SONS OF THE DESERT
_Abdallah and Sabat_
(Time of Incidents, about 1800-1810)
_Two Arab Wanderers_
One day, more than a hundred years ago, two young Arabs, Abdallah and
Sabat, rode on their camels toward a city that was hidden among the
tawny hills standing upon the skyline.
The sun was beginning to drop toward the edge of the desert away in
the direction of the Red Sea. The shadows of the long swinging legs of
the camels wavered in grotesque lines on the sand. There was a look
of excited expectation in the eyes of the young Arabs; for, by sunset,
their feet would walk the city of their dreams.
They were bound for Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, the Holy City
toward which every man of the Mohammedan world turns five times a day
as he cries, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the prophet
of Allah." To have worshipped in Mecca before the sacred Kaaba and
to have kissed the black stone in its wall--this was to make Paradise
certain for them both. Having done that pilgrimage these two Arabs,
Sabat and Abdallah, would be able to take the proud title of "Haji"
which would proclaim to every man that they had been to Mecca--the
Holy of Holies.
So they pressed on by the valley between the hills till they saw
before them the roofs and the minarets of Mecca itself. As darkness
rushed across the desert and the stars came out, the tired camels
knelt in the courtyard of the Khan,[58] and Sabat and Abdallah
alighted and stretched their cramped legs, and took their sleep.
These young men, Sabat and Abdallah, the sons of notable Arab chiefs,
had struck up a great friendship. Now, each in company with his chum,
they were together at the end of the greatest journey that an Arab can
take.
As the first faint flush of pink touched the mountain beyond Mecca,
the cry came from the minaret: "Come to prayer. Prayer is better than
sleep. There is no God but Allah."
Sabat and Abdallah were already up and out, and that day they said the
Mohammedan prayer before the Kaaba itself with other pilgrims who had
come from many lands--from Egypt and Abyssinia, from Constantinople
and Damascus, Baghdad and Bokhara, from the defiles of the Khyber
Pass, from the streets of Delhi and the harbour of Zanzibar.
We do not know what Abdallah looked like. He was probably like most
young Arab chieftains, a tall, sinewy man--brown-faced, dark-eyed,
with hair and a short-cropped beard that were between brown and black.
His friend Sabat was, however, so striking that even in that great
crowd of many pilgrims people would turn to look at him. They would
turn round, for one reason, because of Sabat's voice. Even when he was
just talking to his friend his voice sounded like a roar; when he got
excited and in a passion (as he very often did) it rolled like thunder
and was louder than most men's shouting. As he spoke his large white
teeth gleamed in his wide mouth. His brown face and black arched
eyebrows were a dark setting for round eyes that flashed as he spoke.
His black beard flowed over his tawny throat and neck. Gold earrings
swung with his agitation and a gold chain gleamed round his neck. He
wore a bright silk jacket with long sleeves, and long, loose-flowing
trousers and richly embroidered shoes with turned-up toes. From a
girdle round his waist hung a dagger whose handle and hilt flashed
with jewels.
Abdallah and Sabat were better educated than most Arabs, for they
could both read. But they were not men who could stay in one place
and read and think in quiet. When they had finished their worship at
Mecca, they determined to ride far away across the deserts eastward,
even to Kabul in the mountains of Afghanistan. So they rode, first
northward up the great camel-route toward Damascus, and then eastward.
In spite of robbers and hungry jackals, through mountain gorges, over
streams, across the Syrian desert from oasis to oasis, and then across
the Euphrates and the Tigris they went, till they had climbed rung by
rung the mountain ranges that hold up the great plateau of Persia.
At last they broke in upon the rocky valleys of Afghanistan and came
to the gateway of India--to Kabul. They presented themselves to Zeman
Shah, the ruler of Afghanistan, and he was so taken with Abdallah's
capacity that he asked him to be one of his officers in the court.
So Abdallah stayed in Kabul. But the restless, fiery Sabat turned the
face of his camel westward and rode back into Persia to the lovely
city of Bokhara.
_Abdallah the Daring_
In Kabul there was an Armenian whose name we do not know: but he
owned a book printed in Arabic, a book that Abdallah could read. The
Armenian lent it to him. There were hardly any books in Arabic, so
Abdallah took this book and read it eagerly. As he read, he thought
that he had never in all his life heard of such wonderful things,
and he could feel in his very bones that they were true. He read four
short true stories in this book: they were what we call the Gospels
according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. As he read, Abdallah saw in
the stories Someone who was infinitely greater than Mohammed--One who
was so strong and gentle that He was always helping children and women
and people who were ill; so good that He always lived the very life
that God willed; and so brave that He died rather than give in to evil
men--our Lord Jesus Christ.
