458 



another splendid light, which proved to be Aboo- 

 backer, Omar, Oothman, and Alii, the divine 

 friends of tlie prophet. Thus it wa*, my sister.* 

 The Princess replied, ' A new Ught has shed il& 

 rays on the heart of thine handoaaid.' 



in this muiilated version of the Koranic ac- 

 count of the creation we observe a marked imita- 

 tion of the order of formation as detailed by the 

 inspired historian. The light shot forth toward 

 the unformed earth, whereby it was melted into 

 water, is a clumsy forgery of the commencement 

 of the Mosaic account, as contained in the three 

 first verses of Genesis^, and (hat of the gathering 

 together of the waters is equally &o of the subse- 

 quent verses. The illumined living Bgure of the 

 prophet is, as Dr. Milne justly observes, a gross 

 attempt to impose upon the credulous Malays a 

 belief of his pre-existence in another world be- 

 fore he appeared in the present, and deluged it 

 with his lies. 



The Malays, in common with other Mahomme- 

 dans, have an account of the fall of man, aUhough 

 the facts arc not only dreadfully distorted, but 

 overwhelmed with a mass of fable. Tlie heaven 

 of the Mahommedans is, like their earth, and 

 sea, divided into seven stories. The number 

 seven appears to be a favorite one amongst the 

 Malays, and has also extended to the Siamese, 

 although 1 am unable to stale the cause of the 

 preference. Loubere * tells us that the Vinak, 

 or principal book of the Siamese, relates that ** a 

 certain elephant had thirty three head?, each 

 head seven teeth ; each tooth, seven jiools ; each 

 pool, seven flowers ; every flower, seven leaves ; 



