THIS work does not profess to be a life of Muhammad. It is a history of
the development of the Qur'an, showing how its gradual formation was
determined by the events of the Prophet's life. Treated in this way, the
Qur'an reveals his change of position towards the various classes of persons
with whom he was brought into contact, and by the aptness of its injunctions,
its apologies, its denunciations, we are enabled to see how admirably this
piecemeal ' revelation was fitted to meet the requirements of Islam as they
arose.
For the dates and the order of the Suras, or chapters of the Qur'an, I
have followed Noldeke's Geschichte des Qorans, which seems to me to be
the best and most authoritative book on the subject. The following table
shows the order in which Noldeke arranges the Suras. He divides the Meccan
ones into three groups, the earlier, middle, and later periods, and places
all the Medina Suras in a fourth group.
MECCAN SURAS First Period.—From the first to the fifth year of the
Prophet's Mission. A.D. 612-17.
96, 74, 111, 106, 108, 104, 107, 102, 105, 92, 90,
94, 93, 97, 86, 91, 8o, 68, 87, 95, 103, 85, 73, 101,
99, 82, 81, 53, 84, 100, 79, 779 78, 88, 89, 75, 83,
69, 51, 52, 56, 70, 55, 112, 109, 113, 114, I.
