The sudden death of Carnal Abdel Nasser sent a seismic shock across Egypt and the entire Arab world," wrote an observer in Cairo at the time. He reported that the streets and byways of the city were quickly transformed into torrents of bewildered and hysterical humanity voicing their shock and grief in spontaneous couplets of crude verse. "O Gamal, O Light of the Eye—you have left us, why, O why?" "O Numeri, O Quadafi—Abdel Nasser has left us and vanished away!" Most surprising (since Muslims do not lightly parody their creed) was the cry, "There is no God but God—and Abdel Nasser is the Beloved of God."