Chapter LXXIII

CHAPTER LXXIII.

1. As to the seventy-second question and reply, that which you ask is thus: Does the stench of him, stinking withal, who commits unnatural intercourse proceed to the sky, or not; and to what place does the wind of that stench go when it goes anywhere?

2. The reply is this, that the material stench goes as far and in such proportion as there are filthiness and fetidness in the stinking existences, and the spiritual stench goes unto there where there are appliances (sâmânŏ) for acquiring stench, a miserable place; on account of the separation (gardîh) of the sky, everywhere where it goes in the direction of the sky it does not reach to the undisturbed existences 1. 3. Information about the stench is manifest in the omniscient creator, whose omniscience is among the luminaries, but that persistent creator and the primeval angels and archangels are free from its attack; and his information about the deception which is practised upon that labourer for hell and mind allied with the demons 2 is certain.