" Others say that as the
letter A belongs to the lower part of the throat, the first of the
organs of speech; L to the palate, the middle organ: and M to the lips,
which are the last organs; so these letters signify that God is the
beginning, middle, and end, or ought to be praised in the beginning,
middle, and end of all our words and actions; or, as the total value of
those three letters in numbers is seventy-one, they signify that in the
space of so many years, the religion preached in the "Koran" should be
fully established. The conjecture of a learned Christian is, at least,
as certain as any of the former, who supposes those letters were set
there by the amanuensis, for _Amar li Mohammed_--"at the command of
Mohammed"--as the five letters prefixed to the nineteenth chapter seem
to be there written by a Jewish scribe, for _Cob yaas_--"thus he
commanded."
The general contents of the "Koran" may be divided under three heads:
First, precepts and laws in matters of religion, such as prayer,
fasting, pilgrimage; there are laws also given in the affairs of the
civil life, such as marriage, the possession and bequeathing of
property, and the administration of justice. The second division would
include histories, which consist in a great part of incidents from the
Bible, as Christians know it. Mohammed probably picked up a good deal of
hearsay knowledge in this department from Jews and Christians.
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