to come is Forgiveness, which takes its place alongside the "Gardens underneath which rivers flow" as part of their reward. That, of course, corresponds to Muhammad's position as now the head of a band of believers, small as that band might still be. The Messenger continues to be a warner to those who do not believe, but he becomes at the same time a bringer of good tidings to those who believe. So also there is a change in the descriptions given of the Qur'an. It is no longer merely a warning. It is said to be a mercy to the believers. It is Wisdom and Guidance. In words reminiscent of a Christian phrase, the Prophet and the Qur'an are asserted to be sent "to guide men from darkness to the light". Lastly, the Qur'an is referred to as, or at any rate associated with, al-Furqan. We have, however, reached the Medinan period before that association takes place, though the word furqan is used earlier.

The sense of this word will, I think, repay study, and I wish to devote some attention to it. Its use in the Qur'an has always been something of an enigma to interpreters, and I doubt if it has ever been properly explained, though Knieschke has nearly hit the mark in his definition of it as "Erlösung von der Stunde des Gerichts".¹

The word furqan occurs altogether seven times in the Qur'an, mostly in Medinan passages. Its earliest occurrence, however, is in a Meccan Surah, xxi. v. 49: "We gave to Moses and Aaron the Furqan, and an illumination and a warning to the pious". Other passages in which the word

occurs are: xxv. v. 1; "Blessed be he who has sent down the Furqan upon his servant (evidently Muhammad) that he might become a warner to the world" ; ii. v. 50: "When we gave Moses the Book and the Furqan"; ii. v. 181: "The month of Ramadan in which was sent down the Qur'an as guidance to men and demonstrative evidences of the Guidance and the Furqan"; iii. v. 2: "He (God) has sent down to you the Book in truth, confirming what was before it, and he sent down the Torah and the Evangel in former times as Guidance to men, and he sent down the Furqan"; viii. v. 29 "O ye who believe if ye fear God he will appoint for you a Furqan, and will forgive your evil deeds and pardon you". In all these cases, we might as Nöldeke says, content ourselves with some such meaning as "illumination" or "revelation", but the difficulty arises from the occurrence of the word in viii. v. 42, a passage referring evidently to the battle of Badr, where after some directions about the spoil, we read: "If ye have believed in God and what we have revealed to our servant on the day of the Furqan, the day when the two parties met". It is clear that the day of the battle of Badr is referred to as the day of the Furqan. No such sense as "illumination" will suit this passage, and Nöldeke suggests that the meaning of the Arabic root frq, "to separate", here influenced the use of the word, giving it the sense of "separation" or "decision". I believe that the sense of the Arabic root did influence the meaning not only here, but in all the passages where the word occurs.

The word however is not Arabic, nor has it