Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 6.djvu/86

ⅼⅹⅹⅹ style. The arrangement of the Sûrahs in chronological order, too, though a help to the student, destroys the miscellaneous character of the book, as used by the Muslims, and as Mohammed's successors left it.

In my rendering I have, for the most part, kept to the interpretation of the Arabic commentator Bâidhâvî, and have only followed my own opinion in certain cases where a word or expression, quite familiar to me from my experience of every-day desert life, appeared to be somewhat strained by these learned schoolmen. Chapter ⅩⅫ, ver. 64, is an instance in which a more simple rendering would be preferable, though I have only ventured to suggest it in a note.

I am fully sensible of the shortcomings of my own version, but if I have succeeded in my endeavour to set before the reader plainly what the Qurʼân is, and what it contains, my aim will have been accomplished.

E. H. PALMER.

 March, 1880.