was revealed_.
+
+[78] _So that He may choose of His servants whom He pleaseth._
+
+[79] _That is, God is; and He hath acquitted Abraham of belonging to
+them by His saying_ [Ḳur. iii. 60], _Abraham was not a Jew nor a
+Christian; and the other persons above-mentioned with him were
+followers of him_.
+
+
+[80] _They are the Jews, who have concealed the testimony of God, in
+the Pentateuch, of Abraham’s orthodoxy._
+
+[81] [Moḥammad and Aḥmad are from the same root, _ḥamd_, meaning
+‘praise;’ and both names were borne by the Prophet. The supposed
+prediction of Moḥammad’s coming arose, perhaps, from a confusion
+between Parakletos and Perikleitos or possibly Periklytos in Evang. S.
+Jo. xvi. 7, where the coming of ‘the Paraclete’ is promised; in some
+Arabic version of which the word may have been ignorantly rendered by
+‘Aḥmad,’ and thus reported to Moḥammad.]
+
+[82] _By the description of him in their books._
+
+[83] _The description of him._
+
+[84] _In the Law._
+
+[85] _Or miracles._
+
+[86] _As Zechariah and John, and ye slew them._
+
+[87] _Their belief, if the signs come._ The copies of the original
+differ in this verse, but not in an important manner.
+
+[88] _From the truth, so that they shall not believe._
+
+[89] _The Ḳur-án._
+
+[90] Or art mad.
+
+[91] _That is, with punishment._
+
+[92] [The original copy kept by God.]
+
+[93] [This line is often inscribed on the covers of copies of the Ḳur-án.]
+
+[94] _In eloquence._
+
+[95] [In orig. edition, and literally, ‘Although some of them assisted
+others.’]
+
+[96] _That they may be admonished._
+
+[97] _And not sent an angel?_
+
+[98] _Instead of mankind._
+
+[99] _For no apostle is sent unto a people but one of their own kind._
+
+[100] Forgery.
+
+[101] _Moḥammad._
+
+[102] Chapter.
+
+[103] _To assist you._
+
+[104] _The result of the threat that it containeth._
+
+[105] _As to its being from God._
+
+[106] _In eloquence and beauty of composition and information
+concerning what is unseen._
+
+[107] _Your deities whom ye worship, that they may aid you._
+
+[108] _When the unbelievers cavilled at abrogation, and said,
+‘Moḥammad commandeth his companions to-day to do a thing and
+forbiddeth it tomorrow,’_ the following _was revealed_.
+
+[109] _Namely, a Christian slave whom the Prophet used to visit._ [The
+Mekkans accounted for the production of the Ḳur-án by an unlearned man
+like Moḥammad by ascribing it to the teaching of some Christian, whom
+is doubtful. Moḥammad’s reply is that the Christian’s was a foreign
+tongue, whilst the Ḳur-án was in Arabic.]
+
+[110] [‘As a further supply,’ orig. ed.]
+
+[111] [Lit. ‘Burdens:’ explained by El-Beyḍáwee and others _as buried
+treasures_ and as _dead_.]
+
+[112] _The most highly esteemed of property._
+
+[113] [‘Be set on fire,’ orig. ed. Both these renderings, and also ‘be
+dried up,’ are supported by various authorities. See Lane: Lex. voce
+_sejera_.]
+
+[114] Woman-child.
+
+[115] _Of men’s actions._
+
+[116] _As the skin is plucked off a_ slaughtered _sheep_.
+
+[117] _A kind of thorn which no beast eateth, by reason of its
+impurity._
+
+[118] _Or eight ranks of them._
+
+[119] _Unto a company, by reason of his joy thereat._
+
+[120] _And it shall be said unto such._
+
+[121] _And it shall be said unto the keepers of hell._
+
+[122] _As it hath denied it in the present world._
+
+[123] _Those who shall receive their books in their right hands._
+
+[124] _How honourable shall they be!_
+
+[125] _How contemptible shall they be!_
+
+[126] _In the way to good fortune (namely, the Prophets), how
+honourable shall be!_
+
+[127] [‘Destined to continue for ever _in boyhood_,’ orig. ed.]
+
+[128] [Ḥooreeyehs.]
+
+[129] Intensely black and white, large-eyed.
+
+[130] From bottom to top.
+
+[131] [The Ḥooreeyehs.]
+
+[132] _Polytheism._
+
+[133] Beneath the tents thereof.
+
+[134] _The believers and the unbelievers._
+
+[135] _One after another, barefooted, naked, unarmed._
+
+[136] _Of the resurrection._
+
+[137] _Written in their books._
+
+[138] _I will surely fill Hell_, &c. [Ḳur. vii. 17, given below, p.
+51].
+
+[139] Of righteousness.
+
+[140] _Between all creatures._
+
+[141] [Or ‘marked’ or ‘goodly.’]
+
+[142] [Fighting for the faith.]
+
+[143] [Or ‘end,’ ‘result.’]
+
+[144] “Arms on armour clashing bray’d Horrible discord.”—_Par. Lost_,
+vi. 209.
+
+[145] _O Moḥammad._ The copies of the original differ here, but the
+differences are unimportant.
+
+[146] _By taking to themselves idols._
+
+[147] _Thou wouldst see a great thing!_
+
+[148] _Denying their having led them into error._
+
+[149] _Iblees._
+
+[150] _And the people of paradise are introduced into paradise, and
+the people of the fire into the fire, and when the latter have
+assembled around him._
+
+[151] _Respecting the resurrection and retribution._
+
+[152] _The contrary._
+
+[153] _The people of Mekkeh._
+
+[154] _Of the resurrection._
+
+[155] _If the choice had been given us we had not gone forth and had
+not been slain._
+
+[156] _Namely, the Jews._
+
+[157] [See _Modern Egyptians_, 5th ed., p 284.]
+
+[158] [On the various orders of the Jinn, see Lane’s _Thousand and One
+Nights_, Introduction, note 21. And see above, pp. 7, 9.]
+
+[159] _Consisting of the angels._
+
+[160] _They speak not until after He hath spoken._
+
+[161] _Iblees_ [the devil].
+
+[162] [In the Arabic, ‘Ḳur-án.’]
+
+[163] _This is said to be the most comprehensive verse in the Ḳur-án
+with respect to good and evil._ [The commentators say it contains the
+whole duty of man, both in respect of doing and of shunning. It is
+needless to enumerate the various virtues and sins which they consider
+are implied in each of the simple words of the text.]
+
+[164] [Mr. Rodwell’s rendering.]
+
+[165] The traveller.
+
+[166] _Of being rewarded for so doing._
+
+[167] _Or reproach._
+
+[168] _Their idols._
+
+[169] _Disposition._
+
+[170] [Lit., and in orig. ed., ‘hath great good fortune.’]
+
+[171] [_Mod. Egypt._, 104.]
+
+[172] [The Christians and Jews.]
+
+[173] [Or ‘best:’ so in _Mod. Egypt._, 280.]
+
+[174] [This is Mr. Rodwell’s word, and is, I think, more expressive of
+the original (_muslimoona_) than ‘resigned.’]
+
+[175] _In the prophets._
+
+[176] [Some suppose this verse to be abrogated by the next extract:
+others try to explain it away.]
+
+[177] _And of him who inviteth them to the true religion._
+
+[178] Mirage (_saráb_).
+
+[179] _In like manner the unbeliever reckoneth that his works will
+profit him, until, when he dieth and is brought before his Lord, he
+findeth not his works._
+
+[180] _The unbeliever._
+
+[181] _By his unbelief._
+
+[182] _In the tradition it is said, ‘Whosoever hath any good thing
+given unto him, whether of family or wealth, and saith on the occasion
+thereof, ‘What God willeth (`má-sháä-lláh)! There is no power but in
+God!’ he will not see in it aught displeasing.’_
+
+[183] _On the day of resurrection._
+
+[184] _O Moḥammad._
+
+[185] _Of the people of Mekkeh._
+
+[186] _So as to disdain receiving the truth._ (_This was revealed as
+respecting the envoys who came from the King of Abyssinia: the Prophet
+recited the Soorat Yá-Seen_ [xxxvi.], _whereupon they wept and became
+Muslims, and said, ‘How like is this to that which was revealed to
+Jesus.’_)
+
+[187] _Not believing in Moḥammad._
+
+[188] _With respect to the hypocrites_ the following _was revealed_.
+
+[189] _Their chiefs._
+
+[190] The number of the prophets which have been from time to time
+sent by God into the world amounts to no less than 224,000, according
+to one Moḥammadan tradition, or to 124,000 according to another; among
+whom 313 were apostles, sent with special commissions to reclaim
+mankind from infidelity and superstition; and six of them brought new
+laws or dispensations, which successively abrogated the preceding:
+these were Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Moḥammad. All the
+prophets in general the Moḥammadans believe to have been free from
+great sins and errors of consequence, and professors of one and the
+same religion, that is, El-Islám, notwithstanding the different laws
+and institutions which they observed. In this great number of
+prophets, they not only reckon divers patriarchs and persons named in
+Scripture but not recorded to have been prophets (wherein the Jewish
+and Christian writers have sometimes led the way), as Adam, Seth, Lot,
+Ishmael, Nun, Joshua, &c., and introduce some of them under different
+names, as Enoch, Heber, and Jethro, who are called in the Ḳur-án,
+Idrees, Hood, and Sho´eyb; but several others whose very names do not
+appear in Scripture (though they endeavour to find some persons there
+to fix them on), as Ṣáliḥ, El-Khiḍr, Dhu-l-Kifl.
+
+As to the Scriptures, the Moḥammadans are taught by the Ḳur-án that
+God, in divers ages of the world, gave revelations of His will in
+writing to several prophets, the whole and every word of which it is
+absolutely necessary for a good Muslim to believe. The number of these
+sacred books was, according to them, 104; of which ten were given to
+Adam, fifty to Seth, thirty to Idrees or Enoch, ten to Abraham; and
+the other four, being the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospel, and the
+Ḳur-án, were successively delivered to Moses, David, Jesus, and
+Moḥammad; which last being the _seal_ of the prophets, those
+revelations are now closed and no more are to be expected. All these
+divine books, except the four last, they agree to be now entirely lost
+and their contents unknown; though the Sabians have several books
+which they attribute to some of the antediluvian prophets. And of
+those four, the Pentateuch, Psalms, and Gospel, they say, have
+undergone so many alterations and corruptions, that though there may
+possibly be some part of the true word of God therein, yet no credit
+is to be given to the present copies in the hands of the Jews and
+Christians.—S.
+
+[191] ‘El-Jánn’ is here used as a name of Iblees, the father of the
+jinn. It also signifies the jinn themselves.
+
+[192] According to a tradition of the Prophet, the height of Adam was
+equal to that of a tall palm-tree.
+
+[193] The Moḥammadans say, that when they were cast down from Paradise
+[which is in the seventh heaven], Adam fell on the isle of Ceylon, or
+Sarandeeb, and Eve near Juddah (the port of Mekkeh) in Arabia; and
+that, after a separation of two hundred years, Adam was, on his
+repentance, conducted by the angel Gabriel to a mountain near Mekkeh,
+where he found and knew his wife, the mountain being thence named
+´Arafát; and that he afterwards retired with her to Ceylon.—S.
+
+[194] The prayer is inserted by the commentary from Ḳur. vii. 22.
+
+[195] This word has various significations in the Ḳur-án; sometimes,
+as in this passage, it signifies _divine revelation_, or _scripture_
+in general; sometimes the _verses_ of the _Ḳur-án_ in particular; and
+at other times, _visible miracles_. But the sense is easily
+distinguished by the context.—S.
+
+[196] Called in Arabic Hábeel and Ḳábeel.
+
+[197] The occasion of their making this offering is thus related,
+according to the common tradition in the East. Each of them being born
+with a twin-sister, when they were grown up, Adam by God’s direction
+ordered Cain to marry Abel’s twin-sister, and Abel to marry Cain’s;
+(for it being the common opinion that marriages ought not to be had in
+the nearest degrees of consanguinity, since they must necessarily
+marry their sisters, it seemed reasonable to suppose they ought to
+take those of the remoter degree;) but this Cain refusing to agree to,
+because his own sister was the handsomest, Adam ordered them to make
+their offerings to God, thereby referring the dispute to His
+determination. The commentators say Cain’s offering was a sheaf of the
+very worst of his corn; but Abel’s a fat lamb of the best of his
+flock.—S.
