the trembling, death-pale shapes, one by one, before the face of Allah, and they all stand there as transparent as crystal so that every thought of their hearts is visible—­what then will you answer, you in whose power it once stood to uphold the dominion of Mahomet, you to whom it was given to have swords in your hands and ideas in your heads to be used in its defence—­what will you answer, I say, when you hear the brazen voice cry:  ’Ye who saw destruction coming, did ye try to prevent it?’ What will it profit you then, old Vuodi and ye others, to say that ye never neglected the Abdestan, the Guezuel, and the Thueharet ablutions, nor the five prayers of the Namazat, that ye have kept the fast of Ramazan and the feast of Bejram, that ye have richly distributed the Zakato[14] and the Sadakato,[15] that you have made the pilgrimage to the Kaaba at Mecca so many times, or so many times, that you have kissed the sin-remitting black stone, that you have drunk from the well of Zemzem and seven times made the circuit of the mountain of Arafat and flung stones at the Devil in the valley of Dsemre—­what will it profit you, I say, if you cannot answer that question?  Woe to you, woe to everyone of us who see, who hear, and yet go on dreaming!  For when we tread the Bridge of Alshirat, across whose razor-sharp edge every true believer must pass on his way to Paradise, the load of a single sin will drag you down into the abyss, down into Hell, and not even into the first Hell, Gehenna, where the faithful do penance, nor into the Hell of Ladhana, where the souls of the Jews are purified, nor into the Hell of Hotama wherein the Christians perish, nor into the Hell of Sair which is the abode of the Heretics, nor into the Hell of Sakar wherein the fire-worshippers curse the fire, nor yet into the Hell of Jahim which resounds with the yells of the idol-worshippers, but into the seventh hell, the deepest and most accursed hell of all, whose name is Al-Havija, where wallow those who only did God lip-service and never felt the faith in their hearts, for we pray lying prayers when we say that we worship Allah and yet allow His Temple to be defiled.”

These words deeply moved the hearts of all present.  Every sentence alluded to the most weighty of the Moslem beliefs; the meshes of the net with which Halil had taken their souls captive were composed of the very essentials of their religious and political system, so they could but put their hands to their breasts, bow down before him, and say: 

“Command us and we will obey!”

Then Halil, with the inspiration of a seer, addressed the men before him.