11 The Arabs are curious in and fond of honey: Mecca alone affords eight or nine varieties-green, white, red, and brown. Burton's Pilgr. iii. 110.
12 Ex. xx. 4.
13 The slave, and the dumb in verse following, are the idols.
14 See Sura [xcvii.] iii. 34, and n. 1, p. 114.
15 Gabriel.
16 This passage has been supposed to refer to Salman the Persian. He did not, however, embrace Islam till a much later period, at Medina. Nöld. p. 110. Mr. Muir thinks that it may refer to Suheib, son of Sinan, "the first fruits of Greece," as Muhammad styled him, who, while yet a boy, had been carried off by some Greeks as a slave, from Mesopotamia to Syria, brought by a party of the Beni Kalb, and sold to Abdallah ibn Jodda'ân of Mecca. He became rich, and embraced Islam. Dr. Sprenger thinks the person alluded to may have been Addas, a monk of Nineveh, who had settled at Mecca. Life of M. p. 79.
17 This is to be understood of the persecutions endured by the more humble and needy Muslims by their townspeople of Mecca.
18 From Mecca to Medina, i.e. the Mohadjers, to whom also verse 43 refers. Both passages, therefore, are of a later date than the rest of this Sura. Thus Nöldeke. Sprenger, however (Life, p. 159), explains this passage of the seven slaves purchased and manumitted by Abu Bekr. They had been tortured for professing Islam, shortly after Muhammad assumed the Prophetic office.
19 Mecca.
20 Lit. the garment.