L’auteur

Richard Bell était prêtre dans l’Eglise d’Ecosse. Il fut professeur d’arabe à l’Université d’Edinburg. Il s’intéressa à la composition et aux sources chrétiennes du Coran.

Préface (Extraits)

This book was prepared as lectures to be given on the Gunning Foundation in connection with the Divinity Hall of Edinburgh University (…) The aim has been to present the origin of Islam against a background of surrounding Christianity. In some ways that point of view has proved more fruitful than I had expected. Instead of discovering, as I set out to discover, what was the nature of the contact which Muhammad had had with Christianity before he began the composition of the Qur’an, I found that the Qur’an itself contains the record of his efforts to reach a meagre knowledge of the great religion which surrounded Arabia, and that the recognition of this leads, as I believe, to the explanation of one or two things in the Qur’an and in the Prophet’s career which have hitherto been obscure. The Qur’an having thus developed unexpected interest, has occupied more space than I had originally designed to give it. In quoting from it, I have in some passages, particularly those from the earlier surahs, given my own interpretation of the Arabic ; in others the rendering of Rodwell or of Sale has been adopted.

Richard Bell (novembre 1925)

Table des matières

LECTURE I THE EASTERN CHURCH AND THE CHRISTIAN ENVIRONMENT OF ARABIA

LECTURE II CHRISTIANITY IN SOUTH ARABIA AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON THE ARABS IN GENERAL

LECTURE III THE BEGINNINGS OF MUHAMMAD’S RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY

LECTURE IV THE MOULDING OF THE PROPHET

LECTURE V THE ATTITUDE OF THE PROPHET TOWARDS CHRISTIANITY

LECTURE VI THE CHRISTIAN POPULATIONS AT THE ARAB CONQUEST

LECTURE VII CHRISTIAN INFLUENCES IN EARLY ISLAM

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

INDEX OF QUR’AN PASSAGES REFERRED TO