The word Koran signifies that which ought to be read, being derived from the verb karaa, to read. By native writers it is sometimes called al Forkán, a section or portion of Scripture, from faraka, to divide or distinguish. It is divided into one hundred and fourteen sections of very unequal length, which are called Surás. Some of these Surâs are supposed to have been revealed at Mecca, others at Medina. These Surâs are again divided into smaller portions or verses; the number of verses differ in the seven standard copies, or as we should say now, editions of the Koran. Of the two Medina copies the former contains 6,000 verses; one later 6,214; the copy at Mecca 6,219; that of Cufa 6,236; that of Syria 6,226; the common or vulgate copy 6,225 verses. In the copies the number of words is the same, viz., 77,639, and of the letters 323,015. In imitation of the ancient Jewish division of the Mishna into sixty portions, the whole of the Koran is cut up into sixty sections, which are again subdivided into four equal parts: there are copies for the use of the larger temples, which are divided into thirty parts, and bound into as many volumes, so that where there are thirty readers attached to a chapel, the whole of the Koran is read over every day. The Surâs seem to have their titles affixed to them arbitrarily, either from the word of note which they contain, or else from the prominent subject of the chapter. Among other excellences of Mr. Rodwell's edition, not the least is the placing of this prominent in capital letters, so that it at once meets the eye on looking over the Surâ. After the title is an invocation, "In the name of GOD the Compassionate, the Merciful." This is common to all the Surâs, except Surâ cxiii., and it is, doubtless, derived from a dedicatory formula in use amongst the Persian Magi. It is impossible to explain the chronological order in which Mr. Rodwell has arranged the Surâs, until we have glanced at those circumstances of Mohammed's life which bear upon the composition of the Koran. Having raised himself to affluence in Mecca, by a marriage with Khadijah, a rich and noble widow, he gradually elaborated a new scheme of religion, which may be called strictly elective. He was at no pains to acquire human learning for the furtherance of his cause, trusting to a far more fertile source of success, coining a series of drafts upon Divine revelation. The account of the origin of his wondrous drama is thus given by Sale. "Before he made any attempt abroad, he rightly judged that it was necessary for him to begin by the conversion of his own household. Having, therefore, retired with his family to the above-mentioned cave in Mount Hara, he there opened the secret of his mission to his wife Khadijah, and acquainted her that the angel Gabriel had just before appeared to him, and told him that he was appointed the Apostle of GOD. He also repeated to her a passage which he presented to her, being revealed to him by the ministry of the angel, with those other circumstances of this first appearance which are related by Mohammedan writers. Khadijah received the news with great joy, swearing by Him in whose hands her soul was, that she trusted he would be the prophet of his nation, and immediately communicated what she had heard to her cousin Warakah Ebn Nawfal, who, being a Christian, could write in the Hebrew character, and was tolerably well versed in the Scriptures; and he as readily came into her opinion, assuring her that the same angel who had formerly appeared unto Moses was now sent to Mohammed. This first overture the prophet made in the month of Ramadan, in the fortieth year of his age, which is therefore usually called the year of his mission." (Sale's Koran, Prelim. Disc. § ii.) The passage which is here alluded to forms the ninety-sixth Surâ in Sale's translation, who, however, says in a note, that its first five verses are generally allowed to have been the first passage of the Koran which was revealed. Mr. Rodwell has rightly placed this Surâ as the first in his book. We will give Sale's reading of the passage first; afterwards that of Mr. Rodwell. Read, in the name of the LORD, who hath created all things; who hath created man of congealed blood. Read by thy most beneficent LORD; who taught thee the use of the pen; who teacheth man, that which he knoweth not."-Sale, p. 490, ed. Daly, 1836. Rodwell translates "Recite thou, in the name of the LORD who created; Recite thou! for thy LORD is most beneficent, Hath taught man that which he knoweth not."-P. 1. the Surely a great accession is gained for the sense, by substituting for the "by thy most beneficent LORD" of Sale, the expression, " for thy LORD is the most beneficent." And again, of the exchange of recite for read, for the Surâs were intended for public recital. Mohammed soon effected the conversion of his own household to his scheme, and a few other persons of wealth and influence as well, amongst whom may be mentioned Abu-Bekr, one of the leaders among Koreish, with five others. He now began to make the matter more public, and collected forty of them, who, on their visit being repeated, were told by one of Mohammed's confederates, that he could offer them happiness both in this life and that which is to The relatives declined the new faith, a persecution arose between Mohammed and his followers at Mecca, and four of his followers were kindly received by the King of Ethiopia. After six years of slow proselytizing, Mohammed's uncle embraced Islamism and in the twelfth year of his mission, his wife and uncle being dead, Mohammed invented the story of his night journey come. from Mecca to Jerusalem, and thence to heaven. The seventeenth Surâ, according to the usual arrangement and the sixty-seventh of Rodwell, is entitled "The Night Journey." It begins thus Glory be to Him who carried His servant by night from the sacred temple of Mecca to the temple that is more remote, whose precinct we have blessed, that we might show him of our signs."-P. 190. Sale reads "The farther temple of Jerusalem, the circuit of which we have blessed."