He had had his great fight for place
and power, alien as he was in religion, though he had lived in Egypt
since a child. Bar to progress as his religion had been at first, it had
been an advantage afterwards; for, through it, he could exclude himself
from complications with the Wakfs, the religious court of the Muslim
creed, which had lands to administer, and controlled the laws of marriage
and inheritance. He could shrug his shoulders and play with his beads,
and urbanely explain his own helplessness and ineligibility when his
influence was summoned, or it was sought to entangle him in warring
interests. Oriental through and through, the basis of his creed was
similar to that of a Muslim: Mahomet was a prophet and Christ was a
prophet. It was a case of rival prophets--all else was obscured into a
legend, and he saw the strife of race in the difference of creed. For the
rest, he flourished the salutations and language of the Arab as though
they were his own, and he spoke Arabic as perfectly as he did French and
English.
He was the second son of his father.
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