The World's Greatest Books - Volume 13 Part 43

FOOTNOTES

Footnote 1: The deceased speaks constantly as if he were Osiris or some other G.o.d. This is supposed to give him the privileges and power of the G.o.d whose name he bears.

Footnote 2: The Egyptians thought that in the lower world the heart or conscience was weighed, _i.e.,_ judged.

Footnote 3: This chapter and the like are found on stone, wood, porcelain, etc., figures, and attached to the mummy. It was supposed to act magically in transferring the tasks of the underworld from the person.

Footnote 4: The storm-G.o.d, the arch-fiend of Ra, the sun-G.o.d

Footnote 5: The suppliant has made a wax figure of Apepi, and, by sympathetic magic, imagines that by burning it he is destroying the power of the original. Such wax figures of the G.o.ds made for magical purposes were generally illegal.

Footnote 6: There are many examples in the Book of the Dead of the magical potency attached to names. To invoke a G.o.d by his name was to control him.

Footnote 7: The a.s.s stands for Ra, the sun-G.o.d, and the eater of the a.s.s is darkness or some eclipse, represented as one of the foes of Ra, in the vignette figured as a serpent on the back of an a.s.s. Compare the Babylonian myth of Marduk and Tiamat.

Footnote 8: The married name of Confucius.

Footnote 9: Compare the method of Socrates in the investigation of truth.

Footnote 10: In the above four "difficulties," note the reappearance of the law of reciprocity, the negative form of the Golden Rule.

Footnote 11: A technical name for China, which was supposed to be enclosed by the four great oceans of the world. China is also called "The Middle Kingdom."

Footnote 12: That is, those who have been invested with the sacred thread, which is a sign of having been initiated into the paternal caste. This ceremony takes place at the age of seven or nine years, but is only observed by the three higher castes. It is to be compared with the Christian rites of baptism and confirmation. Hindu boys, when invested with the sacred thread or cord, are said to be born again.

Footnote 13: This spelling of the word ("Quran") represents the native Arabic p.r.o.nunciation if it be remembered that "q" stands for a "k" sound proceeding from the lower part of the throat. The initial sound is therefore to be distinguished from that of the Arabic and Hebrew letters properly transliterated "k."

Footnote 14: The p.r.o.nunciation heard by the present writer among the Muslim Arabs of Egypt, Syria, etc. The word means literally "The Praised One" or "The One to be Praised." The "h," however, in the word is not the ordinary one, but that p.r.o.nounced at the lower part of the throat, as the Arabic equivalent of "q" is. Hence this "h" is transliterated as "h" with a dot underneath it.

Footnote 15: All the suras, except the ninth, begin with this formula, as, indeed, do most Arabic books, often even books of an immoral nature.

Footnote 16: Muhammad's uncle, who, with his wife, rejected the prophet' claims.

Footnote 17: A word-play, Lahab meaning "flame."

Footnote 18: Said by Muslim commentators to be one of the last ten nights of Ramadhan, the seventh of those nights reckoning backwards.

Footnote 19: The earliest mention of the doctrine of abrogation of previous revelations. When Muhammad was convinced that what he had previously taught was erroneous he always professed to have received a new revelation annulling the earlier one bearing on the matter.

Footnote 20: There is perhaps here an indirect reference to the alleged deification of the Virgin Mary by the Christians with whom Muhammad came in contact.

Footnote 21: This is from one of the oldest suras. A most important Muslim tradition says that Muhammad declares this sura to be equal to a third of the rest of the Koran. Some say it represents the prophet's creed when he entered upon his mission.

Footnote 22: This is directed against both the Mekkan belief that angels were daughters of G.o.d and also against the Christian doctrine that Jesus was the Son of G.o.d. Reference is also made, perhaps, to the Jewish description of Ezra as G.o.d's son.

Footnote 23: Muhammad here adopts the Jewish and Arab myth that Solomon had a seal with the divine name (Yahwe) inscribed on it giving him control over winds and jinns, or demons.

Footnote 24: In Arabic, Mary and Miriam are spelt exactly alike ("Miriam"). This evidently misled Muhammad. In sura 56 he describes the Virgin as a daughter of Amram, the father of Aaron, Moses, and Miriam.

(See Numbers xxvi. 59, and Exodus xv. 20.)

Footnote 25: This is a well-known Arab fable, based on a misunderstanding of I Kings iv. 33, influenced by the second Targum on Esther. See an English translation of this last in a commentary on Esther by Paul Ca.s.sel (T. & T. Clark), p. 263. This Targum is certainly older than the Koran, and it embodies Jewish legends of a still greater antiquity.

Footnote 26: This legend about Mount Sinai is contained twice in the Jewish Talmud (Abodah Zarah Mishnah II, 2, and Shabbath Gemarah lx.x.xviii. 1). It is no doubt this Jewish tradition that suggested the above pa.s.sage.

Footnote 27: The point to which men turn in prayer, Zoroastrians pray towards the east--the direction of the rising sun; Jews towards Jerusalem, where the Temple was; and Muslims, from the utterance of this sura, towards Mekka. At first Muhammad adopted no Qiblah. On reaching Medinah, in order to conciliate the Jews he adopted Jerusalem as the Qiblah. But a year after reaching Medinah, he broke with the Jews and commanded his people to make the Kaabah their Qiblah.

Footnote 28: The cube-like building in the centre of the mosque at Mekka, which contains the sacred black stone.

Footnote 29: Ahmad and Muhammad have both the same meaning, _i.e._, "the Praiseworthy One." Muslim commentators hold that the Paraclete (Comforter) promised in John xvi. 7 means Muhammad. In order to make this clear, however, they say we ought to read "Periklutos," _i.e._, virtually Ahmad and Muhammad, instead of "Paracletos."

Footnote 30: According to the Koran, Mary was wors.h.i.+pped as G.o.d by the Christians of Arabia.

Footnote 31: According to sura 2, verse 174, the _Bismillah_ (lit. "In the name of Allah," etc.) must be uttered before animals to be eaten are killed.