A True Story
The great scholar, Mr. M A Sheikho, was lying on his bed, groaning quietly, breathing deeply from time to time, and then stopping breathing for a while. His face was colored with a feverish redness, and drops of sweat fell from his forehead so that they wet his pillow. He had a severe fever, and it had progressed to a severe stage that led to him losing consciousness. The room he rested in was medium-sized, with his bed lying on the right side of the room, with a medium-sized cupboard settled on the opposite side.
An extremely precious and luxurious Persian carpet lay in one of the corners of the room. It was still wrapped up, just as it had been when Mr. M A Sheikho had bought it a few days beforehand, before he had become confined to bed after being afflicted with this severe fever.
Two or three days passed before the honorable master recovered consciousness, his temperature decreased, and his face returned to a more natural color than its previous shade of red. He then started to eat small portions of food.
Although he had recovered from his fever, the effects of this illness on him were still apparent.
Another day passed, and Mr. M A Sheikho had obviously improved to the point that he could sit upright and walk, and so he returned to living his life as usual.
A few days later, while sitting on his bed having a small breakfast, he noticed the absence of the new carpet which he had left lying in the corner of the room before he fell sick. He began to wonder where it might be! It had disappeared! Might his pure wife have taken it and spread it out on the floor of one of the other rooms?!
If not, where might it have gone?!
After he had finished his breakfast and got up, he picked up his little table and went down to the kitchen where his wife was still cleaning the room. He handed her the little table then asked her,
“Oh, Om Fathi, where have you put the new carpet?”
She answered in astonishment, “Is it not in the corner of your room?”
He said in bewilderment, “No, it is nowhere to be found in my room.”
She replied, “The last thing I knew about it, it was in the corner of your room.”
He said, “Yes, that’s true… I remember that it was there before I got ill, but I can’t find it now, so where could it be?!”
He and his wife started searching for the carpet everywhere, but they were unable to find it.
Thus it seemed that the carpet had been robbed… but how?!
And who could it be who would dare to rob a carpet from right inside the room of the manager of the citadel and the prison?!
Our officer, Mr. M A Sheikho, was feeling worried as he put on his uniform. He then went hastily out into his work base in Damascus Citadel, where he looked through the lists he had previously prepared, detailing the names of many criminals and people who had been previously convicted. He got hold of each of these suspects and interrogated them. However, this inquest did not achieve its intended result.
Our officer, Mr. M A Sheikho, became steadily more interested and absorbed in the case. His concern was not for the carpet itself; rather, the focus of his interest was limited to knowing how the thief had been able to enter his house and steal the carpet without being noticed by anyone!!
This case had made him feel weary, and there was no real sign of a positive result.
One day, a man told him that he could reveal the identity of the thief by using necromancy. Our officer replied, “How could this be?”
(At that time, God had not yet revealed His lofty guidance or His Holy Qur’anic revelations to him.)
The man said, “Oh, honorable officer! If you should only go to this necromancer, he will discover the identity of the robber. Moreover, he will tell you how somebody was able to fulfill this theft through employing necromancy about such matters”.
Obviously, an expression of great interest appeared on our officer’s noble countenance, and he asked the man to show him the way to the necromancer. They then went to him together. When they arrived, Mr. M A Sheikho entered and informed the necromancer about the case of the theft, whereby the latter told him not to worry about the matter, for his problem would be solved. He called a boy who was playing in the courtyard, asking him to come inside to him, and then he ordered him to sit in order to apply his necromancy. The boy sat with his face bent over a container filled with hot water, looking at the water. The necromancer took a towel and put it over the boy’s small head, so that the steam from the water suffused his face. The necromancer then then sat close to him, murmuring in vague words, “Hary… Bary… You, appear! Jai… Mai… I abjure you; you… Ahdoosh! Tawoosh!”
A few minutes had passed by the time the man stopped his murmuring, and then he asked the boy, “What do you see now?”
