As mornings begun in sunshine may turn to grey in winter, or the other way about, my having two good subjects in the same place was a great advantage, for though a reflected sunlight improved my liwán, I could nevertheless find plenty of detail to draw while the sky was overcast. ‘Good gracious!’ it actually rained one morning, and with my drawings I joined in the rush for shelter under the arches. Volunteers to carry my belongings were numerous, but Mansoor would only allow some privileged youngster to carry my stool. The teacher would drone out the verses of the Fáthah quite regardless of the disturbance.
The profession of a fikee is, I am told, not a lucrative one. A half-piastre, i.e. five farthings, per week per pupil used to be his earnings, though this may have increased slightly with the general increase of wages. If we consider his intellectual equipment and compare it with that of a schoolmaster at home, it is possible that the pay of the fikee may compare very favourably. They often eke out this miserable pittance by reading a chapter of the Koran in the houses of the well-to-do. One recently ‘killed two birds with one stone’ by posing as a model to me, while he also repeated the Fáthah, outside the entrance to a hareem. I am afraid that some giggling, which I could hear through the mushrbiyeh, may have been caused by my attempt at portraiture. I turned my easel towards the wooden grating to satisfy a legitimate curiosity which might possibly have been excited in the ‘prohibited place.’ The giggles developed into loud laughter. I rather fancied my sketch, and, in spite of this unfavourable criticism, I still fail to see anything funny in it. The fikee turned out to be as big a fraud as most of the natives whom I have induced to pose to me. The value of time becomes enormous to any loafer who poses for an hour, and, according to this fikee, it might have been as valuable as that of a Harley Street specialist. Some feminine jeers, heard through the mushrbiyeh, hastened his departure.
According to Lane the schoolmasters in Egypt are mostly persons of very little learning; few are acquainted with any writings except the Koran and certain prayers, which, as well as the contents of the sacred volume, they are hired to recite on particular occasions. It is fair to say that the Egypt of Lane is the Egypt of full seventy years ago. Under the advisership of Mr. Dunlop and his staff of able school-inspectors, a sound education on enlightened lines is now obtainable even in the smallest towns for the children whose parents can or will afford the fees of the Khedivial schools. But the kuttáb, as the poorer and purely Mohammedan schools are called, seem to have drifted into a backwater, and are little influenced by the stream of enlightenment which flows past them.
The story Lane tells of a fikee of his time might still apply to present-day teachers in some of the villages, and may be worth repeating here: ‘I was lately told of a man who could neither read nor write succeeding to the office of a schoolmaster in my neighbourhood. Being able to recite the whole of the Koran, he could hear the boys repeat their lessons; to write them, he employed the areef (or head-boy and monitor of the school), pretending that his eyes are weak. A few days after he had taken upon himself this office, a poor woman brought a letter for him to read to her from her son, who had gone on pilgrimage. The fikee pretended to read it, but said nothing; and the woman, inferring from his silence that the letter contained bad news, said to him, “Shall I shriek?” He answered, “Yes.” “Shall I tear my clothes?” she asked; he replied, “Yes.” So the poor woman returned to her house, and with her assembled friends performed the lamentation and other ceremonies usual on the occasion of a death. Not many days after this her son arrived, and she asked him what he could mean by causing a letter to be written stating that he was dead? He explained the contents of the letter, and she went to the schoolmaster and begged him to inform her why he had told her to shriek and tear her clothes, since the letter was to inform her that her son was well, and he was now arrived at home. Not at all abashed, he said, “God knows futurity. How could I know that your son would arrive in safety? It is better that you should think him dead than to be led to expect to see him and perhaps be disappointed.” Some persons who were sitting with him praised his wisdom, exclaiming, “Truly, our new fikee is a man of judgment!” and for a little while he found that he had raised his reputation by this blunder.’
I must refrain from quoting from that fund of knowledge, Lane’s Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, for since it has been so ably edited by Mr. Ernest Rhys, it has been placed within the reach of every one by Messrs. Dent in the ‘Everyman’s Library’ series.
As my view of the mosque is from the court, there was no objection to my painting there during the duhr or midday service on Fridays. I was much tempted to make that my subject, but I refrained from doing so, as I have done that subject once or twice before. The ritual has become more familiar to me, and I was able to follow better what was going on.
The mosque servant, who often helped my man to keep off the boys during the week-days, increased in importance on Fridays (which, I need hardly inform my readers, correspond to our Sundays). Half an hour before noon the mueddin ascends the minaret and chants the selám from one of the balconies. This is not the adán or ordinary call to prayer, but a salutation to the Prophet, the adán being called a little after the noon. The worshippers soon arrive, for there are the ablutions to be performed before they take their seats in the liwán. A reader, in the meanwhile, ascends the rostrum facing the prayer-niche or mirhab, and begins reciting the ‘Soorat el-Kahf,’ which is one of the chapters in the Koran. Each worshipper drops his slippers before he steps on to the matting, and places them sole to sole next to where he sits down. He performs two prostrations and then sits patiently till the adán is called from the minaret, when the recitation of the soorat ceases. During this call the whole congregation, which faces the prayer-niche, kneels instead of sitting cross-legged as hitherto. On the last syllable of the adán every man rises and, holding his hands, palm outwards, close to his ears, he repeats the ‘Allahu Akbar’ which has descended from the minaret. He then makes the various prostrations of the rekah, repeating the same words at each different posture, and concludes with the salutations to the Prophet.
THE BLUE MOSQUE