“While, however, there is no great difficulty in ascertaining the Suras which stand in connection with the more salient features of Muhammad’s life, it is a much more arduous, and often impracticable, task, to point out the precise events to which individual verses refer, and out of which they sprung. It is quite possible that Muhammad himself, in a later period of his career, designedly mixed up later with earlier revelations in the same Suras—not for the sake of producing that mysterious style which seems so pleasing to the mind of those who value truth least when it is most clear and obvious—but for the purpose of softening down some of the earlier statements which represent the last hour and awful judgment as imminent; and thus leading his followers to continue still in the attitude of expectation, and to see in his later successes the truth of his earlier predictions. If after-thoughts of this kind are to be traced, and they will often strike the attentive reader, it then follows that the perplexed state of the text in individual Suras is to be considered as due to Muhammad himself, and we are furnished with a series of constant hints for attaining to chronological accuracy. And it may be remarked in passing, that a belief that the end of all things was at hand, may have tended to promote the earlier successes of Islam at Mecca, as it unquestionably was an argument with the Apostles, to flee from ‘the wrath to come.’ It must be borne in mind that the allusions to contemporary minor events, and to the local efforts made by the new religion to gain the ascendant are very few, and often couched in terms so vague and general, that we are forced to interpret the Koran solely by the Koran itself. And for this, the frequent repetitions of the same histories and the same sentiments, afford much facility: and the peculiar manner in which the details of each history are increased by fresh traits at each recurrence, enables us to trace their growth in the author’s mind, and to ascertain the manner in which a part of the Koran was composed. The absence of the historical element from the Koran as regards the details of Muhammad’s daily life, may be judged of by the fact, that only two of his contemporaries are mentioned in the entire volume, and that Muhammad’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 such passages as [Sura ii. 15] and [v. 246], and the constant mention of guidance, direction, wandering, may have been suggested by reminiscences of his mercantile journeys in his earlier years.”
Dr. Steingass, the learned compiler of the English-Arabic and Arabic-English Dictionaries (W. H. Allen & Co.), has obligingly recorded his opinion as follows:—
Invited to subjoin a few further remarks on the composition and style of the Qurʾān, in addition to the valuable and competent opinions contained in the above extracts, I can scarcely introduce them better than by quoting the striking words of Göthe, which Mr. Rodwell places by way of motto on the reverse of the title page of his Translation. These words seem to me so much the more weighty and worthy of attention, as they are uttered by one who, whatever his merits or demerits in other respects may be deemed to be, indisputably belongs to the greatest masters of language of all times, and stands foremost as a leader of modern thought and the intellectual culture of modern times. Speaking of the Qurʾān in his West-Oestlicher Divan, he says: “However often we turn to it, at first disgusting us each time afresh, it soon attracts, astounds, and in the end enforces our reverence.… Its style, in accordance with its contents and aim, is stern, grand, terrible—ever and anon truly sublime.… Thus this book will go on exercising through all ages a most potent influence.”
A work, then, which calls forth so powerful and seemingly incompatible emotions, even in the distant reader—distant as to time, and still more so as to mental development—a work which not only conquers the repugnance with which he may begin its perusal, but changes this adverse feeling into astonishment and admiration, such a work must be a wonderful production of the human mind indeed, and a problem of the highest interest to every thoughtful observer of the destinies of mankind. Much has been said in the preceding pages, to acknowledge, to appreciate, and to explain the literary excellencies of the Qurʾān, and a more or less distinct admission that Buffon’s much-quoted saying: “Le style c’est l’homme,” is here more justified than ever, underlies all these various verdicts. We may well say the Qurʾān is one of the grandest books ever written, because it faithfully reflects the character and life of one of the greatest men that ever breathed. “Sincerity,” writes Carlyle, “sincerity, in all senses, seems to me the merit of the Koran.” This same sincerity, this ardour and earnestness in the search for truth, this never-flagging perseverance in trying to impress it, when partly found, again and again upon his unwilling hearers, appears to me as the real and undeniable “seal of prophecy” in Muḥammad.
Truth, and above all religious truth, can only be one. Christianity may duly rejoice in the thought that, at the very moment when the representative of the greatest Empire of the ancient world mockingly or despairingly put forth the question, “What is truth?” this one eternal truth was about to be written down with the blood of the Divine Redeemer in the salvation deed of our race, Christ’s glorious and holy Gospel. But the approaches to truth are many, and he who devoted all his powers and energies, with untiring patience and self-denial, to the task of leading a whole nation by one of these approaches, from a coarse and effete idolatry, to the worship of the living God, has certainly a strong claim to our warmest sympathies as a faithful servant and noble champion of truth.
It is, however, not my intention to dwell here any longer upon this side of the question. Praise has been bestowed in this work on the Qurʾān and its author without stint or grudge, and the unanimity of so many distinguished voices in this respect will no doubt impress the general reader in favour of the sacred book of the Muḥammadans, which until now he may have known only by name. At the same time, it will be noticed that no less unanimity prevails in pointing out the inferiority of the later portions of the Qurʾān in comparison with the earlier Sūrahs; a falling off, as it were, from the original poetical grandeur and loftiness of its composition into prose and common-place. Göthe, we have seen, uses such a strong word as disgust, again and again experienced by him at the very outset of its repeated reading.
Not being an Arabic scholar himself, he knew the Qurʾān only through the translations existing at the time, which follow throughout the order of the received text. Thus he was made to pass, roughly speaking, from the later to the earlier Madīnah Sūrahs, and from these again to the Sūrahs given at Makkah at the various stages which mark Muḥammad’s ministry, while he was yet staying in his irresponsive parent town. In other words, he would have proceeded from the utterances of the worldly ruler and lawgiver to those of the inspired Divine, who had just succeeded in laying the foundation-stones of a new religion, under fierce struggles and sufferings, but in obedience to a call which, in his innermost heart, he felt had gone out to him, and which he had accepted with awe, humility, and resignation. While, therefore, in the beginning of his studies, Göthe may have met with a number of details in the vast structure raised by Muḥammad which appeared distasteful to the refined scion of the nineteenth century, his interest must have been awakened, his admiration kindled and kept increasing, the more he became acquainted, through the work itself, with the nature and personality of its creator, and with the purity and exalted character of the main-spring of his motives.
Those critics, on the other hand, who view the Qurʾān with regard to the chronological order of its constituents, follow the descending scale in their estimate. Speaking at first highly—nay, frequently with enthusiasm—of the earlier parts, they complain more and more of the growing tediousness and wearisomeness of the Sūrahs of later origin.
Nöldeke, for instance, the learned and ingenious author of Geschichte des Qorâns, speaking of the deficiencies in style, language, and treatment of the subject matter, which, in his opinion, characterise the second and third period of the Makkan revelations, and in general the Madīnah Sūrahs, pointedly terminates his indictment by the sentence, “if it were not for the exquisite flexibility and vigour (die ungemeine Feinheit und Kraft) of the Arabic language itself, which, however, is to be attributed more to the age in which the author lived than to his individuality, it would scarcely be bearable to read the later portions of the Qurʾān a second time.”