Texts of Islam

The Qur'ân, ed. Palmer (SBE6): V. The Chapter of th...

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This is an excerpt from E.H. Palmer's 1880 English translation of the Qur'an (Surah 5, "The Table" or Al-Ma'idah), published as part of Max Müller's Sacred Books of the East series — a Victorian scholarly effort to make world religious texts accessible to Western readers. The passage covers a dense range of legal, theological, and narrative content: dietary prohibitions (carrion, swine, blood, idol-sacrificed meat), ritual purity requirements for prayer, permitted foods including game hunted by trained animals, and rules governing marriage to women "of the Book." It also addresses relations with Jews and Christians, arguing both communities corrupted or forgot portions of their own scriptures, while Islam arrives as the completing and correcting revelation. Narratives include Moses leading the Israelites toward the Holy Land, the Cain-and-Abel story (used to ground the principle that killing one person is as killing all humanity), and affirmations of Jesus as a prophet who brought the Gospel — while explicitly rejecting the Christian claim that Jesus is God. Punishments prescribed for theft (amputation) and making war against God (crucifixion, cutting of hands and feet, banishment) appear alongside repeated assurances that God forgives the repentant. The translation's Victorian prose and footnote apparatus reflect a comparative-religion framing aimed at educated non-Muslim Western readers rather than devotional use.

The Qur'ân, ed. Palmer (SBE6): V. The Chapter of th...

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