The Speeches & Table-Talk of the Prophet Mohammad, Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah [speed reading book TXT] 📗

Three kinds: the “outstrippers,” the “people of the right hand,” and the “people of the left hand.” In the original the same word means “right hand” and “happiness,” or “good omen;” contrariwise, “left hand” and “misfortune.” Cp. the use of dexter and sinister. An instance of Mohammad’s practice of playing upon the different senses of a word.

The outstrippers, i.e. those who are the first to adopt the true religion—the prophets and apostles, who shall be rewarded by being allowed to stand nearest to God in the next world. The following fifteen lines describe their happy fate; after which, fourteen refer to the people of the right hand, or ordinary believers; and then seventeen lines to the people of the left hand, or damned.

P. 24. Zakkūm: A thorny tree with a bitter fruit, which grows up from the bottomless pit.

P. 26. Preserved Book.—Mohammad taught that every “revelation” in the Korān was but a transcript from the pages of a great book, known as the “Mother of the Book,” “preserved” under the throne of God. The sentence, Let none touch it but the purified, is commonly inscribed upon the cover of the Korān.

Those brought nearest, i.e. the outstrippers, or prophets.

P. 27. The Merciful.—Then which of the bounties, etc. A refrain or burden of this kind is rare in the Korān, and is in no other instance so often repeated. The twain are mankind and the jinn (or genii). “Jinn,” it may be remarked, is a plural, and the singular is “jinni” (a genius), for the masculine, and “jinnīyeh” for the feminine.

The two Easts. The rising-places of the sun in summer and winter; the two Wests, the corresponding setting-places.

P. 28. Two notables, or “weighty ones,” i.e. men and jinn.

P. 32. The Unity.—This profession of faith is held by Muslims to be equal in value to a third of the whole Korān.

P. 33. The Fātihah, or “Opening” chapter, so called because it is placed at the beginning of the authorised arrangement of the Korān. It is the Paternoster of Islam, and is repeated many times in the five daily prayers of the Muslims, and on every solemn occasion.

P. 39. The Kingdom. Say: i.e. God bids Mohammad say. It must never be forgotten that Mohammad is only supposed to recite what God wrote in the Preserved Book (see note to p. 26) before the world began.

P. 41. The Moon.—Sign, i.e. miracle, which Mohammad insistently declared his inability to work.

The Summoner: the archangel Isrāfīl.

Called it a lie, i.e. denied the doctrine of one God and of a Day of Judgment.

P. 42. Ad: an ancient Arab people, destroyed in prehistoric days. See Lane: Selections from the Kur-ān, 60-62.

Thamūd: another tribe, which experienced a similar fate. See Lane, ibid.

P. 45. K.—As to the meaning of this letter of the Arabic alphabet, which gives a title to this speech, in the words of the Muslim commentator, “God alone knoweth what He meaneth by it.”

A warner from among themselves. The Mekkans were offended that an angel was not sent to them as an apostle, instead of a mere man.

Marvellous thing: the Resurrection.

P. 46. The people of Tubba': the Himyarites of Arabia Felix.

A driver and a witness.—Two angels, who are supposed to carry on the ensuing colloquy with God.

P. 48. A tyrant.—Mohammad was sent to warn, not to compel the obedience and faith of his people.

P. 49. Y. S.—See note to K above, and to p. 87 below.

P. 50. Plain Exemplar: the Preserved Book, mentioned above (note to p. 26).

P. 51. Enter into Paradise: the people had stoned him to death.

P. 52. Her resting-place.—The sun is feminine in Arabic, and the moon masculine.

P. 55. Poetry.—It was a common charge against Mohammad that he was a mad poet.

P. 57. The Children of Israel, otherwise called The Night Journey, from the reference in the first verse to a dream in which Mohammad saw himself carried from the Kaaba (the Sacred Mosque) at Mekka, to the Temple (the Furthest Mosque) at Jerusalem; upon which Mohammadan theologians have raised a noble superstructure of fable. The first verse is probably later than the rest. The two sins and punishments of the Jews have also greatly exercised the commentators’ minds. What they were Mohammad probably did not very precisely know himself.

P. 60. The son of the road, i.e. the traveller.

P. 61. A just cause: apostacy, adultery, or murder.

P. 62. Daughters from among the angels.—The Arabs worshipped the angels and jinn as daughters of God; and it is against this polytheism and blasphemous relationship that Mohammad protests, whilst he never denies but contrariwise admits the existence of such spirits. Further on (p. 64) he refers to these angels and other Arabian divinities, as beings who are not to be invoked, since they can have no influence for good or ill, and who themselves are in hope and fear of God’s mercy and torment, like human beings. It should be noticed that hitherto Mohammad has directed his preaching against disbelief in the One God, but has not pointedly attacked the idolatry of the Mekkans. In Y. S., however, he begins to speak of other gods (p. 55), and in the Third or Argumentative Period, the angels and jinn which the Mekkans worshipped, and represented in the shape of idols, are frequently denounced, especially under the name of Partners (see pp. 76, 84, 90, 92, 93, 97, 98, 103, 106, etc.)

