thirty; and ten were given to Abraham. None of these, however, is now in existence. The four books of divine revelation that are still to be found are the Law of Moses, or the first five books of the Bible; the Psalms of David; the Gospel of Jesus; and the Koran, which was revealed to Mohammed. Although the three other books are highly spoken of in the Koran, Moslems hold that the Koran alone of all the revelations now exists in the pure and uncorrupted form in which it was originally revealed. The Law of Moses, the Psalms of David, and the Gospel of Jesus are believed to exist now only in a corrupted form.
And now we must take a closer look at the Koran itself. It is held in the highest reverence, and is believed to have been written by Allah on the "preserved tablet" in heaven, where the original has existed from all eternity. Moslems hold that it is uncreated and eternal, the very speech of God. It is even regarded as the one great miracle with which God honored Mohammed, and hence it is the standing proof of this prophetship. It is an unusual book, and the rhyming prose of its Arabic is full of a mysterious charm for those who recite it in their daily worship, or read it in private or in public. In size it is a little smaller than the New Testament, though it contains one hundred and fourteen chapters. But it has no order, or sequence of thought, or systematic arrangement; and scholars have spent years of effort trying to work out a chronological order of its contents.
Its subjects cover a wide range of human interest.
THE
