“ ‘But he will embrace Bahaism,’ put in Mrs. Gotfry.
“ ‘That might save him. Bahaism is the old torch, relighted after many centuries, by Allah.’
“Meanwhile Khalid was thinking of secondhand Jerry of the secondhand bookshop of New York. The Sheikh reminded him of his old friend.
“And I was holding in my hand a book on which I chanced while arranging my seat. It was Debrett’s Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage . How did such a book find its way into the Sheikh’s rubbish, I wondered. But birds of a feather, thought I.
“ ‘That book was sent to me,’ said he, ‘by a merchant friend, who found it in the Bazaar. They send me all kinds of books, these simple of heart. They think I can read in all languages and discourse on all subjects. Allah forgive them.’
“And when I tell him, in reply to his inquiry, that the book treats of Titles, Orders, and Degrees of Precedence, he utters a sharp whew, and with a quick gesture of weariness and disgust, tells me to take it.
‘I have my head full of our own ansab (pedigrees),’ he adds, ‘and I have no more respect for a green turban (the colour of the Muslim nobility) than I have for this one,’ pointing to his, which is white.
“ Mrs. Gotfry then asks the Sheikh what he thinks of Wahhabism.
“ ‘It is Islam in its pristine purity; it is the Islam of the first great Caliphs. “Mohammed is dead; but Allah lives,” said Abu Bakr to the people on the death of the Prophet. And Wahhabism is a direct telegraph wire between mortal man and his God.
“ ‘But why should these Wahhabis of Nejd be the most fanatical, when their doctrines are the most pure?’ asked Khalid.