Forgiving Love and Unforgiving Love #1 "The Light Worn by the Guide" -- Chapter 1: The Raised Sword of Light

Laed: Yu

📚 Magazine: Forgiving Love and Unforgiving Love

The light worn by the guide

"Teacher, to begin with, who was the one who came up with the rules of religion?"

After-school classroom. As the sunset streamed in, one of the students taking remedial lessons suddenly looked up.

"It wasn't just one person sitting at a desk who decided it on their own."

I put down my grading pen and cast my gaze toward the old 'silver inkwell' on the corner of the teacher's desk.

"At first, it was just 'words' that carried heat. Over time, they turned into a system. ...They are words like a sweet, terrifying poison that still concerns us today."

"Words turned into rules? What do you mean by poison?"

"...Shall I tell you the story of a certain boy?"

I closed my eyes.

The air of the usual classroom faded away, and in its place, the suffocating heat of the sand and the smell of animal sweat from 1,400 years ago came back to life.

The 7th century.
The heart of the Arabian Peninsula, the commercial city of Mecca.

It was a harsh world where human desire and absolute inequality dominated the city more intensely than the sunlight.

Hundreds of idols stood in the Kaaba, and the immense wealth dropped by pilgrims gathering from all over the world endlessly fattened the bellies of a privileged few.

To them, 'God' was nothing more than an extremely excellent and cruel 'device' to exploit the poor and justify their own power and business.

A boy named Zayd lived in that city as a slave.

Under the scorching sun, he carried heavy loads for his master, and if his movements slowed even a little, the whip would fly without mercy. While sipping muddy water with cracked lips, Zayd knew that his life was lighter than one of the camels his master owned.

For him, the world was a suffocating hell where one's social standing was fixed from birth.
There was absolutely no chance he would ever become someone, or be treated as a human being, until the day he died.
Zayd had accepted this overwhelming absurdity to the point where he had even forgotten the emotion of despair.

But one day, amidst the bustle in a corner of the city,
a merchant began to speak of something strange.

His name was Muhammad.

“God is Allah, and He is One.
And before God, whether rich or poor,
all human beings are equal.”

Zayd, who had been walking with a load on his back,
stopped in his tracks as if struck by lightning.

Equality.

This was not some pretty, lukewarm concept like the ones we learn about in textbooks today.
To the ruling class of Mecca at the time, it was a “deadly poison” that would fundamentally destroy the class system and economic structure they had built.

Indeed, the powerful were enraged and began to violently persecute them as “dangerous heretics who disturb the social order.”

However, for the oppressed like Zayd, what did those words mean?
They were a “light of hope,” so intense it was blinding, shining into the depths of the darkness.

Even without going through a privileged priest, he was directly connected to God.
Even without wealth or noble blood, in the eyes of Allah, he and that arrogant master were “equal human beings.”

In this hellish desert, there was finally an existence that recognized him as a “human being.”

Deep within Zayd’s chest, a hot spark that should never have been lit began to burn.

These words are dangerous.

If he believed them, he might be killed by his master.
He might be stoned by the powerful in Mecca,
and he might starve to death in the desert.

Even so, Zayd fled from his master.
The pull of this sweet poison called “equality” was far stronger than the pain of the whip.

He ran to Muhammad and threw himself into his teachings.

And, in order to leave behind as many of those “words of love” as possible—the words that had treated him as a human for the first time—he began desperately writing them down on parchment and animal bone fragments.

Clutching a small silver inkpot in his hand, though no one knew where he had gotten it.
That was the beginning of our clan’s “records.”

Beyond the words the merchant spoke, Zayd saw a dazzling light capable of overturning all the injustices of this world.

He had no way of knowing at the time that this light, too pure, would eventually give birth to a monster of a massive empire, and transform into a “system of violence” that would thoroughly exclude anyone who held views different from their own.

"The word 'equality' is,
at once the ultimate love that saves those who have nothing,
and a curse that enrages those who have everything."

I slowly opened my eyes.

The classroom was wrapped in a blue-gray silence.

"The powerful, their vested interests threatened,
finally drew their swords to kill them.
But Zayd and his companions,
did not want to extinguish that prayer that made them human,
that small spark of equality."

I gently tucked the silver inkwell into my bag.

"To protect their love,
they had no choice but to flee into the desert at night.
...It is the beginning of a flight through blood and sand, where pure prayer
begins to grow 'fangs' little by little in order to survive."

Yu's Aftertaste

The first crossroads where pure prayer had to turn into a 'law' to survive in the vast desert.
What they tried to protect with their lives was, in fact, something very simple and warm.

Come to think of it, I forgot to mention... the God they believed in and clung to in this desert of despair, 'Allah'.

Actually, this is the exact same existence as the God of Judaism and Christianity.
Only the name is different; the roots are completely connected.

Even though they believe in the same God, why do people end up killing each other so cruelly?

Next time,
I will take you to the night of the 'Flight through the Sand'...
the new form of family they obtained even at the cost of abandoning their blood ties.

Please be prepared to follow me.

[From the Editorial Department]

*While the descriptions in this article regarding the 'social structure of Mecca during the birth of Islam' and the 'persecution brought about by egalitarian thought' are based on actual historical and academic facts, the commentary is composed including unique poetic metaphors and fiction (such as the perspective of a scribe).

Column

-- Yume no Musubito

A story spun by Yu, who received the baton from Saeko.
We will present a desert story set in the Islamic world in 12 episodes.

Why depict Islam?

I won't say much,
but my 'emotions' are stirred without knowing why.
I have a feeling that is the reason.

Before judging anything,
I believe I need to "know."

I know far too little.
Also, I think there are few opportunities to know.
Therefore, I intend to write a story in order to know.

Please, follow me until the end.

Surely, you will be able to see the other side of the world before your eyes.