In the year 1834, when I was residing in Cairo, a General in the service of Moḥammad ´Alee hired a large party of men to perform a recital of the Ḳur-án in his house in that city, and then went up into his ḥareem and strangled his wife, in consequence of a report which accused her of inchastity. The religious ceremony was designed as preparatory to this act, though the punishment of the woman was contrary to the law, since her husband neither produced four witnesses of the imputed crime, nor allowed her to clear herself of the charge by her own oath. Another case of diligence in the performance of a religious duty, accompanied by the contemplation of murder, but murder on a larger scale, occurred in the same city shortly after. Suleymán Agha, the Siláḥdár, being occupied in directing the building of a public fountain as a work of charity to place to the account of a deceased brother, desired to extend the original plan of the structure; and to do this, it was necessary that he should purchase two houses adjoining the plot in which the foundations had been laid: but the owners of these houses refused to sell them, and he therefore employed a number of workmen to undermine them by night and cause them to fall upon their inhabitants. His scheme, however, but partially succeeded, and no lives were sacrificed. This man was notorious for cruelty, but he was a person of pleasing and venerable countenance and engaging manners: whenever I chanced to meet him, I received from him a most gracious salutation. He died before I quitted Egypt. FOOTNOTES: [64] D'Ohsson (i. 315, 316) asserts the Ḳuṭb to be the chief minister of the Ghós; and gives an account somewhat different from that which I offer of the orders under his authority: but perhaps the Turkish Darweeshes differ from the Arab in their tenets on this subject. [65] It is said that "the Nuḳaba are three hundred; the Nujaba, seventy; the Abdál, forty; the Akhyár, seven; the ´Omud, four; the Ghós [as before mentioned], one. The Nuḳaba reside in El-Gharb [Northern Africa to the west of Egypt]; the Nujaba, in Egypt; the Abdál, in Syria; the Akhyár travel about the earth; the ´Omud, in the corners of the earth; the abode of the Ghós is at Mekkeh. In an affair of need, the Nuḳaba implore relief for the people; then, the Nujaba; then, the Abdál; then, the Akhyár; then, the ´Omud; and if their prayer be not answered, the Ghós implores, and his prayer is answered." (El-Isḥáḳee's History, preface.)--This statement, I find, rests on the authority of a famous saint of Baghdád Aboo-Bekr El-Kettánee, who died at Mekkeh, in the year of the Flight, 322. (Mir-át ez-Zemán, events of that year). [66] Modern Egyptians, ch. x.