The boy replied, “I can see the market, Souq Al-Hamidiyah.”[51] Then he started describing what he was witnessing, “Here I am passing by the entrance of Souq Al-Hamidiyah, and here I am coming to a lane called Souq AL-Taweel that leads to a shrine.”
The boy continued, “Here is the shrine called the shrine of AL-Say’yeda Jabiyah. Now, here is 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 of these doors is a wicket[52] (called ‘bab khokha’ in Arabic).”
The boy continued to describe the images he could see before him on the surface of the water. “This wicket belongs to a Damascus house with a wide courtyard, and with an old well that is out of order lying to the left side of the wicket. Opposite this there is an old staircase that leads to a big, upper-storey room, inside which there is a big wooden box that is adorned and inlaid with white shells.
“There it is! There it is! A new carpet, all wrapped up, with fresh, bright colors which indicate that it is new.”
The necromancer said, “What else do you see, boy? Do you see anything else?”
The boy said, “No, now I see nothing but the carpet which is in the middle of the box.”
When the boy’s vision ended with this image of the carpet, the necromancer raised the cloth from the boy’s head. At this point our officer, Mr. M A Sheikho, said in joy and astonishment: “So, it is my stolen carpet inside this box.”
The necromancer said in response, “Yes… Yes it is.”
Mr. M A Sheikho then began to become optimistic because of what he had heard, and whispered to the necromancer, “Let’s go now. Bring your tools of necromancy with you, and come along with me to the site in question.”
All of them got up and left the place. They walked along the same path that had just been witnessed by the boy while under the influence of necromancy. They moved 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 place with the wooden doors, where the sixth one was a wicket (‘bab khokha’).
Hence, all that the boy had witnessed was true, and necromancy does not lie.
Mr. M A Sheikho sent for the mayor of the quarter and ordered him to inspect the house, and specifically the box inside the upstairs room.
At that time, the mayor of the quarter had amicably been given a broad remit by the inhabitants of the quarter, as most of them liked him and thought of him as a merciful father to them all.
The mayor presented himself to the great officer, Mr. M A Sheikho, and then they all headed for the house in question. The group was composed of the officer, two policemen, the mayor, the necromancer and the boy. When they reached the house, the mayor, who was standing to the right of the door nearby our officer Mr. M A Sheikho, knocked loudly for admittance.
The door opened a little, and from behind it, a woman’s voice answered the mayor’s knock:
“Who is knocking?”
She remained behind and slightly to the right of the door in order not to be seen by anyone (this was a time when women were completely veiled).
The mayor answered: “I am the father of such and such, the mayor. We want to enter, my daughter, so open the way for us.”
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 this 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 then refuse to open it again when she became aware of the arrival of an officer and two policemen to inspect the house. To prevent this, Mr. M A Sheikho put his foot between the bottom of the door and its sill as the mayor continued talking with the woman. Then she concealed herself in one of the rooms with the rest of the women of the house, while the mayor waited for a few moments before entering the house with the rest of the group.
The officer, Mr. M A Sheikho, was longing to see the rest of the details that the boy had witnessed, so after the door was opened, he rushed toward the well, and then looked opposite it and saw the old wooden staircase lying in the same place as described. They were indeed old, just as the boy had told them. The mayor and the rest of the group followed the officer in haste without knowing the cause of his hurry, but they kept in step with what our officer Mr. M A Sheikho wanted.
As for our officer, he was getting more certain of the truth and the great revelation that was contained in this necromancy.
Wherever he turned, he found that what he saw before him corresponded to the details that had been described by the boy.
They entered the room the boy had described, and there they found the locked and adorned wooden box.
The mayor went back to the room in which the women were concealed, and called from behind the door, “We want to open the wooden box. Is there any objection to this, or anything inside which we should not see?”
The woman said: “No, no… It is under your orders; it contains nothing but some winter clothes. Here is its key.” She then opened the door slightly and from inside, threw out a big key. The mayor took a few steps forward and stooped to take up the key, and then returned to the room to open the box. However, when he raised its cover, the necromancer was amazed. Alas! The box contained only some winter clothes and there was no carpet inside it, and the vision of the boy had come to nothing!
