WHICH WAS BEGUN, CARRIED ON, AND FINALLY ESTABLISHED BY LARGE A PORTION OF THE GLOBE AS THE RE- BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY T. O. H. P. BURNHAM. KD 15350 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY HENRY O. HOUGHTON. THE GENUINE KORAN. THE Arabian Bible, to which this Life is prefixed, is the genuine Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, and which was translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; and inscribed to the Right Honorable Lord John Carteret, one of the Lords of His Britannic Majesty's most Honorable Privy Council, in 1734, by George Sale, a gentleman of extraordinary learning, and a perfect master of the languages, customs, habits, manners, laws, and traditions of the Eastern Nations. It is the only true and legitimate version of the Mohammedan Bible; and could not, perhaps, be published in a popular form, more opportunely than at the present time, when the great Mohammedan Governments are all tottering to their very foundations; and their subjects are beginning, in the fulfilment of the prophecies of the Holy Scriptures, to yield up their faith in Islamism and become converts to the Christian Religion. BEAUTIFUL LANGUAGE OF THE KORAN. THE Koran is universally allowed to be written with the utmost elegance and purity of language. It is confessedly the standard of the Arabian tongue. The Moslems or more orthodox believe, and are taught by the book itself, that it is inimitable by human pen; and, therefore, insisted upon as a permanent miracle, greater than the raising of the dead to life, and alone sufficient to convince the world of its heavenly origin. |