Trafika Europe 1 - Northern Idyll

“Sure thing,” Nils answered.

There were not many days that the corporal and the priest did not cross paths, and one day hr. Hans asked why Nils was so infatuated with the Muslim faith. Nils responded that faith in general did not really interest him. Neither the Muslim nor the Christian faith, nor Judaism for that matter. But last year a man had died whom he had greatly respected, the editor Henrik Wergeland. Nils said that he had not read his poetry, but the things he had written about religious freedom – those were manly words indeed. It was Wergeland who had opened his eyes to Muhammed, or the great Desert Captain, as Nils tended to call him. Since then he had tried as much as possible to follow the Muslim way of life. He knew that the Muslim people lived next to the high mountain where Noah’s ark was stranded, and that their cities spread all the way down to the Persian Gulf. There were also Muslims along the entire North African coast. They were not so close-fisted as to refuse charity to the poor, but they were also fearless warriors. It was the general state of emergency that prompted hr. Hans to make an unusual decision. Since the church only had room for the dead, he decided to bring hymns and prayers out to his fellow townsfolk.

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