The great scholar M. A. Sheikho, was lying on his bed in a simply furnished room groaning softly, breathing deeply from time to time, and then seeming to stop breathing for a while. His face was flushed with fever, and sweat ran from his forehead to his pillow. He had a high fever, which had become so severe that he lost consciousness.
An extremely precious and luxurious Persian carpet lay in a corner of the room still wrapped up, just as it had been when Mohammad Amin had bought it a few days previously, before he fell ill and was confined to bed.
The honourable officer remained unconscious for several days and all those about him were concerned for his health, but then, finally, his temperature began to decrease, and his face gradually returned to a more natural colour. He slowly started to eat small portions of food which would help him to recover his strength.
Although he had overcome the fever, it was clear that he was still weak as an after effect of the illness. But he grew stronger with each passing day whereby he was able not only to sit up but to walk a few steps. Showing his customary strength he quickly returned to living his life as usual.
A few days later, while sitting on his bed having a light breakfast, he noticed that the new carpet, which he had left in the corner of the room before he fell sick, had gone. He wondered where it might be! It had disappeared! Could his kindly, upright wife have taken it to put it down on the floor of another room in the house?
If not, where could it have gone?!
After finishing his breakfast he took the tray with his breakfast dishes down to the kitchen where his wife was still cleaning. He handed her the tray and then asked her, ‘Oh, [131] Um Fathi, where have you put the new carpet?’
She asked in astonishment, ‘Isn’t it in the corner of your room?’
Amin replied in bewilderment, ‘No, I’ve looked around the room and I can’t find it.’
She replied, ‘The last thing I knew about it, it was on the floor in the corner of your room.’
He said, ‘Yes, that’s true… I remember that it was there before I became ill, but I can’t find it now. Where could it be?’
He and his wife started searching everywhere for the carpet, but they were unable to find it.
It seemed that it had simply disappeared or even been stolen… but how?
And who would dare to steal a carpet from under the very nose of the director of the citadel and the prison…?
Our officer, M. A. Sheikho, was feeling worried as he put on his uniform. He then hurried to his office in Damascus Citadel, where he looked through the lists he always maintained detailing the names of many criminals and people who had been convicted in the past. He brought in each of these suspects one by one and interrogated them. However, this investigation failed to achieve its desired result.
Officer Mohammad Amin became steadily more absorbed in the case. His concern was not for the carpet itself; rather, the main focus of his interest was to find out exactly how the thief had been able to enter his house and steal the carpet without being seen by anyone! He was bored and exasperated by this case and there was still no sign of a positive result.
One day, a man told him that he could reveal the identity of the thief by using sorcery. Our officer asked,
‘How could this be?’
(At that time, one should note, God had not yet revealed His lofty Guidance or His Holy Qur’anic Revelations to Mohammad Amin.)
The man said, ‘Oh, honourable officer! Just go to this sorcerer (and he gave him a name) and he will discover the identity of the robber. What’s more, he’ll tell you how somebody was able to carry out this theft by using his powers of divination.
Needless to say, our officer was extremely interested, so he asked the man to show him the way to the sorcerer and they then set off together. When they arrived, Officer Sheikho entered and gave the sorcerer the details of the theft, and in turn he was soon told not to worry for his problem would be quickly solved. He called a boy who was playing in the courtyard and asked him to come inside. The boy did as the sorcerer directed him: he sat with his face bent over a container filled with water, concentrating on what he might see on the surface. The sorcerer covered the boy’s small head with a towel and then sat close to him, murmuring gibberish, ‘Hary… Bary… You, appear! Jai… Mai… I abjure you; you… Ahdoosh! Tawoosh!’
A few minutes passed and the man stopped his murmuring, and asked the boy, ‘What do you see now?’
The boy replied, ‘I can see the market, Souq al-Hamidiyah.’[132]Then he started describing what he could see, ‘I am passing the entrance of Souq al-Hamidiyah, and going towards a lane called Souq al-Taweel that leads to a shrine.’
The boy continued, ‘…this is the shrine of al-Say’yeda Jabiyah. [133] Now, here’s another lane that starts from Souq al- Souf stretching before me… and on the right side of the entrance to this lane there are many houses with wooden doors. The sixth door is a wicket door [134] (bab khokha in Arabic).
