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Title: The Koran
Release Date: September, 2002 [EBook #3434]
[This file was first posted on September 4, 2002]
[Most recently updated: September 26, 2004]
Edition: 12a
Language: English
Character set encoding: Latin1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE KORAN ***
The Koran
TRANSLATED FROM THE ARABIC BY THE REV. J.M. RODWELL, M.A. WITH AN
INTRODUCTION BY THE REV. G. MARGOLIOUTH, M.A.
Introduction Preface Index
Sura Number (this edition) Sura Number (Arabic text) Title
1 96 Thick Blood or Clots of Blood
2 74 The Enwrapped
3 73 The Enfolded
4 93 The Brightness
5 94 The Opening
6 113 The Daybreak
7 114 Men
8 1 Sura I.
9 109 Unbelievers
10 112 The Unity
11 111 Abu Lahab
12 108 The Abundance
13 104 The Backbiter
14 107 Religion
15 102 Desire
16 92 The Night
17 68 The Pen
18 90 The Soil
19 105 The Elephant
20 106 The Koreisch
21 97 Power
22 86 The Night-Comer
23 91 The Sun
24 80 He Frowned
25 87 The Most High
26 95 The Fig
27 103 The Afternoon
28 85 The Starry
29 101 The Blow
30 99 The Earthquake
31 82 The Cleaving
32 81 The Folded Up
33 84 The Splitting Asunder
34 100 The Chargers
35 79 Those Who Drag Forth
36 77 The Sent
37 78 The News
38 88 The Overshadowing
39 89 The Daybreak
40 75 The Resurrection
41 83 Those Who Stint
42 69 The Inevitable
43 51 The Scattering
44 52 The Mountain
45 56 The Inevitable
46 53 The Star
47 70 The Steps or Ascents
48 55 The Merciful
49 54 The Moon
50 37 The Ranks
51 71 Noah
52 76 Man
53 44 Smoke
54 50 Kaf
55 20 Ta. Ha.
56 26 The Poets
57 15 Hedjr
58 19 Mary
59 38 Sad
60 36 Ya. Sin
61 43 Ornaments of Gold
62 72 Djinn
63 67 The Kingdom
64 23 The Believers
65 21 The Prophets
66 25 Al Furkan
67 17 The Night Journey
68 27 The Ant
69 18 The Cave
70 32 Adoration
71 41 The Made Plain
72 45 The Kneeling
73 16 The Bee
74 30 The Greeks
75 11 Houd
76 14 Abraham, On Whom Be Peace
77 12 Joseph, Peace Be On Him
78 40 The Believer
79 28 The Story
80 39 The Troops
81 29 The Spider
82 31 Lokman
83 42 Counsel
84 10 Jonah, Peace Be On Him!
85 34 Saba
86 35 The Creator, or The Angels
87 7 Al Araf
88 46 Al Ahkaf
89 6 Cattle
90 13 Thunder
91 2 The Cow
92 98 Clear Evidence
93 64 Mutual Deceit
94 62 The Assembly
95 8 The Spoils
96 47 Muhammad
97 3 The Family of Imran
98 61 Battle Array
99 57 Iron
100 4 Women
101 65 Divorce
102 59 The Emigration
103 33 The Confederates
104 63 The Hypocrites
105 24 Light
106 58 She Who Pleaded
107 22 The Pilgrimage
108 48 The Victory
109 66 The Forbidding
110 60 She Who Is Tried
111 110 HELP
112 49 The Apartments
113 9 Immunity
114 5 The Table
MOHAMMED was born at Mecca in A.D. 567 or 569. His flight (hijra) to Medina,
which marks the beginning of the Mohammedan era, took place on 16th June 622.
He died on 7th June 632.
INTRODUCTION
THE Koran admittedly occupies an important position among the great religious
books of the world. Though the youngest of the epoch-making works belonging
to this class of literature, it yields to hardly any in the wonderful effect
which it has produced on large masses of men. It has created an all but new
phase of human thought and a fresh type of character. It first transformed a
number of heterogeneous desert tribes of the Arabian peninsula into a nation
of heroes, and then proceeded to create the vast politico-religious
organisations of the Muhammedan world which are one of the great forces with
which Europe and the East have to reckon to-day.
The secret of the power exercised by the book, of course, lay in the mind
which produced it. It was, in fact, at first not a book, but a strong living
voice, a kind of wild authoritative proclamation, a series of admonitions,
promises, threats, and instructions addressed to turbulent and largely
hostile assemblies of untutored Arabs. As a book it was published after the
prophet's death. In Muhammed's life-time there were only disjointed notes,
speeches, and the retentive memories of those who listened to them. To speak
of the Koran is, therefore, practically the same as speaking of Muhammed, and
in trying to appraise the religious value of the book one is at the same time
attempting to form an opinion of the prophet himself. It would indeed be
difficult to find another case in which there is such a complete identity
between the literary work and the mind of the man who produced it.
