[PDF]The Historical Development of the Quran (Canon Sell)

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF


THE QURAN
REV. CANON SELL


THIRD EDITION


MADRAS
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
1909


THE


HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
OF THE QUR'AN


BY
THE REV. CANON SELL, D.D., M.RB.A.S.
FELLOW OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MADRAS


AUTHOR OF ‘THE FAITH OF ISLAM,’ ‘THE RELIGIOUS
ORDERS OF ISLAM,’ ‘ESSAYS ON ISLAM,’ ‘ISLAM.
ITS RISH AND PROGRESS’


THIRD EDITION


SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
LONDON: NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.


NEW YORK EDWIN 8 GORHAM
MADRAS: 8. P. C. K. DEPOSITORY


1909


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CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION . ; ; ‘ ‘ ‘ ;


CHAPTER I
THE MECCAN PERIOD


Tho first revelation—Indifference of the Quraish—
The political factor—Tersecution of the Mus-
lams—Denunciation of opponents—Theory of
inspiration—Absence of Muracles—Scepticism
of the Quraish—Joys of Pairadise—Influence of
Khadijah—Description of Hell—The Prophet
as Warner—HEmigration to Abyssinia—al-Lét
and al-‘Uzz4—Idolatry reproved—Hostility of
the Quraish—Opposition to former Prophets—
Reproof of the Quraish—Claim to inspiration
—Denial of forgery—Uniqueness of the Qur’én
—Jews, Christians and Sablans—Relation to
Judaism—Tales of the Ancients—Visit to Ta’1f
—Visitors from Madina—The men of Madina
—First pledge of ‘Aqiba—The M1‘r4j—Second
pledge of ‘Aqaba—Departure to Madina—The
prospect in Madina , :


CHAPTER II
THE MADINA PERIOD
The entry into Madina—The Jews—Opposition of the


Vl11 CONTENTS


PaGE


Jews—Accusation against the Jews—Islam the
only true religion—Jews charged with hypocripy
and with corruption of the Scnptures—Obedi-
ence to the Bible enjommed—Qur’dn the safeguard
of previous Scriptures—Change of the Qubla
—Breach with Judaism—Sanction given to the
Hajj—Persecution and massacre of the Jews—
Warhke expeditions—Battle and Victory of
Badr—Battle of Uhud—Defeat of Uhud—Hope-
fulness of the Prophet—Zaimab and Zaid—
Wives and concubines—Siege of Madina—Desire
for the Hajj—Treaty of Hudaibiya—Special
claims for Islam—The embassies—Attack on
Khaibar—The ‘Umra or Lesser Pilgrimage—
Battle of Mita—Capture of Mecca—vVictory of
Hunain—Year of the Deputations—Expedition
to Tabig—Compulsion of Jews and Chnistians
—The employment of force—Rebuke of the
Hypocrites and the Arabs—The Prophet’s war
cry—Abu Bakr and the Hajj—Hngagements
made with Arabs not binding on the Prophet—
The Greater Pilgrimage—The influence of the
Hajj—God and His Apostle—Style of the
Madina Stras—Importance of the chronologi-


cal Order—Change of style ; - ‘ . 94
Passages cited from the Qur’dn i , . 257
Table showing the approximate chronological

order of the chapters of the Qur’én . : 266


Index ‘ ‘ ; 4 ; : : - 268


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INTRODUCTION


THis work does not profess to be a life of
Muhammad. It is a history of the develop-
ment of the Qur’dn, showing how its gradual
formation was determined by the events of the
Prophet's life. Treated in this way, the Qur’an
reveals bis change of position towards the
various classes of persons with whom he was
brought into contact, and by the aptness of
its injunctions, its apologies, its denunciations,
we are enabled to see how admirably this
‘ piecemeal’ revelation was fitted to meet the
requirements of Islim as they arose.


For the dates and the order of the Siras, or
chapters of the Qur’an, I have followed Nol-
deke’s ‘Geschichte des Qorans,’ which seems
to me to be the best and most authoritative
book on the subject. The following table
shows the order in which Noldeke arranges
the Suiras. He divides the Meccan ones into
three groups, the earlier, middle, and later
periods, and places all the Madina Suras in a
fourth group.


x INTRODUCTION


Meccan SURAS


Furst Pertod.—From the first to the fifth year of
the Prophet’s Mtisston. a.D. 612--17.

96, 74, 111, 106, 108, 104, 107, 102, 105, 92, 90,

94, 93, 97, 86, 91, 80, 68, 87, 95, 103, 85, 73, 101,

99, 82, 81, 53, 84, 100, 79, 77, 78, 88, 89, 75, 83,

69, 51, 52, 56, 70, 55, 112, 109, 113, 114, 1.


Second Period —The fifth and sexth years of
the Prophet's Mission av 617—19.

54, 37, 71, 76, 44, 50, 20, 26, 15, 19, 38, 36, 43,

72, 67, 23, 21, 25, 17, 27, 18.


Third Pertod —F'rom the seventh year to the
Hyra av 619—22,

32, 41, 45, 16, 30, 11, 14, 12, 40, 28, 39, 29, 31,

42 10, 34, 35, 7, 46, 6, 13.


