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A Koran was hung about his neck as a defence against the evil eye, and frequently he removed it and knelt before it, as did Louis XI before the leaden figures of saints which adorned his hat. He ordered a complete chemical laboratory from Venice, and engaged alchemists to distill the water of immortality, by the help of which he hoped to ascend to the planets and discover the Philosophers' Stone.
To the people of Egypt, meanwhile, Napoleon addressed a proclamation in these words: "They will tell you that I come to destroy your religion; believe them not: answer that I come to restore your rights, to punish the usurpers, and that I respect, more than the Mamelukes ever did, God, his Prophet, and the Koran. Sheiks and Imans, assure the people that we also are true Mussulmans.
It is not quite clear whether he had in view any purpose in connection with his professional work beyond the desire to know the originals of all the authorities quoted in his lectures. But, when he had sufficiently mastered the language to be able to read the Koran, he knew that he had two grounds for self-congratulation, and these were sufficiently characteristic.
Most of those of whom he made inquiries were probably as ignorant as they professed to be; but there were some who, at the name of Daireh, looked at the inquirer with a quick suspicious glance. One of these replied with a verse out of the Koran, another with a proverb, a third said he never meddled with other people's affairs, and walked quickly away.
The various spaces are filled with lines from the Koran; the words "There is no conqueror but God" occurring many hundred times in the various parts of the structure, in the delicately lined work over the horse-shoe arches, upon the plainer side walls and over latticed jalousies, and along the architraves.
He happened to be crossing a tiny square at the moment, and a bearded moullah was entering a mosque which filled one whole side of it. The unbeliever's mirth doubtless disturbed a pious meditation, and the moullah turned and muttered something. The words might be a verse of the Koran, but they had the ring of a malediction. Mulai Hamed was abashed and angry.
The cadi concentrated in his hands all jurisdictions, judging without appeal cases, civil and criminal, and observing no fixed rules of procedure in the application of the few principles which the Koran contained on the subject of civil relations.
I pass native after native, whose only head covering, if they have any at all save their short-cut black hair, is a handkerchief, stiffened, and tied with a peculiar twist on the head, or a rimless cap with possibly a text of the Koran embroidered on its front.
The Faky produces his book, the holy Koran, and with a pen formed of a reed he proceeds to write a prescription; not to be made up by an apothecary, as such dangerous people do not exist, but the prescription itself is to be SWALLOWED! Upon a smooth board, like a slate, he rubs sufficient lime to produce a perfectly white surface; upon this he writes in large characters, with thick glutinous ink, a verse or verses from the Koran that he considers applicable to the case; this completed, he washes off the holy quotation, and converts it into a potation by the addition of a little water; this is swallowed in perfect faith by the patient, who in return pays a fee according to the demand of the Faky.
Nominally they are Mohammedans in religion; but they do not strictly observe the ordinances of the Koran, and their Mohammedanism is mixed up with traces of their original religion." "Ah, that explains why the chief's name was Hassan. I wondered that a Malay should have a Mohammedan name. They are not much like Arabs in figure.
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