XII.— The Opinions of European Writers on the Qurʾān

Mr. Sale, in his Preliminary Discourse, remarks:— “The style of the Korân is generally beautiful and fluent, especially where it imitates the prophetic manner, and scripture phrases. It is concise, and often obscure, adorned with bold figures after the Eastern taste, enlivened with florid and sententious expre ions, and in many places, especially where the majesty and attributes of God are described, sublime and magnificent; of which the reader cannot but observe several instances, though he must not imagine the translation comes up to the original, notwithstanding my endeavours to do it justice. “Though it be written in prose, yet the sentences generally conclude in a long continued rhyme, for the sake of which the sense is often interrupted, and unnece ary repetitions too frequently made, which appear still more ridiculous in a translation, where the ornament, such as it is, for whose sake they were made, cannot be perceived. However, the Arabians are so mightily delighted with this jingling that they employ it in their most elaborate compositions, which they also embellish with frequent pa ages of and allusions to the Korân, so that it is next to impo ible to understand them without being well versed in this book. “It is probable the harmony of expre ion which the Arabians find in the Korân might contribute not a little to make them relish the doctrine therein taught, and give an efficacy to arguments, which, had they been nakedly proposed without this rhetorical dre , might not have so easily prevailed. Very extraordinary effects are related of the power of words well chosen and artfully placed, which are no le powerful either to ravish or amaze than music itself; wherefore as much as has been ascribed by the best orators to this part of rhetoric as to any other. He must have a very bad ear, who is not uncommonly moved with the very cadence of a well-turned sentence; and Mohammed seems not to have been ignorant of the enthusiastic operation of rhetoric on the minds of men; for which reason he has not only employed his utmost skill in these his pretended revelations, to preserve that dignity and sublimity of style, which might seem not unworthy of the majesty of that Being, whom he gave out to be the author of them, and to imitate the prophetic manner of the Old Testament; but he has not neglected even the other arts of oratory; wherein he succeeded so well, and so strangely captivated the minds of his audience, that several of his opponents thought it the effect of witchcraft and enchantment, as he sometimes complains ( Sūrah xv. 21 , .).” The late Profe or Palmer, in his Introduction to the Qurʾān, remarks:— “The Arabs made use of a rhymed and rhythmical prose, the origin of which it is not difficult to imagine. The Arabic language consists for the most part of triliteral roots, i.e . the single words expre ing individual ideas consist generally of three consonants each, and the derivative forms expre ing modifications of the original idea are not made by affixes and terminations alone, but also by the insertion of letters in the root. Thus ẓaraba means ‘he struck,’ and qatala , ‘he killed,’ while maẓrûb and maqtûl signify ‘one struck’ and ‘one killed.’ A sentence, therefore, consists of a series of words which would each require to be expre ed in clauses of several words in other languages, and it is easy to see how a next following sentence, explanatory of or completing the first, would be much more clear and forcible if it consisted of words of a similar shape and implying similar modifications of other ideas. It follows then that the two sentences would be nece arily symmetrical, and the presence of rhythm would not only please the ear but contribute to the better understanding of the sense, while the rhyme would mark the pause in the sense and emphasize the proposition. “The Qurʾān is written in this rhetorical style, in which the clauses are rhythmical though not symmetrically so, and for the most part end in the same rhyme throughout the chapter. “The Arabic language lends itself very readily to this species of composition, and the Arabs of the desert in the present day employ it to a great extent in their more formal orations, while the literary men of the towns adopt it as the recognised correct style, deliberately imitating the Qurʾān. “That the best of Arab writers has never succeeded in producing anything equal in merit to the Qurʾān itself is not surprising. “In the first place, they have agreed beforehand that it is unapproachable, and they have adopted its style as the perfect standard; any deviation from it therefore must of nece ity be a defect. Again, with them this style is not spontaneous as with Mohammed and his contemporaries, but is as artificial as though English men should still continue to follow Chaucer as their model, in spite of the changes which their language has undergone. With the prophet the style was natural, and the words were those used in every-day ordinary life, while with the later Arabic authors the style is imitative and the ancient words are introduced as a literary embellishment. The natural consequence is that their attempts look laboured and unreal by the side of his impromptu and forcible eloquence. “That Mohammed, though, should have been able to challenge even his contemporaries to produce anything like the Qurʾān, ‘And if ye are in doubt of what we have revealed unto our servant, then bring a chapter like it.