in a gathering of lamentation. The people of the Garden are at banquets, and the people of the Fire are at gatherings of lamentation. Their food at that banquet is the extra lobe of the great fish’s liver. The ground of the plain is fine white flour, like a round loaf. The spleen is taken from the bull for the people of the Fire. The people of the Garden eat from the extra lobe of the great fish’s liver. The fish is a marine animal that lives in water, so it belongs to the element of life, which suits the Garden. The liver is the seat of blood, and blood is the seat of life. Life is warm and moist. The vapor of that blood is the breath called the animal spirit, by which the body lives. So it is good tidings to the people of the Garden that life will remain with them.
As for the spleen in the animal body, it is the seat of impurities. The body’s impurities collect in it, namely the corrupt blood the liver supplies to it. It is given to the people of the Fire to eat. It comes from the bull, and the bull is an earthly animal, cold and dry by nature. Jahannam has the form of a buffalo. The bull’s spleen is particularly suited as food for the people of the Fire. Because of the blood in the spleen, the people of the Fire do not die. Because of the bodily impurities in it and the painful, corrupt blood, they do not live or enjoy bliss. Eating it brings them sickness and disease. Then the people of the Garden enter the Garden, and they will never be brought out of it. “God speaks the truth, and He guides the way” [al-Ahzab 33:4].
Volume Four ends with the close of this Part,
Notlar
Translator’s note TN1275-1: The Arabic contrasts maʾdubah, a banquet, with mandubah, an assembly for lamentation. The description of the liver and spleen supplies the author’s rationale, in terms of elemental qualities and the animal spirit, for each food’s suitability. A parallel in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 315a mentions the extra lobe of the fish’s liver and the bull. The spleen as food for the people of the Fire belongs to the account given here.
