Page:Islam, Turkey, and Armenia, and How They Happened.djvu/50

44 the angels descend from heaven and complete it. Mohamet permitted the pilgrims to be engaged in commerce on their way to and from Mecca. This attract many people from Persia and India and other parts of the Mohametan world to profit themselves from these yearly religious fairs and bazars. The chances of highway robbery attract many believers to rub their faces on the threshhold of the house of Allah and make seven circuits a day around the Kabeh, each time kissing the angel stone fallen from heaven.

4. Alms and Tithes. Alms is an important duty demanded from a Moslem. "Oh! merchants," says Mohamet, "falsehood and deception are apt to prevail in traffic; purify it, therefore, with alms; give something in charity as an atonement, for God is incensed by deceit in dealing, but charity appeases his anger." By observing the lives of Mohametans one can easily see that they plunder and steal with one hand and give alms with the other. Such teachings as the above-quoted passage encourages them to robbery. A copper to a wayside beggar or a morsel of bread to a dog is regarded the very means of purification of the soul. The most bloody tyrant may erect a mosque or a bridge with one part of the money he has plundered from the Christians, and he is noted as one of the benefactors of the human race. On his funeral day his coffin is carried over the shoulders of thousands, and every believer passing by his grave stops a moment with high reverence and deep admiration and repeats his prayer for the