The Koran #261632

The Suras, viewed as a whole, will thus appear to be the work of one who began his career as a thoughtful inquirer after truth, and as an earnest asserter of it in such rhetorical and poetical forms as he deemed most likely to win and attract his countrymen, but who gradually proceeded from the dogmatic teacher to the politic founder of a system for which laws and regulations had to be provided as occasions arose. And of all the Suras it must he remarked that they were intended not only for readers but for hem'ers — that they were all promulgated by public recital — and that much was left, as the imperfect sentences show, to the manner and suggestive action of the reciter.