Muezzin

“ Kastamuni in wintertime is a picturesque Turkish town, and has a character all its own. The streets are deserted, but on the hill-path white-mottled figures move slowly upwards. It is the hour of prayer, and the muezzin has just begun to swell out in icy circles from the minarets, reaching out to the hearts of the prayerful, and calling them to communion with Allah. La [223] illaha, illa la. There is but one God, and that is God. From how many thousands of mosques, and for how many millions of the followers of the prophet does the muezzin cry at this hour? ”

“ We passed onward over the yielding carpets, which returned no sound beneath our footsteps:381 and there was something strangely supernatural in the spectacle of several human beings moving along, without creating a single echo in the vast space they traversed. We paused an instant beside the marble-arched platform, on which the muezzin was performing his prostrations to the shrill cry of the choir;—we lingered another, to take a last look at the kneeling thousands who were absorbed in their devotions ”

“ In another hour we reached a fountain near the village of Kümbeh, and pitched our tents for the night. The village, which is half a mile in length, is built upon a singular crag, which shoots up abruptly from the centre of the valley, rising at one extremity to a height of more than a hundred feet. It was entirely deserted, the inhabitants having all gone off to the mountains with their herds. The solitary muezzin, who cried the mughreb at the close of the fast, and lighted the lamps on his minaret, went through with his work in most unclerical haste, now that there was no one to notice him. ”

“ He calls the world to prayer. It is more potent than the appeal of bells. In the muezzin the Mussulman hears the voice of Allah.
Now the muezzin is finished, and everything is so very still. I wonder if they are praying for the relief—as hard as their fellow religionists in the rest of Turkey are praying for the fall—of Kut. The odds, I fear, are against us.
I must sleep! I cannot remain awake five minutes longer. God in His wisdom made sleep the great possession. For the first essential to man is a gift of humour, and the second is the capacity for sleep. ”

“ This was done during the rest of the day, and when the night came, she despatched the eunuch with the mule and a suit of clothes, to fetch Noureddin from the Muezzin’s lodging. So the young man donned the clothes and mounting; rode to the house, where he abode in luxury and delight a full-told month, what while she solaced him with four things, to wit, the eating of fowls and the drinking of wine and the lying upon brocade and the entering the bath after copulation. ”

“ Any one who feels in the mood kneels down anywhere he happens to be and prays aloud. As a kind of accompaniment to the vociferous chorus there sounds the continuous tinkling of the brass bowls which are rattled against each other by the lemonade-sellers. And—very frequently in Damascus—there pierces through the deafening tumult the thin, penetrating chant of the muezzin who, from his lofty minaret or from the mosque door in the crowded, narrow street, calls to the greedy bazaar to think on the things that are unseen and eternal. ”

“ Now he had with him nought wherewithal he might cover himself; so he wrapped himself up in one of the rugs of the mosque [and abode thus till daybreak] , when the Muezzins came and finding him sitting in that case, said to him, "O youth, what is this plight?" Quoth he, "I cast myself on your hospitality, imploring your protection from a company of folk who seek to kill me unjustly and oppressively, without cause." And [one of] the Muezzin [s] said, "Be of good heart and cheerful eye." Then he brought him old clothes and covered him withal ”

“ Passing by, the devout Mussulman would pause to murmur a prayer for his sublime lord; the poor and ambitious youth picture to himself the day when he too might possibly cross that threshold to receive the horse-tail; the pretty ragged little maid of the street dream gorgeous dreams, not unmixed with hope, of the splendid existence of a kadyn; and the relatives of state victims avert their heads and shudder; while throughout the entire square a strict silence was observed, broken only three times a day by the muezzin’s voice on St. Sophia. ”

“ But one cannot fully understand the religious spirit of the Mussulman without knowing something of the prayers which he is wont to address to the Deity. No class of men, probably, have the name of God—Allah—more frequently on their lips than the Moslems. This is particularly true of those devotees—and their number is legion—known as dervishes.
Prayer five times a day is the second of the five pillars of Islam. At dawn, at midday, in the afternoon, evening and night the Muezzin ascends the minaret and repeats in a loud voice:
God is great. ”