+
+[198] Or, as the original literally signifies, boiled over [or
+boiled], which is consonant to what the Rabbins say, that the waters
+of the deluge were boiling hot.—This oven was, as some say, at
+El-Koofeh, in a spot whereon a mosque now stands; or, as others rather
+think, in a certain place in India, or else at ´Eyn-el-Wardeh in
+Mesopotamia. Some pretend that it was the same oven which Eve made use
+of to bake her bread in, being of a form different from those we use,
+having the mouth in the upper part, and that it descended from
+patriarch to patriarch till it came to Noah. It is remarkable that
+Moḥammad, in all probability, borrowed this circumstance from the
+Persian Magi, who also fancied that the first waters of the deluge
+gushed out of the oven of a certain old woman named Zala Cûfa.—But the
+word “tennoor,” which is here translated “oven,” also signifying “the
+superficies of the earth,” or “a place whence waters spring forth,” or
+“where they are collected,” some suppose it means no more in this
+passage than the spot or fissure whence the first eruption of waters
+broke forth.—S.
+
+[199] It is a custom of many Muslims to pronounce these words, ‘In the
+name of God be its course and its mooring,’ on embarking for any
+voyage.—L. The commentators tell us that Noah was two years in
+building the ark, which was framed of Indian plane-tree; that it was
+divided into three stories, of which the lower was designed for the
+beasts, the middle one for the men and women, and the upper for the
+birds; and the men were separated from the women by the body of Adam,
+which Noah had taken into the ark. This last is a tradition of the
+Eastern Christians.—S.
+
+[200] The original of this passage is considered the most sublime in
+the Ḳur-án.
+
+[201] The Moḥammadans say that Noah went into the ark on the tenth of
+Rejeb, and came out of it on the tenth of Moḥarram; which therefore
+became a fast: so that the whole time of Noah’s being in the ark
+according to them was six months.—S. (B.)
+
+[202] ´Ád was an ancient and potent tribe of Arabs, and zealous
+idolaters. They chiefly worshipped four deities, Sákiyeh, Ḥáfiḍhah,
+Ráziḳah, and Sálimeh; the first, as they imagined, supplying them with
+rain, the second preserving them from all dangers abroad, the third
+providing food for their sustenance, and the fourth restoring them to
+health when afflicted with sickness; according to the signification of
+the several names.—S.
+
+[203] Generally supposed to be the same person as Heber.—S.
+
+[204] Thamood was another tribe of the ancient Arabs who fell into
+idolatry. They dwelt first in the country of the ´Ádites, but their
+numbers increasing, they removed to the territory of Ḥejr.—S.
+
+[205] This extraordinary camel frighting the other cattle from their
+pasture, a certain rich woman, named ´Oneyzeh Umm-Ghánim, having four
+daughters, dressed them out, and offered one Ḳudár his choice of them,
+if he would kill the camel. Whereupon he chose one, and with the
+assistance of eight other men hamstrung and killed the dam, and
+pursuing the young one which fled to the mountain, killed that also,
+and divided his flesh among them. Others tell the story somewhat
+differently, adding Ṣadaḳah Bint-El-Mukhtár as a
+joint-conspiratress with ´Oneyzeh, and pretending that the young one
+was not killed.’—S. (A.F., B.)
+
+[206] Defying the vengeance with which they were threatened; because
+they trusted in their strong dwellings hewn in the rocks, saying that
+the tribe of ´Ád perished only because their houses were not built
+with sufficient strength.—S.
+
+[207] Like violent and repeated claps of thunder; which some say was
+no other than the voice of the angel Gabriel, which rent their hearts.
+It is said that after they had killed the camel, Ṣáliḥ told them
+that on the morrow their faces should become yellow, the next day red,
+and the third day black; and that on the fourth God’s vengeance should
+light on them: and that, the first three signs happening accordingly,
+they sought to put him to death; but God delivered him by sending him
+into Palestine.—S. (A.F., B.)
+
+[208] In the Mir-át-ez-Zemán it is stated that there are various
+opinions respecting the age in which this person lived: 1. That he
+lived in the first century after the Deluge, and was of the sons of
+Japheth, and was born in the land of the Greeks: so said ´Alee; 2.
+That he was after Thamood: so said El-Ḥasan; 3. That he was of the
+lineage of Esau, the son of Isaac: so said Muḳátil; 4. That he lived
+between the times of Moses and Jesus; 5. That he lived between Jesus
+and Moḥammad; and 6. That he was of the lineage of Yoonán, son [as
+some say] of Noah, in the days of Abraham; and this, adds the author,
+is the most correct.—But some suppose him to be the same with
+Alexander the Great.—Respecting his surname of ‘Dhu-l-Ḳarneyn,’ the
+most obvious signification of which is ‘the two-horned,’ the more
+judicious in general are of opinion that he received it because he
+made expeditions to the extreme parts of the east and west, and
+therefore that it signifies ‘Lord of the two extreme parts of the
+earth.’
+
+[209] Who were clothed in the skins of wild beasts, and lived upon
+what the sea cast on shore.—S. (B.)
+
+[210] The Arabs call them Yájooj and Májooj, and say they are two
+nations or tribes descended from Japheth the son of Noah; or, as
+others write, Gog are a tribe of the Turks, and Magog of those of
+Geelán, the Geli and Gelæ of Ptolemy and Strabo.—It is said these
+barbarous people made their irruptions into the neighbouring countries
+in the spring, and destroyed and carried off all the fruits of the
+earth; and some pretend they were man-eaters.—S. (B.)
+
+[211] The Eastern authors unanimously agree that he (Ázar) was a
+statuary, or carver of idols; and he is represented as the first who
+made images of clay, pictures only having been in use before, and
+taught that they were to be adored as gods. However, we are told his
+employment was a very honourable one, and that he was a great lord and
+in high favour with Nimrod, whose son-in-law he was, because he made
+his idols for him and was excellent in his art. Some of the Rabbins
+say Terah was a priest and chief of the order.—S.
+
+[212] Some tell us that Nimrod, on seeing this miraculous deliverance
+from his palace, cried out that he would make an offering to the God
+of Abraham; and that he accordingly sacrificed four thousand kine.
+[B.] But, if he ever relented, he soon relapsed into his former
+infidelity: for he built a tower that he might ascend to heaven to see
+Abraham’s God; which being overthrown [Ḳur. xvi. 28], still
+persisting in his design, he would be carried to heaven in a chest
+borne by four monstrous birds; but after wandering for some time
+through the air, he fell down on a mountain with such force that he
+made it shake, whereto (as some fancy) a passage in the Ḳur-án [xiv.
+47] alludes, which may be translated, ‘although their contrivances be
+such as to make the mountains tremble.’—Nimrod, disappointed in his
+design of making war with God, turned his arms against Abraham, who,
+being a great prince, raised forces to defend himself; but God,
+dividing Nimrod’s subjects, and confounding their language, deprived
+him of the greater part of his people, and plagued those who adhered
+to him by swarms of gnats, which destroyed almost all of them; and one
+of those gnats having entered into the nostril, or ear, of Nimrod,
+penetrated to one of the membranes of his brain, where, growing bigger
+every day, it gave him such intolerable pain, that he was obliged to
+cause his head to be beaten with a mallet, in order to procure some
+ease, which torture he suffered four hundred years; God being willing
+to punish, by one of the smallest of His creatures, him who insolently
+boasted himself to be lord of all. A Syrian calendar places the death
+of Nimrod, as if the time were well known, on the eighth of Tamooz, or
+July.—S.
+
+[213] They tell us that Gabriel thrust his wing under them and lifted
+them up so high that the inhabitants of the lower heaven heard the
+barking of the dogs and the crowing of the cocks; and then, inverting
+them, threw them down to the earth.—S. (B.)
+
+[214] It is the most received opinion among the Moḥammadans that the
+son whom Abraham offered was Ishmael and not Isaac; Ishmael being his
+only son at that time: for the promise of Isaac’s birth is mentioned
+lower, as subsequent in time to this transaction. They also allege the
+testimony of their prophet, who is reported to have said, ‘I am the
+son of the two who were offered in sacrifice;’ meaning his great
+ancestor, Ishmael, and his own father ´Abd-Allah: for
+´Abd-el-Muṭṭalib had made a vow that if God would permit him to
+find out and open the well Zemzem and should give him ten sons he
+would sacrifice one of them; accordingly, when he had obtained his
+desire in both respects, he cast lots on his sons, and the lot falling
+on ´Abd-Allah, he redeemed him by offering a hundred camels, which was
+therefore ordered to be the price of a man’s blood in the Sunneh.—S.
+(B., Z.)
+
+[215] The occasion of this request of Abraham is said to have been a
+doubt proposed to him by the devil in human form, how it was possible
+for the several parts of a corpse of a man which lay on the sea-shore
+and had been partly devoured by the wild beasts, the birds, and the
+fish, to be brought together at the resurrection.—S.
+
+[216] In the original, ‘Imám,’ which answers to the Latin _Antistes_.
+This title the Moḥammadans give to their priests [if such a title may
+be used, for want of one more correct] who begin the prayers in their
+mosques, and whom all the congregation follow.—S.
+
+[217] The term ‘rek´ah’ signifies the repetition of a set form of
+words, chiefly from the Ḳur-án, and ejaculations of ‘God is most
+Great!’ etc., accompanied by particular postures; part of the words
+being repeated in an erect posture, part sitting, and part in other
+postures: an inclination of the head and body, followed by two
+prostrations, distinguishing each rek´ah. Each of the five daily
+prayers of the Muslims consist of a certain number of rek´ahs.
+
+[218] The city of Eṭ-Ṭáïf was so called, according to Abu-l-Fida and
+several other Arab authors, because it, with the adjacent fields,
+was separated from Syria during the Deluge, and after floating round
+about upon the water at length rested in its present situation, where
+its soil has continued to produce the fruits of Syria.
+
+[219] Namely, the Kaạbeh.
+
+[220] In the original, ‘Muslims,’ which is the peculiar and very
+appropriate title of the believers in the religion taught by Moḥammad;
+and as he professed not to teach a religion essentially _new_, this
+title is given to all true believers before him.
+
+[221] ‘El-Islam’ signifies the _resigning_ oneself to God and to His
+service, and is the name given by Moḥammad to that religion which, he
+asserted, all the prophets before him had taught, and he restored; the
+foundation of which was the unity of God.
+
+[222] This well, say some, was a certain well near Jerusalem, or not
+far from the river Jordan; but others call it the well of Egypt, or
+Midian. The commentators tell us that when the sons of Jacob had
+gotten Joseph with them in the field, they began to abuse and to beat
+him so unmercifully that they had killed him had not Judah on his
+crying out for help insisted on the promise they had made not to kill
+him but to cast him into the well. Whereupon they let him down a
+little way; but as he held by the sides of the well, they bound him,
+and took off his inner garment, designing to stain it with blood to
+deceive their father. Joseph begged hard to have his garment returned
+to him, but to no purpose, his brothers telling him, with a sneer,
+that the eleven stars and the sun and the moon might clothe him and
+keep him company.—S. (B., Z.)
+
+[223] The commentators pretend that Gabriel also clothed him in the
+well with a garment of silk of Paradise. For they say that when
+Abraham was thrown into the fire by Nimrod, he was stripped; and that
+Gabriel brought him this garment and put it on him; and that from
+Abraham it descended to Jacob, who folded it up and put it into an
+amulet, which he hung about Joseph’s neck, whence Gabriel drew it
+out.—S. (B., Z.)
+
+[224] These races they used by way of exercise; and the commentators
+generally understand here that kind of race wherein they also showed
+their dexterity in throwing darts, which is still used in the East.—S.
+
+[225] This Jacob had reason to suspect, because when the garment was
+brought to him, he observed that, though it was bloody, yet it was not
+torn.—S. (B.)
+
+[226] Three days after Joseph had been thrown into it.—S.
