with the water of life; though some suppose they will
3 Others fill these apartments with different company. Some place in the
second, the idolaters; in the third, Gog and Magog, &c.; in the fourth, the
devils; in the fifth, those who neglect alms and prayers; and crowd the Jews,
Christians, and Magians together in the sixth. Some, again, will have the
first to be prepared for the Dahrians, or those who deny the creation, and
believe the eternity of the world; the second, for the Dualists, or Manichees,
and the idolatrous Arabs; the third, for the Bramins of the Indies; the
fourth, for the Jews; the fifth, for the Christians; and the sixth, for the
Magians. But all agree in assigning the seventh to the hypocrites. Vide
Millium, de Mohammedismo ante Moham. p. 412; D'Herbel. Bibl. Orient. p. 368,
&c. 4 Kor. c. 40, 43, 74, &c.
5 Ibid. c. 74. 6 Ibid. c. 40, 43.
be restored to life before they come forth from their place of punishment,
that at their bidding farewell to their pains, they may have some little taste
of them. The time which these believers shall be detained there, according to
a tradition handed down from their prophet, will not be less than 900 years,
nor more than 7,000. And as to the manner of their delivery, they say that
they shall be distinguished by the marks of prostration on those parts of
their bodies with which they used to touch the ground in prayer, and over
which the fire will, therefore, have no power; and that being known by this
characteristic, they will be relieved by the mercy of GOD, at the intercession
of Mohammed and the blessed; whereupon those who shall have been dead will be
restored to life, as has been said; and those whose bodies shall have
contracted any sootiness or filth from the flames and smoke of hell, will be
immersed in one of the rivers of paradise, called the river of life, which
will wash them whiter than pearls.1
For most of these circumstances relating to hell and the state of the
damned, Mohammed was likewise, in all probability, indebted to the Jews, and
in part to the Magians; both of whom agree in making seven distinct apartments
in hell,2 though they vary in other particulars. The former place an angel as
a guard over each of these infernal apartments, and suppose he will intercede
for the miserable wretches there imprisoned, who will openly acknowledge the
justice of GOD in their condemnation.1 They also teach that the wicked will
suffer a diversity of punishments, and that by intolerable cold2 as well as
heat, and that their faces shall become black;3 and believe those of their own
religion shall also be punished in hell hereafter, according to their crimes
(for they hold that few or none will be found so exactly righteous as to
deserve no punishment at all), but will soon be delivered thence, when they
shall be sufficiently purged from their sins, by their father Abraham, or at
the intercession of him or some other of the prophets.4 The Magians allow but
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