Mr. M A Sheikho did not expect such a result after all the previous facts had corresponded exactly to what the boy had witnessed.
So, the carpet was not there, but how could such a thing have happened?!
Thereupon, he turned to the necromancer, saying, “Come now, quickly, and practice your necromancy again, so that we will discover the location of the carpet.”
The necromancer followed his order.
He hastily arranged for the boy to bend his face over the container of water again, and started his magical murmuring, and then asked the boy, “What can you see now?”
The boy said, “I can see the market of Souq Al-Hamidiyah.”
The necromancer continued to press him. “What else?”
The boy continued describing his vision, “I can see a large department store filled with different kinds of carpets… The carpets are lengthwise, stacked row by row along the walls.”
The necromancer said: “Can you see anything else?”
He replied: “No, it is just a store for selling carpets, with the upper floor filled with carpets.”
When the officer Mr. M A Sheikho heard this, his thoughts sailed outwards, making some calculations, and when his thoughts guided him to a result, he said to the mayor, “Is the house owner a carpet merchant?!”
The mayor said: “Oh, master! By God, I don’t remember, but wait a moment.”
He went hastily down to the room of the women, and called out to them from in front of the closed door, “At what does the householder work? Is he a merchant of carpets?”
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 the right thinking of our officer Mr. M A Sheikho, who had perceived the reality of the matter in detail.
He had unveiled the secret of such a merchant of carpets. Such a man will sell a carpet, and then send someone out to follow the buyer home, in order to know the exact address of their house. Then on the same night, or whenever he has the chance, he will send his thieves to rob the carpet and bring it back to his store.
The mayor looked at the officer master who had sunk into thought, so that his appearance was colored with the stain of earnestness. The mayor then asked him, “What shall you do now, master?”
The officer turned slowly to the mayor who had interrupted his train of thought, and said in a prolonged voice, “Now… Now…” Then he rushed quickly into action, ordering the two gendarmes and the rest of the group to come along and follow him quickly. He went down the stairs hastily, accompanied by the two gendarmes who were running alongside him, and followed by the mayor. The necromancer was also close behind, having poured the water out of its container and taken note of the name of the merchant. Mr. M A Sheikho walked from a lane into Souq Al-Hamidiyah, where he headed for the largest carpet store there, first asking about the owner of the store, from whom he remembered buying the carpet. When he arrived, he found that the store exactly corresponded to the description given by the boy, meaning that the owner of the house was one and the same as the owner of this carpet store. There he was, sitting on a chair behind a big table, and drinking a cup of green tea.
When he saw Mr. M A Sheikho and the others behind him, he got up quickly and went to Mr. M A Sheikho, who began addressing him in annoyance, “Is it appropriate to do such a deed? Is it permissible? You sell your carpet to a customer, and then you send someone to rob it from his house!! Is this legal commerce? What trade is this, man!? And why did you rob my carpet after you had sold it to me?”
The merchant stumbled and his skin turned as yellow as that of a dead man, and then he said in confusion and with difficulty, “I’m… No… No sir… I did not rob anything… I don’t steal.”
Our officer replied forcefully, “And yet you did… You robbed my carpet, and necromancy is witness to this – do you accuse it of lying??”
The merchant could not do anything except swear by God, denying ever being involved with such ugly doings. Nonetheless, Mr. M A Sheikho was sure that this merchant was a big thief since the necromancy had asserted that this was the case; otherwise, had the vision of the boy and his revelation of the theft come out of nothing? Would 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 him personally, him and nobody else?? Our officer shouted to his men, “Come on! Throw him down.” Then he took his lash in his hand, preparing himself to thrash this robber and head of merchants, and chastise him for his immoral act. Within moments, the big merchant had been thrown down on the ground, with his legs in the air.
