This Muslim Bible has no scheme or plan because it is an almost haphazard compilation of unconnected discourses, uttered on various unexplained occasions, and dealing with many incidents and themes.  There is practically no editing, and no attempt is made to explain when, or how, or why the various speeches were delivered.

The earliest native writers and commentators on the Koran arranged its suras in two main classes:  (1) Those uttered at Mekka before the flight in A.D. 622; (2) those written at Medinah during the next ten years.

Most recent scholars follow the chronological arrangement proposed by the great Orientalist Noeldeke in 1860.  Friedrich Schwally in his newly revised edition of Noeldeke’s great work on the Koran follows his master in almost every detail.  Rodwell’s translation of the Koran, recently issued in “Everyman’s Library,” arranges the suras chronologically according to Noeldeke’s scheme.  In the summaries that follow, it is this chronological order that is adopted.  In the Arabic editions followed by the well-known and valuable translations of Sale, E.H.  Palmer (Clarendon Press, “Sacred Books of the East,” vols. 6 and 9), and others, the principle adopted is to put the longest suras first and the shortest last.

The Mekkan suras are much more original than the Medinah ones, especially those of the first period—­i.e., those belonging to the first four years of Muhammad’s prophetic mission, e.g., suras 96, 74, etc.  In these suras the style is grander, more passionate, and fuller of poetry.  The prophet appears in a state of great mental exaltation, full of a zeal which no words can adequately express, and of a sincerity which few scholars have questioned.

The suras of the second period, the following two years of the prophet’s mission (e.g., suras 54, 37, etc.), have the same general character, but are less vehement.  Still less vehement and more restrained are the suras of the third Mekkan period—­i.e., from the seventh year of the prophet’s mission to his flight in A.D. 622 (e.g., suras 32, 41, etc.).  The style of the Medinah suras resembles that of the Mekkan revelations of the third period, only they are still more matter of fact and restrained, and are largely made up of appeals to Jews, Christians, and others to abandon their “unbelief,” and to accept the prophet who had come to them with the true religion, a religion as old as Abraham, though forgotten for many ages.

The Koran differs from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, including the Apocrypha, in that these latter are much-more varied, as emanating from many minds, and belonging to very different occasions.  The Koran is, from beginning to end, the effusions (often very wild) of one man.

The present editor has kept before him the Arabic text of Maracci, Fluegel, and Redslob, and also several Oriental editions (Cairo, Constantinople, Calcutta, etc.).  But, of course, the best known translations, and also the native commentaries (Baidhawi, etc.), have been consulted.