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THE QUR'ÂN.
style. The arrangement of the Surahs in chronological order, too, though a help to the student, destroys the miscellaneous character of the book, as used by the Muslims, and as Mohammed's successors left it.
In my rendering I have, for the most part, kept to the interpretation of the Arabic commentator Bâidhâvi, and have only followed my own opinion in certain cases where a word or expression, quite familiar to me from my experience of every-day desert life, appeared to be somewhat strained by these learned schoolmen. Chapter XXII, ver. 64, is an instance in which a more simple rendering would be preferable, though I have only ventured to suggest it in a note?
I am fully sensible of the shortcomings of my own version, but if I have succeeded in my endeavour to set before the reader plainly what the Qur'ân is, and what it contains, my aim will have been accomplished.
E. H. PALMER. St. John's COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
March, 1880.
i See Part II, p. 63, note.
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