[98]. Kur-án, ch. iv., v. 169.
[99]. The title of “Seyyidna” (our Lord) is given by the Muslims to prophets and other venerated persons.
[100]. Kur-án, ch. iv., v. 156.
[101]. The Muslim seldom mentions the name of the Prophet without adding, “Salla-lláhu ’aleyhi wa-sellem”; i.e., “God favour and preserve him!”
[102]. In the first edition of this work, I here mentioned the Devil as distinct from the genii; but I have since found that the majority of the most esteemed Arab authors are of the contrary opinion. Theirs is also the general opinion of the modern Arabs.—The angelic nature is considered as inferior to the human (because the angels were commanded to prostrate themselves before Adam), and still more so is the nature of genii.
[103]. Like those of the gazelle: this meaning of their common appellation (which is mentioned afterwards) is, however, disputed.[disputed.]
[104]. The title of martyr is given to the unpaid soldier killed in a war for the defence of the faith, to a person who innocently meets with his death from the hand of another, to a victim of the plague (if he has not fled from the disease) or of dysentery, to a person who is drowned, and to one who is killed by the fall of any building.
[105]. See Sale’s Preliminary Discourse to his Translation of the Kur-án, sect. iv.
[106]. A Muslim of some learning professed to me that he considered the description of Paradise given in the Kur-án to be, in a great measure, figurative: “like those,” said he, “in the book of the Revelation of St. John;” and he assured me that many learned Muslims were of the same opinion.
[107]. The corpse is always deposited in a vault, and not placed in a coffin, but merely wrapped in winding-sheets or clothes.