That widely different estimates have been formed of Muhammed is well-known.
To Moslems he is, of course, the prophet par excellence, and the Koran is
regarded by the orthodox as nothing less than the eternal utterance of Allah.
The eulogy pronounced by Carlyle on Muhammed in Heroes and Hero Worship will
probably be endorsed by not a few at the present day. The extreme contrary
opinion, which in a fresh form has recently been revived1 by an able writer,
is hardly likely to find much lasting support. The correct view very probably
lies between the two extremes. The relative value of any given system of
religious thought must depend on the amount of truth which it embodies as
well as on the ethical standard which its adherents are bidden to follow.
Another important test is the degree of originality that is to be assigned to
it, for it can manifestly only claim credit for that which is new in it, not
for that which it borrowed from other systems.
With regard to the first-named criterion, there is a growing opinion among
students of religious history that Muhammed may in a real sense be regarded
as a prophet of certain truths, though by no means of truth in the absolute
meaning of the term. The shortcomings of the moral teaching contained in the
Koran are striking enough if judged from the highest ethical standpoint with
which we are acquainted; but a much more favourable view is arrived at if a
comparison is made between the ethics of the Koran and the moral tenets of
Arabian and other forms of heathenism which it supplanted.
The method followed by Muhammed in the promulgation of the Koran also
requires to be treated with discrimination. From the first flash of prophetic
inspiration which is clearly discernible in the earlier portions of the book
he, later on, frequently descended to deliberate invention and artful
rhetoric. He, in fact, accommodated his moral sense to the circumstances in
which the r\oc\le he had to play involved him.
On the question of originality there can hardly be two opinions now that the
Koran has been thoroughly compared with the Christian and Jewish traditions
of the time; and it is, besides some original Arabian legends, to those only
that the book stands in any close relationship. The matter is for the most
part borrowed, but the manner is all the prophet's own. This is emphatically
a case in which originality consists not so much in the creation of new
materials of thought as in the manner in which existing traditions of various
kinds are utilised and freshly blended to suit the special exigencies of the
occasion. Biblical reminiscences, Rabbinic legends, Christian traditions
mostly drawn from distorted apocryphal sources, and native heathen stories,
all first pass through the prophet's fervid mind, and thence issue in strange
new forms, tinged with poetry and enthusiasm, and well adapted to enforce his
own view of life and duty, to serve as an encouragement to his faithful
adherents, and to strike terror into the hearts of his opponents.
There is, however, apart from its religious value, a more general view from
which the book should be considered. The Koran enjoys the distinction of
having been the starting-point of a new literary and philosophical movement
which has powerfully affected the finest and most cultivated minds among both
Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages. This general progress of the
Muhammedan world has somehow been arrested, but research has shown that what
European scholars knew of Greek philosophy, of mathematics, astronomy, and
like sciences, for several centuries before the Renaissance, was, roughly
speaking, all derived from Latin treatises ultimately based on Arabic
originals; and it was the Koran which, though indirectly, gave the first
impetus to these studies among the Arabs and their allies. Linguistic
investigations, poetry, and other branches of literature, also made their
appearance soon after or simultaneously with the publication of the Koran;
and the literary movement thus initiated has resulted in some of the finest
products of genius and learning.
The style in which the Koran is written requires some special attention in
this introduction. The literary form is for the most part different from
anything else we know. In its finest passages we indeed seem to hear a voice
akin to that of the ancient Hebrew prophets, but there is much in the book
which Europeans usually regard as faulty. The tendency to repetition which is
an inherent characteristic of the Semitic mind appears here in an exaggerated
form, and there is in addition much in the Koran which strikes us as wild and
fantastic. The most unfavourable criticism ever passed on Muhammed's style
has in fact been penned by the prophet's greatest British admirer, Carlyle
himself; and there are probably many now who find themselves in the same
dilemma with that great writer.
The fault appears, however, to lie partly in our difficulty to appreciate the
psychology of the Arab prophet. We must, in order to do him justice, give
full consideration to his temperament and to the condition of things around
him. We are here in touch with an untutored but fervent mind, trying to
realise itself and to assimilate certain great truths which have been
powerfully borne in upon him, in order to impart them in a convincing form to
his fellow-tribesmen. He is surrounded by obstacles of every kind, yet he
manfully struggles on with the message that is within him. Learning he has
none, or next to none. His chief objects of knowledge are floating stories
and traditions largely picked up from hearsay, and his over-wrought mind is
his only teacher. The literary compositions to which he had ever listened
were the half-cultured, yet often wildly powerful rhapsodies of early Arabian
minstrels, akin to Ossian rather than to anything else within our knowledge.
