. . . . . .
The sun stands beside the minaret that forms part of the west wall of the town. The eastern mountain is gold and over it lies a pallid crescent moon. There will be moon tonight upon the desert! From the fondoukhs, camels are beaten forth. They are prodded to their knees which are then bound so that they cannot rise. And the fragile humps are heaped with the exchange of the mart. Great bags, here, oozed sugar of the date: now there is wheat and wool. Fifteen camels, lashed and hobbled, groan: then sway into the air like an armada moved by the wind of guttural call and staff-blow. Fifteen camels swerve through a narrow gate into the desert.
The town stands behind, low mosqued: the minarets rise from the flat roofs like acrobats. Palms make a misty coronal to the east: thousands of palms, mazed like a camel’s hair: and over all the sterile mountain, a chart of ages, working to the sky. Now, from the minarets comes a voice.
Alláh acbar.... Echhed en la ila ella Alláh.
Echhed en Mohammed Rasou Alláh.
Haï ala Elsalat. Haë ala Elfaláh.
Alláh Acbar.... La ila ella Alláh.
It is the call of the muedzin. Invariable his word, his key: invariable the five points of the day ... dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset and dark ... when from all the minarets of town, in all the towns of the land, in all the lands of Islam, the muedzin calls to prayer. The voice is of iron. Myriad muedzin voices, like strokes of some intricate machine, weave together, and bind Islam holy.
Allah is great.... I affirm there is no God save only Allah.
I affirm Mohammed is the Prophet of Allah.
Come ye to prayer. Come ye to adore him.
Allah is great.... I affirm there is no God, save only Allah.
Belal, first muedzin, crier for Mohammed, spoke these words. They are a redolent poem: ecstasy was in them, and resolve. They have not changed in syllable since Belal received them from his master, a year after the Hegira, the year of our era 623. But they have hardened. They are a terrible horizontal stroke upon a prostrate people. Harder than bells of Christendom they are; harder than the Jewish plaint which Mohammed hated, which Mohammed strove to wipe from the ears of the earth.
The caravan has halted. The camels stand docile, pathetic, shifting their great loads; for it hurts the soft pads of their feet to stand laden, it is easier to walk. The men scatter and squat, each by himself, but each turned from the setting sun toward Mecca. The water of the desert is the sand; and with the sand the men make their ablutions. They place their sandals beside them; all that is unclean in the folds of the burnouse they lay aside. Their mouths mutter fast; their hands perform intricate gestures. To swerve from the immemorial forms, even by a finger twitch, is to be in heresy and to be damned. Their brows touch the sand....
... For man is earth. The brow is his highest and his noblest part. Let his brow therefore, five times with each day, be lowered to earth. This is ISLAM....
The camels fall into the rhythmic swing which will not swerve while the moon swings over the sand and the sand swings under the night, and the silent men round the ocean of the desert.