repeat it in the night, nor practise what is in it by day, and he will be treated as you saw till the day of resurrection; and the people you saw in the oven are adulterers; and those you saw in the river are receivers of usury; and the old man you saw under the tree is Abraham; and the children around them are the children of men: and the person who was lighting the fire was Malik, the keeper of hell; and the first house you entered was for the common believers; and as to the second house, it is for the martyrs: and we who conducted you are one of us Gabriel, and the other Michael; then raise up your head'; and I did so, and saw above it as it were a cloud: and they said, 'That is your dwelling.' I said, 'Call it here, that I may enter it'; and they said, 'Verily your life remaineth, but when you have completed it, you will come into your house.'" When God created paradise, he said to Gabriel, "Go and look at it"; then Gabriel went and looked at it and at the things which God had prepared for the people of it. After that Gabriel came and said, "O my Lord! I swear by thy glory no one will hear a description of paradise but will be ambitious of entering it." After that God surrounded paradise with distress and troubles, and said, "O Gabriel, go and look at paradise." And he went and looked, and then returned and said, "O my Lord, I fear that verily no one will enter it." And when God created hell fire he said to Gabriel, "Go and take a look at it." And he went and looked at it, and returned and said, "O my Lord, I swear by thy glory that no one who shall hear a description of hell fire will wish to enter it." Then God surrounded it with sins, desires, and vices; after that he said to Gabriel, "Go and look at hell fire," and he went and looked at it, and said, "O my Lord, I swear by thy glory I am afraid that every one will enter hell, because sins are so sweet that there is none but will incline to them." If ye knew what I know of the condition of the resurrection and futurity, verily ye would weep much and laugh little. Then I said, "O messenger of God! shall we perish while the virtuous are among us?" He said, Yes, when the wickedness shall be excessive, verily there will be tribes of my sects that will consider the wearing of silks and drinking liquor lawful, and will listen to the lute: and there will be men with magnificent houses, and their milch-animals will come to them in the evening, full of milk, and a man will come begging a little and they will say, Come to-morrow. Then God will quickly send a punishment upon them, and will change others into the shape of monkeys and swine, unto the day of resurrection.