History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 5Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 5
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
The reunion of the soul and body will be followed by the final judgment
of mankind; and in his copy of the Magian picture, the prophet has too
faithfully represented the forms of proceeding, and even the slow
and successive operations, of an earthly tribunal. By his intolerant
adversaries he is upbraided for extending, even to themselves, the hope
of salvation, for asserting the blackest heresy, that every man who
believes in God, and accomplishes good works, may expect in the last day
a favorable sentence. Such rational indifference is ill adapted to the
character of a fanatic; nor is it probable that a messenger from heaven
should depreciate the value and necessity of his own revelation. In
the idiom of the Koran, the belief of God is inseparable from that of
Mahomet: the good works are those which he has enjoined, and the two
qualifications imply the profession of Islam, to which all nations and
all sects are equally invited. Their spiritual blindness, though excused
by ignorance and crowned with virtue, will be scourged with everlasting
torments; and the tears which Mahomet shed over the tomb of his mother
for whom he was forbidden to pray, display a striking contrast of
humanity and enthusiasm. The doom of the infidels is common: the measure
of their guilt and punishment is determined by the degree of evidence
which they have rejected, by the magnitude of the errors which they
have entertained: the eternal mansions of the Christians, the Jews, the
Sabians, the Magians, and idolaters, are sunk below each other in the
abyss; and the lowest hell is reserved for the faithless hypocrites who
have assumed the mask of religion. After the greater part of mankind
has been condemned for their opinions, the true believers only will be
judged by their actions. The good and evil of each Mussulman will be
accurately weighed in a real or allegorical balance; and a singular
mode of compensation will be allowed for the payment of injuries: the
aggressor will refund an equivalent of his own good actions, for the
benefit of the person whom he has wronged; and if he should be destitute
of any moral property, the weight of his sins will be loaded with an
adequate share of the demerits of the sufferer. According as the shares
of guilt or virtue shall preponderate, the sentence will be pronounced,
and all, without distinction, will pass over the sharp and perilous
bridge of the abyss; but the innocent, treading in the footsteps of
Mahomet, will gloriously enter the gates of paradise, while the guilty
will fall into the first and mildest of the seven hells. The term of
expiation will vary from nine hundred to seven thousand years; but the
prophet has judiciously promised, that all his disciples, whatever may
be their sins, shall be saved, by their own faith and his intercession
from eternal damnation. It is not surprising that superstition should
act most powerfully on the fears of her votaries, since the human fancy
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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