to a month, another to a week, and the rest will be common days; that he is to lay waste all places, but will not enter Mecca or Medina, which are to be guarded by angels; and that at length he will be slain by Jesus, who is to encounter him at the gate of Lud. It is said that Mohammed foretold several Anti- christs, to the number of about thirty, but one of greater note than the rest. 5. The descent of Jesus on earth. They pretend that he is to descend near the white tower to the east of Damascus, when the people are returned from the taking of Constantinople; that he is to embrace the Mohammedan religion, marry a wife, get children, kill Antichrist, and at length die after forty years', or, according to others, twenty-four years',1 continuance on earth. Under him they say there will be great security and plenty in the world, all hatred and malice being laid aside; when lions and camels, bears and sheep, shall live in peace, and a child shall play with serpents unhurt.2 6. War with the Jews; of whom the Mohammedans are to make a religious slaughter, the very trees and stones discovering such of them as hide themselves, except only the tree called Gharkad, which is the tree of the Jews. 7. The eruption of Gog and Magog, or, as they are called in the east, Yâjûj and Mâjûj; of whom many things are related in the Korân,3 and the traditions of Mohammed. These barbarians, they tell us, having passed the lake of Tiberias, which the vanguard of their vast army will drink dry, will come to Jerusalem, and there greatly distress Jesus and his companions; till at his request GOD will destroy them, and fill the earth with their carcasses, which after some time GOD will send birds to carry away, at the prayers of Jesus and his followers. Their bows, arrows, and quivers the Moslems will burn for seven years together;4 and at last GOD will send a rain to cleanse the earth, and to make it fertile. 8. A smoke, which shall fill the whole earth.5 9. An eclipse of the moon. Mohammed is reported to have said that there would be three eclipses before the last hour; one to be seen in the east, another in the west, and the third in Arabia. 10. The returning of the Arabs to the worship of Allât and al Uzza, and the rest of their ancient idols; after the decrease of every one in whose heart there was faith equal to the grain of mustard-seed, none but the very worst of men being left alive. For GOD, they say, will send a cold odoriferous wind, blowing from Syria Damascena, which shall sweep away the souls of all the faithful, and the Korân itself, so that men will remain in the grossest ignorance for a hundred years.
1 Al Thalabi, in Kor. c. 4. 2 See Isaiah xi. 6, &c.
3 Cap. 18 and 21. 4 See Ezek. xxxix. 9; Rev. xx. 8. 5 See
Kor. c. 44, and the notes thereon. Compare also Joel ii. 30, and Rev. ix. 2.
11. The discovery of a vast heap of gold and silver by the retreating of the Euphrates, which will be the destruction of many. 12. The demolition of the Caaba, or temple of Mecca, by the Ethiopians.1 13. The speaking of beasts and inanimate things. 14. The breaking out of fire in the province of Hejâz; or, according to others, in Yaman. 15. The appearance of a man of the descendants of Kahtân, who shall drive men before him with his staff. 16. The coming of the Mohdi, or director; concerning whom Mohammed prophesied that the world should not have an end till one of his own family should govern the Arabians, whose name should be the same with his own name, and whose father's name should also be the same with his father's name; and who should fill the earth with righteousness. This person the Shiites believe to be now alive, and concealed in some secret place, till the time of his manifestation; for they suppose him to be no other than the last of the twelve Imâms, named Mohammed Abu'lkasem, as their prophet was, and the son of Hassan al Askeri, the eleventh of that succession. He was born at Sermanrai in the 255th year of the Hejra.2 From this tradition, it is to be presumed, an opinion pretty current among the Christians took its rise, that the Mohammedans are in expectation of their prophet's return. 17. A wind which shall sweep away the souls of all who have but a grain of faith in their hearts, as has been mentioned under the tenth sign. These are the greater signs, which, according to their doctrine, are to precede the resurrection, but still leave the hour of it uncertain: for the immediate sign of its being come will be the first blast of the trumpet; which they believe will be sounded three times. The first they call the blast of consternation; at the hearing of which all creatures in heaven and earth shall be struck with terror, except those whom GOD shall please to exempt from it. The effects attributed to this first sound of the trumpet are very wonderful: for they say the earth will be shaken, and not only all buildings, but the very mountains levelled; that the heavens shall melt, the sun be darkened, the stars fall, on the death of the angels, who, as some imagine, hold them suspended between heaven and earth, and the sea shall be troubled and dried up, or, according ot others, turned into flames, the sun, moon, and stars being thrown into it: the Korân, to express the greatness of the terror of that day, adds that women who give suck shall abandon the care of their infants, and even the she-camels which have gone ten months with young (a most valuable part of the substance of that nation) shall be utterly neglected. A farther effect of this blast will be that concourse of beasts mentioned in the Korân,1 though some doubt whether it be to precede the resurrection or not. They who suppose it will precede, think that ll kinds of animals, forgetting their respective natural fierceness and timidity, will run together into one place, being terrified by the sound of the trumpet and the sudden shock of nature.
