Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/13

 Wahl's Translation of the Quran, and an intimate acquaintance with Judaism and its writings, A transcript from Baidhwi's Commentary on the Qura'n on some passages in the second and third Surahs, which Professor Freytag made for himself and which he with his usual kindness allowed me to use, was the only help outside the Quran. I had thus the advantage of having an unbiased mind ; not, on the one hand, seeing the passages through the. spectacles of the Arabian commentators, nor on the other finding in the Quran the 'views of the Arabian dogmatists, and the narratives of their historians. I had besides the pleasure of finding out independently many obscure allusions, and explaining them correctly, as I afterwards learned from Arabic writings. In this form, my work received the prize, and only after that had been gained was I able to collect more materials, and to use them for the remodeling of the work in German. To these belong especially the valuable Prodromi and Comments of Maraccius in his edition of the Quran, the Commentary of Baidhawi on the 10th Surah (in Henzei's Fragmenta Arabica), and two parts of an excellent unpublished Commentary by Elpherar which begins with the 7th Surah and was bought by the famous Seetzen at Cairo in 1807, and is now in the library at Grotha, whence I received it through the kind mediation of Professor Freytag at the expense of the University Library at Bonn. To these may be added Abulfedae Annales Maslemitici and Historia Anteislamica, the works of Pococke, D'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orientale, and many other works which will be found quoted in the book itself. All observations drawn from writings to which I first obtained access while the work was in the press are given in an Appendix. The advantages of a three-fold register, viz., of the explained Arabic and Rabbinical words, of the cited passages of the Quran, and of quotations from other Arabic authors (with' the exception of the