… But if ye do it not, and ye surely shall do it not, .,’ is at first sight surprising, but, as Nöldeke has pointed out, this challenge really refers much more to the subject than to the mere style,—to the originality of the conception of the unity of God and of a revelation supposed to be couched in God’s own words. Any attempt at such a work must of nece ity have had all the weakne and want of prestige which attaches to an imitation. This idea is by no means foreign to the genius of the old Arabs. “Amongst a people who believed firmly in witchcraft and soothsaying, and who, though pa ionately fond of poetry, believed that every poet had his familiar spirit who inspired his utterances, it was no wonder that the prophet should be taken for ‘a soothsayer, ’ for ‘one po e ed with an evil spirit,’ or for ‘an infatuated poet.’ ” Mr. Stanley Lane Poole, in his Introduction to Lane’s Selections from the Ḳur-án , remarks:— “It is confused in its progre ion and strangely mixed in its contents; but the development of Moḥammad’s faith can be traced in it, and we can see dimly into the workings of his mind, as it struggles with the deep things of God, wrestles with the doubts which echoed the cavils of the unbelievers, soars upwards on the wings of ecstatic faith, till at last it gains the repose of fruition. Studied thus, the Ḳur-án is no longer dull reading to one who cares to look upon the working of a pa ionate troubled human soul, and who can enter into its trials and share in the joy of its triumphs. “In the soorahs revealed at Mekka, Moḥammad has but one theme—God; and one object—to draw his people away from their idols and bring them to the feet of that God. He tells them of Him in glowing language, that comes from the heart’s white heat. He points to the glories of nature, and tells them these are God’s works. With all the brilliant imagery of the Arab, he tries to show them what God is, to convince them of His power and His wisdom and His justice. The soorahs of this period are short, for they are pitched in too high a key to be long sustained. The language has the ring of poetry, though no part of the Ḳur-án complies with the demands of Arab metre. The sentences are short and full of half-restrained energy, yet with a musical cadence. The thought is often only half expre ed; one feels the speaker has e ayed a thing beyond words, and has suddenly discovered the impotence of language, and broken off with the sentence unfinished. There is the fascination of true poetry about these earliest soorahs; as we read them we understand the enthusiasm of the Prophet’s followers, though we cannot fully realise the beauty and the power, inasmuch as we cannot hear them hurled forth with Moḥammad’s fiery eloquence. From first to last the Ḳur-án is e entially a book to be heard, not read, but this is especially the case with the earliest chapters. “In the soorahs of the second period of Mekka, we begin to trace the decline of the Prophet’s eloquence. There are still the same earnest appeals to the people, the same gorgeous pictures of the Last Day and the world to come; but the language begins to approach the quiet of prose, the sentences become longer, the same words and phrases are frequently repeated, and the wearisome stories of the Jewish prophets and patriarchs, which fill so large a space in the later portion of the Ḳur-án, now make their appearance. The fierce pa ion of the earliest soorahs, that could not out save in short burning verses, gives place to a calmer more argumentative style. Moḥammad appeals le to the works of God as proofs of his teaching, and more to the history of former teachers, and the punishments of the people who would not hear them. And the characteristic oaths of the first period, when Moḥammad swears by all the varied sights of nature as they mirrored themselves in his imagination, have gone, and in their place we find only the weaker oath ‘by the Ḳur-án.’ And this declension is carried still further in the last group of the soorahs revealed at Mekka. The style becomes more involved and the sentences longer, and though the old enthusiasm bursts forth ever and anon, it is rather an echo of former things than a new and present intoxication of faith. The fables and repetitions become more and more dreary, and but for the rich eloquence of the old Arabic tongue, which gives some charm even to inextricable sentences and dull stories, the Ḳur-án at this period would be unreadable. As it is, we feel we have fallen the whole depth from poetry to prose, and the matter of the prose is not so superlative as to give us amends for the lo of the poetic thought of the earlier time and the musical fall of the sentences. “In the soorahs of the Medina period these faults reach their climax. We read a singularly varied collection of criminal laws, social regulations, orders for battle, harangues to the Jews, first conciliatory, then denunciatory, and exhortations to spread the faith, and such-like heterogeneous matters. Happily the Jewish stories disappear in the latest soorahs, but their place is filled by scarcely more palatable materials. The chapters of this period are interesting chiefly as containing the laws which have guided every Muslim state, regulated every Muslim society, and directed in their smallest acts every Moḥammadan man and woman in all parts of the world from the Prophet’s time till now. The Medina part of the Ḳur-án is the most important part for Islám, considered as a scheme of ritual and a system of manners; the earliest Mekka revelations are those which contain what is highest in a great religion and what was purest in a great man.” Mr. Rodwell, in his Introduction to his Qurʾān, says:— “The contrast between the earlier, middle, and later Suras is very striking and interesting, and will be at once apparent from the arrangement here adopted. In the Suras as far as the 54th, we cannot but notice the entire predominance of the poetical element, a deep appreciation (as in Sura xci .) of the beauty of natural objects, brief fragmentary and impa ioned utterances, denunciations