+
+[227] The commentators are so exact as to give us the name of this
+man, who as they pretend, was Málik Ibn-Doạr, of the tribe of
+Khuzá´ah.—S. (B.)
+
+[228] The expositors are not agreed whether the pronoun _they_ relates
+to Málik and his companions, or to Joseph’s brethren. They who espouse
+the former opinion say that those who came to draw water concealed the
+manner of their coming by him from the rest of the caravan, that they
+might keep him to themselves; pretending that some people of the place
+had given him to them to sell for them in Egypt. And they who prefer
+the latter opinion tell us that Judah carried victuals to Joseph every
+day while he was in the well; but not finding him there on the fourth
+day, he acquainted his brothers with it: whereupon they all went to
+the caravan and claimed Joseph as their slave, he not daring to
+discover that he was their brother, lest something worse should befall
+him; and at length they agreed to sell him to them.—S. (B.)
+
+[229] A corruption of Potiphar. He was a man of great consideration,
+being superintendent of the royal treasury.—S. (B.)
+
+[230] That is, to Ḳiṭfeer and his friends. The occasion of Joseph’s
+imprisonment is said to be either that they suspected him to be guilty
+notwithstanding the proofs which had been given of his innocence, or
+else that Zeleekha desired it, feigning, to deceive her husband, that
+she wanted to have Joseph removed from her sight till she could
+conquer her passion by time; though her real design was to force him
+to compliance.—S.
+
+[231] According to the explication of some who take the pronoun _him_
+to relate to Joseph, this passage may be rendered, ‘But the devil
+caused him (_i.e._, Joseph) to forget to make his application unto his
+lord;’ and to beg the good offices of his fellow-prisoner for his
+deliverance, instead of relying on God alone, as it became a prophet,
+especially, to have done.—S. (B.)
+
+[232] This prince, as the Oriental writers generally agree, was
+Er-Reiyán the son of El-Weleed the Amalekite, who was converted by
+Joseph to the worship of the true God, and died in the lifetime of
+that prophet. But some pretend that the Pharaoh of Joseph and of Moses
+were one and the same person, and that he lived (or rather reigned)
+four hundred years.—S. (B.)
+
+[233] The commentators say that Joseph, being taken out of prison,
+after he had washed and changed his clothes, was introduced to the
+king, whom he saluted in the Hebrew tongue, and on the king’s asking
+what language that was, he answered that it was the language of his
+fathers. This prince, they say, understood no less than seventy
+languages, in every one of which he discoursed with Joseph, who
+answered him in the same; at which the king, greatly marvelling,
+desired him to relate his dream, which he did, describing the most
+minute circumstances: whereupon the king placed Joseph by him on his
+throne, and made him his Wezeer, or chief minister.—S. (B.)
+
+[234] Namely, Ephraim and Manasses: so that according to this
+tradition, she was the same woman who is called Asenath by ‘Moses.’
+This supposed marriage, which authorized their amours, probably
+encouraged the Moḥammadan divines to make use of the loves of Joseph
+and Zeleekha as an allegorical emblem of the spiritual love between
+the Creator and the creature, God and the soul; just as the Christians
+apply the Song of Solomon to the same mystical purpose.—S.
+
+[235] Joseph, being made Wezeer, governed with great wisdom; for he
+not only caused justice to be impartially administered and encouraged
+the people to industry and the improvement of agriculture during the
+seven years of plenty, but began and perfected several works of great
+benefit; the natives at this day ascribing to the patriarch Joseph
+almost all the ancient works of public utility throughout the kingdom;
+as particularly the rendering the province of El-Feiyoom, from a
+standing pool or marsh, the most fertile and best-cultivated land in
+all Egypt. When the years of famine came, the effects of which were
+felt not only in Egypt but in Syria and the neighbouring countries,
+the inhabitants were obliged to apply to Joseph for corn, which he
+sold to them, first for their money, jewels, and ornaments, then for
+their cattle and lands, and at length for their persons; so that all
+the Egyptians in general became slaves to the king, though Joseph by
+his consent soon released them and returned them their substance.—S.
+(B.)
+
+[236] At length Joseph asked them whom they had to vouch for their
+veracity; but they told him they knew no man who could vouch for them
+in Egypt. Then, replied he, one of you shall stay behind with me as a
+pledge, and the others may return home with their provision; and when
+ye come again, ye shall bring your younger brother with you, that I
+may know ye have told me the truth. Whereupon, it being in vain to
+dispute the matter, they cast lots who should stay behind, and the lot
+fell upon Simeon. When they departed, Joseph gave each of them a
+camel, and another for their brother.—S. (B.)
+
+[237] The original word signifying not only money but also goods
+bartered or given in exchange for other merchandise, some commentators
+tell us that they paid for their corn, not in money, but in shoes and
+dressed skins.—S. (B.)
+
+[238] The belief in the influence of the evil eye prevails among all
+the Muslims, even the most religious and learned; for their prophet
+said, ‘The eye hath a complete influence; because verily, if there
+were a thing to overcome fate, it most certainly would be a malignant
+eye.’ Hence he permitted charms (which he disallowed in almost every
+other case) to be employed for the purpose of counteracting its
+influence.
+
+[239] It is related that Joseph, having invited his brethren to an
+entertainment, ordered them to be placed two and two together; by
+which means, Benjamin, the eleventh, was obliged to sit alone, and,
+bursting into tears, said, If my brother Joseph were alive, he would
+have sat with me. Whereupon Joseph ordered him to be seated at the
+same table with himself, and when the entertainment was over,
+dismissed the rest, ordering that they should be lodged two and two in
+a house, but kept Benjamin in his own apartment, where he passed the
+night. The next day, Joseph asked him whether he would accept of
+himself for his brother, in the room of him whom he had lost; to which
+Benjamin replied, ‘Who can find a brother comparable unto thee? Yet
+thou art not the son of Jacob and Rachel.’ And upon this, Joseph
+discovered himself to him.—S. (B.).
+
+[240] Some, however, are of opinion that it was a drinking-cup.
+
+[241] The occasion of this suspicion, it is said, was that Joseph
+having been brought up by his father’s sister, she became so fond of
+him, that when he grew up and Jacob designed to take him from her she
+contrived the following stratagem to keep him. Having a girdle which
+had once belonged to Abraham, she girt it about the child, and then
+pretending she had lost it, caused strict search to be made for it;
+and it being at length found on Joseph, he was adjudged, according to
+the above-mentioned law of the family, to be delivered to her as her
+property. Some, however, say that Joseph actually stole an idol of
+gold, which belonged to his mother’s father, and destroyed it; a story
+probably taken from Rachel’s stealing the images of Laban: and others
+tell us that he once stole a goat or a hen, to give to a poor man.—S.
+
+[242] Miṣr is the name both of Egypt and its capital.
+
+[243] The injury they did Benjamin was the separating him from his
+brother, after which they kept him in so great subjection that he
+durst not speak to them but with the utmost submission. Some say that
+these words were occasioned by a letter which Joseph’s brethren
+delivered to him from their father, requesting the releasement of
+Benjamin, and by their representing his extreme affliction at the loss
+of him and his brother. The commentators observe that Joseph, to
+excuse his brethren’s behaviour towards him, attributes it to their
+ignorance and the heat of youth.—S. (B.)
+
+[244] The frontier town of Egypt towards Syria.
+
+[245] El-Beyḍáwee tell us that Joseph sent carriages and provisions
+for his father and his family; and that he and the king of Egypt went
+forth to meet them. He adds that the number of the children of Israel
+who entered Egypt with him was seventy-two; and that when they were
+led out thence by Moses, they were increased to six hundred thousand
+five hundred and seventy men, and upwards, besides the old people and
+children.—S.
+
+[246] A transposition is supposed to be in these words:—he seated his
+father and mother after they had bowed down to him, and not before.—S.
+(B.)
+
+[247] But when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, he took up the
+coffin, and carried Joseph’s bones with him into Canaan, where he
+buried them by his ancestors.—S. (B.)
+
+[248] The Moḥammadan writers tell us that Job was of the race of Esau,
+and was blessed with a numerous family and abundant riches; but that
+God proved him by taking away all that he had, even his children, who
+were killed by the fall of a house; notwithstanding which he continued
+to serve God and to return Him thanks as usual; that he was then
+struck with a filthy disease, his body being full of worms and so
+offensive that as he lay on the dunghill none could bear to come near
+him: that his wife, however (whom some call Raḥmeh the daughter of
+Ephraim the son of Joseph, and others Makhir the daughter of
+Manasses), attended him with great patience, supporting him with what
+she earned by her labour; but that the devil appearing to her one day,
+after having reminded her of her past prosperity, promised her that if
+she would worship him, he would restore all they had lost; whereupon
+she asked her husband’s consent, who was so angry at the proposal,
+that he swore, if he recovered, to give his wife a hundred stripes.—S.
+(B., J., A.F.)
+
+[249] Some say there were two springs, one of hot water wherein he
+bathed, and the other of cold of which he drank.—S. (B.)
+
+[250] His wife also becoming young and handsome again, and bearing him
+twenty-six sons. Some, to express the great riches which were bestowed
+on Job after his sufferings, say he had two threshing-floors, one for
+wheat and the other for barley, and that God sent two clouds, which
+rained gold on the one and silver on the other till they ran
+over.—(J.) The traditions differ as to the continuance of Job’s
+calamities: one will have it to be eighteen years; another, thirteen;
+another, three; and another, exactly seven years seven months and
+seven hours.—S.
+
+[251] Or ‘a palm-branch having a hundred leaves.’—S.
+
+[252] But see note 1 (248).
+
+[253] The commentators generally suppose him to be the same person
+with the father-in-law of Moses, who is named in Scripture Reuel or
+Raguel, and Jethro. But Aḥmad Ibn-´Abd-El-Ḥaleem charges those who
+entertain this opinion with ignorance. They say (after the Jews) that
+he gave his son-in-law [Moses] that wonder-working rod with which he
+performed all those miracles in Egypt and the Desert, and also
+excellent advice and instructions; whence he had the surname of
+‘Khaṭeeb-el-Ambiya,’ or ‘the Preacher to the Prophets.’—S.
+
+[254] The Arabic word ‘ḍa´eef’ (weak) signifying also in the
+Ḥimyaritic dialect ‘blind,’ some suppose that Sho´eyb was so, and that
+the Midianites objected that to him as a defect which disqualified him
+for the prophetic office.—S.
+
+[255] Which of the kings of Egypt this Pharaoh of Moses was is
+uncertain. Not to mention the opinions of the European writers, those
+of the East generally suppose him to have been El-Weleed, who
+according to some was an Arab of the tribe of ´Ád, or according to
+others the son of Muṣ´ab the son of Er-Reiyán the son of El-Weleed the
+Amalekite. There are historians, however, who suppose Ḳáboos the
+brother and predecessor of El-Weleed was the prince we are speaking
+of, and pretend he lived six hundred and twenty years and reigned four
+hundred. Which is more reasonable, at least, than the opinion of those
+who imagine it was his father Muṣ´ab or grandfather Er-Reiyán.
+Abu-l-Fida says the Muṣ´ab, being one hundred and seventy years old
+and having no child, while he kept the herds saw a cow calve, and
+heard her say at the same time, ‘O Muṣ´ab, be not grieved, for thou
+shalt have a wicked son, who will be at length cast into hell.’ And he
+accordingly had this Weleed, who afterwards coming to be king of Egypt
+proved an impious tyrant.—S. (A.F., Z.)
+
+[256] This name is given to Pharaoh’s chief minister; from whence it
+is generally inferred that Moḥammad had been made Haman the favorite
+of Ahasuerus king of Persia, and who indisputably lived many years
+after Moses, to be that prophet’s contemporary.—S.
+
+[257] It is related that the midwife appointed to attend the Hebrew
+women, terrified by a light which appeared between the eyes of Moses
+at his birth, and touched with an extraordinary affection for the
+child, did not discover him to the officers, so that his mother kept
+him in her house, and nursed him three months; after which it was
+impossible for her to conceal him any longer, the king then giving
+orders to make the searches more strictly.—S. (B.)
