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Koran   Listen
noun
Koran  n.  (Written also Kuran or Quran. Also rarely Coran and Core)  The Scriptures of the Muslims, containing the professed revelations to Mohammed; called also Alcoran. Note: The Koran is the sacred book of the Muslims (sometimes called Mohammedans by non-Muslims, a term considered offensive by some Muslims). It is the most important foundation on which Islam rests and it is held in the highest veneration by all Islamic sects. When being read it must be kept on a stand elevated above the floor. No one may read it or touch it without first making a legal ablution. It is written in the Arabic language, and its style is considered a model. The substance of the Koran is held to be uncreated and eternal. Mohammed was merely the person to whom the work was revealed. At first the Koran was not written, but entirely committed to memory. But when a great many of the best Koran reciters had been killed in battle, Omar suggested to Abu-Bekr (the successor of Mohammed) that it should be written down. Abu-Bekr accordingly commanded Zeid, an amanuensis of the prophet, to commit it to writing. This was the authorized text until 23 years after the death of the prophet. A number of variant readings had, however, crept into use. By order of the calif Osman in the year 30 of the Hejira, Zeid and three assistants made a careful revision which was adopted as the standard, and all the other copies were ordered to be burned. The Koran consists of 114 suras or divisions. These are not numbered, but each one has a separate name. They are not arranged in historical order. These suras purport to be the addresses delivered by Mohammed during his career at Mecca and Medina. As a general rule the shorter suras, which contain the theology of Islam, belong to the Meccan period; while the longer ones, relating to social duties and relationships, to Medina. The Koran is largely drawn from Jewish and Christian sources, the former prevailing. Moses and Jesus are reckoned among the prophets. The biblical narratives are interwoven with rabbinical legends. The customs of the Jews are made to conform to those of the Arabians. Islamic theology consists in the study of the Koran and its commentaries. A very fine collection of Korans, including one in Cufic (the old Arabic character), is to be found in the Khedival Library at Cairo, Egypt.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Koran" Quotes from Famous Books



... World over which Christianity has spread in its three great types,—Greek, Romish, and Protestant,—and in the scarce less extended portion occupied by the followers of Mohammed, the Scriptural account of the deluge, or the imperfect reflection of it borrowed by the Koran, has, of course, supplanted the old traditions. But outside these regions we find the traditions existing still. One of the sacred books of the Parsees (representatives of the ancient Persians) records, that "the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... sect of Moslems, however, numbering about fifteen millions,—of which eight millions are Persians,—do not regard representations of animals as unlawful. By the industry of this sect, and that of all who disregard the law of the Koran, animal forms are seen on some ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt

... Mohammedanism, as well as the striking similarity that exists between these two systems of false religion. Each one is founded, after a fashion, on the Bible, to which each has supplemented a volume of miserable fables, the one called the Book of Mormon, and the other the Koran. Each has a spurious prophet, who is exalted above the prophets of Scripture. Both systems permit polygamy, and both are most ultra-Protestant in relation to the forms and ceremonies, images and pictures of the Oriental and Latin churches. And as God sent the great Mohammedan ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... uncontrolled authority of Pashas, inflated with self-importance in their cordons of the legion of honour, who at their whim have people beaten on the soles of their feet. The so-called justice of bespectacled Cadis, traitors to the koran and to the law, who sell their judgements as did Esau his birthright for a plate of cous-cous. Drunken and libertine headmen, former batmen to General Yussif someone or other, who guzzle champagne in the company of harlots, ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... years!" it says, a token of subjection which the mosques of Yunnan have especially been compelled to display since the insurrection. At the time of my visit an aged mollah was teaching Arabic and the Koran to a ragged handful of boys. He spoke to me through an interpreter, and gave me the impression of having some little knowledge of things outside the four seas that surround China. I told him that I had lived under the shelter of two of the greatest mosques, but he seemed to question my contention ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... perched continually on the shoulders of every man to record his good and evil deeds. And when an eclipse occurs they say that the sun and moon have gone behind a pinnacle or tower of the heavens. For exorcising evil spirits they write texts of the Koran on paper and burn them before the sufferer. The caste bury the dead with the feet pointing to the south. On the way to the grave each one of the mourners places his shoulder under the bier for a time, partaking of the impurity ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... refer not to miracles and the testimony of eye-witnesses, nor to laws and ordinances handed down from generation to generation, even to that time. That Mahomet pretended not to the working of miracles, he tells us in the Koran. The ridiculous legends related by his followers are rejected as spurious by the scholars and expounders of the prophet; and even his converse with the moon, his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and from thence to heaven, were not ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... reads: 'There is no conqueror but Allah.' Other mottoes which are very common are: 'There is no God but Allah;' 'Mohammed is the envoy of Allah;' 'Allah is great;' 'Allah never forgets;' and various quotations from the Koran." ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... snatch a temporary interval from his duties as a warrior. Attachment to his family, and attention to religious observances, seem to have been thought quite compatible with a strong attachment to the sex generally; we find him at the village of Zamenang, engaged for two months in copying the Koran and other religious works, and yet frequently amusing himself with the Bedaya, or dancing girls, from whom he was unable to separate himself in his retirement. Mangku Bumi had the impudence to deprive him of two of these women, whom he had previously presented to him as a ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... White Beard. "Why, I have sworn on the Koran, and before all my tribe, to kill every Englishman I come across. I fear no nation on earth but the English, and lest they swallow me up, I have sworn to swallow them, one by one, whenever ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband

... warm imagination, having at their disposal overexcited senses, they are lavish of changes of expressions and figures, hoping thereby to explain the world's mysteries. We know to what inventive labors the Vedas, the Bible, the Koran, and other sacred books have given rise. The distinction between literal and figurative sense, which is boundlessly arbitrary, has given commentators a freedom to imagine equal ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... to treat of nothing in the class hours that could offend any of these discordant elements? If there be a Jew in the school, you cannot speak of the Gospel; if there be a Mahometan, nothing could be said against polygamy, and other degrading doctrines of the Koran; due respect must also be paid to the teaching of Arians and Socinians, who deny the Trinity of persons in God, and the Divinity of Christ; and to the opinions of Calvinists and Lutherans, of Methodists and other sectaries, who assail almost every point of ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... pronounce that long name very well, though he had no idea what it meant. He knew there was a book called the Koran, and would have told you Mr. Mohammed wrote it; but so had Mr. Colburn written an Arithmetic, and whether both these gentlemen were alive, or both dead, was more than ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May

