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JUNE, 1903.)
THE ORIGIN OF THE QORAN.
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thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thonsand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise .... but is long suffering to us-ward." Out of this the Qorán makes the following in 22, 43-46: He gives out that the contemporaries of Noah and Abraham and five other peoples had not believed in the promise of their respective Prophets as the unbelievers now did in his own case, and that, thereupon God hearing with them for a while visited them in his wrath. If the inhabitants of Mecca were not blind intellectually they could recognize God's chastisement in so many cities in ruins, blocked-up water-courses, and strongholds emptied of their inmates.
They, indeed, wish that the punishment descend with speed. But God cannot fail His promise; a day with Him is as long as a thousand years, as ye reckon them. (22, 46, 32, 4.)
Here Muhammad, has followed the argument of the Epistle almost to the letter, preserving, however, in the most important part the letter and not the sense. This instance is truly the most characteristic of the superficial manner in which, whoever it was, some authority of the Prophet or he himself, that has appropriated and repeated the text of the Epistle.
The earth stood out of water and in the water, says Peter. (Verse 5.) The closing verse of Súra 24 bas, "And God created all creatures out of the water." This thought is . more elaborately stated in 22, 5. It is not improbable that this foreign loan was borrowed from Peter.
Verse 13 gives expression to another striking thought of the Epistle: “We, according to His promise, look for new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."
It is not to be wondered, after what has been said above, if this thought too lared the Prophet into imitation. Bat Muhammad having kept to the self-same words, it turns out to have not been understood by him.
Think not that God will fail His promise to His Apostle (for God is Mighty and He is the Avenger). On the day that the earth changes into another earth, and the heavens too, man shall come forth to God, the One, the Powerful. (14, 48.)
Whilst obviously Peter looks upon the new creation as an improvement and a reform, Muhammad regards it as the annihilation of its former form with a view to invest the day of Jadgment with a conspicuous feature. And, indeed, he might have deviated from Peter's view on this account, that his Paradise, the dwelling of the blessed, he represents as neither similar to, nor any way connected with, heaven or earth.
The portion of the Qorán entitled "The Period of Grace" is essentially based on two fondamental principles, grace (rahma)30 and long suffering or forbearance (taul),31 These have been indicated as an evidence of the introduction of Christian dogmas in Muhammad's precepts. From what has been discussed above, we can infer that it was, above all, the Second Epistle of Peter, out of which these thoughts found their way into the Qorán.
3. The Future of Moslem Theocracy. Muhammad's religious system has no great claims to originality, nor to perfect unity. Iu its ultimate 'essence it is eclecticism, which, being not sufficiently resorted to in the structure of theocracy, often demolishes and builds over again the edifice of religious formulæ. Those who would understand Islam must seek to go back to the prime originals of his dogmas, and where there is a remarkable divergence between the exemplar and the imitation, must tackle the latter in the light, firstly, of the world which surrounded the Prophet, and, secondly, of the change of his residence. > See 45, 11; 45, 19, etc.
91 First mentioned in 40, 3.
