"Thou who seest us unto thyself shalt say,'Soon upon me comes the season of decay.'Can the solid mountains evermore sustainTime's vicissitudes and all they bring in train?Many a traveller lighted near us and abode,Quaffing wine wherein the purest water flowed—Strainers on each flagon's mouth to clear the wine,Noble steeds that paw the earth in trappings fine!For a while they lived in lap of luxury,Fearing no misfortune, dallying lazily.Then, behold, Time swept them all, like chaff, away:Thus it is men fall to whirling Time a prey.Thus it is Time keeps the bravest and the bestNight and day still plunged in Pleasure's fatal quest."

It is said that the recitation of these verses induced Nu‘mán al-Akbar, one of the mythical pagan kings of Ḥíra, to accept Christianity and become an anchorite. Although the story involves an absurd anachronism, it is ben trovatoin so far as it records the impression which the graver sort of Christian poetry was likely to make on heathen minds.

The courts of Ḥíra and Ghassán were well known to the wandering minstrels of the time before Muḥammad, who flocked thither in eager search of patronage and remuneration. We may be sure that men like Nábigha, Labíd, and A‘shá did not remain unaffected by the culture around them, even if it seldom entered very deeply into their lives. That considerable traces of religious feeling are to be found in Pre-islamic poetry admits of no denial, but the passages in question were formerly explained as due to interpolation. This view no longer prevails. Thanks mainly to the arguments of Von Pre-Islamic poetry not exclusively pagan in sentiment. Kremer, Sir Charles Lyall, and Wellhausen, it has come to be recognised (1) that in many cases the above-mentioned religious feeling is not Islamic in tone; (2) that the passages in which it occurs are not of Islamic origin; and (3) that it is the natural and necessary result of the widely spread, though on the whole superficial, influence of Judaism, and especially of Christianity.269 It shows itself not only in frequent allusions, e.g., to the monk in his solitary cell, whose lamp serves to light belated travellers on their way, and in more significant references, such as that of Zuhayr already quoted, to the Heavenly Book in which evil actions are enscrolled for the Day of Reckoning, but also in the tendency to moralise, to look within, to meditate on death, and to value the life of the individual rather than the continued existence of the family. These things are not characteristic of old Arabian poetry, but the fact that they do appear at times is quite in accord with the other facts which have been stated, and justifies the conclusion that during the sixth century religion and culture were imperceptibly extending their sphere of influence in Arabia, leavening the pagan masses, and gradually preparing the way for Islam.

CHAPTER IV

THE PROPHET AND THE KORAN

With the appearance of Muḥammad the almost impenetrable veil thrown over the preceding age is suddenly lifted and we find ourselves on the solid ground of historical tradition. In order that the reasons for this change may be understood, it is necessary to give some account of the principal sources from which our knowledge of the Prophet's life and teaching is derived.

There is first, of course, the Koran,270 consisting "exclusively Sources of information: I. The Koran. of the revelations or commands which Muḥammad professed, from time to time, to receive through Gabriel as a message direct from God; and which, under an alleged Divine direction, he delivered to those about him. At the time of pretended inspiration, or shortly after, each passage was recited by Muḥammad before the Companions or followers who happened to be present, and was generally committed to writing by some one amongst them upon palm-leaves, leather, stones, or such other rude material as conveniently came to hand. These Divine messages continued throughout the three-and-twenty years of his prophetical life, so that the last portion did not appear till the year of his death. The canon was then closed; but the contents were never, during the Prophet's lifetime, systematically arranged, or even collected together."271 They were preserved, however, in fragmentary copies and, especially, by oral How it was preserved. recitation until the sanguinary wars which followed Muḥammad's death had greatly diminished the number of those who could repeat them by heart. Accordingly, after the battle of Yamáma (633 a.d.) ‘Umar b. al-Khaṭṭáb came to Abú Bakr, who was then Caliph, and said: "I fear that slaughter may wax hot among the Reciters on other battle-fields, and that much of the Koran may be lost; so in my opinion it should be collected without delay." Abú Bakr agreed, and entrusted the task to Zayd b. Thábit, one of the Prophet's amanuenses, who collected the fragments with great difficulty "from bits of parchment, thin white stones, leafless palm-branches, and the bosoms of men." The manuscript thus compiled was deposited with Abú Bakr during the remainder of his life, then with ‘Umar, on whose death it passed to his daughter Ḥafṣa. Afterwards, in the Caliphate of ‘Uthmán, Ḥudhayfa b. al-Yamán, observing that the Koran as read in Syria was seriously at variance with the text current in ‘Iráq, warned the Caliph to interfere, lest the Sacred Book of the Moslems should become a subject of dispute, like the Jewish and Christian scriptures. In the year 651 a.d. ‘Uthmán ordered Zayd b. Thábit to prepare a Revised Version with the assistance of three Qurayshites, saying to the latter, "If ye differ from Zayd regarding any word of the Koran, write it in the dialect of Quraysh; for it was revealed in their dialect."272 This has ever since remained the final and standard recension of the Koran. "Transcripts were multiplied and forwarded to the chief cities in the empire, and all previously existing copies were, by the Caliph's command, committed to the flames."273 In the text as it has come down to us the various readings are few and unimportant, and its genuineness is above suspicion. We shall see, Value of the Koran as an authority. moreover, that the Koran is an exceedingly human document, reflecting every phase of Muḥammad's personality and standing in close relation to the outward events of his life, so that here we have materials of unique and incontestable authority for tracing the origin and early development of Islam—such materials as do not exist in the case of Buddhism or Christianity or any other ancient religion. Unfortunately the arrangement of the Koran can only be described as chaotic. No chronological sequence is observed in the order of the Súras (chapters), which is determined simply by their length, the longest being placed first.274 Again, the chapters themselves are sometimes made up of disconnected fragments having nothing in common except the rhyme; whence it is often impossible to discover the original context of the words actually spoken by the Prophet, the occasion on which they were revealed, or the period to which they belong. In these circumstances the Koran must be supplemented by reference to our second main source of information, namely, Tradition.

