“Admittedly, the magic of the Roumas cured many such ills,” an older 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?”