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“conditional immortality”, in which only the righteous continue to exist after death.The debate between conditional and universal immortality dates from the earliest daysof Christianity, and continued in Byron’s own time. As another contemporaryexample, Mary Wollstonecraft, whose religious views in A Vindication of the Rightsof Woman are not dogmatically orthodox but are nonetheless assertively Christian,writes, “I shall pass over her [Madame Genlis’] vehement argument in favour of theeternity of future punishments, because I blush to think that a human being shouldever argue vehemently in such a cause”. 297 However, while such competing versionsalready existed within English cultural discourse, no such plurality is presented forIslam, which is left to appear monologically harsh.Further, the represented violence in Islam is given a motivation, in the form of theHouris. This connection only makes the ideas, and thus the religion, seem worse byWestern values. The Houris appear, among other places, in the fisherman’s eulogy onHassan:But him the maids of ParadiseImpatient to their halls invite,[…]Who falls in battle ‘gainst a Giaour,Is worthiest an immortal bower. (G 739-40, 5-6).This is religious incitement to violence, much like the later “These black-eyed virginsmake the Moslems fight” of Don Juan 8.114.909. A comment by the narrator inLara, sounding very much like the voice of the poet, says, “Religion – freedom –vengeance – what you will, /A word’s enough to raise mankind to kill” (L 2.8.222-3,225); the same can, and does, happen with Christianity, as with the Reconquista, inCHP 1.35. The Giaour’s comments to the abbot, noted earlier, that the abbot ought tobe pleased by the death of his enemy Hassan, are another example of this. However,there the cleric is shocked, and moved to prayer (G 1036): the belief of the layman is297 Wollstonecraft, Mary, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (London et al.: Penguin, 1992), p.205.197