+
+[258] The commentators say that his mother made an ark of the papyrus,
+and pitched it, and put in some cotton; and having laid the child
+therein, committed it to the river, a branch of which went into
+Pharaoh’s garden: that the stream carried the ark thither into a
+fishpond, at the head of which Pharaoh was then sitting with his wife
+Ásiyeh the daughter of Muzáḥem; and that the king, having commanded it
+to be taken up and opened, and finding in it a beautiful child, took a
+fancy to it, and ordered it to be brought up.—Some writers mention a
+miraculous preservation of Moses before he was put into the ark; and
+tell us, that his mother having hid him from Pharaoh’s officers in an
+oven, his sister, in her mother’s absence, kindled a large fire in the
+oven to heat it, not knowing the child was there; but that he was
+afterwards taken out unhurt.—S. (B., A.F.)
+
+[259] Ḳur. xxvi. 17.
+
+[260] This person, says the tradition, was an Egyptian and Pharaoh’s
+uncle’s son.—S.
+
+[261] The Jews pretend he was actually imprisoned for the fact, and
+condemned to be beheaded; but that when he should have suffered his
+neck became as hard as ivory, and the sword rebounded on the
+executioner.—S.
+
+[262] According to El-Beyḍáwee, Moses knew not the way, and, coming to
+a place where three roads met, committed himself to the guidance of
+God, and took the middle road, which was the right; Providence
+likewise so ordering it that his pursuers took the other two roads,
+and missed him.—S.
+
+[263] This was Ṣafoora [also called Ṣafoorah and Ṣafooriya,
+or Zipporah, the elder, or as others suppose the younger, daughter of
+Sho´eyb, whom Moses afterwards married.—S.]
+
+
+[264] The commentators say, that Moses, having obtained leave of
+Sho´eyb or Jethro, his father-in-law, to visit his mother, departed
+with his family from Midian towards Egypt; but coming to the valley of
+Ṭuwa, wherein Mount Sinai stands, his wife fell in labour and was
+delivered of a son in a very dark and snowy night: he had also lost
+his way, and his cattle were scattered from him, when on a sudden he
+saw a fire by the side of a mountain, which on his nearer approach he
+found burning in a green bush.—S. (B.)
+
+[265] This was a mark of humility and respect: though some fancy there
+was some uncleanness in the shoes themselves, because they were made
+of the skin of an ass not dressed.—S. (B.)
+
+[266] Which was at first no bigger than the rod, but afterwards
+swelled to a prodigious size.—S. (B.)
+
+[267] When Moses saw the serpent move about with great nimbleness and
+swallow stones and trees, he was greatly terrified, and fled from it;
+but recovering his courage at these words of God, he had the boldness
+to take the serpent by the jaws.—S. (B.)
+
+[268] Moses had an impediment in his speech, which was occasioned by
+the following accident. Pharaoh one day carrying him in his arms when
+a child, he suddenly laid hold of his beard and plucked it in a very
+rough manner, which put Pharaoh into such a passion that he ordered
+him to be put to death: but Ásiyeh his wife representing to him that
+he was but a child, who could not distinguish between a burning coal
+and a ruby, he ordered the experiment to be made; and a live coal and
+a ruby being set before Moses, he took the coal and put it into his
+mouth, and burnt his tongue: and thereupon he was pardoned.—This is a
+Jewish story a little altered.—S.
+
+[269] For he was obliged to abandon his country and his friends, and
+to travel several days in great terror and want of necessary
+provisions to seek a refuge among strangers; and was afterwards forced
+to serve for hire to gain a livelihood.—S.
+
+[270] Aaron being by this time come out to meet his brother, either by
+divine inspiration, or having notice of his design to return to
+Egypt.—S. (B.)
+
+[271] The Arab writers tell enormous fables of this serpent or dragon.
+For they say that he was hairy and of so prodigious a size that when
+he opened his mouth his jaws were fourscore cubits asunder and when he
+laid his lower jaw on the ground his upper reached to the top of the
+palace [or rather, I believe, the _throne_ of Pharaoh]: that Pharaoh,
+seeing this monster make towards him, fled from it; and that the whole
+assembly also betaking themselves to their heels, no less than
+twenty-five thousand of them lost their lives in the press. They add
+that Pharaoh, upon this abjured Moses by God who had sent him to take
+away the serpent, and promised he would believe on Him and let the
+Israelites go; but when Moses had done what he requested, he relapsed
+and grew as hardened as before.—S. (B.)
+
+[272] There is a tradition that Moses was a very swarthy man; and that
+when he put his hand into his bosom, and drew it out again, it became
+extremely white and splendid, surpassing the brightness of the sun.—S.
+(B.)
+
+[273] They provided themselves with a great number of thick ropes and
+long pieces of wood, which they contrived by some means to move and
+make them twist themselves one over the other; and so imposed on the
+beholders, who at a distance took them to be true serpents. It is also
+said that they rubbed them over with quicksilver, which being wrought
+upon by the heat of the sun caused them to move.—S. (B.)
+
+[274] The expositors add that when this serpent had swallowed up all
+the rods and cords he made directly towards the assembly and put them
+into so great a terror that they fled and a considerable number were
+killed in the crowd: then Moses took it up and it became a rod in his
+hand as before. Whereupon the magicians declared that it could be no
+enchantment, because in such case their rods and cords would not have
+disappeared.—S. (B.)
+
+[275] Sale observes that some writers introduce only two of the
+enchanters as acknowledging Moses’ miracle to be wrought by the power
+of God. These two, they say, were brothers, and the sons of a famous
+magician then dead; but on their being sent for to court on this
+occasion, their mother persuaded them to go to their father’s tomb and
+ask his advice. Being come to the tomb, the father answered their
+call, and when they had acquainted him with the affair, he told them
+that they should inform themselves whether the rod of which they spoke
+became a serpent while its masters slept, or only when they were
+awake; for, said he, enchantments have no effect while the enchanter
+is asleep, and therefore if it be otherwise in this case, you may be
+assured that they act by a divine power. These two magicians then,
+arriving at the capital of Egypt, on inquiry found to their great
+astonishment that when Moses and Aaron went to rest their rod became a
+serpent and guarded them while they slept. And this was the first step
+towards their conversion.—S.
+
+[276] Some think these converted magicians were executed accordingly:
+but others deny it, and say that the king was not able to put them to
+death; insisting on these words of the Ḳur-án [xxviii. 35], ‘Ye two,
+and they who follow you, shall overcome.’—S.
+
+[277] See p. 101, l. 5, n. 1 (260).
+
+[278] Cp. Act. Apost. v. 38, 39.
+
+[279] ‘The people of Noah and of ´Ád and of Thamood, and those whom
+God destroyed after them.’ So explained in the Ḳámoos.
+
+[280] It is said that Hámán having prepared bricks and other materials
+employed no less than fifty thousand men besides labourers in the
+building, which they carried to so immense a height that the workmen
+could no longer stand on it: that Pharaoh ascending this tower threw a
+javelin towards heaven, which fell back again stained with blood,
+whereupon he impiously boasted that he had killed the god of Moses;
+but at sunset God sent the angel Gabriel, who with one stroke of his
+wing demolished the tower, a part whereof falling on the king’s army
+destroyed a million of men.—S. (Z.)
+
+[281] Some are of opinion that those who were sent by Pharaoh to seize
+the true believer, his kinsman, are the persons more particularly
+meant in this place: for they tell us that the said believer fled to a
+mountain, where they found him at prayers, guarded by the wild beasts,
+which ranged themselves in order about him; and that his pursuers
+thereupon returned in a great fright to their master, who put them to
+death for not performing his command.—S. (B.)
+
+[282] Some expound these words of the previous punishment they are
+doomed to suffer, according to a tradition of Ibn-Mes´ood, which
+informs us that their souls are in the crops of black birds which are
+exposed to hell-fire every morning and evening until the Day of
+Judgment.—S. (B.)
+
+[283] As there is no mention of any such miraculous inundation in the
+[so-called] Mosaic writings, some have imagined this plague to have
+been either a pestilence, or the smallpox, or some other epidemical
+distemper. (B.) For the word ‘ṭoofán,’ which is used in this place,
+and is generally rendered a ‘deluge,’ may also signify any other
+universal destruction or mortality.—S.
+
+[284] That is, the land of Syria, of which the Eastern geographers
+reckon Palestine a part, and wherein the commentators say the children
+of Israel succeeded the kings of Egypt and the Amalekites.—S. (B.)
+
+[285] Particularly the lofty tower [before mentioned] which Pharaoh
+caused to be built, that he might attack the God of Moses.—S.
+
+[286] The word here translated ‘body’ signifying also a ‘coat of
+mail,’ some imagine the meaning to be that his corpse floated armed
+with his coat of mail, which they tell us was of gold, by which they
+knew it was he.—S.
+
+[287] These people some will have to be of the tribe of Amalek, whom
+Moses was commanded to destroy, and others of the tribe of Lakhm.
+Their idols, it is said, were images of oxen, which gave the first
+hint to the making of the golden calf.—S. (B.)
+
+[288] The Eastern writers say these quails were of a peculiar kind of
+be found nowhere else but in El-Yemen, from whence they were brought
+by a south wind in great numbers to the Israelites’ camp in the
+desert. The Arabs called these birds ‘selwa,’ which is plainly the
+same with the Hebrew ‘salwim,’ and say they have no bones, but are
+eaten whole.—S.
+
+[289] The word here rendered ‘a great city,’ namely ‘miṣran,’ is
+rendered by Marracci and Sale ‘Egypt,’ and is so understood by many
+learned Arabs; but according to a general rule, to have this
+signification it should be ‘miṣra:’ in some copies of the Ḳur-án,
+however, it is thus written.
+
+[290] See Sale’s note _in loc._
+
+[291] A kind of soft stone, like dry mud.
+
+[292] The story here alluded to, though it occurs among passages
+respecting Moses and his people, is said to relate to a different age
+and to be as follows:—In the days of David, some Israelites dwelt at
+Eyleh, or Elath, on the Red Sea, where, on the night of the Sabbath,
+the fish used to come in great numbers to the shore, and stay there
+all the Sabbath, to tempt them; but the night following they returned
+into the sea again. At length, some of the inhabitants, neglecting
+God’s commandment, catched fish on the Sabbath, and dressed and ate
+them; and afterwards cut canals from the sea, for the fish to enter,
+with sluices, which they shut on the Sabbath, to prevent their return
+to the sea. The other part of the inhabitants, who strictly observed
+the Sabbath, used both persuasion and force to stop this impiety, but
+to no purpose, the offenders growing only more and more obstinate;
+whereupon David cursed the Sabbath-breakers, and God transformed them
+into apes. It is said, that one going to see a friend of his that was
+among them found him in the shape of an ape moving his eyes about
+wildly; and asking him whether he was not such a one, the ape made a
+sign with his head that it was he; whereupon the friend said to him,
+Did not I advise you to desist? at which the ape wept. They add, that
+these unhappy people remained three days in this condition, and were
+afterwards destroyed by a wind which swept them all into the sea.—S.
+(A. F.)
+
+[293] His breath before [he used the tooth-stick] had the odour of
+musk.—S. (B.)
+
+[294] It is said that not only the ten commandments, but the whole law
+was written thereon.—S.
+
+[295] That is, as some understand it, consisting of flesh and blood;
+or, as others, being a mere body or mass of metal, without a soul.—S.
+(B.)
+
+[296] The person who cast this calf, the Moḥammadans say, was not
+Aaron but Es-Sámiree, one of the principal men among the children of
+Israel, some of whose descendants, it is pretended, still inhabit an
+island of that name in the Arabian Gulf. It was made of the rings and
+bracelets of gold, silver, and other materials, which the Israelites
+had borrowed of the Egyptians; for Aaron, who commanded in his
+brother’s absence, having ordered Es-Sámiree to collect those
+ornaments from the people, who carried on a wicked commerce with them,
+and to keep them together till the return of Moses, Es-Sámiree,
+understanding the founder’s art, put them altogether into a furnace,
+to melt them down into one mass, which came out in the form of a calf.
+One writer says, that all the Israelites adored this calf, except only
+twelve thousand.—S. (A. F.)
+
+[297] After he had completed his forty days’ stay in the mount, and
+had received the Law.—S. (B.)
