[1] For Muslim eschatology reference may still be made to Sale’s introduction to the Qur’an, § 4. The punishment of the grave is what, in the case of unbelievers, follows the inquisition by the two angels Munkar and Nakir; see on them Lane’s Modern Egyptians, chap. xxviii; on the whole subject, see translations by Gautier and Wolff and tractate by RÜling (Bibliography, p. 367).
[2] This, one of the dividing questions between Sunnites and Shi‘ites, belongs to theology as well as law. See p. 314 and Goldziher, Zur Literaturgeschichte der Si‘a, p. 87.
[3] The Mu‘tazilites held that articles of sustenance of a forbidden nature, such as pork or wine, could not be called rizq in this technical sense; that God could not so use them. The orthodox retorted that a man might live his life out on forbidden things; had he then been independent of God as to his sustenance? The Mu‘tazilites defined rizq as “a possession which its possessor eats” and as “that from which one is not hindered from profiting”; the orthodox, as a name for that which God sends to man and the other animals and they eat it and profit by it.
[4] Some will run into the fire and find themselves immediately in Paradise; these would have been believers. Others will refuse, and will be treated as their parents.
[5] This is not the normal doctrine of Islam and the commentators have to explain this passage away. Consult in the chapters on theology, the whole Sufi development and especially the views of al-Ghazzali. Al-Mataridi was greatly influenced by Abu Hanifa, who was hostile to mystics. Notice, too, the philosophical basis and beginning of this creed.
[6] A sect of the Mu‘tazilites held that a man could have two ajals, one his end by a natural death appointed by God, the other his end by a violent death, not so appointed. The “Philosophers” are said to have held that one ajal would be when the mechanism of the body ceased to work through the failing of its essential moisture and heat, and another ajal might come through sicknesses and accident generally.
[7] See in bibliography, S. Keijzer, PrÉcis, etc. Much help as to details of religious ritual and law will be found in Hughes’s Dictionary of Islam, Sachau’s Muhammedanisches Recht, Lane’s Modern Egyptians, and commentary to his translation of the Arabian Nights, Burton’s Pilgrimage, and Sell’s Faith of Islam.
