Part 20
[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.