"No," Said The Beggar, "I Will Not
Take Them, Because I Am Convinced That God Will Send Me The Whole Of
What I Beg Of Him So Earnestly." After Repeating His Public
[P.211] supplication for some days more, the same hadjy gave him the
whole sum that he asked for; but without being thanked.
I have heard
people exclaim in the mosques at Mekka, immediately after prayers, "O
brethren, O faithful, hear me! I ask twenty dollars from God, to pay for
my passage home; twenty dollars only. You know that God is all-
bountiful, and may send me a hundred dollars; but it is twenty dollars
only that I ask. Remember that charity is the sure road to paradise."
There can be no doubt that this practice is sometimes attended with
success.
But learning and science cannot be expected to flourish in a place where
every mind is occupied in the search of gain, or of paradise; and I
think I have sufficient reason for affirming that Mekka is at present
much inferior even in Mohammedan learning to any town of equal
population in Syria or Egypt. It probably was not so when the many
public schools or Medreses were built, which are now converted into
private lodgings for pilgrims. El Fasy says, that in his time there were
eleven medreses in Mekka, besides a number of rebats, or less richly
endowed schools, which contained also lodgings for poor hadjys; many of
the Rebats in the vicinity of the mosque still remain, but are used only
as lodging-houses.
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