of woe and punishment, expre ed for the most part in lines of extreme brevity. With a change, however, in the position of Muhammad when he openly a umes the office of ‘public warner,’ the Suras begin to a ume a more prosaic and didactic tone, though the poetical ornament of rhyme is preserved throughout. We gradually lose the Poet in the mi ionary aiming to convert, the warm a erter of dogmatic truths; the descriptions of natural objects, of the judgment, of heaven and hell, make way for gradually increasing historical statements, first from Jewish, and subsequently from Christian histories; while, in the 29 Suras revealed at Medina, we no longer listen to vague words, often as it would seem without positive aim, but to the earnest disputant with the enemies of his faith, the Apostle pleading the cause of what he believes to be the Truth of God. He who at Mecca is the admonisher and persuader, at Medina is the legislator and warrior, who dictates obedience, and uses other weapons than the pen of the Poet and the Scribe. When busine pre ed, as at Medina, Poetry makes way for prose, and although touches of the Poetical element occasionally break forth, and he has to defend himself up to a very late period against the charge of being merely a Poet, yet this is rarely the case in the Medina Suras; and we are startled by finding obedience to God and the Apostle , God’s gifts and the Apostle’s , God’s pleasure and the Apostle’s , spoken of in the same breath, and epithets and attributes elsewhere applied to Allah openly applied to himself, as in Sura ix. 118, 129 . “The Suras, viewed as a whole, strike me as being the work of one who began his career as a thoughtful enquirer after truth, and an earnest a erter of it in such rhetorical and poetical forms as he deemed most likely to win and attract his countrymen, and who gradually proceeded from the dogmatic teacher to the politic founder of a system for which laws and regulations had to be provided as occasions arose. And of all the Suras it must be remarked that they were intended not for readers but for hearers —that they were all promulgated by public recital —and that much was left, as the imperfect sentences shew, to the manner and suggestive action of the reciter. It would be impo ible, and indeed it is unnece ary, to attempt a detailed life of Muhammad within the narrow limits of a Preface. The main events thereof with which the Suras of the Koran stand in connection, are—The visions of Gabriel, seen, or said to have been seen, at the outset of his career in his 40th year, during one of his seasons of annual monthly retirement, for devotion and meditation to Mount Hirâ, near Mecca,—the period of mental depre ion and re-a urance previous to the a umption of the office of public teacher—the Fatrah or pause during which he probably waited for a repetition of the angelic vision—his labours in comparative privacy for three years, i uing in about 40 converts, of whom his wife Chadijah was the first, and Abu Bekr the most important; (for it is to him and to Abu Jahl the Sura xcii . refers)—struggles with Meccan unbelief and idolatry followed by a period during which probably he had the second vision, Sura liii. and was listened to and respected as a person ‘po e ed’ ( Sura lxix. 42 , lii. 29 )—the first emigration to Aby in i a in A.D . 616, in consequence of the Meccan persecutions brought on by his now open attacks upon idolatry (Taghout)— increasing reference to Jewish and Christian histories, shewing that much time had been devoted to their study—the conversion of Omar in 617—the journey to the Thaquifites at Taief in A.D . 620—the intercourse with pilgrims from Medina, who believed in Islam, and spread the knowledge thereof in their native town, in the same year—the vision of the midnight journey to Jerusalem and the Heavens—the meetings by night at Acaba, a mountain near Mecca, in the 11th year of his mi ion, and the pledges of fealty there given to him—the command given to the believers to emigrate to Yathrib, henceforth Medinat-en-nab i ( the city of the Prophet ), or El-Medina ( the city ), in April of A.D . 622—the escape of Muhammad and Abu Bekr from Mecca to the cave of Thaur—the FLIGHT to Medina in June 20, A.D . 622—treaties made with Christian tribes—increasing, but still very imperfect acquaintance with Christian doctrines—the Battle of Bedr in Hej. 2, and of Ohod—the coalition formed against Muhammad by the Jews and idolatrous Arabians, i uing in the siege of Medina, Hej. 5 ( A.D . 627)—the convention, with reference to the liberty of making the pilgrimage, of Hudaibiya, Hej. 6—the emba y to Chosroes King of Persia in the same year, to the Governor of Egypt and to the King of Aby in i a, desiring them to embrace Islam—the conquest of several Jewish tribes, the most important of which was that of Chaibar in Hej. 7, a year marked by the emba y sent to Heraclius, then in Syria, on his return from the Persian campaign, and by a solemn and peaceful pilgrimage to Mecca—the triumphant entry into Mecca in Hej. 8 ( A.D . 