.. culars. The former place an angel as a guard over each of thefe infernal
apartments, and fuppofe he will intercede for the miferable wretches
there imprifoned, who will openly acknowledge the juftice of G od in
their condemnation They alfo teach that the wicked will fuffer a
diverlity of punifhments, and that by intolerable cold » as well as
heat, and that their faces fhall become black 3; and believe thofe of
their own religion {hall alfo be punifhed in hell hereafter, according to
their crimes, (for they hold that few or noife will be found fo exactly
righteous as to deferve no punifhment at all), but will foon be delivered
thence, when they fhall be fufficiently purged from their fins,
by their father Abraham, or at the interceffion of him or fome other
o f the prophets +. The Magians allow but one angel to prefide over
all the feven hells, who is named by them Vanand Tezdd, and, as
they teach, afligns punifhments proportionate to each perfon’s crimes,
reftraining alfo the tyranny and exceffive cruelty of the devil, who
would, i f left to himfelf, torment the damned beyond their fentence t.
Thofe of this religion do alfo mention and defcribe various kinds of
torments, wherewith the wicked will be punifhed in the next life;
among which tho’ they reckon extream cold to be one, yet they do
not admit fire, out of refpedt, as it feems, to that element, which they
take to be the reprefentation of the divine nature; and therefore they
rather chufe to defcribe the damned fouls as fuffering by other kinds
o f punifhments: fuch as an intolerable ftink, the flinging and biting
o f fergents and wild beafts, the cutting and tearing of the flefh by
the devils, exceffive hunger and thirft, and the likes.
Of the Before we proceed to a defcription of the Mohammedan paradife, we
wall be- muft not forget to fay fomething of the wall or partition which they
«d” e aod imagine to be between that place and hell, and feems to be copied
ieii. from the great gulph of feparation mentioned in fcripture7. They
call it al O rf and more frequently in the plural, al Ardf\ a word derived
from the verb arafa, which fignifies to dijlinguijh between things, or
to part them; tho’ fome commentators give another reafon for the im-
pofition of this name, becaufe, fay they, thofe who ftand on this partition,
will know and dijlinguijh the bleffed from the damned, by their re-
fpedtive marks or charadteriftics 8: and others fay the word properly
intends any thing that is high raifed or elevated, as fuch a wall of
feparation rouft be fuppofed to b e s. The Mohammedan writers great-
1 Midralh, Yalkut Shemuni, part. 1 1. f. 116. 2 Zohar, ad Exod. xix. 3 Yalkut'Shemuni, ubi
fup. f. 86. * Niflimat hayim, f. 82. Gemar. Arubin, f. 19. V. Kor. c. 2. p, 11. and 3. p. 37»
v and notes there. s Hyde, de rel. vet. Perf. p. 182. 6 V. Eundem, ib. p. 399, See. 7 Luke
xvi. 26. 8 JallaloMdin. V. Kor. c. 7. 9 Al Beidawi.
ly differ as to the perfons who are to be found on al Araj. Some
imagine it to be a fort of limbo, for the patriarchs and prophets, or
for the martyrs and thofe who have been moil eminent for fandtity,
among whom they fay there will be alfo angels in the form of men.
Others place here fuch whofe good and evil works are fo equal that
they exadtly counterpoife each other, and therefore deferve neither reward
nor punifhment; and thefe they fay, will on the laft day be
admitted into paradife, after they fhall have performed an aft of ado-
ration, which will be imputed to them as a merit, and will make the
fcale of their good works to overbalance Others fuppofe this intermediate
fpace will be a receptacle for thofe who have gone to war,
without their parents leave, and therein buffered martyrdom; being excluded
paradife for their difobedience, and efcaping hell becaufe they
are martyrs. The breadth of this partition wall cannot be fuppofed
to be exceeding great, fince not only thofe who fhall ftand thereon
will hold conference with the inhabitants both of paradife and of
hell, but the bleffed and the damned themfelves will alfo be able to
talk to one another '.
If Mohqmmed did not take his notions o f the partition We have
been deferibing, from fcripture, he muft at leaft have borrowed it at
fecond-hand from the Jews, who mention a thin wall dividing paradife
from hell *.
The righteous, as the Mohammedans are taught to believe, having O f Mi-
furmounted the difficulties, and paffedthe fharp bridge above-mentioned,
before they enter paradife will be refrefhed by drinking at the pond o fp
their prophet, who deferibes it to be an exadt fquare of a month’s
journey in compafs, its water, which is fupplied by two pipes from al
Cawthar, one of the rivers of paradife, being whiter than milk or fil-
ver, and more odoriferous than mufk, with as many cups fet around
it as there are ftars in the firmament; of which water, whoever
drinks will thirft no more for ever 5. This is the firft tafte which the
bleffed will have of their future and now near approaching felicity.
Tho’ paradife be fo very frequently mentioned in the Koran, yet it O f pm*
is a difpute among the Mohammedans whether it be already created, dlfc‘
or be to be created hereafter ; the Motazalites and fome other fedta-
ries afferting that there is not at prefent any fuch place in nature,
and that the paradife which the righteous will inhabit in the next life,
will be different from that from which Adam was expelled. However
the orthodox profefs the contrary, maintaining that it was created even
1 Koran, ubi (up. V. D’Herbel. Bibl. Orient, p. 121» See. 2 Midralh, Yalkut Sioni. f. 1 1.
3 Al Ghafcali. • - - , - _
• before