As to the Koran itself: Arabic literature developed at the time of Mohammed. Arab life being nomadic had not encouraged books or libraries, although oratory and poetry had always been highly prized among the tribes; their culture and history had been transmitted from generation to generation, by word of mouth.
One soon notices the diverse and disconnected nature of the contents of the Koran. History ascribes this to the way in which the existing text was compiled. After Mohammed's death, when Islam was being widely spread, the leaders realized that internal dissensions threatened, due to imperfectly remembered, recorded and repeated Suras (chapters). They therefore resolved that there should be one authorized version, if Muslim unity and the Book were to be preserved. They entrusted its compilation to Zaid, one of Mohammed's close companions. After it had been compiled from existing versions and agreed upon one of the early Khalifs had burned all the other copies of the Koran that could be found. Many passages in these were omitted from the final authorized version, of which six copies were made to be used as originals and distributed to important centres.
The order of the Koran as we know it is not entirely chronological and many chapters assigned to one period are found interspersed with verses delivered at other times. In 1925, The Manchester Guardian reported that an English library had acquired a Syriac manuscript of the Koran containing passages not to be found in the authorized version. This is probably one that escaped the general destruction of the "unauthorized" versions.
The verses of the Koran recorded during Mohammed's years in Mecca presented, in greater part, the metaphysical and ethical aspects of his non-violent and reformatory philosophy. In the verses composed during his ten years in Medina, a greater emphasis on the temporal appears. No doubt, by this time it had become clear that Islam required the organizing of a community with its own laws and government.
Mohammed aimed at a threefold reform of his people: (1) Civil—through the establishment of reasonable laws that would appeal to the conscience of man; (2) Military—through the uniting of the tribes and the abolishing of fratricidal wars; and (3) Religious—by offering a degraded and superstitious people the noble concept of Unity—One Source, One Force, that pervades all nature. These three were closely interlinked in his system.
In translations of the Koran, the English word "God" is widely used in the place of various words used by Mohammed to indicate the Most High. These words detailed in moral terms the "excellence" of That which was beyond the range of thought or description. Sir Edwin Arnold in his Pearls of the Faith has used these attributes of "Names of God" as a basis for interpretation the Islamic teachings.
In many places Mohammed made God and Law synonymous. Law was declared to be everywhere, but the understanding of Law and realization of God were only to be attempted by the man of morality, at peace with his brothers, in whom God was said to be especially interested.
Set thou thy face steadfast towards the religion as an Hanif (one rightly inclined), according to the constitution whereon God has constituted man; there is no altering the creation of God. That is the standard religion, but most men do not know. (Sura XXX, 29)Allah says: Whoso seeketh to approach Me one span, I seek to approach one cubit, and whoso seeketh to approach Me one cubit, I seek to approach two fathoms; and whoso walketh towards Me, I run towards him. (Sayings of Mohammed, p. 81)
According to Mohammed, men were originally of one religion, which he named Islam—peace. When differences arose among them, prophets were born in their midst to guide them back to truth.
Mankind were one community and Allah sent (unto them) Prophets as bearers of good tidings and as warners....And Allah by His will guided those who believed unto the truth of that concerning which they differed. Allah guideth whom He will unto a straight path. (Sura II, 209)
in the spirit of true tolerance, he pointed to the Teachers who had come before him, and to the gradual deterioration of their teachings, due to misinterpretation and falsification of them by their disciples. For illustrations he drew mainly upon Jewish and Persian sources, which were best known to the Arabs. He said: "Mohammed is only (a man) charged with a Mission, before whom there have been others who received heavenly Missions and died." (Sayings of Mohammed, p. 30)
The Koran makes no distinction between the Prophet, which should do away with differences between followers of Islam and other religions, since all are recognized as having sprung from the same source. Speaking of Mohammed's own position as a Prophet, the Koran implies that he came during "the interval of apostles" (Sura V, 23) and it should be noted that he is called in the Koran "a seal of the Prophets," and not the "last of the Prophets."
El or Al was a term widely used among Semitic peoples to designate their Supreme Deity. Allah was one of those names used by early Arabic tribes to designate the Mighty, the Supreme, vagely conceived of us as the progenitor of the tribal deities and the gods and godesses of elements, days and seasons. In Arabic, Illah, standing alone, means any god; combined with the article Al, it becomes Al-Illah or, through shortening, Allah, the One God, whose sons and daughters—the minor gods—were particularly respected by the tribes.