... the Ummayyad Caliphate, and green, representing the Fatimid Caliphate; a red isosceles triangle on the hoist side, representing the Great Arab Revolt of 1916, and bearing a small white seven-pointed star symbolizing the seven verses of the opening Sura (Al-Fatiha) of the Holy Koran; the seven points on the star represent faith in One God, humanity, national spirit, humility, social justice, virtue, and aspirations; design is based on the Arab Revolt flag of World ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... who has roamed in his time over the deserts and slept in Bedawee tents; one to whom the East is as a second mother, and in whose faith the Koran is necessary to really put the finishing touch to a true gentleman, sends us the following ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... the Koran direct us to destroy the unbelieving and the impious? Must I then suffer these infidels ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... the Scriptures, the Word of God; (Catholic) Douay Bible, Vulgate; (Mohammedan) Koran. Associated Words: canonics, canon, canonical, anagogics, anagoge, exegesis, biblical, biblicist, bibliolater, bibliolatry, bibliology, biblist, bibliomancy, Hagiographa, hagiographer, hagiologist, hagiology, commentator, Heptateuch, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... present day. Judaism itself evolved under the influence of the Prophets, of Moses, and of Abraham. Turning to Asia, we learn how Buddhism evolved from Brahmanism. The teachings of Mohammed at a later time developed into the formulated precepts of the Koran. Would any one venture to assert that all or any of these systems of thought have stood firm and immutable from the finite or infinite beginnings of time? Would any one contend that the creeds of Protestantism have remained unchanged even during the past twenty years? ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton

... ape statesmen at the spouting-clubs, and who believed as a fact that Government always had an eye on the University for the selection of orators for the House of Commons. There were audacious young free-thinkers, who adored nobody or nothing, except perhaps Robespierre and the Koran, and panted for the day when the pale name of priest should shrink and dwindle away before the indignation ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... known what was contained in the Bible, yet she knew that it was the word of God, and was ready to receive all its teachings as of divine authority. To her Moslem sister it is not only an unknown book, but one she is taught to regard as superseded by the Koran. ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary

... steps towards Schiatah. So far no misfortune had interrupted his progress. But at Schiatah he was denounced as a Christian and a spy. Horneman cleverly saved his life by boldly reading out a passage in the Koran which he had in his possession. Unfortunately, his interpreter, expecting that his baggage would be searched, had burned the collection of fragments of mummies, the botanical specimens, the journal containing the account of the journey, and ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... nor the Negritos read or write. The Moros, too, are very ignorant, only the priests and students being able to read passages from the Koran and make the Arabic characters. The latest Malay immigrants, who had been influenced by Indian culture, introduced a style of writing that is very queer. Three vowels were used,—a, e, and u. The consonants were represented ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... vestibule was a long, cheaply cushioned bench, the resting-place of the women's custodian; and upon it lay spread open the eunuch's well-used koran, which he had deserted to meet the visitors. Who had given him the order to go, and why it had been given, the guests began ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... distinguished scholars whom he had selected to accompany him. His whole soul seemed engrossed in the pursuit of literary and scientific attainments. He also carefully, and with most intense interest, studied the Bible and Koran, scrutinizing, with the eye of a philosopher, the antagonistic system of the Christian and the Moslem. The limity of the Scriptures charmed him. He read again and again, with deep admiration, Christ's sermon upon the mount and called his companions form their card-tables, ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott

... again, lone-handed, he has done better than an army corps, by playing chief against chief in a land where the only law is individual interpretation of the Koran. ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy

... cried, quoting from Al-Koran, "which run swiftly to battle, with a panting noise; and by those who strike fire by dashing their hoofs against the stones; and by those who make a sudden invasion on the enemy early in the morning and therein raise the dust, and therein pass ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... deemed unnecessary trivialities, and the Christian religion a banality. Instead of these prosaic lessons the boy was instructed in the Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian tongues, and, in lieu of the Bible, the Koran was ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... Kunbi with a sick child, now by some Musulman mill-hands, until he reaches the Bismillah shrine, where he falls forward on his face with frothing mouth and convulsed body. The friends help the spirit which racks him to depart by blowing into his ear a few verses of the Koran; whereat the Dula, after a possession of about four hours, regains consciousness, looks around in surprise, and retires to his home fatigued but ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.

... from an apprehension they might become too fond of it). The flesh is not allowed to be carried away from the spot, but must be consumed at the time. I am assured that the Battas are more attached to these laws than the Mahomedans are to the Koran, and that the number of the punishments is very considerable. My informants considered that there could be no less than fifty or sixty men eaten in a year, and this in times of peace; but they were unable to estimate the true extent, considering the great population of the country; they were confident, ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

... Jasher, which embodies the Talmudic story quoted above, tells us that an infant in the cradle spoke up and testified to Joseph's innocence, and that while Joseph was in prison his inamorata daily visited him. More on this topic may be found in the Koran, chap. xii. The amours of Joseph and Zulieka, as told by the glib tongue of tradition, fitly find their consummation in marriage, and certain Moslems affect to see in all this an allegorical type of Divine love, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... a false prophet, but one certainly under the inspiration of enthusiasm, otherwise he would never by his doctrine have revolutionized the half of the world. What an absurdity to make him merely a cool deceiver! One alone of the many sublime maxims of the Koran would be sufficient to annihilate the whole of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... more trivial circumstances will determine the fate of a dozen of people, and perhaps of an immense treasure. All worship the pickaxe, which is symbolical of their profession, and an oath sworn on it binds closer than on the Koran. The consecration of this weapon is a most elaborate ceremony, and takes place only under certain trees. They rise through various grades: the lowest are scouts; the second, sextons; the third are holders of the victims' hands; ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... strange, uneasy, uprooted from his sober aplomb. Unknown irritations possessed him. Under his breath he muttered an Arabic cynicism about woman, from the fourth chapter of the Koran: "Men shall have the preeminence above women, because Allah hath caused the one of them to excel ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... burnt all the Christian writings they could find, and the Christians, when they got the upper hand, retaliated with interest upon the pagan literature. The Mohammedan reason for destroying books—"If they contain what is in the Koran they are superfluous, and if they contain anything opposed to it they are immoral," seems, indeed, mutatis mutandis, to have been the general rule ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades

