from the great gulf of separation mentioned in scripture.7 They call it al Orf, and more frequently in the plural, al Arâf, a word derived from the verb arafa, which signifies to distinguish between things, or to part them; though some commentators give another reason for the imposition of this name, because, they say, those who stand on this partition will know and distinguish the blessed from the damned, by their respective marks or characteristics:8 and others say the word properly intends anything that is high raised or elevated, as such a wall of separation must be supposed to be.9 The Mohammedan writers greatly differ as to the persons who are to be found on al Arâf. Some imagine it to be a sort of limbo for the patriarchs and prophets, or for the martyrs and those who have been most eminent for sanctity, among whom, they say, there will be also angels in the form of men. Others place here such whose good and evil works are so equal that they exactly counterpoise each other, and, therefore, deserve neither reward nor punishment; and these, they say, will, on the last day, be admitted into paradise, after they shall have performed an act of adoration, which will be imputed to them as a merit, and will make the scale of their good works to overbalance. Others suppose this intermediate space will be a receptacle for those who have gone to war without their parents' leave, and therein suffered martyrdom; being excluded paradise for their disobedience, and escaping hell because they are martyrs. The breadth of this partition wall cannot be supposed to be exceeding great, since not only those who shall stand thereon will hold conference with the inhabitants both of paradise and of hell, but the blessed and the damned themselves will also be able to talk to one another.1 If Mohammed did not take his notions of the partition we have been describing from scripture, he must at least have borrowed it at second-hand from the Jews, who mention a thin wall dividing paradise form hell.2 The righteous, as the Mohammedans are taught to believe, having surmounted the difficulties, and passed the sharp bridge above mentioned, before they enter paradise will be refreshed by drinking at the pond of their prophet, who describes it to be an exact square, of a month's journey in compass: its water, which is supplied by two pipes from al Cawthar, one of the rivers of paradise, being whiter than milk or silver and more odoriferous than musk, with as many cups set around it as there are stars in the firmament, of which water, whoever drinks will thirst no more for ever.3 This is the first taste which the blessed will have of their future and now near-approaching felicity. Though paradise be so very frequently mentioned in the Korân, yet it is a dispute among Mohammedans whether it be already created, or be to be created hereafter: the Mótazalites and some other sectaries asserting that there is