+
+[298] Or, I knew that which they knew not—that the messenger sent to
+thee from God was a pure spirit, and that his footsteps gave life to
+whatever they touched; being no other than the angel Gabriel, mounted
+on the horse of life: and therefore I made use of the dust of his feet
+to animate the molten calf. It is said, Es-Sámiree knew the angel
+because he had saved and taken care of him when a child and exposed by
+his mother for fear of Pharaoh.—S. (B., Jelál.)
+
+[299] The word here rendered ‘hearts’ often signifies stomachs; and if
+this be its meaning here, the narrative agrees with the [so-called]
+Mosaic account: for Moses ‘took the calf which they had made, and
+burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the
+water, and made the children of Israel to drink of it.’—Exod. xxxii.
+20.
+
+[300] The persons here meant are said to have been seventy men, who
+were made choice of by Moses, and heard the voice of God talking with
+him. But not being satisfied with that, they demanded to see God;
+whereupon they were all struck dead by lightning, and on Moses’
+intercession restored to life.—S.
+
+[301] This person is represented by the commentators as the most
+beautiful of the Israelites, and so far surpassing them all in
+opulence that the riches of Ḳároon have become a proverb.—S.
+
+[302] Moses, as some say, having complained to God of a false
+accusation brought against him by Ḳároon, He directed him to command
+the earth what he pleased, and it should obey him; whereupon he said,
+‘O earth, swallow them up;’ and immediately the earth opened under
+Ḳároon and his confederates, and swallowed them up, with his palace
+and all his riches.—There goes a tradition that as Ḳároon sank
+gradually into the ground, first to his knees, then to his waist, then
+to his neck, he cried out four several times, ‘O Moses, have mercy on
+me!’ but that Moses continued to say, ‘O earth, swallow them up!’ till
+at last he wholly disappeared: upon which God said to Moses, ‘Thou
+hadst no mercy on Ḳároon, though he asked pardon of thee four times;
+but I would have had compassion on him if he had asked pardon of me
+but once.’—S. (B.)
+
+[303] Or rather, fawn-coloured; as are most of the cows of Arabia. The
+word in the original properly signifies yellow.
+
+[304] The story of this young man is thus related:—A certain man at
+his death left his son, then a child, a cow-calf, which wandered in
+the desert till he came to age; at which time his mother told him the
+heifer was his, and bid him fetch her and sell her for three pieces of
+gold. When the young man came to the market with his heifer, an angel
+in the shape of a man accosted him and bid him six pieces of gold for
+her; but he would not take the money till he had asked his mother’s
+consent; which when he had obtained, he returned to the market-place,
+and met the angel, who now offered him twice as much for the heifer,
+provided he would say nothing of it to his mother; but the young man,
+refusing, went and acquainted her with the additional offer. The
+woman, perceiving it was an angel, bid her son go back and ask him
+what must be done with the heifer; whereupon the angel told the young
+man that in a little time the children of Israel would buy that heifer
+of him at any price.—S. (A.F.)
+
+[305] The more common tradition seems to be that the man was murdered
+by _one_ person, the son of his brother, who desired to obtain his
+property (as his inheritance), or his daughter, or both.
+(Mir-át-ez-Zemán).
+
+[306] Also called El-Khaḍir. This mysterious person, whom the vulgar
+and some others regard as a prophet, and identify with Ilyás (Elias or
+Elijah), and whom some confound with St. George, was, according to the
+more approved opinion of the learned, a just man or saint, the Wezeer
+and counsellor of that equally doubtful personage Dhu-l-Ḳarneyn, whose
+story has already been related in this volume. El-Khiḍr is said to
+have drunk of the Fountain of Life, by virtue of which he still lives,
+and will live till the day of judgment. He is also said to appear
+frequently to Muslims in perplexity, and to be generally clad in green
+garments; whence, according to some, his name.—Sale states, in a note
+on this passage, that the Muslims usually confound El-Khiḍr with
+Phineas, as well as Elias and St. George, saying that his soul passed
+by a metempsychosis successively through all three; and he adds, that
+part of these fictions they took from the Jews, some of whom also
+fancy Phineas was Elias.
+
+[307] Or, as some rather think, El-Ubulleh, near El-Basrah, or else
+Bájarwán in Armenia.—S. (B.)
+
+[308] They were ten brothers, five of whom were past their labour by
+reason of their age.—S. (B.)
+
+[309] That is, because of the great confidence the Israelites placed
+in it, having won several battles by its miraculous assistance. I
+imagine, however, that the Arabic word ‘sekeeneh,’ which signifies
+‘tranquillity’ or ‘security of mind,’ and is so understood by the
+commentators, may not improbably mean the ‘divine presence’ or
+‘glory,’ which used to appear on the Ark, and which the Jews express
+by the same word ‘Shekinah.’—S.
+
+[310] Sale observes that Yaḥyá most rationally understands hereby the
+divine revelations which David received from God, and not the art of
+making coats of mail.—The cause of his applying himself to this art is
+thus related in the Mir-át-ez-Zemán:—He used to go forth in disguise;
+and when he found any people who knew him not, he approached them and
+asked them respecting the conduct of David, and they praised him and
+prayed for him; but one day, as he was asking questions respecting
+himself as usual, God sent to him an angel in the form of a human
+being, who said, ‘An excellent man were David if he did not take from
+the public treasury:’—whereupon the heart of David was contracted, and
+he begged of God to render him independent: so He made iron soft to
+him, and it became in his hands as thread; and he used to sell a coat
+of mail for four thousand [pieces of money—whether gold or silver is
+not said], and with part of this he obtained food for himself, and part he
+gave in alms, and with part he fed his family.—Hence an excellent coat
+of mail is often called by the Arabs ‘Dáwoodee,’ _i.e._, ‘Davidean.’
+See my translation of ‘The Thousand and One Nights,’ chap. viii. note
+5.
+
+[311] For David, they say, divided his time regularly, setting apart
+one day for the service of God, another day for rendering justice to
+his people, another day for preaching to them, and another day for his
+own affairs.—S. (B.)
+
+[312] They say that he had a carpet of green silk, on which his throne
+was placed, being of a prodigious length and breadth, and sufficient
+for all his forces to stand on, the men placing themselves on his
+right hand, and the spirits [or jinn] on his left; and that when all
+were in order the wind at his command took up the carpet and
+transported it with all that were upon it wherever he pleased; the
+army of birds at the same time flying over their heads and forming a
+kind of canopy to shade them from the sun.—S.
+
+[313] Whither the wind brought back Solomon’s throne in the evening,
+after having carried it to a distant country in the morning.—S.
+
+[314] After the space of forty days, which was the time the image had
+been worshipped in his house, the devil [or jinnee] flew away, and
+threw the signet into the sea: the signet was immediately swallowed by
+a fish, which being taken and given to Solomon, he found the ring in
+its belly, and, having by this means recovered the kingdom, took
+Ṣakhr, and, tying a great stone to his neck, threw him into the
+Lake of Tiberias.—S. (B., A.F.)
+
+[315] See note 30 to the Introduction of my translation of the
+‘Thousand and One Nights.’
+
+[316] The Arab historians tell us that Solomon, having finished the
+Temple of Jerusalem, went in pilgrimage to Mekkeh, where having stayed
+as long as he pleased, he proceeded towards El-Yemen; and leaving
+Mekkeh in the morning he arrived by noon at Ṣan´a, and being
+extremely delighted with the country rested there; but wanting water
+to make the ablution, he looked among the birds for the lapwing which
+found it for him.—S. (B.)
+
+[317] Some add that Bilḳees, to try whether Solomon was a prophet or
+not, drest the boys like girls and the girls like boys, and sent him
+in a casket a pearl not drilled and an onyx drilled with a crooked
+hole; and that Solomon distinguished the boys from the girls by the
+different manner of their taking water, and ordered one worm to bore
+the pearl, and another to pass a thread through the onyx.—S. (B.)
+
+[318] Others, however, suppose it was El-Khiḍr, or else Gabriel, or
+some other angel; and some imagine it to have been Solomon himself.—S.
+(B.)
+
+[319] This fountain they say was in El-Yemen.—S. (B.)
+
+[320] Some say these spirits made him two lions, which were placed at
+the foot of his throne; and two eagles, which were set above it; and
+that when he mounted it, the lions stretched out their paws; and when
+he sat down, the eagles shaded him with their wings.—S. (B.)
+
+[321] The commentators to explain this passage tell us that David,
+having laid the foundations of the Temple of Jerusalem, which was to
+be in lieu of the tabernacle of Moses, when he died, left it to be
+finished by his son Solomon, who employed the genii in the work; that
+Solomon, before the edifice was quite completed, perceiving his end
+drew nigh, begged of God that his death might be concealed from the
+genii till they had entirely finished it; that God therefore so
+ordered it that Solomon died as he stood at his prayers, leaning on
+his staff, which supported the body in that posture a full year; and
+the genii, supposing him to be alive, continued their work during that
+term, at the expiration whereof, the temple being perfectly completed,
+a worm, which had gotten into the staff, ate it through, and the
+corpse fell to the ground and discovered the king’s death.—S. (B.,
+Jelál.)
+
+[322] It is said that the fish, after it had swallowed Jonah, swam
+after the ship with its head above water, that the prophet might
+breathe; who continued to praise God till the fish came to land and
+vomited him out.—S.
+
+[323] Sale states that some imagine Jonah’s plant to have been a fig;
+and others, the móz (or banana), which bears very large leaves and
+excellent fruit.
+
+[324] The commentators add that this plant withered the next morning,
+and that Jonah being much concerned at it God made a remonstrance to
+him in behalf of the Ninevites, agreeably to what is recorded in
+Scripture.—S.
+
+[325] When he first began to exhort them to repentance, instead of
+hearkening to him, they used him very ill, so that he was obliged to
+leave the city, threatening them at his departure that they should be
+destroyed within three days, or, as others say, within forty. But when
+the time drew near, and they saw the heavens overcast with a black
+cloud which shot forth fire and filled the air with smoke and hung
+directly over the city, they were in a terrible consternation, and
+getting into the fields, with their families and cattle, they put on
+sackcloth and humbled themselves before God, calling aloud for pardon
+and sincerely repenting of their past wickedness. Whereupon God was
+pleased to forgive them, and the storm blew over.—S. (B., Jelál, A.F.)
+
+[326] ´Imrán, as observed by Sale, is the name of two several persons
+according to the Muslims: one was the father of Moses and Aaron, and
+the other was the father of the Virgin Mary. The latter is here meant,
+and his wife’s name was Hannah.
+
+[327] Or the devil driven away with stones.—See note 1. (38), p. 7.
+
+[328] And for this reason, they say, neither of them was guilty of any
+sin, like the rest of the children of Adam.—S. (Ḳatádeh.)
+
+[329] That is, between thirty, or thirty-four, and fifty-one: and the
+passage may relate to Christ’s preaching here on earth. But as he had
+scarce attained this age when he was taken up into heaven, the
+commentators choose to understand it of his second coming.—S.
+
+[330] The age of the Virgin Mary at the time of her conception was
+thirteen, or, as others say, ten; and she went six, seven, eight, or
+nine months with him, according to different traditions; though some
+say the child was conceived at its full growth of nine months, and
+that she was delivered of him within an hour after.—S. (B., Yahya.)
+
+[331] Some say the Virgin Mary had really a brother named Aaron, who
+had the same father but a different mother: others suppose Aaron the
+brother of Moses is here meant, but say Mary is called his sister
+either because she was of the Levitical race, (as, by her having been
+related to Elizabeth, it should seem she was,) or by way of
+comparison: others say that it was a different person of that name who
+was contemporary with her and conspicuous for his good or bad
+qualities, and that they likened her to him either by way of
+commendation or of reproach.—S. (B., Z., &c.)
+
+[332] These were the first words which were put into the mouth of
+Jesus, to obviate the imagination of his partaking of the divine
+nature or having a right to the worship of mankind on account of his
+miraculous speaking so soon after his birth.—S. (B.)
