Note 422 — TALE OF KING OMAR BIN AL-NU'UMAN AND HIS SONS SHARRKAN AND ZAU AL-MAKAN, AND WHAT BEFEL THEM OF THINGS SELD-SEEN AND PEREGRINE.[138] (continued 4)

Koran, ii. 149. Hence the vulgar idea that Martyrs are still alive in the flesh. See my Pilgrimage (ii. 110 and elsewhere) for the romantic and picturesque consequences of that belief. The Commentators (Jalál al-Dín, etc.) play tricks with the Koranic words, "they (martyrs) are not dead but living" (iii. 179) by placing the happy souls in the crops of green birds which eat of the fruits and drink of the waters of Paradise; whereas the reprobates and the (very) wicked are deposited in black birds which drain the sanies and the boiling waters of Hell. Amongst the Greeks a body remaining entire long after death suggests Anathema Maranatha: it is the contrary with Catholic Christians (Boccaccio iv. 5, of the Pot of Basil). Concerning this creed see Maundrell, Letter of 1698.