"The Day of judgment, what is the Day of Judgment?
And what can make thee know what is the Day of judgment?
A day when men shall be like moths scattered abroad:
And the mountains shall be like parti-coloured carded wool.
Then he whose scales are heavy shall be in a happy life:
But he whose scales are light,—his mother (i.e. dwelling) is lowest hell.
And what can make thee know what that is ?—
Burning fire."

So also in Surah LXXXII. :—

"When the sky shall be cleft asunder,
And when the stars shall be scattered,
And when the seas shall be made flow together,
And when the graves shall be rent,
The soul shall know what it hath done first and last.
O Man, what hath seduced thee from thy gracious Lord,
Who created thee and then perfected and made thee rightly disposed?"¹

Surah LXXXI. is too long to quote, but it gives even a more striking description of the great and terrible day of the Lord, telling how in that day:—

"When the sun shall be folded up . . . .
And the Books shall be unrolled . . . .
And when Hell shall be kindled,
And when Paradise shall be brought near,
The soul² shall know what it bath put forward."

After the Resurrection every one has to cross the Bridge³ Sirat ( أَلصّرِاَطُ ) which is finer than a hair

and sharper than a sword and is stretched right across the abyss of Hell. The righteous pass over with ease, and in an instant find themselves welcomed by the angels to share with them the delights of Paradise, where they dwell for ever in the enjoyment of carnal pleasures. Yet some more thoughtful and more pious Muslims try to spiritualise what the Qur'an teaches on this subject, and hold that it is to be figuratively understood. Al Baidhawi for instance says that the wine the just

Mystical Explanation of Carnal Paradise

drink in Paradise is the wine of Purity, so called because its taste purifies the heart from the desire of all things but the yearning to see GOD Himself, and that the Divine¹ Vision is the highest and noblest of the delights of Paradise. It would not be fair to represent this as the common and the popular view, nor even as one that may possibly represent the teaching of the Qur'an² on the subject: but it is most encouraging to find that some among the Muslims deem admission to the immediate Presence of GOD the chief thing required to make them eternally blessed. In the hearts of some of them at least—GOD alone knows how many or how few—there still echoes, half unconsciously,