THE KORAN. 285 



these, thougrhts, words, and actions shall be impar- 

 tially cast, and according as the tremendous beam 

 preponderates sentence will be awarded. 



A sin^lar mode of compensation will be allowed 

 for the redress of injuries, but curiously illustrative 

 of the Arabian doctrine of revenge. The aggressor 

 must refund an equivalent of his own good deeds 

 for the benefit of the person he has wronged,— the 

 only means of reparation in his power. Should the 

 balance still be in his favour, even to the weight of 

 an ant, this remnant will secure his admission into 

 paradise. But, on the contrary, should his stock of 

 good works be exhausted, and any sufferers left who 

 have not received satisfaction, his demerits will be 

 burdened with an equal quantity of their sins, and 

 the punishment due to them be visited on his guilty 

 head. While the infidel part of mankind are con- 

 demned for their opinions, the actions alone of the 

 Moslems will be examined; fortheir religious tenets, 

 as the very name implies, are regarded as unexcep- 

 tionably orthodox. The same rule of judgment will 

 apply to genii and irrational animals ; for both are 

 held accoimtable. The weaker cattle shall take 

 vengeance on the strong, and the imarmed on the 

 horned, until the injured have entire satisfaction 

 according to the strict law of retaliation ; and when 

 their wrongs are equitably adjusted, they shall be 

 changed into dust, — the only exception to this doom 

 of the brute creation being Borak, Ezra's ass, and 



and actions have no specific gravity, the books in which these 

 are written will be thrown into the scale. — Sale, Prelim. Diss. 

 sect. iv. The idea of men's actions being recorded in a book is 

 Scriptural. Matthew Paris, in the Vision of Thiircilhis, has 

 described the ceremony ofweighingsouls in the presence of the 

 devil and the apostle Paul. Archbishop Turpin relates that, on 

 balancing the merits of Charlemagne, the chance of salvation 

 ■went against the emperor, until St. Jago threw into the scale 

 the timber and stones of the churches which he had founded. 

 This decided the matter ; and the devil slunk off in rage Eind dis- 

 appointment. — Hist, do Imperad. Carlos Mag. 