... enable a people to govern themselves. In this long and even tedious but absolutely essential process, I believe your University will take an important part. When I was recently in the Sudan I heard a vernacular proverb, based on a text in the Koran, which is so apt that, although not an Arabic scholar, I shall attempt to repeat it in Arabic: "Allah ma el saberin, izza sabaru"—God is with the patient, if they ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... Against Mahomet.—The Koran is not more of Mahomet than the Gospel is of Saint Matthew, for it is cited by many authors from age to age. Even its very enemies, Celsus and Porphyry, ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... seen, took many years to write Lavengro. 'I am writing the work,' he told Dawson Turner, 'in precisely the same manner as The Bible in Spain, viz., on blank sheets of old account-books, backs of letters,' etc., and he recalls Mahomet writing the Koran on mutton bones as an analogy to his own 'slovenliness of manuscript.'[174] I have had plenty of opportunity of testing this slovenliness in the collection of manuscripts of portions of Lavengro that have come into my possession. These are written upon ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... banquet to celebrate universal brotherhood which did not pan out pure gold in the experiment of life. He had heard at such a love feast an aristocratic poet extoll in harangue the unwashed Democracy, a Walking Delegate read a poem, a Jew quote the Koran with unction, a Mohammedan eulogise Monogamy, a Single-Taxer declare himself a Democrat, a Socialist glorify Individualism, and an Anarchist express his love ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon

... to her brother, a pacha or provincial governor in Tartary. She sent also a letter asking the pacha to be kind to the young English slave and give him a chance of learning Turkish and the principles of the Koran. ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... they have never intermarried since. They have adopted the dress and language of the Chinese, but otherwise they continue almost as distinct as the Jews in America. They instruct their children in the doctrines of Islam, though the Mohammedan rule that the Koran must not be translated has prevented all but a few literati from obtaining any knowledge of the book itself. They have done little proselyting, but natural increase, occasional reenforcements and ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... by which modern criticism might profit, and those books of Livy for which the classic student has so long sorrowed without hope. Among these precious tomes I observed the original manuscript of the Koran, and also that of the Mormon Bible in Joe Smith's authentic autograph. Alexander's copy of the Iliad was also there, enclosed in the jewelled casket of Darius, still fragrant of the perfumes which the Persian ...
— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... curses it contained, for the rascal had lost his faith both in Allah and in Mohammed, through his frequent intercourse with the Christians and the Jews of Tetuan and Ceuta, who naturally scoffed at the Koran, but because he believed that his face, his accent, and some other personal peculiarities of his forbade his going to Spain, where he would find himself exposed to certain death should any Christian man or woman discover him to be an enemy to ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various

... about twelve centuries ago, when Persia was overrun and conquered by the Mohammedan Arabs. But not the fiercest persecution could induce the Fire-worshipers to change their religion for that of the Koran. Preferring liberty and their altars in a foreign land to the alternative of apostasy or persecution at home, the aboriginal Persian inhabitants fled to other lands, settling immense colonies in Surat and Bombay, where their descendants form in our ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various

... was the luxury of cultivation, the yellowing crop, the grazing cattle, the cottage smoke curling slowly upward on the back-ground of noble beech, ash, and sycamore. On the summit, the sun gleamed on a rectory house, half buried in roses, where the most learned of our Orientalists perused the Koran in the peace of a Mahometan paradise, and doubtless saw, on the dancing waters of the mighty river at his feet, perpetual visions ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... bargain only when two men agree on something, says the Koran," the gipsy chief reminded the Tartar boatman. "I don't want to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... dua jam lama nia pada tiap-tiap hari, lama-lama tuntu-lah buleh dapat bacha lanchar. Why do you undertake a thing and give it up when half finished?— Perkara itu apa sebab tuan ta' mahu bahagi habis, buat sa' k[)e]rat-k[)e]rat sahaja? My son has learned to write Malay, and is now learning the Koran— Anak sahaya sudah dapat tulis Jawi sakarang tengah meng-aji Koran. When he has read it through, he will commence to learn (Arabic) grammar— Tatkala sudah khatam dia handak mengaji nahu. He chants the Koran very well— ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell

