But Suleyman would not allow me to decry it.
'Your Honour is as yet too young,' he said severely, 'to understand the mystic value of men's acts and words.

A word may be well meant and innocent, and yet the cause of much disaster, possessing in itself some special virtue of malignity.

You all know how the jann[4] attend on careless words; how if I call a goat, a dog, or cat by its generic name without pointing to the very animal intended, a jinni will as like as not attach himself to me, since many of the jann are called by names of animals.

You all know also that to praise the beauty of a child, without the offer of that child to Allah as a sacrifice, is fatal; because there is unseen a jealous listener who hates and would deform the progeny of Eve.

Such facts as those are known to every ignoramus, and their cause is plain.