Ecstasy to content the mystic, without scientific, 
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enquiry into its nature.  Pantheism. 
The garden quit ?  Frequent the mosque ? 
By Allah, ’twas an ass that brayed. 
 
Allah, if Allah be, indwells 
All beauty.3  He is best repaid 
 
By who loves jade as jade, nor asks 
Some mighty Jaker for the Jade.4 
 
The garden-podex wants, methinks, 
No worship, but a member-spade.5 
 
 
 
1.  The Sodom-fable is to be found in the XVth 
chaper of the Q’uran.  Moslems accept the Bible, 
so far as it goes.  Only they regard the Christian as 
the Christian regards the Jew :  as one not up-to-
date. Big fleas have small fleas, etc. quoth the 
bard ;  and the modern follower of El Baab and the 
Baha-i-Ullah says the same to the orthodoxMus-
lim. 
2.  An allusion to a well-known tale, perhaps to 
be identified in Alf Laylah wa Laylah.  A chief re-
turning from some expedition, finds his favourite 
wife in the embraces of one of his sons.  He re-
proaches her, saying :  Am I not the maker superior 
to whom I made ?  (quoting, I fancy, the Q’uran).  
She replied than women might lawfully treasure 
the poem and press it to their hearts, but that it 
would be highly scandalous if they treated the 
poets in that manner. 
3.  We are not inclined to regard the “ if ” as 
sceptical, but as a strong form of affirmation.  “ As 
sure as Allah exists, He exists not only in temples 
made by men for His worship, but in all the beauty 
He has created.”  This at least is the line of defence 
attempted by those orthodox Muslim who cannot 
quite forgive Abdullah — or forget him.