i

THE

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

OF THE QUR'AN

BY

THE REV. CANON SELL, D.D., M.R.A.S.

AUTHOR OF 'THE FAITH OF ISLAM,' 'THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS OF ISLAM,' 'THE LIFE OF MUHAMMAD,' 'ISLAM: ITS RISE AND PROGRESS'

INTRODUCTION vii

THIS work does not profess to be a life of Muhammad. It is a history of the development of the Qur'an, showing how its gradual formation was determined by the events of the Prophet's life. Treated in this way, the Qur'an reveals his change of position towards the various classes of persons with whom he was brought into contact, and by the aptness of its injunctions, its apologies, its denunciations, we are enabled to see how admirably this piecemeal ' revelation was fitted to meet the requirements of Islam as they arose.

For the dates and the order of the Suras, or chapters of the Qur'an, I have followed Nöldeke's Geschichte des Qorans, which seems to me to be the best and most authoritative book on the subject. The following table shows the order in which Nöldeke arranges the Suras. He divides the Meccan ones into three groups, the earlier, middle, and later periods, and places all the Medina Suras in a fourth group.

MECCAN SURAS First Period.—From the first to the fifth year of the Prophet's Mission. A.D. 612-17.

96, 74, 111, 106, 108, 104, 107, 102, 105, 92, 90,
94, 93, 97, 86, 91, 8o, 68, 87, 95, 103, 85, 73, 101,
99, 82, 81, 53, 84, 100, 79, 779 78, 88, 89, 75, 83,
69, 51, 52, 56, 70, 55, 112, 109, 113, 114, I.