Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: SWEET HOUR OF PRAYER (don’t write about the song) (04/30/15)
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TITLE: Suleiman | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
05/04/15 -
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The rumpled brown suit slumped down onto the cloth covered bench with its owner. A wisp of smoke drifted up from the cigarette clenched between tobacco-stained fingers. Drooping eyelids almost hid piercing dark eyes. A bushy moustache bobbed up and down. “Peace to you, Suleiman.”
Suleiman pushed a pot of tea across the small table and nodded back. “And Peace to you, Ibrahim.” He secured a sugar cube between his teeth and took a slurp from his own mug. He swiped at a fly buzzing too close and looked past the litter, the scattered rocks and the hulk of a burned car.
“What are you staring at?” Ibrahim poured his own tea and slurped it through his own sugar cube.
Suleiman wiped a few crumbs off the table onto the tiled floor. “Do you see the mark on my bakery?”
Three quick taps of the cane silenced him. “The U with a dot above it? ISIS thinks it belongs to a Nasrani (Nazarene), a Christian. The military police in those new beige uniforms marked it last night.”
Fingers clenched and unclenched. Suleiman rotated his shoulders slowly. He lowered his head as if staring at the patches on his knees. “More than one-hundred thousand followers of Jesus have already gone. We have lived here since the apostles. These jihadists have erased all of history.”
Ibrahim released his smoldering butt and crushed it under the heel of his scuffed leather shoe. “This is what they will do to you if you continue to speak your mind. Over three-hundred thousand have fled this city. You Christians are not the only ones. The arrests, raids and executions terrify everyone.” He looked around the crowded café and focused on the scribbled menu on a chalkboard near the entrance.
Suleiman nodded slowly. “I pray for their souls every morning and night, for an hour. We were once the largest minority in Nineveh.” He took another slurp of tea and played with a new sugar cube. “Churches, mosques, libraries, graves, statues – they have destroyed everything. Even the shrine of the prophet Jonah is reduced to rubble.”
Ibrahim waved at a grizzly bearded Arab. “Bring us two falafels.”
Suleiman added, “and more sugar.”
“I am ashamed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi preached in my mosque here and calls himself Caliph Ibrahim.” Ibrahim waited as the falafels and sugar cubes were brought and set on the table. He slipped a few bills to the owner and watched him leave. “I know al-Baghdadi is trying to restore the honour of Islam through this purge by ISIS, but not all of us agree with his version of Shari’a Law.”
Suleiman nodded again. “I will pray for you. I know that the ISIS extortionists push you hard to pay your profits for protection from the Shia loyalist forces from Baghdad. I know they took your son to their training camp.”
Ibrahim waved his hand in the air. “When they take your son then losing dominoes, cards, movies and the hookah seems like nothing.”
Suleiman chomped on his falafel and spoke between chews, “I will join the medical services team and I will pray. They are refusing relief aid to Christians. If they catch me then perhaps I will die with the others before me.”
Ibrahim wolfed down his own meal and slurped his tea. “They cannot last. Their power is fear and one day people will forget their fear. No electricity, no food, no help. They will look somewhere else for help.”
Suleiman rubbed his jaw and stared at his friend. “I have already looked somewhere else for help.”
Ibrahim stopped chewing. “The West does not have the power you think.”
Suleiman put another sugar cube between his teeth. “I don’t look to the west,” he said. “I look to God where the true power lies.”
Ibrahim smiled. “Yes, every day, morning and night, you pray for your hour. What change have you gained?” He waved over at the boarded up bakery once owned by Suleiman. “Is this what your prayers accomplish? Your family dead, your business closed, your city and your religion in ruins?”
Suleiman bowed his head. “It is time for me to pray. God once used his prophet Jonah to bring this place to its knees. He can do it again.”
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God bless~
I am so glad we worship a God who is in control of world events.
Your writing continues to bless me.