The Project Gutenberg ebook of The Koran

attain to truth, the morbid excitability of an epileptic subject, visions

seen in epileptic swoons, disgust at Meccan idolatry, and a desire to teach

his countrymen the divine Unity will sufficiently account for the period of

indecision termed the Fatrah, and for the determination which led Muhammad,

in all sincerity, but still self-deceived, to take upon himself the office

and work of a Messenger from God. We may perhaps infer from such passages as

Sura ii. 123, what had ever been the leading idea in Muhammad's mind.

SURA LXXIV.�THE ENWRAPPED1 [II.]
MECCA.�55 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
O THOU, ENWRAPPED in thy mantle!
Arise and warn!
Thy Lord�magnify Him!
Thy raiment�purify it!
The abomination�flee it!
And bestow not favours that thou mayest receive again with increase;
And for thy Lord wait thou patiently.
For when there shall be a trump on the trumpet,2
That shall be a distressful day,
A day, to the Infidels, devoid of ease.
Leave me alone to deal with him3 whom I have created,
And on whom I have bestowed vast riches,
And sons dwelling before him,
And for whom I have smoothed all things smoothly down;�
Yet desireth he that I should add more!
But no! because to our signs he is a foe
I will lay grievous woes upon him.
For he plotted and he planned!
May he be cursed! How he planned!
Again, may he be cursed! How he planned!
Then looked he around him,
Then frowned and scowled,
Then turned his back and swelled with disdain,
And said, �This is merely magic that will be wrought;
It is merely the word of a mortal.�
We will surely cast him into Hell-fire.
And who shall teach thee what Hell-fire is?
It leaveth nought, it spareth nought,
Blackening the skin.
Over it are nineteen angels.
None but angels have we made guardians of the fire:4 nor have we made this to

be their number but to perplex the unbelievers, and that they who possess the

Scriptures may be certain of the truth of the Koran, and that they who

believe may increase their faith;

not doubt;

this parable?

none knoweth the armies of thy Lord but Himself: and this is no other than a

warning to mankind.
Nay, by the Moon!
By the Night when it retreateth!
By the Morn when it brighteneth!
Hell is one of the most grievous woes,
Fraught with warning to man,
To him among you who desireth to press forward, or to remain behind.5
For its own works lieth every soul in pledge. But they of God�s right hand
In their gardens shall ask of the wicked;�
�What hath cast you into Hell-fire?�6
They will say, �We were not of those who prayed,
And we were not of those who fed the poor,
And we plunged into vain disputes with vain disputers,
And we rejected as a lie, the day of reckoning,
Till the certainty7 came upon us��
And intercession of the interceders shall not avail them.
Then what hath come to them that they turn aside from the Warning
As if they were affrighted asses fleeing from a lion?
And every one of them would fain have open pages given to him out of Heaven.
It shall not be. They fear not the life to come.
It shall not be. For this Koran is warning enough. And whoso will, it

warneth him.

Meet is forgiveness in Him.

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1 This Sura is placed by Muir in the �second stage� of Meccan Suras, and

twenty-first in chronological order, in the third or fourth year of the

Prophet�s career. According, however, to the chronological list of Suras

given by Weil (Leben M. p. 364) from ancient tradition, as well as from the

consentient voice of tradionists and commentaries (v. Nöld. Geschichte, p.

69; Sprenger�s Life of Mohammad, p. 111) it was the next revealed after the

Fatrah, and the designation to the prophetic office. The main features of

the tradition are, that Muhammad while wandering about in the hills near

Mecca, distracted by doubts and by anxiety after truth, had a vision of the

Angel Gabriel seated on a throne between heaven and earth, that he ran to his

wife, Chadijah, in the greatest alarm, and desired her, perhaps from

superstitious motives (and believing that if covered with clothes he should

be shielded from the glances of evil spirits�comp. Stanley on I Cor. xi. 10),

to envelope him in his mantle; that then Gabriel came down and addressed him

as in v. I. This vision, like that which preceded Sura xcvi., may actually

have occurred during the hallucinations of one of the epileptic fits from

which Muhammad from early youth appears to have suffered. Hence Muhammad in

Sura lxxxi. appeals to it as a matter of fact, and such he doubtless believe

it to be. It may here be observed, that however absurd the Muslim traditions

may be in many of their details, it will generally be found that where there

is an ancient and tolerably universal consent, there will be found at the

bottom a residuum of fact and historical truth. At the same time there can

be no doubt but that the details of the traditions are too commonly founded

upon the attempt to explain or to throw light upon a dark passage of the

Koran, and are pure inventions of a later age.
2 The Arabic words are not those used in later Suras to express the same