... also a dagger with the same property, but it is ordained that those who use it shall perish by it. It is therefore carefully kept shut up in a sandal-wood box, on which is engraved a verse of the Koran. ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... C. W. A. S.—(even Dr Panurge could not get through the whole name again!)—"My dear love! they had Blackwood's Magazine, which, like the Koran after the burning of the Alexandrian library, supplied the place ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... stairs, and were rescued in their downward career by N——, who by dint of much shuffling managed to keep his on. Below us were seated some thirty or forty dervishes. The leader repeated portions of the Koran, in which exercise others occasionally took part in a quiet manner. After a while they knelt in line opposite their leader and began to chant in louder tones, occasionally bowing forward full length. Matters down ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... in spots with light drifting sand, a halt was made. The eldest of the company—the water gourd hung at his girdle, and on his head was a little bag of unleavened bread—drew a square in the sand with his staff, and wrote in it a few words out of the Koran, and then the whole caravan passed over the consecrated spot. A young merchant, a child of the East, as I could tell by his eye and his figure, rode pensively forward on his white snorting steed. Was he thinking, perchance, of his fair young wife? It was only two days ago that the camel, adorned ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... and reliefs of the Middle Kingdom her name and figure are often found following those of the children and parents of the deceased. The wet-nurse was held in especial honour. The milk-relationship sometimes completely takes the place of blood-relationship. The Koran forbids the marriage of a nurse and a man whom, as a child, she has suckled; the laws of the Hanafi forbid a man to marry a woman from whose breast he has imbibed even a single drop of milk. Among the southern Slavonians: "If of two children ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... young people, when you came in, of an ancient Koran which I was given in Alexandria by a learned man whom I operated upon for cataract.' He showed her a beautifully-written Arabic work, with wonderful capitals and headlines in gold. 'You know that it is almost impossible for an infidel to acquire the holy book, and this is a particularly ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... dear me, why did I get married? Fatal idea! I allowed myself to be caught by a small amount of cash. And is it really over? Cannot I have another wife? Ah, the Turks manage things better! It is plain enough that the author of the Koran lived in ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... swallowed, as a remedy for many diseases. The deep connection of medicine with magic throwing light on the strange application of stones and hairs, bones and skins, by imaginative mankind, in all ages and places, is exhibited in the common practice of writing with ink a sentence of the Koran (or other sacred words) on a tablet, washing off the ink and making the patient swallow the water in which the sacred phrase has been thus dissolved! How convenient it would be were it possible thus to impart knowledge, virtue, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... cheap? Have done with this heartless cant,—this prating about the constitutional rights of traitors! When the Moslem chief was marching to the chastisement of a revolted tribe, the insurgents, seeing disaster inevitable in a fair field, resorted to the device of elevating the Koran upon the shafts of their spears, and bearing it before them into battle. The stratagem succeeded. The fanatical Arabs were filled with horror on finding that they had lifted their swords against the Book of the Holy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... closer than a blood tie. Squatting among the rocks, or lying thickly in the shadow, they peered out at the slow-moving square beneath them, while women with water-skins and bags of dhoora fluttered from group to group, calling out to each other those fighting texts from the Koran which in the hour of battle are maddening as wine to the true believer. A score of banners waved over the ragged, valiant crew, and among them, upon desert horses and white Bishareen camels, were the Emirs and Sheiks who were to lead them ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... thing to accept the whole of it, I do declare, Marian, he was worse when he began to praise it than he was before; for he talked of the Old Testament as if it was just like the Greek mythology, and then he compared it to Homer, and AEschylus, and the Koran. To be sure he did say it was better poetry and morality; but the idea of comparing it! I don't mean comparing as if it must be better, but as if it stood on the ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... Provencal outright: and that the Swedish Government has no end of trouble to keep the country people from converting into brandy the corn that ought to go to the miller; whilst the Mohammedan Arabs accept without difficulty that precept of the Koran which forbids the use of wine and spirituous liquors. It is easy for the Arabs, who are kept warm by their climate, to do without brandy. It is less easy for the Swedes, who are ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... equal horizontal bands of black (top), white, and green with a red isosceles triangle based on the hoist side bearing a small white seven-pointed star; the seven points on the star represent the seven fundamental laws of the Koran ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... men of three separate creeds, who have often fought with one another over the issues of their faiths—the big bearded Sikhs, with a soldier's religion, the warlike Mohammedans, who fight according to their Koran, and ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy

... mystic of the most pronounced type, and now is only "a berry from the same field," as we say in Russia, as the Spiritualists, by whom he is considered to be a medium and a Calcutta Swedenborg. He spends his time in a dirty tank, singing praises to Chaitanya, Koran, Buddha, and his own person, proclaiming himself their prophet, and performs a mystical dance, dressed in woman's attire, which, on his part, is an attention to a "woman goddess" whom the Babu calls his "mother, father and ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... told me that artificial birth control was not practised in this region, and played no part in maintaining a stationary population. The majority of the people were strict Mohammedans, amongst whom the practice of birth control is forbidden by the Koran. ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland

... of explanation. Such are those in Spain by Alphonso de Spina, 1487, and by Turrecremata (see Eichhorn's Gesch. der Lit. vi.); by Nicholas de Cuza, published in 1543; in Italy about 1500 by Ludovicus Vives, and Volterranus; one by Philip Melancthon in reference to the reading of the Koran; and a collection of treatises, including those of Richardus, Cantacuzene, Vives, and Melancthon, published by Bibliander in 1543. Probably the first two of this list may have been the relic of the crusade of Christianity against ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... previous to their invasion of the town limped up with his eye teeth showing and his flapping cotton raiment still unmended where the dog had torn it. Any other wrath, however awful, could be nothing but the shadow of his state of mind; and since he knew the more vindictive portions of the Koran all by heart, and was quoting as he came, there was little need of words ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... God, and Mahomet is his prophet." Do not contradict them. Behave to them as you have behaved to the Jews—to the Italians. Pay respect to their muftis, and their Imaums, as you did to the rabbis and the bishops. Extend to the ceremonies prescribed by the Koran and to the mosques the same toleration which you showed to the synagogues, to the religion of Moses and of ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... mouldering stone. Medina's sceptre is despoiled of might— Once stretched o'er realms that bowed in pale affright; The Moon that rose, as waved the scimetar Where sunk the Cross amid the storm of war, Now pale and dim, is hastening to its wane, The sword is broke that spread the Koran's reign, And soon will minaret and swelling dome Fall, like the fanes of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. On other lands has dawned immortal day, And Superstition's clouds have rolled away; O'er Gallia's mounts and ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... they could on no account give it up. In respect to the true cross, the Christians, he said, if they could obtain it, would worship it in an idolatrous manner, as they did their other relics; and as the law of the Prophet in the Koran forbade idolatry, they could not conscientiously give it up. "By so doing," said he, "we should be ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... point that in the most highly developed religions there is the greatest falling off from the original conception of the after-effect of human conduct on the soul, and the most astounding things are inculcated by the Koran and other works ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... be divine." A profound generalization indeed! Is a peach-tree just like a horse-chestnut, or a scrub-oak, or a honey-locust? They are all trees, and have leaves on them. The Bible is just as like the Yi King, or the Vedas, or the Koran, as a Christian American is like a Chinaman, a Turk, or a Hindoo. But it is too absurd to begin any discussion with these learned Thebans of the relative merits of the Bible as compared with the Vedas, and the Chinese Classics, of ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... pilgrims- caravan of Damascus to Aleppo and thence I went on to Baghdad, where I sought out the Shaykh of the Water-carriers of the city and finding his house I went in and repeated the opening chapter of the Koran to him. He questioned me of my case and I told him all that had betided me, whereupon he assigned me a shop and gave me a water-skin and gear. So I sallied forth a-morn trusting in Allah to provide, and went round about the city. I offered the gugglet to one, that ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... (Islam, submission to God, whence his followers take the name of Moslems), is contained in the Koran. The various Suras, or divisions, originally the revelations received by the prophet at different periods of his life reduced to writing, were, soon after his death, united by Abu Bekr into one holy book, under ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten

