Page 358 - Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an

Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an

plete in themselves, suitable for common men in any of the incidents of
life. 270 (From John William Draper's book, A History of the Intellectual
Development of Europe)
It must be acknowledged, too, that the Koran deserves the
highest praise for its conceptions of the Divine nature in ref-
erence to the attributes of Power, knowledge and universal Providence
and Unity-that its belief and trust in the one Allah of Heaven and Earth

is deep and fervent-and that… it embodies much of the noble and deep
moral earnestness, and sententious oracular wisdom, and has proved
that there are elements in it on which mighty nations and conquering…
Empires can be built up. 271 (From the preface of The Koran, translated
from the Arabic by Rev. J. M. Rodwell)
Here, therefore, its merits as a literary production should
perhaps not be measured by some preconceived maxims of
subjective and aesthetic taste, but by the effects which it produced in
[Prophet] Muhammad's [saas] contemporaries and fellow countrymen.
If it spoke so powerfully and convincingly to the hearts of his hearers
as to weld hitherto centrifugal and antagonistic elements into one com-
pact and well-organized body, animated by ideas far beyond those
which had until now ruled the Arabian mind, then its eloquence was

perfect, simply because it created a civilized nation out of savage
tribes… 272 (A statement of Dr. Steingass, quoted in T. P. Hughes'
Dictionary of Islam)
In making the present attempt… to produce something
which might be accepted as echoing however faintly the
sublime rhetoric of the Arabic Koran, I have been at pains to study the
intricate and richly varied rhythms which-apart from the message
itself-constitute the Koran's undeniable claim to rank amongst the
greatest literary masterpieces of mankind… This very characteristic
feature... has been almost totally ignored by previous translators; it is
therefore not surprising that what they have wrought sounds dull and

flat indeed in comparison with the splendidly decorated original. 273

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