Accordingly, the commentators on the
_Koran_ often explain passages in it by relating the occasion on which
they were first revealed. Without such a key many of them would be
perfectly unintelligible.
There are several contradictions in the _Koran_. To reconcile these, the
Mussulman doctors have invented the doctrine of abrogation, _i.e._, that
what was revealed at one time was revoked by a new revelation. A great
deal of it is so absurd, trifling, and full of tautology that it
requires no little patience to read much of it at a time.
Notwithstanding, the _Koran_ is cried up by the Mussulmans as
inimitable; and in the seventeenth chapter of the _Koran_ Mahomet is
commanded to say, "Verily if men and genii were purposely assembled,
that they might produce anything like the _Koran_, they could not
produce anything like unto it, though they assisted one another."
Accordingly, when the impostor was called upon, as he often was, to work
miracles in proof of his divine mission, he excused himself by various
pretences, and appealed to the _Koran_ as a standing miracle.
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