THE RISE OF MOHAMMEDANISM
13. Selections from the Koran
The Koran comprises all of the recorded speeches and sayings of the
prophet Mohammed and it has for nearly fifteen centuries been the
absolute law and gospel of the Mohammedan religion. The teachings and
revelations which are contained in it are believed by Mohammedans to
have proceeded directly from God. They were delivered orally by
Mohammed from time to time in the presence of his followers and until
after the prophet's death in 632 no attempt was made to put them in
organized written form. Many of the disciples, however, remembered the
words their master had uttered, at least until they could inscribe
them on palm leaves, bits of wood, bleached bones, or other such
articles as happened to be at hand. In the reign of Abu-Bekr
(632-634), Mohammed's successor, it became apparent that unless some
measure was adopted to bring these scattered sayings together they
were in a fair way to be lost for all time to come. Hence the caliph
intrusted to a certain young man by the name of Zaid the task of
collecting and putting in some sort of system all the teachings that
had survived, whether in written form or merely in the minds of men.
Zaid had served Mohammed in a capacity which we should designate
perhaps as that of secretary, and so should have been well qualified
for the work. In later years (about 660) the Koran, or "the reading,"
as the collection began to be called, was again thoroughly revised.
Thereafter all older copies were destroyed and no farther changes in
any respect were ever made.
The Koran is made up of one hundred and fourteen chapters, called
_surahs_, arranged loosely in the order of their length, beginning
with the longest. This arrangement does not correspond either to the
dates at which the various passages were uttered by the prophet or to
any sequence of thought and meaning, so that when one takes up the
book to read it as it is ordinarily printed it seems about as confused
as anything can well be. Scholars, however, have recently discovered
the chronological order of the various parts and this knowledge has
already come to be of no little assistance in the work of
interpretation. Like all sacred books, the Koran abounds in
repetitions; yet, taken all in all, it contains not more than
two-thirds as many verses as the New Testament, and, as one writer has
rather curiously observed, it is not more than one-third as lengthy as
the ordinary Sunday edition of the New York _Herald_. The teachings
which are most emphasized are (1) the unity and greatness of God, (2)
the sin of worshipping idols, (3) the certainty of the resurrection of
the body and the last judgment, (4) the necessity of a belief in the
Scriptures as revelations from God communicated through angels to the
line of prophets, (5) the luxuries of heaven and the torments of hell,
(6) the doctrine of predestination, (7) the authoritativeness of
Mohammed's teachings, and (8) the four cardinal obligations of worship
(including purification and prayer), fasting, pilgrimages, and
alms-giving. Intermingled with these are numerous popular legends and
sayings of the Arabs before Mohammed's day, stories from the Old and
New Testaments derived from Jewish and Christian settlers in Arabia,
and certain definite and practical rules of everyday conduct. The book
is not only thus haphazard in subject-matter but it is also very
irregular in interest and elegance. Portions of it abound in splendid
imagery and lofty conceptions, and represent the literary quality of
the Arabian language at its best, though of course this quality is
very largely lost in translation. The later surahs--those which appear
first in the printed copy--are largely argumentative and legislative
in character and naturally fall into a more prosaic and monotonous
strain. From an almost inexhaustible maze of precepts, exhortations,
and revelations, the following widely separated passages have been
selected in the hope that they will serve to show something of the
character of the Koran itself, as well as the nature of some of the
more important Mohammedan beliefs and ideals. It will be found
profitable to make a comparison of Christian beliefs on the same
points as drawn from the New Testament.
Source--Text in Edward William Lane, _Selections from the
Kur-an_, edited by Stanley Lane-Poole (London, 1879),
_passim_.
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
[Sidenote: The opening prayer[103]]
Praise be to God, the Lord of the Worlds,
The Compassionate, the Merciful,
The King of the day of judgment.
Thee do we worship, and of Thee seek we help.
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.[104]
Say, He is God, One [God];
God, the Eternal.
He begetteth not nor is begotten,
And there is none equal unto Him.[105]
[Sidenote: The "throne verse"]
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, and the care of them burdeneth Him not. And He is the High,
The Great.[106]
[Sidenote: The day of resurrection]
When the earth is shaken with her shaking,
And the earth hath cast forth her dead,
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.
[Sidenote: The coming judgment]
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,[107]
_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.
[Sidenote: The reward of the righteous]
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 heavens 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_ 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[108] given to him in his
right hand, he shall say, '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.
'Eat ye and drink with benefit on account of that which ye paid
beforehand in the past days.'
[Sidenote: The fate of the wicked]
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 from me!'
'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.'
[Sidenote: "The preceders"]
When the Calamity shall come to pass
There shall not be _a soul_ that will deny its happening,
[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.[109]
And the people of the right hand, what shall be the people of the
right hand!
And the people of the left hand, what the people of the left hand!
And the Preceders, the Preceders![110]
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 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 with eyes 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!'
[Sidenote: The pleasures of paradise]
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,
And a shade _ever-spread_,
And water _ever_-flowing,
And fruits abundant
Unstayed and unforbidden,[111]
And couches raised.[112]
Verily we have created them[113] 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.
[Sidenote: The torments of hell]
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,
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-Zakkoom,[114]
And fill therewith [your] stomachs,
And drink thereon boiling water,
And ye shall drink as thirsty camels drink.--
This [shall be] their entertainment on the day of retribution.
FOOTNOTES:
[103] This prayer of the Mohammedans corresponds in a way to the
Lord's Prayer of Christian peoples. It is recited several times in
each of the five daily prayers, and on numerous other occasions.
[104] The petition is for guidance in the "right way" of the
Mohammedan, marked out in the Koran. By those with whom God is
"wroth," and by the "erring," is meant primarily the Jews. Mohammed
regarded the Jews and Christians as having corrupted the true
religion.
[105] "This chapter is held in particular veneration by the
Mohammedans and is declared, by a tradition of their prophet, to be
equal in value to a third part of the whole Koran."--Sale, quoted in
Lane, _Selections from the Kur-an_, p. 5.
[106] This passage, known as the "throne verse," is regarded by
Mohammedans as one of the most precious in the Koran and is often
recited at the end of the five daily prayers. It is sometimes engraved
on a precious stone or an ornament of gold and worn as an amulet.
[107] These are all to be signs of the day of judgment.
[108] The record of his deeds during life on earth.
[109] The three classes are: (1) the "preceeders," (2) the people of
the right hand, i.e., the good, and (3) the people of the left hand,
i.e., the evil. The future state of each of the three is described in
the lines that follow.
[110] "Either the first converts to Mohammedanism, or the prophets,
who were the respective leaders of their people, or any persons who
have been eminent examples of piety and virtue, may be here intended.
The original words literally rendered are, _The Leaders, The Leaders_:
which repetition, as some suppose, was designed to express the dignity
of these persons and the certainty of their future glory and
happiness."--Sale, quoted in Wherry, _Comprehensive Commentary on the
Qur-an_, Vol. IV., pp. 109-110.
[111] The luxuries of paradise--the flowing rivers, the fragrant
flowers, the delicious fruits--are sharply contrasted with the
conditions of desert life most familiar to Mohammed's early converts.
Such a description of the land of the blessed must have appealed
strongly to the imaginative Arabs. It should be said that in the
modern Mohammedan idea of heaven the spiritual element has a rather
more prominent place.
[112] Lofty beds.
[113] The "damsels of paradise."
[114] A scrubby bush bearing fruit like almonds, and extremely bitter.
It was familiar to Arabs and hence was made to stand as a type of the
tree whose fruit the wicked must eat in the lower world.