Letters from Egypt - Lucy Duff Gordon (best story books to read TXT) 📗

would have arrived at such a conclusion. Omar would pray, work, lie, do anything for me--sacrifice money even; but I doubt whether he _could_ utter _Salaam aleykoum_ to any but a Muslim. I answered as I felt: 'Peace, oh my brother, and God bless thee!' It was almost as if a Catholic priest had felt impelled by charity to offer the communion to a heretic. I observed that the story of the barber was new to him, and asked if he did not know the 'Thousand and One Nights.' No; he studied only things of religion, no light amusements were proper for an Alim (elder of religion); _we_ Europeans did not know that, of course, as _our_ religion was to enjoy ourselves; but _he_ must not make merry with diversions, or music, or droll stories. (See the mutual ignorance of all ascetics!) He has a little girl of six or seven, and teaches her to write and read; no one else, he believes, thinks of such a thing out of Cairo; there many of the daughters of the Alim learn--those who desire it. His wife died two years ago, and six months ago he married again a wife of twelve years old! (Sheykh Yussuf is thirty he tells me; he looks twenty-two or twenty-three.) What a stepmother and what a wife! He can repeat the whole Koran without a book, it takes twelve hours to do it. Has read the Towrat (old Testament) and the el-Aangeel (Gospels), of course, every Alim reads them. 'The words of Seyyidna Eesa are the true faith, but Christians have altered and corrupted their meaning. So we Muslims believe. We are all the children of God.' I ask if Muslims call themselves so, or only the slaves of God. ''Tis all one, children or slaves. Does not a good man care for both tenderly alike?' (Pray observe the Oriental feeling here. _Slave_ is a term of affection, not contempt; and remember the Centurion's '_servant_ (slave) whom he loved.') He had heard from Fodl Pasha how a cow was cured of the prevailing disease in Lower Egypt by water weighed against a _Mushaf_ (copy of the Koran), and had no doubt it was true, Fodl Pasha had tried it. Yet he thinks the Arab doctors no use at all who use verses of the Koran.

M. de Rouge, the great _Egyptologue_, came here one evening; he speaks Arabic perfectly, and delighted Sheykh Yussuf, who was much interested in the translations of the hieroglyphics and anxious to know if he had found anything about _Moussa_ (Moses) or _Yussuf_ (Joseph). He looked pleased and grateful to be treated like a 'gentleman and scholar' by such an Alim as M. de Rouge and such a Sheykhah as myself. As he acts as clerk to Mustapha, our consular agent, and wears a shabby old brown shirt, or gown, and speaks no English, I dare say he not seldom encounters great slights (from sheer ignorance). He produced a bit of old Cufic MS. and consulted M. de R. as to its meaning--a pretty little bit of flattery in an Arab Alim to a Frenchman, to which the latter was not insensible, I saw. In answer to the invariable questions about all my family I once told him my father had been a great Alim of the Law, and that my mother had got ready his written books and put some lectures in order to be printed. He was amazed--first that I had a mother, as he told me he thought I was fifty or sixty, and immensely delighted at the idea. 'God has favoured your family with understanding and knowledge; I wish I could kiss the _Sheykhah_ your mother's hand. May God favour her!' Maurice's portrait (as usual) he admired fervently, and said one saw his good qualities in his face--a compliment I could have fully returned, as he sat looking at the picture with affectionate eyes and praying, _sotto voce_, for _el gedda_, _el gemeel_ (the youth, the beautiful), in the words of the _Fathah_, 'O give him guidance and let him not stray into the paths of the rejected!' Altogether, something in Sheykh Yussuf reminds me of Worsley: there is the same look of _Seelen reinheit_, with far less thought and intelligence; indeed little thought, of course, and an additional childlike innocence. I suppose some medieval monks may have had the same look, but no Catholic I have ever seen looks so peaceful or so unpretending. I see in him, like in all people who don't know what doubt means, that easy familiarity with religion. I hear him joke with Omar about Ramadan, and even about Omar's assiduous prayers, and he is a frequent and hearty laugher. I wonder whether this gives you any idea of a character new to you. It is so impossible to describe _manner_, which gives so much of the impression of novelty. My conclusion is the heretical one: that to dream of converting here is absurd, and, I will add, wrong. All that is wanted is general knowledge and education, and the religion will clear and develop itself. The elements are identical with those of Christianity, encumbered, as that has been, with asceticism and intolerance. On the other hand, the creed is simple and there are no priests, a decided advantage. I think the faith has remained wonderfully rational considering the extreme ignorance of those who hold it. I will add Sally's practical remark, that 'The prayers are a fine thing for lazy people; they must wash first, and the prayer is a capital drill.'

