Preface

    This book is intended to present the body of religious and moral teaching contained in the quran itself apart from the Traditions which form the second main basis of the Moslem faith. The need for it has been impressed upon me during several years in which I have had frequent opportunities of lecturing to missionary candidates and others on "Outlines of Islam ."
   The quran  is slightly longer than the New Testament, but in contrast to it, and not less so to the Old Testament, it is a one-man book, which exhibits manifestly the workings of a single mind under strong religious and other impulses. The Jews and Christians, from whom Muhammad  drew the mass of his material, stood out in his view as "People of Scripture," and from the very first Muhammad  believed himself to be the recipient of portions of a heavenly writing which were to be embodied in a new Scripture for believers in his message. To present a clear idea of what this book contains, as distinct from later comments, however authoritative, is as necessary for a real comprehension and evaluation of Islam  as is a clear exposition of the teaching of the Bible itself, as distinct from subsequent theology, for the understanding of Christianity.
Islam  from the beginning was a theocracy, and it can still only be understood as ideally a religion and state in one. Muhammad was a prince as well as a prophet, and not only led in prayers and preaching, but commanded armies and controlled as an autocrat both foreign and domestic policy, besides doing the work of a legislator who claimed divine authority for his laws. There is, however, no authentic official collection of his correspondence, rescripts and treaties except what is contained in the quran . Fragmentary though the materials may be, it is here that we see reflected the basal relations between the religious and civil powers in Islam .
     During the last hundred years Islam  has increasingly come into contact with other faiths, especially Christianity, no longer as the religion of rulers who for a millennium enforced its observance by the sanctions of civil and criminal law, but as one faith, tolerated and protected in its exercise, side by side with others. Even more penetrating has been the influence of religious, social and political conceptions and ideals, the free inflow of which is no longer hindered. Faced by the life and thought of a new age, Islam  is struggling with the difficult task of adjusting its early medievalism to the demands of a modern world. Naturally the tendency of progressive Moslems, from Sir Sayyid Ahmad onwards, has been to disown the accretions of their schoolmen, and to recur to the one sacred volume as the sole genuine expression of faith and practice incumbent on the true Muslim. But, in making this use of an Arabian book of the seventh century, these progressives have claimed, or at least, exercised, a great latitude of interpretation, many results of which are highly repugnant to the orthodox. The thoughtful missionary or other Christian will not withhold his sympathy from those who are striving to vindicate a place for a historical form of monotheism in the new thought-world; but in order to form a judgment on their success or failure in so important and difficult an enterprise it is very necessary that he should be able to estimate correctly the actual teaching of the quran  as a whole or in any given part. To serve as a practical help in this direction is the object of this little manual.
    I am venturing to offer it because I know of no book in English that gives a comprehensive sketch of quranic theology, or an all-round subject index. The bibliography shows that parts of the subject have been treated by authors with whose learning I could not pretend to compete, as in the first two chapters of Professor Margoliouth's Early Development of Mohammedanism, but for systematic treatment we have to look to three German works: Gerok's Christologie des Koran; Pautz's Mohammed's Lehre der Offenbarung, and-most complete of all-Grimme's System der Koranischen Theologie. The best studies on quranic theology in English are the pamphlets by Rev. W. R. W. Gardner on "The Quranic Doctrines of God, Man, Sin, and Salvation." Great help has been obtained from Hughes' Dictionary of Islam , which contains useful synopses of quranic teaching, with references, under many, though far from all, of the relevant headings. Of course there are sundry treatises on Moslem doctrine and duty, with more or less reference to the quran ; but even Sale's "Introductory Discourse" to his translation and commentary includes a large amount of matter drawn from tradition only, and the subject index to Dr. Wherry's edition of Sale often refers to notes which embody traditions going beyond the text.
        This volume is not intended to be a manual of controversy, though I earnestly hope that it may be of service to those who are called to the great work of interpreting the Gospel to Moslems. Spinoza has reminded us that human affairs are neither to be wept over nor yet derided, but to be understood. And Dr. Grimme well remarks that "We who have long since imbibed from their original source in the Bible the best conceptions of Muhammad, find it difficult to realise the impression which they made on Arabian seekers after truth" when first proclaimed. Perhaps one has been helped to realise this during thirty-five years' residence in the Central Panjab, where Moslems are in a majority, through much candid and friendly intercourse with them. At any rate I have tried to understand the book and its message myself and to cast what I have learned from others in a shape which may be useful to the student and the teacher.
If the references in the Subject Index are reasonably correct this will be owing to their careful checking by my wife. She also compiled the table of variant verse numberings, the lack of which was a great hindrance in dealing with different editions of the quran .
It is hoped that there may be companion volumes to this, dealing with other non-Christian Scriptures.
H. U. WEITBRECHT STANTON.