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Creeds, Sects, and Denomina-: Koran

Koran, or more properly Al Koran, "The Koran," which constitutes the Bible of the Mahommedans, is Arabic for a "Reading," a "thing to be read."

The native name of the Mahommedan religion is Islam, resignation and obedience to God, founded upon the verb aslama, to bend, to submit, to surrender. The Mahommedans of Turkey and Persia usually bear the style of Mussulmans, a corruption and the plural of the Arabic muslim, rendered into English as Moslem, and meaning a true believer, or one who holds the faith of Islam.

Our reference to Mahommedanism having carried us some six hundred years beyond the foundation of Christianity by Christ, we must of necessity retrace our steps. Reverting to the Jewish people contemporary with Jesus Christ and His disciples, a certain portion of these styled themselves Pharisees because they affected a greater degree of holiness than their neighbours. The name was derived from the Hebrew word pharash, separated.

The Nazarenes, so called after "Jesus of Nazareth," were a sect of semi-converted Jews, who, while believing Christ to be the long-promised Messiah, and that His nature was Divine as well as human, nevertheless continued the rites and ceremonies peculiar to Judaism. The Gnostics, otherwise the "Knowers," pursuant to the Greek gnomi, to know, were those who tried to accommodate the Scriptures to the speculations of Plato, Pythagoras, and other ancient philosophers; having done which to their own satisfaction they refused all further knowledge on the subject. The Aquarians (Latin aqua, water) insisted upon the use of water in the place of wine in the Communion. The Arians were the followers of Arius, a presbyter in the Church of Alexandria, universally regarded as the first heretic. Soon after his death (in 336), which was ignominious in the extreme, the Arians renounced their errors, and were readmitted into the Church; but this gave offence to another section of the Christians under Lucifer, Bishop of Cagliari, styling themselves the Luciferians, who refused all communication with the reconverted heretics.