ntical with them, or the (false perception
of) silver being never found without the mother of pearl is identical
with it, so the objects of sense being never found without the organs
are identical with them, and the organs being never found without pragna
(self-consciousness) are identical with it."]

SELECTIONS FROM THE KORAN

Translation by George Sale

INTRODUCTION

The importance of the "Koran" lies in the fact that it is a religious
book of the East, read and stored in the memory of a hundred millions of
people of different races and civilizations, inhabiting countries
extending from the western borders of China to the pillars of Hercules.
It is considered by the Mohammedan to contain all the knowledge and all
the literature necessary for men. When it was demanded of Mohammed to
confirm the authority of his mission by some work of wonder, he pointed
to the "Koran," and exclaimed, "Behold the greatest miracle of all." The
learned men of Alexandria asked the Caliph Omar to give to them the vast
library at Alexandria. "If those books," he replied, "contain anything
which is contrary to the 'Koran' they deserve to be destroyed. If they
contain what is written in the 'Koran,' they are unnecessary." He
ordered them to be distributed among the baths of the city, to serve as
fuel for their furnaces.

The composition of the "Koran" is all the work of Mohammed. He himself
claimed that he spoke merely as the oracle of God. The commands and
injunctions are in the first person, as if spoken by the Divine Being.
The passionate enthusiasm and religious earnestness of the prophet are
plainly seen in these strange writings. Sometimes, however, he sinks
into the mere Arabian story-teller, whose object is the amusement of his
people. He is not a poet, but when he deals with the unity of God, with
the beneficence of the Divine Being, with the wonders of Nature, with
the beauty of resignation, he exhibits a glowing rhetoric, a power of
gorgeous imagery, of pathos, and religious devotion, that make the
"Koran" the first written work in the Arabian tongue.

If we take Mohammed's own account of the composition of the volume, we
must believe that the completed "Koran" existed from all eternity, on a
tablet preserved in the upper heavens. Once a year, during the period of
the prophet's active work, fragments of this tablet were brought down by
the angel Gabriel to the lower heavens of the moon, and imparted to the
prophet