L’auteur

Sir William Muir était un orientaliste écossais spécialisé dans l’histoire des débuts de l’Islam et du califat. Il étudia à l’Académie Kilmarnock, à Glasgow et à l’Université d’Edimbourg ainsi qu’à Haileybury College. Entre 1837 et 1885, il eut de haute responsabilité dans l’administration du gouvernement des Indes. En 1885, il fut élu principal de l’Université d’Édimbourg en succédant à Sir Alexander Grant, et occupa ce poste jusqu’en 1903, date où il prit sa retraite.

Préface de l’ouvrage

The occasion for this work is the need of a new edition of The Testimony borne by THE CORAN TO THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES, published at Agra in 1855. The second edition of this treatise (Allahabad, i860) being out of print, the author was asked to bring out a third, and in doing so to preface it with some account of the Coran itself, and the system founded thereon. What has been now attempted will, it is hoped, prove of some service by way of introduction to the study of the Coran.

I have to express my obligation to Dr. Weil for his admirable introduction to the Coran ; from which I have freely borrowed, although from some of his views on the teaching of the Coran and the prospects of Islam, I have felt bound to dissent. The " Testimony of the Coran," above noticed, has been translated and published in various oriental languages. It is here reprinted, with but a few corrections and amendments, as the Second Part of this work.

W. M.

London, 17 th May, 1878.

Table des matières

PART FIRST

CHAPTER I.
The Coran as explained by the Life of Mahomet

CHAPTER II.
Compilation and arrangement of the Coran, 37 ; Approximate Chronological order of the Suras 44

CHAPTER III.
The teaching of the Coran 49

PART SECOND

Testimony of the Coran to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, 66 ; Introduction 69

SECTION I
Passages revealed at Mecca 72

SECTION II.
Passages revealed at Medina 134

SECTION III.
Conclusion, 216 ; The Collection complete and impartial, 217 ; Existence and Currency of the Old and New Testaments ill the time of Mahomet, 218; The Coran attests the inspiration of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, 222 ; the Jewish and Christian Scriptures praised in the Coran, 222 ; the Scriptures appealed to, and their observance inculcated by Mahomet, 224 ; imputations against the Jews, 226 ; the Scriptures of the time of Mahomet the same as those now extant, 235 ; Belief in, and examination of, the Scriptures incumbent on all Mahometans 237