Soon after sunset he laid himself in his lonely bed, though without any expectation of closing his eyes in sleep; for his mind was absorbed in reflections upon the awful entry into another world, and a review of his past life. As the shades of night gathered around him he could almost fancy that he beheld, in one faint object or another in his gloomy chamber, the dreadful person of the Angel of Death: and at length he actually perceived a figure gliding in at the door, and approaching his bed. Starting up in horror, he exclaimed, "Who art thou?"—and a stern and solemn voice answered, "Be silent! I am ´Azraeel, the Angel of Death!"—"Alas!" cried the terrified man; "I testify that there is no deity but God, and I testify that Moḥammad is God's Apostle! There is no strength nor power but in God, the High, the Great! To God we belong, and to Him we must return!"—He then covered himself over with his quilt, as if for protection, and lay with throbbing heart, expecting every moment to have his soul torn from him by the inexorable messenger. But moments passed away, and minutes, and hours, yet without his experiencing any hope of escape; for he imagined that the Angel was waiting for him to resign himself, or had left him for a while, and was occupied in receiving first the souls of the many hundred human beings who had attained their predestined term in that same night and in the same city, and the souls of the thousands who were doomed to employ him elsewhere.
Daybreak arrived before his sufferings terminated; and his neighbours, coming according to their promise, entered his chamber, and found him still in bed; but observing that he was covered up and motionless as a corpse, they doubted whether he were still alive, and called to him. He answered, with a faint voice, "I am not yet dead; but the Angel of Death came to me in the dusk of the evening, and I expect him every moment to make his return, to take my soul: therefore trouble me not; but see me washed and buried."—"But why," said his friends, "was the street-door left unlatched?"—"I latched it," he answered, "but the Angel of Death may have opened it."—"And who," they asked, "is the man in the court?" He answered, "I know of no man in the court: perhaps the Angel who is waiting for my soul has made himself visible to you, and been mistaken in the twilight for a man."—"He is a thief," they said, "who has gathered together everything in the house that he could carry away, and has been struck by the plague while doing so, and now lies dead in the court, at the foot of the stairs, grasping in his hand a silver candlestick."—The master of the house, after hearing this, paused for a moment, and then, throwing off his quilt, exclaimed, "Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures! That is the eleventh, and I am safe! No doubt it was that rascal who came to me and said that he was the Angel of Death. Praise be to God! Praise be to God!"
This man survived the plague, and took pleasure in relating the above story. The thief had overheard his conversation with his neighbours, and, coming to his house in the dusk, had put his shoulder to the wooden lock, and so raised the door and displaced the latch within. There is nothing wonderful in the dream, nor in its accomplishment; the plague of 1835 entirely desolated many houses, and was mostly fatal to the young; and all the inhabitants of the house in question were young excepting the master.
The distinction of fortunate and unfortunate days should also here be mentioned. Thursday and Friday, especially the latter, are considered fortunate; Monday and Wednesday, doubtful; Sunday, Tuesday, and Saturday, especially the last, unfortunate. It is said that there are seven evil days in every [lunar] month: namely, the third, on which Ḳábeel (Cain) killed Hábeel (Abel); the fifth, on which God cast down Adam from paradise, and afflicted the people of Yoonus (Jonas), and on which Yoosuf (Joseph) was cast into the well; the thirteenth, on which God took away the wealth of Eiyoob (Job), and afflicted him, and took away the kingdom from Suleymán (Solomon), and on which the Jews killed the prophets; the sixteenth, on which God exterminated and buried the people of Looṭ (Lot), and transformed three hundred Christians into swine and Jews into apes, and on which the Jews sawed asunder Zekeriyà (Zachariah); the twenty-first, on which Pharaoh was born, and on which he was drowned, and on which his nation was afflicted with the plagues; the twenty-fourth, on which Numrood (Nimrod) killed seventy women, and cast El-Khaleel (Abraham) into the fire, and on which was slaughtered the camel of Ṣáliḥ; and the twenty-fifth, on which the suffocating wind was sent upon the people of Hood.[93]
II. Natural magic, which is called es-Seemiyà, is regarded by most persons of the more enlightened classes of Muslims as altogether a deceptive art, no more worthy of respect than legerdemain; but it seems to be nearly allied to enchantment, for it is said to effect, in appearance, the most wonderful transformations, and to cause the most extraordinary visions; affecting the senses and imagination in a manner similar to opium. This and other drugs are supposed by some persons to be the chief means by which such illusions are caused; and perfumes, which are generally burnt in these performances, may operate in a similar manner. As such things are employed in performances of the kind called Ḍarb el-Mendel, before mentioned, these feats are regarded by many as effected by natural magic, notwithstanding what has been said above respecting the services of evil Jinn being procured by means of perfumes. Alchymy (El-Keemiyà) is a branch of natural magic. It is studied by many Muslims of the present day, and by some of considerable talents and attainments.
