The Mercy of Allah: Essay. Hilaire Belloc

though I attempted to control my grief, all the vast crowd assembled were moved by my manly sorrow, and several spoke to me upon it at the conclusion of the sad rites.

      “I allowed the decent interval of three days to elapse and then did what I had no choice but to do. I took over Abdullah’s factory on foreclosure and added it to my own.

      “In this way the valuable kilns and stores of clay and wheels and vehicles, etc., all became my property. I had them valued, and was pleasurably surprised to discover that they were worth at least 25,000 dinars.

      “A full two years had now passed since my first coming to this happy and secluded valley where Allah had poured out upon me His blessings in so marvellous a fashion. I was lonely, as you may imagine, but I manfully faced my duty. I continued to supervise and extend my manufactory of pipkins which now provided these articles for more than half the households of the State. I therefore could and did put the price of these useful articles upon a basis which, if it was somewhat higher than that to which people had grown accustomed during my earlier manipulations, had the priceless advantage of security, so that the housewife could always know exactly what she had to disburse—and I what I should receive. As I manufactured upon so large a scale my overhead charges. …”

      “What are overhead …” began the eldest nephew, when his uncle, visibly perturbed, shouted “Silence! … You have made me forget what I was going to say!”

      There was an awkward pause, during which the old man restored his ruffled temper and proceeded:

      “I was able to buy clay more cheaply and better than the private pipkin-makers (for so they were now called, with well merited contempt) who still vainly attempted to compete with me, and my business automatically grew as the poor remnant of theirs declined.

      “Not only did I continually increase in wealth by these somewhat obvious methods, but also in the power of controlling property; for when some fresh fool among my fellow pipkin-makers found himself in difficulties, it was my practice to seek him secretly, to condole with him upon what I had heard was his approaching misfortune, and to save him from ruin by taking over the whole of his stock. Nay! I would do more. I would rescue him from the sad necessity of attempting some new unknown trade by taking him into my own employment at a generous salary (but upon a monthly agreement); with a pretty concession to sentiment I would even leave him to manage his own dear old booth in the bazaar to which so many years had now accustomed him. I look back with pleasure upon the tears of gratitude which stood in the eyes of those to whom I extended such favours.

      “So things went on for one more year, and another, and another, till the fifth year of my sojourn among these simple people was completed.

      “I was in complete control of the pipkin trade, making all the pipkins that the nation needed, and free from any rival. The house which I had built for myself was the finest in the place, but covered, I humbly add, with many a sacred text. Above its vast horseshoe gate, ablaze with azure tiles, was inscribed in gold the sentence, ‘Wealth is of God alone.’

      “I was popularly known as ‘Melek-al-Tawajin,’ or the Pipkin King, but officially decorated with the local title of ‘Warzan Dahur,’ which was the highest they knew and signifies ‘Leader in battle.’ I was entitled to wear a sword with a silver hilt in a jewelled scabbard, an ornament of which I was justly proud, but the blade of which I very sensibly kept blunt lest my servant should cut himself when he polished it, or even I should inadvertently do myself a mischief when I pulled it out with a flourish to display it to my guests, or saluted with it on parade. I had become a most intimate companion of the Court and was the most trusted counsellor of the King, to whose wives also I often lent small sums of money; nor did I ask to be repaid.

      “In such a situation I mused upon my condition, and felt within me strange promptings for a new and larger life. I was now well advanced in manhood, I was filled with desires for action and device which the narrow field of that happy but restricted place could not fulfil. I longed for adventurous action in a larger world.

      “The output and consumption of pipkins was at an exact unchangeable level; the revenue a fixed amount. The profit of the trade I held came to some 20,000 dinars in the year, the full purchase of which should be, say, 200,000 dinars.

      “I prayed earnestly for guidance, and one night as I so prayed an idea was revealed to me by the Most High.

      “I approached the King and told him how, all my life, I had nourished the secret belief that a trade necessary to the whole community should not, in justice, be controlled by a private individual, but should rather be the full property of the State, of which His Majesty was the sole guardian.

      “The King listened to me with rapt attention as I unfolded with an inspired eloquence my faith that no one man should intercept profits which were due to the work of all. ‘It is your majesty,’ I cried, ‘who alone should have control over what concerns the body corporate of your people.’ He and he alone should superintend the purchase of pipkins, should regulate their sales, should receive all sums paid for them, and should use that revenue as he might think best for himself and the commonwealth. ‘While I was struggling in the dust and confusion of commercial life,’ I concluded, ‘I had no leisure to work out my scheme in its entirety, nor even to appreciate its serene equity—but now … now, I see, I understand, I know!’

      “Carried away by the fire of my conviction, my Royal Master could no longer brook delay. He bade me put the idea in its main lines before him at once, and assured me it should at once be put into execution.

      “I thereupon pulled out a paper showing that since I was fully agreeable to take no more than the cash value of the trade plus goodwill and plus certain probable gains which I might reasonably expect in the future, I would be amply compensated if I were to hand all over to the Commonwealth for the merely nominal sum of half a million dinars—500,000. ‘A sum which,’ I continued, ‘is of little moment to your Majesty; especially as it will be met by the taxation of your willing and loyal subjects.’

      “The matter was at once concluded. My great act of renunciation was everywhere acclaimed with transports of public joy. Every honour was heaped upon me. The King himself pronounced my panegyric at the farewell banquet given in my honour, and an inscription was ordered to be encrusted in the most gorgeous tiles on the chief gate of the city: ‘On the tenth day of the month Shaaban in the three hundred and third year from the Flight of the Prophet, by the act of Mahmoud the Magnificent all citizens became in the matter of Pipkins his common heirs.’ ”

      The Merchant had been so moved by these old memories that he had difficulty in proceeding. He was silent for a few moments, and then ended in a more subdued tone.

      “The sum of 500,000 dinars, well packed, will load without discomfort some dozen camels. These and their drivers were provided me by a grateful nation. I passed out of the town at sunrise, attended by a vast concourse of the populace who pressed round me in a delirium of grateful cries, and so took my way eastward across the mountains and left this happy vale forever.”

      At that moment the detestable falsetto of the Muezzin was heard from the neighbouring minaret, and the boys, all dazed at the recital of such triumphs, left the presence of their uncle as though it had been that of a God.

      AL-KANTARA

      That is:

       The Bridge