What wonder then that his Koran took a form which to our colder temperaments
sounds strange, unbalanced, and fantastic?
Yet the Moslems themselves consider the book the finest that ever appeared
among men. They find no incongruity in the style. To them the matter is all
true and the manner all perfect. Their eastern temperament responds readily
to the crude, strong, and wild appeal which its cadences make to them, and
the jingling rhyme in which the sentences of a discourse generally end adds
to the charm of the whole. The Koran, even if viewed from the point of view
of style alone, was to them from the first nothing less than a miracle, as
great a miracle as ever was wrought.
But to return to our own view of the case. Our difficulty in appreciating the
style of the Koran even moderately is, of course, increased if, instead of
the original, we have a translation before us. But one is happy to be able to
say that Rodwell's rendering is one of the best that have as yet been
produced. It seems to a great extent to carry with it the atmosphere in which
Muhammed lived, and its sentences are imbued with the flavour of the East.
The quasi-verse form, with its unfettered and irregular rhythmic flow of the
lines, which has in suitable cases been adopted, helps to bring out much of
the wild charm of the Arabic. Not the least among its recommendations is,
perhaps, that it is scholarly without being pedantic that is to say, that it
aims at correctness without sacrificing the right effect of the whole to
over-insistence on small details.
Another important merit of Rodwell's edition is its chronological arrangement
of the Suras or chapters. As he tells us himself in his preface, it is now in
a number of cases impossible to ascertain the exact occasion on which a
discourse, or part of a discourse, was delivered, so that the system could
not be carried through with entire consistency. But the sequence adopted is
in the main based on the best available historical and literary evidence; and
in following the order of the chapters as here printed, the reader will be
able to trace the development of the prophet's mind as he gradually advanced
from the early flush of inspiration to the less spiritual and more equivocal
r\oc\le of warrior, politician, and founder of an empire.
G. Margoliouth.
1 Mahommed and the Rise of Islam, in �Heroes of Nations� series.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS. From the original Arabic by G. Sale, 1734, 1764, 1795,
1801; many later editions, which include a memoir of the translator by R. A.
Davenport, and notes from Savary's version of the Koran; an edition issued by
E. M. Wherry, with additional notes and commentary (Tr\du\ubner's Oriental
Series), 1882, etc.; Sale's translation has also been edited in the Chandos
Classics, and among Lubbock's Hundred Books (No. 22). The Holy Qur\da\an,
translated by Dr. Mohammad Abdul Hakim Khan, with short notes, 1905;
Translation by J. M. Rodwell, with notes and index (the Suras arranged in
chronological order), 1861, 2nd ed., 1876; by E. H. Palmer (Sacred Books of
the East, vols. vi., ix.).
SELECTIONS: Chiefly from Sale's edition, by E. W. Lane, 1843; revised and
enlarged with introduction by S. Lane-Poole. (Tr\du\ubner's Oriental Series),
1879; The Speeches and Table-Talk of the Prophet Mohammad, etc., chosen and
translated, with introduction and notes by S. Lane-Poole, 1882 (Golden
Treasury Series); Selections with introduction and explanatory notes (from
Sale and other writers), by J. Murdock (Sacred Books of the East), 2nd ed.,
1902; The Religion of the Koran, selections with an introduction by A. N.
Wollaston (The Wisdom of the East), 1904.
See also: Sir W. Muir: The Koran, its Composition and Teaching, 1878;
H. Hirschfeld: New Researches into the Composition and Exegesis of the Qoran,
1902; W. St C. Tisdale: Sources of the Qur�ân, 1905; H. U. W. Stanton: The
Teaching of the Qur�án, 1919; A. Mingana: Syriac Influence on the Style of
the Kur�ân, 1927.
TO
SIR WILLIAM MARTIN, K.T., D.C.L.
LATE CHIEF JUSTICE OF NEW ZEALAND,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED,
WITH SINCERE FEELINGS OF ESTEEM FOR HIS PRIVATE WORTH,
PUBLIC SERVICES,
AND EMINENT LITERARY ATTAINMENTS,
BY
THE TRANSLATOR.
