Alone among the Scriptures of the several great religions, the Koran
is the work of a single author. It is, therefore, characterized by
greater uniformity of style, subject, and doctrine than the sacred
collections of other nations. Considerable as the difference is between
its earlier and its later Suras, a consistent line of thought is
visible throughout, and pious Moslems are free from the difficulty that
has always beset Christian theologians of "harmonizing" contradictory
passages both supposed to emanate from God. There are, indeed, earlier
revelations inconsistent with later ones; but in this case, the former
are held to have been abrogated by the latter. Mediocre in the order of
its thought, diffuse in style, abundant in repetitions, there are few
books more calculated to task the patience of a conscientious reader.
But we must recollect, in judging it, that its author did not write
it, and very possibly never contemplated its existence as a complete
work. He published it from time to time as occasion required, much
as a modern statesman would announce his views by means of speeches,
pamphlets, or election addresses.
When a revelation arrived, Mahomet in the first instance dictated
it to his secretary Zayd, who wrote it on palm-leaves or skins, or
tablets of any kind that might be at hand. Of the remaining Moslems,
some took copies, but many more committed the revelations to memory;
the Arab memory being remarkably retentive. Under the reign of Abu
Bekr, the prophet's successor, Omar, finding that some one who knew a
piece of the Koran had been killed, suggested that the whole should be
collected. The suggestion was adopted, and Abu Bekr intrusted the work
of collection to the secretary Zayd. The Koran was then put together,
not only from the leaves that had been left by Mahomet, and thrown
without any regard to order into a chest, but also from the fragments,
either written or preserved in the memory, that were contributed by
individual believers. The copy thus made was not published, but was
committed for safe custody to Hafsa, daughter of Omar, and one of the
widows of the prophet. She kept it during the ten years of her father
Omar's caliphate. But as there were no official and authorized copies
of this genuine Koran, it came to pass that the various missionaries
who were sent as teachers to the newly-conquered countries repeated
it differently, and that various readings crept into the transcripts
in use. Hence serious threatenings of division and scandal among
the Moslems. The caliph Othman, foreseeing the danger, appointed a
commission, with the secretary Zayd at its head, to copy the copy
of Hafsa and return it to her, their duty being to determine on
differences of reading, and to be careful to restore the Meccan idiom
where it had been departed from in any of the versions. Several copies
were made by the commissioners, of which one was kept at Medina, and
the others sent to the great military stations. This was the official
text, prepared about A. H. 25-30; and after its establishment, all
private copies or fragments of the Koran were ordered by Othman to be
destroyed.[87] The original Koran, which Mahomet did but reproduce, is
supposed by those who accept it as divine to be preserved in heaven, in
the very presence of its original author, on an enormous table.
In the Koran, as arranged by Zayd, there is apparently no fixed
principle in the order of the Suras or chapters. In the main, the
longest Suras come first, but even this rule is not adhered to
consistently. Of chronological arrangement there is not a trace, and
it has been left to the ingenuity of European scholars to endeavor to
discover approximately the date of the several revelations. Of some,
the occasions of their publication are known, but in the case of
the great majority, nothing beyond a conjectural arrangement can be
attained.
The principal themes with which the Koran is occupied are the unity of
God; his attributes; the several prophets preceding Mahomet, whom he
has sent to convert unbelievers; the joys of Paradise and the terrors
of hell; and the legislative edicts promulgated for the government of
the Arabs under the new religion. Of these several subjects, the first
two occupy a predominant place in the earliest revelations. Legends of
prophets, of whom Mahomet recognized a considerable number, form one
of the standing dishes set before the faithful during all but the very
beginning of his career. He was also fond of speaking of the contrast
between the position of believers and skeptics in a future state; but
he seems at first to have expected a temporal judgment on his Meccan
opponents, and afterwards to have been contented with awaiting the
divine vengeance in another world. Legislation, of course, belongs only
to that portion of the Koran which was revealed after the Hegira.