630), and the demolition of the idols of the Caaba—the submi ion of the Christians of Nedjran, of Aila on the Red Sea, and of Taief, etc., in Hej. 9, called ‘the year of emba ies or deputations,’ from the numerous deputations which flocked to Mecca proffering submi ion—and lastly in Hej. 10, the submi ion of Hadhramaut , Yemen, the greater part of the southern and eastern provinces of Arabia—and the final solemn pilgrimage to Mecca. “While, however, there is no great difficulty in ascertaining the Suras which stand in connection with the more salient features of Muhammad’s life, it is a much more arduous, and often impracticable, task, to point out the precise events to which individual verses refer, and out of which they sprung. It is quite po ible that Muhammad himself, in a later period of his career, designedly mixed up later with earlier revelations in the same Suras—not for the sake of producing that mysterious style which seems so pleasing to the mind of those who value truth least when it is most clear and obvious—but for the purpose of softening down some of the earlier statements which represent the last hour and awful judgment as imminent; and thus leading his followers to continue still in the attitude of expectation, and to see in his later succe es the truth of his earlier predictions. If after-thoughts of this kind are to be traced, and they will often strike the attentive reader, it then follows that the perplexed state of the text in individual Suras is to be considered as due to Muhammad himself, and we are furnished with a series of constant hints for attaining to chronological accuracy. And it may be remarked in pa ing, that a belief that the end of all things was at hand, may have tended to promote the earlier succe es of Islam at Mecca, as it unquestionably was an argument with the Apostles, to flee from ‘the wrath to come.’ It must be borne in mind that the allusions to contemporary minor events, and to the local efforts made by the new religion to gain the ascendant are very few, and often couched in terms so vague and general, that we are forced to interpret the Koran solely by the Koran itself. And for this, the frequent repetitions of the same histories and the same sentiments, afford much facility: and the peculiar manner in which the details of each history are increased by fresh traits at each recurrence, enables us to trace their growth in the author’s mind, and to ascertain the manner in which a part of the Koran was composed. The absence of the historical element from the Koran as regards the details of Muhammad’s daily life, may be judged of by the fact, that only two of his contemporaries are mentioned in the entire volume, and that Muhammad’s name occurs but five times, although he is all the way through addre ed by the Angel Gabriel as the recipient of the divine revelations, with the word Say . Perhaps such pa ages as Sura ii. 15 and v. 246 , and the constant mention of guidance , direction , wandering , may have been suggested by reminiscences of his mercantile journeys in his earlier years.” Dr. Steinga , the learned compiler of the English-Arabic and Arabic-English Dictionaries (W. H. Allen & Co.), has obligingly recorded his opinion as follows:— Invited to subjoin a few further remarks on the composition and style of the Qurʾān, in addition to the valuable and competent opinions contained in the above extracts, I can scarcely introduce them better than by quoting the striking words of Göthe, which Mr. Rodwell places by way of motto on the reverse of the title page of his Translation. These words seem to me so much the more weighty and worthy of attention, as they are uttered by one who, whatever his merits or demerits in other respects may be deemed to be, indisputably belongs to the greatest masters of language of all times, and stands foremost as a leader of modern thought and the intellectual culture of modern times. Speaking of the Qurʾān in his West-Oestlicher Divan , he says: “However often we turn to it, at first disgusting us each time afresh, it soon attracts, astounds, and in the end enforces our reverence.… Its style, in accordance with its contents and aim, is stern, grand, terrible—ever and anon truly sublime.… Thus this book will go on exercising through all ages a most potent influence.” A work, then, which calls forth so powerful and seemingly incompatible emotions, even in the distant reader—distant as to time, and still more so as to mental development—a work which not only conquers the repugnance with which he may begin its perusal, but changes this adverse feeling into astonishment and admiration, such a work must be a wonderful production of the human mind indeed, and a problem of the highest interest to every thoughtful observer of the destinies of mankind. Much has been said in the preceding pages, to acknowledge, to appreciate, and to explain the literary excellencies of the Qurʾān, and a more or le distinct admi ion that Buffon’s much-quoted saying: “ Le style c’est l’homme ,” is here more justified than ever, underlies all these various verdicts. We may well say the Qurʾān is one of the grandest books ever written, because it faithfully reflects the character and life of one of the greatest men that ever breathed. “Sincerity,” writes Carlyle, “sincerity, in all senses, seems to me the merit of the Koran.” This same sincerity, this ardour and earnestne in the search for truth, this never-flagging perseverance in trying to impre it, when partly found, again and again upon his unwilling hearers, appears to me as the real and undeniable “seal of prophecy” in Muḥammad. Truth, and above all religious truth, can only be one. Christianity may duly rejoice in the thought that, at the very moment when the representative of the greatest Empire of the ancient world mockingly or despairingly put forth the question, “What is truth?” this one eternal truth was about to be written down with the blood of the Divine Redeemer in the salvation deed of our race, Christ’s glorious and holy Gospel. But the approaches to truth are many, and he who devoted all his powers and energies, with untiring patience and self-denial, to the task of leading a whole nation by one of these approaches, from a coarse and effete idolatry, to the worship of the living God, has certainly a strong claim to our warmest sympathies as a faithful servant and noble champion of truth. It is, however, not my intention to dwell here any longer upon this side of the question. Praise has been bestowed in this