... called "The Koran," mentions a fourth son of Noah, named Kinan, who refused to enter the ark with his family, preferring to trust them on the top of a mountain, where they all perished. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... told him that I had given orders that the desk for the reader of the Koran in our new mosque should be discarded, because when he stepped up to it he was uplifted above the other worshippers, the weary Mukaukas was quite agitated with satisfaction and uttered a loud cry of approbation. We Moslems—for that was what my commands ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... now living in huts which crown the heights of Boudjareah overlooking the sea, who formerly furnished the boldest of the pitiless corsairs. To the iron hooks of the Bab (or gate) of Azoun were hung by the loins our Christian brothers who would not accept the Koran; at the Bab-el-Oued, the Arab rebels, not confounded even in their deaths with the dogs of Christians, were beheaded by the yataghan; and in the blue depths we sail over, whose foam washes the bases of the temples, hapless women have sunk for ever, tied in a leather ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... life he disguised himself as a Mussulman, and took the name of Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah. After two years passed in the Levant he had thoroughly mastered Arabic, and had acquired such accurate knowledge of the Koran, and of the commentaries upon its religion and laws, that after a critical examination the most learned Mussulmans entertained no doubt of his being really what he professed to be, a learned doctor of their law. During ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... the fate of the world was really decided at the siege of Acre. With Egypt at my feet I already pictured myself approaching India, mounted upon an elephant, and holding in my hand a new version of the Koran which I had myself composed. I have been born too late. To be accepted as a world's conqueror one must claim to be divine. Alexander declared himself to be the son of Jupiter, and no one questioned it. But the world has grown old, and has lost its enthusiasms. ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the men sit round me and smoke my cigars, they soon enter into conversation. We spoke a good deal to-day on the subject of religion, the difference between Christianity and Mahometanism, and, above all, the absurdity of their repeating the Koran, like so many parrots, without understanding one word of what they say; and the irreverence of addressing God in words they do not understand, so that their hearts can take no part in their prayers. They agreed that it would be better to learn God's law, instead of trusting ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... more, a circumstantial narrative of an experience he had with an Egyptian magician, along with Mr. Salt, a British Consul. Invocations were liberally used, in order to summon the two genii of the magician, and verses were recited from the Koran, in order that the eyes of the medium—a boy—should be opened in a supernatural manner. The magician selected one at random from a group of boys, and drew in the palm of the boy's right hand a magic square, ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... Sovereign, out of Queen of Roses; by Belted Earl, out of Fallen Star; by Marmion, out of Court Coquette, and straight up to the White Cockade blood, etc., etc., etc.—is it not written in the mighty and immortal chronicle, previous as the Koran, patrician as the Peerage, known and beloved to mortals as ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... praise, so overflowing in its abundance, which they bestowed on one another put them both in a very happy humor. From the Koran, from Saadi, Hafiz, and Fizuli, each authenticated the other to be the moving embodiment of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... Turkish capital at the time of Ramadan, the period of the year (about a month) during which the Mohammedans are commanded by the Koran to keep a rigorous fast every day from sunrise till sunset. All the followers of the Prophet were therefore busy with their devotions—holding a revival, as it were; hence there was no chance whatever to be presented to the Sultan, Abdul Aziz, it being ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the youth then betook himself to asking pardon of Allah and to invoking prayer and praise upon the Apostle and the Lord of the Just and repeating verses of the Koran; after ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... sexual themes have in most creeds, as illustrated in ancient times by the phallus worship of the Egyptians, the ceremonies of the Friga cultus of the Saxons, the frequent and detailed reference to sexual topics in the Koran and several other books of the kind, and which is further illustrated in the performances which, to come down to a modern period, characterize the religious revival and camp-meeting as they tinctured their medieval model, the Muenster ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... we all as one. So, gloomed in tall and stone-swathed groves, The Buddha walks with Christ! And Al-Koran and ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... saw myself on the road to Asia, mounted on an elephant, with a turban on my head, and in my hand a new Koran, which I composed to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... them, said: 'A formidable army and a cloud of barbarians are about to burst on this isle. Brethren, they are the enemies of Jesus Christ. The question is the defense of the Faith, and whether the Gospel shall yield to the Koran. God demands from us the life that we have already devoted to Him by our profession. Happy they who in so good a cause shall first consummate their sacrifice. But, that we may be worthy, my brethren, let us hasten to the altar, there to renew our vows; and may to each one ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... words of consolation read to them out of the Koran, and seated himself at the helm. But in vain! The tempest began visibly to rise with a roaring noise, and, before an hour passed by, the ship struck and remained aground. The boats were lowered, and scarcely ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff

