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Finding Answers
Abbas had never thought of the colour of people's skin before. He'd spent his sixteen years nurturing thoughts deeper than that, after all in his desert city there were people travelling through from many nations. He'd seen varied skin tones from the very pale to the very dark, but all had been embraced if their hearts were good. So the murder before his eyes wasn't an affront to his National pride, an us versus them, like so many started to cry in the market place where it happened. Oh no, not that petty; it was a disgrace to his God. Any innocent life was precious, that is what he'd read and believed, it's what they taught him. And in his young life he'd found it to be true, yet people seemed to love to mistrust and hate others different from themselves.
Abbas had a deep coffee coloured complexion for he was always in the sun. His green eyes sparkled like jewels and when he wore his keffiyeh they stood out even more. Nabataean and foreign traders were common at Petra, for it was a main stopping point for nomadic merchants. Textiles, incense, spices, ivory and other precious goods grown or manufactured in Arabia, Africa and Asia. So many men, women and children travelling in caravans or with their families on route to further places. But as Abbas sat that night hours later pondering the killing, he found himself overwrought. Tears flooded from those eyes, and even the heavens couldn't cheer him. In his prayers that night he asked Allah to grant him the vision to understand. He saw so few with as paler skin as this man had, and heard the argument unfold. Both sides had a legitimate stance it seemed, but one had died unjustly at the hand of the other with the crowd instantly falling behind the other guy. They'd shouted taunts at the white man, called him Non-Believer and yet they didn't know his heart. They'd incited the darker man to violence and hatred so easily, as if it had been bubbling there just beneath the surface. Now a man was dead and the crowd has seemed pleased.
Abbas had a fitful sleep, tossing and turning in his blanket. The scene kept playing out. Was...
Abbas had a deep coffee coloured complexion for he was always in the sun. His green eyes sparkled like jewels and when he wore his keffiyeh they stood out even more. Nabataean and foreign traders were common at Petra, for it was a main stopping point for nomadic merchants. Textiles, incense, spices, ivory and other precious goods grown or manufactured in Arabia, Africa and Asia. So many men, women and children travelling in caravans or with their families on route to further places. But as Abbas sat that night hours later pondering the killing, he found himself overwrought. Tears flooded from those eyes, and even the heavens couldn't cheer him. In his prayers that night he asked Allah to grant him the vision to understand. He saw so few with as paler skin as this man had, and heard the argument unfold. Both sides had a legitimate stance it seemed, but one had died unjustly at the hand of the other with the crowd instantly falling behind the other guy. They'd shouted taunts at the white man, called him Non-Believer and yet they didn't know his heart. They'd incited the darker man to violence and hatred so easily, as if it had been bubbling there just beneath the surface. Now a man was dead and the crowd has seemed pleased.
Abbas had a fitful sleep, tossing and turning in his blanket. The scene kept playing out. Was...
