Nay, it was more than idle, for it was dangerous.

There was nothing in common between his faith and their own.

His God was not their God, save in name only.

The one was Allah, great, stern, relentless, inexorable, not to be moved striding on to an inevitable end, heedless of man and trampling upon him--though sometimes mocked with the names of the Compassionate and the Merciful.
But the other was Jehovah, the father of His people Israel, caring for them, upholding them, guiding the world for them, conquering for them; but visiting His anger upon them when they fell away from Him.
The three-and-twenty judges in session in the synagogue up the narrow lane of the Sok el Foki had sat far into the night, with the light of the oil-lamps gleaming on their perplexed and ashen faces.

Some other ground of appeal against Israel had to be found, and they could not find it.