P. 65. The accursed tree: Zakkūm, see note to p. 24. The full Koranic history of Adam and Eve, and how Iblīs, the father of the devils, refused to do homage to the father of mankind, may be read in Lane’s Selections, pp. 49-52.

P. 67. Well-nigh tempted: referring apparently to an inclination of Mohammad to temporize with idolatry on a special occasion.

P. 68. The Spirit: Gabriel, the teacher of Mohammad, and the bearer of revelations from God to His prophet.

P. 71. Call upon God, or call upon the Merciful.—Mohammad’s use of two general names for God had apparently caused some confusion among the faithful, which this verse removed.

The “Children of Israel” speech is especially important, since it contains more definite regulations of conduct than any other of the orations delivered at Mekka.

P. 76. The Believer. Twice hast thou given us death, etc.—Referring to the absence of life before birth, and the deprivation of it at death, and to the being quickened at birth, and raised again after death.

P. 78. Their footprints, or vestiges: i.e. their buildings and public works.

Moses. For the Koranic history of the Israelites, see Lane’s Selections, pp. 97-131.

P. 84. I am bidden to resign myself: i.e. I am bidden to become a Muslim, for Muslim (Moslem or Musulman) means “one who is resigned,” and Islām, belonging to the same root, signifies “resignation,” or “self-surrender.” This is the correct name of the religion taught by the Arabian prophet, who would have regarded the epithet “Mohammadan,” as applied to the creed, or the professor thereof, as nothing short of blasphemy.

Jonah. P. 87. A. L. R.—Letters the import of which is as mysterious as K. and Y. S. before, and A. L. M. R. afterwards. Nöldeke believes them to be abbreviations of the names of the first reporters of the speeches.

P. 89. I had dwelt a lifetime: i.e. I should not have waited till I was forty before I began preaching, if I was the designing impostor you take me for.

P. 90. Ye are in ships—and they run with them.—The reader must have observed that sudden transitions from the second to the third person, and from the singular to the plural, are very common in the Korān. They may perhaps be regarded as convincing evidence of the fidelity of Mohammad’s reporters.

P. 97. God hath taken Him a son: referring to the Christian doctrine.

P. 100. Kibla: The point towards which prayer must be said. See p. 134.

P. 101. Now!—The angel Gabriel is credited with this taunt.

Thunder. P. 104. A. L. M. R.—Mystic letters as above; perhaps for AL-MogheyReh, as the first reporter of this particular speech.

P. 106. Patrons, i.e. Idols.

P. 108. Join what God hath bidden to be joined: i.e. believe in the whole series of prophets, and join good works to faith.

P. 111. Mother of the Book.—The Preserved Book mentioned before in The Fact (see note to p. 26).

Deception. P. 117. Obey God and obey the Apostle.—This is a sure indication of the Medina origin of at least this verse, for the self-importance of the phrase would have been inappropriate in Mohammad’s weak and insignificant position at Mekka. (The speech is, however, by some ascribed to the Mekka division.) Further on the words Believe in God and His Apostle (in Iron, p. 118), and They who swear fealty to thee do but swear fealty to God (in Victory, p. 125), indicate the same spirit of self-exaltation which began with the prophet’s prosperity at Medina.

Iron. P. 119. Manifest signs: the revelations contained in the Korān.

P. 122. It is written in the Book: i.e. Every event is set down in the Preserved Book before the event itself is created.

God is rich: i.e. He has no need of your grudging alms.

Victory. P. 124.—The victory in question was probably the peaceful but real triumph of the Truce of Hudeybia, in a.h. 6; though some commentators prefer to regard the speech as prophetical of the conquest of Mekka two years later.

P. 125. The Arabs of the desert who were left behind were certain tribes who held aloof from the pilgrimage towards Mekka, which ended in the Truce of Hudeybia. Mohammad punished them by refusing to allow them to share in the booty which soon after fell to the faithful in the Khaibar expedition; hence the reference on p. 126.

P. 128. In the valley of Mekka: referring to the Truce of Hudeybia. Kept you away from the Sacred Mosque: the Koreysh refused to allow Mohammad and his followers to enter Mekka or perform the pilgrimage; whereupon the truce was concluded, by which the pilgrimage was to take place (Ye shall surely enter the Sacred Mosque) in the following year (see Introduction, p. xlv.)

P. 129. Traces: i.e. dust from touching the ground.

P. 130. Help.—Revealed after the conquest of Mekka, and shortly before Mohammad’s death, and believed to have given him warning of it.

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