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CHAPTER C.

INTITLED, THE WAR-HORSES WHICH RUN SWIFTLY: WHERE IT WAS REVEALED IS DISPUTED.

IN THE NAME OF THE MOST MERCIFUL GOD.

By the war-horses which run swiftly to the battle, with a panting noise and by those which strike fire, by dashing their hoofs against the stones and by those which make a sudden incursion on the enemy early in the morning, and therein raise the dust, and therein pass through the midst of the adverse troops: verily man is ungrateful unto his LORD;* and he is witness thereof and he is immoderate in the love of worldly good. Doth he not know, therefore, when that which is in the graves shall be taken forth, and that which is in men's breasts shall be brought to light, that their LORD will, on that day, be fully informed concerning them?

CHAPTER CI.

INTITLED, THE STRIKING; REVEALED AT MECCA.

THE striking!

IN THE NAME OF THE MOST MERCIFUL GOD.

What is the striking? And what shall make thee to understand how terrible the striking will be? On that day men shall be like moths scattered abroad,† and the mountains shall become like carded wool of various colours driven by the wind. Moreover he whose balance shall be heavy with good works, shall lead a pleasing life; but as to him whose balance shall be light, his dwelling shall be the pit of hell. What shall make thee to understand how frightful the pit of hell is? burning fire.

It is a

"Some will have it that not horses, but the camels which went to the battle of Bedr, are meant in this passage. Others interpret all the parts of the oath of the human soul;" but their explications seem a little forced, and therefore I choose to omit them.

"By those who in the morning are exercised in running; who make the dust fly ander their rapid feet; who pass through the hostile battalions; verily man is ungrateful unto the Lord."—Savary.

"This is one of the names or epithets given to the last day, because it will strike the hearts of all creatures with terror.1

"Day of calamities! Terrible day! Who is able to depict it unto thee? In that day men shall be like unto scattered locusts."-Savary.

• The original word Hâwiyat is the name of the lowest dungeon of hell, and probably signifies a deep pit or gulf.

"Who shall give unto thee an idea of the abyss? It is the most devouring of fires." Savary

Yahya, ex trad. Ali Ebn Abi Taleb.

* Al Beidâwi. 'Al Beidâwi, Jalla.o'ddin.

CHAPTER CII.

INTITLED, THE EMULOUS DESIRE OF MULTIPLYING; WHERE IT WAS REVEALED IS DISPUTED.*

IN THE NAME OF THE MOST MERCIFUL GOD.

THE emulous desire of multiplying riches and children employeth you; until ye visit the graves. By no means should ye thus employ your time : hereafter shall ye know your folly. Again, By no means: hereafter shall ye know your folly. By no means: if ye knew the consequence hereof with certainty of knowledge, ye would not act thus. Verily ye shall see hell: again, ye shall surely see it with the eye of certainty. Then shall ye bo examined, on that day, concerning the pleasures with which ye have amusea yourselves in this life.†

CHAPTER CIII.

INTITLED, THE AFTERNOON; REVEALED AT MECCA.

IN THE NAME OF THE MOST MERCIFUL GOD.

By the afternoon; verily man employeik himself in that which will prove of loss: except those who believe, and do that which is right; and who mutually recommend the truth, and mutually recommend perseverance unto each other.

The believer who shall read this chapter (say the Mohammedan expositors) shall be rewarded as if he had read a thousand verses of the Korân, and God shall not demand of him an account of the benefits which he has received in this life.)—Savary.

Pi. e. Until ye die. According to the exposition of some commentators, the words should be rendered thus: The contending or vying in numbers wholly employeth you, so that ye visit even the graves, to number the dead: to explain which, they relate that there was a great dispute and contention between the descendants of Abd Menâf and the descendants of Sahm, which of the two families were the more numerous; and it being found, on cal. culation, that the children of Abd Menâf exceeded those of Sahm, the Sahmites said that their numbers had been much diminished by wars in the time of ignorance, and insisted that the dead, as well as the living, should be taken into the account; and by this way of reckoning they were found to be more than the descendants of Abd Menâf.

"The care of heaping up occupieth you until ye descend into the tomb! Alas, one day ye will know! Alas! I repeat it to you, your eyes will one day be opened. Ah! if ye but certainly knew! Ye will see the gulfs of hell; ye will see them opened! Then must ye give an account of your pleasures."-Savary.

(He who shall read this chapter shall experience the indulgence of the LORD, and shall be reckoned in the number of the faithful who have made truth and patience a law to themselves.)-Savary.

Or the time from the sun's declination to his setting; which is one of the five appointed times of prayer. The original word also signifies, The age or time in general.

⚫ Al Zamakh., al Beidâwi, Jallalo'ddin.

CHAPTER CIV.

INTITLED, THE SLANDERER; REVEALED AT MECCA.

