III, 4): "God hath not made your adopted sons as your own
sons."

Sir W. Muir gravely mistakes in his remarks when he says:--

"The marriage caused much obloquy, and to save his reputation,
Mahomet had the impious effrontery to sanction it by special
Revelation from on high, in which the Almighty is represented as
formally recording a divine warrant for the union."[373]

He quotes verse 36, Sura XXXIII. But he has himself admitted (Vol. III,
page 229 footnote) "that this verse is rather in a recitative style of a
past event," and not a divine command to marry Zeinab. The words "we
joined thee in marriage unto her" in the verse do not mean a command for
marriage. They simply mean that the marriage had taken place. The phrase
"we joined thee in marriage unto her" is a mere form of expression.
Almost all human actions are attributed to God in the Koran, and
whatever occurs in the world by the ordinary course of nature, and by
the free agency of men, is referred in the Koran to the immediate agency
of God.

[Sidenote: A wrong translation of Sir W. Muir.]

22. In the next verse--"There is no offence chargeable to the Prophet in
that which God hath enjoined upon him"--he wrongly translates _Faraza_
as enjoined, and thus conveys an idea of a divine command. _Faraza_
means he made (a thing) lawful or allowable. [See Lane's Arabic
Dictionary, Bk. I, Pt. VI, page 2373.] In giving the above meaning Mr.
Lane quotes this very verse.[374] Such unions were made lawful not only
to Mohammad, but for all the Moslems, and there was nothing partaking of
a special prerogative for him. No special sanction is conveyed by these
verses. No special revelation from on high was brought forward to secure
his own object or to give him an exceptional privilege. It was merely
said that no blame attached to the Prophet for doing what was lawful.

The word "_Amr_," translated "command" and "behest," in XXXIII, 37 and
38, by Sir W. Muir and others, in fact means here and in other similar
passage (XIX, 21; IV, 50; XI, 76; and VIII, 43, 46),--God's
foreknowledge of future contingencies and not a legal command. The same
is the case with the word "_Qadr_" in XXXIII, 38, as well as in XV, 60,
and LXXIII, 20, which means God's prescience and not a predestinated
decree.

[Sidenote: In Zeinab's case no exceptional privilege was secured.]

23. In conclusion, Sir W. Muir remarks:--

"Our only matter of wonder is that the Revelati