work on the Qurʾān and its author without stint or grudge, and the unanimity of so many distinguished voices in this respect will no doubt impre the general reader in favour of the sacred book of the Muḥammadans, which until now he may have known only by name. At the same time, it will be noticed that no le unanimity prevails in pointing out the inferiority of the later portions of the Qurʾān in comparison with the earlier Sūrahs; a falling off, as it were, from the original poetical grandeur and loftine of its composition into prose and common-place. Göthe, we have seen, uses such a strong word as disgust, again and again experienced by him at the very outset of its repeated reading. Not being an Arabic scholar himself, he knew the Qurʾān only through the translations existing at the time, which follow throughout the order of the received text. Thus he was made to pa , roughly speaking, from the later to the earlier Madīnah Sūrahs, and from these again to the Sūrahs given at Makkah at the various stages which mark Muḥammad’s ministry, while he was yet staying in his irresponsive parent town. In other words, he would have proceeded from the utterances of the worldly ruler and lawgiver to those of the inspired Divine, who had just succeeded in laying the foundation-stones of a new religion, under fierce struggles and sufferings, but in obedience to a call which, in his innermost heart, he felt had gone out to him, and which he had accepted with awe, humility, and resignation. While, therefore, in the beginning of his studies, Göthe may have met with a number of details in the vast structure raised by Muḥammad which appeared distasteful to the refined scion of the nineteenth century, his interest must have been awakened, his admiration kindled and kept increasing, the more he became acquainted, through the work itself, with the nature and personality of its creator, and with the purity and exalted character of the main-spring of his motives. Those critics, on the other hand, who view the Qurʾān with regard to the chronological order of its constituents, follow the descending scale in their estimate. Speaking at first highly—nay, frequently with enthusiasm—of the earlier parts, they complain more and more of the growing tediousne and wearisomene of the Sūrahs of later origin. Nöldeke, for instance, the learned and ingenious author of Geschichte des Qorâns , speaking of the deficiencies in style, language, and treatment of the subject matter, which, in his opinion, characterise the second and third period of the Makkan revelations, and in general the Madīnah Sūrahs, pointedly terminates his indictment by the sentence, “if it were not for the exquisite flexibility and vigour ( die ungemeine Feinheit und Kraft ) of the Arabic language itself, which, however, is to be attributed more to the age in which the author lived than to his individuality, it would scarcely be bearable to read the later portions of the Qurʾān a second time.” But if we consider the variety and heterogeneousne of the topics on which the Qurʾān touches, uniformity of style and diction can scarcely be expected; on the contrary, it would appear to be strangely out of place. Let us not forget that in the book, as Muḥammad’s newest biographer, Ludolf Krehl ( Das Leben des Muhammed , Leipzig, 1884), expre es it, “there is given a complete code of creed and morals, as well as of the law based thereupon. There are also the foundations laid for every institution of an extensive commonwealth, for instruction, for the administration of justice, for military organization, for the finances, for a most careful legislation for the poor: all built up on the belief in the one God, who holds man’s destinies in His hand.” Where so many important objects are concerned, the standard of excellence by which we have to gauge the composition of the Qurʾān as a whole must needs vary with the matter treated upon in each particular case. Sublime and chaste, where the supreme truth of God’s unity is to be proclaimed; appealing in high-pitched strains to the imagination of a poetically-gifted people, where the eternal consequences of man’s submi ion to God’s holy will, or of rebellion against it, are pictured; touching in its simple, almost crude, earnestne , when it seeks again and again encouragement or consolation for God’s me enger, and a solemn warning for those to whom he has been sent, in the histories of the prophets of old: the language of the Qurʾān adapts itself to the exigencies of every-day life, when this every-day life, in its private and public bearings, is to be brought in harmony with the fundamental principles of the new dispensation. Here, therefore, its merits as a literary production should, perhaps, not be measured by some preconceived maxims of subjective and æsthetic taste, but by the effects which it produced in Muḥammad’s contemporaries and fellow-countrymen. If it spoke so powerfully and convincingly to the hearts of his hearers as to weld hitherto centrifugal and antagonistic elements into one compact and well-organised body, animated by ideas far beyond those which had until now ruled the Arabian mind, then its eloquence was perfect, simply because it created a civilized nation out of savage tribes, and shot a fresh woof into the old warp of history. Nöldeke’s above-quoted remark, it seems to me, raises, however, a very important question. It must, of course, be admitted that the Arabic language, which is now so greatly and deservedly admired, cannot be attributed to Muḥammad individually, but originated in and was at his time the common property of the Arabic-speaking section of the human race, or, more accurately, of its Semitic branch, who were then living within the Peninsula and in some of the neighbouring countries. But we may well