Intending this translation for a wide audience, Arberry selected about one-sixth of the Koran's contents for translation. In his introduction he surveys reactions of European translators and scholars to the Koran in the first half of the twentieth century. Arberry briefly discusses the arrangement of the Koran in Arabic and in translation. He cites limitations of the Arabic writing system contemporary to Mohammed to explain the Koran's early existence in oral form, and he discusses the literary style of the text. He provides rhythm and stress pattern maps to illustrate the poetical/mechanical form of the Koran. Arberry translates each selected surah completely and attempted to choose those which he believed were particularly important to Muslims, emotionally or historically.