Mohammed's appeal for the recognition of divine Unity is based on rational recognition of the all-pervading harmony of Nature—one Law, one Mind, one Will—regulating and guiding the universe.
While in many verses of the Koran, Allah seems to be personified as the actor or speaker, in others, Mohammed states unequivocally that It is a Principle and cannot be known by the physical senses. One instance may be given here:
Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass. The glass is as it were a shining star. [This lamp is] kindled from a blessed tree, an olive neither of the East nor of the West, though no fire touched it. Allah guideth unto His light whom He will. And Allah speaketh to mankind in allegories, for Allah is knower of all things. (Sura XXIV, 35-36)
Explaining that this Principle is ever-existing and all-inclusive and therefore cannot be visualized as a form, Mohammed, paraphrasing, as it were, the ancient Mandukya Upanishad's "unthinkable and unspeakable," said:
Vision comprehends him not, but He comprehends all visions. (Sura VI, 104)Unto Allah belong the East and West, and whithersoever you turn, there is Allah's countenance. Lo! Allah is All-Embracing. All-Knowing. (Sura II, 109)
There is no secret conference of three but He is their fourth, nor of five but He is their sixth, nor of less than that or more but He is with them wheresoever they may be. (Koran, LVIII, 8)
The Divine Spirit is nearer to man than his life-vein. (Sura L, 16)
He who knoweth his own self, knoweth God....Learn to know thyself. (Sayings of Mohammed, pp. 94-5)
Expressing an idea similar to Krishna's declaration in the Bhagavad-Gita X, 42, "I established this whole universe with a single portion of myself, and remain separate," Mohammed declared:
There is no God but He, the living, the self-subsistent. Slumber seizeth Him not, nor sleep. To Him belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth....He knows what is before and behind....His knowledge extends over all. (Sura II, 256)
Moreover, he warns against the personal-god-idea by teaching: "Do not associate any one thing with God although they kill or burn thee." (Sayings of Mohammed, p. 71)
Man, declared the Prophet, has a special relation to the Deity; the Laws of Nature could only be understood by a being of Mind, and while man was ruled by the destiny he had created for himself through lawful or unlawful action, he had also the power to choose for himself. Mohammed always pointed to the evidence in the common phenomena of nature and addressed himself to the conscience of man and to his reason, not to his weaknesses or his credulity:
Fools! Do you want a sign, when the whole creation is full of the signs of God? The structure of your body, how wonderfully complex, how beautifully regulated; the alternations of night and day, of life and death; your sleeping and awakening; your desire to accumulate from the abundance of God, the winds driving abroad the pregnant harmony and order in the midst of diversity; the variety of the human race, and yet their close affinity; fruits, flowers, animals, human beings themselves—are these not signs enough of the presence of a Master-Mind? (The Spirit of Islam, p. 33, quoting from the Koran)
A significant and widely used designation of the Deity is Malik or "Master," not in the local sense of a king, or judge, or any person; but bringing out the impersonality of the law of retribution which brings punishment to the doers of evil through readjustment, and justice tempered with mercy to all, because it is an unerring law of nature. This leads to a comparison of Mohammed's teachings with the second of the Three Fundamental Propositions of Theosophy: the Law that rules the universe and mankind.
