George Sale, The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, translated into English immediately from the original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, taken from the most approved Commentators. To which is prefixed A Preliminary Discource (1734)

will be liable to eternity of damnation, for the Moslems, or those who have embraced the true religion, and have been guilty of heinous sins, will be delivered thence after they shall have expiated their crimes by their sufferings. The contrary of either of these opinions is reckoned heretical; for it is the constant orthodox doctrine of the Mohammedans that no unbeliever or idolater will ever be released, nor any person who in his life-time professed and believed the unity of God, be condemned to eternal punishment. As to the time and manner of the deliverance of those believers whose evil actions shall outweigh their good, there is a tradition of Mohammed that they shall be released after they shall have been scorched and their skins burnt black, and shall afterwards be admitted into paradise; and when the inhabitants of that place shall, in contempt, call them infernals, God will, on their prayers, take from them that opprobrious appellation. Others say he taught that while they continue in hell, they shall be deprived of life, or (as his words are otherwise interpreted) be cast into a most profound sleep, that they may be the less sensible of their torments; and that they shall afterwards be received into paradise, and there revive on their being washed with the water of life; tho’ some suppose they will be restored to life before they come forth from their place of punishment, that at their bidding farewell to their pains, they may have some little tast of them. The time which these believers shall be detained there, according to a tradition handed down from their prophet, will not be less than 900 years, nor more than 7000. And as to the manner of their delivery, they say that they shall be distinguished by the marks of prostration on those parts of their bodies with which they used to touch the ground in prayer, and over which the fire will therefore have no power; and that being known by this characteristic, they will be released by the mercy of God, at the intercession of Mohammed and the blessed; whereupon those who shall have been dead, will be restored to life, as has been said; and those whose bodies shall have contracted any footiness or filth from the flames and smoke of hell, will be immersed in one of the rivers of paradise, called the river of life, which will wash them whiter than pearls ¹.

For most of these circumstances relating to hell and the state of the damned, Mohammed was likewise in all probability indebted to the Jews, and in part to the Magians; both of whom agree in making seven distinct apartments in hell ², tho’ they vary in other