ask ourselves, what would in all probability have become of this language without Muḥammad and his Qurʾān? This is not at all an idle and desultory speculation. It is true the Arabic language had already produced numerous fine specimens of genuine and high-flown poetry, but such poetry was chiefly, if not exclusively, preserved in the memory of the people, for the art of writing was certainly very little known, and still le practised. Moreover, poetry is not tantamount to literature; it may lead to it, and will always form a most e ential part of it; but it will live on, and perhaps die, in solitary isolation, unle it becomes, as it were, as Brahmans say, “twice-born,” by participating in a literary development of vaster dimensions and a more general character. Divided among themselves into numerous tribes, who were engaged in a perpetual warfare against each other, the Arabs, and with them their various dialects, would more and more have drifted asunder, poetry would have followed in the wake, and the population of Arabia would have broken up into a multitude of clans, with their particular bards, whose love and war-songs enterprising travellers of our days might now collect, like the popular songs of the Kosaks of the steppe, or the Kalmuks and similar nationalities, vegetating for centuries in a more or le primitive state of existence. It seems, then, that it is only a work of the nature of the Qurʾān which could develop ancient Arabic into a literary language, notwithstanding the fact that it had already been admirably handled by local poets. As this book places the national life of the Arabs upon an entirely new basis, giving it at the same time a much-needed centre and a wonderful power of expansion, it became a matter of the utmost importance, nay, of urgent nece ity, that the contents of the volume should be preserved with scrupulous accuracy and undisputable conformity. This again was only po ible by fixing upon one dialect, which by its recognized excellence commended itself to general acceptance, and also by establishing a written text. But not only by raising a dialect, through its generalization, to the power of a language, and by rendering the adoption of writing indispensable, has the Qurʾān initiated the development of an Arabic literature; its composition itself has contributed two factors absolutely needful to this development: it has added to the existing poetry the origins of rhetoric and prose. Although the decidedly poetical character of the earlier Sūrahs is obvious, they differ in two important points from the hitherto acknowledged form of poetry, which is that of the Qaṣīdah. This form consists of baits , or distichs, measured by some variation of one of the fifteen (or sixteen) principal metres, and each containing two half-lines, the same rhyme running through both hemistichs of the first bait , and through every second one of the following. For instance: 1. Qifā nabk i min ẕikrā ḥabībin wa-manzilī Bi-siqti ʾl-liwā baina ʾd-dak͟hūli wa-ḥaumalī 2. Fa-tūẓiḥa fa ʾl-maqrāti lam yaʿfu rasmuhā Li-mā nasajat-hā min junūbin wa­shamʾalī which would scan: ⏑ – Qifā – nab- | ⏑ ki – min – – ẕikrā | ⏑ – – ḥabībin | ⏑ – ⏑ – wamanzilī   . and belongs to the first variation of the metre T̤awīl. Emancipating himself from the fetters of metre, and gradually also of the uniform rhyme, Muḥammad created what is now called sajʿ , that is to say, a rhythmical prose, in which the component parts of a period are balanced and cadenced by a varying rhyme, and of which e.g . the Sūratu ʾl-Qiyāmah (lxxv.) offers some fair examples; as (5–10):— Bal yurīdu ʾl-insānu li-yafjura amāmah, Yasʾalu aiyāna yaumu ʾl-qiyāmah, Fa-iẕā bariqa ʾl-baṣar, Wa-k͟hasafa ʾl-qamar Wa-jumiʿa ʾsh-shamsu wa ʾl-qamar Yaqūlu ʾl-insānu yaumaʾiẕin aina ʾl-mafarr. (But man chooseth to go astray as to his future; He asketh, “When this Day of Resurrection?” When the eye-sight shall be dazzled, And the moon shall be darkened, And the sun and the moon shall be together, On that day man shall cry, “Where is there a place to flee to?”) And again (22–30): Wa-wujūhin yaumaʾiẕin nāẓirah Ilā rabbi-hā nāz̤irah, Wa-wujūhin yaumaʾiẕin bāsir ah Taz̤annu an yufʿala bi-hā fāqirah. Kallā iẕā balag͟hat i ʾt-tarāqiya Wa-qīla man rāq Wa-z̤anna annahu ʾl-firāq Wa ʾl-taffati ʾs-sāqu bi ʾs-sāq Ilā rabbi-ka yaumaʾiẕini ʾl-masāq. (On that day shall faces beam with light, Out-looking towards their lord; And faces on that day shall be dismal, As if they thought that some calamity would therein befall them. A uredly when the soul shall come up to the breast-bone, And there shall be a cry, “Who is the magician to restore him ?” And the man feeleth that the time of his departure is come , And when one leg shall be enlaced with the other, To thy Lord on that day shall he be driven on.) This kind of rhetorical style, the peculiarity of which Profe or Palmer, in the pa age quoted, p. 523, aptly explains from the etymological structure of Arabic, has become the favourite model of oratorical and ornate language with the later Arabs. It is frequently employed in ordinary narratives, such as the tales of the Arabian Nights , whenever the occasion requires a more elevated form of speech; it is the usual garb of that cla of compositions, which is known by the name of Maqāmāt, and even extensive historical works, as the Life of Timur , by ʿArab Shāh, are written in it throughout. But Muḥammad made a still greater and more decisive step towards creating a literature for his people. In those Sūrahs, in which he regulated the private and public life of the Muslim, he originated a prose, which has remained the standard of cla ical purity ever since. With regard to this point, however, it has been stated, seemingly in disparagement of the later Arabic authors, that their accepting