The boy continued to describe the images he could see before him on the surface of the water. ‘This wicket door belongs to a Damascus house with a wide courtyard, and an old, unused well, lying to the left of the wicket. Opposite this there is an old staircase leading to a big room on the upper floor… inside this room there’s a big wooden chest… adorned and inlaid with white shells.
‘There it is… there it is! A new carpet, all wrapped up… with fresh, bright colours showing that it’s new.’
The sorcerer asked, ‘What else do you see, boy? Do you see anything else?’
The boy replied, ‘No, now I see nothing but the carpet inside the box.’
When the boy’s vision ended with this image of the carpet, the sorcerer removed the cloth from the boy’s head.
At this point our officer, Mohammad Amin, said with joy and astonishment, ‘So, is that my stolen carpet inside this box?’
‘Yes Sir! Yes, it is,’ replied the sorcerer.’
Mohammad Amin felt a growing sense of optimism at what he had been told, and whispered to the sorcerer, ‘Let’s go! Bring what you need to practise your divining and come with me to the place in question.’
All of them got up and set off together. They walked along the same path that the boy had just seen while under the influence of clairvoyance. They progressed as the boy had seen in his vision from one place to another, and from one lane to another, until they reached the lane that was their goal. There, sure enough, just as in the boy’s vision, they saw before them the lane with the wooden doors, with the sixth one being a wicket door.
Hence, so far all that the boy had said was true, and it would seem that sorcery does not lie. However, it is most important to ask oneself did this young boy truly have such powers of divination or was his mind controlled by the sorcerer?
M. A. Sheikho sent for the mayor of the quarter and ordered him to search the house, and specifically the chest in the upstairs room.
At that time, the mayor of the quarter, a good man, had been given, unofficially, a broad remit by the inhabitants of the quarter, as most of them liked him and thought of him as a kindly father to them all.
The mayor introduced himself to the great officer, and then they all headed for the house in question. The group was composed of the officer, two policemen, the mayor, the sorcerer and the boy. When they reached the house, the mayor, who was standing to the right of the door close to Officer Sheikho, knocked loudly to ask to be let in.
The door opened just a little, and from behind it, a woman’s voice answered the mayor’s knock: ‘Who is knocking?’ She remained behind the door in order not to be seen by anyone, for this was a time when women were completely veiled.
The mayor answered, ‘I am the mayor, we want to come in, my daughter,[135]so open the door for us and step aside.’
In the meantime, our officer was looking through the opening and saw the well situated to the left of the door. This told him for certain that it was the same house that had been seen by the boy in his vision. He was worried that the woman would close the door and refuse to open it again when she realised that an officer and two policemen had come to search the premises. So, to ensure their uninhibited access, Officer Sheikho put his foot in the opening between the bottom of the door and the step as the mayor continued talking to the woman. Then she withdrew to a nearby room to join the other women of the house, while the mayor, respecting her modesty, waited for a few moments before entering the house with the other members of the group.
Mohammad Amin was longing to uncover the rest of the details that the boy had foreseen, so after the door was opened, he rushed towards the well, and then saw the old wooden staircase just opposite, lying in the same place as described. It was indeed old, just as the boy had told them. The mayor and the rest of the group rushed in behind the officer without knowing the reason for his haste, but they kept apace with our officer.
As for Mohammad Amin, he was becoming ever more certain of the truth and the great revelation contained in this sorcery for whichever way he turned, he saw that everything corresponded to the details that had been described by the boy. They entered the room the boy had described, and there they found the decorated wooden chest, locked as they expected it to be.
The mayor went back to the room where the women had taken refuge, and called from outside the door, ‘We want to open the wooden chest. Is there any objection to this, or anything inside which we should not see?’
The woman said, ‘No, no… do as you wish; it contains only some winter clothes. Here is the key.’ She then opened the door slightly and threw out a big key. The mayor took a few steps forward, stooped to pick it up, and then returned to the room to open the chest. However, when he raised the lid, the mayor was amazed. Alas! The box contained only some winter clothes as the woman had said, and there was no carpet inside. Clearly, the boy’s vision had come to nothing!… Was this because of the dubious powers of magic?
