'['lie Koran possesses this striking peculiarity, that it bears witness to the truth, while it propagates a lie Though itself founded on imposture, it professes to ac knowledge both Judaism and Christianity as true ; ad mits the miracles both of the Old and New Testament ; and affects to reverence the authority of Moses and 01 Christ, though it charges their disciples with interpola ting and corrupting those Scriptures, which in with them it professes to revere. It allows that Jesus was the true Messias, the word and breath of God, a worker of miracles, a preacher of heavenly doctrine, and an example of perfect virtue ; but denies that he was crucified, affirming that the traitor Judas was changed into his likeness and put to death in his stead, though it asserts that he was miraculously carried up into heaven by the ministry of angels, and that his religion was res tored to its primitive simplicity by Mohammed, the see of the prophets, with the addition of peculiar laws and ceremonies, of which some are new, and others only re vived institutions. Scarcely a circumstance connect ed with the history either of Judaism or of Christianity accords with the simple narratives of the sacred his torians : being constantly embellished with the puerile fictions of Rabbinic tradition, or borrowed from the scarcely less absurd representations of the apocryphal gospel of Barnabas ; a work, which seems to have been originally forged by heretical Christians,and afterwards interpolated to favour the views of Mohammed and his followers. To the reveries of the Persian magi, and the heterodox opinions, and particularly the Arianism of the Arabian Christians, the Koran is also indebted for many of its doctrinal tenets ; whilst it denounces the wrath of the Eternal against all who presume to doubt its au thority and truth. From these varied fragments of truth and falsehood, collected into one mass, the temple of Islamism was reared by the hand of a cunning and ambitious impostor, who, studying the dispositions of those whom he invited to enter into it, or subduing their opposition by the power of the sword, at length succeed ed in establishing its worship among a people who till then had been at variance with one another, on almost every point of religious belief.
With these features of its origin, the avowed object of the Koran exactly corresponds. This was to unite the professors of the three different religions then prevalent. in Arabia, viz. Idolaters, Jews, and Christians, in the knowledge and worship of one God. Accordingly, the great doctrine which it frequently repeats, and enforces by the most awful threatenings, is this, " There is but one God, and Mohammed is his Prophet." Pretending that the chief design of his mission was to restore the doc trine of the divine unity, he laid it down as a funda mental truth, that there never was and never can be more than one true orthodox religion ; and, to promote his object, affirmed, that when the essentials of this re ligion became neglected, or corrupted. God was pleased to revive• and correct it by the ministry of several pro phets, of whom Moses and Jesus were the most dis tinguished, till Mohammed himself appeared. His plans of proselytism, combined with his ambition to sub ject the nations to the sway of his power as a temporal sovereign, led him also to incorporate many civil and po litical regulations with the religious and moral pre cepts of the Koran. Accordingly, besides prohibiting murder, fornication, adultery, theft, &c. and strongly imaileating the duties of almsgiving, and even general benevolence ; it forbids gaming, usury, lots, and the use of wine and certain meats ; and enjoins the obligation of making war against infidels ; assuring those who fight unuer he banners of the prophet, that paradise shall be thtar poi don, and denouncing the most dreadful punish ments against the faint-hearted and unbelieving. It also
contains laws respecting marriage and divorce, oaths, legacies, wills, inheritances, and the payment of civil debts. " The Koran," therefore, " is not like the Gospel, to be considered merely as the standard, by which the religious opinions, the worship, and the practice of its followers are regulated, but as also a political system : on this foundation the throne itself is erected ; from hence every law of the state is derived ; and by this au thority every question of life and of property is finally decided." Of this book of perfection, as the Mohammedans call it, we can scarcely read a chapter without discovering passages so contradictory to each other, that no ingenuity can possibly reconcile them. Yet for this they have a most convenient and effectual remedy in the doctrine of abrogation, by which their Prophet himself represented the Supreme Being, as finding it necessary to revise, and even to revoke certain parts of this divine work, notwithstanding the declaration which it contains, that, if it be contradictory in its positions, it cannot be the work of God. Than this, a grosser imposition was cer tainly never attempted to be practised on the credulity of mankind. Had the passages that are abrogated been precisely defined in the book itself, some defence might have been made of these contradictions ; but the reader is left to ascertain for himself, which of them ought to be preferred as the latest, and consequently the most au thoritative revelation.
The Koran is divided into 114 sections, or chapters, called in the original sums ; distinguished not by being numbered, but by particular titles taken either from the subject, or from the first important word of the section. These sums are subdivided into smaller portions, or ver ses, called ayat, signs or wonders ; many of which have also particular titles, similar to those of the suras. Be side these unequal divisions of chapter and verse, it is divided into 60 equal portions, or ahzab, each of which is again subdivided into four equal parts ; though most commonly, it is divided into 30 equal sections, called ajza, subdivided like the former. These, like the Rab binic divisions of the Mishna, are for the use of the rea ders in the royal temples, and the chapels adjoining the cemeteries of the great; to every one of which 30 rea ders belong, who each reads a section ; so that the whole Koran is read over once every day. Immediately after the title, at the head of every chapter, except the ninth, the following solemn form, called The Bismillah, is prefixed, In the name of the most merciful God ; a form which some commentators consider as of divine origin, though others believe it to be a human addition ; and which the Mohammedans constantly place at the beginning of all their books, as a peculiar and dis tinguishing characteristic of their religion. Twenty nine of the chapters begin with certain letters of the alphabet, which arc regarded as peculiar marks of the Koran, and supposed to conceal some profound my steries, the certain knowledge of which has not been imparted to any but their prophet. The abrogated passages arc classed under three heads ; the first, mm here both the letter and the SellSe are abrogated ; the second, where the letter only is abrogated ; and the third, where the sense is abrogated, but not the letter.