Mapina SurRAs


From the Hujra to theend aww 622—82.
2, 98, 64, 62, 8, 47, 3, 61, 57, 4, 65, 59, 33, 63, 24,
58, 22, 48, 66, 60, 110, 49, 9, 5.


In the quotations from the Qur’én I have
used the translations of Rodwell and of Palmer
and occasionally that of Sale and that of Lane.
I have also compared these with the Persian
translations of Husain and of Shah Wali Ulléh
Muhaddath and also the Urdu translations by
Abdu'l-Qddir and by Dr Nadhir Ahmad Khan ;


INTRODUCTION X1


and that given in the Khulaésatu’t-Tafdsir. I
have consulted many commentaries in arriving
at the interpretations which [ have given. The
commentaries, however, deal mainly with the
elucidation of the meanings of words and phrases
and do not, as a rule, throw much light on the
various readings of the text, or on the date of
the Suras or their component parts. The spirit
of the Higher Criticism has yet to be created
amongst modern Muslim theologians. Their
exegesis is traditional rather than scientific.


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HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
OF THE QURAN


a ne oti


CHAPTER I
THE MECCAN PERIOD


A coMPARISON of the historical facts in the life
of Muhammad with the various portions of the
Qur’an connected with them is necessary, 1f that
life is to be intelligently understood. Another
and equally important result of such comparison
is that it shows the gradual way in which the
Qur’an came into existence and how admirably
the revelations fitted in to the local circum-
stances, and gave what was claimed to be divine
authority and support to the varied actions of
the Prophet. In this way alone could his
change of policy be justified and he himself be
protected from the charge of time-serving and
inconsistency.

The arrangement of the Suras, or chapters in
the Qur’dn, is not chronological. The longest
Stras are placed first in the book. Thus, to
take the Qur’dn and read it straight through
throws no light on the life and work of the


2 MECCAN PERIOD


Prophet, but simply bewilders the reader. The
Arab and Persian commentators have arranged
the Suras in some definite order, and Muir and
Noldeke have also attempted to place them in
chronological sequence There are differences
of opinion as to the exact date of some Suras,
and of portions of others which are certainly
composite, but for all practical purposes we can
now arrange them in some sort of consecutive
order.

In the following pages, 1 try to show how the
Suras when thus placed in their true chronologi-
cal order cast much light on the policy, the
teaching, and the actions of the great Arabian
Prophet.

The first words revealed are those which the
Prophet heard in the cave of Mt Hira’, situated
about three miles from Mecca, and now re-
corded in the Suratu’l-‘Alaq (xevi) 1-2:1

Recite thou in the name of thy Lord who created,
Created man from clots of blood.


1 Throughout the roman numerals in brackets refer to
the number of the Sura in the Qur’dn, and the figures
to the verses.


- - =~ © ome me —- ox
From the use of a here it is sometimes said that


Muhammad must have been able to read, but \;3 means
more generally to recite, and in the cognate dialects to


THE FATRA 3


It is said by some that the words in the
Suratu’sh-Shu‘ara’ (xxvi) 214,


Warn thy relatives of nearer kin,


contain the first call to preach, but the objections
to this view are, that the context ‘kindly lower
thy wing over the faithful who follow thee’
(215), and the words ‘who seeth thee when thou
standest in prayer and thy demeanour among
those who worship’ (218-9), both presuppose the
existence of asmall Musalmancommunity The
style of the Sutra, too, 1s not that of the earliest


period, and such combinations as peal i the


Mighty, the Merciful and poled pave) the Hearer,


the Knower belong to the later Suras

Then followed a period, called the Fatra,
during which no revelations came It is said
to have lasted three years During this time
the mind of the Prophet was in much suspense


call out, to proclaim. Thus Nj? to cry out asa prophet.
In Isaiah x1 6 we have


NIPR TI WAST NIP ABN Dp


‘The voice said ‘ Cry,’”’ and he said, ‘‘ what shall I
cry?”’’ See Noldeke, Geschichte des Qordns, pp. 9-10.

This Sura 1s a good illustration of a composite one, for
from verse 81x onwards the revelation belongs to the
later Meccan period and refers to the opposition of Abi
Jahl—v. 6, and those associated with him—v. 16.


4 MECCAN PERIOD


and he even doubted his call to a divine mission.
The Quraish, a leading tribe in Mecca, to which
the Prophet himself belonged, did not all this
while actively oppose Muhammad ; they looked
upon him as a madman, and in the Kast madness
is often supposed to be accompanied with a sort
of inspiration. In religious matters, the Meccans
were not narrow-minded, nor was their religion
exclusive They tolerated the various creeds
then accepted in Arabia and opened the Ka‘ha
to men of all sects Waraqa, the cousin of
Muhammad, one of the Hanifs, embraced Chris-
tianity, but no one blamed him or interfered with
him on that account. So at first they treated
Muhammad with good humoured contempt. The
opposition against him was aroused when he set
up his own teaching as the exclusive way of life
and explicitly and implicitly condemned all other
religions. So long as he kept to general state-
ments, such as exhortations to lead good lives, or
allusions to the Last Day, the people of Mecca
cared little, but, when he began to attack the
idolatry of the Ka‘ba, the case was quite alter-
ed and active opposition commenced. The chief
cause of this was the intense dislike they had
to the changing of what had been long establish-
ed. They had great reverence for the religion
‘which made Mecoa a sacred centre for the Arab
people. As yet they had no idea that Muham-


THE INFLUENCE OF RELATIVES 5


mad would, by adopting into Islam much of
the old pagan ceremonial of the Ka‘ba, con-
serve that feeling. Then he worked no miracles.
They had only his own word in support of
his claim.

