George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, taken from the most approved Commentators. To which is prefixed A Preliminary Discource (1734)
appear still more ridiculous in a translation, where the ornament, such as it is, for whose sake they were made, cannot be perceived. However the Arabians are so mightily delighted with this jingling, that they employ it in their most elaborate compositions, which they also imbellish with frequent passages of and allusions to the Korân, so that it is next to impossible to understand them without being well versed in this book.
It is probable the harmony of expression which the Arabians find in the Korân, might contribute not a little to make them relish the doctrine therein taught, and give an efficacy to arguments which had they been nakedly proposed without this rhetorical dress, might not have so easily prevailed. Very extraordinary effects are related of the power of words well chosen and artfully placed, which are no less powerful either to ravish or amaze than music itself; wherefore as much has been ascribed by the best orators to this part of rhetoric as to any other 1. He must have a very bad ear, who is not uncommonly moved with the very cadence of a well-turned sentence; and Mohammed seems not to have been ignorant of the enthusiastic operation of rhetoric on the minds of men; for which reason he has not only employed his utmost skill in these his pretended revelations, to preserve that dignity and sublimity of style, which might seem not unworthy of the majesty of that Being, whom he gave out to be the author of them; and to imitate the prophetic manner of the Old Testament; but he has not neglected even the other arts of oratory; wherein he succeeded so well, and so strangely captivated the minds of his audience, that several of his opponents thought it the effect of witchcraft and enchantment, as he sometimes complains 2.
Design.
“The general design of the Korân” (to use the words of a very learned person,) “seems to be this. To unite the professors of the three different religions then followed in the populous country of Arabia, who for the most part lived promiscuously, and wandred without guides, the far greater number being idolaters, and the rest Jews and Christians mostly of erroneous and heterodox belief, in the knowledge and worship of one eternal, invisible God, by whose power all things were made, and those which are not, may be, the supream Governor, judge, and absolute Lord of the creation; established under the sanction of certain laws, and the outward signs of certain ceremonies, partly of ancient and partly of novel institution, and inforced by setting before them rewards and punishments, both