Meanwhile, before the lash could reach his feet, a group of merchants came in who had heard the raised voices and the noise, and had been made aware of the arrival of the gendarmes. All of this made them come as quickly as they could to see what was the matter. When they saw their leader lying down on the ground, they were extremely astonished and uttered at the same time, “What’s the matter? What’s the matter, our master?!”
The officer master then lowered the hand that he had raised in the air, holding the lash; he did not beat the merchant but turned to them, exposing the thief by saying, “He is a robber. He sold me a carpet and within a few days he had robbed it from my house… What boldness!”
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 let the man go, and he got up, dusting off his clothes.
He had never expected to face such a fate at all, where a necromancer would be able to unveil him and inform an officer about him.
The merchant gave the officer master a carpet similar to the one he had lost. It was so similar to it that it could yet have been the self-same carpet. He ordered the gendarmes to carry it and left the store, followed by the necromancer and the two gendarmes carrying the carpet.
Our officer, Mr. M A Sheikho, wished to recover the losses of all of the people who had been swindled by this merchant and to start an official investigation into this occurrence. The problem was that the government did not accept necromancy as a legal eyewitness, so he could do nothing but regain what was his own by right. He did so, and because of this the merchant’s spirit would no longer dare to allow itself to enter the house of Mr. M A Sheikho.
Outside the store, the gladness that he was feeling was expressed clearly on the face of our officer.
The results that had been attained would have been impossible to achieve without the use of necromancy, and these results pleased him greatly. Because he was so impressed, he asked the necromancer to teach him how to use this power to expose criminals and thieves. The necromancer replied “As you like, sir.”
They continued walking side by side as the necromancer taught Mr. M A Sheikho the rules of practicing necromancy, and then he gave him his container, saying, “This is for you, and I will get another one for myself.”
Mr. M A Sheikho bid him farewell, and they separated after our officer had paid him an ample fee for his services. Then our officer continued onwards to his house, with the two gendarmes carrying the carpet behind him.
Days and months, and then a year, and then a second year passed. Eventually, one day, one of the convicts asked for a meeting with the manager of the citadel prison, Mr. M A Sheikho. The criminal told the officer in his hoarse voice, “Sir… Sir… I want to tell you about something that happened… Two years ago, a criminal named such and such robbed a carpet from your house… He broke into your house and stole it.”
Mr. M A Sheikho was astonished at what he had heard and said with great interest, “Are you sure of what you are saying?”
He said, “By God sir, I say nothing but the truth, and the proof of my honesty is that I know that you were sick at that time, and that you lost consciousness because of a severe fever.”
The thief of the carpet had told 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 manager of the prison, Mr. M A Sheikho, against his former friend.
That tale astonished Mr. M A Sheikho and greatly surprised him, to the point that he asked himself, “Did this necromancy deceive us? But how? How could the boy have witnessed all that he witnessed? Moreover, all the witnesses agreed with the facts, and now the result has proved to be wrong!!”
Can it have been possible? But these were the facts.
Mr. M A Sheikho brought the man who had been accused of stealing his carpet before him, and he interrogated him: “Two years ago, you robbed a carpet from my house, did you not?”
The criminal replied in amazement (as he was surprised at having himself revealed after such a long time), “No sir, I did not.”
Officer Mr. M A Sheikho said, “You! Admit the truth! You are the culprit and I have witnesses that can testify that this is the case.”
When the man did not confess, our officer, Mr. M A Sheikho, ordered the gendarmes to throw him down, and then he heaped fifty lashes of his whip upon him. He then threatened him with these lashes as his daily share at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and promised that he would imprison him in the prison dungeon below ground. This treatment would continue until the man confessed the truth. At once the criminal shouted entreatingly and promised to admit the truth. The officer stopped whipping him, and the gendarmes released him, and he got up and sat there, defeated. He then spoke quietly, “It is true sir. Two years ago I stole a carpet from your house.”
Mr. M A Sheikho asked, “In what way?”