A few specimens will be quite sufficient to give a notion both of the
earlier and later style of this sacred volume. Here is a Sura revealed
at Mecca during the first struggles of the prophet's mind, when it was
completely possessed with the awfulness of the new truth:—
"O thou enfolded in thy mantle, stand up all night, except a small
portion of it, for prayer. Half; or curtail the half a little,—or add
to it: and with measured tone intone the Koran, for we shall devolve
on thee weighty words. Verily, at the coming of night are _devout_
(Italics, here and elsewhere, in Rodwell) impressions strongest, and
words are most collected; but in the daytime thou hast continual
employ—and commemorate the name of thy Lord, and devote thyself to
him with entire devotion.... Of a truth, thy Lord knoweth that thou
prayest almost two-thirds, or half, or a third of the night, as do a
part of thy followers" (K., p. 7.—Sura, 73).
This is the opening Sura of the Koran:—
"Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds! the compassionate! the
merciful! King on the day of reckoning! Thee _only_ do we worship, and
to thee do we cry for help. Guide thou us on the straight path, the
path of those to whom thou hast been gracious; with whom thou art not
angry, and who go not astray" (K., p. 11.—Sura, 1).
In the Sura now to be quoted we find an allusion to one of the prophets
whom Mahomet regarded as precursors—the prophet Saleh, who had sent
them to a people called Themoud to bid them worship God. The legend
associated with his name is, that he appealed to a she-camel as a
proof of his divine mission, commanding the people to let her go at
large and do her no hurt. Some of the Themoudites believed; but they
were ridiculed by the skeptical chiefs of the nation, whose wickedness
went so far as actually to hamstring the apostolic camel. Hereupon an
earthquake overtook them by night, and they were all found dead in
the morning (K., p. 376.—Sura, 7. 71-77). Such things were Mahomet's
stock-in-trade; and the following Sura exemplifies the mixture of his
early poetic thoughts with the prosaic narratives which did duty so
constantly during the maturity of his apostleship:—
"By the Sun and his noonday brightness! by the Moon when she followeth
him! by the Day when it revealeth his glory! by the Night when it
enshroudeth him! by the Heaven and him who built it! by the Earth
and him who spread it forth! by a Soul and him who balanced it, and
breathed into it its wickedness and its piety! blessed now is he who
hath kept it pure, and undone is he who hath corrupted it!
"Themoud in his impiety rejected the message of the Lord, when the
greatest wretch among them rushed up:—Said the apostle of God to
them,—The camel of God! let her drink. But they treated him as an
imposter and hamstrung her. So their Lord destroyed them for their
crime, and visited all alike: nor feared he the issue" (K., p.
24.—Sura, 91).
The same Sura which contains the history of Saleh, prophet of Themoud,
refers also to various other divine messengers who had fulfilled the
same office of announcing the judgments of God. Mahomet's general view
of the prophetic function seems to be expressed in these words:—
"Every nation hath its set time. And when their time is come they
shall not retard it an hour; and they shall not advance it. O children
of Adam! there shall come to you Apostles from among yourselves,
rehearsing my signs to you; and whoso shall fear God and do good
works, no fear shall be upon them, neither shall they be put to grief.
But they who charge our signs with falsehood, and turn away from them
in their pride, shall be inmates of the fire; for ever shall they
abide therein" (K., p. 371.—Sura, 7. 32-34).
The prophets whom he mentions in this Sura are Noah, who was sent to
warn his people of the Deluge; Houd, sent to Ad, an unbelieving nation
whom God cut off, with the exception of those who had accepted Houd;
Saleh, sent to Themoud as above related; Lot, sent to Sodom to warn it
against sin; Shoaib, sent to Madian, a people of which the unbelieving
members were destroyed by earthquakes; Moses, sent with signs to
Pharaoh and his nobles, as also to the Israelites, of whom some
worshiped the calf, and were overtaken by the wrath of their Lord (K.,
p. 375-386.—Sura, 7. 57-154). In another Sura he makes mention of other
prophets besides these: namely, of John the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth,
Abraham, Ishmael, and Enoch (K., p. 127 ff.—Sura, 19).
