171

their belief according to the shape of their imagina-
tion, and will continue to form it so, and the place
of their imaginations will be a body of the heavenly
bodies. The'venerable Shaikh Maktul tends to
establish in his demonstrations, that the heavenly
bodies are places of imaginations of the inhabitants
of heaven, and that beneath the heaven of the moon,
and above the globe of fire is a spherical body, with-
out motion, and this is the place of the imaginations
of the inhabitants of hell.

It is to be known, that this sect hold the world to
be eternal, and say that, as the sun's light is to the
heaven, so is the world to God. Nothing was that
had not been^ and nothing will be that is not. Far-
ther, according to the expounders of theological
law, the world is a phenomenon of time. The phi-
losophers assert, the meaning of that phenomenon
is " procreation;" and the phenomenon of procrea-
tion is not contradictory to u permanency;" infinite
permanency coalesces with time.

the year of the Hejira 339 (A. D. 950), according to Ebn Chal and Abul-
feda, quoted byPococke (p. 372); according to Herbelot in Hejira 343
A. D. 954).