6 MUHAMMADAN OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIANITY

(though the missionary should look them up in the Arabic in every case, knowing that the Muslim will not accept any translation as of authority). In translating verses of the Qur'an, I have departed from Rodwell's version only when absolutely necessary. The verses are numbered as in Fluegel's Arabic edition, though the habit of numbering them is by no means as yet universally adopted in the East.

4. Certain passages are put in square brackets to indicate that care should be taken in using such arguments, or that the matters dealt with are of slight importance. In some cases these passages are mainly intended for the information of the young missionary himself, in case he should not be able at the moment to obtain fuller information on special points.

5. I have supplied (in brackets) the technical Arabic words used by Muhammadans with reference to certain doctrines or opinions of theirs, so that the young missionary may know exactly what word to use in order to convey his meaning to the hearer, and may understand the word when he hears it used. A knowledge of such terms is of very great importance indeed.

6. The book is put into the form of a dialogue not only to make it more readable, but also because the Muhammadan arguments could best be arranged and given their due weight in that manner. It is the natural arrangement too, because conversations
PREFACE 7
or controversies about the Faith must (or at least should) assume that form in real life. The order in which the subjects are taken has been decided upon, after considerable thought, as that which seems to me to be the one in which the controversy between the Muslims and ourselves may be the most profitably conducted. The individual arguments on the Muhammadan side are arranged in as orderly a manner as possible. But as the same argument is often brought forward in slightly different terms, I have often given it in more forms than one, though answering it at length only once. In consequence of the introduction of arguments in this way more than once, and that of other trifling ones in what seemed the most convenient place for them, the chapters are not models of orderly and logical controversy; for I had to represent Muslims as speaking as they actually do, and not as would best suit the line of argument to which I wished to adhere. Before we can discuss such questions as the Doctrine of the Trinity, the Atonement, and others peculiarly Christian, which rest upon the Bible for their proof, it is necessary to remove the difficulties in his mind which prevent the Muslim from accepting as of authority the statements of Scripture. The authority of the Bible is the great question upon which turns the whole Muhammadan controversy.

It is impossible to hope that such a work as this should be anything but very imperfect at first.