... abundantly scornful toward that fond paganism which consists in imagining distinct patrons for various regions of nature or for sundry human activities. In turning to such patrons the pagan regards something purely ideal or, as the Koran shrewdly observes, worships his own passions. Allah, on the contrary, is overwhelmingly external and as far as possible from being ideal. He is indeed the giver of all good things, as of all evil, and while his mercies ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... centre of the roof, was suspended an octagonal bar of brass, to which lamps of different sizes were attached, and from the galleries, which are supported by pillars, hung several square pieces of cloth or pasteboard, painted black, and inscribed with passages from the Koran. ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... spacious place for him who's gold, to spend, But for the poor it is the house of suffering without end: I wander idly through its streets, as lost us if I were A Koran in an atheist's house, which hath no welcome there.' 'A sigh, a sigh for Bagdad, a sigh for Irak's land! For all its lovely peacocks, and the splendors they expand: They walk beside the Tigris, and the ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... said to stand on the site of a mosque and to have been at first called Al Koran, since corrupted into Alporao, but the present building can hardly have been begun till the early years of the thirteenth century. The church consists of an aisleless nave with good groined vaulting and a five-sided apsidal chancel. The round-arched ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... the river Styx over which the souls must cross; and with the custom of the vikings, to be buried in a boat so that they might cross the waters of Ginunga-gap to the inviting strands of Godheim. Relics of this belief are found in the Koran which describes the bridge el Sirat, thin as a hair and sharp as a scimetar,[TN-13] stretched in a single span from heaven to earth; in the Persian legend, where the rainbow arch Chinevad is flung across the gloomy depths between this world and the home of the happy; and even ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... representative of a millenium, passed in that time; or, however, of a duration far beyond the limits of any human experience." One of the miracles of Mohammed appears to be illustrative of the same phenomenon. We read, in the Koran, that the angel Gabriel took Mohammed, one morning, out of his bed to give him a sight of all things in the Seven Heavens and in Paradise; and, after holding ninety thousand spiritual conferences, he was brought back again to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... what they would do. There is no iconoclast in the world like an extreme Mohammedan. Last time they overran this country they burned the Alexandrian library. You know that all representations of the human features are against the letter of the Koran. A statue is always an irreligious object in their eyes. What do these fellows care for the sentiment of Europe? The more they could offend it the more delighted they would be. Down would go the Sphinx, the Colossi, the ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle

... begins his existence in Turkey, is carried early to the mosque; taught to lisp with profound reverence the name of Mohammed; habituated to repeat the prayers and sentences of the Koran as the means of eternal life; and induced, in a manner irresistible, to complete his title to Paradise by ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... in it?" asked Timea in alarm. Her fear of wine came partly from the recollection of the prohibition in the Koran. ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... lord, as they said, came in a strange equipage to see her; but her change to a Christian shocked and angered him, so that high words rose and even reached our ears. He spoke of the faith she had forsworn, of Allah, and Mahomet, and the Koran, and she with tears responded Christ, the Saviour of all mankind, and his holy mother, and the cross of Calvary, so that he was made more angry; and then he spoke of Euphrosyne, her mother, as we thought, and again the tears rolled down these cheeks, as she clung to master and lay ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... Lion, turning from him, looked at the writer. The writer, imagining that his own conversation hitherto had been too trivial and common-place for the Lion to consider worth his while to take much notice of it, determined to assume a little higher ground, and after repeating a few verses of the Koran, and gabbling a little Arabic, asked the Lion what he considered to be the difference between the Hegira and the Christian era, adding, that he thought the general computation was in error by about one year; and being a particularly modest person, chiefly, ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... neutrality. But the passions which raged on both sides of the Channel were not to be restrained. The republicans who ruled France were inflamed by a fanaticism resembling that of the Mussulmans who, with the Koran in one hand and the sword in the other, went forth, conquering and converting, eastward to the Bay of Bengal, and westward to the Pillars of Hercules. The higher and middle classes of England were animated by zeal not less fiery than that ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... was one of that unreckoned number, the Nicodemuses of India, who come to Jesus by night, who render Him unspoken homage, but never open confession. A man of broad religious interests, he read the Hindu Gita, the Koran, and the Gospels; and among them all the words of Jesus held pre-eminence in his love and in his life. When in later years he found his daughter puzzling over Bible commentaries to clear up some question of faith, he asked impatiently, ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren

... The Koran breathes a different spirit; it does not invite, it rather compels the world to come in. Yet there are passages, particularly in the earlier portions, which show that Mohammed, too, had realized the idea of humanity, and of a religion of humanity; nay, that at ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... the Mohammedan advocate polygamy. The Koran says a man must have four wives in order to always be able to find one in a good humor. There is one answer to polygamy which forever settles the question. The highest orders of animals and men are gifted by nature with an instinct prompting the ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... a ruby one would find a carbuncle or some valueless stone. Many of the chairs in the finer apartments were of gold inlaid with precious stones, and about many of the rooms were inscriptions from the Koran applied in solid gold." Other conspicuous buildings as seen from the water are the Government House, the Custom House, the Signal Tower, and the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various

... much surprised to see vast numbers of people in different postures, but all immovable. The merchants were in their shops, the soldiery on guard; every one seemed engaged in his proper avocation, yet all were become as stone.... I heard the voice of a man reading Al Koran.... Being curious to know why he was the only living creature in the town,... he proceeded to tell me that the city was the metropolis of a kingdom now governed by his father; that the former king and all his subjects were Magi, worshipers of fire and of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... KORAN, n. A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... LL.D. "Written with the Encouragement, Approbation, and Blessings of His Holiness the Pope."]—Clemens and Webster—every one, in fact, who heard of the project—united in the belief that no book, with the exception of the Holy Scripture itself or the Koran, would have a wider acceptance than the biography of the Pope. It was agreed by good judges—and they included Howells and Twichell and even the shrewd general agents throughout the country—that every good Catholic would regard such a book not only as desirable, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... are two very distinct attitudes. To the Mohammedan the language as well as the matter of the Koran is sacred. He will not permit its translation. Its original Arabic is the only authoritative tongue in which it can speak. It has been translated into other tongues, but always by adherents of other faiths, never by its own believers. The Hebrew and the ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... which his Arab servant brought in at that moment might help him. A change of language would be a help, and he might become a Moslem—for he believed in Mohammedanism as much as in Christianity; and an acceptance of the Koran would facilitate travelling in the desert. That and a little Arabic, a few mouthfuls, and no Mahdi would dare to enslave him.... But if he were only ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... notwithstanding, taught all the personal graces; and particular care is taken to instruct them in the art of conversing with elegance and vivacity; some of them are also taught to write, and the generality to read, so that they may be able to read the Koran; instead of which they more frequently dedicate themselves to tales and romances; which, painted in all the lively imagery of the East, seldom fail to corrupt the minds of creatures shut up from the world, and consequently forming to themselves ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... of incorruptible water; and rivers of milk, the taste whereof changes not; and rivers of wine, pleasant unto those who drink; and rivers of clarified honey; and in Paradise the faithful shall have all kinds of fruits, and pardon from their God."—Al Koran; Sura 47, "Mohammed." ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan

