Historical Statements of the Koran [pp. 195-230]

Historical Statements of the Koran.
could say, Did not Moses tell your fathers that a prophet
should rise up in the latter days, greater than all before him?
I am he. Do you doubt it? Here is a revelation just received from Gabriel. Do not all your sacred books predict
the coming of a great deliverer, a conqueror, a king? I am
he. In a few months you shall see me at the head of a thousand tribes going forth to the conquest of the world. If this
was the ground really taken at first, how striking must have
been the seeming confirmation of these bold pretensions,
when Mohammed and his successors had in fact subjected, not
Arabia only, but Greece, Persia, Syria, and Egypt.
To the objection of the Christians, that the line of prophets
was long since completed, he could answer, Did not Jesus
come to abrogate or modify the law, when its provisions were
no longer suited to the state of things? Even so come I, to
supersede the Gospel-not to discredit, but to render it unnecessary, by a more extensive and authoritative doctrine. So
far from being antichrist (as some no doubt objected) I am the
very Comforter whom Jesus promised.
That such sophistry might easily have undermined the
faith of renegadoes and half-pagan Christians, is certainly
conceivable. Whether this was in fact the course adopted in
the infancy of Islam, will admit a doubt. Be that as it may,
it is certain, that the impostor considered it expedient to incorporate the leading facts of sacred history into his revelation, so far as they were known to him. That his knowledge
of the subject was imperfect, need not excite our wonder.
The sources which probably supplied his information, could
scarcely be expected to emit a purer stream than that which
irrigates the pages of the Perspicuous Book.
Sale's Koran is a very common book, and has passed
through a surprising number of editions, considering its character. The text is, however, of necessity so dull, that nobody can read it patiently for fifteen minutes, without taking
refuge in the more amusing matter of the notes and preface.
Were there any continuity, connexion, consistency, or unity
to be discovered in it, this would be of less importance. But
in such a jumble of discordant elements, it is hard to get
any information by just reading on in course. Remote parts
must be brought together, and arranged, in order to enucleate
the mysteries of Islam; a task which most would look upon
as vastly disproportioned to the value of the object. And
yet it is important that the Koran should be better understood.
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