"I worship Him," said Abdallah in his heart. Then he did a very daring
thing. He knew that if he turned Christian it would be the duty of
Mohammedans to kill him. Why not keep quiet and say nothing about his
change of heart? But he could not. He decided that he must come out
in the open and confess the new Captain of his life. He was baptized a
Christian.
The Moslems were furious. To save his life Abdallah fled on his camel
westward to Bokhara. But the news that he had become a Christian flew
even faster than he himself rode. As he went along the streets of
Bokhara he saw his friend Sabat coming toward him. As a friend, Sabat
desired to save Abdallah; but as a Moslem, the cruel law of Mohammed
said that he must have him put to death. And Sabat was a fiery,
hot-tempered Moslem.
"I had no pity," Sabat told his friends afterward. "I delivered him up
to Morad Shah, the King."
So Abdallah was bound and carried before the Moslem judges. His friend
Sabat stood by watching, just as Saul had stood watching them stone
Stephen nearly eighteen centuries earlier.
"You shall be given your life and be set free," they said, "if you
will spit upon the Cross and renounce Christ and say, 'There is no God
but Allah.'"
"I refuse," said Abdallah.
A sword was brought forward and unsheathed. Abdallah's arm was
stretched out: the sword was lifted--it flashed--and Abdallah's hand,
cut clean off, fell on the ground, while the blood spurted from his
arm.
"Your life will still be given you if you renounce Christ and proclaim
Allah and Mohammed as His prophet."
This is how Sabat himself described what happened next. "Abdallah made
no answer, but looked up steadfastly toward heaven, like Stephen, the
first martyr, his eyes streaming with tears. He looked at me," said
Sabat, "but it was with the countenance of forgiveness."
Abdallah's other arm was stretched out, again the sword flashed and
fell. His other hand dropped to the ground. He stood there bleeding
and handless. He bowed his head and his neck was bared to the sword.
Again the blade flashed. He was beheaded, and Sabat--Sabat who had
ridden a thousand miles with his friend and had faced with him
the blistering sun of the desert and the snow-blizzard of the
mountain--saw Abdallah's head lie there on the ground and the dead
body carried away.
Abdallah had died because he was faithful to Jesus Christ and because
Sabat had obeyed the law of Mohammed.
_The Old Sabat and the New_
The news spread through Bokhara like a forest fire. They could hardly
believe that a man would die for the Christian faith like that. As
Sabat told his friends afterward, "All Bokhara seemed to say, 'What
new thing is this?'"
But Sabat was in agony of mind. Nothing that he could do would take
away from his eyes the vision of his friend's face as Abdallah had
looked at him when his hands were being cut off. He plunged out on
to the camel tracks of Asia to try to forget. He wandered far and he
wandered long, but he could not forget or find rest for his tortured
mind.
At last he sailed away on the seas and landed on the coast of India at
Madras. The British East India Company then ruled in India, and they
gave Sabat a post in the civil courts as mufti, _i.e._ as an expounder
of the law of Mohammed. He spent most of his time in a coast town
north of Madras, called Vizagapatam.[59] A friend handed to him
there a little book in his native language--Arabic. It was another
translation of those stories that Abdallah had read in Kabul--it was
the New Testament.[60]
Sabat sat reading this New Book. He then took up the book of
Mohammed's law--the Koran--which it was his daily work to explain. He
compared the two. "The truth came"--as he himself said--"like a flood
of light." He too began to worship Jesus Christ, whose life he had
read now for the first time in the New Testament. Sabat decided that
he must follow in Abdallah's footsteps. He became a Christian.[61] He
was then twenty-seven years of age.
_The Brother's Dagger_
In the world of the East news travels like magic by Arab dhow (sailing
ship) and camel caravan. Very quickly the news was in Arabia that
Sabat had renounced Mohammed and become a Christian. At once Sabat's
brother rose, girded on his dagger, left the tents of his tribe,
mounted his camel and coursed across Arabia to a port. There he took
ship for Madras. Landing, he disguised himself as an Indian and went
up to Vizagapatam to the house where his brother Sabat was living.
Sabat saw this Indian, as he appeared to be, standing before him. He
suspected nothing. Suddenly the disguised brother put his hand within
his robe, seized his dagger, and leaping at Sabat made a fierce blow
at him. Sabat flung out his arm. He spoilt his brother's aim, but
he was too late to save himself. He was wounded, but not killed. The
brother threw off his disguise, and Sabat--remembering the forgiveness
of Abdallah--forgave his brother, gave him many presents, and sent
loving messages to his mother.
Sabat decided that he could no longer work as an expounder of Moslem
law: he wanted to do work that would help to spread the Christian
Faith. He went away north to Calcutta, and there he joined the
great men who were working at the task of translating the Bible into
different languages and printing them. This work pleased Sabat, for
was it not through reading an Arabic New Testament that all his own
life had been changed?