+
+[333] It is related in the spurious Gospel of the Infancy of Christ
+that Jesus being seven years old and at play with several children of
+his age, they made several figures of birds and beasts of clay for
+their diversion; and each preferring his own workmanship, Jesus told
+them that he would make his walk and leap; which accordingly at his
+command they did. He made also several figures of sparrows and other
+birds, which flew about or stood on his hands as he ordered them, and
+also ate and drank when he offered them meat and drink. The children,
+telling this to their parents, were forbidden to play any more with
+Jesus, whom they held to be a sorcerer.—S.
+
+[334] The commentators observe that these words are added lest it
+should be thought Jesus did these miracles by his own power, or was
+God.—S. (B.)
+
+[335] In Arabic, ‘el-Ḥawáreeyoon;’ which word they derive from ‘ḥára,’
+‘to be white’ [or rather, ‘to whiten’ clothes], and suppose the
+apostles were so called either from the _candour_ and _sincerity_ of
+their minds, or because they were princes and wore white garments, or
+else because they were by trade fullers.—(B., Jelál.) According to
+which last opinion, their vocation is thus related: That as Jesus
+passed by the sea-side, he saw some fullers at work, and, accosting
+them, said, ‘Ye cleanse these clothes, but cleanse not your hearts;’
+upon which they believed on him. But the true etymology seems to be
+from the Ethiopic verb ‘hawyra,’ ‘to go;’ whence ‘hawârya’ signifies
+‘one that is sent,’ a ‘messenger,’ or ‘apostle.’—S.
+
+[336] The person crucified some will have to be a spy that was sent to
+entrap him; others that it was one Titian, who by the direction of
+Judas entered in at a window of the house where Jesus was; to kill
+him; and others that it was Judas himself, who agreed with the rulers
+of the Jews to betray him for thirty pieces of silver, and led those
+who were sent to take him.—They add, that Jesus, after his crucifixion
+in _effigy_, was sent down again to the earth to comfort his mother
+and disciples and acquaint them how the Jews were deceived, and was
+then taken up a second time into heaven.
+
+It is supposed by several that this story was an original invention of
+Moḥammad’s; but they are certainly mistaken: for several sectaries
+held the same opinion long before his time. The Basilidians, in the
+very beginning of Christianity, denied that Christ himself suffered,
+but [asserted] that Simon the Cirenean was crucified in his place. The
+Corinthians before them, and the Carpocratians next (to name no more
+of those who affirmed Jesus to have been a mere man), did believe the
+same thing, that it was not himself, but one of his followers, very
+like him, that was crucified. Photius tells us that he read a book
+entitled ‘The Journeys of the Apostles,’ relating the acts of Peter,
+John, Andrew, Thomas, and Paul; and among other things contained
+therein this was one, that Christ was not crucified, but another in
+his stead, and that therefore he laughed at his crucifiers, or those
+who thought they had crucified him.—S.
+
+[337] This miracle is thus related by the commentators. Jesus having
+at the request of his followers asked it of God, a red table
+immediately descended in their sight between two clouds and was set
+before them; whereupon he rose up, and, having made the ablution,
+prayed, and then took off the cloth which covered the table, saying,
+‘In the name of God, the best provider of food.’ What the provisions
+were with which the table was furnished is a matter wherein the
+expositors are not agreed. One will have them to be nine cakes of
+bread and nine fishes; another, bread and flesh; another, all sorts of
+food except flesh; another, all sorts of food except bread and flesh;
+another, all except bread and fish; another, one fish which had the
+taste of all manner of food; another, fruits of Paradise: but the most
+received tradition is that when the table was uncovered there appeared
+a fish ready dressed, without scales or prickly fins, dropping with
+fat, having salt placed at its head, and vinegar at its tail, and
+round it all sorts of herbs except leeks, and five loaves of bread, on
+one of which there were olives, on the second honey, on the third
+butter, on the fourth cheese, and on the fifth dried flesh. They add
+that Jesus at the request of the apostles showed them another miracle
+by restoring the fish to life and causing its scales and fins to
+return to it; at which the standers-by being affrighted, he caused it
+to become as it was before: that one thousand three hundred men and
+women, all afflicted with bodily infirmities or poverty, ate of these
+provisions and were satisfied, the fish remaining whole as it was at
+the first: that then the table flew up to heaven in the sight of all;
+and every one who had partaken of this food were delivered from their
+infirmities and misfortunes: and that it continued to descend for
+forty days together, at dinner-time, and stood on the ground till the
+sun declined, and was then taken up into the clouds. Some of the
+Moḥammadan writers are of opinion that this table did not really
+descend, but it was only a parable; but most think that the words of
+the Ḳur-án are plain to the contrary. A further tradition is that
+several men were changed into swine [and apes] for disbelieving this
+miracle and attributing it to magic art; or, as others pretend, for
+stealing some of the victuals from off it. Several other fabulous
+circumstances are also told, which are scarce worth transcribing.—S.
+(B.)
+
+[338] Some say the table descended on a Sunday, which was the reason
+of the Christians’ observing that day as sacred. Others pretend this
+day is still kept among them as a very great festival; and it seems as
+if the story had its rise from an imperfect notion of Christ’s last
+supper and the institution of the Eucharist.—S.
+
+[339] To explain this passage, the commentators tell the following
+story:—The people of Antioch being idolaters, Jesus sent two of his
+disciples thither to preach to them; and when they drew near the city,
+they found Ḥabeeb, surnamed En-Nejjár, or The Carpenter, feeding
+sheep, and acquainted him with their errand; whereupon he asked them
+what proof they had of their veracity, and they told him they could
+cure the sick and the blind and the lepers; and to demonstrate the
+truth of what they said they laid their hands on a child of his who
+was sick and immediately restored him to health. Ḥabeeb was convinced
+by this miracle and believed; after which they went into the city and
+preached the worship of one true God, curing a great number of people
+of several infirmities; but at length, the affair coming to the
+prince’s ear, he ordered them to be imprisoned for endeavouring to
+seduce the people. When Jesus heard of this, he sent another of his
+disciples, generally supposed to have been Simon Peter; who, coming to
+Antioch, and appearing as a zealous idolater, soon insinuated himself
+into the favour of the inhabitants and of their prince, and at length
+took an opportunity to desire the prince would order the two persons
+who, as he was informed, had been put in prison for broaching new
+opinions to be brought before him to be examined; and accordingly they
+were brought: when Peter, having previously warned them to take no
+notice that they knew him, asked them who sent them; to which they
+answered, God, who had created all things and had no companion. He
+then required some convincing proof of their mission, upon which they
+restored a blind person to his sight and performed some other
+miracles, with which Peter seemed not to be satisfied, for that
+according to some he did the very same miracles himself, but declared
+that if their God could enable them to raise the dead he would believe
+them; which condition the two apostles accepting, a lad was brought
+who had been dead seven days, and at their prayers he was raised to
+life; and thereupon Peter acknowledged himself convinced, and ran and
+demolished the idols, a great many of the people following him and
+embracing the true faith; but those who believed not were destroyed by
+the cry of the angel Gabriel.—S. (B., Z., &c.)
+
+[340] Some say these two were John and Paul; but others name different
+persons.—S.
+
+[341] Simon Peter.
+
+[342] His tomb is still shown near Antioch, and is much visited by the
+Moḥammadans.—S.
+
+[343] Also some said he was taken up into heaven; and others, that his
+manhood only suffered, and that his godhead ascended into heaven.—S.
+(B.)
+
+[344] Some, referring the relative _his_ to the first antecedent, take
+the meaning to be that no Jew or Christian shall die before he
+believes in Jesus; for they say that when one of either of those
+religions is ready to breathe his last, and sees the angel of death
+before him, he shall then believe in that prophet as he ought, though
+his faith will not then be of any avail. According to a tradition of
+El-Hajjáj, when a Jew is expiring the angels will strike him on the
+back and face, and say to him, ‘O thou enemy of God, Jesus was sent as
+a prophet unto thee, and thou didst not believe on him;’ to which he
+will answer, ‘I now believe him to be the servant of God:’ and to a
+dying Christian they will say, ‘Jesus was sent as a prophet unto thee,
+and thou hast imagined him to be God, or the son of God;’ whereupon he
+will believe him to be the servant of God only and His
+apostle.—Others, taking the above-mentioned relative to refer to
+Jesus, suppose the intent of the passage to be that all Jews and
+Christians in general [the dead being raised to life in their graves]
+shall have a right faith in that prophet before his death, that is,
+when he descends from heaven and returns into the world, where he is
+to kill Antichrist and to establish the Moḥammadan religion and a most
+perfect tranquillity and security on earth [where he will remain forty
+years, and then die.—Others again suppose that the words ‘believe in
+him’ signify ‘believe in God.’]—S. (B., Z., Jelál, &c.)
+
+[345] It is a dispute among the Moḥammadans whether Christ actually
+died or not before his assumption.—S. (B.)
+
+[346] Some, however, are of opinion it [this passage] might have been
+revealed in answer to certain idolaters, who said that the Christians,
+who received the Scriptures, worshipped Jesus, supposing him to be the
+son of God; whereas the angels were more worthy of that honour than
+he.—S. (B.)
+
+[347] As easily as We produced Jesus without a father [B.]. The intent
+of the words is to show how just and reasonable it is to think that
+the angels should bear the relation of children to men rather than to
+God, they being His creatures as well as men, and equally in His
+power.—S.
+
+[348] For some time before the resurrection Jesus is to descend on
+earth according to the Moḥammadans near Damascus, or as some say near
+a rock [or rather a mountain-road] named [´Aḳabet] Afeek, with a lance
+in his hand, wherewith he is to kill Antichrist, whom he will
+encounter at Ludd, or Lydda, a small town not far from Joppa. They add
+that he will arrive at Jerusalem at the time of morning-prayer, that
+he shall perform his devotions after the Moḥammadan institution, and
+officiate instead of the Imám, who shall give place to him; that he
+will break down the cross, and destroy the churches of the Christians,
+of whom he will also make a general slaughter, excepting only such as
+shall profess El-Islám.—S. (B.)
+
+
+[349] Either by rejecting and contemning Jesus, as the Jews do; or
+raising him to an equality with God, as do the Christians.—S. (B.)
+
+[350] For the Eastern writers mention a sect of Christians which held
+the Trinity to be composed of those three; but it is allowed that this
+heresy has been long since extinct.—S.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX OF CHAPTERS.
