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Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1was then prevalent in Arabia, and which was the only one with which Mohammed was acquainted. With the Arab Christian, the Trinity meant nothing more nor less than tritheism, and these three the Father, Virgin-Mother, and Son. The doctrine of the unity of God, as preached by Mohammed, was a protest against the dualism of Persia as well as the degenerate Christianity of the time and the polytheism of the Arabs who were his contemporaries. Thus the Chapter of Cattle (VI) commences with the words, ‘Praise belongs to God who created the heavens and the earth, and brought into being the darkness and the light,’ which negatives the Manichzxan theory that the two principles of light and darkness were uncreate and eternal, and by their admixture or antagonism gave birth to the material universe. As for the angelism and demonology of the Qur'an, they are a mixture of local superstitions, Persian and Jewish tradition. The system was certainly not due to Mohammed’s invention, but was evolved out of what he had heard from Jewish, Christian, and other sources, and regarded as revelation, and coloured by his individual local beliefs. It is a curious thing that the rite of circumcision is not mentioned in the Qur’4n; but there is no doubt that Mohammed insisted upon it as a compromise for more cruel and dangerous practices}. The Quran itself is not a formal and consistent code either of morals, laws, or ceremonies. Revealed ‘piecemeal,’ particular passages being often promulgated to decide particular cases, it cannot fail to contain many things that are at variance with, or flatly contradict others, It has, however, a certain unity notwithstanding; for Mohammed had his doctrine of the unity of God, according to the ‘Hanifite conception, always before his mind: he had the immemorial customs of his country and their tribal } See note to vol. ii, p. 110, of Burton’s ‘Pilgrimage to El Medina and Mecca.’ ee TS. a ote INTRODUCTION. liii
2ii, p. 110, of Burton’s ‘Pilgrimage to El Medina and Mecca.’ ee TS. a ote INTRODUCTION. liii usages to guide him in his decisions, only instead of being bound by these usages he was able, by virtue of his office of prophet, to alter or abrogate such as appeared to him not to conduce to the welfare of society. The religious observances and ceremonies he retained were also to a great extent forced upon him; the injunctions to prayer and fasting were necessary to keep alive the religious fervour of the converts, and, indeed, to give the character of a religion to the movement and distinguish it from a mere political reform. The ceremonies of the pilgrimage could not be entirely done away with. The universal reverence of the Arab for the Kaabah was too favourable and obvious a means for uniting all the tribes into one confederation with one common purpose in view. The traditions of Abraham, the father of their race and the founder of Mohammed’s own religion, as he always declared him to be, no doubt gave the ancient temple a peculiar sanctity in the prophet’s eyes, and although he had at first settled upon Jerusalem as his Qiblah, he afterwards reverted to the Kaabah itself. Here, then, Mohammed found a shrine to which, as well as at which, devotion had been paid from time immemorial : it was the one thing which the scattered Arabian nation had in common—the one thing which gave them even the shadow of a national feeling; and to have dreamed of abolishing it, or even of diminishing the honours paid to it, would have been madness and ruin to his enterprise. He therefore did the next best thing, he cleared it of idols and dedicated it to the service of God. Again, the ‘Hagg was the occasion on which the tribes assembled at Mecca and, therefore, not only the cause of trading and mutual profit amongst themselves, but upon it depended entirely the commercial prosperity of the Qurdis. It has been objected to Isl4m that neither its doctrines nor its rites are original. No religion, certainly no sacred books of a religion, ever possessed entire originality. The great principles of morality, and the noble thoughts which are common to humanity, must find their way into the Scriptures, if these are to have any hold upon men; and liv THE QUR'AN. -
