Barakah waited for what seemed long hours, so great was her impatience, like the sharpest hunger. Then, suddenly, when she had almost ceased to hope, a high, sweet note, sustained most wonderfully, filled her ear. It caused a parting of the lips, a melting rapture. It broke in a cascade of melody. Then came the long sweet note again, not held this time, but uttered often with a sobbed insistence. And then the song soared up to heights of praise, or hovered over depths of sorrow; she was lost in it. Uprising from the fount of hope in sadness, it soared to certainty of endless joy. The sound was no made music, but a soul poured forth in glorious melody, as spontaneous and unerring as the song of birds. The greatest singer in the world stood there unseen in the suspended gallery, and sang his heart out to the praise of the Creator, watching the dawn’s first gleam above the eastern hill.

On Barakah the song fell like a voice from heaven. She beheld great light. Her grief, her terrors, became natural shadows. There was one God for Christian and for Muslim. Beyond the striving and the hatred waited peace and love.