[116] Koran, chap. VI. v. 38.
[117] Koran, chap. CI. v. 4.
[118] Túba, says Herbelot, according to the Commentators of the Koran, is a word derived from the Ethiopian language, and means properly “eternal beatitude.” The Tuba, as the heavenly lotos tree, or tree of life, occurs in all mythologies, in the Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, and Scandinavian. This tree is represented upon the coffin of a mummy which exists in the imperial cabinet of Vienna; a deity pours out from its branches the paradisiacal fountain, which, according to the Muhammedans, issues from the roots of the tree of life.—(See The Mines of Orient, vol. V.)
[119] This tree is imagined to spring from the bottom of hell. There is a thorny tree, called zakúm, which grows in Tahâma, and bears fruit like an almond, but extremely bitter; and therefore the same name is given to this infernal tree.—(See Sale’s Koran, pp. 104, 310.)
[120] This seems an incorrect quotation from St. John’s Gospel, chapter III. verse 3, which is as follows: “Jesus answered and said unto him (Nicodemus): Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”—Further, v. 5: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”—V. 6: That which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit, is spirit.”—V. 7: “Marvel not that I said unto thee, you must be born again.”—V. 8: The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the spirit.”
[121] The word âalem, “world,” has here (as it occurs with the corresponding Sanskrit word loka) the meaning of state, “condition.”
[122] Koran, chap. LXXXI. v. 1.
[123] A well at Mecca, see this vol., p. 14-15, [note 1].
[124] ادوار و اكوار are the cycles or revolutions of years, according to which the astrologers pretend to prognosticate the accidents of human life. Every adwár consists of 360 solar years, and the ikwár of 120 lunar years; the whole art consists in finding the combination of these years, and their respective relations.
[125] Abú Naśr Muhammed Ebn Turkhan al Fárábí, a native of Farab, a town situated on the occidental confines of Turkestan, afterwards called Otrar. He is esteemed as the greatest philosopher among the Muselmans, and at the same time the most detached from the world. To him is attributed the translation of Aristotle’s Analytics, under the title of Anoluthica. Avisenna confessed to have derived all his science from him. Ghazali counts Fárábi and Avisenna among the philosophers who believed the eternity of the world, but not without a first mover, which doctrine is believed by the Muselmans to be atheistical. Fárábi died in the year of the Hejira 339 (A. D. 950), according to Ebn Chal and Abulfeda, quoted by Pococke (p. 372); according to Herbelot in Hejira 343 (A. D. 954).