“The Suras, viewed as a whole, will thus appear to be the work of one who began his career as a thoughtful inquirer after truth, and as an earnest asserter of it in such rhetorical and poetical forms as he deemed most likely to win and attract his countrymen, but who gradually proceeded from the dogmatic teacher to the political founder of a system for which laws and regulations had to be provided as occasions arose. And of all the Suras, it must be remarked that they were intended not only for readers but for hearers—that they were all promulgated by public recital—and that much was left, as the imperfect sentences show, to the manner and suggestive action of the reciter.” (Rodwell’s Preface to the Qurʾān.)
The absence of the historical element from the Qurʾān, as regards the details of Muḥammad’s daily life, may be judged of by the fact that only two of his contemporaries (Abū Lahab and Zaid) are mentioned in the entire volume, and that Muḥammad’s name occurs but five times, although he is all the way through addressed by the angel Gabriel as the recipient of the divine revelations, with the word “Say.” Perhaps also such passages as [Sūrah ii]., verses 5, 246, and 274, and the constant mention of guidance, direction, wandering, may have been suggested by reminiscences of his mercantile journeys in his earlier years.
Sir William Muir has very skilfully arranged the Sūrahs into six periods. (See Corân, S.P.C.K. ed.), and although they are not precisely in the chronological order given by Jalālu ʾd-Dīn in his Itqān, the arrangement seems to be fully borne out by internal evidence. With the assistance of Prof. Palmer’s “Table of Contents” slightly altered (The Qurʾān, Oxford ed. 1880), we shall arrange the contents of the Qurʾān according to these periods.
THE FIRST PERIOD.
Eighteen Sūrahs, consisting of short rhapsodies, may have been composed by Muḥammad before he conceived the idea of a divine mission, none of which are in the form of a message from the Deity.
Chapter CIII.
Sūratu ʾl-ʿAṣr.
The Chapter of the Afternoon.
A short chapter of one verse as follows:—
“By the afternoon! Verily, man is in loss! Save those who believe and do right and bid each other be true, and bid each other be patient.”