... Sale, who first gave to the world a genuine version of the Koran, pursued his studies through a life of wants. This great Orientalist, when he quitted his books to go abroad, too often wanted a change of linen; and he frequently wandered the streets, in search of some compassionate friend, who might supply him with the ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous

... so white a crown. And now the moon is shining on the scene, And the broad sheet of snow is written o'er With shadows cruciform of leafless trees, As once the winding-sheet of Saladin With chapters of the Koran; but, ah! more Mysterious and triumphant signs ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... cadi to the Banian, "have you witnesses to prove that Ali deceived you? If not, I shall put the accused on his oath, as the law decrees." A Koran was brought. Ali placed his hand on it, and swore three times that he had not deceived the stranger. "Wretch," said the Banian, "thou art among those whose feet go down to destruction. Thou ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... under the old system, are now of rare occurrence. But in the late instance, as I have already said to you, and again repeat, positively neither the Ministers nor the Sultan could have saved the life of the Armenian. The laws of the Koran compel no man to become a Mussulman, but they are inexorable both as respects a Mussulman who embraces another religion, and as respects a person not a Mussulman, who, after having of his own accord publicly embraced Islamism, is convicted of having renounced that faith. No consideration ...
— Correspondence Relating to Executions in Turkey for Apostacy from Islamism • Various

... conscious or unconscious, in their nature, may find room for expansion; where honest inquiry may be prosecuted, doubts freely and fairly discussed and perhaps dispelled; where all Truth, whether found in the Bible or the Koran, the Law of Mana or the Zend-Avesta, science or philosophy, may be eagerly seized and carefully treasured? If it were possible to thus bring together and utilize the vast amount of religious energy which ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... Christians, that good angels appear to men sometimes under a human form; that they appeared to Abraham and Lot; that they punished the inhabitants of Sodom; that the archangel Gabriel appeared to Mahomet, and revealed to him all that is laid down in his Koran: that the genii are of a middle nature, between man and angel;[59] that they eat, drink, beget children; that they die, and can foresee things to come. In consequence of this principle or idea, they believe that there are male and female genii; that the males, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... upon the marble basin. The sombre and mysterious aspect of the hall stimulates the tendency in the mind of the visitor to forget reality for the dreams of the imagination. The foot falls noiselessly upon soft Egyptian mats: the walls are blazoned with sentences from the Koran, written in gold on a black ground in those fantastic Turkish characters which seem better adapted to express the vagaries of a poetical fancy than to become the ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... a puzzle; for, while the handful of Mohammedans in the village were fanatical in their belief in the true prophet and his Koran, and put little faith in miracles and still less in holy men who performed them, the advent of the white priestess deeply mystified them. There was no getting around this: she was there; with their own eyes they saw her. There might be something in ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath

... in the eyes of a sensible man than for one denomination to criticize another whose creed is equally foolish. A Christian thinks that the Koran, the Divine revelation announced by Mohammed, is but a tissue of impertinent dreams and impostures injurious to Divinity. The Mohammedan, on his side, treats the Christian as an idolater and a dog; ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier

... grant such a request, but promised to write to the caliph for his consent. Omar, on hearing the request of his general, is said to have replied that if those books contained the same doctrine with the Koran, they could be of no use, since the Koran contained all necessary truths; but if they contained anything contrary to that book, they ought to be destroyed; and therefore, whatever their contents were, he ordered them ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... to the north, had produced a communication purporting to originate with a deceased Third Force Staff officer, now in the Spirit World. There was considerable detail, all ludicrous to Conn's professional ear. And a fanatic in one of the small towns on the west coast was quoting the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavadgita to prove that if Merlin were ever found, Divine vengeance in a spectacular form would fall not only on Poictesme but on ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper

... goods he had expected, to learn that the wretch Shereef, to whom they had been consigned, had sold off the whole, not leaving one yard of calico out of 3000, or one string of beads out of 700 pounds! The scoundrel had divined on the Koran, found that Livingstone was dead, and would need the goods no more. Livingstone had intended, if he could not get men at Ujiji to go with him to the Lualaba, to wait there till suitable men should be ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... that the Arabs believed in Reincarnation before Mohammed forbade it. Some, however, think that the Koran was written only after the death of the Prophet, and that the latter committed nothing to writing, but taught by word of mouth. Besides, it is clear that Mohammedanism is an offshoot of Zoroastrianism and Christianity. Like these, it teaches the Unity of the ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... keep up the character he had acquired of being a good man) used to shave once a week, as he was wont to explain, purely for the love of God. The holy man repaid the service by teaching me to read and write; and I made such progress under his care, that in two years I could decipher the Koran, and began to write a legible hand. When not in school I attended the shop, where I learnt the rudiments of my profession, and when there was a press of customers, was permitted to practise upon the heads of ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... musicians, who played upon various instruments. The greatest astonishment was shown at the artillery practice, for the invention of gunpowder was not yet known on the east coast of Africa. A solemn treaty was made, ratified by oaths upon the Gospel and the Koran, and cemented by an interchange of presents. From this moment the ill-will, the treachery, the difficulties of all kinds which had hitherto beset the expedition, ceased as if by magic: this must be attributed to the generosity of the King ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... the Comoro Islands, on our return, we found a mixed race of Arabs, Africans, and their conquerors, the natives of Madagascar. Being Mahometans, they have mosques and schools, in which we were pleased to see girls as well as boys taught to read the Koran. The teacher said he was paid by the job, and received ten dollars for teaching each child to read. The clever ones learn in six months; but the dull ones take a couple of years. We next went over to Johanna for ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... secular books Plato only is entitled to Omar's fanatical compliment to the Koran, when he said, 'Burn the libraries; for their value is in this book.' Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated among ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... the Koran," said the native officer, whose haughty, overbearing way seemed to be humbled before the stern Englishman who ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... whom the Bible does not amount to much. If they merely look at the outside beauty, why it will no more lead them to Christ than Washington's farewell address or the Koran of Mohammed or the Shaster of the Hindoos. It is the inward light of God's Word you must get or die. I went up to the church of the Madeleine, in Paris, and looked at the doors which were the most wonderfully constructed I ever ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage

