However, he now set about his work with the same old vigor as in the past. He pledged before God to make history during his directorship of the administration and to create an unmatchable record full of expert and ingenious administrative practices that would last forever. He was going to demonstrate to everybody that a government post was something sacred, a duty to humanity and a form of worship in the full sense of the word.

From the first day he determined to give Abdullah Wajdi the fullest cooperation. For cooperating with the Director General was a sacred ritual of government service, and he had never been unfaithful to the duties of his office. Moreover, he was determined to use his own experience to cover up the Director General’s incompetence, and even to offer him what private help he needed just as he did with the Under Secretary of State. Perhaps one day he might reap what he had sown.

“It’s true that Abdullah Wajdi is still a young man,” he would tell himself, “but the age of miracles has returned.” But in point of fact he did not pin his hopes on miracles alone. He watched Abdullah Wajdi’s corpulence with interest and listened with secret happiness to gossip about his overindulgence in food and drink.

“There is no end to the diseases that people like him are exposed to,” he would think to himself.

And it was only fair, wasn’t it? For in spite of his limitations, he himself was a believer, a man of God, a follower of al-Husayn, the Prophet’s grandson; and God would never abandon him. On the Day of Judgment what better could a man plead than the noble ambitions he had entertained, the achievements with which he had been blessed, the steady progress he had made, and the record of the services he had done for the state and the people? The state was God’s temple on earth, and our standing in both this world and the next was determined by the extent to which we exerted ourselves for its sake.

Meanwhile, the peace and quiet of his matrimonial life did not last long. However much he deceived himself and hoped for the best, the difficulties were predictable. He reproached his wife, “Qadriyya, you drink too much.”

She looked at him with astonishment.

“Yes, I know, and I’ve always done so.”

“It’s never too late to overcome our bad habits,” he said hopefully.

“Not worth the effort.”

“But it is,” he went on in the same vein, “and my hope is to see you praying and fasting. We need God’s blessing.”

“I believe in God,” she retorted angrily. “And I know He is merciful and forgiving.”

“You are a respectable woman, and a respectable woman wouldn’t get drunk every night.”

“How often then does a respectable woman get drunk?”

“She shouldn’t at all.”