“Thou art proud; believest thou thyself to be one of the more exalted beings?”[114]
And this was the occasion on which the angels of the earth were ordered to adore Adam.
The Orientals maintain that when the soul realises, as it ought to do, the conditions of its primitive origin, it obtains emancipation from the bodily bonds, and joins the intelligences and spirits: this exalted dignity is Paradise.
“O peaceful soul, return to thy lord willingly and readily; and whoever desires to meet his lord, let him perform good works.”
In this high state it is possible to behold the face of God. There is another sect which asserts, that the All-Just is visible; they say right; because the rational soul sees with interior eyes: another sect which denies the seeing of God is also right; because he cannot be seen with bodily eyes,
“The eyes attain him, and attain him not.”
But the soul which has left the narrow prison of the body, but has not attained the field of its beatifying residence, unites, for taking a seat, with the body of any one of the celestial spheres with which it has some relation; it finds rest in the higher or lower heavens, according to order and distinction; it is engaged in the contemplation of beauteous forms, and the noble endowments of one who praises God in the delight of that sphere, which, with some, means the fancy of a particular kind, and is blessed by the enjoyment of delightful imaginations and representations. What is stated in the code of law, that the souls of the vulgar among the believers are in the first heaven; this is founded upon the words of the prophet.
“His acquisition is but a known place.”
The meaning of this relates to the different degrees of merit.
By “Paradise” is understood one of the heavens, eight of which are counted, and these are beneath the ninth, which is the roof of the Paradise, as it is stated in the traditions. But, when the souls not yet come forth from the pit of the natural darkness of bodily matter, are nevertheless in a state of increasing improvement, then, in an ascending way, they migrate from body to body, each purer than the former one, until the time of climbing up to the steps of the wished-for perfection of mankind, yet according to possibility, after which, purified of the defilement of the body, they join the world of sanctity: and this final migration (death) is called nasikh, “obliteration.”