ABSTRACT
This chapter with the next are called by Muslims the al Mau1lYidhatani, or Preservative Chapters. They engrave them upon amulets, &c., as charms against evil influences.
difficult task. This is due to the grotesqueness of the style adopted in such superstitious productions, which allow of no safe conclusion. Indeed, we cannot even be sure these chapters originated before the Hijra. For granting that Muhammad did utter such magic formula in his last years, it assuredly differed from the usual style of the Madfna Suras. It is therefore possible that in the tradition, embellished with marvellous excrescences, ther~ is a certain modicum of truth. Possible, however, it is also, as Wiel thinks, that Muhammad applied incantations already existing in order to free himself from the imaginary spell. To such incantations against Satanic
influences allusion seems to be made in chaps. xli. 36 and xvi. 160, and in other places. Be this as it may, the.:e can be no doubt that these two Suras have originated at the same time. How difficult the point of chronology is appears evident from the fact that not even Muir, who otherwise fixes the date of each Sura so definitely, ventures to give a decided opinion. He says, indeed, that the date of these Suras is unimportant, but in this he is certainly wrong. It wonld be of great importance to know cert~;nJy the period whereto we might assign these evidences of Muhammad's superstition."
