Note 373 — Chapter XI · SUPERSTITIONS—continued.
Reading edition
Just before I quitted my house in Cairo to return to EnglandEngland, a friend, who had been my sheykh (or tutor), wrote on a slip of paper, “There is no deity but God: Mohammad is God’s apostle:” then tore it in halves, gave me the latter half (on which was written “Mohammad is God’s apostle”), and concealed the other in a crack in the roof of a little cupboard in my usual sitting-room. This was to insure my coming back to Cairo: for it is believed that the profession of the faith cannot remain incomplete: so that by my keeping the latter half always upon my person, it would bring me back to the former half.