Mohammedans, whose understandings are too refined to admit such gross conceptions, look on their prophet's descriptions as parabolical, and are willing to receive them in an allegorical or spiritual acceptation,3 yet the general and orthodox doctrine is, that the whole is to be strictly believed in the obvious and literal acceptation; to prove which I need only urge the oath they exact from Christians (who they know abhor such fancies) when they would bind them in the most strong and sacred manner; for in such a case they make them swear that if they falsify their engagement, they will affirm that there will be black-eyed girls in the next world, and corporeal pleasures.4 Before we quite this subject it may not be improper to observe the falsehood of a vulgar imputation on the Mohammedans, who are by several writers5 reported to hold that women have no souls, or, if they have, that they will perish, like those of brute beasts, and will not be rewarded in the next life. But whatever may be the opinion of some ignorant people among them, it is certain that Mohammed had too great a respect for the fair sex to teach such a doctrine; and there are several passages in the Korân which affirm that women, in the next life, will not only be punished for their evil actions, but will also receive the rewards of their good deeds, as well as the men, and that in this case GOD will make no distinction of sexes.6 It is true, the general notion is, that they will not be admitted into the same abode as the men are, because their places will be supplied by the paradisiacal females (though some allow that a man will there also have the company of those who were his wives in this world, or at least such of them as he shall desire1); but that good women will go into a separate place of happiness, where they will enjoy all sorts of delights;2 but whether one of those delights will be the enjoyment of agreeable paramours created for them, to complete the economy of the Mohammedan system, is what I have nowhere found decided. One circumstance relating to these beatified females, conformable to what he had asserted of the men, he acquainted his followers with in the answer he returned to an old woman, who, desiring him to intercede with GOD that she might be admitted into paradise, he told her that no old woman would enter that place; which setting the poor woman a-crying, he explained himself by saying that GOD would then make her young again.3 The sixth great point of faith, which the Mohammedans are taught by the Korân to believe, is GOD'S absolute decree, and predestination both of good and evil. For the orthodox doctrine is, that whether it be bad, proceedeth entirely from the divine will, and is irrevocably fixed and recorded from all eternity in the preserved table;4 GOD having secretly predetermined not only the adverse and prosperous fortune of every person in this world, in the most