THE KORAN

Everyman

Translated from the Arabic by

J. M. Rodwell

1909

INTRODUCTION

Page xxiii

"In addition Sura 18 includes two stories from the Christian periphery to the north of Arabia; the so-called legend of the

Seven Sleepers"

THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN

Thomas Mann 1855 - 1955

These were the moments when the "Seven-Sleeper," not knowing what had happened, was slowly stirring himself in the grass, before he sat up, rubbed his eyes - yes, let us carry the figure to the end, in order to do justice to the movement of our hero's mind: he drew up his legs, stood up, looked about him. He saw himself released, freed from enchantment -not of his own motion; he was fain to confess, but by the operation of exterior powers, of whose activities his own liberation was a minor incident Indeed! Yet though his tiny destiny fainted to nothing in the face of the general, was there not some hint of a personal mercy and grace for him, a manifestation of divine goodness and justice? Would Life receive again her erring and " delicate " child-not by a cheap and easy slipping back to her arms, but sternly, solemnly, peni-entially - perhaps not even among the living, but only with three salvoes fired over the grave of him a sinner? Thus might he return. He sank on his knees, raising face and hands to a heaven that howsoever dark and sulphurous was no longer the gloomy grotto of his state of sin.

THE NUMBER OF DAYS BETWEEN

NEW YORK ELEVENTH SEPTEMBER 2001 TO MARCH ELEVENTH 2004 MADRID

IS

911

DEATH

I

SEE

PLACATED

HUMAN INHUMANITY TO HUMAN

O

NAMUH

HEAREST

THOU MY VOICE AND LET MY LOVE COME UNTO THEE