Topsy-Turvy Land Part 3

X

NOORAH'S PRAYER

For many days the sailing craft from Bahrein had been unloading Indian wares at the port of Ojeir on the Ha.s.sa coast, and for many hours the busy throng of Bedouin drivers and merchants and onlookers were loading the caravan, emphasising their task or their impatience with great oaths, almost as guttural and angry as the noise of the camels. At length, with the pious cry of _Tawakalna_, "we have trusted in G.o.d," they are off.

A caravan is composed of companies, and while the whole host numbered seven hundred camels, with merchants and travellers and drivers, _our_ company from Ojeir to Hofhoof counted only six. There was Salih and Nasir, a second son of the desert, both from Riad; a poor unfortunate lad with stumpy hands and feet, who limped about on rag shoes and seemed quite happy; there was Noorah and her sister, and lastly, the missionary.

But for the shuffling of the desert sand and the whack of a driving stick the caravan marched in silence. The sun shone full in our faces as it slowly sank in the west, its last rays coloured the clouds hanging over the lowlands of Ha.s.sa a bright red, and when it disappeared we heard the sheikhs of the companies, one after the other, call to prayer. Only a part of the caravan responded. The Turkish soldiers on horseback kept on their way; the most pious of the merchants had already urged their beasts ahead of the rest and had finished a duty that interfered with a speedy journey and the first choice of location at the night encampment; some excused themselves by quoting a Koran text, and others took no notice of the call.

Not so the Bedouin child Noorah and her younger sister. They had trudged on foot four long hours, armed with sticks to urge on that lazy white camel, always loitering to s.n.a.t.c.h a bite of desert-thorn with his giant jaws. A short time before sunset I saw the two children mount the animal by climbing up its neck, as only Arabs can, but now, at call to prayer they devoutly slipped down. Hand in hand they ran ahead a short distance, shuffled aside some sand with their bare feet, rubbed some on their hands, (as do all pious Moslems in the absence of water), faced Mecca, and prayed.

As they did then, so at sunrise and at noon and at four o'clock and sunset and when the evening star disappeared--five times a day--they prayed. It is not true, as is generally supposed, that women in Moslem lands do not pray. Only at Mecca, as far as I know, of all Arabia, are they allowed a place in the _public mosques_, but at home a larger per cent. observe the times of prayer than do the men.

When Noorah had ended her prayer and resumed the task of belabouring the white camel, she turned to me with a question, _"Laish ma tesully anta?"_ which with Bedouin bluntness means, "_You_, why don't you pray?" The question set me musing half the night; not, I confess, about my own prayers, but about hers. Why did Noorah pray? What did Noorah pray? Did she understand that

Prayer is the burden of a sigh, the falling of a tear, The upward glancing of the eye when only G.o.d is near,

as well as the dead formalism of the mosque? How could I answer her question in a way that she might well understand? And if hers, too, was a sincere prayer, as I believe,--the prayer of an ignorant child of the desert,--did she pray words or thoughts? What do Noorah and her more than two million Bedouin sisters ask of G.o.d five times daily? Leaving out vain repet.i.tions, this is what they say:

"In the name of G.o.d the Merciful, the Compa.s.sionate; Praise be to G.o.d who the two worlds made; Thee do we entreat and Thee do we supplicate; Lead us in the way the straight, The way of those whom Thou dost compa.s.sionate, Not of those on whom is hate Nor those that deviate. Amen."

It is the first chapter of the Koran and is used by Moslems as we use the Lord's Prayer. The words are very beautiful I think, don't you?

Whether Noorah understood what she asked I know not; but to me who saw and heard in the desert twilight, (as under like conditions to you), the prayer was full of pathos. The desert! where G.o.d is, and where but for His mercy and compa.s.sion death and solitude would reign alone; the desert, a world of its own kind, a sea of sand, with no life in it except the Living One, and over it only His canopy of stars--G.o.d of the two worlds! And to that G.o.d, than whom there is no other, and whom they ignorantly wors.h.i.+p, these sons and daughters of outcast Ishmael bow their faces in the dust and five times daily entreat and supplicate to be led aright in the way of truth.

They ask to be directed into the _straight_ way, but oh how crooked is the way of G.o.d which Mohammed taught in his book! Sadder still, what a crooked way it is that the Moslems walk! Impure words, lying lips, hands that steal and feet that run after cruelty--these are what children in Arabia possess. But I dare say that some of them are really sorry for their sins and when they pray like Noorah in the desert they want to have peace and pardon. Are they looking unconsciously perhaps for the footprints in the desert of One who said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life"?

