Though some among the Mohammedans have thought that the resurrection will be merely spiritual, and no more than the returning of the soul to the place whence it first came (an opinion defended by Ebn Sina,5 and called by some the opinion of the philosophers6); and others, who allow man to consist of body only, that it will be merely corporeal; the received opinion is, that both body and soul will be raised, and their doctors argue strenuously for the possibility of the resurrection of the body, and dispute with great subtlety concerning the manner of it.7 But Mohammed has taken care to preserve one part of the body, whatever becomes of the rest, to serve for a basis of the future edifice, or rather a leaven for the mass which is to be joined to it. For he taught that a man's body was entirely consumed by the earth, except only the bone called al Ajb, which we name the os coccygis, or rump-bone; and that as it was the first formed in the human body, it will also remain uncorrupted till the last day, as a seed from whence the whole is to be renewed: and this he said would be effected by a forty days' rain which GOD should send, and which would cover the earth to the height of twelve cubits, and cause the bodies to sprout forth like plants.1 Herein also is Mohammed also beholden to the Jews, who say the same things of the bone Luz,2 excepting that what he attributes to a great rain, will be effected according to them by a dew, impregnating the dust of the earth. The time of the resurrection the Mohammedans allow to be a perfect 1 Poc. ubi sup. p. 247. 2 Ibid. p. 248. Consonant hereto are the Jewish notions of the souls of the just being on high, under the throne of glory. Vide ibid. p. 156. 3 Ibid. p. 250. 4 Al Beidâwi. Vide Poc. ubi sup. p. 252. 5 Or, as we corruptly name him, Avicenna. 6 Kenz al afrâr. 7 Vide Poc. ubi sup. p. 254. 1 Idem, ibid. p. 255, &c. 2 Bereshit. rabbah, &c. Vide Poc. ubi sup. p. 117, &c.