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)
the general notion is, that they will not be admitted into the same abode as the men are, because their places will be supplied by the paradisiacal females, (tho’ some allow that a man will there also have the company of those who were his wives in this world, or at least such of them as he shall desire 1 ;) but that good women will go into a separate place of happiness, where they will enjoy all sorts of delights 2; but whether one of those delights will be the enjoyment of agreeable paramours created for them, to compleat the æconomy of the Mohammedan system, is what I have no where found decided. One circumstance relating to these beatified females, conformable to what he had asserted of the men, he acquainted his followers with in the answer he returned to an old woman; who desiring him to intercede with God, that the might be admitted into paradise, he told her that no old woman would enter that place; which setting the poor woman a crying, he explained himself by saying, that God would then make her young again 3.
Of God’s absolute decree.
The sixth great point of faith, which the Mohammedans are taught by the Korân to believe, is God’s absolute decree, and predestination both of good and evil. For the orthodox doctrine is, that whatever hath or shall come to pass in this world, whether it be good, or whether it be bad, proceedeth entirely from the divine will, and is irrevocably fixed and recorded from all eternity in the preserved table 4; God having secretly predetermined not only the adverse and prosperous fortune of every person in this world, in the most minute particulars, but also his faith or infidelity, his obedience or disobedience, and consequently his everlasting happiness or misery after death; which fate or predestination it is not possible, by any foresight or wisdom, to avoid.
Of this doctrine Mohammed makes great use in his Korân for the advancement of his designs; encouraging his followers to fight without fear, and even desperately, for the propagation of their faith, by representing to them that all their caution could not avert their inevitable destiny, or prolong their lives for a moment 5; and deterring them from disobeying or rejecting him as an impostor, by setting before them the danger they might thereby incur of being, by the just judgment of God, abandoned to seduction, hardness of heart, and a reprobate mind, as a punishment for their obstinacy 6.
1 See before, p. 98.
2 V. Chardin, Voy. Tom. 2. p. 328. & Bayle, Dict. Hist. Art. Mahomet, Rem. Q.
3 See Korân, c. 56, and the notes there. & Gagnier. not. in Abulsedæ vit. Moh. p. 145.
4 See before, p. 64.
5 Kor. c. 3. p. 52, 54. and c. 4. p. 70, &c.
6 Ib. c. 4. p. 70, and 79. And c. 2. p. 2, & passim.
