Peter Paul Rubens Woman with a Mirror painting

Peter Paul Rubens Woman with a Mirror paintingPeter Paul Rubens The Crucified Christ paintingPeter Paul Rubens Samson and Delilah painting
the end of his wrestling match with the Archangel Gibreel, the Prophet Mahound falls into his customary, exhausted, postrevelatory sleep, but on this occasion he revives more quickly than usual. When he comes to his senses in that high wilderness there is nobody to be seen, no winged creatures crouch on rocks, and hejumps to his feet, filled with the urgency of his news. "It was the Devil," he says aloud to the empty air, making it true by giving it voice. "The last time, it was Shaitan." This is what he has _heard_ in his _listening_, that he has been tricked, that the Devil came to him in the guise of the archangel, so that the verses he memorized, the ones he recited in the poetry tent, were not the real thing but its diabolic opposite, not godly, but satanic. He returns to the city as quickly as he can, to expunge the foul verses that reek of brimstone and sulphur, to strike them from the record for ever and ever, so that they will survive in just one or two unreliable collections of old traditions and orthodox interpreters will try and unwrite their story, but Gibreel, hovering-watching from his highest camera angle, knows one small detail, just one tiny thing