Life of Muhammad — Page x
ix Foreword sa is part of Introduction to the study of the Holy Qur’an by Ha d rat Mirz a Bash i rdudd i n Ma h m u d Ahmad ra. The Introduction was translated into English by Q adi Muhammad Aslam and was first published in 1949 from London. Since then it has appeared in several editions. sa has also appeared in several editions and is out of stock now. We are publishing it again with an index which the original English edition did not have. We have also reset it to make it more attractive. Needless to say that it is much in demand and we very much hope that the present edition will meet this demand. Some minor corrections have also been made. The name of Muhammad sa , the Holy Prophet of Islam, has been followed by the symbol sa , which is an abbreviation for the salutation 'may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. ' The names of other prophets and messengers are followed by the symbol as , an abbreviation for 'on whom be peace. ' The actual salutations have not generally been set out in full, but they should nevertheless, be understood as being repeated in full in each case. The symbol ra is used with the name of the Disciples of the Holy Prophet sa and those of the Promised Messiah as. It stands for Ra di All a hu ‘anhu/‘anh a /‘anhum (May Allah be pleased with him/with her/with them). In transliterating Arabic words we have followed the following system adopted by the Royal Asiatic Society. ا at the beginning of a word, pronounced as a , i , u preceded by a very slight aspiration, like h in the English word 'honour'. ث th , pronounced like th in the English word 'thing'. ح h , a guttural aspirate, stronger than h. خ kh , pronounced like the Scotch ch in 'loch'. ذ dh , pronounced like the English th in 'that'. ص s , strongly articulated s.