Note 399 — TALE OF NÚR AL-DÍN ALÍ & HIS SON BADR AL-DÍN HASAN

Also called "Ghilmán"=the beautiful youths appointed to serve the True Believers in Paradise. The Koran says (chapt. lvi. 9 etc.) "Youths, which shall continue in their bloom for ever, shall go round about to attend them, with goblets, and beakers, and a cup of flowing wine," etc. Mohammed was an Arab (not a Persian, a born pederast) and he was too fond of women to be charged with love of boys: even Tristram Shandy (vol. vii. chapt. 7; "No, quoth a third; the gentleman has been committing——") knew that the two tastes are incompatibles. But this and other passages in the Koran have given the Chevaliers de la Paille a hint that the use of boys, like that of wine, here forbidden, will be permitted in Paradise.