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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MARCH, 1903.
not improbable that what he had inscribed had already previously, on the occasion of Friday sermons, been delivered and perhaps also usually greatly amplified by him. What was once inscribed could not evanesce into naught. It permeated, one after another, all the strata of the fraternity. And we are enabled by it to comprehend the various moods in which the enthusiastic and the luke-warm believers received the appearance of a fresh revelation.
Súra 47, 22. The believers say, "Would that a Súra were sent down," but when * peremptory Súra is revealed in which war is enjoined, thoa seest the feeble of faith looking towards you as if death had already overtaken them.
Súra 9, 65. The waverers are afraid lest a Sára should be revealed against them, reflecting the thoughts of their hearts.
The motive of the earlier Súras was to affect the faithful in a religious way. In Medina this motive was superseded by unmixed secular aspirations. Many a Muslim was sensible, and painfully so, to the lack of the didactic element.
Súra 9, 125. When a Súra is revealed many believers say, "Which of you bas it confirmed in his faith?"
To which Muhammad replied somewhat thus:--It works on the genuine believers in different ways from vacillators, adding to the faith of the former, and to the infidelity of the latter. Notwithstanding the importance which attaches to the written Súras of Muhammad's mission, it were bold to assume that the dogmas orally inculoated did not pass for the Word of God. The system of Muhammadan tenets, as embodied in the written sections of the Qorán, can be constructed only by a combination of widely scattered and mutually dispersed reflections. It is not laid down in a compact shape on one page, which argues that they were written only as occasion required. Besides, it would seem that the Qordn does not repeat without gaps the entire teaching of Islam. To give one instance, the injunction of circumcision is nowhere mentioned. Finally, the high estimation in which the traditions, wbich presumably represent the Prophet's instructions delivered by word of mouth, are held, and which, from the times of the oldest Khalifas dowowards, are considered as religious law, indicates that oral and inscribed dogmas passed current almost without distinction As communications from God.' It may be imagined that once the bulk of the revelations were crystallized in definite wording, it was impossible to the Prophet to tamper them with alterations or erasures. And yet this has occurred often enough, as is conspicuous from the text itself of oar Qordn. No change, indeed, could have equalized the inequality of single Sections. Nor could it have wholly eliminated the peculiarity of the Qorán, which in a manner simultaneously exhibits flower and fruit. Bat where the gaps in the seams between two views, distant from each other in time, were too widely yawning, or where a second or subsequent thought had nsurped the place of a preceding imperfect one, a not always happy emendation was made, which we can trace to none other than Muhammad.
The commencement of this revision took place in the Meccan period. The Prophet had here sufficient temerity to simply expunge from his Suras antenable propositions and to substitute corrections instead. Thus he barked verses out of the Stras 53 and 21, which gave token of his inclination towards the ancient Arabian idol worship,
Both tradition and this present form of the verse confess the change. Nor can this have been solitary case. In exouse or justification of such procedure, which doubtless made his adherents
[In faot, the Sunna was held at the close of the first century and thereafter to be superior even to the Qordu : Al Buna Kadiya ala-l-Qoran sa layma al-Qor
Shune Kadiva ala-z-Qoran ida layaa al-Qoran biladin ala-l-Banna, i. &., the Sunna is the judge over the Zorin and not vice versa. Soo Goldsther's brilliant Entwicklung der Hadith, pp. 19-20, where authorities are quoted who advooste the abrogation of Qoranio commandmente in favour of principles ouporned by the Sunna Wa nasakha al Kitab bil-Sunna, etc.-TE.)
(For temporary compromise with Al-Hassa, Adat, and Manat, the most important heathen deities, and hi websequent emphatio roonntation, attributing the lapse to suggestion of Satan, seo Palmer, op. cit. XXV I.-TR.1