Officer Sheikho had been convinced that he was about to recover his carpet as all the details previously given by the boy had been correct until then. So, the carpet was not there, but how could such a thing have happened?… How could the boy have been so sure?
Thereupon, he turned to the magician, saying, ‘Come on, be quick… practise your magic again, so we can discover the whereabouts of the carpet.’ Whereupon the magician followed his order immediately.
He hastily arranged for the boy to bend his face over the container of water again, and started his magical muttering and then asked the boy, ‘What can you see now?’
The boy said, ‘…the market of Souq al-Hamidiyah.’ The sorcerer continued to press him, ‘What else?’
The boy continued describing his vision, ‘…a large store filled with different kinds of carpets… laid lengthwise…stacked in rows along the walls.’ ‘Can you see anything else?’ asked the sorcerer.
The boy replied, ‘No, it’s just a store for selling carpets…the upper floor is filled with them.’
When Mohammad Amin heard this, many thoughts crowded his mind, he then made some quick calculations, and rapidly reached a conclusion; he asked the mayor, ‘Is the owner of the house a carpet merchant?’
The mayor said, ‘Oh Sir! I really don’t remember, but wait a moment.’
He hurried down to the women’s room, and called out to them from outside the closed door, ‘What is the business of the householder? Is he a carpet merchant?’
One woman answered, ‘Yes, he is… And his store is located in the market of Souq al-Hamidiyah.’
The mayor came back with an answer that confirmed Amin’s train of thought as it became clear to him that he had fully understood the situation. He had discovered the secret of this devious carpet merchant. He would sell a carpet, and then send someone to follow the buyer home, in order to know the exact address of their house. Then that same night, or whenever he had the chance, he would send his thieves to steal the carpet and bring it back to his store.
The mayor looked at the chief officer who was deep in thought, and appeared to be totally preoccupied. The mayor then asked him, ‘What will you do now, Sir?’
The officer turned slowly to the mayor who had interrupted his train of thought, and said in a drawn out voice, ‘Nooow… nooow…’ Then he sprang into action, ordering the two gendarmes and the rest of the group to follow him quickly. He rushed down the stairs, with the two gendarmes running alongside him, and followed by the mayor. The sorcerer and the boy were also close behind, having poured the water out of the bowl and taken note of the merchant’s name.
Officer Sheikho strode along a lane leading into Souq al-Hamidiyah, where he headed for the largest carpet store, first asking the name of the owner of the store, the man from whom he remembered buying the carpet. When he arrived, he found that the store was exactly as described by the boy. It was clear that the owner of the house was one and the same as the owner of this carpet store. There he was, seated behind an impressive desk and drinking a cup of green tea.
When he saw Officer Sheikho and the rest of the party behind him, he stood up quickly and approached our officer, who began to address him, clearly annoyed, ‘Do you think it right to do such things? You sell your carpet to a customer, and then you send someone to steal it from his house! Is this legal business? What kind of trade is this?! And why did you steal my carpet after you had sold it to me?’
The merchant faltered and his face turned as white as a corpse, and then he stammered, ‘I am… no… no sir… I did not steal anything… I don’t steal.’
Our officer replied forcefully, ‘And yet you did… you stole my carpet, and this was confirmed by divination… do you say that it’s mistaken?’
The merchant could not do anything except swear by God and deny that he had ever been involved with such nefarious deeds. Nonetheless, officer Sheikho was sure that this merchant was a thief since divination had asserted that this was the case; otherwise, had the boy’s vision and his revelation of the theft come out of thin air? Should he disbelieve what the innocent little boy had seen with his own eyes?
Surely this merchant was the thief; otherwise, why had the boy revealed this man in particular? Our officer shouted to his men, ‘Come on! Grab him, tie him up.’ Then he took his whip and prepared to thrash the thief, the leading merchant, and chastise him for his illicit act. Within moments, the important merchant had been thrown to the ground, with his legs bound and held in the air.