You would be amused to hear Sally when Omar does not wake in time to wash, pray, and eat before daybreak now in Ramadan. She knocks at his door and acts as Muezzin. 'Come, Omar, get up and pray and have your dinner' (the evening meal is 'breakfast,' the early morning one 'dinner'). Being a light sleeper she hears the Muezzin, which Omar often does not, and passes on the 'Prayers is better than sleep' in a prose version. Ramadan is a dreadful business; everybody is cross and lazy--no wonder! The camel-men quarrelled all day under my window yesterday, and I asked what it was all about. 'All about nothing; it is Ramadan with them,' said Omar laughing. 'I want to quarrel with someone myself; it is hot to-day, and thirsty weather.' Moreover, I think it injures the health of numbers permanently, but of course it is the thing of most importance in the eyes of the people; there are many who never pray at ordinary times, but few fail to keep Ramadan. It answers to the Scotch Sabbath, a comparison also borrowed from Sally.

_Friday_.--My friend Seleem Effendi has just been here talking about his own affairs and a good deal of theology. He is an immense talker, and I just put _eywas_ (yes) and _la_ (no) and _sahe_ (very true), and learn manners and customs. He tells me he has just bought two black slave women, mother and daughter, from a Copt for about 35 pounds the two. The mother is a good cook, and the daughter is 'for his bed,' as his wife does not like to leave Cairo and her boys at school there. It does give one a sort of start to hear a most respectable magistrate tell one such a domestic arrangement. He added that it would not interfere with the _Sittel Kebeer_ (the great lady), the black girl being only a slave, and these people never think they have children enough. Moreover, he said he could not get on with his small pay without women to keep house, which is quite true here, and women are not respectable in a man's house on other terms. Seleem has a high reputation, and is said not to 'eat the people.' He is a hot Mussulman, and held forth very much as a very superficial Unitarian might do, evidently feeling considerable contempt for the absurdities, as he thinks them, of the Copts (he was too civil to say Christians), but no hatred (and he is known to show no partiality), only he 'can't understand how people can believe such nonsense.' He is a good specimen of the good, honest, steady-going man-of-the-world Muslim, a strong contrast to the tender piety of dear Sheykh Yussuf, who has all the feelings which we call Christian charity in the highest degree, and whose face is like that of 'the beloved disciple,' but who has no inclination for doctrinal harangues like worthy Seleem. There is a very general idea among the Arabs that Christians hate the Muslims; they attribute to us the old Crusading spirit. It is only lately that Omar has let us see him at prayer, for fear of being ridiculed, but now he is sure that is not so, I often find him praying in the room where Sally sits at work, which is a clean, quiet place. Yussuf went and joined him there yesterday evening, and prayed with him, and gave him some religious instruction quite undisturbed by Sally and her needlework, and I am continually complimented on _not hating_ the Muslims. Yussuf promises me letters to some Alim in Cairo when I go there again, that I may be shown the Azhar (the great college). Omar had told him that I refused to go with a janissary from the Consul for fear of giving offence to any very strict Muslims, which astonished him much. He says his friends shall dress me in their women's clothes and take me in. I asked whether as a concealment of my religion, and he said no, only there were 'thousands' of young men, and it would be 'more delicate' that they should not stare and talk about my face.

Seleem told me a very pretty grammatical quibble about 'son' and 'prophet' (apropos of Christ) on a verse in the Gospel, depending on the reduplicative sign [Arabic sign for sheddeh] (_sheddeh_) over one letter; he was just as put out when I reminded him that it was written in Greek, as our amateur theologians are if you say the Bible was not originally composed in English. However, I told him that many Christians in England, Germany, and America did not believe that Seyyidna Eesa was God, but only the greatest of prophets and teachers, and that I was myself of that opinion. He at once declared that that was sufficient, that all such had 'received guidance,' and were not 'among the rejected'; how could they be, since such Christians only believed the teaching of Eesa, which was true, and not the falsifications of the priests and bishops (the bishops always 'catch it,' as schoolboys say). I was curious to hear whether on the strength of this he would let out any further intolerance against the Copts, but he said far less and far less bitterly than I have heard from Unitarians, and debited the usual most commonplace, common-sense kind of arguments on the subject. I fancy it would not be very palatable to many Unitarians, to be claimed _mir nichts dir nichts_ as followers of _el-Islam_; but if people really wish to convert in the sense of improving, that door is open, and no other.

_Monday_, 7_th_.--The steamer is come down already and will, I suppose, go on to-morrow, so I must finish this letter to go by it. I have not received any letter for some time, and am anxiously expecting the post. We have now settled into quite warm weather ways, no