Already in the last years of Muḥammad's life (writes Dr. Sprenger) it was a pious custom that when two Moslems met, 2. Tradition (Ḥadíth). one should ask for news ( ḥadíth) and the other should relate a saying or anecdote of the Prophet. After his death this custom continued, and the name Ḥadíthwas still applied to sayings and stories which were no longer new.275 In the course of time an elaborate system of Tradition was built up, as the Koran—originally the sole criterion by which Moslems were guided alike in the greatest and smallest matters of public and private interest—was found insufficient for the complicated needs of a rapidly extending empire. Appeal was made to the sayings and practice ( sunna) of Muḥammad, which now acquired "the force of law and some of the authority of inspiration." The Prophet had no Boswell, but almost as soon as he began to preach he was a marked man whose obiter dictacould not fail to be treasured by his Companions, and whose actions were attentively watched. Thus, during the first century of Islam there was a multitude of living witnesses from whom traditions were collected, committed to memory, and orally handed down. Every tradition consists of two parts: the text ( matn) and the authority ( sanad, or isnád), e.g., the relater says, "I was told by A, who was informed by B, who had it from C, that the Prophet (God bless him!) and Abú Bakr and ‘Umar used to General collections. open prayer with the words 'Praise to God, the Lord of all creatures.'" Written records and compilations were comparatively rare in the early period. Ibn Isḥáq (õ 768 a.d.) composed the oldest extant Biography of the Prophet, which we do not possess, however, in its original shape Biographies of Muḥammad. but only in the recension of Ibn Hishám (õ 833 a.d.). Two important and excellent works of the same kind are the Kitábu ’l-Maghází('Book of the Wars') by Wáqidí (õ 822 a.d.) and the Kitábu ’l-Ṭabaqát al-Kabír('The Great Book of the Classes,' i.e., the different classes of Muḥammad's Companions and those who came after them) by Ibn Sa‘d (õ 844 a.d.). Of miscellaneous traditions intended to serve the Faithful as a model and rule of life in every particular, and arranged in chapters according to the subject-matter, the most ancient and authoritative collections are those of Bukhárí (õ 870 a.d.) and Muslim (õ 874 a.d.), both of which bear the same title, viz., al-Ṣaḥíḥ, 'The Genuine.' It only remains to speak of Commentaries on the Koran. Some passages were explained by Muḥammad himself, but the real founder of Koranic Exegesis was ‘Abdulláh b. ‘Abbás, the Prophet's cousin. Although the writings of the early interpreters have entirely perished, the gist of their researches is Commentaries on the Koran. embodied in the great commentary of Ṭabarí (õ 922 a.d.), a man of encyclopædic learning who absorbed the whole mass of tradition existing in his time. Subsequent commentaries are largely based on this colossal work, which has recently been published at Cairo in thirty volumes. That of Zamakhsharí (õ 1143 a.d.), which is entitled the Kashsháf, and that of Bayḍáwí (õ 1286 a.d.) are the best known and most highly esteemed in the Muḥammadan East. A work of wider scope is the Itqánof Suyúṭí (õ 1505 a.d.), which takes a general survey of the Koranic sciences, and may be regarded as an introduction to the critical study of the Koran.