The most celebrated of the magicians who have gained notoriety in Egypt during the course of the last hundred years was the sheykh Aḥmad Ṣádoomeh, who flourished somewhat more than sixty years ago.[94] Several persons of Cairo, men of intelligence and of good education, have related to me various most marvellous stories of his performances, on the authority of eye-witnesses whom they considered veracious; but a more credible account of this magician I have found in the work of the excellent historian of Modern Egypt. This author mentions the sheykh Ṣádoomeh as an aged man of venerable appearance who derived his origin from the town of Semennood in the Delta, and who acquired a very great and extensive celebrity for his attainments in spiritual and natural magic, and for holding converse, face to face, with Jinn, and causing them to appear to other persons, even to the blind, as men acquainted with him informed the historian. His contemporaries, says this writer, entertained various opinions respecting him; but, among them, a famous grammarian and general scholar, the sheykh Ḥasan El-Kafráwee, regarded him as a first-rate saint, who performed evident miracles; this learned man pronouncing as such the effects of "his legerdemain and natural magic." His fame he describes as having increased until he was induced to try an unlucky experiment.
A Memlook chief, Yoosuf Bey, saw some magic characters written on the body of one of his female slaves, and, exasperated by jealousy, commanded her with a threat of instant death to tell him who had done this. She confessed that a woman had taken her to the sheykh Ṣádoomeh, and that he had written this charm to attract to her the Bey's love. Upon hearing this, he instantly sent some attendants to seize the magician, put him to death, and throw him into the Nile; which was done.[95] But the manner in which the seizure was made, as related to me by one of my friends, deserves to be mentioned. Several persons, one after another, endeavoured to lay hold upon him; but every arm that was stretched forth for this purpose was instantly paralyzed, through a spell muttered by the magician; until a man behind him thrust a gag into his mouth, and so stopped his enchantments.
Of the stories related to me of Ṣádoomeh's miracles, the following will serve as a specimen:—In order to give one of his friends a treat, he took him to the distance of about half an hour's walk into the desert on the north of Cairo; here they both sat down, upon the pebbly and sandy plain, and, the magician having uttered a spell, they suddenly found themselves in the midst of a garden, like one of the gardens of paradise, abounding with flowers and fruit-trees of every kind, springing up from a soil clothed with verdure brilliant as the emerald and irrigated by numerous streamlets of the clearest water. A repast of the most delicious viands and fruits and wines was spread before them by invisible hands; and they both ate to satiety, taking copious draughts of the various wines. At length, the magician's guest sank into a deep sleep; and when he awoke, he found himself again in the pebbly and sandy plain, with Ṣádoomeh still by his side.
The reader will probably attribute this vision to a dose of opium or some similar drug; and such I suppose to have been the means employed; for I cannot doubt the integrity of the narrator, though he would not admit such an explanation,—regarding the whole as an affair of magic effected by the operation of the Jinn.