Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/66

 48 JUDAISM AND ISLAM.

calls the heavens the seven strongholds * and in another the seven paths. 2 This last expression occurs also in the Talmud. 3 During the creation, however, His throne was upon the waters. 4 This idea also is borrowed from the Jews, who say : 5 " The throne of glory then stood in the air, and hovered over the waters by the command of God. " This is somewhat more clearly expressed by Elpherar who says : " And this water was in the middle of the air. " 6

A second pivot of every revealed religion is the belief in a judgment after death ; for while the fact of the creation sets forth the omnipotence of the Creator, the doctrine of a final account teaches that it is (rod's will that His revealed laws shall be obeyed. This, then, in Judaism developed into a local Paradise and Hell, and both concep- tions have passed, as we have already shown, into IsUm. These localities, although at first mere symbols, mere embodiments of the spiritual idea of a state, afterwards became crystallised, and suffered the fate of every symbol, i.e., they were taken for the thing symbolised, and the places were more definitely indicated. Thus the Jews

Sura LXXYIII. 12. Sura XXIII. 17.

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Cf7 '^ffijffi Sura XXIII. 88, XXVII. 26 XXIIL 11 7, At=s3ft J\ LXXXV. 15.

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