The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 2 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations
Religion
The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 2 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations
Iran -- Religion; Religions
Having found the happy tidings that ten personages[525] have entered
into heaven, do not however include him in their number.
“Because they are all formed of the pure offspring,
They received also the happy tidings of going to heaven.”
When any body is placed in the tomb, then two angels of a frightful
appearance ask him: “Who was thy God, thy prophet, what thy creed?” If
he give a right answer, then they keep his grave open, and make a
window from heaven to it, that he may behold his future dwelling. But
if his answer does not prove satisfactory, they beat his face soft
with a club, and close the grave so tight upon him, that a noise
issues from the compression of his sides; they also open a window from
hell to him, so that he may there see his fate and his habitation.
When the period of the world shall be terminated, the name of God
shall not be pronounced by any tongue; then, by God’s orders, shall
Israfíl sound the trumpet, and extinguish all like lamps; afterwards,
during ages, there shall be no motion upon the face of the earth,
until Israfíl shall again, at God’s order, by a blast of the trumpet
blow the souls into the dispersed parts of their bodies, so that all
shall revive. Afterwards, at the last judgment, the angels shall place
the journal of actions recorded at the right hand of the virtuous, and
at the left of the iniquitous. If the balance is weighed down by the
good actions of a person, he goes to heaven; but if the scale, heavy
with sins weighs down the other, hell awaits the sinner. This being
brought to a close, an invisible bridge is thrown over hell; this
bridge is sharper than the edge of a sword and thinner than a hair,
and the believers and unbelievers are to be driven over it.
“When any unbeliever puts his foot upon it,
The abyss of hell shall be his habitation.”
The believer also shall, according to his knowledge and his actions,
sooner or later pass over it; a weak faith shall not easily cross it.
“But he shall find salvation at the end of the business,
Although he may see many difficulties.”
There are fifty stations in the space on which the obedient and the
rebels shall stop: upon each station another question is asked:
“He who gives a right answer
Crosses each station with rapidity.
But if not, in each, from a distressing condition,
He suffers pain and grief during one thousand years.”
The unbeliever shall suffer the torment of hell eternally; and the
iniquitous believer shall remain in it, according to the estimation of
his crimes.
“Either the entreaty of the intercessors
Shall liberate him from the retribution and punishment,
Or if, by intercession, the door of liberation does not open,
The most merciful of the merciful shall bestow salvation.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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