Meanwhile, just before the lashing was to start, a group of merchants who had heard the hubbub and raised voices came in. They had been told of the arrival of the police and decided to come to investigate as quickly as they could to see what was going on. When they saw their leader lying down on the ground, his legs bound, they were utterly astonished and blurted out in unison, ‘What’s the matter… what’s the matter, master?’
Officer Sheikho delayed the beating, then lowered the hand holding the lash and turned to them, exposing the carpet merchant as a thief by saying, ‘He’s a thief. He sold me a carpet and within a few days he had stolen it from my house… what impudence!’
The merchants said, ‘What do you want now, Sir? Do you want a carpet to replace the one that he stole? Take any carpet you want, but please release the merchant.’ The gendarmes then released the merchant, and he got up, dusting off his clothes.
He had never expected to face such a fate whereby a sorcerer would be able to uncover his illegal tricks and tell an officer about him.
The merchant gave Officer Sheikho a carpet similar to the one he had lost. It was so similar that it could have been, in fact, the self-same carpet! He ordered the gendarmes to carry it away and he left the store, followed by the sorcerer and his two men carrying the carpet.
Our officer then decided that he wished to recover the goods of all of those people who had been swindled by this merchant and decided to start an official investigation into the matter. The problem was that the government did not accept divination as a legal source of evidence so he could do nothing but regain his own belongings. However, by doing this he ensured that the merchant’s spirit would never again allow him to enter the house of M. A. Sheikho; and surely that same merchant would be deterred from doing the same to anyone else in the future.
Outside the store, the happiness that he was feeling was expressed clearly on his face. It would have been impossible to achieve these results without the use of sorcery, and the outcome pleased him greatly. Because he was so impressed, he asked the sorcerer to teach him how to use this power to expose criminals and thieves, and he, of course, agreed.
They continued walking side by side as the magician taught Officer Sheikho the rules of practising the art, and then he gave him his container, saying, ‘This is for you, and I will get another one for myself.’ Mohammad Amin then bid him farewell, and they separated after our officer had paid him a generous fee for his services. Then our officer continued on towards his house, with the two policemen carrying the carpet behind him.
Days and months passed, then a year, and then a second year. Eventually, one day, one of the convicts in the prison asked for a meeting with the director of the citadel prison, Officer Sheikho. The criminal told the officer in his coarse voice, ‘Sir… sir… I want to tell you about something that happened… two years ago, a criminal (and here he named the man) stole a carpet from your house… he broke into your house and took it.’
Officer Sheikho was astonished at what he had just heard and said with great interest, ‘Are you sure of what you are saying?’
The inmate said, ‘By God sir, I’m telling you the absolute truth, and the proof of my honesty is that I know that you were sick at that time, and that you were unconscious because of a high fever.’
The carpet thief had related his secret to this man because these two criminals had been friends, but when a violent quarrel took place between them, the latter came to inform the director of the prison, Officer Sheikho, against his former friend.
This story astonished the officer to the point that he asked himself, ‘Did this divination deceive us? But how? How could the boy have seen all that he described? What’s more, all the witnesses agreed with the facts, and now from this new information it seems that they all were wrong!’
Was it possible? But facts are facts!
Officer Sheikho sent for the criminal who had recently been accused of stealing his carpet and interrogated him,
‘Two years ago, you stole a carpet from my house, did you not?’
The criminal replied: (in utter amazement, as he did not believe that his crime would be revealed after such a long time), ‘No sir, I did not.’
Officer Sheikho said, ‘You! Admit the truth! You’re the culprit and I have witnesses that can swear to it.’
When the man still did not confess, our officer ordered the gendarmes to throw him down, and then he gave him fifty lashes of his whip. He followed this up by threatening that the lashing would be repeated three times a day, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner time, and warned that he would be imprisoned in the prison dungeon underground. This punishment would continue until the man confessed the truth. At once the criminal begged him not to do it and promised to tell the truth. The officer stopped whipping him, and had the gendarmes release him. Although in terrible pain from the lashing he managed to get off the floor and sat there, defeated. He then spoke quietly, ‘It is true sir. Two years ago I stole a carpet from your house.’
Officer Sheikho asked how he had managed to do it.
