The virgins of Paradise, called, from their large black eyes, _Hur al oyun_. An intercourse with these, according to the institution of Mahomet, is to constitute the principal felicity of the faithful. Not formed of clay, like mortal women, they are deemed in the highest degree beautiful, and exempt from every inconvenience incident to the sex.--_Al Koran_; _passim_. PAGE 196. _... it was not with the orthodox that he usually held_ Vathek persecuted, with extreme rigour, all who defended the eternity of the Koran; which the Sonnites, or orthodox, maintained to be uncreated, and the Motazalites and Schiites as strenuously denied.--D’HERBELOT, p. 85, etc. PAGE 197. _Mahomet in the seventh heaven_ In this heaven, the paradise of Mahomet is supposed to be placed, contiguous to the throne of Alla. Hagi Khalfah relates, that Ben Iatmaiah, a celebrated doctor of Damascus, had the temerity to assert that, when the Most High erected his throne, he reserved a vacant place for Mahomet upon it. PAGE 197. _Genii_ _Genn_, or _Ginn_, in the Arabic, signifies a Genius or Demon, a being of a higher order, and formed of more subtile matter than man. According to Oriental mythology, the Genii governed the world long before the creation of Adam. The Mahometans regarded them as an intermediate race between angels and men, and capable of salvation; whence Mahomet pretended a commission to convert them. Consonant to this, we read that, _when the |Servant of God| stood up to invoke him, it wanted little but that the |Genii| had pressed on him in crowds, to hear him rehearse the Koran_.--D’HERBELOT, p. 375. _Al Koran_, ch. 72. It is asserted, and not without plausible reasons, that the words _Genn_, _Ginn_--_Genius_, _Genie_, _Gian_, _Gigas_, _Giant_, _Géant_--proceed from the same themes, viz. Γὴ, _the earth_, and γάω, _to produce_; as if these supernatural agents had been an early production of the earth, long before Adam was modelled out from a lump of it. The Ωντες and Εωντες of Plato bear a close analogy to these supposed intermediate creatures between God and man. From these premises arose the consequence that, boasting a higher order, formed of more subtle matter, and possessed of much greater knowledge, than man, they lorded over this planet, and invisibly governed it with superior intellect. From this last circumstance they obtained in Greece the title of Δαίμονες, Demons, from δαήμων, _sciens_, knowing. The Hebrew word, נפלים, Nephilim (Gen. vi, 4), translated by _Gigantes_, giants, claiming the same etymon with νεφέλη, a cloud, seems also to indicate that these intellectual beings inhabited the void expanse of the terrestrial atmosphere. Hence the very ancient fable of men of enormous strength and size revolting against the gods, and all the mythological lore relating to that mighty conflict; unless we trace the origin of this important event to the ambition of Satan, his revolt against the Almighty, and his fall with the angels.