Also 7 core, currawn, 9 coran, kuran. [a. Arab. qurān, qorān recitation, f. qarasa to read: cf. ALCORAN.] The sacred book of the Mohammedans, consisting of revelations orally delivered at intervals by Mohammed, and collected in writing after his death: it is in Arabic, and consists of 114 surahs or chapters.
1625. Purchas, Pilgrims, II. III. v. 264. [Nicetas] Anathematiseth the Core, that is, Mahomets Scripture, and all his learning.
1665. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1677), 271. Gunnet … imposed that new Currawn as they term it upon the Persian.
1735. Bolingbroke, Lett. Study Hist., iv. (1777), 97. Maraccio’s refutation of the Koran.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xxviii. III. 93, note. The Moors of Spain, who secretly preserved the Mahometan religion, above a century,… possessed the Koran, with the peculiar use of the Arabic tongue.
1813. Byron, Corsair, I. ii. And less to conquest than to Korans trust.
1841. Elphinstone, Hist. Ind., II. 316. To dispose him to question the infallible authority of the Korán.
1867. Lady Herbert, Cradle L., vii. 173. We reached a wall and gateway with inscriptions from the Kurán.