“ It is often the first sound I hear in the morning. Later in the day the Arab children make their appearance in groups, begging and wailing piteously. Once the babes in their mothers' arms used to cry the whole day long, but the unfortunates are probably long since gone. The Arab population has been dying by the hundreds, and they look dreadfully shrunken and gaunt. A few escaped, but were shot by the Turks. They have had everything possible done for them.
It is the hour of the muezzin, the most peaceful of the day, for at that ancient call of prayer even the wailing and begging ceases. ”

“ When one buys a garden the water rights are included, but men often sell part of their water right to a neighbour, this, of course, being recorded in the Book of the Spring, which is kept by one of the sheikhs. The “Ghaffir el Ain,” or Guardian of the Spring, takes his time from the call of the muezzin, or in distant gardens by the sun and the stars. At [155] night a special muezzin calls from one of the mosques for the benefit of the watchmen on the springs out in the gardens. The system has been in force for so many centuries that there are very rarely any disputes on the subject. ”

“ The devout Moslem has to make a set response to each phrase of the Muezzin. At first these are mere repetitions of Aẓān, but to the cry “Come to prayer!” the listener must answer, “I have no power nor strength but from God the most High and Great.” To that of “Come to salvation!” the formal response is, “What God willeth will be: what He willeth not will not be.” The recital of the Aẓān must be listened to with the utmost reverence. The passers in the streets must stand still, all those at work must cease from their labours, and those in bed must sit up. ”

“ What sort of a muzhik?"
"Why a plain ordinary muzhik. A muzhik like all other muzhiks. He would get the breakfast rolls for us right away, and he could also catch partridges and fish for us."
"Hm, a muzhik. But where are we to fetch one from, if there is no muzhik here?"
"Why shouldn't there be a muzhik here? There are muzhiks everywhere. All one has to do is hunt for them. There certainly must be a muzhik hiding here somewhere so as to get out of working."
This thought so cheered the Officials that they instantly jumped up to go in search of a muzhik. ”

“ They spread their wings, and immensity sustains them. And on their inflated breasts that split the air is reflected the sparkling azure. The beating of Musya's heart becomes more and more regular, her respiration more and more calm and peaceful. She sleeps; her face is pale; her features are drawn; there are dark rings around her eyes. On her lips a smile. To-morrow, when the sun shall rise, this intelligent and fine face will be deformed by a grimace in which no trace of the human will be left; the brain will be inundated with thick blood; the glassy eyes will protrude from their orbits. ”

“ Musya recalled three of her comrades who had been hanged but a short time before, and their faces seemed bright and happy and near to her—nearer than those in life. Thus does a man think with joy in the morning of the house of his friends where he is to go in the evening, and a greeting rises to his smiling lips.
Musya became very tired from walking. She lay down cautiously on the cot and continued to dream with slightly closed eyes. The clock-bell rang unceasingly, stirring the mute silence, and bright, singing images floated calmly before her. ”

“ When at a distance, we once saw a scene like this, and had the charred grass, literally as thick as flakes of black snow, falling around us, there was no difficulty in understanding the secret of the slave-trader's power.
On the 21st of September, we arrived at the village of the chief Muasi, or Muazi; it is surrounded by a stockade, and embowered in very tall euphorbia-trees; their height, thirty or forty feet, shows that it has been inhabited for at least one generation. A visitation of disease or death causes the headmen to change the site of their villages, and plant new hedges ”

“ Muazi never milks the cows; he complained that, but for the Mazitu having formerly captured some, he should now have had very many. They wander over the country at large, and certainly thrive.
After leaving Muazi's, we passed over a flat country sparsely covered with the scraggy upland trees, but brightened with many fine flowers. The grass was short, reaching no higher than the knee, and growing in tufts with bare spaces between, though the trees were draped with many various lichens, and showed a moist climate. ”