-P. 230. Rodwell to this adds the following note to the temple- "Of Jerusalem, and thence through the seven heavens to the throne of GOD, on the back of Borak, accompanied by Gabriel, according to some tradition; while others, and those too of early date, regard it as no more than a vision." Then the Prophet received pledges of fealty by night at Acaba, a mountain near Mecca. The command to migrate to Medina, and the escape from Mecca to the cave Thaur, thence to Medina; his dealings with the Christian tribes; his battles; his opposition from Jews and idolatrous Arabians; his embassy to Chosroes, King of Persia, and the Governor of Egypt, and to the King of Abyssinia; his conquest of some Jewish tribes; his pilgrimage, and his triumphal entries into Mecca; the submission of the Christians of Nedjran, and afterwards that of Hadramout, Yemen, and the greater part of the south-east of Arabia, are events which are more or less explicitly described in the Koran. Mr. Rodwell has well pointed out that the interpolation of the Surâs by "after thoughts," renders it very difficult to dissect them chronologically, added to which, he says, "The absence of the historical element from the Koran as regards the details of Mohammed's daily life may be judged of by the fact, that only two of his contemporaries are mentioned in the entire volume, and that Mohammed's name occurs but five times, although he is all the way through addressed by the angel Gabriel as the recipient of the divine revelations with the word 'Say.'"-Pref. p. xiii. What, then, was to guide an editor towards forming a more perfect chronological arrangement? No systematic arrangement of the Surâs can be found in the Arabic MSS. Abu Bekr simply collected the scattered Surâs of the Koran, after the Prophet's death, from date leaves and other fragments, they were grouped by the collector Zaid by placing the longest and best known Surâs first, and even this vague rule was not strictly adhered to. "It would seem as if Zaid had to a great extent put his materials together just as they came to hand, and often with an entire disregard to continuity of subject and uniformity of style."—Pref. viii. No gradual growth or development of plan in Mohammed's mind could thus be traced out. Mr. Rodwell's task of obtaining order out of this chaos was one of exceeding difficulty. He had to consult Mohammedan traditions upon the subject, to investigate most carefully the matter of each Surâ, and to see if it bore any comparison with known events in the Prophet's life; he acknowledges the value of Noldeke's researches upon this matter, and admits that these are based upon "a searching criticism and minute analysis of the verses of each." Mr. Rodwell also notices the contrast there is between the earlier, the middle, and the later Surâs, as indicating so many several phases in the Prophet's mind. According to Mr. Rodwell's arrangement, the earlier chapters of the Koran exhibit a preponderance of the poetical element, the beauty of natural objects is seized upon, and an impassioned tone runs through their entire composition-it is afterwards, when Mohammed became a "public warner," that "the Surâs began to assume a more prosaic and didactic tone," that "we gradually lose the poet in the missionary aiming to convert, the warm asserter of dogmatic truths:" a larger importation of both Jewish and Christian history finding its way into the Surâs of this date. Lastly, in the Medina Surâs, we see "the earnest disputant with the enemies of his faith, the Apostle pleading the cause of what he believes to be the truth of GOD." The admonisher and persuader has passed into the legislator and warrior-poetry has been exchanged for proseobedience is demanded in far more imperative tones than before. Mr. Rodwell's short summary of Mohammed is very interesting as coming not only from the pen of an orthodox priest of the Church of England, but also from one who has made both the life and writings of the Prophet his special study for some years back. "The Surâs viewed as a whole strike me as being the work of one who began his career as a thoughtful inquirer after truth and an earnest assertor 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."-Pref. p. xi. Sale more than confirms this lenient judgment of the recent translator of the Surâs. He says, for instance, "Mohammed was, no doubt, fully satisfied in his conscience of the truth of his grand point-the unity of GOD-which was what he chiefly attended to--all his other doctrines and institutions being rather accidental and unavoidable than premeditated and designed."-Prelim. Dis. § ii. Again, when writing about the perversions of Jewish and Christian history which occur in the Koran, Sale says that they were derived from the various apocryphal books which were then rife; and he continues,― "I am apt to believe that few or none of the relations and circumstances in the Koran were invented by Mohammed as is generally supposed, it being easy to trace the greater part of them much higher, as the rest might be, were more of those books extant, and it was worth while to make the inquiry."-Prelim. Dis. § iii. p. 48. When discussing the authorship of the Koran, Mr. Rodwell further exonerates Mohammed from the charge of imposture. He continues, "The evidence rather shows that in all he did and wrote, Muhammad was actuated by a sincere desire to deliver his countrymen from the grossness of its debasing idolatries,—that he was urged on by an intense desire to proclaim that great truth of the Unity of the Godhead which had taken full possession of his own soul-that the end to be attained justified to his mind the means he adopted in the production of his Surâs-that he worked himself up into a belief that he had received a divine call, and that he was carried on by the force of circumstances and by gradually increasing successes to believe himself the accredited messenger of heaven. The earnestness of those convictions which at Mecca sustained him under persecution, and which, perhaps, led him at any price, as it were, and by any means, not even excluding deceit and falsehood, to endeavour to rescue his countrymen from idolatry, naturally stiffened at Medina into tyranny and unscrupulous violence. At the same time, he was probably more or less throughout his whole career the victim of a certain amount of selfdeception."-Pref. p. xxii. Mohammed has found a very clever advocate in Mr. Rodwell, though it would almost transcend our notions of the proper limits of Christian charity to wish that as able a defender may be ready to speak a word in season to vindicate the memory of Edward Irving, or to show us just grounds for treating with respect at least the later prophecies of Emmanuel Swedenborg and Joe Smith. One great curse that seems ever to cling to imposture, is that from deceiving others a man becomes self-deceived; as he did to others, so is he literally done by. It remains still an open question as to the assistance which Mohammed had in writing the Koran, and the materials whence a large portion of it was derived. There is a curious intermixture in it of apocryphal Christianity and debased Judaism and Zendavestarian tenets. The Talmud and the Apocryphal Christian books clear up much in it which is obscure. Several of Mohammed's near relatives, as well as many other persons about him, were conversant with certain Oriental forms of Christianity. Some |