The clansmen were suddenly silent, in shocked surprise.
“That cannot be true!” the elderly chief snapped.
Omar ben Crawf looked at him mildly. “Why should my follower lie?”
“I do not know, but we will talk of it later, away from the women and children who should not hear such abominations.” The chief switched subjects. “But you have no flocks with you. How are we to pay for these things, these services?”
“With money.”
The old man’s face, what little could be seen through his teguelmoust, darkened. “We have little money in the Ahaggar.”
The one named Omar nodded. “But we are short of meat and will buy several goats and perhaps a lamb, a chicken, eggs. Then, too, as you have noted, we have left our women at home. We will need the services of cooks, someone to bring water. We will hire servants.”
The other said gruffly, “There are some Bela who will serve you.”
The smith seemed taken aback. “Verily, El Hassan has stated that the product of the labor of the slave is accursed.”
“El Hassan! Who is El Hassan and why should the work of a slave be accursed?”
One of the tribesmen said, “I have heard of this El Hassan. Rumors of his teachings spread through the land. He is to lead us all, Tuareg, Arab and Sudanese, until we are all as rich as Roumas.”
Omar said, “It is well known that the Roumas and especially the Americans are all rich as Emirs but none of them ever possess slaves. The bedouin have slaves but fail to prosper. Verily, the product of the labor of the slave is accursed.”
“Madness,” Moussa-ag-Amastan muttered. “If you do not let our slave women do your tasks, then they will remain undone. No Tuareg woman will work.”
But the headman of his clan was wrong.
The smiths remained four days in all, and the abundance of their products was too much. What verbal battles might have taken place in the tent of Moussa-ag-Amastan, and in those of his followers, the smiths couldn’t know, but Tuareg women are not dominated by their men. On the second day, three Tuareg women applied for the position of servants, at surprisingly high pay. Envy ran roughshod when they later displayed the textiles and utensils they purchased with their wages.
Nor could the aged Tuareg chief prevent in the evening discussions between the men, a thorough pursuing of the new ideas sweeping through the Ahaggar. Though these strangers proclaimed themselves lowly Enaden— itinerant desert smiths—they were obviously not to be dismissed as a caste little higher than Haratin serfs. Even the first night they were invited to the tent of Moussa-ag-Amastan to share the dinner of shorba soup, cous cous and the edible paste kaboosh, made of cheese, butter and spices. It was an adequate desert meal, meat being eaten not more than a few times a year by such as the Taitoq Tuareg who couldn’t afford to consume the animals upon which they lived.
After mint tea, one of the younger Tarqui leaned forward. He said, “You have brought strange news, oh Enaden of wealth, and we would know more. We of the Ahaggar hear little from ouside.”
Moussa-ag-Amastan scowled at his clansman for his presumption, but Omar answered, his voice sincere and carrying conviction. “The world moves fast, men of the desert, and the things that were verily true even yesterday have changed today.”
“To the sorrow of the Tuareg!” snapped Moussa-ag-Amastan.
The other looked at him. “Not always, old one. Surely in your youth you remember when such diseases as the one the Roumas once called the disease of Venus ran rampant through the tribes. When trachoma, the sickness of the eyes, was known as the scourge of the Sahara. When half the children, not only of Bela slaves and Haratin serfs, but also of the Surgu noble clans, died before the age of ten.”
“Admittedly, the magic of the Roumas cured many such ills,” an older warrior growled.
“Not their magic, their learning,” the smith named El Ma el Ainin put in. “And, verily, now the schools are open to all the people.”
“Schools are not for such as the Bela and Haratin,” the clan chief protested. “The Koran should not be taught to slaves.”
El Ma el Ainin said gently, “The Koran is not taught at all in the new schools, old one. The teachings of the Prophet are still made known to those interested, in the schools connected with the mosques, but only the teachings of science are made in the new schools.”
“The teachings of the Rouma!” a Tuareg protested, carefully slipping his glass of tea beneath his teguel-moust so that he could drink without his mouth being obscenely revealed.
Omar ben Crawf laughed. “That is what we have allowed the Roumas to have us believe for much too long,” he stated. “El Hassan has proven otherwise. Much of the wisdom of science has its roots in the lands of Asia and of Africa. The Roumas were savages in skins while the earliest civilizations were being developed in Africa and Asia Minor. Hardly a science now developed by the Roumas of Europe and America but had its beginning with us.” He turned to the elderly chief.
“You, Tuareg are of Berber background. But a few centuries ago, the Berbers of Morocco, known as the Moors to the Rouma, leavened only with a handful of Jews and Arabs, built up in Spain the highest civilization in all the world of that time. We would be foolish, we of Africa, to give credit to the Rouma for so much of what our ancestors presented to the world.”
The Tuareg were astonished. They had never heard such words.
Moussa-ag-Amastan was not appeased. “You sound like a Rouma, yourself,” he said. “Where have you learned of all this?”
The smiths chuckled their amusement.
Abrahim el Bakr said, “Verily, old one, have you ever seen a black Rouma?”
Omar ben Crawf, the headman of the smiths, went on. “El Hassan has proclaimed great new beliefs that spread through all North Africa, and eventually, Inshallah, throughout the continent. Through his great learning he has assimilated the wisdom of all the prophets, all the wise men of all the world, and proclaims their truths.”
The Tuareg chief was becoming increasingly irritated. Such talk as this was little short of blasphemy to his ears, but the fascination of the discussion was beyond him to ignore. And he knew that even if he did, his young men in particular would only seek out the strangers on their own and then he would not be present to mitigate their interest. In spite of himself, now he growled, “What beliefs? What truths? I know not of this El Hassan of whom you speak.”
Omar said slowly, “Among them, the teachings of a great wise man from a far land. That all men should be considered equal in the eyes of society and should have equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
“Equal!” one of the warriors ejaculated. “This is not wisdom, but nonsense. No two men are equal.”
Omar waggled a finger negatively. “Like so many, you fail to explore the teaching. Obviously, no man of wisdom would contend that all men are equally tall, or strong, or wise, or cunning, nor even fortunate. No two men are equal in such regards. But all men should have equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, whatever that might mean to him as an individual.”
One of the Tuareg said slyly, “And the murderer of one of your kinsmen, should he, too, have life and liberty, in the belief of El Hassan?”
“Obviously, the community must protect itself against those who would destroy the life or liberty of others. The murderer of a kinsman of mine, as well as any other man, myself included, should be subject equally to the same law.”
It was a new conception to members of a tribal society such as that of the Ahaggar Tuareg. They stirred under both its appeal and its negation of all they knew. A man owed alliance to his immediate family, to his clan, his tribe, then to the Tuareg confederation—in decreasing degree. Beyond that, all were enemies, as all men knew.