At the same time it is especially inculcated that the Almighty can only be approached in purity and humility of spirit, and that the most important purification is the cleansing of the heart from all blamable inclinations and frailties, and the mind from all vicious ideas and thoughts which distract the attention from God. =No Priesthood in Islâm.=—The absence of a specially interested class to act as intermediaries between God and man differentiates Islâm from all other creeds. In the Islâmic system every man is his own priest and pleads for himself for forgiveness and mercy. ‘No sacrifice, no ceremonial invented by vested interests is needed to bring the anxious heart nearer to its Comforter.’[8] Essentially a democratic creed, it recognises no distinction of race or colour among its followers. High or low, rich or poor, white, yellow, or black are on the same level in the sight of their Lord. The democratic character of its appeal, its repudiation of all adventitious barriers of caste, explain the powerful fascination it exercises over divers races of mankind. =Belief in a Future Life.=—Belief in a future life and accountability for human actions in another existence are two principal doctrines of the Islâmic creed. Both ideas take different shapes in different minds according to individual culture and environment. Man is not a fortuitous item in creation; nor does the cessation of life on earth mean an end of the human soul. Physical death only releases it from its earthly habiliments. The soul, which is an emanation from God, exists for ever. =Judaism.=—Early Judaism does not show any trace of a belief in a future life or in future rewards and punishment. It is only after the Babylonian Captivity the Jewish mind rose to that conception, and the Zoroastrian _Bihasht_ and _Duzakh_[9] became the prototypes of the Jewish hell and heaven.[10] =Zoroastrianism.=—Similarly the vivid descriptions of the kingdom of Heaven contained in the Christian Scriptures are without doubt a reflex of the Zoroastrian conception. Thus, at the time of Mohammed’s advent, Jew, Christian, and Zoroastrian all looked to material rewards and punishments in a future existence.[11] In Islâm the pains and joys of the Hereafter were used as a lever for raising the people from the fetishism and soulless life to which they had become wedded,—to a conception of spiritual ideals and of the duties imposed by God on man.