His view of Jesus Christ is peculiar and interesting. He invariably
treats him with the highest respect as a servant of God and his own
precursor, but he is careful to protest that the opinion of his
divinity was not held by Jesus, and was a baseless invention of his
followers. The notion that God could have a son seems to him a gross
profanation, and he often recurs to it in terms of the strongest
reprobation. Thus he endeavors to claim Christ as a genuine Moslem, and
to include Christianity within the pale of the new faith. A Christian
who adopted it might continue, indeed must continue, to believe
everything in the Old and New Testaments, except such passages as
expressly assert the incarnation and divinity of Jesus. Yet Mahomet's
own version of this prophet's conception involves a supernatural
element, and only differs from that of Luke in not asserting the
paternity of God.
"And make mention in the Book," he says, "of Mary when she went apart
from her family, eastward, and took a veil _to shroud herself_ from
them, and we sent our spirit to her, and he took before her the form
of a perfect man. She said: 'I fly for refuge from thee to the God
of Mercy! If thou fearest him _begone from me_.' He said: 'I am only
a messenger of thy Lord, that I may bestow on thee a holy son.' She
said: 'How shall I have a son, when man hath never touched me, and
I am not unchaste.' He said: 'So shall it be. Thy Lord hath said:
easy is this with me, and we will make him a sign to mankind and a
mercy from us. For it is a thing decreed.' And she conceived him, and
retired with him to a far-off place" (K., p. 128.—Sura, 19. 16-22).
Her virginity is expressly asserted in another place, where she is
described as "Mary, the daughter of Imran, who kept her maidenhood, and
into whose womb we breathed of our spirit."[88]
When the child was born the woman was accused of unchastity, but the
infant prophet at once opened his mouth and declared his prophetic
character. From this narrative it appears that, in Mahomet's opinion,
Jesus was neither begotten by a human father, nor was the son of God.
He finds a _via media_ in the doctrine that he was created, like Adam,
by an express exertion of the power of the Almighty. "He created him of
dust: He then said to him, 'Be,' and he was" (K., p. 502.—Sura, 3. 52).
And again, in the Sura above quoted: "It beseemeth not God to beget a
son, Glory be to him! when he decreeth a thing, he only saith to it,
Be, and it is" (K., p. 130.—Sura, 19. 36).
He is very indignant against those who hold the doctrine of the
incarnation, which he apparently considers as equivalent to that of
physical generation by the Deity, and which, under any aspect, is
certainly shocking to a genuine monotheist.
"They say: 'The God of Mercy hath gotten offspring.' Now have ye done
a monstrous thing! Almost might the very heavens be rent thereat, and
the earth cleave asunder, and the mountains fall down in fragments,
that they ascribe a son to the God of Mercy, when it beseemeth not the
God of Mercy to beget a son!" (K., p. 135.—Sura, 19. 91-93.) "And they
say, 'God hath a son:' No! Praise be to him! But his whatever is in the
heavens and the earth! All obeyeth him, sole Maker of the heavens and
of the earth! and when he decreeth a thing he only saith to it, Be, and
it is" (K., p. 445.—Sura, 2. 110-111).
Mahomet's conception of his own character is most clearly expressed
in the seventh Sura, where, after enumerating some of the prophets
who had gone before him (as already related), he proceeds to describe
a supposed dialogue between Moses and God, in which the Deity speaks
thus:—
"My chastisement shall fall on whom I will, and my mercy embraceth
all things, and I write it down for those who shall fear me, and pay
the alms, and believe in our signs, who shall follow the Apostle, the
unlettered Prophet—whom they shall find described with them in the
Law and Evangel. What is right will he enjoin them, and forbid them
what is wrong, and will allow them healthful viands and prohibit the
impure, and will ease them of their burden, and of the yokes which
were upon them; and those who shall believe in him, and strengthen
him, and help him, and follow the light which hath been sent down with
him,—these are they with whom it shall be well."
