Algeria from within

by R. V. C. Bodley

The ablutions, the forbidden meats and wines, the many postures taken during the prayer five times a day, were all invented with a purpose. The Arab was dirty by nature; he was told to wash before saying his prayers; in cases where water lacked, to clean himself with sand. It was known that pork was bad for people living in hot countries; it was forbidden. The laziness of the Oriental is proverbial; physical exercises were devised for him in his daily prayers before Mr. Sandow and his disciples thought of the present-day training.

He was told not to frequent women of easy morals; knowing his nature, the task was made less difficult by allowing him more than one wife, while at the same time, realizing the inconsistency of human nature, laws were provided which enabled him to free himself easily from the bonds of marriage if he felt that it was necessary.

To make him rise early in the morning the first hour of prayer was ordained before sunrise; in the middle of the day there are prayers, which prevent a too-long siesta. Realizing that women in religion are the cause of much trouble, they were excluded from the mosque and from anything to do with its rites. Furthermore, remembering that two great religions had passed before, there could be no question of ignoring them. One therefore finds practically the whole of the Old Testament in the Koran, as well as the coming of Jesus (Aïssa). Here the belief stops and states that God substituted another man for the Christ to be crucified, while Jesus went straight up to heaven like Elijah. The Koran further states that Jesus will come again at the day of judgment, but that Mohammed will not.

These doctrines completed what Judaism and Christianity had begun, and made them stronger by the precept of “Equality of all men in the fold and fierce hatred for all outside it.”

Talking casually to Arabs, it is hard to realize this hatred, but it is there at all times. We are not merely Englishmen, or Frenchmen, or Italians—we are infidels, we are unbelievers, we are not chosen to go to Paradise. We shall not sit by the river under the shade of the trees and be fed on delicious meat and drink wonderful wines which do not intoxicate, while women go about unveiled and we are married spiritually to those we love.

That is the great barrier between Mohammedans and all other creeds, and, being one of the great principles of the religion, is unsurmountable. The reward, the great reward of the Faithful is paradise— for all others it is hell.

As a matter of fact, the picture drawn of the life to come for a good Arab is very attractive, much more so than our rather vague golden city we read of. All that has been forbidden on earth will be permitted above, and the faith in this is absolute.

The number of Arabs who do not follow all the principles of the religion is few. Even those who drink wine when guests are present rarely do so when alone, while those who do carry it to excess are usually very low characters. The origin of the interdiction of intoxicants is said to be because once at Mecca the imam leading the prayer was drunk and he went through the ceremony all wrong, with the result that all the followers did the same as he did. Hence a sacrilege owing to wine-drinking, hence the forbidding of its use among the Faithful. As evidence of the evil caused by drinking the following story is told with much solemnity.

A Mohammedan was once caught by two unscrupulous scoundrels who said they would kill him unless he agreed to do one of three things: drink a bottle of wine, rob his father, or murder the marabout. The poor man chose what he thought was the least of these evils and drank the bottle of wine, with the result that he also robbed his father and killed the marabout!

Prayers are said either collectively in the mosque before sunrise, at noon, at three, at sunset, and at eight at night, when the muezzin comes out and calls the Faithful in that high-pitched voice which is almost a chant, or else they are said individually. If they are said in the mosque they are led by the imam, who afterwards reads the Koran, and sometimes a kind of sermon based on the Holy Book is given by the mufti.