Page:EB1911 - Volume 15.djvu/934

Rh him, they have to bring the very same charges against their opponents, who on their part behave exactly as the unbelieving inhabitants of Mecca. The Koran even goes so far as to make Noah contend against the worship of certain false gods, mentioned by name, who were worshipped by the Arabs of Mahomet’s time. In an address which is put in the mouth of Abraham (xxvi. 75 sqq.), the reader quite forgets that it is Abraham, and not Mahomet (or God himself), who is speaking. Other narratives are intended rather for amusement, although they are always well seasoned with edifying phrases. It is no wonder that the godless Korrishites thought these stories of the Koran not nearly so entertaining as those of Rostam and Ispandiār, related by Naḍr the son of Ḥārith, who had learned in the course of his trade journeys on the Euphrates the heroic mythology of the Persians. But the Prophet was so exasperated by this rivalry that when Naḍr fell into his power after the battle of Badr, he caused him to be executed; although in all other cases he readily pardoned his fellow-countrymen.

These histories are chiefly about Scripture characters, especially those of the Old Testament. But the deviations from the Biblical narratives are very marked. Many of the alterations are found in the legendary anecdotes of the Jewish Haggada and the New Testament

Apocrypha; but many more are due perhaps to misconceptions such as only a listener (not the reader of a book) could fall into. One would suppose that the most ignorant Jew could never have mistaken Haman, the minister of Ahasuerus, for the minister of Pharaoh, as happens in the Koran, or identified Miriam, the sister of Moses, with Mary (= Mariām), the mother of Christ. So long, however, as we have no closer acquaintance with Arab Judaism and Christianity, we must always reckon with the possibility that many of these mistakes were due to adherents of these religions who were his authorities, or were a naïve reproduction of versions already widely accepted by his contemporaries. In addition to his misconceptions there are sundry capricious alterations, some of them very grotesque, due to Mahomet himself. For instance, in his ignorance of everything out of Arabia, he makes the fertility of Egypt—where rain is almost never seen and never missed—depend on rain instead of the inundations of the Nile (xii. 49).

It is uncertain whether his account of Alexander was borrowed from Jews or Christians, since the romance of Alexander belonged to the stereotyped literature of that age. The description of Alexander as “the Horned” in the Koran is, however, in accordance with the result of recent researches, to be traced to a Syrian legend dating from 514–515 (Th. Nöldeke, “Beiträge zur Gesch. des Alexanderromanes” in Denkschriften Akad. Wien, vol. xxxviii. No. 5, p. 27, &c.). According to this, God caused horns to grow on Alexander’s head to enable him to overthrow all things. This detail of the legend is ultimately traceable, as Hottinger long ago supposed, to the numerous coins on which Alexander is represented with the ram’s horns of Ammon. Besides Jewish and Christian histories there are a few about old Arabian prophets. In these he seems to have handled his materials even more freely than in the others.

The opinion has already been expressed that Mahomet did not make use of written sources. Coincidences and divergences alike can always be accounted for by oral communications from Jews who knew a little and Christians who knew next to nothing. Even in the rare passages where we can trace direct resemblances to the text of the Old Testament (cf. xxi. 105 with Ps. xxxvii. 29; i. 5 with Ps. xxvii. 11) or the New (cf. vii. 48 with Luke xvi. 24; xlvi. 19 with Luke xvi. 25), there is nothing more than might readily have been picked up in conversation with any Jew or Christian. In Medina, where he had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with Jews of some culture, he learned some things out of the Mishna, e.g. v. 35 corresponds almost word for word with Mishna Sanhedrin iv. 5; compare also ii. 183 with Mishna Berak’hoth i. 2. That these are only cases of oral communication will be admitted by any one with the slightest knowledge of the circumstances. Otherwise we might even conclude that Mahomet had studied the Talmud; e.g. the regulation as to ablution by rubbing with sand, where water cannot be obtained (iv. 46), corresponds to a talmudic ordinance (Berak’hoth 15 a). Of Christianity he can have been able to learn very little, even in Medina; as may be seen from the absurd travesty of the institution of the Eucharist in v. 112 sqq. For the rest, it is highly improbable that before the Koran any real literary production—anything that could be strictly called a book—existed in the Arabic language.

In point of style and artistic effect, the different parts of the Koran are of very unequal value. An unprejudiced and critical reader will certainly find very few passages where his aesthetic susceptibilities are thoroughly satisfied. But he will often be struck, especially in the older pieces,

by a wild force of passion, and a vigorous, if not rich, imagination. Descriptions of heaven and hell, and allusions to God’s working in Nature, not unfrequently show a certain amount of poetic power. In other places also the style is sometimes lively and impressive; though it is rarely indeed that we come across such strains of touching simplicity as in the middle of xciii. The greater part of the Koran is decidedly prosaic; much of it indeed is stiff in style. Of course, with such a variety of material, we cannot expect every part to be equally vivacious, or imaginative, or poetic. A decree about the right of inheritance, or a point of ritual, must necessarily be expressed in prose, if it is to be intelligible. No one complains of the civil laws in Exodus or the sacrificial ritual in Leviticus, because they want the fire of Isaiah or the tenderness of Deuteronomy. But Mahomet’s mistake consists in persistent and slavish adherence to the semi-poetic form which he had at first adopted in accordance with his own taste and that of his hearers. For instance, he employs rhyme in dealing with the most prosaic subjects, and thus produces the disagreeable effect of incongruity between style and matter. It has to be considered, however, that many of those sermonizing pieces which are so tedious to us, especially when we read two or three in succession (perhaps in a very inadequate translation), must have had a quite different effect when recited under the burning sky and on the barren soil of Mecca. There, thoughts about God’s greatness and man’s duty, which are familiar to us from childhood, were all new to the hearers—it is hearers we have to think of in the first instance, not readers—to whom, at the same time, every allusion had a meaning which often escapes our notice. When Mahomet spoke of the goodness of the Lord in creating the clouds, and bringing them across the cheerless desert, and pouring them out on the earth to restore its rich vegetation, that must have been a picture of thrilling interest to the Arabs, who are accustomed to see from three to five years elapse before a copious shower comes to clothe the wilderness once more with luxuriant pastures. It requires an effort for us, under our clouded skies, to realize in some degree the intensity of that impression.

The fact that scraps of poetical phraseology are specially numerous in the earlier sūras, enables us to understand why the prosaic mercantile community of Mecca regarded their eccentric townsman as a “poet,” or even a “possessed poet.” Mahomet himself had to

disclaim such titles, because he felt himself to be a divinely inspired prophet; but we too, from our standpoint, shall fully acquit him of poetic genius. Like many other predominantly religious characters, he had no appreciation of poetic beauty; and if we may believe one anecdote related of him, at a time when every one made verses, he affected ignorance of the most elementary rules of prosody. Hence the style of the Koran is not poetical but rhetorical; and the powerful effect which some portions produce on us is gained by rhetorical means. Accordingly the sacred book has not even the artistic form of poetry; which, among the Arabs, includes a stringent metre, as well as rhyme. The Koran is never metrical, and only a few exceptionally