Texts of Islam

The Qur'ân, ed. Palmer (SBE9): The Chapter of the D...

Summary only - full text stays on its own separately-gated source. Read the full text at the source »

This is a translation of Surah Al-Furqan (Chapter 25) from the Qur'an, taken from E.H. Palmer's 1880 English translation published in the Sacred Books of the East series. The surah's central argument is a defense of Muhammad's prophethood against the objections of Meccan polytheists, who accused him of fabricating the Qur'an, questioned why a genuine prophet would live an ordinary human life, and demanded miraculous proofs. The text counters these objections by asserting God's absolute sovereignty and unique creatorship, contrasting the fate of past peoples who rejected their prophets (Noah's generation, the 'Ad, Thamud) with the rewards awaiting the faithful. A distinctive feature is the surah's extended closing portrait of "the servants of the Merciful" — defined not by ritual alone but by moral qualities including humility, measured spending, avoidance of falsehood, and domestic piety — which stands as a positive ethical counterpoint to the polemical opening. Palmer's Victorian scholarly apparatus, including footnotes on variant readings and geographical uncertainties, frames this as a philological and comparative-religion document aimed at an academic Western audience rather than a devotional one.

The Qur'ân, ed. Palmer (SBE9): The Chapter of the D...

Related pages View as graph →