It would not be difficult to show that he was,
from the first, influenced by patriotic motives
and that he had a politico-religious system
in view. Ibn Ishaq tells us that, as Muham-
ynad owed the amount of toleration he enjoyed
solely to the support of his relatives, the elders
of the Quraish begged his uncle Abu Talib 5
to arrange some way of peace by mutual con-
cessions. Abu Talib thereupon asked him to
make some concession and stated that the
Quraish would also do the same To this
Muhammad replied: ‘Well then, give me &
word whereby the Arabs may be governed and
the Persians subjugated ;’! and added, ‘ Say
there 18 no God except Allah and renounce
what you worship beside Him’ In other
words, accept my teaching and Arabia shall
be united and her enemies subdued. The
Meccans realized the danger and replied: ‘ We
are not sure whether the dominion will not be
taken from us.’ The political factor in the


1 Quoted by Koelle, Mohammed and Mohammedamsm,
p. 74.


§ MECCAN PERIOD


inception of Islam has been far too much
overlooked. The result of the battle of Muta
(4.g. 8), for example, was disastrous from a
military point of view; but it exalted Muham-
mad as the champion of a national idea and
so produced a good effect The men of Mecca
saw that acceptance of Muhammad’s teaching
might mean war and possible defeat, and this
feeling no doubt added strength to their in-
creasing opposition. They now called him liay,
sorcerer, poet, soothsayer, demoniac Even at
the door of the Ka‘ba, they assailed him Once
he lost his temper and said: ‘ Hear, ye Quraish,
I come to you with slaughter,’! a threat which
he was not able to carry out for many years;
but the Quraish could not know this and so
the next day they attacked him again. Abt
Bakr had to come to his aid, and there ‘ was
no man that day,’ says ibn Ishaq, ‘free or
slave, who did not call him a liar and insult
him.’ All through these troubles his uncle
Abu Talib, though not at all convinced of the
truth of his nephew's claims, was his steady
protector. The Quraish urged him to withdraw
his protection, but all that he would do was


1Koelle, Mohammed and Mohammedanmim, p_ 87.
This little incident also shows that from the first he
had thoughts of political power.


PERSECUTION OF MUSLIMS 7


to remonstrate with his troublesome nephew
thus: ‘ Spare me and thyself, and do not burden
me with more than I can bear,’ but Muham-
mad was firm, and so his uncle, true to the
ties of relationship, dismissed the deputation
and told him to go on, adding these words, ‘ By
Allah, I shall in no wise surrender thee to
them.’

The conception of Muhammad as a poor man,
a mere camel driver, forcing his own way, unaided,
against strong opposition is unfounded. He
belonged to one of the most distinguished tribes
in Arabia, and was a member of a highly aristo-
cratic family. His relations were men of great
political and social influence and that was used
for his personal protection. If that support had
not been given, Muhammad might have failed
under the pressure of opposition and Islam might
never have come into existence

Some of Muhammad’s followers, such as Abu
Bakr and others who could claim connexion
with some influential family in Mecca, though
despised and insulted, were free from personal
danger. The strong famuly affection was a safe-
guard against the serious molestation of any
member of it, even though he had joined the new
teaching, but, if Muhammad and some of his
adherents were thus protected, it was otherwise
with his followers who were gathered out from


8 MECOAN PERIOD


the slaves and the lower class of Arabs! for whom
there was no powerful protector from amongst
the leading members of the great Meccan
families. They were cruelly tortured and im-
prisoned. Muhammad was much concerned at
this, and even encouraged them to dissemble in
order to escape torture. One day he met a man
called ‘Ammar bin Yasir who was weeping. In
reply to Muhammad's enquiries, he said, ‘Oh
Prophet, they would not let me go till I had
abused thee, and spoken well of their gods.’
Muhammad said: ‘ But how dost thou find thy
heart?’ ‘Secure and steadfast in the faith.’
‘Then,’ continued Muhammad, ‘if they repeat
their cruelty, repeat thou also thy words.’ The
case of such unwilling deniers of the faith is
provided for in the Suratu’n-Nahl (xvi), 108,
which is said to have been revealed after, the
interview with ‘Ammar bin Yasir.’


1This was one of the objections urged against his
claims by the Qurash.

Then said the chiefs of the people, ‘ we see in thee
but aman like ourselves, and we see not those
who have followed thee, except our meanest ones
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