These
delights of paradise were certainly, at first, understood literally;
however Mahometan divines may have since allegorized them into a
spiritual sense. As to the punishments threatened to the wicked, they
are hell-fire, breathing hot winds, the drinking of boiling and stinking
water, eating briers and thorns, and the bitter fruit of the tree Zacom,
which in their bellies will feel like boiling pitch. These punishments
are to be everlasting to all except those who embrace Islamism; for the
latter, after suffering a number of years, in proportion to their
demerits, will then, if they have had but so much faith as is equal to
the weight of an ant, be released by the mercy of God, and, upon the
intercession of Mahomet, admitted into paradise.
The sixth article of belief is that God decrees everything that is to
happen, not only all events, but the actions and thoughts of men, their
belief or infidelity; that everything that has or will come to pass has
been, from eternity, written in the preserved or secret table, which is
a white stone of an immense size, preserved in heaven, near the throne
of God.
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