The Mercy of Allah

Each episode of Mahmoud’s life satirizes greed, from small frauds and outright theft, to market manipulation, money-printing, and funding both sides in a long war. Mahmoud justifies all his dealings as simply the way things are: “For Allah, in his inscrutable choice, frowns on some and smiles on others. The first he condemns to contempt, anxiety, duns, bills, courts of law, sudden changes of residence and even dungeons; the second he gratifies with luxurious vehicles, delicious sherbet and enormous houses, such as mine.”

First published in 1922, this satire fits into Hilaire Belloc’s growing advocacy for the economic and social philosophy of “distributism.” It was selected as one of four books by Belloc for Arnold Bennett and Frank Swinnerton’s influential Literary Taste: How to Form It.

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