idea.
3 Said to be Walid b. Mogheira, a person of note among the unbelieving

Meccans. This portion of the Sura seems to be of a different date from the

first seven verses, though very ancient, and the change of subject is similar

to that at v. 9 of the previous Sura.
4 This and the three following verses wear the appearance of having been

inserted at a later period to meet objections respecting the number of the

angels who guard hell, raised by the Jews; perhaps at Medina, as the four

classes of persons specified are those whom Muhammad had to deal with in that

city, viz., the Jews, Believers, the Hypocrites, or undecided, and Idolaters.

These are constantly mentioned together in the Medina Suras.

mistake of the copyist for the usual word, which suits it.

SURA LXXIII. THE ENFOLDED1 [III.]

are most collected;3

devotion.

protector,

departure.

bear thou with them yet a little while:

mountains shall become a loose sand heap.

an Apostle to Pharaoh:

with a severe chastisement.

shall turn children greyheaded?

into effect.

or a third of the night, as do a part of thy followers. But God measureth the

night and the day: He knoweth that ye cannot count its hours aright, and

therefore, turneth to you mercifully. Recite then so much of the Koran as may

be easy to you. He knoweth that there will be some among you sick, while

others travel through the earth in quest of the bounties of God; and others

do battle in his cause. Recite therefore so much of it as may be easy. And

observe the Prayers and pay the legal Alms,5 and lend God a liberal loan: for

whatever good works ye send on before for your own behoof, ye shall find with

God. This will be best and richest in the recompense. And seek the

forgiveness of God: verily, God is forgiving, Merciful.

_______________________

Prayer, and Future Punishment: from the similarity of the tradition with

regard to its having been preceded by a vision of Gabriel (Beidh., etc.), it

seems to belong to, or at least to describe, a period, perhaps immediately

succeeding the Fatrah, during which the hours of night were spent by Muhammad

in devotion and in the labour of working up his materials in rhythmical and

rhyming Suras, and in preparation for the public assumption of the prophetic

office. Comp. especially verses 11, 19, 20, at the end, with 11, 54, 55, of

the preceding Sura.
2 Singe den Koran laut. H.v.P. Psalle Alcoranum psallendo. Mar. Singe den

Koran mit singender und lauter Stimme ab. Ullm.

than the previous part of the Sura. Nöldeke says it is "offenbar ein

Medinischer."
5 The reader will not be surprised to find in the very outset of Muhammad's

career a frequent mention of Alms, Prayer, Heaven, Hell, Judgment, Apostles,

etc., in their usual sense, when he remembers that Judaism was extensively

naturalised in Arabia, and Christianity, also, although to a smaller extent.

The words and phrases of these religions were doubtless familiar to the

Meccans, especially to that numerous body who were anxiously searching after

some better religion than the idolatries of their fathers (v. on Sura iii.

19, 60), and provided Muhammad with a copious fund from which to draw.

SURA XCIII.1�THE BRIGHTNESS [IV.]
MECCA.�11 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
BY the noon-day BRIGHTNESS,
And by the night when it darkeneth!
Thy Lord hath not forsaken thee, neither hath he been displeased.
And surely the Future shall be better for thee than the Past,
And in the end shall thy Lord be bounteous to thee and thou be satisfied.
Did he not find thee an orphan2 and gave thee a home?
And found thee erring and guided thee,3
And found thee needy and enriched thee.
As to the orphan therefore wrong him not;
And as to him that asketh of thee, chide him not away;
And as for the favours of thy Lord tell them abroad.

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anxiety and depression, in which Muhammad seeks to reassure himself by

calling to mind the past favours of God, and by fixing his mind steadfastly

on the Divine Unity. They belong to a period either before the public

commencement of his ministry or when his success was very dubious, and his

future career by no means clearly marked out.

grandfather, A.D. 576. Hishami, p. 35; Kitab al Wakidi, p. 22, have preserved

traditions of the fondness with which the old man of fourscore years treated

the child, spreading a rug for him under the shadow of the Kaaba, protecting

him from the rudeness of his own sons, etc.
3 Up to his 40th year Muhammad followed the religion of his countrymen. Waq.

Tabari says that when he first entered on his office of Prophet, even his

wife Chadijah had read the Scriptures, and was acquainted with the History of

the Prophets. Spreng. p. 100. But his conformity can only have been partial.

