Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/152

136 "Ah &hellip; Ah! That is Russia." My further attempts netted no better result, for the mullah only strengthened his previous assertion.

"That is the same thing, just as it is with us. Berbers of different tribes are always Berbers."

I was on the point of making further efforts at clarification, when the professor again interrupted with a statement that awakened my deepest curiosity.

"Now I shall tell you something which is a bond between you and ourselves," he said with the light of intense interest in his eyes. "A prophet existed, called Abd Allah, whom some maintained to be a true prophet, while others held him as false. Of himself he spoke as an unrevealed Imam, adding that the span of humanity is divided into eight periods, during each one of which a prophet is born, a prophet-messenger of Allah. Six of these periods have already passed and have counted their six prophets, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mahomet Abd Allah proclaimed himself the Messiah of the seventh period. A year ago a letter from the Imams of the Russian Moslems was circulated in Maghreb, in which it was stated that we were to recognize the advent of the eighth period with the coming of the eighth prophet, or Messiah, Lenine, whose spiritual substitute in Africa was Abd el-Krim. This leader is to begin a Holy War that is to separate forever the Faithful from the unbelievers and to divide the earth into two parts, a pure one, where Islam shall flourish, and an impure one, the lands of the rumis (Europeans). It is to be accomplished in seven years and three weeks. Among the ulema of other Moslem countries there are many who accept this