Page:Legends of Old Testament Characters.djvu/63

V.] "The disobedient," said Allah to Adam, "shall, if they remain obstinate, be cast into hell, but the true believers shall be received into Paradise."

"So be it," replied Adam. And thus shall it be at the end of the world. After the covenant, Allah rubbed Adam's back once more, and all his little posterity retreated into it again.

When now God withdrew His presence from Adam's sight for the remainder of our first parents' life, Adam uttered such a loud and bitter cry that the whole earth quaked.

The All-merciful was filled with compassion, and bade him follow a cloud which would conduct him to a spot where he would be directly opposite His throne, and there he was to build a temple. "Go about this temple," said Allah, "and I am as near to you as to the angels who surround my throne." Adam, who was still the size that God had created him, easily strode from Ceylon to Mecca after the cloud, which stood over the place where he was to build. On Mount Arafa, near Mecca, to his great delight, he found Eve again, and from this circumstance the mountain takes its name (from Arafa, to recognize, to know again). They both began to build, and erected a temple having four doors—one was called Adam's door, another Abraham's door, the third Ishmael's door, and the fourth Mohammed's door. The plan of the temple was furnished by Gabriel, who also contributed a precious stone, but this stone afterwards, through the sin of men, turned black. This black stone is the most sacred Kaaba, and it was originally an angel, whose duty it had been to guard the Wheat-Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and to warn off Adam should he approach it. But through his inattention the design of God was frustrated, and in punishment he was transformed into a stone, and he will not be released from his transformation till the Last Day. Gabriel taught Adam also all the ceremonies of the great pilgrimage. Adam now returned with his wife to India, and lived there till he died, but every year he made a pilgrimage to Mecca, till he lost his primitive size, and retained only the height of sixty ells. The cause of his diminution in height was his horror and dismay at the murder of Abel, which made him shrink into