As the director of the Beit-el-Mal, his first care was to keep the treasury and granaries full to repletion. During the famine this was an impossibility, but some grain and money had to be procured from somewhere. The poor, and those who had come by their little stores honestly, Adlan never made a call upon; indeed, he was the protector of the poor and the Muslimanieh (captive Christians). It was Adlan’s policy to create enemies of Abdullahi, so that was another reason for his protecting the poor, who were already bitter enemies of their savage ruler. On reporting to Abdullahi the depleted condition of the treasury and granaries—and Abdullahi was aware that the doors of the Beit-el-Mal and Adlan’s house were besieged night and day by thousands of starving wretches—Adlan would be given a verbal order to search for grain and bring it into the Beit-el-Mal. This order he would put into immediate execution against Abdullahi’s particular friends and adherents, for the whole of their stores were the proceeds of robbery, and the plundering and murdering of weaker tribes and people. To all remonstrances Adlan would reply that he was carrying out Abdullahi’s orders, and every one knew that disobedience to these, or any attempt to evade them, meant summary execution. Occasionally some |148| “strong” man would enter a mild protest to the Khaleefa himself, who would feign ignorance of having given any general orders to Adlan. Adlan would be summoned, but, questioned as to his actions in the presence of the complainant, he dare not reply that he had but obeyed the general orders given him; he would be obliged to answer in such a way that the “strong” man would believe that he had acted upon his own initiative. After the audience, the “strong” man would follow Adlan to the Beit-el-Mal, and demand the return of his grain and dollars; but Adlan had distributed all on the Khaleefa’s orders—which the registers proved, as nothing might leave the Beit-el-Mal without his sanction. The “strong” man now was undecided as to whether Abdullahi was playing with him or not, but his safest plan was to intrigue against Adlan. In this he would be helped might and main by Yacoub, Abdullahi’s brother, and the bitterest enemy of Adlan, for Yacoub, as the Emir of Emirs (prince of princes), was insane with jealousy at the hold which Adlan had on the masses. The respect and veneration paid to Adlan Yacoub considered himself entitled to by virtue of his position and rank.