Of Destiny
The hearts of men are at the disposal of God like unto one heart, and He turneth them about in any way that He pleaseth. O Director of hearts, turn our hearts to obey Thee.
The first thing which God created was a pen, and He said to it, “Write.” It said, “What shall I write?” And God said, “Write down the quantity of every separate thing to be created.” And it wrote all that was and all that will be to eternity.
There is not one among you whose sitting-place is not written by God whether in the fire or in Paradise. The Companions said, “O Prophet! since God hath appointed our place, may we confide in this and abandon our religious and moral duty?” He said, “No, because the happy will do good works, and those who are of the miserable will do bad works.”
The Prophet of God said that Adam and Moses (in the world of spirits) maintained a debate before God, and Adam got the better of Moses; who said, “Thou art that Adam whom God created by the power of His hands, and breathed into thee from His own spirit, and made the angels bow before thee, and gave thee an habitation in His own Paradise: after that thou threwest man upon the earth, from the fault which thou committedst.” Adam said, “Thou art that Moses whom God elected for His prophecy, and to converse with, and He gave to thee twelve tables, in which are explained everything, and God made thee His confidant, and the bearer of His secrets: then how long was the Bible written before I was created?” Moses said, “Forty years.” Then Adam said, “Didst thou see in the Bible that Adam disobeyed God?” He said, “Yes.” Adam said, “Dost thou then reproach me on a matter which God wrote in the Bible forty years before creating me?”
‘Aïsha relates that the Prophet said to her, “Do you know, O ‘Aïsha! the excellence of this night?” (the fifteenth of Ramadān.) I said, “What is it, O Prophet?” He said, “One thing in this night is, that all the children of Adam to be born in the year are written down; and also those who are to die in it, and all the actions of the children of Adam are carried up to heaven in this night; and their allowances are sent down.” Then I said, “O Prophet, do none enter Paradise except by God’s mercy?” He said, “No, none enter except by God’s favour:” this he said thrice. I said, “You, also, O Prophet! will you not enter into Paradise, excepting by God’s compassion?” Then the Prophet put his hand on his head, and said, “I shall not enter, except God cover me with His mercy:” this he said thrice.
A man asked the Prophet what was the mark whereby a man might know the reality of his faith. He said, “If thou derive pleasure from the good which thou hast done, and be grieved for the evil which thou hast committed, thou art a true believer.” The man said, “What doth a fault really consist in?” He said, “When anything pricketh thy conscience forsake it.”
I am no more than man: when I order you anything with respect to religion, receive it, and when I order you about the affairs of the world then I am nothing more than man.
Notes
The Mekka Speeches — I — The Poetic Period
The rhyming prose in which the Korān is written may be seen to best advantage in this earliest phase of Mohammad’s oratory, when the sentences are short and the rhythm more chantant than in the later speeches. “The Smiting” (p. 7), will serve as a specimen of the sound of the original Arabic, as far as it can be represented in Roman characters:—
Bismi-llahi-r-rahmāni-r-rahīm
El-kāri’atu mā-l-kāri’ah
Wa-mā adrāka mā-l-kāri’ah
Yawma yekūnu-n-nāsu ke-l-farāsi-l-mabthūth
Wa-tekūnu-l-jibālu ke-l-‘ihni-l-manfūsh
Fe-amma men thekulet mawāzīnuhu fe-huwa fī ‘īshetin rādiyeh
Wa-amma men khaffet mawāzīnuhu fe-ummuhu hāwiyeh
Wa-mā adrāka mā hiyeh
Nārun hāmiyeh
The effect of which may be thus roughly preserved in English:—
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
The Smiting! What is the Smiting?
And what shall teach thee what is the Smiting?
The Day when men shall be like moths adrift,
And the hills shall be like wool-flocks rift:
Then as for him whose scales are heavy, his shall be a life of bliss:
And as for him whose scales are light, a place in the Pit is his:
And what shall teach thee what that place is—
A Fire that blazes!
P. 3. The Night.—The formula “In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” precedes all the chapters of the Korān but one. We.—God speaks in the plural in the Korān.
