Page:Algeria from Within.pdf/124

ALGERIA FROM WITHIN

and all other creeds, and, being one of the great principles of the religion, is unsurmountable. The reward, the great reward of the Faithful is paradise for all others it is hell. As a matter of fact, the picture drawn of the life to come for a good Arab is very attractive, much more so than our rather vague golden city we read of. All that has been forbidden on earth will be permitted above, and the faith in this is absolute. The number of Arabs who do not follow all the principles of the religion is few. Even those who drink wine when guests are present rarely do so when alone, while those who do carry it to excess are usually very low characters. The origin of the interdiction of intoxicants is said to be because once at Mecca the imam leading the prayer was drunk and he went through the ceremony all wrong, with the result that all the followers did the same as he did. Hence a sacrilege owing to wine-drinking, hence the forbidding of its use among the Faithful. As evidence of the evil caused by drinking the following story is told with much solemnity. A Mohammedan was once caught by two unscrupulous scoundrels who said they would kill him unless he agreed to do one of three things: drink a bottle of wine, rob his father, or murder the marabout. The poor man chose what he thought was the least of these evils and drank the bottle of wine, with the result that he also robbed his father and killed the marabout! Prayers are said either collectively in the mosque before sunrise, at noon, at three, at sunset, and at eight at night, when the muezzin comes out and calls the Faithful in that high-pitched voice which is almost a chant, or else they are said individually. If they are said in the mosque they are led by the imam, who afterwards reads the Koran, and sometimes a kind

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