Chapter 10

[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 followingwas 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 othersas buried treasuresand asdead.]

[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. vocesejera.]

[114]Woman-child.

[115]Of men’s actions.

[116]As the skin is plucked off aslaughteredsheep.

[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 everin 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][SeeModern Egyptians, 5th ed., p 284.]

[158][On the various orders of the Jinn, see Lane’sThousand 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 inMod. 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 hypocritesthe followingwas 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 thesealof 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.

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 thesealof 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 signifiesdivine revelation, orscripturein general; sometimes theversesof theḲur-ánin 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.

[212]Some tell us that Nimrod, on seeing this miraculous deliverance from his palace, cried out that he would make an offering to the God of Abraham; and that he accordingly sacrificed four thousand kine. [B.] But, if he ever relented, he soon relapsed into his former infidelity: for he built a tower that he might ascend to heaven to see Abraham’s God; which being overthrown [Ḳur. xvi. 28], still persisting in his design, he would be carried to heaven in a chest borne by four monstrous birds; but after wandering for some time through the air, he fell down on a mountain with such force that he made it shake, whereto (as some fancy) a passage in the Ḳur-án [xiv. 47] alludes, which may be translated, ‘although their contrivances be such as to make the mountains tremble.’—Nimrod, disappointed in his design of making war with God, turned his arms against Abraham, who, being a great prince, raised forces to defend himself; but God, dividing Nimrod’s subjects, and confounding their language, deprived him of the greater part of his people, and plagued those who adhered to him by swarms of gnats, which destroyed almost all of them; and one of those gnats having entered into the nostril, or ear, of Nimrod, penetrated to one of the membranes of his brain, where, growing bigger every day, it gave him such intolerable pain, that he was obliged to cause his head to be beaten with a mallet, in order to procure some ease, which torture he suffered four hundred years; God being willing to punish, by one of the smallest of His creatures, him who insolently boasted himself to be lord of all. A Syrian calendar places the death of Nimrod, as if the time were well known, on the eighth of Tamooz, or July.—S.

[213]They tell us that Gabriel thrust his wing under them and lifted them up so high that the inhabitants of the lower heaven heard the barking of the dogs and the crowing of the cocks; and then, inverting them, threw them down to the earth.—S. (B.)

[214]It is the most received opinion among the Moḥammadans that the son whom Abraham offered was Ishmael and not Isaac; Ishmael being his only son at that time: for the promise of Isaac’s birth is mentioned lower, as subsequent in time to this transaction. They also allege the testimony of their prophet, who is reported to have said, ‘I am the son of the two who were offered in sacrifice;’ meaning his great ancestor, Ishmael, and his own father ´Abd-Allah: for ´Abd-el-Muṭṭalib had made a vow that if God would permit him to find out and open the well Zemzem and should give him ten sons he would sacrifice one of them; accordingly, when he had obtained his desire in both respects, he cast lots on his sons, and the lot falling on ´Abd-Allah, he redeemed him by offering a hundred camels, which was therefore ordered to be the price of a man’s blood in the Sunneh.—S. (B., Z.)

[215]The occasion of this request of Abraham is said to have been a doubt proposed to him by the devil in human form, how it was possible for the several parts of a corpse of a man which lay on the sea-shore and had been partly devoured by the wild beasts, the birds, and the fish, to be brought together at the resurrection.—S.

[216]In the original, ‘Imám,’ which answers to the LatinAntistes. This title the Moḥammadans give to their priests [if such a title may be used, for want of one more correct] who begin the prayers in their mosques, and whom all the congregation follow.—S.

[217]The term ‘rek´ah’ signifies the repetition of a set form of words, chiefly from the Ḳur-án, and ejaculations of ‘God is most Great!’ etc., accompanied by particular postures; part of the words being repeated in an erect posture, part sitting, and part in other postures: an inclination of the head and body, followed by two prostrations, distinguishing each rek´ah. Each of the five daily prayers of the Muslims consist of a certain number of rek´ahs.

[218]The city of Eṭ-Ṭáïf was so called, according to Abu-l-Fida and several other Arab authors, because it, with the the adjacent fields, was separated from Syria during the Deluge, and after floating round about upon the water at length rested in its present situation, where its soil has continued to produce the fruits of Syria.

[219]Namely, the Kaạbeh.

[220]In the original, ‘Muslims,’ which is the peculiar and very appropriate title of the believers in the religion taught by Moḥammad; and as he professed not to teach a religion essentiallynew, this title is given to all true believers before him.

[221]‘El-Islam’ signifies theresigningoneself to God and to His service, and is the name given by Moḥammad to that religion which, he asserted, all the prophets before him had taught, and he restored; the foundation of which was the unity of God.

[222]This well, say some, was a certain well near Jerusalem, or not far from the river Jordan; but others call it the well of Egypt, or Midian. The commentators tell us that when the sons of Jacob had gotten Joseph with them in the field, they began to abuse and to beat him so unmercifully that they had killed him had not Judah on his crying out for help insisted on the promise they had made not to kill him but to cast him into the well. Whereupon they let him down a little way; but as he held by the sides of the well, they bound him, and took off his inner garment, designing to stain it with blood to deceive their father. Joseph begged hard to have his garment returned to him, but to no purpose, his brothers telling him, with a sneer, that the eleven stars and the sun and the moon might clothe him and keep him company.—S. (B., Z.)

Back to Index Next