Page 366 - Travels in Arabis (Vol I)

XX.] TRAVELS IN OMAN. 327

of contention between the Khuwarijites and
their co-religionists may be said to spring
from another famous and oft-disputed ques­

tion, whether Mohammed actually saw the
Deity or not? The Sunnis strenuously main­

tain that he did, which their antagonists as
strenuously deny, asserting that such an opi­
nion is in fact infidelity; and “ to say God

can be seen, being to limit and circumscribe
the illimitable and incomprehensible, is there­

.
*
fore absurd ” The Khuwarijites reject the
interpretation of those verses of the Koran
brought forward by the Sunnis to confirm
their own peculiar views, and assert that

these passages are to be received in a figura­
tive, and not in a literal sense. Moses, for
example, is said to have seen God; but this

they will have to mean simply, that he wit­
nessed the effects of His power and majesty,

not that he viewed him face to face. Thus,
again, as regards the Moslem belief respecting
the scales of the day of judgment, in which

all men are to be weighed; and the bridge

El-Sirat, leading towards the gates of Para­
dise. The former, say the Khuwarijites, is a

* MS. quoted above.