(38.) Each of them is the Holder
of the Keys.
a. Jesus saith, 'I am he that liveth, and was
dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and
have the keys of hell and of death' (Rev. i. 18).
Jesus is 'he that hath the key of David, he that openeth,
and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth'
(Rev. iii. 7).
Jesus said unto Peter, 'I will give unto thee the keys
of the kingdom of heaven' (Matt. xvi. 19).
b. In the Rawzat it is reported that when Mohammed
had been taken away by the angels, immediately after
his birth, to be carried over the length and breadth
of the earth and sea, and brought back again to his
mother, he was wrapt — so she affirmed — in some wool,
whiter than snow or whiter than milk. He lay on a piece
of green silk, and was holding in his hands a number
of keys; and a voice from the unseen world was heard
calling out, 'Mohammed has taken the key of prophetship,
the key of victory, and the key of the treasures of
the air.' (R.)
'According to a trustworthy source of information,
Abu Hureira used to say, at the time of the great conquests
during the Califate of Omar and Othman, "Conquer
as much as you like: by Him in whose hand Abu Hureira's
soul is, you have not conquered a town, neither will
you conquer one until the day of the resurrection, whose
key God has not already given to Mohammed."' (I.
I. and I. H.)
(39.) Their body is the true Temple,
that is, the abode of the Divine Presence, or of the
Shechina.
a. 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I
will raise it up.... But he spake of the temple of his
body' (John ii. 19-21).
The Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us, and we
beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth' (John i. 14).
b. Mohammed, in narrating the affair of the
splitting of his body, says, 'When the angel had washed
my inside |
