Min
Allah! God forbid! Has your highness ever had the time to go to Mecca,
and is not your highness to go to heaven?"
"Very true, Mustapha, I never had time. In my youth I was busy shaving
heads, after that, Wallah! I had enough to do, splitting them; and now
am not I fully occupied in taking them off? Is it not so, Mustapha; are
not these the words of truth?"
"Your highness is all wisdom. There is but one God, and Mahomet is his
prophet; and when the latter said, that a visit to the holy shrine would
be a passport to heaven, it was intended to employ those who were idle,
not to embarrass true believers who work hard in the name of the Most
High!"
"Min Allah! God forbid! the case is clear," replied the pacha, "why, if
every body were to go to Mecca, what then, Mustapha?"
"Your highness--it is the opinion of your slave, if such were to take
place, that all the fools would have left the country."
"Very true, Mustapha; but my mouth is parched up with the sand of that
simoom--Sherbet I cannot drink, Rakee I must not, the Hakim has forbid
it; what must it be then, Mustapha?"
"Hath the holy prophet forbidden wine to true believers in case of
sickness; is not your highness sick; was the wine of Shiraz given by
Allah to be thrown away? Allah Karim! God is most merciful; and the wine
was sent that true believers might, in this world, have a foretaste of
the pleasures awaiting them in the next."
"Mustapha," replied the pacha, taking his pipe out of his mouth, "by the
beard of the holy prophet, your words are those of wisdom.
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