The criminal continued his story, saying, ‘Once, while I was at home I suddenly came under attack by a large patrol of gendarmes, so I quickly made my way to the roof of my house. From there I ran from one rooftop to another fleeing from your patrol, Sir. I continued in this way going from one roof to the next until I came to a building with a lemon tree beside it. This tree was tall enough to reach the roof, so I climbed down the tree until I was opposite an open window. I looked inside the room and saw a man sleeping, so I jumped from the tree to the window, and sneaked through the window and into the room as quietly as I could. All the while, the sleeping man didn’t wake up. I crept along quietly, on the tips of my toes, and then – what a surprise! ‘The sleeping man was you sir, so my heart beat with fright at first, but I pulled myself together when I saw that your face was flushed red with fever. It was clear that you were suffering from a high fever that had made you unconscious… it was only then that I realised that the patrol which was chasing me was not being led by you.
‘I noticed the handle of a pistol poking out from under the edge of your pillow, and quickly stretched out my hand and snatched it away. I then loaded it, aimed it at your head and pulled the trigger, but it didn’t fire, so I tried to fire again and again but nothing happened, the firing pin was stuck. As I was trying to think of a way out of the mess I was in I saw a new carpet, still wrapped, lying in the corner, so I picked it up and went out, and once I got to the street I began shouting, “Carpets! Carpets!” When I was far enough away from your house and had reached the fields, I took the pistol out and pulled the trigger again, and this time the gun fired at the first attempt. It was a very strange thing Sir. I don’t know why the pistol didn’t fire when it was aimed at you, but when I was outside, it fired the first time I tried.’
It should be mentioned here that the house of M. A. Sheikho was built in the style of an Arabic building and had two floors, an upper and a lower one. It was located in the quarter of al-Muhajireen. Since this area is on the slope of the mountain, the upper floor of the house opened directly onto the street via the main door of the house, whereas the lower floor was below the level of the street and a staircase lay behind the main door and led down to it. So, the thief had entered the room of Officer Sheikho through a window on the upper floor, and when he left, he went directly from this room to the main door leading out into the street. Because of this, nobody had noticed him sneaking into the house.
At this point, Mohammad Amin remembered the mystery of the vanishing pistol, but he had not realised that it had vanished at the time that the carpet had also disappeared. Officer Sheikho was responsible for the arsenal in the citadel, and could choose whatever arms he wanted. Because of this, when he could not find his pistol, he thought that he had simply forgotten to bring his spare one. However, now he knew what had really happened to it.
‘Where’s the carpet now?’ asked Officer Sheikho.
The criminal told him that it was at his sister’s house, in the village of Douma.
Our officer then took the criminal with him, along with a couple of gendarmes for backup, and they went to his sister’s house where they found the carpet still wrapped as it had been when it was stolen. She had not dared to spread it out in case her brother came to collect it one day; if he saw it laid on the ground and covered in dust he would likely be angry with her and possibly beat her.
The gendarmes picked up the carpet and took it back to the house of Officer Sheikho. After he had given the pistol back to its owner, the criminal was sent to face another trial in the citadel prison.
So it had become clear that sorcery and its practitioners tell lies, and he who believes an astrologer has failed to believe the Prophets.
With immense enthusiasm our great officer, M. A. Sheikho, immediately began to invite some of the big merchants in the market of Souq al-Hamidiyah to a lunchtime banquet, and he stressed that the merchants he invited should bring the leading carpet merchant to the banquet with them. At the appointed time the merchants arrived, bringing the particular guest with them. Officer Sheikho received them with great hospitality and asked them to sit down; then, to the surprise of all, and guided by the principle of fairness for all on which his noble spirit rested, he sat on the floor, raised his legs onto a chair and tied them together with a rope. He then threw his lash to the carpet merchant and called to him:
‘Come on! Get up and beat me, because you are an innocent man and I unjustly accused you of theft. Your innocence has become clear to me, and the deceptiveness of sorcery and its practitioner, the astrologer, have been revealed.’
The guests were astonished at what they saw: the mighty officer, the commander of Damascus Citadel and its prison, lying down with his legs raised, asking the merchant to beat him! The merchant was also amazed and refused to bea