an,
particularly in the earlier suras written at Mekka, has much
of the grandeur and poetry of style and the passionate
exaltation of a true prophet, the sincerity of whose zeal is
unquestioned.

_INTRODUCTORY_

The word "Koran," or "Quran,"[13] from a root _qara_ = to read, means
literally "what is to be read," _i.e._, the written authority on all
matters, religions, etc. It is the exact equivalent of the Rabbinical
Hebrew word "Miqra" (from the Hebrew _qara_ = to read). The idea
involved in both the Arabic and Hebrew words is that what is so
designated is the ultimate authority deciding all questions. The Rabbis
of post-Biblical times (compare the Jewish Qabbalah) regarded the Old
Testament as an encyclopaedia of universal knowledge. In the best-known
Muslim universities of modern times philosophy, science, and everything
else are taught from the Koran, which is made in some way to contain
implicitly the latest words of modern thought, invention, and discovery.

The Koran did not exist as a whole until after the Prophet
Muhammad's[14] death. It was then compiled by the order of Abu Bekr, the
first Sunnite Caliph. Its contents were found written on palm leaves
white stones, and other articles capable of being written on. The
compilers depended, to a large extent, upon the memory of the prophet's
first followers, but the Koran, as we now have it, existed without any
appreciable divergence by the end of the first year, after Muhammad's
death (A.D. 632).

This Muslim Bible has no scheme or plan because it is an almost
haphazard compilation of unconnected discourses, uttered on various
unexplained occasions, and dealing with many incidents and themes. There
is practically no editing, and no attempt is made to explain when, or
how, or why the various speeches were delivered.

The earliest native writers and commentators on the Koran arranged its
suras in two main classes: (1) Those uttered at Mekka before the flight
in A.D. 622; (2) those written at Medinah during the next ten years.

Most recent scholars follow the chronological arrangement proposed by
the great Orientalist Noeldeke in 1860. Friedrich Schwally in his newly
revised edition of Noeldeke's great work on the Koran follows his master
in almost every detail. Rodwell's translation of the Koran, recently
issued in "Everyman's Library," arranges the suras chronologically
according to Noeldeke's scheme. In the summaries that follow, it