In the Koran we find many references to the universality of law, which is declared to be constantly in operation in all departments of nature. Mohammed declared the laws of the One God to be immutable. He offers this as a basis for realization that the moral law which rules in the human kingdom is an immutable and as just, though men, being self-deluded through the wrong use of their minds, do not see it. The working of the moral Law of Retribution, Karma, depends upon man's hidden motives. "Actions will be judged according to intentions," he declared. (Sayings of Mohammed, p. 49) "The most honourable among you is the one who has the greatest regard for his duty." (Sura XV, 13)
In dealing with human destiny, full responsibility was placed upon man as a chooser to whom two paths were open:
Every soul is held in pledge for what it earns. (Sura LXXX, 41)He who has done an atom's weight of good shall see it, and he who has done an atom's weight of evil shall see it. (Sura XLIX, 7-8)
He also taught that mankind formed one great family. From the record of his sayings we can extract a few verses in which he draws particular attention to human solidarity:
And all people are nought but a single nation, but they disagree. (Sura X, 20)
The following passage is suggestive of the ancient Indian teaching about the Skandhas or lower attributes that cling to a person and are the seeds of his Karma:
And we have made every man's actions cling to his neck, and we will bring forth to him on the resurrection day a book which he will find wide open. Read thy Book! Thine own self is sufficient as a reckoner against thee this day. Whoever goes aright, for the benefit of his own soul does he go aright; and whoever goes astray, to its detriment does he go astray, and no bearer of a burden shall bear the burden of another. (Sura XVII, 13-15)It is your own conduct which will lead you to reward or punishment as if you had been destined therefor. (Sayings of Mohammed, p. 106)
The Prophet also taught that exertion had the power to change circumstances and therefore destiny:
The good deed and the evil deed are not alike. Repel the evil deed with one which is better, then Lo! he, betweeen whom and thee there was enmity (will become) as though he was a bosom friend. (Sura XLI, 34)
The Koran's teaching of resurrection day when all will be judged according to their thoughts and actions, is found also in the Jewish and Christian religions. Theosophy teaches that upon the death of the body a "judgement" or a separation indeed takes place between the lower personal part of man and his spiritual individuality. That which is selfish, impure or evil remains in Kama-Loka to disintegrate, while the noble, unselfish feelings and thoughts of the life last lived go with the Ego into Devachan, the place of the Gods, and there are assimilated into character. On reincarnating, the Ego that returns to birth in order to work out that which was left undone in the past, must necessarily re-attract those lower aspects of itself which had been dispersed but which carry its impress. In the Koran, the Prophet declares:
And we will set up a just balance on the day of Resurrection, so no soul shall be dealt with unjustly in the least, and although there be the weight of a grain of mustard seed, we will bring it and sufficient are we to take account. (Sura XXI, 48)
That man lives more than once can also be taken as implied by him, when he asks:
How can ye disbelieve in God, when ye were dead and He made you alive, and then He wil kill you and then make you alive again, and then to Him will ye return? (Sura II, 26)This life is but a tillage for the next; do good that you may reap there. (Sayings of Mohammed, p. 74)
H.P.B. writes in The Theosophical Glossary: "The Koran is a grand poem, replete with ethical teachings proclaiming loudly Faith, Hope and Charity." We can offer from The Sayings of Mohammed but a few which may encourage those interested to seek for the many "Pearls" concealed in this declaration of Faith:
The proof of a Muslim's sincerity is that he payeth no heed to that which is not his business.No man is a true believer unless he desireth for his brother that which he desireth for himself.
That which is lawful is clear, and that which is unlawful is also clear; but there are certain doubtful things between the two from which it is well to abstain.
The best of alms is that which the right hand giveth, and the left hand knoweth not of.
No man is true in the truest sense of the word but he who is true in word, in deed and in thought.
Give the labourer his wage before his perspiration be dry.
Every good act is charity....Your smiling in your brother's face, is charity; and your exhorting mankind to virtuous deeds, is charity; and your prohibiting the forbidden, is charity; and your showing men the road, in the land in which they lose it, is charity; and your assisting the blind, is charity.
Riches are not from abundance of worldly goods, but from a contented mind.
The central message of Islam is surrender. Surrendering what to what? Surrendering all that one possesses to the Universal Life that moves according to Law—and this we see is also the summation of the teaching in the Gita: complete self-surrender. This self-surrender includes the concept of a holy war against one's own lower self; for one cannot offer to the One Higher Self, that is, to Allah, that which is polluted and ugly, and therefore the concept of Jihad, the holy war, is also the same as that in the Gita.
The Koran, when rightly understood, may become a book of devotion. It implies war against the lower self and surrender to the Universal One Self manifesting as Universal Brotherhood. Those who surrender the personal nature to the Higher are the followers of Islam, and true students of Theosophy may therefore claim to be such.
Man lives not in a world of hard facts to which thoughts make no difference, but in a world of thoughts; if you change the moral, political and economic theories generally accepted by the society in which he lives, you change the character of his world.—Collingwood