Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/128

112 God bade me say that there below, where the two rivers meet and flow away through the thicket of shrubs and trees, there existed eighteen centuries ago the great, rich city of an unknown people, which has left naught but its tombs. This city was called Sef and is to be rebuilt by a man bearing the name of Idris and sprung from the family of the Eastern Prophet.

"'Glory to the name of Allah!' cried the enraptured sultan. 'I am from the family of Mahomet, the Prophet, and my name is Idris. I have come here to build a city where all of the ninety-nine names of the Lord Creator shall be repeated and the law of his Prophet shall run through all the land.'"

This coming of the second ruler of the house of Idris took place on February third, 808 A.D., when the quarters of Adua el-Andaluse and Adua el-Kairween were begun and soon encircled with walls to defend them against the attacks of the terrible Negro, Khabal, who then ravaged the country. The courageous Sais, one of the generals of Idris, fought and vanquished the Negro and brought under the sultan's domination all the tribes located in the valleys of the Fez and Sbu rivers.

Then Sultan Mulay Idris gave orders that the beautiful gate, Bab Ifrikiya, or the African Gate, should be open from sunrise to sunset to all travelers—both to the Faithful and to foreigners. The author of the work entitled Rawd el-Kirtas, written in Fez in 1326 when this town was really the center of Moslem wisdom and science, the focal point of all Maghreb and even appealing to the imagination of peoples in foreign lands, records this legend of the creation of Fez and of the events