The Mercy of Allah is a humorous, satirical novel on the methods by which the merchant Mahmoud rises from humble beginnings to massive wealth. The setting in a fictionalized Middle East provides deeply Catholic author Hilaire Belloc a "far-off land" in which to attack what he saw as the rapacious nature of the British businessmen, industrialists, and bankers of his day.

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.

Perfect for readers who enjoy sharp wit and biting social commentary, this clever satire uses exotic storytelling to expose the ruthless world of commerce and capitalism. Belloc's masterful blend of humor and moral critique makes this an entertaining yet thought-provoking read that remains surprisingly relevant to modern economic concerns.

The source for this public-domain ebook is Standard Ebooks (standardebooks.org). Ebooks from other sources often have typos, inconsistent spelling, missing accent marks, and missing punctuation. Ebooks from Standard Ebooks are proofread line by line against a scan of the original printed pages, then proofread again from cover to cover. They are also formatted and typeset following a professional-grade style manual, resulting in new editions supporting state-of-the-art ereader technology: automatic hyphenation, popup footnotes, complete and consistent metadata, high-resolution and scalable vector graphics, and ereader-compatible tables of contents. All of this makes the finished ebooks accurate, functional, and beautiful, a pleasure to read. (Waking Lion Press is not affiliated with or endorsed by Standard Ebooks.)