+
+
+   CHAP.                 PAGE
+
+   I. (entire)              3
+
+   II.           1-6        4
+   ”            7-19     41-2
+   ”            21-2       19
+   ”           28-31    49-50
+   ”            33-7     51-2
+   ”              51      121
+   ”            52-3      121
+   ”              54      115
+   ”              57    115-6
+   ”              58      115
+   ”              59       38
+   ”            60-2    116-7
+   ”            63-9    125-7
+   ”              87      121
+   ”           100-1       19
+   ”          118-20     73-5
+   ”             130     47-8
+   ”           133-4       15
+   ”             141       16
+   ”          158-60        8
+   ”           160-2     30-1
+   ”             166       38
+   ”             172       35
+   ”             191       32
+   ”          247-52    132-4
+   ”             256        5
+   ”             260     70-1
+   ”             261      148
+   ”             262       73
+   ”             265       36
+   ”           266-7       36
+   ”             273       36
+   ”             280       37
+
+   III.        12-15       29
+    ”           25-6        6
+    ”           31-6   149-51
+    ”          37-43    151-2
+    ”           43-7    155-7
+    ”           52-5      164
+    ”          58-60     75-6
+    ”             79       38
+    ”            138       14
+    ”            139       32
+    ”            148       32
+    ”          163-5       30
+    ”         179-80       16
+
+   IV.            51    10-11
+   ”            80-1       32
+   ”              88       37
+   ”             123       30
+   ”             144       31
+   ”           155-7    161-2
+   ”             161       14
+   ”          169-70    164-5
+
+   V.           23-9    122-4
+   ”            30-5     53-4
+   ”        56, 62-3       42
+   ”            85-6     40-1
+   ”           112-5    157-9
+   ”           116-8      162
+
+   VI.            50       14
+   ”           59-64       10
+   ”           74-82     66-7
+   ”          95-103      8-9
+   ”             108       36
+   ”          109-11     16-7
+
+   VII.        10-17     50-1
+    ”             22       51
+    ”             52        6
+    ”          63-70     60-1
+    ”           71-7     61-2
+    ”         101-23    107-9
+    ”         124-33    112-4
+    ”          134-6      114
+    ”         138-42    117-8
+    ”          146-8      118
+    ”          154-6    121-2
+    ”          186-8       31
+
+   IX.            18       36
+
+   X.          38-40       19
+   ”            90-2      114
+   ”             100       32
+
+   XI.         27-36     55-6
+   ”              38       56
+   ”           38-46     56-8
+   ”           47-50     58-9
+   ”            72-8       71
+   ”              84       72
+   ”           85-98     95-6
+
+   XII.         4-22    77-80
+    ”          35-50     80-2
+    ”         54-102    82-92
+
+   XIII.        13-4        9
+
+   XIV.         26-7       31
+
+   XV.          6-15       17
+   ”           16-25        7
+
+   XVI.           92       34
+    ”          103-5       20
+
+   XVII.        90-8       18
+
+   XVIII.      28-30       27
+     ”         31-42    39-40
+     ”          45-7       27
+     ”         59-81   127-31
+     ”        82-101     63-5
+     ”           109       20
+     ”           110       14
+
+   XIX.        12-15      151
+    ”          16-41    152-5
+    ”          42-51     67-8
+    ”           91-6       11
+
+   XX.          8-50    103-7
+    ”          88-99   119-21
+
+   XXI.        26-30       33
+    ”          52-75    68-70
+    ”          79-82      136
+
+   XXII.          72       11
+
+   XXIV.       39-40       39
+
+   XXV.        64-75       43
+
+   XXVII.      15-45   138-44
+
+   XXVIII.      21-8   97-103
+     ”         76-82    124-5
+
+   XXIX.        40-3       12
+     ”            45       38
+
+   XXXIV.      11-13    144-5
+     ”            49       14
+
+   XXXVI.      12-28   159-61
+
+   XXXVII.    97-111     72-3
+     ”        139-48    146-7
+
+   XXXVIII.     20-4    135-6
+      ”        29-39    136-8
+      ”         40-4     93-4
+
+   XXXIX.      67-75     28-9
+
+   XL.         27-49   109-12
+
+   XLI.         34-5       37
+
+   XLIII.      57-65    162-4
+
+   L.           30-3       29
+
+   LVI.         1-56     24-6
+    ”           76-9       17
+
+   LXI.          6-9    15-16
+
+   LXII.           5       41
+
+   LXVII.        1-4        6
+     ”           6-8       30
+
+   LXIX.       13-37     23-4
+
+   LXXI.        27-9       56
+
+   LXXII. 1, 2, 8-11       33
+
+   LXXIV.        1-7       13
+
+   LXXVI.      29-30       32
+
+   LXXXI.       1-14     22-3
+
+   LXXXII.  (entire)       22
+
+   LXXXVIII.     1-7       23
+
+   XCII.    (entire)     34-5
+
+   XCIII.   (entire)       13
+
+   XCVI.         1-6    xliii
+
+   XCIX.    (entire)       21
+
+   CI.      (entire)       21
+
+   CVII.    (entire)       35
+
+   CXII.    (entire)        5
+
+
+GENERAL INDEX.
+
+
+   AARON, 105 ff.
+
+   ´Abbás, Ibn-, 50.
+
+   ´Abdallah ibn Ubayy, lx.
+
+   ´Abd-el-Muṭṭalib, xxxvii, 73.
+
+   Abel, 53.
+
+   Aboo-Bekr, xlv, xlvii, lvi, lxxvii.
+
+   Aboo-Firás, xxix.
+
+   Aboo-Lahab, li, lii.
+
+   Aboo-Ṭálib, xxxviii, xlv, xlvii, xlix, l, lii.
+
+   Abraham, xxxii, 15, 47, 66-76.
+
+   Abrogation of revelations, 19, 20, 38.
+
+   Abyssinia, flight to, xlvii.
+
+   Ád, 60, 61.
+
+   Adam, 47, 49-52, 164.
+
+   Advent of Christ, second, 163.
+
+   African converts, xcvii.
+
+   Aḥmad, prophecy of, 15.
+
+   ´Aïsheh, liii, lxix, lxxiii.
+
+   ´Aḳabeh, pledges of the, lv, lvi.
+
+   ´Alee, xxxix, lvi.
+
+   Alláh Ta´ála, xxxiii.
+
+   Alms, lxxxiv, 36.
+
+   Amnesty to Mekka, lxvii.
+
+   Anas, xli.
+
+   Ancestry, pride of, xviii.
+
+   Angels, 33, 49.
+
+   Anṣár, lix, lx.
+
+   ´Anṭarah, xxviii.
+
+   Antichrist, 157, 163.
+
+   Antioch, 159-161.
+
+   Apostles, 14, 47, 156.
+
+   Appearance of Moḥammad, xl.
+
+   Arab poetry, examples, xiv, xv, xvi, xvii, xviii, xix, xxix.
+
+   Arabia, xi-xiii.
+
+   Arabia, submission of, lxvii.
+
+   Arabs at Yethrib, liv.
+
+   Arabs before Islám, the, xi-xxxv;
+     their country, xi;
+     influence on their character, xii;
+     the Bedawee nature, xiii;
+     devotion to the clan, xiv;
+     honour, xv;
+     war and plunder, xvi;
+     ferocity, xvi, xvii;
+     family pride, xviii;
+     pledge of protection, xviii;
+     hospitality, xix;
+     Ḥátim the ideal Arab, xix-xxii;
+     Arab poetry, xxii-xxiv;
+     the fair of ´Okáḍh, xxiv-xxvi;
+     women of Arabia, xxvi;
+     chivalry, xxvii, xxviii;
+     fathers and daughters, xxix;
+     town life, xxx;
+     Mekka, xxx;
+     music and poetry at Mekka, xxxi;
+     dice and drink, xxxi;
+     the Kaạbeh, xxxii;
+     religion of the early Arabs, xxxii;
+     Christianity and Judaism in Arabia, xxxiv;
+     the Ḥaneefs, xxxiv;
+     Zeyd ibn ´Amr, xxxv;
+     the change in the Arabs effected by Moḥammad, xxxv.
+
+   Aristocracy, hostility of, xlvii.
+
+   Ark, 56, 57, 133.
+
+   Áṣaf Solomon’s wezeer, 142.
+
+   Aws, Benee-, liv.
+
+   Azar or Terah, 66.
+
+
+   BABEL, Tower of, 69.
+
+   Bathsheba, 135.
+
+   Bayard of Islám, l.
+
+   Bedr, lxv.
+
+   Behá-ed-deen Zoheyr, xxiv.
+
+   Believers and unbelievers, 38-43.
+
+   Benjamin, 77, 84, 86-89.
+
+   Bilál, the first Muëddin, xlv, xlvii.
+
+   Bilḳees, Queen of Sheba, 139-143.
+
+   Birds and Solomon, 138-139.
+
+   Book, the preserved, 17.
+
+   Books, divine, 47-48.
+
+   Byzantium, Emperor of, lxviii.
+
+
+   CAIN, 53, 54.
+
+   Caleb, 123.
+
+   Calf, the golden, 118 ff.
+
+   Camel of Moḥammad, lxvi.
+
+   Camel of Thamood, 61, 62.
+
+   Camel-driver, Moḥammad a, xxxix.
+
+   Caussin de Perceval, M., xxii.
+
+   Chivalry of ancient Arabs, xxvii, xxviii.
+
+   Christ, 47, 149-165.
+
+   —— divinity of, 154, 162-165.
+
+   —— the Messiah, lxi.
+
+   —— the Word of God, lxxxii, 165.
+
+   —— supposed crucifixion of, 156, 161.
+
+   —— second advent of, 163.
+
+   Christians, xxxiv, 38, 40, 42, 48, 164.
+
+   Clan feeling, xiv.
+
+   Corruption of Christian and Jewish scriptures, 48.
+
+   Cow, sacrifice of, 125-127.
+
+
+   DAUGHTERS of God, xxxiii, 9, 11, 33.
+
+   Daughters, love of, xxix.
+
+   David, 47, 134-36, 138.
+
+   Davidean coats of mail, 135.
+
+   Day of judgment, 21-31.
+
+   Debtors, 37.
+
+   Destiny, 32.
+
+   Deutsch, Dr. Emanuel, xxiv, xl.
+
+   Devils, 7, 31, 136, 137, 138.
+
+   Dhafár, Christians of, xxxiv.
+
+   Dhu-l-Ḳarneyn, 63-65, 128.
+
+   Dhu-l-Kifl, 47.
+
+   Dice, xxxi.
+
+   Disaffected party, lx, lxv.
+
+   Divine books, 47-48.
+
+   Divinity of Christ, 154, 162-165.
+
+   Divinity of the Virgin, 162, 165.
+
+   Drink, love of, xxxi.
+
+
+   EDEN, 51.
+
+   Egypt, 79 ff.
+
+   Egypt, plagues of, 112-114.
+
+   Elias, 128.
+
+   Embarcation formula, 57.
+
+   Emeen, El-, xl, xlv.
+
+   Emeeneh, El-, 137.
+
+   Enoch, 47.
+
+   Eve, 51.
+
+   Evil eye, 85.
+
+   Exodus, the, 114 ff.
+
+   Ezekiel, lines from, xxx.
+
+   Ezra, 148.
+
+
+   FAIR, _see_ ´Okáḍh.
+
+   Family pride of Arabs, xviii.
+
+   Famine of Egypt, 83 ff.
+
+   Fanes, xxxiii.
+
+   Fast, lxxxiv, 117.
+
+   Fate, lxxxi, 32.
+
+   Fathers and daughters, xxix.
+
+   Fátiḥah, 3.
+
+   Fetishism, xxxiii.
+
+   Fijár, war of the, xxxviii.
+
+   Firás, Aboo-, xxix.
+
+   Flight of Moḥammad, lvi, lvii.
+
+   Flight to Abyssinia, xlvii.
+
+   Flood, 55-59.
+
+   Forgery, lxvii ff., 19.
+
+
+   GABRIEL, xliv, 72, 73, 78, 111, 152, 161
+
+   God, 5-12.
+
+   —-- unity, profession of, 5.
+
+   —-- has no partners, 9, 11, 33, 154, 162-165.
+
+   —-- the supreme, xxxiii.
+
+   —-- Moḥammad doctrine of, lxxx.
+
+   Goddesses, moon, xxxiii, xlviii.
+
+   Gog and Magog, 64, 65.
+
+   Golden calf, 118 ff.
+
+   Goliath, 133, 134.
+
+   Good for evil, 37.
+
+   Gospel, 15, 47, 48, 149 ff.
+
+   Greeting, 37.
+
+
+   HABEEB, 159 ff.
+
+   Haggadah, xliii, lxi, lxii.
+
+   Hámán, 97, 110.
+
+   Haneefs, xxxiv.
+
+   Háshimees, xxxviii, li, lii.
+
+   Ḥátim, xix-xxii.
+
+   Ḥawáreeyoon, El-, 156.
+
+   Heber, 47, 160, 161.
+
+   Hell, 21-31.
+
+   Helpers, the, lix, lx.
+
+   Ḥijáz;, xii.
+
+   Hijreh, the, lvii.
+
+   Ḥirá, Mount, xliii.
+
+   Honour, Arab, xv.
+
+   Hood, 47, 60, 61.
+
+   Ḥooreeyehs, Footnotes 128, 131.
+
+   Hospitality, Arab, xix.
+
+   Howwá, 51.
+
+   Hubal, xxxii.
+
+   Humanity, lxxxvi.
+
+   Hypocrites, 31, 41.
+
+   ‘Hypocrites, the,’ lx.
+
+
+   IBLEES, 31, 49, 50.
+
+   Idols, xxxii, xlvi, lxvi, 8, 11, 12, 30.
+
+   Idrees, 47.
+
+   Ilyás, 128.
+
+   Imám, 74, 163.
+
+   ´Imrán, 149.
+
+   Infanticide, xxxii, 23.
+
+   Inspiration, lxxiv.
+
+   Isaac, 47, 70-73.
+
+   Ishmael, xxxii, 47, 72-73.
+
+   Iskender, 63.
+
+   Islám, lxxvii-xcix, 76.
