The Mercy of Allah

by Hilaire Belloc

“I said: ‘Your Holiness and Voice of God’ (for such is the formula required, as a kind friend had warned me: and if one word be omitted the culprit is not only forbidden to plead but is thrust into a dungeon of the most noisome kind). ‘Your Holiness,’ I opened, ‘and Voice of God. I had from the King and his Councillors a Charter. It was given me as against one million dinars paid to them in gold by me on such and such a date. I shall show the Charter to you, and you will see there the promise that I am to receive, as against the payment I made, the revenue from the Salt Tax for ever and ever, so long as the State shall endure and the tax be levied. This tax has been in great part remitted, and by special imposts the remaining part has been wiped out. I claim that this Charter gives me the right to the original revenue from the State in full.’ And I then concluded with the magic formula with which my friends had very kindly provided me, ‘and that, Divine One, is my case.’ This formality completed, I sat down.

“I flattered myself I had done well, for all had been told with perfect ease, and, after all, there was nothing more to be said. But before I took my place, cross-legged upon my carpet, I handed up to those who served the Bench my original of the Charter, signed and sealed, the which I had consulted. The Judge rose from the throne where he was seated, put the Charter down carefully upon his throne, sat upon it, and ordered the case to proceed.

“In the chief of the Pleaders upon the other side, I was pleased to see an old guest of mine. He nodded to me familiarly, rose, and opened his statement, beginning, as I did, with the ritual phrase. ‘Your Holiness and Voice of God,’ said he, ‘His Majesty and Council have instructed me. I admit that this is a case of peculiar subtlety and difficulty, nor do I doubt that it will employ many of my colleagues, not only in this Court but in superior courts, for many months to come. Indeed, to my certain knowledge, one of them has recently purchased a marvellous vehicle which travels rapidly of its own act without horses, a foreign invention, in which he would not have invested had he not foreseen the lengthy and lucrative nature of the case. But that is by the way. I only mention it in order to make Your Holiness understand that we have here to settle an issue which indeed could hardly have been brought before any Judge less divine than yourself.’

“There followed for about a quarter of an hour a fine passage upon the majesty of the law and the peculiar gifts and virtues of the Judges. But through the whole of it he insisted in every second sentence upon the gravity of the case and its difficulty. I was flattered and surprised. I had not thought that my opponents would make so much of me; but, on the other hand, I remembered that their payment was at the charge of the public and that every day added to the sum they received. He next touched upon the folly of the Salt Tax, its iniquity, its old-fashionedness, its absurdity, and after an hour of this paused a moment to pull down and smooth the long furry ears of his headgear.

“In the second hour he brought in the very words of the Charter. He first recited them, ‘for ever and for ever, so long as the State shall endure and the salt tax be paid.’ He insisted, with repeated emphasis, upon the word ‘and’. In the third and fourth hours he quoted 150 instances of cases in which this word had completely changed the character of a document, as, for instance, in the famous case known as Abraham’s Will, where the testator left all his property to his beloved wife, Fatimah, and the remainder to her mother. Next, he quoted the case known as the ‘Degree of Dignity,’ when it was ordered that all those apprehended for speaking disrespectfully of the Grand Mufti should be brought into his presence and decapitated. Again (what interested me very much, for it was connected with Money), the terms of the statute, now over one hundred years old, by which the Councillors of the King receive one dinar per day and whatever other sum they see fit to vote themselves out of the taxes.

“It was the word ‘and,’ said he, that made the difference in all these cases. He might call witnesses to show that the word was inserted in the Charter to render the phrase abortive, absurd, nonsensical and altogether of no effect. But, alternatively, supposing that the word ‘and’ but confirmed my case in the decision of His Holiness, then he pleaded that the Charter, having been obtained by a stranger, not a subject of the King, was null and void. Supposing that it were upheld in spite of this, then, alternatively, that I, Mahmoud, was a subject of the King, a native born, and therefore subject to the King’s decisions in Council. Finally, he concluded that in any case I must not win because, if I did, it would make His Majesty’s Council and members thereof look like a fool severally and collectively, than which no more deplorable thing could happen to the State. Further, even if His Holiness should decide that it mattered not a rusty nail whether the Council were made to look fools or no, there was, anyhow, no money to pay me. This established a default contumax and a discharge in alias of the second degree. I give his exact words, for I noted them at the time, and could guess vaguely that they must be of grave import. When he got so far I noticed a great commotion among his colleagues. Every man in court wore an expression of strained attention mixed with admiration, and the Judge himself could not withhold from his august features something of the same tribute to this Genius of Debate.

“‘Note also, Your Holiness,’ continued the Pleader, wagging his arched forefinger (which was long and pointed) very significantly in the air, ‘the contumax in advert to subvert ... and the same regardant.’ He added in a sort of sneering tone: ‘I will not weary the Court with that’ (I could see that the Judge nodded), ‘but even the plaintiff, learned as he is in the law, will admit,’ and here he turned and addressed me with a very contemptuous expression, ‘that plevin would not obtain in the case of recognisance, or at any rate in the defection thereof would be docketed as an endorsement pursuant. An endorsement pursuant would stand void,’ he continued, with a renewed interest in his tone (he now excited a feverish attention in his audience), ‘for that is in the very foundation, I take it, of our law of terce and perinomy and has been upheld by a long succession of your Holiness’s predecessors from the origins of our Sacred Lawyers’ Guild.’

“Here again I thought I noticed the trace of an uncertain nod from the august figure upon the bench. ‘It comes, therefore,’ concluded this eloquent man, ‘in plain words, to this: we rely on the terms general, and the reference particular, each interconnected, and certainly maintain that guaranty lies overt.’ Here he stopped dead, and then added in simple and lower tones: ‘That is my case.’ Then he sat down. I am told it was one of the most marvellous efforts in all the history of the Lawyers’ Guild.

“Applause may be permitted even in the Mosque or the most sacred of Shrines, but not in the august presence of the law. Yet it was with difficulty that the enraptured pleaders present, the scriveners and their attendants, could forbear from open praise. A man whom I did not know and who sat next to me, cross-legged, upon his mat, one of the pleaders, I think (for he also wore the mule skin with long, furry ears upon his head), muttered to me that it was the finest opening he had heard since Achmet had opened for the Sheik-ul-Musrim in the Oyster Case, and that was saying a great deal.

“When this great Pleader had sat down there was a complete silence in court, which lasted for some time and seemed to me a little embarrassing. At last I perceived that I was in some way the object of too much attention, and my friend the Scrivener leant over with the suggestion that I should call my witnesses. ‘But I have none,’ whispered I over my shoulder in great trepidation. ‘I have my Charter. That is enough, is it not?’