IN THE NAME OF THE MOST MERCIFUL GOD.

Wor unto every slanderer, and backbiter: who heape .h up riches, and prepareth the same for the time to come! He thinketh that his riches will render him immortal. By no means. He shall surely be cast into Al Hotama. And who shall cause thee to understand what al Hotama is? It is the kindled fire of GOD; which shall mount above the hearts of those who shall be cast therein. Verily it shall be as an arched vault above

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them on columns of vast extent.

CHAPTER CV.

INTITLED, THE ELEPHANT; REVEALED AT MECCA.

IN THE NAME OF THE MOST MERCIFUL GOD.

HAST thou not seen how thy LORD dealt with the masters of the ele phant? Did he not make their treacherous design an occasion of drawing

This passage is said to have been revealed against al Aknas Ebn Shoreik, or al Walîd Ebn al Mogheira, or Omeyya Ebn Khalf, who were all guilty of slandering others, and especially the prophet.❜

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Al Hotama is one of the names of hell, or the name of one of its apartments; which is so called because it will break in pieces whatever shall be thrown into it.

' And therefore shall not be extinguished by any."

This chapter relates to the following piece of history, which is famous among the Arabs. Abraha Ebn al Sabâh, surnamed al Ashram, i. e. the Slit-nosed, king or viceroy of Yaman, who was an Ethiopian, and of the Christian religion, having built a magnificent church at Sanaa, with a design to draw the Arabs to go in pilgrimage thither, instead of visiting the temple of Mecca, the Koreish, observing the devotion and concourse of the pilgrims at the Caaba began considerably to diminish, sent one Nofail, as he is named by some, of the tribe of Kenanah, who, getting into the aforesaid church by night, defiled the altar and walls thereof with his excrements. At this profanation Abraha being highly incensed, vowed the destruction of the Caaba, and accordingly set out against Mecca at the head of a considerable army, wherein were several elephants, which he had obtained of the king of Ethiopia, their number being, as some say, thirteen, though others mention but one. The Meccans, at the approach of so considerable a host, retired to the neighDouring mountains, being unable to defend their city or temple: but God himself under.ook the protection of both. For when Abraha drew near to Mecca, and would have entered it, the elephant on which he rode, which was a very large one, and named Mahmûd, refused to advance any nigher to the town, but knelt down whenever they endeavoured to force him that way, though he would rise and march briskly enough if they turned him towards any other quarter: and while matters were in this posture, on a sudden a large flock of birds, like swallows, came flying from the sea-coast, every one of which carried three stones, one in each foot, and one in its bill; and these stones they threw down upon the heads of Abraha's men, certainly killing every one they struck. Then GoD sent a flood, which swept the dead bodies, and some of those who had not been struck with the stones, into the sea: the rest fled towards Yaman, but perished by ine way; none of them reaching Sanaa, except only Abraha himself, who died soon after his arrival there, being struck with a sort of plague or putrefaction, so that his body 'A

Al Zamakh., al Beidâwi, Jallalo'ddin.
Beidâwi.
See the Prelim. Disc. pp. 7, 8.

See Prelim. Disc. sect. iv. p. 65.

them to error; * and send against tm flocks of birds, which cast down upou them stones of baked clay; and render them like the leaves of corn eaten by cattle?t

opened, and his limbs rotted off by piece-meal. It is said that one of Abraha's army, named Abu Yacsûm, escaped over the Red Sea into Ethiopia, and going directly to the king, told him the tragical story; and upon that prince's asking him what sort of birds they were, that had occasioned such a destruction, the man pointed to one of them, which had followed him all the way, and was at that time hovering directly over his head, when immediately the bird let fall the stone, and struck him dead at the king's feet.'

