it must be shown that the general scope of the Corân is really as here stated,
and also that there is no text anywhere to be found of a necessarily opposite
sense. The review for this purpose must needs be exhaustive. It must take
cognizance of every passage bearing indirectly or by implication on the
Scriptures, as well as of those in which they are expressly mentioned.
Such is the purport of this Essay. It presents a collection of the whole
evidence contained in the Corân, and from it draws the conclusion that the
Jewish and Christian Scriptures, as current in the age of Mahomet, were by him
held to be genuine and of divine authority. The work is addressed to Mahometans,
and is composed in a form suitable for translation into the Oriental languages.
It was first published at Agra in 1855, and is now reprinted with such slight
amendments as further study of the subject has suggested.
The texts are given both in the original Arabic and in English. They are,
where necessary, explained, and their bearing on the Scriptural argument brought
out; and the interpretation of the standard Commentators occasionally adduced.
This process has rendered unavoidable some repetition of the arguments, and the
leading points are recapitulated in the concluding Section. The reader, bearing
in mind the design of the compilation, will pardon this defect.