SURA XCIV.�THE OPENING [V.]
MECCA.�8 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
HAVE we not OPENED thine heart for thee?
And taken off from thee thy burden,
Which galled thy back?
And have we not raised thy name for thee?
Then verily along with trouble cometh ease.
Verily along with trouble cometh ease.
But when thou art set at liberty, then prosecute thy toil.
And seek thy Lord with fervour.

SURA CXIII.�THE DAYBREAK [VI.]

species of charm. Comp. Virg.Ec. vi. But the reference more probably is to

women in general, who disconcert schemes as thread is disentangled by blowing

upon it. Suras cxiii. are called the el mouwwidhetani, or preservative

chapters, are engraved on amulets,etc.

SURA CXIV.�MEN [VII.]

SURA I.1 [VIII.]

angry, and who go not astray.3

_______________________
1 This Sura, which Nöldeke places last, and Muir sixth, in the earliest class

of Meccan Suras, must at least have been composed prior to Sura xxxvii.

182,where it is quoted, and to Sura xv. 87, which refers to it. And it can

scarcely be an accidental circumstance that the words of the first, second,

and fifth verses do not occur in any other Suras of the first Meccan period

as given by N�ldeke, but frequently in those of the second, which it

therefore, in N�ldeke, opinion, immediately precedes. But this may be

accounted for by its having been recast for the purposes of private and

public devotion by Muhammad himself, which is the meaning probably of the

Muhammadan tradition that it was revealed twice. It should also be observed

that, including the auspicatory formula, there are the same number of

petitions in this Sura as in the Lord's Prayer. It is recited several times

in each of the five daily prayers, and on many other occassions, as in

concluding a bargain, etc. It is termed "the Opening of the Book," "the

Completion," "the Sufficing Sura," the Sura of Praise, Thanks, and Prayer,"

"the Healer," "the Remedy," "the Basis," "the Treasure," "the Mother of the

Book," "the Seven Verses of Repetition." The Muhammadans always say "Amen"

after this prayer, Muhammad having been instructed, says the Sonna, to do so

by the Angel Gabriel.
2 Islam
3 The following transfer of this Sura from the Arabic into the corresponding

English characters may give some idea of the rhyming prose in which the Koran

is written:
Bismillahi 'rahhmani 'rrahheem.

El-hamdoo lillahi rabi 'lalameen.

Arrahhmani raheem.

Maliki yowmi-d-deen.

Eyaka naboodoo, wa�yaka nest aeen.

Ihdina 'ssirat almostakeem.

Sirat alezeena anhamta aleihim, gheiri-'l mughdoobi aleihim, wala dsaleen.

Ameen.

_______________________

consent that his God should be worshipped at the same time with the old

Meccan deities, or alternately every year. Hishâmi, p. 79; Tabari, p. 139. It

is a distinct renunciation of Meccan idolatry, as the following Sura is a

distinct recognition of the Divine Unity.

SURA CXII.�THE UNITY [X.]

SURA CXI. ABU LAHAB [XI.]

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Muhammad's claim to the prophetic office by his uncle, Abu Lahab, at the

instigation of his wife, Omm Djemil, who is said to have strewn the path of

Muhammad on one occasion with thorns. The following six Suras, like the two

first, have special reference to the difficulties which the Prophet met with

the outset of his career, especially from the rich.

SURA CVIII.�THE ABUNDANCE [XII.]

_______________________

mark of the divine displeasure.

SURA CIV.�THE BACKBITER [XII.]
MECCA.�9 Verses
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Woe to every BACKBITER, Defamer!
Who amasseth wealth and storeth it against the future!
He thinketh surely that his wealth shall be with him for ever.
Nay! for verily he shall be flung into the Crushing Fire;
And who shall teach thee what the Crushing Fire is?
It is God's kindled fire,
Which shall mount above the hearts of the damned;
It shall verily rise over them like a vault,
On outstretched columns.

SURA CVII.�RELIGION [XIV.]

SURA CII.�DESIRE [XV.]

SURA XCII.�THE NIGHT [XVI.]

_______________________

2 Comp. Luke xi. 41. Muhammad perhaps derived this view of the meritorious

anture of almsgiving from the Jewish oral law.

SURA LXVIII.�THE PEN [XVII.]

he know those who have yielded to Guidance;

with thee:

ancients."

garden, when they swore that at morn they would cut its fruits;

slumbered,