t, evidently bent on consolidating his religious
observances and regulating their conduct, decreed a fresh institution,
with parallels in no religion--the Adzan, or call to prayer. Mahomet
wished to summon the Believers to the Mosque, and there was no way except
to ring a bell such as the Christians use, which rite was displeasing to
the Faithful. Indeed, Mahomet is reported later to have said, "The bell
is the devil's musical instrument."

But Abdallah, a man of profound faith and love for Islam, received
thereafter a vision wherein a "spirit, in the guise of man, clad in green
garments," appeared to him and summoned him to call the Believers to
prayer from the Mosque at every time set apart for devotion.

"Call ye four times 'God is great,' and then, 'I bear witness that there
is no God but God, and Mahomet is His Prophet. Come unto prayer, come
unto salvation. God is great; there is no God but Him.'"

"A true vision," declared Mahomet. "Go and teach it to Bilal, that he may
call to prayer, for he has a better voice than thou."

When Bilal, a slave, received the command, he went up to the Mosque, and
climbing its highest minaret, he cried aloud his summons, adding at each
dawn:

"Prayer is better than sleep, prayer is better than sleep."

And when Omar heard the call, he went to Mahomet and declared that he had
the previous night received the same vision.

And Mahomet answered him, "Praise be to Allah!"

Therewith was inaugurated the most characteristic observance in Islam,
the one which impresses itself very strongly upon the Western traveller
as he hears in the dimness of every dawning, before the sun's edge is
seen in the east, the voices of the Muezzin from each mosque in the city
proclaiming their changeless message, their insistent command to prayer
and praise. He sees the city leap into magical life, the dark figures of
the Muslim hurrying to the Holy Place that lies shimmering in the golden
light of early day, and knows that, behind this outward manifestation,
lies a faith, at root incomprehensible by reason of its aloofness from
the advancing streams of modern thought, a faith spiritually impotent,
since it flees from mysticism, generating an energy which has expended
its vital force in conquest, only to find itself too intellectually
backward and physically sluggish to gather in prosperity the fruits of
its attainments. Its lack of imagination, its utter ignorance of the lure
of what is strange, have