P. 5. The Country.—The two highways: the steep one to heaven, and the smooth one to hell.
P. 6. The people of the right hand—those that receive the book of the record of their actions in their right hand—the blessed. Contrariwise—the people of the left hand—the damned.
P. 7. The Smiting.—One of many similar names for the Day of Judgment. The Bottomless Pit, “El-Hāwiyeh,” is the lowest stage of the Hell of the Korān.
P. 8. The Quaking.—Burdens, i.e. the dead. Her tidings: “The tidings of the earth are these—she will bear witness to the actions of every man and woman done upon her surface.”—Tradition of Mohammad.
P. 9. The Rending Asunder.—Reporters: two angels who note respectively the good and the evil deeds and words of every man.
P. 13. The Backbiter.—This speech is said to have been levelled at a personal enemy.
Blasting Hell, “El-Hutameh,” is the third stage of the Mohammadan Inferno.
P. 14. The Splendour of Morning.—Evidently uttered in a time of despondency and with the intention of self-encouragement.
P. 15. The Most High.—The books of eld. Mohammad asserted that his doctrine was a revival of the religion of Abraham and the patriarchs, as it was before the Jews corrupted it.
P. 17. The Wrapping.—A simile from the wrapping of a head in a turban.
Camels ten months gone with young were the Arabs’ most valuable property.
The child that was buried alive. Infanticide of female children was among the crimes of the ancient Arab.
The Books—in which men’s actions are recorded.
Stars that hide, i.e. that set; or, as others say, “that retrogress,” i.e. the planets.
P. 18. Mad. The people commonly believed Mohammad to be possessed with a jinni (or genius).
Pelted devil. The evil jinn or devils are supposed to act the eavesdropper on the confines of heaven, and to be driven away by shooting stars.
A reminder, scil., of the true religion of Abraham and the prophets, which men had forgotten. Cf. Lane: Selections from the Kur-ān, lxxxi. 15, 47, 48 (2d ed., Trübner’s Oriental Series).
P. 19. The News.—One of the many names which Mohammad employed to bring home to his people the reality and fearfulness of the Last Day.
Tent-pegs. Mountains were believed to keep the earth steady, as pegs do a tent.
P. 22. The Fact.—One of the names of the Last Day: the event which must inevitably happen.
Abasing the sinners, and exalting the righteous.
Three kinds: the “outstrippers,” the “people of the right hand,” and the “people of the left hand.” In the original the same word means “right hand” and “happiness,” or “good omen;” contrariwise, “left hand” and “misfortune.” Cp. the use of dexter and sinister. An instance of Mohammad’s practice of playing upon the different senses of a word.
The outstrippers, i.e. those who are the first to adopt the true religion—the prophets and apostles, who shall be rewarded by being allowed to stand nearest to God in the next world. The following fifteen lines describe their happy fate; after which, fourteen refer to the people of the right hand, or ordinary believers; and then seventeen lines to the people of the left hand, or damned.
P. 24. Zakkūm: A thorny tree with a bitter fruit, which grows up from the bottomless pit.
P. 26. Preserved Book.—Mohammad taught that every “revelation” in the Korān was but a transcript from the pages of a great book, known as the “Mother of the Book,” “preserved” under the throne of God. The sentence, Let none touch it but the purified, is commonly inscribed upon the cover of the Korān.
Those brought nearest, i.e. the outstrippers, or prophets.
P. 27. The Merciful.—Then which of the bounties, etc. A refrain or burden of this kind is rare in the Korān, and is in no other instance so often repeated. The twain are mankind and the jinn (or genii). “Jinn,” it may be remarked, is a plural, and the singular is “jinni” (a genius), for the masculine, and “jinnīyeh” for the feminine.
The two Easts. The rising-places of the sun in summer and winter; the two Wests, the corresponding setting-places.
P. 28. Two notables, or “weighty ones,” i.e. men and jinn.
P. 32. The Unity.—This profession of faith is held by Muslims to be equal in value to a third of the whole Korān.
P. 33. The Fātihah, or “Opening” chapter, so called because it is placed at the beginning of the authorised arrangement of the Korān. It is the Paternoster of Islam, and is repeated many times in the five daily prayers of the Muslims, and on every solemn occasion.
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