The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

When we consider the way in which the Koran was compiled, we cannot wonder that it is so incoherent a piece as we find it. The book is divided into chapters; of these some are very long; others again, especially a few toward the end, very short. Each chapter has a title prefixed, taken from the first word, or from some one particular thing mentioned in it, rarely from the subject-matter of it; for if a chapter be of any length, it usually runs into various subjects that have no connection with each other. A celebrated commentator divides the contents of the Koran into three general heads: 1. Precepts or directions, relating either to religion, as prayers, fasting, pilgrimages, or to civil polity, as marriages, inheritances, judicatures. 2. Histories—whereof some are taken from the Scriptures, but falsified with fabulous additions; others are wholly false, having no foundation in fact. 3. Admonitions: under which head are comprised exhortations to receive Islamism; to fight for it, to practise its precepts, prayers, alms, etc.; the moral duties, such as justice, temperance, etc., promises of everlasting felicity to the obedient, dissuasives from sin, threatenings of the punishments of hell to the unbelieving and disobedient. Many of the threatenings are levelled against particular persons, and those sometimes of Mahomet's own family, who had opposed him in propagating his religion.

In the Koran God is brought in saying, "We have given you a book." By this it appears that the impostor published early, in writing, some of his principal doctrines, as also some of his historical relations. Thus, in his life of himself we find his disciples reading the twentieth chapter of the Koran, before his flight from Mecca; after which he pretended many of the revelations in other chapters were brought to him. Undoubtedly, all those said to be revealed at Medina must be posterior to what he had then published at Mecca; because he had not yet been at Medina. Many parts of the Koran he declared were brought to him by the angel Gabriel, on special occasions, of which we have already met with several instances in his biography. Accordingly, the commentators on the Koran often explain passages in it by relating the occasion on which they were first revealed. Without such a key many of them would be perfectly unintelligible.

There are several contradictions in the Koran. To reconcile these, the Mussulman doctors have invented the doctrine of abrogation, i.e., that what was revealed at one time was revoked by a new revelation. A great deal of it is so absurd, trifling, and full of tautology that it requires no little patience to read much of it at a time. Notwithstanding, the Koran is cried up by the Mussulmans as inimitable; and in the seventeenth chapter of the Koran Mahomet is commanded to say, "Verily if men and genii were purposely assembled, that they might produce anything like the Koran, they could not produce anything like unto it, though they assisted one another." Accordingly, when the impostor was called upon, as he often was, to work miracles in proof of his divine mission, he excused himself by various pretences, and appealed to the Koran as a standing miracle.[65] Each chapter of the Koran is divided into verses, that is, lines of different length, terminated with the same letter, so as to make a different rhyme, but without any regard to the measure of the syllables.

The Mahometan religion consists of two parts, faith and practice. Faith they divide into six articles: 1. A belief in the unity of God, in opposition to those whom they call associators; by which name they mean not only those who, besides the true God, worship idols or inferior gods or goddesses, but the Christians also, who hold our blessed Saviour's divinity and the doctrine of the Trinity. 2. A belief of angels, to whom they attribute various shapes, names, and offices, borrowed from the Jews and Persians. 3. The Scriptures. 4. The prophets: on this head the Koran teaches that God revealed his will to various prophets, in divers ages of the world, and gave it in writing to Adam, Seth, Enoch, Abraham, etc.; but these books are lost: that afterward he gave the Pentateuch to Moses, the Psalms to David, the Gospel to Jesus, and the Koran to Mahomet. The Koran speaks with great reverence of Moses and Jesus, but says the Scriptures left by them have been greatly mutilated and corrupted. Under this pretence it adds a great many fabulous relations to the history contained in those sacred books, and charges the Jews and Christians with suppressing many prophecies concerning Mahomet (a calumny easily refuted, the Scriptures having been translated into various languages long before Mahomet was born). 5. The fifth article of belief is the resurrection and day of judgment, while about the intermediate state Mahometan divines have various opinions. The happiness promised to the Mussulmans in paradise is wholly sensual, consisting of fine gardens, rich furniture sparkling with gems and gold, delicious fruits, and wines that neither cloy nor intoxicate; but above all, affording the fruition of all the delights of love in the society of women having large black eyes and every trait of exquisite beauty, who shall ever continue young and perfect. Some of their writers speak of these females of paradise in very lofty strains; telling us, for instance, that if one of them were to look down from heaven in the night she would illuminate the earth as the sun does; and if she did but spit into the ocean, it would be immediately turned as sweet as honey. These delights of paradise were certainly, at first, understood literally; however Mahometan divines may have since allegorized them into a spiritual sense. As to the punishments threatened to the wicked, they are hell-fire, breathing hot winds, the drinking of boiling and stinking water, eating briers and thorns, and the bitter fruit of the tree Zacom, which in their bellies will feel like boiling pitch. These punishments are to be everlasting to all except those who embrace Islamism; for the latter, after suffering a number of years, in proportion to their demerits, will then, if they have had but so much faith as is equal to the weight of an ant, be released by the mercy of God, and, upon the intercession of Mahomet, admitted into paradise.