Boxes of tracts, most of them written in Arabic, had been shifted around in the crowded godown, in order to create tiers on which participants could sit while they discussed the issue at hand. Mashallah was seated cross-legged on a reed mat at the bottom of the tiers, fielding questions from about a dozen of his junior leaders.
"So where is the Mahdi?" asked a very big Muslim, in a flowing robe, seated in the top left corner of the godown.
"I do not know," answered Mashallah. "I too have been looking. Maybe he will come later."
"Later we won't need him," the same man answered. "Jesus (blessings be upon him) will already be here, if this Rosenberg man is right."
"What about Rayford?" a younger man in the front row asked, turning his head around to address the man in the back. "Could he be the Mahdi?"
"He's not Muslim, and he's not in the East," came the reply. "The Mahdi will lead people from the East."
"Even among our own people we do not agree on everything," said a woman in the middle. Her very presence showed how far they had come in dealing with their religious prejudices. "Could Chaim be the Mahdi?"
"You do know, Sfiyah, that he is Jewish?" Mashallah reminded her.
"But we are not all Muslim here," Sfiyah answered humbly. "Kumar is Hindu, and Sonali had no religion when he joined us."
"But they are changed people now," Mashallah answered. "They are believers."
"Excuse me," said Kumar, standing from his seat down at the front, and turning to face the others with his palms pressed together in front of him. "I am changed; that is true. But I was a believer before I changed. We Hindus are looking for the tenth Avatar. I now think it will be Jesus; but I am not a Muslim. If Hindus must change, then why can you not change too." And then he resumed his seat.
"I hear there are Jews who are joining the Eastern tribes," said a thin man in his sixties on the far right. "And most Muslims are not joining. I do not know one Imam..."
"Jews can join," interrupted the big man at the back. "But not the Mahdi.
The Mahdi must be Muslim. It is in the Q'uran."
"Can we go over what we know about him?" asked Mashallah.
"He will be tall and have white skin," said a voice from the crowd.
"Chaim has white skin, but he is not tall," said Mashallah.
"He will stutter, and he will have a black mole on his left cheek," said another.
"Hmmm, he does have a mole," said Mashallah, but I don't think he stutters.
"He will have a big nose."
"Ha! All Jews have big noses!" laughed Sfiyah, and the others joined her.
"Are all these things in the Q'uran?" asked Sonali, who also stood and turned to speak.
Muffled responses from several people indicated that they were not.
"So they are only traditions. What does the Q'uran say about him?"
"That he will lead an army from the East, and that he will have the name of Mohammad (blessings be upon him)," answered Mashallah.
"We are an army from the East!" exulted Sonali.
"But his name is not Mohammad," the big man at the back said emphatical y.
"How do you know?" asked Sfiyah. "Mohammad is Arabic. How do they say Mohammad in Hebrew?"
"Mohammad in Hebrew?" exclaimed the big man. "How can a Jew have such a name?"
"But every name has a meaning," said Sonali, who was still standing.
"What does Mohammad mean?"
"It means the one who is praised," said Mashallah, and then he added "Blessings be upon him," just to be safe.
Just at that moment, they heard the secret knock at the door. It must be Gambuti, who had gone with another sister to the airport to pick up Chaim. It was only 9pm in Karachi, but for Chaim, who had just flown in from Guangzhou, it was early the next morning, and he had been up much of the night on the plane. Mashallah pulled a box over for Chaim to sit on, and he moved up onto a box beside him. The rest of the audience went quiet, embarrassed by what they had been discussing before Chaim's arrival.
"The flight was okay?" asked Mashallah.
"Yes, no problems. These are your top leaders?" he asked.
"Yes. We are happy to have you here."
Chaim looked around the room. They did not look particularly happy.
"I have taken the unusual step of asking you to meet here," said Chaim, addressing the small crowd. "I feel that there are some issues that we need to deal with." No one said a word.
"All the world is at peace at the moment. Fighting has stopped, even in the Middle East. But you and I know that one reason it has stopped is because the U.N. troops are enforcing it. Muslims did not have any choice about the new Temple in Jerusalem."
Expressions changed slowly on the faces of the people listening. This was not what they had expected.
"As you know, I am Jewish. But I do not agree with what the Government has been doing in Israel for many years. They have been cruel and unfair in their treatment of Palestinians. One does not need to be a Muslim to see that.
"But many Muslims have been cruel and unfair in return. Terrorism is not the answer. But then, I do not need to tell you, do I? You are here because you have taken what is best about Islam. And I pray that you have been able to take that which is best in other religions too.
"Right now, the religions of the world are trying to work together for Dangchao. Can we work together for Allah?"
Then he stopped, obviously waiting for some response.
Sfiya lifted her hand, and Chaim nodded for her to speak.
"Chaim, what does your name mean?"
"Chaim? I think it means life. Why do you ask?"
"Oh nothing," Sfiya said sadly, and folded her hands in her lap as she looked down at them.
"We were talking about the Imam Mahdi before you came," confessed Mashallah. "Our religion teaches that he will come to prepare us for the return of Jesus."
Chaim looked around, read their thoughts, and then, pointing with both hands at himself, he broke into a grin. "Don't look at me," he said, laughing. "I'm not the Mahdi. You'll have to work that one out for yourselves!"
Becoming more serious, he said, "Is it really so important that you have a Mahdi?" Chaim was thinking of the Muslim teaching that Jews will be punished after Jesus returns. In his opinion, it was a dangerous ethnocentric vision.
Mashallah raised his hand to speak. "When I was in prison," he explained, "I prayed about what God wanted me to do. He showed me that he wanted me to look for the Mahdi. Stil I am looking, but I have not found him. I cannot stop looking now."
Chaim had been leaning back against the wall. "I better stand up before I fall asleep," he said, rising to his feet. "Can I share something that I have learned about God?" he asked with his body turned toward Mashallah. Then, turning to face the crowd, he said, "Often God tells us one thing (or maybe he just lets us think one thing) in order to get us to a different place. Like sending a child to fetch the mail, so she'll find a new toy that you have left for her on the way." He paused for them to think about what that meant.
Gambuti had said nothing up to this point, but he spoke up now. "Religion all us fights over the mail," he said in his deep, mellow voice. He paused for it to sink in, then said with a smile, "God wants us to play with the toy!"
No one seemed prepared to push the point further at that time, so discussion degenerated into a few words of greeting to Chaim. Because the meeting did not seem to be going anywhere in particular, and because Chaim had said as much as he wanted to say for now, he asked if he could be excused to get some sleep in an adjacent room. Everyone agreed that it would be a good time to end the meeting, and they could resume the next day.
However, just as they were rising to leave, and as Chaim was walking out of the room, Gambuti called out. "Chaim!"
He stopped and turned; and the crowd went silent.
"What's yuh uthuh name?"
"You mean Judah he asked?"
"Yeah, that one. Has it got a meaning?"
"Comes from Yehudah," he said. "Means praised."
And he left the room.