style. The arrangement of the Sûrahs in chronological order, too, though a help to the student, destroys the miscellaneous character of the book, as used by the Muslims, and as Mohammed's successors left it.
In my rendering I have, for the most part, kept to the interpretation of the Arabic commentator Bâidhâvî, and have only followed my own opinion in certain cases where a word or expression, quite familiar to me from my experience of every-day desert life, appeared to be somewhat strained by these learned schoolmen. Chapter ⅩⅫ, ver. 64, is an instance in which a more simple rendering would be preferable, though I have only ventured to suggest it in a note[1].
I am fully sensible of the shortcomings of my own version, but if I have succeeded in my endeavour to set before the reader plainly what the Qurʼân is, and what it contains, my aim will have been accomplished.
St. John's College, Cambridge,
March, 1880.
- ↑ See Part Ⅱ, p. 63, note.
