KORAN, ko'ran or ko-ran' (Ar. quran, qoran, reading, from qara, read,• with the Arabic article, Alkoran; also called Furkan, salvation, Al-Mushaf, the volume, Al-Kitab, the book, Al-Dkikr, the reminder or the admonition), the sacred scripture of the Mohammedans, written in Arabic and pro fessing to be the revelation of Allah (God) to Mohammed. It contains a code for the gov ernment of all Moslem transactions, and is ac cepted by true Mussulmans as untreated and eternal. According to orthodox Mohammedan belief it was written from the beginning in golden rays on a magnificent tablet in heaven, and was communicated to Mohammed on the night of Al-Kadr, in the sacred month of Ra madan, by the angel Gabriel, chapter and verse as they stand, on parchment made of the skin of the ram which Abraham sacrificed instead of his son Isaac, in a volume ornamented with precious stones, gold and silver from paradise. Other traditions are different, one being that Mohammed was assisted in composing it by a Persian Jew and a Nestorian monk. Its reve lations cover Mohammed's entire prophetic career, 610-32 A.D. It is the first work known in Arabian prose, its scattered discourses being preserved on stones, palm leaf ribs, leather, etc. Except in a•few instances, Allah is the speaker. Mohammed named the book at the time of im parting the first revelations, and tha name was retained for the collection when this was made in 633 by Zaid, son of Thabit, under direction of Ahu-Bekr, father-in-law of the prophet. The authorized text, ever since accepted, was pro duced under the Caliph Othman, 650 A.D., from the fragments, originally thrown together with out order, and afterward gathered in a volume with no attempt at arrangement, not long after Mohammed's death. In order to free the book from various readings, Othman commanded the destruction of all other copies, and in purity of text the Koran stands alone among religious scriptures. The chronological order has never been clearly determined, and many conjectural rearrangements and subdivisions have been made by Mohammedan and other scholars.
In size the Koran is nearly the same as the New Testament; it is divided into 114 suras or chapters, each beginning: "In the name of God'; the suras have various subdivisions. The Koran is dogmatic throughout ; from beginning to end it is dominated by the positive keynote : 'There is no doubt in this book.* Its author was indebted to many other writers. Of the sacred writings of the Jews he directly cites only the Pentateuch and the Psalms ; of the New Testament, with which internal evidence shows him to have been acquainted, he cites nothing; but besides the religious writings of the Jews and Christians he knew the systems of the Magians, the Sabians and other sects, from whom he derived many materials to be incorporated in a new religion for his own coun try, where numerous and diverse faiths already existed.
Mohammed lived much in solitude, medi tating on his mission and his doctrine; he did not reject the teaching of any sect; asserted his desire to restore the purity of the true faith; announced as his fundamental doctrine the unity of God. This idea, together with conceptions of divine might, sovereignty, com passion and other attributes of Godhead, is all pervading in the pages of the Koran; "God is God," it declares, "and Mohammed is his prophet." He felt that the unity of God had been the essential doctrine of all true religion, in which custom and ceremony were but acci dents. "We make no difference," he says, °be tween that which God has taught us and that which Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, the twelve tribes, Moses and Jesus have learned from the Lord." °God commands thee to receive the re ligion which he prescribed to Noah, which he has revealed unto thee, and which he imparted to Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.° To Jesus Mo hammed assigns a place in the seventh or high est heaven, in the immediate presence of God.