Page:Judaism and Islam, a prize essay - Geiger - 1898.pdf/81

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DEMONS.

declared to possess six qualities, three of which are angelic and three human. The three which pertain to angels are that they have wings, that they can fly from one end of the earth to the other (i. e. they are bound by no space), and that they know the future beforehand. They know the future beforehand? No! but they listen behind the curtain. The three human qualities are that they eat and drink, increase and multiply, and die. Muslim tradition cannot do enough in their description, but there is but little about them in the Quran. The fact that they listened at the canopy of heaven gained for them in the Quran the nickname of the stoned, for, say the commentators, the angels threw stones to drive them away when they found them listening. Thus it is said expressly: "We have appointed them (the lamps of heaven) to be darted at the devils." The seventy-second Sura treats of them in detail, and seeks especially to set forth their assent to the new doctrine. The Talmud also states that they are present at the giving of instruction. The following