84 Abdu Issues Fetwas [ l 9°A 



a scrap of paper that he absolved me from all responsibility in case of 

 accidents." 



This proved to be the last time we met. Two days later I heard 

 from him, that having wandered all night he had found himself at 

 daybreak in an unknown country but had made his way down to 

 the Nile and so got back to his hotel. He died the following year. 



" ijth Ian. (Sunday). — The Mufti has been to Alexandria where 

 he has seen the Khedive, who received him, as his way is, with 

 smiles and jokes, though he had been doing his best to get Cromer's 

 consent to depose him. The Khedive has a new grief against him, 

 his having issued fetwas to certain Mohammedans from the Trans- 

 vaal in answer to these three questions : 



" I. May a Moslem in a foreign country eat meat not killed ac- 

 cording to rule? 



"2. May a Moslem in a foreign country wear a hat? 



" 3. May a Shafeite at prayer range himself in the same line with 

 a Hanafite? 



To all these three questions Mohammed Abdu had answered in 

 the affirmative, and the Khedive, though he himself eats and wears 

 a hat and says no prayers when in Europe, affects to regard the 

 decision as atheism. Cromer, however, supports the Mufti ; it is a 

 queer position. 



"2.2nd Ian. — The Mufti was here to-day for his usual Friday's 

 luncheon in the garden under the bamboos. He has a new worry in 

 the death of one of the chief Azhar Sheykhs, which will be the cause 

 of fresh trouble with the Khedive as to his successor. Fortunately, 

 His Highness, ' our young man,' the Mufti calls him, is to start on a 

 journey in the direction of the Tripoli frontier, which will give every- 

 body about him a little holiday and the Mufti hopes himself to be 

 off then to Khartoum, where he promises me to find out what the 

 real state of feeling in the Soudan is towards the present regime. 

 We had a long and interesting talk about the Mameluke days in 

 Egypt, as also about the condition of the Jews in Arabia before the 

 coming of Mohammed, and other matters of Eastern history in which 

 he is very learned. I know no society so pleasant as his or so im- 

 proving, it is all the society we have here as we see nothing of 

 Europeans. We are in a kind of Coventry now with the English 

 officials, but no matter, as long as Egypt is not annexed to the British 

 Crown I shall go on with my opposition. 



" He talked, too, about the Khedive's commercial propensities which 

 he indulges without regard for his political position. He has taken 

 to hiring and reletting the ferries over the canals, and he has been 

 trying to get a concession of the fishing rights in various places at 

 the expense of poorer people. Cromer has taken him to task for 



