Edward Palmer, The Qur’ân (1880)

style. The arrangement of the Sûrahs in chronological order, too, though a help to the student, destroys the miscellaneous character of the book, as used by the Muslims, and as Mohammed’s successors left it.

In my rendering I have, for the most part, kept to the interpretation of the Arabic commentator Bâi_dh_âvî, and have only followed my own opinion in certain cases where a word or expression, quite familiar to me from my experience of every-day desert life, appeared to be somewhat strained by these learned schoolmen. Chapter XXII, ver. 64, is an instance in which a more simple rendering would be preferable, though I have only ventured to suggest it in a note ¹.

I am fully sensible of the shortcomings of my own version, but if I have succeeded in my endeavour to set before the reader plainly what the Qur’ân is, and what it contains, my aim will have been accomplished.