Alas, Noorah and her many sisters (your sisters, too) have never seen His beauty nor heard of His love! They do not know that the "way of those whom Thou dost compa.s.sionate" is the new and living way through Christ's cross and death. They are ignorant of the awful word, "He that believeth not on the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of G.o.d abideth on him." Has G.o.d the Merciful then not heard Noorah's prayer? Will He not answer it? Is His mercy to these children of Abraham clean gone forever? How long they have waited and how many of the desert children are now sleeping in little desert graves! Do you not think G.o.d wants _you_ to carry the gospel to them and send them teachers to learn the way of Jesus?

Think of Noorah's question, "_You_, why don't you pray?" Think of Christ's words, _"Go tell quickly."_

"ARABIA THE LOVED."

There's a land since long neglected, There's a people still rejected, But of truth and grace elected, In His love for them.

Softer than their night wind's fleeting, Richer than their starry tenting, Stronger than their sands protecting, Is His love for them.

To the host of Islam's leading, To the slave in bondage bleeding, To the desert dweller pleading, Bring His love to them.

Through the promise on G.o.d's pages, Through His work in history's stages, Through the cross that crowns the ages, Show His love to them.

With the prayer that still availeth With the power that prevaileth, With the love that never faileth, Tell His love to them.

Till the desert's sons now aliens, Till its tribes and their dominions, Till Arabia's raptured millions, Praise His love of them.

--J.G.L.

XI

PICTURES WITH WORDS ONLY

You already know many curious facts about the people of Topsy-turvy Land.

Would you like to hear something about their language and their writing?

The language of this land is very old, almost as old as its camels or its desert sands. The Moslems even go so far as to say that Adam and Eve spoke Arabic in Paradise and they say it is called the language of the angels.

It is written from right to left just in the opposite way of this page of English writing. The Arabic alphabet has twenty-eight letters, all of which are considered consonants. There are marks put above and below the line to show the sounds of the vowels; just as we wrote the word _potato_ in our first chapter.

Arabic grammar is much more difficult than English grammar, and even the boys who attend the big Arabic college of El Azhar in Cairo, Egypt, must find its study a bugbear. Just think of learning _fifteen_ conjugations instead of the much smaller number in Latin or Greek! The books used in Moslem schools would look very crude and dull to you who learnt your A, B, C, from an ill.u.s.trated primer perhaps with coloured pictures.

Strict Mohammedans do not allow their boys and girls to have pictures in their books, because they say all pictures are idols. And yet the love for beauty and the desire for ornament on the written or printed page was so strong with the Arabs that they began from the earliest times to use their alphabet to make arabesques. Arabesque is a big word and it really means an Arab picture. But these pictures of the Arabs (which you find on the arches of old mosques, in books and on tombstones) are ornaments or designs made out of the beautifully curved letters of the alphabet. The old Arab copyists and their sculptors wrote and carved the words of the Koran, or the names of G.o.d, etc., in all sorts of ways to make pictures _out of words only_, lest they break the law of their prophet. Here are two examples of how pictures can be made out of letters. You have all doubtless heard of a "wordless book"; and some of you have books without words and full of pictures. Here is a picture made out of the Arabic alphabet, and every curve and dot belongs to the words so curiously written. I copied them out of an Arabic treatise on penmans.h.i.+p, for you.

The face is not at all pretty, and yet Moslem lads think it is very clever to bring this likeness of man out of the four names, _Allah, Mohammed, Ali_ and _Ha.s.san_. These words you notice are written twice, both to the left and to the right. What a disgrace to the holy name of G.o.d to put that of three Arabs with it in a monograph! It is very sad to hear some Moslems say that they trust in _these_ people to intercede for them with G.o.d. If you have read what sinful lives these people led when they were the chief rulers in Arabia, you will almost agree with me in calling this first picture a Moslem idol.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DESIGNS MADE OUT OF ARABIC WRITING.]

There are many Moslems in Bahrein who have hanging up in their rooms these monograms or designs. One favourite I have often seen contains only five names: _Allah, Mohammed, Ali, Ha.s.san and Hussein_. The people who make so much of these descendants of Mohammed are called _s.h.i.+ahs_; the other Moslems who think they are more orthodox are called _Sunnites_.