... the lettering in black marble inset in the white; right round the tomb run those verses from the Koran. A Mohammedan emperor built it—I am a Hindu," the pause was scarcely noticeable as he added quietly, "as is everyone upon ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... horrified, Friday afternoon, at the way you and Colonel O'Leary and Mr. Blount were blaspheming against Stanley-Browne," she said. "His book is practically the sociographers' Koran for this planet. But I've been checking up, since, and I find that everybody who's been here any length of time seems to deride it, and it's full of the most surprising misstatements. I'm either going to make myself famous or get burned at the stake by the ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr

... I said. "I think I have read somewhere that they were great magicians, whose names these conjurers have taken." (Since then I have discovered that they are mentioned in the Koran as masters of ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... various rebellions and disaffections, Mr. Hastings never once lets go this plea—of extinguishable right in the Nabob. He constantly represents the seizing the treasures as a resumption of a right which he could not part with;—as if there were literally something in the Koran, that made it criminal in a true Mussulman to keep his engagements with his relations, and impious in a son to abstain from plundering his mother. I do gravely assure your Lordships that there is no such doctrine in the Koran, and no such principle makes a part ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... slightly scented with incense and sandalwood, and there is a musical droning from a few worshippers who repeat verses from the Koran in the cool white interior mingled with the cooing of innumerable pigeons, and the faint "kiree, kiree" of a kite a mile ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... convent, somewhat similar to the beguinages of Flanders, though less ostensibly subject to religious law—a convent where single gentlewomen might unite together in their meals and devotions, under the government of a code of laws set forth in their tabby-bound Koran. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... "Red Mosque," by its imposing and lofty wall, there is always an assemblage of people, for prayers go up in this mosque, ablutions are made there, and the floor of the arcade is often covered with men studying the Koran, calmly meditating, or prostrating themselves in prayer. And so there is a great coming and going up the outside stairs and through the wonderful doorway: beggars crouch under the wall of the terrace; the sellers of cakes, of syrups and lemon-water, ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... with flowers and fan; And as his gem-tipped chibouque glows, he sees, In dreamy trance, those marvellous mysteries The prophet sings of in the Al-Koran! ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various

... bigoted Roman Catholics of Ireland enabled her to do with much tact. When peasants said to her, "Your book is Christian—we don't like Christian books," she would explain that it was God's book, and that the Koran did not forbid it to be read; and that she wanted to tell them about Seidna Eessa (the Lord Jesus), whom Mohammed acknowledged to be a prophet. In this way many an initial difficulty would be overcome, and ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... When there was a dispute between Greeks and Armenians respecting the mixture of water with the wine in the chalice, the question was referred for decision to the proper quarter, and the Reis Effendi decided that, wine being condemned by the Koran, water alone might be used. Yet to this pusillanimous and degenerate Church belong the future of European Turkey, and the inheritance of the sinking power of the Turks. The vitality of the dominant race is nearly exhausted, and the Christians—on whose pillage they live—exceed them, in ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... effacing himself behind The Scotsman,—though, for all the instruction or edification that his present frame of mind permitted him to extract from that coping-stone of Scottish journalism, he might as well have been reading the Koran,—returned to his thoughts. He collated in his mind the pieces of advice which had been bestowed upon him by his elders and betters before his departure. In brief, their ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... breadth are governed by the same institutions: and what renders this more singular is that the people submitted to them are not subjected by written rules of faith, which the chiefs of each race may interpret and modify according to their will; as is the case with those who are governed by the Koran or other similar codes; but in this instance mere oral traditions are handed down, which teach that certain rules of conduct are to be observed under certain penalties, and without the aid of fixed records, or the intervention of a succession of authorized depositaries and expounders these ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... Ibn-Abu-Osaiba (Ibn abi Usaibia), a contemporary. From that work we learn that the higher education of the youth of Bagdad consisted principally in a minute and careful study of the rules and principles of grammar, and in their committing to memory the whole of the Koran, a treatise or two on philology and jurisprudence, and the choicest Arabian poetry. After attaining to great proficiency in that kind of learning, Abdallatif applied himself to natural philosophy and medicine. To enjoythe ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... civilized world had had lessons enough, ever since that seventh century burning of the Alexandrian library by the Caliph Omar, with that famous but apocryphal rhetorical dilemma, put in his mouth perhaps by some nimble-witted reporter:—"If these books agree with the Koran, they are useless, and should be burned: if not, they are pernicious, and must not be spared." But the heedless world goes carelessly on, deaf to the voice of reason, and the lessons of history, amid the holocausts ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... muscular strength, I bore with ease the hardships of a long journey on foot with little food and scant lodging. Falling in with a band of pilgrims, I recognised the wisdom of joining them on their march to Mecca. I was, of course, a sound Mohammedan, as I am to this day, and my knowledge of the Koran soon gained me some reputation in the caravan. I was considered a creditable addition, and altogether an eligible pilgrim. My exceptional physique protected me from the disease and exhaustion of which not a few of our ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford

... black robes and skull-caps, university students carrying their prayer-carpets, bangled and spangled black women, scrofulous children with gazelle eyes and mangy skulls, and blind men tapping along with linked arms and howling out verses of the Koran, surge together in a mass drawn by irresistible suction to the point where the bazaars converge about the mosques of ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton

... at New Haven; his good influence. My interest in church work as a professor at the University of Michigan; am asked to select a rector; my success. Readings in ecclesiastical history; effect of these. Sale's Koran. Fra Paolo Sarpi's "History of the Council of Trent." Dean Stanley's "Eastern Church." Bossuet, Spalding, Balmez, Buckle, Lecky, Draper, the Darwinian hypothesis. Special influence of Stanley's "Life of Arnold," Robertson's Sermons, and other works. Good influences ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White



Words linked to "Koran" :   book, sura, sacred text, al-Qur'an, Koranic, religious text, Quran



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