Page:Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje - Mohammedanism (1916).djvu/34

 Rh The arguments for this can hardly be weaker than those of Casanova against the authenticity of the Qorân. Here we may acknowledge the great power of what has been believed in all times, in all places, by all the members of the community ("quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est"). For, after the death of Mohammed there immediately arose a division which none of the leading personalities were able to escape, and the opponents spared each other no possible kind of insult, scorn, or calumny. The enemies of the first leaders of the community could have wished for no more powerful weapon for their attack than a well-founded accusation of falsifying the word of God. Yet this accusation was never brought against the first collectors of the scattered revelations; the only reproach that was made against them in connexion with this labour being that verses in which the Holy Family (Ali and Fatimah) were mentioned with honour, and which, therefore, would have served to support the claims of the Alids to the succession of Mohammed, were suppressed by them. This was maintained by the Shiʾites, who are unsurpassed in Islam as falsifiers of history; and the passages which, according to them, are omitted from the official Qorân would involve precisely an account of their reference to the succession, the mortality of Mohammed.

All sects and parties have the same text of the Qorân. This may have its errors and defects,