The Snake Stone

119

Faisal al-Mehmed ran his eyes along the low shelves that surrounded him in his booth outside the Great Mosque, and shook his head. So many shoes! In weather like this, everyone wanted to go into the mosque; nobody wanted to come out. But as soon as the rain stopped they would rush upon him, demanding to have their shoes again, causing confusion.

Faisal al-Mehmed abhorred confusion, in a holy precinct above all.

A movement in the crowd made him look around. A man and a woman he didn’t remember seeing before were emerging from the doorway, into the torrential rain, and already, he noticed, they were soaking wet. The woman could barely walk: the man had one arm around her, and in the other he held her hand.

Faisal ran a hand down his beard and nodded. So many people came to this mosque without a pious thought-merely, even, to shelter from the rain. Where was the piety, in using a mosque as shelter? True piety was oblivious to rain.

Faisal smiled a benediction on the couple, for in his heart he understood that they possessed Enthusiasm.