The criminal continued his story, saying, “While I was at home I was suddenly attacked by a patrol composed of many gendarmes, so I quickly made my way to the roof of my house. From there I ran from one rooftop to another in flight from your patrol, sir. I continued going from roof to roof until I came to a building with a lemon tree nearby. This tree grew tall enough to reach the roof, so I went down this tree, suffering the pricking of its spines, until I was opposite an open window. I looked inside the room and found a sleeping man within, 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 remained asleep. 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 controlled myself when I saw that your face was colored with a feverish redness. I could see clearly that you were suffering from a severe fever that had made you unconscious… It was only then that I discovered that the patrol which was chasing me was not under your leadership.
“I noticed the handle of a pistol under the edge of your pillow, and I quickly stretched out my hand and snatched it away. I then loaded it, aimed it at your head and pulled the trigger, but as it did not fire, I tried to fire again and again but without avail (the firing mechanism had become inoperative). I looked around me and found a new, wrapped-up carpet 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 had got far enough away from your house and came to the fields, I took the pistol out and pulled the trigger again, and this time the gun fired from the first attempt. It was a very strange thing sir. I do not know why the pistol did not fire when it was aimed at you, but when I was outside, it fired on the first attempt.”
The house of Mr. M A Sheikho was done in an Arabic building style and had two floors, an upper and a lower one. It was located in the quarter of Al-Mohajereen. 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 descending staircase lay behind the main door leading to it.
So, the thief had entered the room of Mr. M A Sheikho on the upper floor, and when he had left, he had gone directly from this room to the main door leading out into the street. Because of this, nobody had noticed him sneaking into the house.
Just then Mr. M A Sheikho remembered the secret of the vanishing pistol, but he had not realized that it had vanished just at the same time that the carpet had also disappeared. Mr. M A Sheikho was responsible for the arsenal in the citadel, and could choose whatever arms he wanted. Because of this, when he lost his pistol, he thought that he had forgotten to bring his substitute with him and nothing more than this. However, now he knew what had really happened with this pistol.
Mr. M A Sheikho asked: “Where is the carpet now?”
The criminal answered: “It is in my sister’s house, in the village of Dooma.”
Our officer then took the criminal with him, and they went together to his sister’s house where they found the carpet. It was still wrapped up rather than spread out on the ground. His sister had dared not spread it out lest her brother might one day be angry with her if he asked her for the carpet back, and then found it spread out on the ground and covered in dirt. She had thought that then he would beat her, and so she had left it wrapped up for the time being.
The gendarmes picked up the carpet, and took it back to the house of Mr. M A Sheikho. After he had given the pistol back to its owner, the criminal was submitted to another trial in the citadel prison.
So it had become clear that necromancy and its practitioners tell lies, and he who believes an astrologer has disbelieved the prophets.
With great enthusiasm our great officer, Mr. M A Sheikho, immediately began to invite some of the big merchants in the market of Souq Al-Hamidiyah to a lunch banquet, with the big carpet merchant among them. He emphasized that the merchants he invited should bring the big carpet merchant to the banquet with them. It was time for lunch when the merchants came, bringing this head of the carpet merchants with them. Mr. M A Sheikho received them with great hospitality and asked them to sit down; then, to the surprise of all, and guided by the principle of equity on which his noble spirit rested, he sat on the floor, raised up his legs upon a chair and tied them up with a rope. He then threw his lash to the carpet merchant and shouted to him: “Come on! Get up and beat me, because you are an innocent man and I unjustly accused you of thievery. Your innocence has become clear to me, and the falsity of necromancy and its practitioner, the astrologer, have been unveiled.”
The attendees were astonished at what they saw: the big 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 beat him, and so Mr. M A Sheikho said to him: “If you don’t beat me, I shall beat you. Come on and beat me as I order you.”
Thereupon, a merchant interrupted him, saying, “But sir, we quite remember that you threw him down, so that his position was just like yours now, but you did not beat him; and here and now you have lain down like him, so why do you want him to beat you?!”
The carpet merchant said: “That’s true sir, you did not beat me, and so I will not beat you.”
Mr. M A Sheikho then got up and apologized to the merchant, once again announcing his innocence before all the attendees.