If it do not succeed in meaning this,
it means nothing. Not that Abstractions, logical Propositions, be
correctly worded or incorrectly; but that living concrete Sons of Adam
do lay this to heart: that is the important point. Islam devoured all
these vain jangling Sects; and I think had right to do so. It was a
Reality, direct from the great Heart of Nature once more. Arab
idolatries, Syrian formulas, whatsoever was not equally real, had to go
up in flame,--mere dead _fuel_, in various senses, for this which was
_fire_.
It was during these wild warfarings and strugglings, especially after
the Flight to Mecca, that Mohammed dictated at intervals his Sacred
Book, which they name _Koran_, or _Reading_, "Thing to be read." This is
the Work he and his disciples made so much of, asking all the world, Is
not that a miracle? The Mohammedans regard their Koran with a reverence
which few Christians pay even to their Bible. It is admitted everywhere
as the standard of all law and all practice; the thing to be gone-upon
in speculation and life: the message sent direct out of Heaven, which
this earth has to conform to, and walk by; the thing to be read. Their
Judges decide by it; all Moslem are bound to study it, seek in it for
the light of their life. They have mosques where it is all read daily;
thirty relays of priests take it up in succession, get through the whole
each day.
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