Muḥammad’s language as a perfect standard, from which no deviation is admi ible, has led them to adopt an artificial style, as unnatural “as though English men should still continue to follow Chaucer as their model, in spite of the changes which their language has undergone.” But is such a parallel justified in facts? In English, as amongst modern nations in general, the written language has always kept in close contact with the spoken language; the changes which the former has undergone are simply the registration and legalisation of the changes which in course of time had taken place in the latter. Not so in Arabic. From the moment when, at the epoch of its fullest and richest growth, it was, through the composition of the Qurʾān, invested with the dignity of a literary language, it was, by its very nature, for many centuries to come, precluded from any e ential change, whether this be considered as an advantage or not. The reason for this lies in the first instance in the triliteral character of the Semitic roots, referred to by Profe or Palmer, which allows such a root to form one, two, or three syllables, according to the pronunciation of each letter, with or without a vowel. Let us take as an example once more the root ẓ-r-b ( ضرب‎ ), which conveys the idea of “beating,” and serves in Arabic grammars, like the Greek τυπτω , to form paradigms, by way of a wholesome admonition, I suppose, to the youthful student. The first of these three consonants can only remain quiescent, i.e . vowel-le , if it is preceded by a vowel, as in the Imperative i-ẓrib ( اِضْرِبْ‎ ), “beat thou,” where the root appears as a monosyllable, or in the aorist ya-ẓribu ( يَضْرِبُ‎ ), “he beats or will beat,” where it takes together with the final u a disyllabic form. If we leave the second consonant quiescent and pronounce the first with a , we have ẓarb , with the nominative termination ẓarbun ( ضَرْبٌ‎ ), the verbal noun “beating” or infinitive “to beat.” Vocalising both the first letters, we may obtain ẓārib , the active participle “beating,” or ẓurūb , plural of the last mentioned ẓarb , with the nominative termination ẓāribun ( ضَارِبٌ ‎ ) and ẓurūbun ( ضُرُوبٌ‎ ). If we read all three consonants with vowels, it may be ẓaraba ( ضَرَبَ‎ ), “he did beat,” or ẓarabū ( ضَرَبُوا‎ ), “they did beat.” Taking, again, the two forms ẓaraba , “he did beat,” and yaẓribu , “he beats or will beat,” a simple change of vowels suffices to transform the active into the pa ive: ẓuriba ( ضُرِبَ‎ ), “he was beaten,” and yuẓrabu ( يُضْرَبُ‎ ), “he is beaten or will be beaten.” Lastly, it must be noticed, that the distinction between the two fundamental tenses of the Arabic verb rests on the principle that the affixes, representing the personal pronouns, are in the preterite placed at the end, in the aorist at the beginning of the root: ẓarab-nā , “we did beat,” but na-ẓribu , “we beat or will beat.” From all this it will be easily understood that any e ential change in the written language must deeply affect the whole system of Arabic accidence, and that this language will, therefore, naturally be averse to such changes. But, moreover, this system stands in closest connection with and dependence on the syntactical structure of the language, which is equally “conservative,” if I may use this expre ion, in its fundamental principles. The Arabic syntax knows only two kinds of sentences ( jumlah ), one called nominal ( ismīyah ), because it begins with a noun, the other verbal ( fiʿlīyah ), because it begins with a verb. Reduced to their shortest expre ion, an example of the first would be: Zaidun ẓāribun ( زَيْدٌ ضَارِبٌ‎ ), “Zaid (is) beating”; of the second: ẓaraba zaidun ( ضَرَبَ زَيْدٌ‎ ), “(there) did beat Zaid.” The constituent parts of the nominal sentence, which we would call subject and predicate, are termed mubtadaʾ , “incipient,” and k͟habar , “report,” meaning that which is enounced or stated of the subject. The k͟habar need not be an attributive, as in the sentence given above, but it may be another clause, either nominal or verbal, and if it is the former, its own mubtadaʾ admits even of a third clause as a second k͟habar for its complement. The subject of the verbal sentence is called agent, or fāʿil , and, as mentioned before, follows the verb, fiʿl , in the nominative. The verb with its agent ( fiʿl and fāʿil ), or the subject with its predicate ( mubtadaʾ and k͟habar ), form the e ential elements of the Arabic sentence. But there are a great many accidental elements, called faẓlah , “what is superabundant or in exce ,” which may enter into the composition of a clause, and expand it to considerable length. Such are additional parts of speech expre ing the various objective relations ( mafʿūl ) in which a noun may stand to an active verb, or the condition ( ḥāl ) of the agent at the moment when the action occurred, or circumstances of time and place ( z̤arf ) accompanying the action, or specificative distinctions ( tamyīz ) in explanation of what may be vague in a noun, or the dependence of one noun upon another ( iẓāfah ) or upon a preposition ( k͟hafẓ ), or the different kinds of apposition ( tawābiʿ ) in which a noun may be joined to another, either in the subject or the predicate, and so on. All these numerous component parts of a fully-developed sentence are influenced by certain ruling principles ( ʿawāmil , or “regents”), some merely logical, but most of them expre ed in words and particles, which determine the iʿrāb , that is, the grammatical inflection of nouns and verbs, and bring into play those various vowel-changes, of which we have above given examples with regard to the interior of roots, and which, we must now add, apply equally to the terminations employed in declension and conjugation. The subject and