This remarkable defeat of Abraha happened in the very year Mohammed was born, and as this chapter was revealed before the Hejra, and within fifty-four years, at least, after it came to pass, when several persons, who could have detected the lie, had Mohammed forged this story out of his own head, were alive, it seems as if there was really something extraordinary in the matter, which might, by adding some circumstances, have been worked up into a miracle to his hands. Marracci judges the whole to be either a fable, or else a feat of some evil spirits, of which he gives a parallel instance, as he thinks, in the strange defeat of Brennus, when he was marching to attack the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Dr. Prideaux directly charges Mohammed with coining this miracle, notwithstanding he might have been so easily disproved, and supposes, without any foundation, that this chapter might not have been published till Othman's edition of the Korân,' which was many years after, when all might be dead who could remember any thing of the above-mentioned war. But Mohammed had no occasion to coin such a miracle himself, to gain the temple of Mecca any greater veneration: the Meccans were but too supersti. tiously fond of it, and obliged him, against his inclinations and original design, to make it the chief place of his new-invented worship. I cannot, however, but observe Dr. Prideaux's partiality on this occasion, compared with the favourable reception he gives to the story of the miraculous overthrow of Brennus and his army, which he concludes in the following words: "Thus was GoD pleased in a very extraordinary manner to execute his vengeance upon those sacrilegious wretches for the sake of religion in general, how false and idolatrous soever that particular religion was, for which that temple at Delphos was erected." If it be answered, that the Gauls believed the religion, to the devotions of which that temple was consecrated, to be true, (though that be not certain) and there. fore it was an impiety in them to offer violence to it, whereas Abraha acknowledged not the holiness of the Caaba, or the worship there practised; I reply, That the doctor, on occasion of Cambyses being killed by a wound he accidently received in the same part of the body where he had before mortally wounded the Apis, or bull worshipped by the Egyptians, whose religion and worship that prince most certainly believed to be false and superstitious, makes the same reflection: The Egyptians," says he, "reckoned this as an especial judgment from heaven upon him for that fact, and perchance they were not much out in it for it seldom happening in an affront given to any mode of worhip, how erroneous soever it may be, but that religion is in general wounded hereby, there are many instances in history, wherein God hath very signally punished the profanations of religion in the worst of times, and under the worst modes of heathen idolatry."

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* “Did he not turn their perfidiousness to their own ruin ?"—Savary.

These stones were of the same kind with those by which the Sodomites were detroyed, and were no bigger than vetches, though they fell with such force as to pierce the helmet and the man through, passing out at his fundament. It is said also that on each stone was written the name of him who was to be slain by it.

+"The perfidious were rendered like the leaves of the harvest which hath been reaped." -Savary.

'Al Zamakh., al Beidâwi, Jallalo'ddin, Abulf. Hist. Gen. &c. 5. 61, &c. and D'Herbel. Bibl. Orient. Art. Abrahah.

See Prid. Connection, part. II. book 1, p. 25, and the authors he Prelim. Disc. sect. iii.

in the place above cited.

Prid. Life of Moh. pp. 63, 64.
Ibid. part. I. book 3, p. 173.

See Prid. Life of Moh. Refut. in Alcor. p. 823. there quoted. 1 See Prid. Connection

See chap. 11, p. 184

CHAPTER CVI.

INTITLED, KOREISH; REVEALED AT MECCA.

IN THE NAME OF THE MOST MERCIFUL GOD.

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FOR the uniting of the tribe of Koreish; their uniting in sending forth the caravan of merchants and purveyors in winter and summer;* let them serve the LORD of this house; who supplieth them with food against hun ger, and hath rendered them secure from fear."

CHAPTER CVII.

intitled, NECESSARIES; WHERE IT WAS REVEALED 18 DISPUTED.t

IN THE NAME OF THE MOST MERCIFUL GOD.

WHAT thinkest thou of him who denieth the future judgment as a false hood? It is he who pusheth away the orphan; and stirreth not up

▾ Some connect these words with the following, and suppose the natural order to be Let them serve the Lord of this house, for the uniting, &c. Others connect them with the preceding chapter, and take the meaning to be, that God had so destroyed the army of Abraha for the uniting of the Koreish, &c. And this last opinion is confirmed by one copy, mentioned by al Beidâwi, wherein this and the preceding make but one chapter. It may not be amiss to observe, that the tribe of Koreish, the most noble among all the Arabians, and of which was Mohammed himself, were the posterity of Fehr, surnamed Koreish, the son of Malec, the son of al Nadr, who was descended in a right line from Ismael. Some writers say that al Nadr bore the surname of Koreish, but the more received opinion is, that it was his grandson Fehr, who was so called because of his intrepid boldness, the word being a diminutive of Karsh, which is the name of a sea-monster, very strong and daring; though there be other reasons given for its imposition."

* It was Hâshem, the great-grandfather of Mohammed, who first appointed the two yearly caravans, here mentioned;' one of which set out in the winter for Yaman, and the other in summer for Syria.

'It importeth the safety of commerce during the winter and the summer."-Savary. By means of the aforesaid caravans of purveyors; or, Who supplied them with food in time of famine, which those of Mecca had suffered."

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By delivering them from Abraha and his troops; or, by making the territory of Mecca a place of security.

↑ "God, saith Zamakhshari, will blot out the sins of the believer who shall read this chapter, provided that he have been punctual in obeying the precept of alms."-Savary.

The person here intended, according to some, was Abu Jahl, who turned away an orphan, to whom he was guardian, and who came to him naked, and asked for some relief out of his own money. Some say it was Abu Sofian, who having killed a camel, when an orphan begged a piece of the flesh, beat him away with his staff; and others think it was al Walid Ebn al Mogheira, &c.

Vide Gagnier, Vie de Mohammed, tom. 1, pp. 44, 46. Al Zamakh., Jallalo'ddin al Beidâwi. fidem.

See the Prelim. Disc. p. 3

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