What do you think of our second picture? Is not the design very pretty for an embroidery pattern? The motto is written twice; once from the right and once _backward_ from the left, the same as in the other picture. The words are taken from the Koran and are as true as they are beautiful. _Man yattawakil ala Allah fa hooa hasbahoo_; which means, "Whoever trusts in G.o.d will find Him sufficient." That surely contradicts the other picture, does it not? And yet they are both from the same copy-book. There are many contradictions in the religion of Mohammed. I only hope that when Christ's gospel has conquered Arabia, the name of Jesus will be written on every mosque and in every heart; then contradiction will give way to the truth, and whoever trusts in Christ will find Him sufficient.

Would it not be nice to make something pretty for use in the home or in the Sunday-school, and embroider the Arabic words on it? It would be a constant reminder of Arabia and of the beautiful motto--only an Arabic version of Paul's words, _Our sufficiency is of G.o.d._

Our last ill.u.s.tration to close this chapter is an example of Arabic every-day penmans.h.i.+p. It was written in the mountains of Oman, and is a letter from a poor cripple asking for a copy of the Psalms and other books. It was sent to our brother Peter J. Zwemer a year before he died, when he was on a missionary journey in Oman.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARABIC LETTER FROM A POOR CRIPPLE.]

XII

THE QUEER PENNIES OF OMAN AND OF Ha.s.sA

If Jesus Himself, on one occasion, said, "Show me a penny," and preached a sermon from it, surely we may follow his example and learn something from these strange coins which you see in the pictures at the beginning and end of this chapter. The coin on this page comes from Oman, the home of the Arabian camel and one of its most fertile provinces. Perhaps some of the boys and girls can tell where Oman is and give its boundaries without looking in the geography, but I am sure none of you can read the inscription on the penny, and tell what it all means. Who is Fessul bin Turkee? What is an Imam? How much is one-quarter of an Anna? And when did this queer coin come fresh from the mint?

[Ill.u.s.tration: OMAN COIN.]

Let us begin at the beginning. Fessul bin Turkee, the present ruler of Oman, lives in a large, tumble-down old castle in Muscat, and his big red flag waves over the town every Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath. He is not much better nor worse than his father, Turkee, or than other rulers in Arabia, but he certainly is far more enterprising, and is generally liked by the Arabs of Muscat. He is not however in all respects a merciful ruler. When I visited Muscat a few years ago this petty king had a real lion's den, like Nebuchadnezzar, and the story goes that he sometimes used it in the same way to get rid of his enemies. He once had a steam-launch, and even put up an electric light on the top of his castle, but both of these modern improvements came to grief. He also started a small ice factory to supply his household with cold water when the thermometer rises to over one hundred degrees; but the expense was too great and so the project melted away likewise. His last venture is more successful, and ever since the ice factory added a P to its sign-board and became a "pice factory," copper coins have been plentiful in Oman. A _pice_ is the Indian name for a small copper coin, and the Arabs borrowed the word, with many other words, from the Hindu traders. The Sultan has plenty of wives and horses and retainers; his castle is well-supplied with old cannon and modern rifles; huge coffee-pots pour out cheap hospitality every day; but withal I do not think he is very happy, for he is in debt and his power is not as extensive as it was once. Fessul's proper t.i.tle is not Sultan, although he is often so called, but _Imam_, which signifies religious leader. It is the old t.i.tle given to the political chiefs of Oman and Zanzibar.

The word means one "who stands before," and was first used as a t.i.tle for the leader of prayer in the mosques. In Oman the religious chiefs soon took hold of politics, and so the t.i.tle has a significance now in this part of Arabia that it never had elsewhere.

Let us get back to the penny. Its face (although being a Mohammedan coin it really has no human _face_ because their religion forbids pictures) bears an English as well as an Arabic inscription. The opposite side only has the Sultan's name in Arabic. On the side that has the English words is the legend: "Struck at Muscat in the year 1315." Yet the penny is only three years old, for the Moslems begin to date their years from the _Hegira_, or flight of their prophet from Mecca to Medina. This took place in the year 622 A.D. But we must also remember that their year is several days shorter than ours, because they have lunar months all of equal length and only 360 days in a year.

How strange it is to read such an old date for such a recent year as 1899, since we count time from the birth of Christ! But you must remember that the False Prophet has had it all his own way in Arabia for thirteen hundred years, and that the missionaries in this country are very few indeed. Only for a very few years and in a very few places has Christ been preached.