‘To which the Angel replied, “As thou hast destroyed these insects and not distinguished between the guilty and the harmless, on account of the offence of one flea, thus also had the Almighty ordained the Deluge for the destruction of mankind—who were, in His sight, but noxious creatures upon earth.”
‘Noah bowed his head to the ground, and was dumb.’
Zarhoni. ‘If I had been Noah, I should have replied to the Angel—“An almighty, an all-seeing God could distinguish the guilty from the innocent: but a poor ignorant man, awaking from a dream on being bitten by a flea, could not be expected to select which was the offending, and which the harmless flea.”’
Ben Nasr. ‘It appears Noah was not so ready with a reply as you are.’
Next we had the history of the son of Tama, who would not say ‘Enshallah’ (God willing).
‘“Say Enshallah! when you propose to make a journey or to undertake anything: then fortune will attend you,” said the learned F’ki Bitiwi to his young friend Selam Amu.
‘Know you not what the other day befell Abd-el-Kerim the son of Tama the widow of the Sheikh of Amar? Hear then.
‘Abd-el-Kerim, last market day, told his mother he was going to the Sok of Had-el-Gharbía to buy a cow.
‘The widow Tama, a devout good woman, reprimanded her son for not adding “Enshallah.” To this Abd-el-Kerim replied, in a taunting and blasphemous manner, that he needed not God’s assistance, either to go to market, or to buy a cow; for, said the rash young man, “Have I not here in the hood of my jelab more than sufficient money for the purpose? Have I not legs to carry me to the Sok? Are there not always cows to be sold?”
‘His mother again rebuked him, saying, “Without God’s will and His assistance, no man can succeed in life.”