I am no more than man: when I order you anything with respect to religion, receive it, and when I order you about the affairs of the world then I am nothing more than man.
NOTES.
The Mekka Speeches.
I.—The Poetic Period.
The rhyming prose in which the Korān is written may be seen to best advantage in this earliest phase of Mohammad’s oratory, when the sentences are short and the rhythm more chantant than in the later speeches. “The Smiting” (p. [7]), will serve as a specimen of the sound of the original Arabic, as far as it can be represented in Roman characters:—
Bismi-llahi-r-rahmāni-r-rahīm
El-kāri'atu mā-l-kāri'ah
Wa-mā adrāka mā-l-kāri'ah
Yawma yekūnu-n-nāsu ke-l-farāsi-l-mabthūth