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SEPTEMBER, 1879.)
MISCELLANEA.
261
him come when hee pleased, and since hee had as hee saide resolued to come, hee bid him come one pore, that is about the tyme of a watch, sooner than hee intended. With this answer the ambassador went his way, and wee heard no farther from him any more but in the terrible noise of the fier and the hideous smoke wich wee saw, but by Gods mercy came not soe neere vs as to take hold of vs, ever blessed be his name. Thursday and Friday nights were the most terrible nights for fier: on Friday after hee had ransaked and dug vp Vege Voras house, hee fiered it and a great vast number more towards the Dutch house, a fier soe great as turnd the night into day; as before the smoke in the day tyme had almost turnd day into night; rising soe thicke as it darkened the sun like a great cloud. On Sunday morning about 10 a clocke as thay tell vs hee went his way. And that night lay six course of, and next day at noone was passed over Brooch river, there is a credable information that he hath shipt his treasure to carry into his own country, and Sr George Oxenden hath sent a fregate to see if hee can light of them, wich God grant. Wee kept our watch still till Tuesday.
I had forgote to writte you the manner of their cutting of mens hands, which was thuss; the person to suffer is pinioned as streight as possibly they can, and then when the nod is giuen, a soldier come with a whitle or blunt knife and throws the poore patient downe vpon his face, than draws his hand backwards and setts his knee upon the prisoners backe, and begins to hacke and cutt on one side and other about the wrest, in the meane time the poore man roareth exceedingly, kicking and bitting the ground for very anguish, when the villiane perceieues the bone to bee laid bare on all sides, hee setteth the wrest to his knee and giues it a snap and procoeds till he hath hacked the hand quite of, which done thay force him to rise, and make him run soe long till through paine and loss of blood he falls downe, they then vnpinion him and the blood stops.....
Surat, Jan. 26th 1663.
original Turkish, and as paraphrased in English verse, some short, others of considerable length, One of the former, a tetrastich elegy on a lady, by Fazil, must here suffice as an example of the Turkish idea, and the English paraphrase : "Alas! thou'st laid her low, malicious Death, en
joyment's cup yet half unquatrd! The hourglass out, thou'st cut her off, disporting
still in life's young spring! O Earth ! all-fondly cradle her. Thou, Trusty
Seraph! welcome her with smiles, For she, fair pearl, the soul's love was of one who
is a wide world's king." In commenting on the third line of this gem of tender pathos, Mr. Redhouse took occasion to show how erroneous is the notion that the faith of Islâm denies the possession of a soul by woman. This erroneous idea has not first arisen in these latter times; though when it first arose may be a question. Sale, in the Preliminary Discourge to his English translation of the Qur'an (Alcoran, Koran, etc.), published in 1734, mentions the notion, to refute it from that book. Now the facts of the case were partly made known to English readers by Sale and by the late eminent Orientalist, E. W. Lane, in his Modern Egyptians. The Qur'an has various passages that explicitly promise or threaten the joys of heaven or the torments of hell to women, "therein to dwell for ever." Such are, especially, Surås ix. 69, 73; xiii. 23 ; xxxiii. 35; Xxxvi. 56; xliii. 70; xlviii. 5 and 6; lvii. 12; lxvi. 9, 10, 11; cxi. 4. That in su. xlviii. 5 and 6, must suffice here :-"That He may cause the believers and the believeresges to enter into paradises through which rivers flow, to dwell therein for ever. And that He may punish the hypocrites and the hypocritesses, and the polytheists and the polytheistesses, who imagine an evil conceit against God." Noah and Abraham are also said in the Qur'an, xiv. 42; 1xxii 29, to have prayed for "both my parents." The immortality of woman's soul was therefore taught to the Pagan Arabians, not as a new doctrine, but as an article of the faith of the patriarchs, of which Islâm was bat the renewal and completion. Lane says (5th ed. Murray, London : 1860, p. 88, 1. 37,) in his account of the public address from the pulpit delivered every Friday, after the noontide service of worship (praise, not prayer): "And be Thou well pleased, O God, with their mother . . . . and their grandmother .... and with the rest of the pure wives . . . . pardon the believing men and the believing women, and the Muslim men and the Muslim women .... living and dead. ...." The burial service of Islam is the same, word for word, in the case of men and women; as also is that for infants, grammatical variants alone except.
ISLAMIC DOCTRINE OF WOMAN'S SOUL. On Wednesday, the 12th of February, 1879, a paper was read, before the Royal Society of Litera. ture, by J. W. Redhouse, Esq., M.R.A.S., on Turkish Poetry, with a notice of the Islamic doctrine of woman's soul. The lecturer gave a description of the nature and varieties of Turkish poetry, citing Von Hammer's published works, one of which gives & specimen from each of more than two thousand Turkish poets, and states that above nine thousand were noticed in collected biographies. He then gave fifteen specimens, Ancient (sixteenth century) and recent, in the
