by Abdulhadi Hairan

Created on: October 12, 2007

'One, two, three fifty four.' after counting all the breads, Qari Saheb first

stared at Abdullah suspiciously, then patched half-cut breads to each

other to examine if they were cut by Abdullah, and when he was fully

satisfied that they were not, and the breads were collected from all the

houses of the village, he re-wrapped them in the chaddar and said, 'The

prayer is about to be paid, get your Wazoo at once and join the

congregation.' Saying this, the Qari Saheb went to the mosque but

Abdullah replied with an 'okay' and stayed where he was.

He was tired very much because of collecting the breads from the whole

village in two trips under the sizzling heat. So he decided to join the prayer

at the last minute and relied on the heap of wrapped beds to have a little

relaxation.

The old fan of the room was giving cool air and he was enjoying it. Out of

the room, in that part of the vicinity of the mosque where people were

taking Wazoo, they were making too noise because it was Friday prayer

and usually large amounts of people attend it. Abdullah had observed

that on Fridays the mosque was filled so much that even some people

had to pray in the street due to no space available. He always liked to pray

in the street, in the last line. It was fun for him to pray with little boys of the

village who were supposed to pray in the last line of the congregation.

Suddenly, the Maulvi's Friday speech caught his attention. The Maulvi

was giving his speech in a very emotional tone, citing from the Holy

Koran, 'Wa La Tashtaroo Be Ayati Samanan Qalila And don't accept

less wealth on my holy verses 'Less wealth' means that this whole world

is less than a mosquito in value in the eyes of our merciful God.' Then the

Maulvi gave more details on this subject and established with several

quotes from the Holy Koran, Sayings of prophet Mohammad and Islamic

jurisprudence that if some one recited the Holy Koran and took money or

ate something for it, he will go to the hell.

Abdullah was listening to him attentively. He took the one-hundred

rupees note from his pocket which was given to him a few hours ago by a

woman of the village who had managed a Khatam of the Holy Koran. She

had given lunch to all the attendants of the Khatam, but Abdullah had not

time to sit there and have lunch so she gave him a note of one-hundred

rupees.

As the speech finished, the congregation started to offer its prayer but

Abdullah immediately stood and went directly to the house where the

Khatam was held. He entered the home without any knock at

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