Page:The Mohammedan system of theology (IA mohammedansyste00neal).pdf/64

 pure silver, and that he there saw the stars hanging from it by chains of gold, each being of the bigness of Mount No-ho, near Mecca in Arabia; and that in these stars angels kept watch and ward for the guard of heaven, to keep off the devils from approaching near it, lest they should overhear and know what was there done. On his first entering into this heaven, he saith, he met an old, decrepit man, and this was our first father Adam, who immediately embraced him, giving God thanks for so great a son, and then recommended himself to his prayers. As he entered further, he saw a multitude of angels of all manner of shapes; some in that of men, others in that of birds, and others in that of beasts of all manner of sorts. And among those who appeared in the several shapes of birds, he there saw a cock of colour as white as snow, and of so prodigious a bigness, that his feet standing upon the first heaven, his head reached up to the second, which was at the distance of five hundred years' journey from it, according to the rate we usually travel here on earth. But others among them, as they relate this matter from their prophet, hyperbolize much higher concerning it, telling us that the head of this cock reacheth up through all the seven heavens, as far as the throne of God, which is above seven times higher; and in the description of him say, that his wings are all over decked with carbuncles and pearls, and that he extends the one of them to the east, and the other to the west, at a distance proportionable to his height. Concerning all these the Impostor tells us, the angel Gabriel informed him, that they were angels which did from thence intercede with God for all living creatures on the earth. That those who interceded for men had there the shape of men; that those who in- called Al-borek, and from thence in the com-