THE MOHAMMEDAN RELIGION.
The Koran is the Mohammedan's holy bible, creed, and code of laws. The
holy Koran was delivered to Mohammed neither in graven tablets of
stone, nor by cloven tongues of fire, but it was engraven on Mohammed's
heart and was communicated by his tongue to the Arabs. His heart was
the Sinai where he received his revelation and his tablets of stone
were the hearts of believers. The Koran contains 114 chapters and 6225
verses. Each chapter begins with formula, "In the name of God the
merciful and the compassionate." The chapter is named from the chief
subject treated therein; as "praise," "the light," "the spider," "the
woman," etc. Mohammed received all of his revelation at once but when
occasion required he dictated new chapters to Zeid. Another notion is
that the Koran was delivered orally and was scattered until after the
prophet's death when it was collected by Ayesha, his youngest wife, and
Zeid. All of it was written in the best classical poetry. It is sweet
in the Arabic language but it looses its beauty when translated into
other languages.
Mohammed did not invent a new religion but collected most of his
doctrines from the Jewish, heathen and Christian religions and
Christian tradition. Mohammed was greatly indebted to a Nestorian monk
named Sargius Be-hi-ra, a man of rare ability, whom the prophet kept in
his home for several years and learned all he knew about Christian
doctrines and traditions. Many of the wise counsels, stories, teachings
of our duties to God and brethren in the faith, that are related in the
Old and New Testament are reproduced in the Koran, but the language is
changed and the order of their occurrences is reversed. The Koran
contains mistakes such as making the Virgin Mary the mother of our Lord
the same person as Mary the sister of Moses and Aaron. But without
question the Koran is one of the greatest books of the world in the
number of adherents it has. It is a code of civil and religious law;
200,000,000 Mohammedans scattered all over the world to-day are
following the teaching of the Koran. The book contains much that is
good and wise but one of its most dangerous defects is the prominence
and approval given to polygamy and sensualism.