The Mohammedans believe that this first blast will be followed by a second, which they call the blast of examination,2 when all creatures, both in heaven and earth, shall die or be annihilated, except those which GOD shall please to exempt from the common fate;3 and this, they say, shall happen in the twinkling of an eye, nay, in an instant; nothing surviving except GOD alone, with paradise and hell, and the inhabitants of those two places, and throne of glory.4 The last who shall die will be the angel of death. Forty years after this will be heard the blast of resurrection, when the trumpet shall be sounded the third time by Israfîl, who, together with Gabriel and Michael, will be previously restored to life, and standing on the rock of the temple of Jerusalem,5 shall, at GOD'S command, call together all the dry and rotten bones, and other dispersed parts of the bodies, and the very hairs, to judgment. This angel having, by the divine order, set the trumpet to his mouth, and called together all the souls from all parts, will throw them into his trumpet, from whence, on his giving the last sound, at the command of GOD, they will fly forth like bees, and fill the whole space between heaven and earth, and then repair to their respective bodies, which the opening earth will suffer to arise; and the first who shall so arise, according to a tradition of Mohammed, will be himself. For this birth the earth will be prepared by the rain above mentioned, which is to fall continually for forty years,6 and will resemble the seed of a man, and be supplied from the water under the throne of GOD, which is called living water; by the efficacy and virtue of which the dead bodies shall spring forth from their graves, as they did in their mother's womb, or as corn sprouts forth by common rain, till they become perfect; after which breath will be breathed into them, and they will sleep in their sepulchres till they are raised to life at the last trump. As to the length of the last day of judgment the Korân in one place tells us that it will last 1,000 years,1 and in another 50,000.2 To reconcile this apparent contradiction, the commentators use several shifts: some saying they know not what measure of time GOD intends in those passages; others, that these forms of speaking are figurative and not to be strictly taken, and were designed only to express the terribleness of that day, it being usual for the Arabs to describe what they dislike as of long continuance, and what they like, as the contrary; and others suppose them spoken only in reference to the difficulty of the business of the day, which, if GOD should commit to any of his creatures, they would not be able to go through it in so many thousand years; to omit some other opinions which we may take notice of elsewhere. Having said so much in relation to the time of the resurrection, let us now see who are to be raised from the dead, in what manner and
2 Several writers, however, make no distinction between this blast and the first, supposing the trumpet will sound but twice. See the notes to Kor. c. 39. 3 Kor. c 39. 4 To these some add the spirit who bears the waters on which the throne is placed, the preserved table, wherein the decrees of GOD are registered, and the pen wherewith they are written; all which things the Mohammedans imagine were created before the world. 5 In this circum-cumstance the Mohammedans follow the Jews, who also agree that the trumpet will sound more than once. Vide R. Bechai in Biur hattorah, and Otioth shel R. Akiba. 6 Elsewhere (see before p. 61) this rain is said to continue only forty days; but it rather seems
