SUT NDAY, NOVE-MBER 25, 1932.
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
SUNDAY, Nov 'MBKR 25, 1923. THE MICHIGAN DAILY
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the picture, of that evil, grinning trouble with the present day Mosteme
phantam in the corner, strumming a is that thousands of them still believe
wild tune on a lute. Look at the leer- literally everything that Mohamced
ing, evil lines of his face, at the twist- said. To doubt him is to doubt the
ing, flame-like growth that springs Word of God. Hell is today .a part
frus his deformed head, at those of Mohammedanism, not vaguely as
puffy white hands with their little, we sometimes see it persisting, but
pointed fingers. tou shudder and look vividly and specifically and imminent-
away but he haunts you. The twist- ly. The following events of a sinner's
ed body seems to crawl towards you torture are gathered together from
and the sharp tongue to move angri- various Moslem beliefs and practical-
ly. But he is still there, his pointed ly every one can be found mentioned
fingers plucking out unearthly tunes accurately in the Koran. The quota-
while the girl moves slowly, as if in tions included are identified by Sura
a trance,-his slave, flesh and bones. number (Chapter number) and line
You are not horrified or afraid but number. The translation used is
fascinated, a fascination that repels Sale's.
while it entices. You will fall in with When a sinner dies, his soul is cruel-
that slow sway of the body a fevex ly torn from his body by the Angel
will mount in you and soon you will of Death and is carted off to Heil
drop burned out. You cannot attain where the demons pinch their own
the pure evil, noses and motion it away. Thence
And there--what an imperfect, what it is taken to heaven where God
a shamefully inadequate expression sneers and condemns it back to Hell
of the emotions Aubrey Beardsley's again. Then the soul goes back to its
drawings produce! If I let myself bo, body in the grave to await cross-ex-
absorbed by them, the suffused emo- amination on the lay of judgment.
tion hounds in my ears and seems Every soul, good or bad, must lie pa-
about to burst its gates and flood into tiently in the grave waiting for this,
-swhere? Haven't I answered that? but the trial is easy and brief for the
Surely Beardsley has not produced good man, though most horrible for
emotions for their own sake. He was the wicked. Pretty soon a couple of
striving to reach a clear, cool realiza- awful angels (black with blue eyes-
tion of an unearthly ideal. In doing a hideous combination) named Munkar
so he had to purge himself of emotions and Nekir come and start questioning
and the only way to do that was to the descended about his faith. They
burn the emotions out. The purging ask him who God is and how many
process and the attainment of the gods there are, what his religion is,
ideals are both in his drawings. He and who the great prophet was; but,
travels a lonely, strange road whose of course, being a sinner, le is not
dangers stop many. Beardsley was informed on these judicious matters,
tearless and he reached the end. If so his sentence is prepared.
we too are fearless we can find the Hell eems to draw near to him.
end in his drawings. What the term- He hears the sizzling swabucklera
ination of that terrible journey may scream. The red coals glow and he
he we cannot know. Surely something sees their reflection. Steam shoots
lies there.
What I have written is like the mo- ofs'nThr hot air dries upand srns
notooustapingof fot wereno is narrow grave 'until it seezesi
notonous tapping of a foot where no him. Thn Devils come and beat him
music can be heard. But there is the with iron el bs, and make him gen-
music and it is to be found in Beards- erally misrab until the Judgment
lay's drawings. Iday. Proof that all this is so Is
Offered in the fact that camels and
VARIATIONS asses often balk when passing over
(Continued on Page Five) the graves of dead sinners' becauas
would see it uring their own life- they hear the comnmotion going on
time. To us such a lief is nidicalous, below.
but to.the Moslem it was and is now * * *
a paramount truth. Horror of hell- At last the judgment day begins to
fire and of sizzling corpses no longe 'arrive. The "Blast of Consternation"
deprecates' the peace, f our minds, ha.sheard and the twenty-four signs of
because the society into which we the .coming round-up are. given. These
have been born has recently chang d signs, are divided into "lesser" signs
its opinion about the world's immi- and ."greater" signs (eight of the
nent danger, and is now imbued with former and sixteen of the latter). One
the Idea of Progress. But the Idea excellent reference to them in the
of Progress has not yet penetrated Koran is the chapter entitled, "The
Islam. The hell idea is still the main- Folding Up" (Sura LXXXI): It reads:
spring of Moslem morality. "When the sunshall be folded
« + « up; and when the stars shall fall;
We are 'not justifie', I think, in and when the emountains shall be
laughing too heartily at their delus- made to pass away; and when the
ions; for we must remember that we, camels ten months gone with young
ourselves, have only just dispersed shall be neglected; and when the
them. As Mr. J. B.Bury has so splen- j wild beasts shall be gathered to-
didly indicated, the Idea of Progress gether; and when the seas shall
is quite recent in its development and boil; and when the souls shall be
even as late as Francis Bacon, think- joined again to their bodies; and
ing men spoke of the end of the when the girl who hath been buried
world as close by. They regarded life alive shall be asked for what crime
as delicate and almost inconsequen- she was put to death; and when the
tial. Wrote Pascal: "Between us and books shall be laid open; and when
heaven and hell there is only life, the heaven shall be removed; and
which is the frailest thing in the when hell shall burn fiercely; and
world." Is it any wonder that a physi- when paradise shall be brought
cal conception of immorality was pre- near; every soul shall know what it
dominant? When life beyond the hath wrought!"
grave was so dangerously near, could' When suitable preparstis are
it very well be spiritualized? The, made and all men and women stand
spiritualization of the Scriptures and naked before God, then comes the
later of the Koran is of late growth, electrifying judgment. God's book-
Death today tends to be minimized, keepers come forth with their ledgers
but in Mohammed's time and for long in which appear all the deeds of
after it was the most important thing men; and for each individual these are
in the world. To them, death was a weighed in a balance. The book of
great close catastrophe in view of good is placed on one side of the
which every one lived in fear. The scales and the evil book is placed on
tendency even yet persists. Says the other, and the reading is taken,
George Santayana, speaking of the "Those whose balances shall be
tendency: "Dying is something ghast- heavy with good works shall be
ly, as being born is sonething ridi- happy; but those whose balances
culous." shall be light are those who shall
Mohammed's fancy ran wild when lose their souls and :shall' remain
he depicted hell; but this is largely in hell forever." (3:154)
excusable as I have' suggested. TheFinally, after the eightg i*done,'
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