reserved for the lost in the verses which immediately follow in the same Surah, vv. 40[41], sqq. "And the Companions of the Left Hand, what of the Companions of the Left Hand? In scorching¹ wind and boiling water, in the shadow of black smoke, not cool nor pleasant. Verily

Tortures of the Damned.

they were before that enjoyers of luxuries, and used to persist in great wickedness, and were wont to say, 'When we have died and become dust and bones, shall we verily be indeed raised to life? Shall our first ancestors be so?' Say thou, 'Verily the first and the last are indeed assembled at a fixed time of a well-known day. Then verily ye, O ye who err and falsely deny this, shall indeed eat of trees of zaqqum,² and shall fill your bellies with it. Then ye shall drink thereupon boiling water, then shall ye drink as drink raging she-camels.'³ This shall be their fare on the Day of Judgment."

The joys of Paradise as described in these and many other passages in the Qur'an have

Influence of such ideas.

in all subsequent ages exercised a great influence over the minds of pious Muslims. This is evident from a study of history, and not least from the attention that has been paid to the collecting of Traditions in which fuller and still more enticing pictures of

Paradise and its Houries are drawn by the "Prophet" himself. Our delineation of the teaching of Islam on this point would not be at all complete were we to make no

Traditions on the subject.

reference to such Traditions. Speaking upon the subject of the rewards of the Just in the next world, Al Bukhari (in his celebrated work entitled As Sahih) and other Traditionalists tell us¹ that Muhammad himself said, "In Paradise (Al Jannat) there are palaces made of pearl, in each palace are seventy abodes made of rubies, in each abode there are seventy houses of green emerald. In every house is a couch, on every couch are seventy beds of every colour, on every bed a spouse from the

Houries.

number of the large-eyed Houries. In every house there are seventy tables, on each table there are seventy kinds of food. In each house there are seventy slave-girls, and every morning when he is anxious for food the Muslim is given all that he desires besides. And verily, as for the first company that shall enter Paradise, their beauty shall be as that of the moon on the night when it is full . . .² Their vessels and their combs shall be of gold and silver, and their perspiration of musk. Every one of them shall have two wives,