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

Historical Statements of the Koran.
The reader will have observed, amidst the fiction and ob scurity of these details, not a-few glimpses of the truth from
which they were derived. We find the case the same as we
pursue the narrative. The very next step brings us to a
lamentable travesty of Genesis, xv. 7-12. "Abraham said,
Lord show me how thou wilt raise the dead. Dost thou not
believe? He said, yes, but that my mind may be at ease.
He said, take then four birds, and divide them, and place a'
piece on every mountain. Then call them and they will
come to thee in haste; and know that God is mighty and
merciful. "
The visit of the angels is related with laudable accuracy as
to some particulars, and woful want of it in others. The object of their coming and the mode of their reception, are correctly stated. But the laughter of Sarah is made to precede
the promise of a son.t This slight anachronism has occasioned an incredible deal of pains to the Mohammedan conimentators who, we need not say, are very numerous, volumnious, minute, and silly. They have attempted in vain to account for Sarah's laughter, and theground of its connexion with
the promise which ensued. The son thus promised is correctly stated to have been called Isaac;t and yet that patriarch
is treated, both by the Koran and the commentators, as a very
obscuire and unimportant personage. He is only mentioned
incidentally, and then but briefly. Ishmael~ is constantly
brought forward as the leading character. The reason of
this is plain. It was intended to exhibit his descendants, instead of the Jews, as the chosen people. The only wonder
is, that he was not made the child of promise. We mention
it as an instance iof the clumsy manner in which Mohammed put his stuff together.
The account of the incidents immediately preceding the
awful overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, so far as it goes, is
tolerably accurate. Abraham's intercession, and the outrageous conduct of the wretched Sodomites, are stated briefly
but distinctly. On reaching the catastrophe, the reader is
surprised to learn that it was effected by a storm of brickbats! Sale gives it thus, "And when our command came, we
* ii. 259. t xi. 71. f Is-hak. ~ Ismail.
jj It may have been because the etymology of Isaac's name would
suggest the same idea to an Arab as a Jew, viz. laughter.
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