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MARCH, 1908.]
ORIGIN OF THE QORAN.
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. well-arranged collection. The Saras were indeed before him completely written, but, to follow the tradition, not in a uniform manner, some were on parchment, some on palm-leaves, a few on shoulder-blades.
Still we need not perhaps imagine that they were quite inscribed after such a primitive fashion; and some sort of method must have been observed as they were recited. We can infer the latter with tolerable probability from the alphabetical symbols affixed to the several Súras. It is well nigh certain that they served as seals to mark groups of co-ordinate Súras. All Súras are, however, not so distinguished, which show that all were not so arranged. Taken as a whole it was not requisite that the Súras should have a conclusion, for till shortly before Muhammad's decease the fount of revelations continued to usher something or other new into light. Hence, to be as it is in its present sense, the Qorán was devoid of a fixed sequence one after another of its Súrás, next it lacked redaction of its text on a consistent principle; two seemingly unimportant features, but which, as time wore on, became indispensable for the unalloyed perpetuation of the collection and its practical employment as a code of the genuine dogmas. The Khalifa Abu Bakr supplied the first deficiency, the Khalifa Othmân the second : that is the meaning of the two so-called redactions.
Zaid bin Thabit, the chief authority for the detailed circumstances touching the writing of the Qorán, reports (Itkdn, I. 60): We (i. e,, he and another scribe) used to put together (Arabic, allafa) the fragments of the Qoran. That is to say, they put or strung together the separate revelations into Suras e procedure which can still be easily recognized in the long Medina chapters. When the same Zaid says (Itkán, I. 60): “When the Prophet died, the Qorán was not yet combined or put together"; the verb jamaa here used can only signify the combining of individual Siras into a whole. The Itkán accordingly very properly decides : "The Qordwas committed to writing even during the life-time of the Prophet, but was not yet unitedly put together as a whole in any single place, nor arranged (murattab) with reference to the order of the Saras."
As for the import of the symbols placed at the head of the Stras, various conjectures have been hazarded, both by native scholars and European investigators. We may leave out of account the Eastern glossators, since all probability is against them. Of European savants, Nöldeke in his Geschichte des Qoráns (p. 215, seq.) was of opinion that these letters did not originate with Muhammad, but were the marks by which the possessors of the copies used by Zaid had designated their own property-in & word, monograms." In the Orientalischen Skissen (p. 50, seq.) he replaces this theory by another, and aocording to which the characterizations are to be traced to the Prophet, who intended them to impart to his recitals a mysterious solemnity without bearing any special sense. I cannot concur in the view that Muhammad strove after effect in such strange fashion. It is probable that he employed these signs to mark out the groups of chapters, which were to stand together, thus introducing some sort of order in the sequence of the Súras. And, in fact, as a rule, the Súras, with a like symbol, are placed in a continuous series, ench, for instance, are Sáras 10 to 15 bearing the distinguishing letters ae-l-r, Súras 26 to 28 t-s-m, and Stras 40 to 46 h-m. We perceive an example of exception or irregularity in two groups, Stras 2-8 and 29-82, both with as-l-m, which stand asander. The oversight probably lies at the door of Zaid. The critical Suyati” cannot refrain from surmising that it was Muhammad from whom the notations emanated (Ithan, I. 67). It is beyond our knowledge altogether whether the letters represent abbreviations of any names or ideas." While these “seals” are always reckoned as part of the text of the chapters, the superscriptions or headings are regarded as later accretions. Nevertheless some of them at least might well date from Mohammad's day, e.g., the Chapter of the Heifer,
11 [See also, anto, Vol. XXX. p. 519. -Ed.)
13 [One of the most prolifo writors of Islam. Wüstenfold (Die Geschichtschreiber der Araber, 506, gives more details of his interesting to than Brockelmann permita himself in his History of Arabic Literature.-TE.]
1 (Still Dr. Hirschfeld's ondestour to explain the cyphers is worthy of study. -T.]
