"Mack Reynolds - North Africa 01 - Blackman's Burden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

warrior growled.

"Not their magic, their learning," the smith named El Ma el Ainin put
in. "And, verily, now the schools are open to all the people."

"Schools are not for such as the Bela and Haratin," the clan chief
protested. "The Koran should not be taught to slaves."

El Ma el Ainin said gently, "The Koran is not taught at all in the new
schools, old one. The teachings of the Prophet are still made known to
those interested, in the schools connected with the mosques, but only the
teachings of science are made in the new schools."

"The teachings of the Rouma!" a Tuareg protested, carefully slipping his
glass of tea beneath his teguel-moust so that he could drink without his
mouth being obscenely revealed.

Omar ben Crawf laughed. "That is what we have allowed the Roumas to
have us believe for much too long," he stated. "El Hassan has proven
otherwise. Much of the wisdom of science has its roots in the lands of Asia
and of Africa. The Roumas were savages in skins while the earliest
civilizations were being developed in Africa and Asia Minor. Hardly a
science now developed by the Roumas of Europe and America but had its
beginning with us." He turned to the elderly chief.

"You, Tuareg are of Berber background. But a few centuries ago, the
Berbers of Morocco, known as the Moors to the Rouma, leavened only with
a handful of Jews and Arabs, built up in Spain the highest civilization in
all the world of that time. We would be foolish, we of Africa, to give credit
to the Rouma for so much of what our ancestors presented to the world."

The Tuareg were astonished. They had never heard such words.

Moussa-ag-Amastan was not appeased. "You sound like a Rouma,
yourself," he said. "Where have you learned of all this?"

The smiths chuckled their amusement.
 Abrahim el Bakr said, "Verily, old one, have you ever seen a black
Rouma?"

Omar ben Crawf, the headman of the smiths, went on. "El Hassan has
proclaimed great new beliefs that spread through all North Africa, and
eventually, Inshallah, throughout the continent. Through his great
learning he has assimilated the wisdom of all the prophets, all the wise
men of all the world, and proclaims their truths."

The Tuareg chief was becoming increasingly irritated. Such talk as this
was little short of blasphemy to his ears, but the fascination of the
discussion was beyond him to ignore. And he knew that even if he did, his
young men in particular would only seek out the strangers on their own