PREFACE
It is necessary that some brief explanation should be given with reference to
the arrangement of the Suras, or chapters, adopted in this translation of the
Koran. It should be premised that their order as it stands in all Arabic
manuscripts, and in all hitherto printed editions, whether Arabic or
European, is not chronological, neither is there any authentic tradition to
shew that it rests upon the authority of Muhammad himself. The scattered
fragments of the Koran were in the first instance collected by his immediate
successor Abu Bekr, about a year after the Prophet's death, at the suggestion
of Omar, who foresaw that, as the Muslim warriors, whose memories were the
sole depositaries of large portions of the revelations, died off or were
slain, as had been the case with many in the battle of Yemâma, A.H. 12, the
loss of the greater part, or even of the whole, was imminent. Zaid Ibn
Thâbit, a native of Medina, and one of the Ansars, or helpers, who had been
Muhammad's amanuensis, was the person fixed upon to carry out the task, and
we are told that he "gathered together" the fragments of the Koran from every
quarter, "from date leaves and tablets of white stone, and from the breasts
of men."1 The copy thus formed by Zaid probably remained in the possession of
Abu Bekr during the remainder of his brief caliphate, who committed it to the
custody of Haphsa, one of Muhammad's widows, and this text continued during
the ten years of Omar's caliphate to be the standard. In the copies made from
it, various readings naturally and necessarily sprung up; and these, under
the caliphate of Othman, led to such serious disputes between the faithful,
that it became necessary to interpose, and in accordance with the warning of
Hodzeifa, "to stop the people, before they should differ regarding their
scriptures, as did the Jews and Christians."2 In accordance with this advice,
Othman determined to establish a text which should be the sole standard, and
entrusted the redaction to the Zaid already mentioned, with whom he
associated as colleagues, three, according to others, twelve3 of the
Koreisch, in order to secure the purity of that Meccan idiom in which
Muhammad had spoken, should any occasions arise in which the collators might
have to decide upon various readings. Copies of the text formed were thus
forwarded to several of the chief military stations in the new empire, and
all previously existing copies were committed to the flames.
Zaid and his coadjutors, however, do not appear to have arranged the
materials which came into their hands upon any system more definite than that
of placing the longest and best known Suras first, immediately after the
Fatthah, or opening chapter (the eighth in this edition); although even this
rule, artless and unscientific as it is, has not been adhered to with
strictness. Anything approaching to a chronological arrangement was entirely
lost sight of. Late Medina Suras are often placed before early Meccan Suras;
the short Suras at the end of the Koran are its earliest portions; while, as
will be seen from the notes, verses of Meccan origin are to be found embedded
in Medina Suras, and verses promulged at Medina scattered up and down in the
Meccan Suras. It would seem as if Zaid had to a great extent put his
materials together just as they came to hand, and often with entire disregard
to continuity of subject and uniformity of style. The text, therefore, as
hitherto arranged, necessarily assumes the form of a most unreadable and
incongruous patchwork; "une assemblage," says M. Kasimirski in his Preface,
"informe et incohérent de préceptes moraux, religieux, civils et politiques,
męlés d'exhortations, de promesses, et de menaces"�and conveys no idea
whatever of the development and growth of any plan in the mind of the founder
of Islam, or of the circumstances by which he was surrounded and influenced.
It is true that the manner in which Zaid contented himself with simply
bringing together his materials and transcribing them, without any attempt to
mould them into shape or sequence, and without any effort to supply
connecting links between adjacent verses, to fill up obvious chasms, or to
suppress details of a nature discreditable to the founder of Islam, proves
his scrupulous honesty as a compiler, as well as his reverence for the sacred
text, and to a certain extent guarantees the genuineness and authenticity of
the entire volume. But it is deeply to be regretted that he did not combine
some measure of historical criticism with that simplicity and honesty of
purpose which forbade him, as it certainly did, in any way to tamper with the
sacred text, to suppress contradictory, and exclude or soften down
inaccurate, statements.
The arrangement of the Suras in this translation is based partly upon the
traditions of the Muhammadans themselves, with reference especially to the
ancient chronological list printed by Weil in his Mohammed der Prophet, as
well as upon a careful consideration of the subject matter of each separate
Sura and its probable connection with the sequence of events in the life of
Muhammad. Great attention has been paid to this subject by Dr. Weil in the
work just mentioned; by Mr. Muir in his Life of Mahomet, who also publishes a
chronological list of Suras, 21 however of which he admits have "not yet been
carefully fixed;" and especially by Nöldeke, in his Geschichte des Qôrans, a
work to which public honours were awarded in 1859 by the Paris Academy of
Inscriptions. From the arrangement of this author I see no reason to depart
in regard to the later Suras. It is based upon a searching criticism and
minute analysis of the component verses of each, and may be safely taken as a
standard, which ought not to be departed from without weighty reasons. I
have, however, placed the earlier and more fragmentary Suras, after the two
first, in an order which has reference rather to their subject matter than to
points of historical allusion, which in these Suras are very few; whilst on
the other hand, they are mainly couched in the language of self-communion, of
aspirations after truth, and of mental struggle, are vivid pictures of Heaven
and Hell, or descriptions of natural objects, and refer also largely to the
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