8 Two angels who pretended to appeal to David in order to convince him of his sin in the matter of Uriah’s wife.  Comp.  I Sam. xii.

9 The Psalms, if we suppose with Nöldeke, p. 99, that David is still addressed:  the Koran, if with Sale we refer the passage to Muhammad.

10 The Commentators say that the word used in the original implies that the mares stood on three feet, and touched the ground with the edge of the fourth foot.

11 Solomon, in his admiration of these horses, the result, we are told, of David’s or his own conquests, forgot the hour of evening prayer, and when aware of his fault commenced their slaughter.  The Tr.  Sanhedr. fol. 21, mentions Solomon’s love for horses, and that he determined to have a large stud; yet not to send the people to Egypt (Deut. xvii. 16) but to have them brought to him out of Egypt (I Kings x. 28).

12 One of the Djinn.  The absurd fiction may be seen in extenso in Sale.  Compare Tr.  Sanhedr. fol. 20, b. and Midr.  Jalkut on I Kings vi. § 182.

13 Thus the second Targum on Esther i. 2, mentions the four different kinds of Demons which were “given into the hand” of Solomon-a legend derived from a misunderstanding of Eccl. ii. 8.

14 The fountain which had sprung up.  To this history the Talmudists have no allusion.

15 Thy wife;-on whom he had sworn that he would inflict an hundred blows, because she had absented herself from him when in need of her assistance, or for her words (Job ii. 9).  The oath was kept, we are told, by his giving her one blow with a rod of a hundred stalks.  This passage is often quoted by the Muslims as authorising any similar manner of release from an oath inconsiderately taken.

16 Lit. men of hand and of sight.

17 Lit. or do our eyes wander from them.

18 See verses 9, 26, above.  It seems to have been one of the peculiarities of Muhammad, as a person very deficient in imagination, to dwell upon and repeat the same ideas, with an intensity which is at once an evidence of deep personal conviction and consciousness, of the simple Arabian especially.

19 The connection between the concluding episode and the preceding part of the Sura does not seem very clear.  It probably originated at a different but uncertain period.

20 About the creation of man.

21 Comp.  Sura [xci.] ii. 28, ff.

22 Comp.  Ps. civ. 4.

23 Lit. stoned.  See Sura xv. 34, p. 114.

SURA XXXVI.-YA.  SIN [LX.]

Mecca.-83 Verses

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

Ya.  Sin.1 By the wise Koran!

Surely of the Sent Ones, Thou,

Upon a right path!

A revelation of the Mighty, the Merciful,

That thou shouldest warn a people whose fathers were not warned and therefore lived in heedlessness!