Saïd the fisherman

Notes to part I

• Chapter xv.—“Jesus the Prophet, whom the faithful call Ruh’Allah.” It has been told me for a fact that when the exiled Khedive Ismaìl Pasha (known to London street-boys of the period as old Ishmel Parker) was at Naples, one of the officers in attendance on him challenged an Italian in a café for having dared to insult a Prophet of his (the Egyptian’s) religion. The man had been blaspheming, it appeared, as only a Neapolitan or a Tuscan knows how to blaspheme, heaping foul epithets on the name of his Saviour and the Blessed Virgin. A duel, my informant assures me, actually took place on these grounds.

• Chapter xix.—“The House of Islâm and the House of War.” All the territory successively annexed to the rising of the Ottoman Empire was classed either as forming part of the “dar ul Islâm,” the house of Islâm, or as belonging to the “dar ul harb,” or the house of war, according as it was inhabited by Mohammedans or by Christians. In the latter case the new subjects of the Sultàn were called “rayahs,” and they were personally assessed to ransom their lives, which were forfeited by defeat, and as an equivalent for military service from which they were exempted, or rather, which they did not enjoy the privilege of rendering. This capitation-tax received the name of “haratsh,” and its payment entitled each Christian to keep his head on his shoulders for the space of one year. (Skene: An adol, or the Last Home of the Faithful.)

• Chapter xix.—“When the first of the sevens,” etc. It was predicted in the beginning of the present century by a much-revered sheikh that when the first of the sevens falls the ruin of Islâm will commence, and when the second falls it will have been completed. We are now in the year of the Hegira 1277; the year about to open will invert the first of the two Arabic sevens read from right to left—V becoming Ʌ; that is, 7 becoming 8, and in the year 1280 of the Hegira the second 7 will also be inverted. This prophecy, supported as it is by the reality of the troubles now arising in various quarters, has naturally exercised a great influence on the fatalist tendencies of the Mussulmans and increased their ill-will towards other sects. (Skene: Rambles in Syrian Deserts.)

• Chapter xxv.—“The garrison was divided into two companies” (Selìm loquitur). Ahmed Pasha sent some troops under the command of two colonels into the streets. They soon applied to him for instructions, under the impossibility of keeping the peace without resorting to violence. He ordered them in writing to fire upon the people. One of the colonels in command of the regulars obeyed his order and dispersed the mob, proving thus that the evil might have been checked. The other colonel, who had charge of the irregulars, was won over by a Mussulman sheikh, who adjured him in the name of the Prophet and their common religion to join them and clear the holy city of Damascus of infidels. He went over to the insurgents with his troops. (Skene, as above.) For further particulars of the massacre, see Skene, already quoted, Churchill: Druzes and Maronites, and Ten Years in Mount Lebanon, and the newspapers of the latter half of 1860.