Читать книгу The House of Islâm онлайн

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“Allah created different animals. He made no crossbreeds. These latter spring from sin. What can be said of one who, being circumcised and duly shaven like ourselves, yet chooses to sit on a chair at a table with infidels, his hands unwashed, to eat abomination, and to toy with unveiled women whose face is of brass for all men, who know not shame? Shall such an one treat us as dirt, being most likely the son of some pimp or other? May the justice of God overtake him, and that suddenly!”

“Now Allah avert that curse, for the man is my mother’s son,” said Shems-ud-dìn sadly.

“Ma sh’ Allah! Is it truth thou speakest? Then Allah forgive me! Let it be as though I had said nothing. I guessed not, O my lord, that he was the son of any honorable house. Most of these officials are the sons of nothing. Why comes he not to sit with thee? May Allah teach him the way of the upright!”

The speaker, a good old man, by name Yûsûf, a dealer in cotton goods, sucked hard at his narghileh. From that hour no one of the sedate circle referred to the great man on board, or betrayed the slightest interest in the doings of the Frankish passengers. Time glided smoothly for Shems-ud-dìn in their company, though few words passed, and those of abstract wisdom. It seemed matter for praise to Allah that there was no chatterer among them. And ever the steamboat panted on over that silken sea, tossing back its mane of dingy smoke along the furrow it had plowed. Only when the panting ceased awhile, did the faithful quit the pose of resignation, uncross their legs, rise, stretch themselves, and praise God for the view of some white town that rimmed the sea, with minarets and distaff cypresses, and fertile gardens on the hill beyond.