Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/51

 KORAN" divided into 30 adjzds or parts, and 60 amis or sections, each of four portions. As Mo- hammed continued his revelations during 23 years amid many vicissitudes, there is often but little connection between the suras, or the verses of each sura. According to the various occasions on which they were delivered, some portions contain dogmas, others conversations with God, rules of conduct, arguments in de- fence of doctrines, threats and promises, &c. It is generally believed that Mohammed was wholly unacquainted with writing, and dicta- ted the passages of the Koran to amanuenses. The arrangement of the chapters and verses was made, according to the tradition of Ibn Abbas, during the lifetime of the prophet, and many Mohammedans believe that the other divisions were also made under his supervision. The style of the Koran is rather rhetorical than poetic, and its contents are to a large ex- tent drawn from the ancient traditions of the Arabs, the Hebrew Bible, the Christian New Testament, the Talmud and Midrash of the later Jews, the tenets of the Magi, and many apocryphal writings, the so-called protevange- lia. These materials, of course, suffered many changes and perversions. The Mohammedans believe that the revelations delivered to Mo- hammed from time to time were of two kinds : first, those wherein were given the words de- livered by the prophet ; and secondly, those in which was given the sense of what he after- ward communicated in his own words. Mo- hammed's revelation, according to the Koran, resulted from his being transported in a vis- ion from Mecca to Jerusalem, and* thence to heaven, where he " really beheld some of the greatest signs of his Lord." This is all that the Mohammedan is bound to believe concern- ing the revelation of the Koran ; but the Jiadi- ses, or traditions, which contain long and won- drous details of this vision, are also believed in by many ; and these consider Mohammed's journey to heaven as real, or as having been performed by the prophet in the body. These traditions are known as "the splitting or opening of the chest," and the "night jour- ney." Leaving the minor variations of the story unnoticed, the liadises narrate that on the night of the celestial journey the roof of Mo- hammed's house in the city of Mecca was sud- denly removed; the angel Gabriel descended and touched the heels of the prophet, who was lying on his back ; when he awoke, the angel cut open his breast to below his navel ; then a white animal, somewhat between a mule and an ass, called borak, was brought, and they rode to Jerusalem, where they performed cer- tain rites; they ascended thereupon through the heavens, meeting Adam in the first, Jesus and John in the second, Joseph in the third, Aaron in the fourth, Edres in the fifth, Moses in the sixth, and Abraham in the seventh; then they were taken up to the "boundary tree," and then to God, who "revealed to me what he revealed." After they had passed from that place a heavenly herald proclaimed aloud, " I have established my commandments and made them easy to my servants." The tra- dition related by Omar represents Mohammed as declaring that when he returned from the heavens he alighted in the house of Khadijah, his wife, so soon that she had not even turned herself from one side to the other. The tra- ditions that the Koran was brought down from heaven by the angel Gabriel, that it was writ- ten on the skin of the ram which Abraham sacrificed instead of his son Isaac, that it was bound in silk and ornamented with gold and pearls, and similar ones, are believed in by very few, and form no part of the Mohammedan religion. The compilation of the fragments of the Koran was not undertaken until after the death of Mohammed. Portions of it were scat- tered among his disciples, either written on parchment, bones, stones, and palm leaves, or merely committed to memory; and when in the ensuing contests with the rebellious people of Yemainah many of the Moslems were slain who knew large portions of the Koran by heart, it was feared that much of it might be lost, and Omar caused the caliph Abu Bekr to collect all he could. Said ibn Said was intrusted with this work, and the copy of his compilation re- mained in the possession of Abu Be"kr. At the death of the latter the Koran was handed to Omar, who bequeathed it to his daughter Hafsah, a widow of the prophet. The Mos- lems continued to read and recite their Koran as they could until about ten years later, when the caliph Othman employed the same Said ibn Said and several other Koreishites to write a number of copies of Hafsah's Koran, revising it, and making additions to it wherever need- ed. These copies were to constitute the final authority for the reading of the text, and in order to avoid all further disputes Othman ordered the destruction of all other copies ex- cept Hafsah's ; but hers was subsequently also destroyed by the caliph of Medina. While thus a great injury was inflicted upon theo- logical criticism* it was, politically speaking, a wise procedure to reduce the Koran, which had to serve also as a civil and criminal code, to a single reading. This revised text is the Koran which has descended to our day. Criti- cism has been greatly concerned in discovering wherein this last revision consisted. A care- ful reading of the present Koran shows that many passages are mere fragments, which were added without careful selection to other por- tions of it. It is not believed that the revisers excluded anything that belonged to the Koran except what was not sufficiently authenticated as forming a part of it. It is also not likely that they attempted a systematic arrangement of the suras, because each of them treats of a great number of subjects. A chronological or- der was also impossible, because accurate ac- counts of the older pieces were already want- ing, and also because fragments of different periods had already been placed in permanent