Page:The Mohammedan system of theology (IA mohammedansyste00neal).pdf/65

 terceded for beasts, the shape of beasts; and those who interceded for birds, the shape of birds, according to their several kinds. And that as to the great cock, that he was the chief angel of the cocks; that every morning God singing an holy hymn, this cock constantly joined with him in it by his crowing, which is so loud, that all hear it that are in heaven and earth, except men and fairies, and then all the other cocks that are in heaven and earth crow also. But when the day of judgment draws near, then God shall command him to draw in his wings and crew no more, which shall be a sign that that day is at hand, to all that are in heaven and earth, except men and fairies, who being afore deaf to his crowing, shall not then be sensible of his silence from it. And this cock the Mahometans look on to be in that great favour with God, that whereas it is a common saying among them, that there are three voices which God always hears; they reckon the first the voice of him that is constant in reading the Alcoran; the second, the voice of him that early every morning prayeth for the pardon of his sins; and the third, the voice of this cock when he croweth, which they say is ever most acceptable unto him. All this stuff of the cock Abdullah helped Mahomet to, out of the Talmudists. For it is all borrowed from them with some little variation only, to make it look not totally the same. For in the tract, Bava Bathra, of the Babylonish Talmud, we have a story of such a prodigious bird, called Ziz, which standing with his feet upon the earth, reacheth up unto the heavens with his head, and with the spreading of his wings darkeneth the whole orb of the sun, and causeth a total eclipse thereof. This bird the Chaldee Paraphrast on the Psalms says, is a cock, which he describes of the same bigness, and pany of Gabriel to heaven, where being ad-