“ Get up that combination—a hot day, a dank, humid, and suffocating greenhouse given up to the musk-plant, and you will have the full effect of only one full-blown musky. The odour of the plant, heavy when close, is delicate when diffused; the scent of the musk-rat, on the other hand, is heavy when diffused, and insupportable when near. The marvellous diffusibility of this odour is illustrated in many ways. It has long been maintained that the musk-rat has only to pass over a closely corked bottle of wine to destroy its contents. ”

“ But Mohsin knew not that had been doomed for him by his companion Musa the Misdoer, so the twain would fare together and feed together. On the following day quoth Musa to Mohsin, "O my brother, I have with me a bag of flour and a flask of water and thou hast the same, and whenever eating-time cometh round each one bringeth out somewhat of his vivers. Now this is not right; 'twere the better way that we first eat that is with thee and when 'tis ended we use my provaunt." "'Tis well, O my brother," quoth Mohsin. ”

“ When he proceeded, piping on a little flute, to call some tame snakes out of a covered basket, where their dark flat heads with quivering tongues appeared under a parti-coloured cloth, Valeria was terrified and begged Muzzio to put away these loathsome horrors as soon as possible. At supper Muzzio regaled his friends with wine of Shiraz from a round long-necked flagon; it was of extraordinary fragrance and thickness, of a golden colour with a shade of green in it, and it shone with a strange brightness as it was poured into the tiny jasper goblets. ”

“ Persons not cured of the fever often become dropsical. There are a few cases of consumption. Syphilis is very virulent, and prevails amongst the troops. Ophthalmia and rheumatism are common complaints. Thus Mourzuk is not quite one of those oases, or Hesperian gardens, where the happy residents quaff the elixir of immortal health and virtue. Contrarily, it is a sink of vice and disease within, and a sere foliage of palms and vegetation without, overhung with an ever forbidding sky, of dull red haziness. ”

“ Here both the people and the animals were filled with fear and weariness. At the first gleam of daybreak they reached an extensive plain and an hour later arrived at the halting place of Moṛâjer Šuʻejb, where there was no water. They remained there until four o’clock in the afternoon. This halting place is certainly identical with the modern Ẓahr al-Ḥâǧǧ, situated about thirty-five kilometers to the northwest of al-Aḫẓar. Towards midnight they proceeded through the sandy valley of al-Eṯel and at sunrise had before them the stronghold of Tebûk, where they encamped. ”

“ Mamma said mousie should be drowned; but Ida begged so hard to keep him, that mamma got a glass jar, put mousie into it, with a bit of bread and cheese to keep him company, [89] tied a piece of tin, all pricked with little holes, over the mouth of the jar, and set it on the shelf.
Ida spent half the day in watching the mouse.
When papa came home at night, he brought a funny little tin house for mousie's cage. Mousie was put into it; and he soon began to make the wire-wheel go round. He turned the wheel so fast and so long, that he soon made his nose sore. Ida thought he was very tame ”

“ His life was a prosperous one, and he laid by money enough to fill two pots. The one he buried in his corn-kiln, the other under the gate of his farmyard. Well, the moujik died, and never said a word about the money to any one. One day there was a festival in the village. A fiddler was on his way to the revel when, all of a sudden, he sank into the earth—sank right through and tumbled into hell, lighting exactly there where the rich moujik was being tormented. ”

“ The whole East was familiar to Muzzio; he had traversed Persia, Arabia, where the horses are nobler and more beautiful than any other living creatures; he had penetrated into the very heart of India, where the race of men grow like stately trees; he had reached the boundaries of China and Thibet, where the living god, called the Grand Llama, dwells on earth in the guise of a silent man with narrow eyes. Marvellous were his tales. Both Fabio and Valeria listened to him as if enchanted. Muzzio’s features had really changed very little ”

“ The hour has come when the ear should be open to catch the sound, and the tongue silent that it may not escape. Euetzin, son of the noble Euzelmozin, is here. He bears a message from his brother Tezcucan. ”