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A PSALM QUOTED IN THE QUR'AN |
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Arabia who used this habit; for many of them were descended from the
Pharisees, of whom our Saviour said:— "They love to pray standing in the
synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of
men."1 Thus the Companions of Muhammad looking upon the Jews as the People
of the Book and children of father Abraham, regarded such practices as having
descended from him, and so adopted, and have continued them to the present day,
as we see, unchanged, though they are no longer kept up by the Jews themselves.
Does it not seem strange to the Reader, that although the Qur'an repeatedly
attests our Scriptures as the Word of God, yet but one quotation is taken from
them; viz. Surah xxi. 105, — Verily we have written in the Psalms after the
mention (of the Law) that my servants the righteous shall inherit the earth; an
evident reference to Psalm xxxvii. 11; — "But the meek shall inherit the
earth."
Two other matters borrowed from the Jews. Every Muslim thinks the Qur'an to
have been on the heavenly Table (Lauh) from before the creation of the world, as
is mentioned in a passage already quoted:— Truly it is the glorious Qur'an, on a
preserved Table.2 Now before saying anything about this Table, one may ask, was
the Book of the Psalms in existence before the Qur'an or not? For we have given
above a verse in which is revealed the inheritance given by the Lord to his
servants, as mentioned in the Psalms before the Qur'an was revealed. The Qur'an quotes from the Psalms: is it not clear, therefore, that the Psalms were before
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the Qur'an? How then could the Qur'an, produced so late in the world, have been
placed on the heavenly Table?
Now let us hear what Tradition tells us about this Table:—
One tells us that the Throne is made out of a pearl, as is also the Preserved
Table, the height of which is 700 years' journey, and its breadth 300. All
around it is adorned with rubies. The Lord commanded that there should be
written upon it what he had wrought in Creation, and onwards till the Day of
Judgment:- "In the name of the Lord, the Compassionate and Merciful. I am
God and there is none else beside me. He that accepts my decree, is patient at
my punishment, and thankful at my mercies, I will write and place him along with
the righteous; he that doth not accept my decree, let him go forth from beneath
my heaven," etc.
1
The Source of this tale is to be found in Jewish books, but vastly
exaggerated by the Muslims. We find in the Tourât that when God desired to give
forth the Ten commandments, he thus addressed Moses, who has himself given the
account in Deut. x. 1-5:—
At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto
the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. And
I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou
brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark. And I made an ark of shittim wood,
and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount,
having the two tables in mine hand. And he wrote on the tables, according to the
first writing, the ten commandments, which the Lord spake unto you in the mount out of the midst
of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the Lord gave them unto me. And I
turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which
I had made; and there they be, as the Lord commanded me.
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