If the end is to pass through life with the minimum of suffering,
disdaining all vain striving, and to die entranced by radiant hopes, the
Orientals are the only wise men. But now that greedy nations beset them
on all sides their dreaming is no longer possible. They must awake,
alas.

They must awake; and already the awakening is at hand. Here, in Egypt,
where the need is felt to change so many things, it is proposed, too,
to reform the old university of El-Azhar, one of the chief centres of
Islam. One thinks of it with a kind of fear, knowing what danger there
is in laying hands upon institutions which have lasted for a thousand
years. Reform, however, has, in principle, been decided upon. New
knowledge, brought from the West, is penetrating into the tabernacle
of the Fatimites. Has not the Prophet said: "Go; seek knowledge far and
wide, if needs be even into China"? What will come of it? Who can tell?
But this, at least, is certain: that in the dazzling hours of noon,
or in the golden hours of evening, when the crowd of these modernised
students spreads itself over the vast courtyard, overlooked by its
countless minarets, there will no longer be seen in their eyes the
mystic light of to-day; and it will no longer be the old unshakable
faith, nor the lofty and serene indifference, nor the profound peace,
that these messengers will carry to the ends of the Mussulman
earth. . . .



CHAPTER VI

IN THE TOMBS OF THE APIS