The Eastern Question; Or, an Outline of Mohammedanism. Its Rise, Progress and Decay (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III. THE KORAN. Koran, or Alcoran, with the article, is an Arabic word which means lecture, and designates a collection of the pretended revelations made by the Divinity to Mohammed at different times. According to Mohammed, the Koran had been brought to him completed in all its parts, by the angel Gabriel in his first apparition, but was afterwards taken back with the assurance that it would be returned again chapter after chapter, as circumstances would require. During his life, Mohammed was very punctual to this programme of his religious comedy, and every time he found himself in any trouble with his followers, or whenever there arose any murmur against his scandalous conduct and arbitrary acts, there opportunely appeared from heaven a chapter of the Koran admirably suited to the needs of the favored prophet, a celestial boon accorded to Joseph Smith, of modern fame, in this century of enlightenment and progress! After the death of Mohammed, many of these chapters were to be found written on parchments, white stones, leaves of palm- tree and bones, while the remnants were kept by heart among his most zealous disciples. The Caliph, Abou- Becker, had all these scattered fragments collected in one book, which, revised under the Caliph Osman, is the Koran now in use among the Moslems. One hundred and fourteen Surat, or heads, compose the whole book, and every Surat is divided into verses called Ayat, or marvels. Such was the pell-mell and confusion of the materials that the revisers did not find a better way to give the book proper shape than to put at the beginning the longest chapters, leaving the shortest for the end, which fact recalls to our memory the wonderful monster of Horace, with the head of a beautiful woman and the tail of an ugly fish; and his "Risum teneat...