The Mussulmans say that the penitence of Cain, whom they call Kabil, was not sincere. He was filled with remorse, but it was mingled with envy and hatred, because he was regarded with disfavor by the rest of the sons of Adam.
Near Damascus is shown a place at the foot of a mountain where Cain slew Abel.[133]
The legends of the death of Cain will be found under the title of Lamech.
“Half a mile from the gates of Hebron,” says the Capuchin Friar, Ignatius von Rheinfelden, in his Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, “begins the valley of Mamre, in which Abraham saw the three angels; the _Campus Damascenus_ lies toward the west; there, Adam was created; and the spot is pointed out where Cain killed his brother Abel. The earth there is red, and may be moulded like wax.”[134] Salmeron says the same, “Adam was made of the earth or dust of the _Campus Damascenus_.” And St. Jerome on Ezekiel, chap. xvii., says: “Damascus is the place where Abel was slain by his brother Cain; for which cause the spot is called Damascus, that is, Blood-drinking.” This Damascus near Hebron is not to be confused with the city Damascus.
According to a Mussulman tradition, Adam was consoled for the loss of Abel by the discovery of how to make wheat-bread. The story is as follows:--
The angel Gabriel was sent out of Paradise to give him the rest of the wheat-grains Eve had plucked from the forbidden tree, together with two oxen, and various instruments of husbandry. Hitherto he had fed on roots and berries, and had known nothing of sowing grain; acting under Gabriel’s directions, he ploughed the land, but the plough stuck, and Adam impatiently smote one of the oxen, and it spoke to him and said, “Wherefore hast thou smitten me?”
Adam replied, “Because thou dost not draw the plough.”
“Adam!” said the ox, “when thou wast rebellious, did God smite thee thus?”
“O God!” cried Adam to the Almighty, “is every beast to reproach me, and recall to me my sin?”
Then God heard his cry, and withdrew from beasts the power of speech, lest they should cast their sin in the teeth of men.
But as the blow was still arrested, Adam dug into the soil, and found that the iron had been caught by the body of his son Abel.
When the wheat was sprung up, Gabriel gave Adam fire from hell, which however he had previously washed seventy times in the sea, or it would have consumed the earth and all things thereon. In the beginning, wheat-grains were the size of ostrich eggs, but under Edris (Enoch) they were no bigger than goose eggs; under Elias they were the size of hen’s eggs; under Christ, when the Jews sought to slay him, they were no larger than grapes; it was in the time of Uzeir (Esdras) that they diminished to their present proportions.