“Islam has been cursed with a new childhood. We are not decadent. I know that your historians call us decadent. It is a lie. Measure us by the Law of the Prophet. If it was ever good and great, it is still so today. Perhaps you would find that it was never good. It has been studied by intelligent men--the Jews--and found wanting. We can understand that. But it is not changed: it is not decadent.” I thought of the world fringing the Power of Rome, before Mohammed: a chaos of repellent parts, giving no light. The Arab kindled this anarchy and made it one. I thought of the reeking _Kasbah_ of Algiers; of the swarming, inert Marrakech and Fez. I thought of the Monastery city in the Sahara and of the holy Marabout whose Word Arabs came weeks on camel-back to hear. I had felt everywhere a Body, flaccidly receding from its accumulate splendors. “You are a poet,” I said. “Tell me about the forms and the spirit of your verse.” “We have sixteen forms,” answered the son. “We have but one Spirit.” “Poetry,” said my host, “is more plentiful than trees, in Islam. It is our water-bearer. It is our forest.” “And your greatest poet?” All three spoke as one: “The Prophet.” The Tunisian explained: “Amrolkéïs, Antsar, El Bassiri, the poets of El Hariri and El Hamadaín were great. How could there be poetry like that which the Prophet dictated unto his disciples? In those days, Zoheïr was the greatest poet of Mecca. The Prophet had escaped to Al-Medinah. At the annual contest, when all the poets posted their work on the outer wall of El Kaabah, there was none to vie with Zoheïr. And Zoheïr was an idolater, a man of the tribe of the Koreishites--deep haters of the Prophet. But a Sura of the Koran came to the eyes of this man who had been crowned. And he read it, and he tore his victorious poem. And he said: The crown belongs to Mohammed, son of Abd-Allah, son of Abd-El-Motalleb.” “Who are the great poets, now?” “How, in a low age, can there be high poets? We follow the great humbly. The best of today--whatever it is--in poetry and in philosophy--is found in Egypt.” Mine host led us to the roof of his palace. “It is night,” he explained. “We are not indiscreet.” He referred to the custom of Islam which gives the roof as the inviolate playground of the women. There was no moon. The stars were a swarm of golden bees within the deep blue meadow of the sky. From a hundred open courts, hid lights of houses were thrown up. Each house was a muffled lantern; Rbat was a cluster of hidden lamps peering into the turbulence of stars. The sea slept. Beyond the city walls, the ancient tower of Hassan mused, a gray ghost. The man from Tunis spoke: “It is said, O my friends, that Morocco is the tail of Islam. Let it then be known that Islam is a peacock.”