good actions or intentions, it should be added, only increase, and do not cause, our happiness if we are believers; and evil actions or intentions only increase our misery if we are unbelievers or irreligious: for the Muslim holds that he is to be admitted into heaven only by the mercy of God, on account of his faith, and to be rewarded in proportion to his good works. The Prophet's assertions on the subject of God's decrees are considered of the highest importance as explanatory of the Ḳur-án.--"Whatever is in the universe," said he, "is by the order of God."--"God hath pre-ordained five things on his servants; the duration of life, their actions, their dwelling-places, their travels, and their portions."--"There is not one among you whose sitting-place is not written by God, whether in the fire or in paradise."--Some of the companions of the Prophet, on hearing the last-quoted saying, asked him, "O Prophet, since God hath appointed our places, may we confide in this, and abandon our religious and moral duties?" He answered, "No: because the happy will do good works, and those who are of the miserable will do bad works." The following of his sayings further illustrate this subject:--"When God hath ordered a creature to die in any particular place, He causeth his wants to direct him to that place."--A companion asked, "O Prophet of God, inform me respecting charms, and the medicines which I swallow, and shields which I make use of for protection, whether they prevent any of the orders of God." Moḥammad answered, "These also are by the order of God." "There is a medicine for every pain: then, when the medicine reaches the pain it is cured by the order of God."[6]--When a Muslim, therefore, feels an inclination to make use of medicine for the cure of a disease, he should do so, in the hope of its being predestined that he shall be so cured. On the predestination of diseases, I find the following curious quotation and remark in a manuscript work[7] by Es-Suyooṭee, who wrote in the fifteenth century, in my possession:--"El-Ḥaleemee says, 'Communicable or contagious diseases are six: small-pox, measles, itch or scab, foul breath or putridity, melancholy, and pestilential maladies; and diseases engendered are also six: leprosy, hectic, epilepsy, gout, elephantiasis, and phthisis.' But this does not contradict the saying of the Prophet, 'There is no transition of diseases by contagion or infection, nor any omen that brings evil:' for the transition here meant is one occasioned by the disease itself; whereas the effect is of God, who causes pestilence to spread when there is intercourse with the diseased."--A Bedawee asked the Prophet, "What is the condition of camels which stay in the deserts? verily you might say they are deer, in health and in cleanness of skin; then they mix with mangy camels, and they become mangy also." Moḥammad said, "What made the first camel mangy?"[8]