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To convince the Greeks that their orthodox empire was extinct, Mahomet ordered a mollah to ascend the bema and address a sermon to the Mussulmans, announcing that St. Sophia was now a mosque set apart for the prayers of the true believers.
He answered, that only he and a few of the Agas understood Turkish, that the Mollah was a deeply-read man, who said the prayers in the mosque in Arabic, as is customary everywhere; but that there was no preaching, since the people only knew their prayers in Arabic, but could not understand a sermon, and spoke nothing but Bosniac.
Throughout those four days but one man had place always at Mahommed's back, his confidant and adviser not Kalil, it is to be remarked, or Saganos, or the Mollah Kourani, or Akschem-sed-din the Dervish.
Hard by is a small house where the pilgrims take their coffee, and the house of the Bedou mollah, who looks after the tomb, is about a quarter of a mile off. Beyond this there is no habitation in sight. A more desolate spot could hardly be found.
At this moment other voices came to us from within, calling Lala Mollah; and presently the quick witch answers them from a distance, with a laugh, as if she had been playing at catch-who-can. Then Dawson and I, turning about, discovered to our consternation Ali Oukadi standing quite close beside us, with folded arms and bent brows. "You are unwise," says he, in a calm tone.
Provided I gain but my six dirhems a day, I have no objection to become a mollah." The cadi and bystanders were unable to restrain their mirth, nevertheless, his feet were secured to the pole; and when hoisted up, they commenced the bastinado, taking care, however, to strike the pole much oftener than his toes.
Three men played tambourines or tom-toms of skin called teheranes, and to this music they chanted passages out of the Koran, led by the 'mollah'; this formed a sort of religious preliminary to a marriage festival; and in the evening, of course, the dancing and singing took place to the dismal tune of the same tom-toms, detrimental, very, to our earlier slumbers.
My true path of advancement, I believed, was now open. I was on the way to become a mollah. Nadân was an exemplary Mussulman in all outward matters; but I was not long in discovering that he had two ruling passions jealousy of the chief priest of Tehran, and a hunger for money. My earliest duty was to gratify his second passion by negotiating temporary marriages for handsome fees.
He only asked for four annas for coffee to drink at the great tomb of a wali, Sheikh Salem-bin-Abdullah Mollah el Mohagher, who is buried near a mosque and a tank, the footbath of cattle, from which we drank pea-green water, boiled and filtered of course. Altogether Rahba is a pretty village, but much exposed to wind. The tribes thereabout are Mahri, Gohi, and Salbani.
Then he paused at a Mollah preaching the Jehad, in doubt whether he too wasn't a German pastor, and then at an Anglican clergyman still lying abed and thinking out a great mission of Repentance and Hope that should restore the authority of the established church by incoherent missioning without any definite sin indicated for repentance nor any clear hope for anything in particular arising out of such activities.
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