xiii

PREFACE



TRANSLATIONS

RECOMMENDED BY

SIR W. MUIR

It appears to me of great importance that the Sources of Islam should be translated into Arabic, Urdu, and other languages of the East, and so made accessible to Muslim readers everywhere.

The Persian volume, of which the present forms but a partial and compressed translation, is remarkable for giving, in their primitive tongues, all the Authorities quoted by our Author, which are then followed by translations into Persian. Where the passages are in Arabic or other language understood at the present time, it will no doubt be proper in any new Edition's to continue printing them as they stand, with a translation into the common tongue of the country for which the edition is intended. But where they consist of quotations from primitive tongues (as Pehlavi, etc.) not now in use, the originals should I think be left out, and simply the translation given as above proposed. The great antiquity of some of the evidence which

TRANSLATIONS RECOMMENDED

 xiv

Mr. St. Clair-Tisdall has given in its ancient form, is no doubt a remarkable proof that certain of the Sources of Islam have descended from time immemorial; and it may also be thankfully added, of the wonderful learning and research of the Author. But in all new Editions and Translations these antique passages should I think be omitted in their original tongue, and the rendering alone given in the language of the day.1

The Church Mission is to be congratulated on this memorable treatise — bringing as it does so wonderfully to light, the earthly Sources of the Qur'an, in contradistinction to the Muslim belief in its heavenly and eternal origin; and, in a very special manner, on its having come from the hands of one of their own distinguished Missionaries. And the hope may be warmly expressed that the work will be widely distributed throughout the East, and lead many an earnest Reader in Muslim lands, to the faith of his Father Abraham, and the living Sources of the Gospel of our Saviour.

W.M.

1 I learn, however, from the Author that he is not of this opinion, but thinks that the originals, in whatever language, ancient or difficult to decipher and understand, should be printed in full, as otherwise the Orientalist will suspect the translation as an invention of the Author; or if not in the text of the Work, they might, he thinks, be lithographed and placed at the end of the volume.