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is inimitable, it must, therefore, be the work of God. So long as Muslim writers do not take the trouble to put their religion on a sound philosophical basis, so long would the Qur'an continue to be a butt of ridicule and contempt for the philosopher. People, certainly, do not turn to religious scriptures to study poetry, or the art of elegant diction. Moreover, the Qur'an is not free from literary defects, even though its rhyming be unsurpassed. Carlyle thus expresses himself as to its literary merit:
"A wearisome confused jumble, crude, incondite; endless iterations, long-windedness, entanglement; most crude, incondite ;-insupportable stupidity, in short! Nothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through the Qur'an."-Hero and Hero Worship, Lecture II.
RECONCILIATION.
The beauty of the jingling rhyme of Al Qur'an, thus, is more than sufficiently counterbalanced by its poor literary merit and lack of philosophical exposition. It seems to us that Muslim writers make a great mistake in laying too much stress on the literary merit of their Book, since that only goes to divert the attention from the question of practical worth, provokes the spirit of fault-finding in the reader, and ends by bringing into prominence matters which had best be left out of discussion. If our friends would seriously think over the matter, the challenge to compose anything like unto a single verse of the Qur'an, which, for reasons best known to the Prophet, was made, later on, in respect of ten verses, and at times, also, with respect to a whole chapter, would be found to be not one made to the whole world and for all times, but one meant only for those to whom it was made. The Arabs were well-known for
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