=The Koranic Conception of a Future Existence.=—The pictures of a future existence in the Koran are all drawn to suit the comprehension of the people among whom and the age in which the New Gospel was preached. To the famished, thirsty Arab of the desert what could be more comforting or more consonant to his ideas of paradise than rivers of unsullied, incorruptible water, or of milk and honey; or anything more acceptable than unlimited fruit, luxuriant vegetation, inexhaustible fertility? Large masses of Moslems, no doubt, accept in their literal sense all the word-paintings of the Koran, a characteristic by no means confined to the followers of Islâm. But it is a calumny even against those Mussulman literalists to say that they look forward to sensual enjoyment in the next world. The pictures in the Koran of the joys and pains of after-life, although poetical and vivid, give no warrant for such an assertion. ‘But those who are pious shall dwell in gardens amid fountains; (they shall say unto them) Enter ye therein in peace and security; and all rancour will We remove from their bosoms; they shall sit as brethren face to face; weariness shall not affect them therein, neither shall they be repelled thence for ever.’ ‘For those who do good is excellent reward and superabundant addition; neither blackness nor shame shall cover their faces. These are the inhabitants of Paradise; therein do they abide for ever. But those who have wrought evil shall receive the reward of evil equal thereunto.’... ‘Blessed are they who fulfil the covenant of God and break not their compact; and who join together what God hath bidden to be joined; and who fear their Lord and dread an ill-reckoning; and who from a sincere desire to please their Lord are constant amid trials, and observe prayers and give alms, in secret and openly, out of what we have bestowed on them; and turn aside evil with good; for them there is the recompense of that abode, gardens of eternal habitation, into which they shall enter, together with such as shall have acted rightly from among their fathers, their wives, and their posterity, and the angels shall go in unto them by every portal (saying), “Peace be with you! because you have endured with patience.”’ ‘Excellent is the reward in that abode!’[12] ‘No soul knoweth the joy which is secretly prepared for it as a reward for that it may have wrought.’[13] =The Spirituality of Islâm.=—Thus behind the description of material happiness portrayed in objects like trees, rivers, and beautiful mansions, with fairy attendants lies a deeper meaning:—‘O thou soul which art at rest, return unto thy Lord, pleased and pleasing Him; enter thou among My servants; and enter thou My garden of felicity.’