3No religion, certainly no sacred books of a religion, ever possessed entire originality. The great principles of morality, and the noble thoughts which are common to humanity, must find their way into the Scriptures, if these are to have any hold upon men; and liv THE QUR'AN. - it would, indeed, be strange if the writers, however inspired, left no trace in their writings of what they had seen, heard, or read. The New Testament, it is well known, contains much that is not original. Many of the parables &c., as a late eminent Orientalist once pointed out, are to be found in the Talmud. We know that St. Paul drew upon classic Greek sources for many of his most striking utterances, not even disdaining to quote the worldly wisdom of the comedian Menander ; and there is at least a curious coincidence between the words used in describing the blindness that fell on the apostle just before his conversion, and its subsequent cure, with the description given by Stesichorus in his ‘ Palinodia’ of a similar incident connected with his own conversion to the worship of the Dioscuri. Even the most divine sentiment in the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,’ is expressed almost in so many words in the advice given by Nestor to the angered Achilles in the first book of Homer’s Iliad. Judged then by the standard which we apply to other creeds, Mohammed’s religion stands forth as something strikingly new and original, since it sets before his countrymen, for the first time, the grand conception of one God, which was, as he asserted, the faith of their father Abraham, but which their fetishism had so long obscured. The Arabs made use of a rhymed and rhythmical prose, the origin of which it is not difficult to imagine. The Arabic language consists for the most part of triliteral roots, i.e. the single words expressing individual ideas consist generally of three consonants each, and the derivative forms expressing modifications of the original idea are not made by affixes and terminations alone, but also by the insertion of letters in the root. Thus garaba means ‘he struck, and qatala, ‘he killed,’ while mazrib and maqtdl signify ‘one struck’ and ‘one killed.’ A sentence, therefore, consists of a series of words which would each require to be expressed in clauses of several words in other languages, and it is easy to see INTRODUCTION. lv how a next following sentence, explanatory of or completing the first, would be much more clear and forcible if it consisted of words of a similar shape and implying similar modifications of other ideas. It follows then that the two sentences would be necessarily symmetrical, and the presence of rhythm would not only please the ear but contribute to the better understanding of the sense, while the rhyme would mark the pause in the sense and emphasize the proposition.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1was then prevalent in Arabia, and which was the only one with which Mohammed was acquainted. With the Arab Christian, the Trinity meant nothing more nor less than tritheism, and these three the Father, Virgin-Mother, and Son. The doctrine of the unity of God, as preached by Mohammed, was a protest against the dualism of Persia as well as the degenerate Christianity of the time and the polytheism of the Arabs who were his contemporaries. Thus the Chapter of Cattle (VI) commences with the words, ‘Praise belongs to God who created the heavens and the earth, and brought into being the darkness and the light,’ which negatives the Manichzxan theory that the two principles of light and darkness were uncreate and eternal, and by their admixture or antagonism gave birth to the material universe. As for the angelism and demonology of the Qur'an, they are a mixture of local superstitions, Persian and Jewish tradition. The system was certainly not due to Mohammed’s invention, but was evolved out of what he had heard from Jewish, Christian, and other sources, and regarded as revelation, and coloured by his individual local beliefs. It is a curious thing that the rite of circumcision is not mentioned in the Qur’4n; but there is no doubt that Mohammed insisted upon it as a compromise for more cruel and dangerous practices}. The Quran itself is not a formal and consistent code either of morals, laws, or ceremonies. Revealed ‘piecemeal,’ particular passages being often promulgated to decide particular cases, it cannot fail to contain many things that are at variance with, or flatly contradict others, It has, however, a certain unity notwithstanding; for Mohammed had his doctrine of the unity of God, according to the ‘Hanifite conception, always before his mind: he had the immemorial customs of his country and their tribal } See note to vol. ii, p. 110, of Burton’s ‘Pilgrimage to El Medina and Mecca.’ ee TS. a ote INTRODUCTION. liii
