Page:The young Moslem looks at life (1937).djvu/20

 every day would be full of interesting sights and new wonders.

Already he was discovering that, though many miles away from home, all the Moslems whom he met were his brothers. They all used the same holy Koran. They all said their prayers in Arabic with him just as the Moslems did back in Kashgar, and as he knew he would find them doing all over India.

They found themselves in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, on a Friday, the Moslem Sabbath, so they said their prayers in the great mosque with thousands of the faithful. Mohammed Beg was interested in what he saw, and often surprised. As for old Abdullah, he was shocked and horrified. There was so much hustle and bustle in Srinagar, so many tooting automobiles rushing about, that they were afraid to cross the street. The buildings, too, were so different. They were told they were patterned after the architecture of Wilaiyat (Europe).

On that Friday in Srinagar, when all the good Moslems he knew left their work and closed their shops to observe the Sabbath of Islam, Mohammed Beg noticed that some Moslem merchants bought and sold as usual. This gave him a rude shock, for in Kashgar the bazaars closed from sunset Thursday night until sunset Friday night, the Sabbath period.

The next day bright and early they took their seats in the bus that was to take them on the next stage of their journey. It was their first ride in an automobile. Faster than they had ever dreamed possible