Because Sabat knew Persian as well as Arabic he was sent to help a
very clever young chaplain from England named Henry Martyn, who was
busily at work translating the New Testament into Persian and Arabic.
So Sabat went up the Ganges to Cawnpore with Henry Martyn.
Sabat's fiery temper nearly drove Martyn wild. His was a flaming Arab
spirit, hot-headed and impetuous; yet he would be ready to die for
the man he cared for; proud and often ignorant, yet simple--as Martyn
said, "an artless child of the desert."
Sabat's knowledge of Persian was not really so good as he himself
thought it was, and some of the Indian translators at Calcutta
criticised his translation. At this he got furiously angry, and, like
St. Peter, the fiery, impetuous apostle, he denied Jesus Christ and
spoke against Christianity.
With his heart burning with rage and his great voice thundering with
anger, Sabat left his friends, went aboard ship and sailed down the
Bay of Bengal by the Indo-Chinese coast till he came to Penang, where
he began to live as a trader.
But by this time the fire of his anger had burnt itself out. He--again
like Peter--remembered his denial of his Master, and when he saw in
a Penang newspaper an article saying that the famous Sabat, who had
become a Christian and then become a Mohammedan again, had come to
live in their city, he wrote a letter which was published in the
newspaper at Penang declaring that he was now--and for good and all--a
Christian.
A British officer named Colonel MacInnes was stationed at Penang.
Sabat went to him. "My mind is full of great sorrow," he said,
"because I denied Jesus Christ. I have not had a moment's peace since
Satan made me do that bad work. I did it for revenge. I only want to
do one thing with my life: to spend it in undoing this evil that has
come through my denial."
Sabat left the house of the Mohammedan with whom he was living in
Penang. He found an old friend of his named Johannes, an Armenian
Christian merchant, who had lived in Madras in the very days when
Sabat first became a Christian. Every night Johannes the Armenian
and Sabat the Arab got out their Bibles, and far into the night Sabat
would explain their meaning to Johannes.
_The Prince from Sumatra_
One day all Penang was agog with excitement because a brown Prince
from Acheen, a Malay State in the island of Sumatra, had suddenly
sailed into the harbour. He was in flight from his own land, where
rebels had attacked him. The people of Acheen were wild and ferocious;
many of them were cannibals.
"I will join you in helping to recover your throne," said Sabat to the
fugitive Prince. "I am going," said Sabat to Colonel MacInnes, "to see
if I can carry the message of Christianity to this fierce people."
So Sabat and the Prince, with others, went aboard a sailing ship and
crossed the Strait of Malacca to Sumatra. They landed, and for long
the struggle with the rebels swayed from side to side. The Prince was
so pleased with Sabat that he made him his Prime Minister. But the
struggle dragged on and on; there seemed to be no hope of triumph. At
last Sabat decided to go back to Penang. One day he left the Prince
and started off, but soldiers of the rebel-chief Syfoolalim captured
him.
Great was the joy of the rebels--their powerful enemy was in their
hands! They bound him, threw him into a boat, hoisted him aboard a
sailing ship and clapped him in the stifling darkness of the hold. As
he lay there he pierced his arm to make it bleed, and, with the blood
that came out, wrote on a piece of paper that was smuggled out and
sent to Penang to Colonel MacInnes.
The agonies that Sabat suffered in the gloom and filth of that ship's
hold no one will ever know. We can learn from the words that he wrote
in the blood from his own body that they loaded worse horrors upon
him because he was a Christian. All the scene is black, but out of the
darkness comes a voice that makes us feel that Sabat was faithful at
the end. In his last letter to Colonel MacInnes he told how he was now
ready (like his friend Abdallah) to die for the sake of that Master
whom he had in his rage denied.
Then one day his cruel gaolers came to the hold where he lay, and,
binding his limbs, thrust him into a sack, which they then closed. In
the choking darkness of the sack he was carried on deck and dragged
to the side of the ship. He heard the lapping of the waves. He felt
himself lifted and then hurled out into the air, and down--down with a
crash into the waters of the sea, which closed over him for ever.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 58: The inn of the Near East--a square courtyard with all
the doors and windows inside, with primitive stables and bunks for the
camelmen, and sometimes rooms for the well-to-do travellers.]
[Footnote 59: Pronounce Vi-zah'-ga-pat-ahm.]
[Footnote 60: The Arabic New Testament revised by Solomon Negri and
sent to India by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge
in the middle of the eighteenth century.]
[Footnote 61: Baptized "Nathaniel" at Madras by the Rev. Dr Kerr.]