2ii, p. 110, of Burton’s ‘Pilgrimage to El Medina and Mecca.’ ee TS. a ote INTRODUCTION. liii usages to guide him in his decisions, only instead of being bound by these usages he was able, by virtue of his office of prophet, to alter or abrogate such as appeared to him not to conduce to the welfare of society. The religious observances and ceremonies he retained were also to a great extent forced upon him; the injunctions to prayer and fasting were necessary to keep alive the religious fervour of the converts, and, indeed, to give the character of a religion to the movement and distinguish it from a mere political reform. The ceremonies of the pilgrimage could not be entirely done away with. The universal reverence of the Arab for the Kaabah was too favourable and obvious a means for uniting all the tribes into one confederation with one common purpose in view. The traditions of Abraham, the father of their race and the founder of Mohammed’s own religion, as he always declared him to be, no doubt gave the ancient temple a peculiar sanctity in the prophet’s eyes, and although he had at first settled upon Jerusalem as his Qiblah, he afterwards reverted to the Kaabah itself. Here, then, Mohammed found a shrine to which, as well as at which, devotion had been paid from time immemorial : it was the one thing which the scattered Arabian nation had in common—the one thing which gave them even the shadow of a national feeling; and to have dreamed of abolishing it, or even of diminishing the honours paid to it, would have been madness and ruin to his enterprise. He therefore did the next best thing, he cleared it of idols and dedicated it to the service of God. Again, the ‘Hagg was the occasion on which the tribes assembled at Mecca and, therefore, not only the cause of trading and mutual profit amongst themselves, but upon it depended entirely the commercial prosperity of the Qurdis. It has been objected to Isl4m that neither its doctrines nor its rites are original. No religion, certainly no sacred books of a religion, ever possessed entire originality. The great principles of morality, and the noble thoughts which are common to humanity, must find their way into the Scriptures, if these are to have any hold upon men; and liv THE QUR'AN. -
3No religion, certainly no sacred books of a religion, ever possessed entire originality. The great principles of morality, and the noble thoughts which are common to humanity, must find their way into the Scriptures, if these are to have any hold upon men; and liv THE QUR'AN. - it would, indeed, be strange if the writers, however inspired, left no trace in their writings of what they had seen, heard, or read. The New Testament, it is well known, contains much that is not original. Many of the parables &c., as a late eminent Orientalist once pointed out, are to be found in the Talmud. We know that St. Paul drew upon classic Greek sources for many of his most striking utterances, not even disdaining to quote the worldly wisdom of the comedian Menander ; and there is at least a curious coincidence between the words used in describing the blindness that fell on the apostle just before his conversion, and its subsequent cure, with the description given by Stesichorus in his ‘ Palinodia’ of a similar incident connected with his own conversion to the worship of the Dioscuri. Even the most divine sentiment in the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,’ is expressed almost in so many words in the advice given by Nestor to the angered Achilles in the first book of Homer’s Iliad. Judged then by the standard which we apply to other creeds, Mohammed’s religion stands forth as something strikingly new and original, since it sets before his countrymen, for the first time, the grand conception of one God, which was, as he asserted, the faith of their father Abraham, but which their fetishism had so long obscured. The Arabs made use of a rhymed and rhythmical prose, the origin of which it is not difficult to imagine. The Arabic language consists for the most part of triliteral roots, i.e. the single words expressing individual ideas consist generally of three consonants each, and the derivative forms expressing modifications of the original idea are not made by affixes and terminations alone, but also by the insertion of letters in the root. Thus garaba means ‘he struck, and qatala, ‘he killed,’ while mazrib and maqtdl signify ‘one struck’ and ‘one killed.’ A sentence, therefore, consists of a series of words which would each require to be expressed in clauses of several words in other languages, and it is easy to see INTRODUCTION. lv how a next following sentence, explanatory of or completing the first, would be much more clear and forcible if it consisted of words of a similar shape and implying similar modifications of other ideas. It follows then that the two sentences would be necessarily symmetrical, and the presence of rhythm would not only please the ear but contribute to the better understanding of the sense, while the rhyme would mark the pause in the sense and emphasize the proposition.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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