Much curious information can be had from these Mohammedan traditions. Solomon, we are told, once asked an Elemental, who appeared to him in the form of a fish, as to how many there were of that kind, and received the following reply: “There are of my species alone, seventy thousand kinds, the least of which is so large that thou would appear in its body like a grain of sand in the wilderness.”
We are further told, that Solomon, by means of a certain stone, “had dominion over the kingdom of spirits, which is much greater than that of man and beasts, and fills up the whole space between the earth and heaven.” Part of these spirits believe in the only God, but others are unbelieving. Some adore the fire; others the sun; others, again, the different stars; and many of them even water. The first continually hover round the pious, to preserve them from evil and sin; but the latter seek in every possible manner to torment and to seduce them, which they do the more easily, since they render themselves invisible, or assume any form they please. Solomon desired to see the genii in their original form. An angel rushed like a column of fire through the air, and soon returned with a host of demons and genii, whose appalling appearance filled Solomon, spite of his dominion over them, with horror. He had no idea that there were such misshapen and frightful beings in the world. He saw human heads on the necks of horses, with asses’ feet; the wings of eagles on the dromedary’s back; and the horns of the gazelle on the head of the peacock. Astonished at this singular union, he prayed the angel to explain it to him: “This is the consequence,” replied the angel, “of their wicked lives and their shameless intercourse with men, beasts and birds; for their desires know no bounds; and the more they multiply, the more they degenerate.”
(2) The second group consists of those of Fire and Air; they are lower in order than the former, those of Fire, but they are good and wise. They are also invisible. They inhabit, like the former, the upper regions.
(3) The third group consists of those of Fire, Air and Water, they are sometimes visible to our senses.
(4) The fourth class is also made of Fire, Air and Water, but have besides an element of Earth in their constitution. They may be fully seen by human eyes.
This class and those of the third are of a wicked disposition and deceive men, and are glad to do us harm. They have no moral sense at all. Some of them live in the waters, some in the mountains and deserts, and some in filthy places. Some of them are hideous to look upon, and are said to be met with even in open daylight.
The two first classes mentioned stand bodily next to men and are very dangerous. They possess extraordinary powers, standing, as they do, between the visible and the invisible worlds. They have some knowledge of the future and are particularly wise in regard to natural things. Some of these have in the time past been worshipped as gods and national deities. The Kabbala is quite emphatic in warnings against them, saying that they are untrustworthy because “their natural affinities are towards the lower realms of existence, rather than the higher.”
All these elementals, whatever class they belong to are subject to dissolution. Their lives are not centred on an eternal principle. They die—and that is the end of them.
It is also worthy of notice that there is a close parallel between the teachings of the Kabbala on this point with that of the Vishnu Purana regarding the composition of the descending order of emanations. According to the Kabbala, as we have just heard, the Elementals of the first order were pure Fire, those of the next were Fire plus Air, those of the next Fire, Air, and Water, while those of the lowest order consisted of Fire, Air, Water plus Earth. Each of them as they live on a lower plane add a new element to their constitution. The same law is found in the groupings of the elements according to the Vishnu Purana. The purest one is Ether and has only one property, sound. The next is Air which to sound adds touch; the next is Fire, which to sound and touch adds colour; the next is Water, which to the three former adds a fourth, taste; the last is Earth, which to all the former adds smell, thus possessing five properties.
The harmony in the teachings of these two authorities, resting as they do on so different a basis is an additional argument for the truths of their teachings on the main subject.