The Call To Evening Prayer Sounds As We Enter:

None of my companions pray [20], but all when asked reply in the phrase which an Englishman hates, "Inshallah Bukra"--"if Allah please, to- morrow!"--and they have the decency not to appear in public at the hours of devotion.

The Somal, like most Africans, are of a somewhat irreverent turn of mind. [21] When reproached with gambling, and asked why they persist in the forbidden pleasure, they simply answer "Because we like." One night, encamped amongst the Eesa, I was disturbed by a female voice indulging in the loudest lamentations: an elderly lady, it appears, was suffering from tooth-ache, and the refrain of her groans was, "O Allah, may thy teeth ache like mine! O Allah, may thy gums be sore as mine are!" A well-known and characteristic tale is told of the Gerad Hirsi, now chief of the Berteri tribe. Once meeting a party of unarmed pilgrims, he asked them why they had left their weapons at home: they replied in the usual phrase, "Nahnu mutawakkilin"--"we are trusters (in Allah)." That evening, having feasted them hospitably, the chief returned hurriedly to the hut, declaring that his soothsayer ordered him at once to sacrifice a pilgrim, and begging the horror-struck auditors to choose the victim. They cast lots and gave over one of their number: the Gerad placed him in another hut, dyed his dagger with sheep's blood, and returned to say that he must have a second life.

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