She pressed him for more: “If the residents of Hebron then claim to be Muslims, yet they don’t practice this commandment, how then can they be true confessors of the Prophet Mohammed?” Our friend conceded: “Arguably, no one can answer this.” Here, I joined in: “On the contrary. Our Thar has already answered. Earlier today, he spoke with the Ferik-Pasha.”
The boy had been listening to us. When he now learned that he had answered a question that his father believed to be unanswerable, he felt very important: “Yes, that’s correct. I always know more than other people! Thus, our cook and her husband always call me ‘The Chosen One.’ Effendi, please tell me what I said.” I recalled his description: “Figuratively speaking—but not without reasonable cause—you labeled Hebron’s inhabitants as Canaanites.”
“Oh yes. I always have reasons. Only on the surface are they Muslims—on the inside, they will always be Canaanites. In the process of refinement during Moses’ time and that of Islam, they have been passed by, and now they are at the bottom of the barrel. Effendi, now I remember that I was the first to figure this out. I haven’t forgotten the history of Moses’ time, nor the origins of Islam. So, just how do we actually identify all the Palestinian people in Canaan? They go by these names: Hittites, Jebusites, Girgashites, Hivites, people of Arka, Amorites, Sidonians, Phenicians, those in Zemar, Arvadians, Hamathians, and all others dwelling in Zidon. You will probably not retain this information.” I agreed: “Here is my notebook. Please write them for me.”
From the inner pocket of his vest, he took out a small notebook and gave it to me. I was happy to see what it contained. What he had recorded was quite accurate and concerned fairly serious things. I noted the eleven names, then gave the small journal back to him. Right away, he began to read through the list, as if he were memorizing the words. In the meantime, his father went to the innkeeper, expressing our thanks for the hospitality. When he returned, we went in search of the owner of the saddle.
The trader picked it up and showed it to us. Without announcing the cost, he explained that he would sell it for a price that I would judge to be fair— not excessive. The object was really magnificent, and according to him, a bargain. Mustafa made the initial mistake of saying that I was the buyer, not he. Immediately, the Arab explained that he wanted nothing to do with me, a so-called infidel. It would be a sin to sell a Christian this saddle which a Muslim Pasha had owned—so, we must leave without achieving our purpose.
Mustafa Bustani was extremely outraged at this kind of treatment. Nevertheless, we were calmly determined to put this incident behind us. Mustafa wanted to accompany us to the Burial Site of Abraham, yet here too we had no luck. In every narrow and dirty alleyway through which we traveled, people looked at us with hostile eyes. Since we wanted to avoid running into danger and being mistreated at the hands of these people, we simply had to turn around at certain places and stations. On such an important occasion as today and as a Muslim, Mustafa Bustani should have felt ashamed to be leading two Christians to this holy site.
Never before had I personally experienced such intolerance. Actually, it was always the opposite case; I had been guided to the inner sanctuary, although I never went inside. Mustafa asked someone about the importance of today, so now we learned that this was both a birthday celebration and a commemoration of the expulsion of Ishmael, the eldest son of Abraham. Sarah had insisted that her husband banish his servant-maid Hagar and their son Ishmael to the desert. Now, we better understood the source of our inhospitable treatment from the bigoted saddle-merchant and from the mosque’s fanatical officials.
The commemoration of their national ancestor’s exile had absolutely doubled their existing abrasiveness. Jews were put on notice that they were not allowed to be seen—and the same was true for me. Given the fact that my wife was with me, this could easily have been taken as an act of defiance which would have heightened hostilities rather than minimize them. Thus, I had to give Mustafa Bustani my word that I would now go straight to Eppstein’s home and eat at his house. I was to avoid the city streets, following only the outlying paths to Jew Eppstein’s house. There were still two sites that we wanted to visit: Abraham’s Oak of Mamre and the Sacred Heights of Hebron. As I’ve mentioned, the latter route is approximately 400 hundred paces from the road to Jerusalem. So we set the exact time when we would stop the carriage and leave Mustafa and Hebron behind us, thereby starting our journey to Eppstein’s place. At the agreed upon time, we parted company. Thar was exceptionally happy that he was allowed to go with us. Without further words from his father, I didn’t overlook the evident trust that his father had placed in me.
With all of his most generous hospitality, my brave and old friend Eppstein received us into his home. What is most commonly known as the home’s “best room” was ours. It was a relatively airy room that was located on the flat roof top. In my wife’s journal, wherein she happily noted such details, she wrote the following lines: “It was a very hot day. We were given a beautiful, cool, domed room that had two broadly curved arches. Three of the walls had windows, and the door was on the fourth. Conditions there were simply splendid. The room’s furnishings consisted of two beds. To the side of one was a reconditioned couch with three antique pillows; next to it was a table with four wooden chairs. The other had a white-ruffled canopy bed. In the corner was a water pitcher that probably dated to the time of Christ. The walls were tinted with a bluish white-wash. A brass wash-service sat upon one of the chairs. I won’t say a word about the pictures on the walls. We were served excellent Hebron wine, a bottle of which cost one franc. We dined on food that had required a great deal of preparation, all of which certainly was worth the effort.” Considering the generous hospitality that we had received, we didn’t need to send for the food that Mustafa Bustani had brought along. Those items were packed away in our carriage and would come in handy when we turned towards home.
In the course of the meal, Eppstein told us about today’s big Children’s Fitness-Festival, a birthday celebration in honor of the boy Ishmael. The children were drawn to the city’s open spaces, where they were invited to take part in all kinds of peaceable and war-like games; adults were lining up to help supervise them. Since so many stories are told about the expulsion and the injustices that were sustained, no person from another faith should even want to be a bystander. When Eppstein heard that we had the intention of riding to the Oak and on to Abraham’s Well, he immediately advised us to cancel those plans. There could be trouble if a procession of children were to pass by these holy sites.