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The Speeches and Table-Talk of the Prophet Mohammad
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General SummaryThe chief source of our knowledge concerning the teachings of Mohammed is, of course, the Koran. Many of the revelations composing this work were delivered by the prophet while in a state of trance, and these, together with his public speeches and prayers were gathered, shortly after his death, into the book as it now exists. There can be no doubt that the Koran is practically identical with the prophet’s own words. But besides the Koran, there are the private utterances of Mohammed to his intimate friends and carefully treasured in their memories. These traditional sayings, or "Table-talk," are very numerous — more than seven thousand in the standard collection — but no one can tell how many represent the genuine words of the prophet. Pious Moslems, however, have accepted them as authentic, and have derived from them many rules for the guidance of Islam.
Chapter XXIX the Teachings of Mohammed1
151. Prayer and Almsgiving2
It is not righteousness that ye turn your face toward the east or the west, but righteousness is in him who believeth in God and the Last Day, and the angels, and the Scriptures, and the prophets, and who giveth wealth for the love of God to his kinsfolk and to orphans and the needy and the son of
the road and them that ask and for the freeing of slaves, and who is instant in prayer, and giveth alms; and those who fulfill their covenant when they covenant, and the patient in adversity and affliction and in time of violence; these are they who are true, and these are they who fear God.
Say: We believe in God, and what hath been sent down to thee, and what was sent down to Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes of Israel, and what was given to Moses, and to Jesus, and the prophets from their Lord — we make no distinction between any of them — and to Him are we resigned: and whoso desireth other than Islam1 for a religion, it shall certainly not be accepted from him, and in the life to come he shall be among the losers.
When the call to prayer soundeth on the Day of Congregation,2 then hasten to remember God, and abandon business; that is better for you if ye only knew: and when prayer is done, disperse in the land and seek of the bounty of God.
Turn thy face toward the Sacred Mosque;3 wherever ye be, turn your faces thitherwards.
Give alms on the path of God, and let not your hands cast you into destruction; but do good, for God loveth those who do good; and accomplish the pilgrimage and the visit to God: but if ye be besieged, then send what is easiest as an offering.
They will ask thee what they shall expend in alms; say, the surplus.
If ye give alms openly, it is well; but if ye conceal it, and give it to the poor, it is better for you and will take away from you some of your sins: and God knoweth what ye do.
Kind speech and forgiveness is better than alms which vexation followeth; and God is rich and ruthful.
1 , translated by Stanley Lane-Poole. London, 1882. Macmillan and Company.
2 Lane-Poole, Speeches and Table-talk, pp. 133–135.
1 That is, Resignation.
2Al Jum’a, Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath.
3 At Mecca.
Chicago: Stanley Lane-Poole, trans., The Speeches and Table-Talk of the Prophet Mohammad in Readings in Early European History, ed. Webster, Hutton (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1926), 317. Original Sources, accessed April 20, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=3LBGNMF381XJ7QA.
MLA: . The Speeches and Table-Talk of the Prophet Mohammad, translted by Stanley Lane-Poole, in Readings in Early European History, edited by Webster, Hutton, Boston, Ginn and Company, 1926, page 317. Original Sources. 20 Apr. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=3LBGNMF381XJ7QA.
Harvard: (trans.), The Speeches and Table-Talk of the Prophet Mohammad. cited in 1926, Readings in Early European History, ed. , Ginn and Company, Boston, pp.317. Original Sources, retrieved 20 April 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=3LBGNMF381XJ7QA.
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