The _Koran_ is held by the Mahometans in the greatest veneration. The book must not be touched by anybody but a Mussulman, nor even by a believer except he be free from pollution. Whether the _Koran_ be created or uncreated has been the subject of a controversy fruitful of the most violent persecutions. The orthodox opinion is that the original has been written from all eternity on the preserved table. Of this they believe a complete transcript was brought down to the lower heaven (that of the moon) by the angel Gabriel, and thence taken and shown to Mahomet, once every year of his mission, and twice in the last year of his life. They assert, however, that it was only piecemeal, that the several parts were _revealed_ by the angel to the prophet, and that he immediately dictated what had been revealed to his secretary, who wrote it down. Each part, as soon as it was thus copied out, was communicated to his disciples, to get by heart, and was afterward deposited in what he called the chest of his apostleship. This chest the prophet left in the custody of his wife Hafsa. When we consider the way in which the _Koran_ was compiled, we cannot wonder that it is so incoherent a piece as we find it. The book is divided into chapters; of these some are very long; others again, especially a few toward the end, very short. Each chapter has a title prefixed, taken from the first word, or from some one particular thing mentioned in it, rarely from the subject-matter of it; for if a chapter be of any length, it usually runs into various subjects that have no connection with each other. A celebrated commentator divides the contents of the _Koran_ into three general heads: 1. Precepts or directions, relating either to religion, as prayers, fasting, pilgrimages, or to civil polity, as marriages, inheritances, judicatures. 2. Histories--whereof some are taken from the Scriptures, but falsified with fabulous additions; others are wholly false, having no foundation in fact. 3. Admonitions: under which head are comprised exhortations to receive Islamism; to fight for it, to practise its precepts, prayers, alms, etc.; the moral duties, such as justice, temperance, etc., promises of everlasting felicity to the obedient, dissuasives from sin, threatenings of the punishments of hell to the unbelieving and disobedient. Many of the threatenings are levelled against particular persons, and those sometimes of Mahomet's own family, who had opposed him in propagating his religion.