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)
remembred of them, was the following, “If a son of Adam had two rivers of gold, he would covet yet a third; and if he had three; he would covet yet a fourth (to be added) unto them; neither shall the belly of a son of Adam be filled, but with dust. God will turn unto him who shall repent.” Another instance of this kind we have from the tradition of Abd’allah Ebn Masûd, who reported that the prophet gave him a verse to read which he wrote down; but the next morning looking in his book, he found it was vanished, and the leaf blank: this he acquainted Mohammed with, who assured him the verse was revoked the same night.
Of the second kind is a verse called the verse of stoning; which according to the tradition of Omar, afterwards Khalîf, was extant while Mohammed was living, tho’ it be not how to be found. The words are these, “Abhor not your parents, for this would be ingratitude in you. If a man and woman of reputation commit adultery, ye shall stone them both; it is a punithinent ordained by God; for God is mighty and wise.”
Of the last kind are observed several verses in sixty three different chapters, to the number of 225. Such as the precepts of turning in prayer to Jerusalem; fasting after the old custom; forbearance towards idolaters; avoiding the ignorant, and the like 1. The passages of this sort have been carefully collected by several writers, and are most of them remarked in their proper places.
Disputes concerning the creation of the Korân.
Tho’ it is the belief of the Sonnites or orthodox that the Korân is uncreated and eternal, subsisting in the very essence of God, and Mohammed himself is said to have pronounced him an infidel who asserted the contrary 2, yet several have been of a different opinion; particularly the sect of the Motázalites 3, and the followers of Isa Ebn Sobeih Abu Musa, surnamed al Mozdâr; who stuck not to accuse those who held the Korân to be uncreated of infidelity, as affertors of two eternal beings 4.
This point was controverted with so much heat that it occasioned many calamities under some of the Khalîfs of the family of Abbâs, al Mamûn 5 making a public edict declaring the Korân to be created, which was confirmed by his successors al Mótasem 6 and al Wâthek 7,
1 Abu Hashem Hebatallah, apud Marracc. de Alc. p. 42.
2 Apud Poc. Spec. 220.
3 See after, in Sect. 8.
4 V. Poc. Spec. p. 219, &c.
5 Anno Hej. 218. Abulfarag. p. 245. v. etiam Elmacin. in vita al Mamûn.
6 In the time of al Motasem, a doctor named Abu Harûn Ebn al Baca found out a distinction to screen himself, by affirming that the Korân was ordained, because it is said in that book, And I have ordained thee the Korân. He went still farther to allow that what was ordained, was created, and yet he denied it thence followed that the Korân was created. Abulfarag. p. 253.
7 Ibid. p. 257.