The revelation to Moses now ceases, and God continues to address
Mahomet with the usual preliminary "say:"—
"Say to them: O men! Verily I am God's apostle to you all: whose is
the kingdom of the Heavens and of the Earth! There is no God but
he! He maketh alive and killeth! Therefore believe in God and his
apostle—the unlettered Prophet—who believeth in God and his word.
And follow him that ye may be guided aright" (K., p. 386.—Sura, 7.
155-158).
Mahomet liked to describe himself as unlettered, and thus to obtain for
the scriptural knowledge and literary skill displayed in the Koran the
credit of its being due to inspiration.
In another place he again describes his prophetic character in the
following strain:—
"Muhammed is not the father of any man among you, but he is the
Apostle of God and the seal of the prophets: and God knoweth all
things.... O Prophet! we have sent thee to be a witness, and a
herald of glad tidings, and a warner; and one who, through his own
permission, summoneth to God, and a light-giving torch" (K., p.
567.—Sura, 33, 40, 44, 45).
A conspicuous feature of the Koran to which allusion has not yet
been made is its frequent reference to the pleasures of Paradise to
be enjoyed by the faithful, and the pains of hell to be suffered
by the infidels. The day of judgment is continually held out as
an encouragement to the former, and a terror to the latter. The
fifty-sixth Sura contains a description of heaven which is enough
to make the mouth of good Moslems water. "The people of the right
hand" are to be happy; those of the left hand, wretched. The former
are to have "gardens of delight," with "inwrought couches," whereon
reclining, "aye-blooming youths" are to bring them "flowing wine" of
the best celestial vintage. They are to enjoy their favorite fruits,
and to eat whatever birds they long for. "Houris with large dark
eyes," and "ever virgins," never growing old, are to supply them
with the pleasures of love, so strangely overlooked in the Christian
pictures of heavenly life. On the other side, we have "the people of
the left hand," who are to be tormented with "pestilential winds"
and "scalding water," and are to live "in the shadow of a black
smoke," with the fruit of a bitter tree to eat and boiling water to
drink (K., p. 60.—Sura, 56). The prophet delights in warning his
enemies of their coming fate. "Verily," says God in another place,
"we have got ready the flame for the infidel" (K., p. 598.—Sura, 48.
13). "O Prophet!" we read elsewhere, "make war on the infidels and
hypocrites, and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their abode!
and wretched the passage to it!" (K., p. 606.—Sura, 66. 9). "God
promiseth the hypocritical men and women, and the unbelievers, the
fire of hell—therein shall they abide—this their sufficing portion!"
(K., p. 621.—Sura, 9. 69). Some, who had declined to march with the
Prophet from Medina on account of the heat, are sternly reminded that
"a fiercer heat will be the fire of hell" (K., p. 623.—Sura, 9. 82).
In contradistinction to the deplorable state of the hypocrites and
unbelievers—blind in this world and destined to suffer eternally in
the next—we have a pleasing picture of the condition of the faithful
Moslems:—
"Muhammed is the apostle of God; and his comrades are vehement against
the infidels, _but_ full of tenderness among themselves. Thou mayst
see them bowing down, prostrating themselves, imploring favors from
God, and his acceptance. Their tokens are on their faces, the marks of
their prostrations. This is their picture in the Law and their picture
in the Evangel; they are as the seed which putteth forth its stalk;
then strengtheneth it, and it groweth stout, and riseth upon its stem,
rejoicing the husbandman—that the infidels may be wrathful at them.
To such of them as believe and do the things that are right, hath God
promised forgiveness and a noble recompense" (K., p. 601.—Sura, 48.
29).