O true believers, be
patient, and strive to excel in patience, and be constant-minded, and
fear God, that ye may be happy.
[Footnote 46: This name is given in the Koran to the father of the
Virgin Mary.]
[Footnote 47: The word Koran, derived from the verb _Karaa_, i.e., to
read, signifies in Arabic "the reading," or rather "that which is to be
read." The syllable _Al_, in the words Al Koran, is only the Arabic
article signifying "the," and ought to be omitted when the English
article is prefixed.]
[Footnote 48: The miracle, it is said, consisted in three things: (1.)
Mohammed, by the direction of the angel Gabriel, took a handful of
gravel and threw it towards the enemy in the attack, saying, "May their
faces be confounded"; whereupon they immediately turned their backs and
fled. But, though the prophet seemingly threw the gravel himself, yet it
is told in the Koran that it was not he, but God, who threw it, that is
to say, by the ministry of his angel. (2.) The Mohammedan troops seemed
to the infidels to be twice as many in number as themselves, which
greatly discouraged them. (3.) God sent down to their assistance first a
thousand, and afterwards three thousand angels, led by Gabriel, mounted
on his horse Haizum; and, according to the Koran, these celestial
auxiliaries really did all the execution, though Mohammed's men imagined
themselves did it, and fought stoutly at the same time.
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