predicate, for instance, of the nominal sentence stand originally, as it is natural, both in the nominative. There are, however, certain regents called nawāsik͟h , “effacing ones,” which, like the particle inn a , “behold,” change the nominative of the subject into the accusative, while others, like the verb kāna , “he was,” leave the subject unaltered, but place the predicate in the objective case: zaid-un ẓārib-un becomes thus either inn a zaid-an ẓārib-un , or kāna zaid-un ẓārib-an . Again, we have seen that the aorist proper of the third person singular terminates in u ( yaẓrib-u ). But under the influence of one cla of regents this vowel changes into a ( yaẓrib-a ); under that of others it is dropped altogether, and in both cases the meaning and grammatical status of the verb is thereby considerably modified. If we consider the large number of these governing parts of speech—a well-known book treats of the “hundred regents,” but other grammarians count a hundred and fifteen and more—it will be seen what delicate and careful handling the Arabic syntax requires, and how little scope there is left for the experiments of wilful innovators. At the time of Muḥammad this then was, apart from some slight dialectical differences, the spoken language of his people. He took it, so to say, from the mouth of his interlocutors, but, wielding it with the power of a master-mind, he made in the Qurʾān such a complete and perfect use of all its resources as to create a work that, in the estimation of his hearers, appeared worthy to be thought the word of God Himself. When a long period of conquests scattered the Arabs to the farthest East and to the farthest West, their spoken language might deviate from its pristine purity, slurring over unaccented syllables and dropping terminations. But the fine idiom of their fore-fathers, as deposited in the Qurʾān, remained the language of their prayer and their pious meditation, and thus lived on with them, as a bond of unity, an object of national love and admiration, and a source of literary development for all times. A Dictionary of Islam: Being a Cyclopædia of the Doctrines, Rites, Ceremonies, and Customs, Together with the Technical and Theological Terms, of the Muhammadan Religion AL -QURʾĀNU ʾL-ʿAZ̤ĪM ( القران العظيم‎ ). Lit . “The Exalted Reading.” A title given to the Introductory Chapter of the Qurʾān by Muhammad. ( Mishkāt , book viii. ch. i. pt. 1.) QURBĀN ( قربان‎ ), Lit . “Approaching near.” Heb. ‏ קָרְבָּן ‎ korbān . A term used in the Qurʾān and in the Traditions for a sacrifice or offering. Sūrah v. 30 : “Truly when they (Cain and Abel) offered an offering .” [ SACRIFICE .] QURBU ʾS-SĀʿAH ( قرب الساعة‎ ). “An hour which is near.” A term used for the Day of Resurrection and Judgment. QUST̤ANT̤ĪNĪYAH ( قسطنطينية‎ ). The word used in the Traditions and in Muḥammadan history for Constantinople. (See Ḥadīs̤u ʾt-Tirmiẕī .) Istambūl ( استمبول‎ ), is the word generally used by modern Muslims. QUT̤B ( قطب‎ ). Lit . “A stake, an axis, a pivot.” The highest stage of sanctity amongst Muslim saints. A higher position than that of g͟hauṣ . According to the Kashshāfu ʾl-Iṣt̤ilāḥāt , a qut̤b is one who has attained to that degree of sanctity which is a reflection of the heart of the Prophet himself. Qut̤bu ʾd-Dīn , “the axis of religion,” a title given to eminent Muslim divines. [ FAQIR .] A Dictionary of Islam: Being a Cyclopædia of the Doctrines, Rites, Ceremonies, and Customs, Together with the Technical and Theological Terms, of the Muhammadan Religion R AR -RABB ( الرب‎ ). “The Lord,” “The Sustainer,” “The Supporter.” A title frequently used in the Qurʾān for the Divine Being, e.g .:— Sūrah iii. 44 : “God ( Allāh ) is my Lord ( Rabb ) and your Lord ( Rabb ).” Sūrah xviii. 13 : “Our Lord ( Rabb ) is the Lord ( Rabb ) of the heavens and the earth.” From its frequent occurrence in the Qurʾān , it would seem to occupy the place of the Hebrew ‏יְהֹוָה‎ Jehovah, the Κύριος of the LXX., the Dominus of the Vulgate, and the Lord of the English Bible; but all Muslim writers say that whilst Allāh is the Ismu ʾẕ-Ẕāt , or “E ential name of God,” ar-Rabb , “the Lord,” is but an Ismu Ṣif ah , or attribute, of the Almighty. Al-Baiẓāwī, the commentator (p. 6, line 10, of Flügel’s edition), says, “ rabb , in its literal meaning, is ‘to bring up,’ that is, to bring or educate anything up to its perfect standard, by slow degrees, and inasmuch as the Almighty is He who can bring everything to perfection, the word الرب‎ ar-Rabb , is especially applied to God.” It is the Hebrew ‏רַב‎ Rab , which enters into the composition of many names of dignity and office in the Bible. In Muslim works of theology, the word occurs with the following combination:— | Rabbu ʾl-ʿIzzah | Lord of Glory. | | Rabbu ʾl-ʿĀlamīn | Lord of the Universe. | | Rabbu ʾl-Arbāb | Lord of Lords. | | Rabbu ʾl-ʿĪbād | Lord of (His) Servants. | The word is also used for a master or owner, e.g .:— | Rabbu ʾd-Dār | The Master of the house. | | Rabbu ʾl-Arẓ | A landowner. | | Rabbu ʾl-Māl | A po e or of property. | | Rabbu ʾs-Salaf | A person who pays in advance for an article. | RABBU ʾN-NAUʿ ( رب النوع‎ ). The “Lord of the Species.” An angel who is said to preside over the animate and inanimate creation, viz.: nabātāt , “vegetable”; ḥaiwānāt , “animal”; jamādāt , “inanimate” (stones, earth, .), called al-ʿālamu ʾs-suflī , “the lower creation,” as distinguished from al-ʿālamu ʾl-ʿulwī , “the heavenly world.” (See G͟hiyās̤u ʾl-Lug͟hah .) RABĪʿU ʾL-ĀK͟HIR ( ربيع الاخر‎ ). “The last spring month.” The fourth month of the Muḥammadan year. [ MONTHS .] RABĪʿU ʾL-AWWAL ( ربيع الاول‎ ). “The first spring month.” The third month of the Muḥammadan year. [ MONTHS .] In India, the word rabīʿ is used for spring harvest, or crop sown after the rains.