+
+
+   JACOB, 47, 70, 71, 77-92.
+
+   Jann, El-, or Iblees, 49.
+
+   Jerusalem, Temple of, 145.
+
+   Jesus of Nazareth, _see_ Christ.
+
+   Jethro, 47, 95 ff.
+
+   Jewish corruption of Scripture, 48.
+
+   Jews, liv, lxii-lxv, 38, 40, 41, 42, 48.
+
+   Jinn, liii, 7, 9, 33, 136-138, 144, 145.
+
+   Jinnee, Moḥammad possessed by a, 17.
+
+   Ji´ráneh, El-, scene at, lix.
+
+   Job, 93, 94.
+
+   Jonah, 146, 147.
+
+   Joodee, mountain of El-, 58.
+
+   Joseph, 77-92.
+
+   Joseph and Zeleekha, 83.
+
+   Joshua, 47, 123, 124, 127-129.
+
+   Judah, 77-79.
+
+   Judaism in Arabia, xxxiv.
+
+
+   KAẠBEH, xxxii, lxxxiv, 74-75.
+
+   Ḳaṣwá, El-, lxvi.
+
+   Khadeejeh, xxxix, lii, liii, lxxi, lxxii.
+
+   Khaṭeeb-el-Ambiya, 95.
+
+   Khazraj, Benee-, liv.
+
+   Khiḍr, El-, 47, 128-130.
+
+   Khusru, the, lxvii.
+
+   Ḳiṭfeer, 79.
+
+   Korah, 124, 125.
+
+   Kudar ibn Sálif, 62.
+
+   Ḳureysh, xxxvii f, xlv-lviii, lxv-lxvii.
+
+   Ḳur-án, 4, 13-20, 47;
+     state in which it was left by Moḥammad, ci;
+     first revision, ci;
+     second revision, ci;
+     chaotic order, cii;
+     scientific arrangement of Nöldeke, ciii;
+     characteristics of different groups, civ;
+     statistics, cvi.
+
+
+   LAHAB, Aboo-, li, lii.
+
+   Lapwing and Solomon, 139.
+
+   Lát, El-, xxxiii.
+
+   Lazarus, 155.
+
+   Lion of God, l.
+
+   Lot, 47, 69, 70.
+
+   Lyall, Mr. C. J., xv.
+
+
+   MARRIAGES of Moḥammad, xxxix, lxx ff.
+
+   Martyrs for the faith, 30.
+
+   Mary the Virgin, 149 ff.
+
+   Mary, divinity of, 162, 165.
+
+   Medina, lvii, lix ff., lxv, _and see_ Yethrib.
+
+   Mekka, xxx ff., lxvii.
+
+   Menáh, xxxiii.
+
+   Messenger or apostle, 14.
+
+   Messiah, _see_ Christ.
+
+   Metempsychosis, xxxiii.
+
+   Midian, 95, 96, 101.
+
+   Migrations of Muslims, xlvii, lvii.
+
+   Mi´ráj, lv.
+
+   Misr, 88.
+
+   Miracles or signs, 16, 17, 18, 52.
+
+   Miriam (Maryam), 99, 105.
+
+   Moḥammad, 13-20, 47;
+     his family, xxxvii;
+     childhood, xxxvii;
+     youth, xxxviii;
+     shepherding, xxxviii;
+     camel-driving, xxxix;
+     personal appearance, xl;
+     habits, xli, xlii;
+     solitary wanderings, xlii;
+     the call, xliii;
+     public appearance, xliv;
+     first conversions, xlv;
+     address on Mount Eṣ-Ṣafá, xlvi;
+     preaching, xlvi;
+     hostility of the aristocracy, xlvii;
+     torturing of slaves, xlvii;
+     emigration to Abyssinia, xlvii;
+     speech to the Negus, xlviii;
+     persecution by Ḳureysh, xlviii;
+     compromise, xlviii;
+     interview with Aboo-Ṭálib, xlix;
+     conversion of ´Omar and Ḥamzeh, l;
+     the ban of the Háshimees, li;
+     its end, lii;
+     death of Aboo-Ṭálib and Khadeejeh, lii;
+     visit to Eṭ-Ṭáïf, liii;
+     pilgrims from Yethrib, liv;
+     state of parties at Yethrib, liv;
+     first pledge of the ´Aḳabeh, lv;
+     Yethrib and Mekka, lv;
+     the night journey, lv;
+     second pledge of the ´Aḳabeh, lvi;
+     emigration of Muslims to Yethrib, lvii;
+     Moḥammad’s flight or Hijreh, lvii, lviii;
+     retrospect, lviii;
+     parties at Medina, lix;
+     the Refugees, Helpers, Hypocrites, lix, lx;
+     the Jews, lxi;
+     are conciliated, lxii;
+     but become hostile, lxii;
+     their punishment, lxiii-lxv;
+     war with the Ḳureysh, lxv;
+     Bedr, Oḥud, siege of Medina, truce, lxv;
+     the Muslims perform the Lesser Pilgrimage, lxvi;
+     conquest of Mekka, lxvii;
+     complete amnesty, lxvii;
+     submission of Arabia, lxvii;
+     farewell pilgrimage and oration, lxviii;
+     death, lxix;
+     character, lxix;
+     charges of cruelty, sensuality, insincerity, discussed, lxx-lxxvi.
+
+   Moḥammad, the illiterate or Gentile apostle, 122.
+
+   Moon-goddesses, xxxiii, xlvii,
+
+   Moses, 92, 97-131.
+
+   Mosques or temples, 36.
+
+   Mountain-worship, xxxiii.
+
+   Muëddin, the first, xlv, xlvii.
+
+   Muḥájiroon, lx, lxv.
+
+   Munáfiḳoon, lix.
+
+   Muṣ´ab, lv.
+
+   Muṣ´ab ibn Er-Reiyán, 97.
+
+   Muslim, meaning of, 75.
+
+   Muslim, the true, 43.
+
+
+   NEGRO slaves, xlv, xlvii.
+
+   Negus or Nejáshee, xli, xlvii, xlviii.
+
+   Nejd, xii.
+
+   Nejrán, xxxiv, 164.
+
+   Night journey, lv.
+
+   Nimrod, 66, 69, 70.
+
+   Nineveh, 147.
+
+   Noah, 47, 55-59.
+
+   Nöldeke, ciii.
+
+   Nun, 47.
+
+
+   OḤUD, battle of, lxv, 32.
+
+   ´Okaḍh, fair of, xxiv-xxvi, xxxviii.
+
+   ´Omar, l.
+
+   ´Oneyzeh, 62.
+
+   Oration, farewell, lxviii.
+
+   Oratory among the Arabs, xxiv.
+
+   ´Othmán, xlv.
+
+   Oven of El-Koofeh, 37.
+
+   ´Ozeyr or Ezra, 148.
+
+
+   PALMER, Prof. E. H., xxiv.
+
+   Parables, 38-40.
+
+   Paraclete, 15.
+
+   Paradise, 21-31.
+
+   Partners with God, 9, 11, 33.
+
+   Parties at Medina, lix.
+
+   Penates, xxxiii.
+
+   Pentateuch, 47, 48.
+
+   People of the Scripture, 38.
+
+   Perceval, M. Caussin de, xxii.
+
+   Person of Moḥammad, xl.
+
+   Pharaoh of Joseph, 81, 83.
+
+   Pharaoh of Moses, 97 ff.
+
+   Pilgrimage, lxxxiv;
+     lesser, lxvi;
+     last, lxviii.
+
+   Pilgrims, xxxvii, liv.
+
+   Pledges of the ´Aḳabeh, lv, lvi.
+
+   Poetry, Arab, xxii-xxiv.
+
+   Polygamy, lxxxix-xcii.
+
+   Potiphar, 79.
+
+   Potiphar’s wife, 79, 83.
+
+   Prayer, lxxxiii;
+     opening, cvi, 3
+
+   Preaching of Moḥammad, xlvi.
+
+   Preceders, the, 25.
+
+   Predestination, 32.
+
+   Premonition, 4.
+
+   Preserved book, the, 17.
+
+   Pride of ancestry, xviii.
+
+   Priests, xxxiii.
+
+   Prophets, 47, 48.
+
+   Protection, xviii.
+
+   Psalms, 47, 48.
+
+
+   QUEEN of Sheba, 139 ff.
+
+
+   REFUGEES, the, lix, lx.
+
+   Reiyán, Er-, 81, 97.
+
+   Rek´ah, 74.
+
+   Religion of early Arabs, xxxii.
+
+   Religion, true and false, 34-37.
+
+   Resurrection, 21-31.
+
+   Reuel, _see_ Sho´eyb.
+
+   Revelations, series of, 14, 47-48.
+
+   Revelations, Moḥammad’s, c, 13.
+
+
+   SABIANS, 38, 48.
+
+   Sabbath-breaking, 116.
+
+   Ṣadaḳah, 62.
+
+   Eṣ-Ṣafá, xlvi, lxvi.
+
+   Ṣafoora, 102.
+
+   Sáliḥ, 47, 61, 62.
+
+   Sámiree Es-, 118 ff.
+
+   Samuel, 133.
+
+   Sarah, 71.
+
+   Saul, 132.
+
+   Seers, xxxiii.
+
+   Sensuality of Moḥammad, lxx ff.
+
+   Seth, 47.
+
+   Sheba, Queen of, 139 ff.
+
+   Shi-b or quarter, li.
+
+   Shepherding, xxxviii.
+
+   Sho´eyb, or Jethro, or Reuel, 47, 95 ff.
+
+   Ṣiḍḍeek, Es-, xlv.
+
+   Siege of Medina, lxv.
+
+   Sierra Leone, xcviii.
+
+   Signs, _see_ Miracles.
+
+   Sincerity of Moḥammad, lxxii ff.
+
+   Slaves, xlv, xlvii, lxviii.
+
+   Smith, Mr. R. Bosworth, xliii, lxxxvii.
+
+   Sodom, 70 ff.
+
+   Solomon, 136-145.
+
+   Sons of God, 9, 11, 33, 154, 162-165.
+
+   Soorah, the first, xliii.
+
+   Soorah, the second, xliv.
+
+   Soorahs, “forged,” lxxii.
+
+
+   TABLE from heaven, the, 157-159.
+
+   Tablet, the preserved, 17.
+
+   Ṭaïf, Eṭ-, liii, 74, 138.
+
+   Talḥah, xlv.
+
+   Ṭálib, _see_ Aboo-Ṭálib.
+
+   Terah, 66.
+
+   Temples, xxxiii, 36, 145.
+
+   Thamood, 61, 62.
+
+   Throne-verse, 5.
+
+   Thór, Mount, lvii.
+
+   Torturing slaves, xlvii.
+
+   Town-life in Arabia, xxx.
+
+   Treating with Jews, lxii.
+
+   Tree-worship, xxxiii.
+
+   Truce with Ḳureysh, lxv.
+
+
+   UBAYY, Ibn-, lx.
+
+   Umm-Ghánim, 62.
+
+   Umeyyeh, branch of, xxxviii.
+
+   Unity, profession of the, 5.
+
+   Uzzá, El-, xxxiii.
+
+
+   WARAḲAH, xxxv.
+
+   Wars of Moḥammad, xxxviii, lxv.
+
+   Weleed, El-, 81, 97.
+
+   Wives of Moḥammad, lxx ff.
+
+   Wives, command as to, lxviii.
+
+   Women of Arabia, xxvii ff.
+
+   Women in Paradise, 30.
+
+
+   YETHRIB, xxxvii, liv, lv, lvi, _and_ see Medina.
+
+
+   ZELEEKHA, 79, 83.
+
+   Zemzem, xxxii, 73.
+
+   Zeyd, xxxix.
+
+   Zeyd ibn ´Amr, xxxv.
+
+   Zeyd ibn Thábit, ci.
+
+   Zeyneb, lxxii.
+
+   Zipporah, 102.
+
+
+ERRATUM.—P. 36, line 1, _for_ should _read_ shall.
+
+P. 122, line 21, _after_ illiterate _add_ [or Gentile, _i.e._, Arab].
+
+
+   PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
+   EDINBURGH AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Selections From The Kur-an, by Edward William Lane
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44515 ***