of equality, and quoting from al-Hadith to prove that all men are Allah’s children and that the most favoured in Allah’s sight is he who is most loving to his brother man. He then winds up with an encomium on the heroes of the day, curses vehemently the reactionaries and those who curse them not (the Mosque resounds with “Curse the reactionists, curse them all!”), tramples beneath his heel every spy and informer of the New Era, invokes the great Allah and his Apostle to watch over the patriots and friends of the Ottoman nation, to visit with grievous punishment its enemies, and—descends.
The silence of expectation ensues.
The Mosque is crowded; and the press of turbans is such that if a pea were dropt from above it would not reach the floor. From the pulpit the great Mohammedan audience, with its red fezes, its green and white turbans, seemed to Khalid like a verdant field overgrown with daisies and poppies.
“It is the beginning of Arabia’s Spring, the resuscitation of the glory of Islam,” and so forth; thus opening with a flourish of flattery like the spouting tricksters whom he so harshly judges.
And what shall we say of him? It were not fair quickly to condemn, to cry him down at the start. Perhaps he was thus inspired by the august assembly; perhaps he quailed and thought it wise to follow thus far the advice of his friends.
“It was neither this nor that,” say our Scribe. “For as he stood in the tribune, the picture of the field of daisies and poppies suggested the picture of Spring. A speaker is not always responsible for the frolics of his fancy. Indeed, an audience of some five thousand souls, all intent upon this opaque, mysterious Entity in the tribune, is bound to reach the very heart of it; for think what five thousand rays focused on a sensitive plate can do.”