Machine summary:
,J leave her till she is delivered, and they bring her carrying the child when he is eight days old, pricking him with bodkins and needles so that he cries in his mother's arms, and they say to the image: 0 good lord, who knowest no evil, we offer unto thee one that knows no evil and so is of nature like thine ; so accept our offering and bestow on us thy good and the good of thy good spirits.
They mix with the oil drugs such as strengthen the nerves, but rot the flesh ; when a year has passed during which he has been fed on such food as rots the flesh and the skin, they seize his head and wrench the nerves from his skin, and wind them round his head ; they then bring him to the image which is in the form of Mars, and say: 0 evil god, author of troubles and disasters, we 'offer unto thee what resembles thee, do thou accept our offering and save us from thy mischief and the mischief of thy evil spirits.
Account of the way wherein he deludes the ldolators The cause of every affliction wherewith the Devil has confused mankind is inclination to sense and aversion from what reason demands; and since sense finds satisfaction in likeness, the accursed Devil has persuaded many people to worship images, and stopped in their case once for all the operation of the intellect.
According to the statement of al-Kalbi after Abu Sa. lib after lbn 'Abbas their conduct increased in atrocity till Noah grew up, and was given a prophetic mission by God. He was 480 years old at the time, and for 120 years called them to the worship of God Almighty.