472 A TRANSLATION OF THE KEDDA ANNALS. 
ferred it, or of assuming- any shape they pleased, if desirous 
of not being visible. Nevertheless, at the present day, the 
true believer and servant of God may by him be endowed 
with preternatural faculties and 'powers . 
God also by his decree rendered unavailing the belief 
entertained by many nations in the efficacy and power of 
idols, whether these were dumb, or manifested their power 
like oracles by speech, or whether constructed and fashion¬ 
ed of perishable materials or not, also the adoration of the 
sun, and the worship of trees, birds and fourfooted animals, 
and God ordered all these obnoxious things to be carried 
by his angels to the sea called kulzoom, which is not 
accessible to moitals, that they should not be any loader 
adored as omnipotent, and in order that Islamism should 
he firmly establi hed, a faith promulgated by the prophet 
Mahomed, and comprised in his written ordinances. 
There was a holy Sheikh of Yemen named Sheikh Ab¬ 
dulla, who went from Mecca to Bagdad and became the 
spiritual guide of Sheikh Abdulla the younger of that city. 
He instiucted his disciple in the fakahat or contents of the 
book of knowledge, and also in the Suh-doctrines. He 
likewise explained to him the various commentaries, tufsir 
or the korau. He (the younger Abdulla) was so well versed 
in the koran that he could repeat without once looking at 
it, the whole of its thirty chapters. This holy man Sheikh 
Abdulla the younger once found in the tufsir an account of 
Iblis, the chief of the devils, who walked about the earth, 
disturbing its inhabitants with his evil instigations, de¬ 
stroying the fruits of a virtuous and holy life, and frustrating 
the best intentions of the good and w‘ise He led men by 
a smooth path into error and vice, and made them believe 
vice to Le virtue and virtue to be vice [« the worse appear 
the better, reason ]. But no man can see, as it is written 
in the tufsir, the devil, nor can he endure the koran Still 
he viid (occasionally) molest and destroy even those who 
read 01 adopt the koran. One day Sheikh Abdulla the 
younger got permission from his guru Sheikh Abdulla the 
elder to have an interview with this chief of the devils. 
The guiLi laughed and said you cannot meet the devil’ if 
you do, all your past virtuous and holy life will be as no¬ 
thing, and he will lead you into the path of error. But 
the Sheikh of Yemani persevered in his desire, so the guru 
gave his permission. He then proceeded into the plain, atffl 
sat down as directed by the guru below a large tree. Ac¬ 
cording also to his guru’s instruction he had brought all 
