Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 115 CHAPTER IV. THE " FBEE-THINKEBS." A.d. 632—850. In "Islam under the Arabs," I have described the character attributed to the Koran by Muhammadan divines in the following passage:—" According to Muhammadan divines, the Koran is in itself the greatest of all miracles. In most cases, they say, miracles have not occurred at one and the same time with the revelations committed to the Prophet. They have been intended to confirm and bear witness to the revelations, and have in consequence been subsequent to the Divine message. But the Koran is a miracle and revelation in one." "It is otherwise with regard to the Pentateuch, the Evangel, and other Divine books; they are revelations received under the form of ideas. When the writers of these books returned from the ecstatic state to the normal human condition, they clothed the revelations they had received in their own language. And, consequently, in the style of these books there is nothing miraculous. But not so in the case of the Koran. The actual text of the Korancame to the Prophet through the ear, as is shown by the following, among other passages :— ' Move not thy tongue in haste to follow and master this revelation; For we will see to the collecting and the recital of it; But when we have recited it, then follow thon the recital, And verily afterwards it shall be ours to make it clear to thee.' Sura Ixxv. 16—19. " These verses were communicated to the Prophet to quiet the anxiety he manifested to fix by constant repetition the words of the Koran in his memory. There are many other like passages which clearly show that the Koran was made known to the Prophet under the form of a reading delivered in a high voice; and thus every line of the Koran is a miraculous revelation of Divine eloquence surpass... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.