After a few more minutes of arguing, Sam sensed that it was pointless to talk to the people in Kamil’s room. “You stay here,” he told Jim. ”I’ll try to get help from the Turkish authorities, and if they won’t listen, I’ll appeal to the British.”
Sam rushed to the main office of the Turkish authorities in Basrah, but his efforts proved fruitless. He was told that it would take forty-eight hours to investigate the matter and decide what do to about it. By then any kind of funeral service, Christian or Muslim, would have been over.
It was 9:30 p.m. when Sam arrived at the home of the British consul. The consul was sympathetic to the situation but fretted about what he had the authority to do. After all, Sam was an American asking for help with the body of a man from Syria.
An hour later Jim tracked Sam down at the British consul’s home. “It’s too late,” he announced. “The Muslims have performed their funeral rites and taken Kamil’s body to be buried. They won’t say where.”
The British consul raised his hands in defeat. “That is the way it is here. I am sorry I could not help your friend. But perhaps there is one thing I can do. I will send a man back with you to his room to put the British consulate seal on the door. Perhaps that will ensure that his property is not carried away without your permission.”
“Thank you,” Sam replied.
Sam and Jim, accompanied by the man from the British consulate, made their way silently back to Kamil’s room. There was nothing to say. Sam hoped that the seal of the British consulate would be respected, but it was not. Most of Kamil’s books and diaries were taken away, and Sam was never able to discover where Kamil’s body had been buried.
As the days passed, Sam and Jim came to believe that the Muslim religious men and the Turkish authorities had prior knowledge of Kamil’s impending death. Sam and Jim researched Muslim law and discovered that a male apostate—a person who had left the Muslim faith he had been raised to believe—must be put to death. If the apostate was still a boy, he was to be imprisoned until he became a man and then killed by the sword. It was sobering information, especially since Kamil had received letters from his father threatening to ensure he was killed if he did not give up Christianity and return to the Muslim faith.
Sam and Jim realized they would never know whether or not Kamil had been poisoned. One thing they knew for sure: their most able Arabic speaker and evangelist was dead, and his death left a tremendous loss.
Soon after Kamil’s death, two of the three colporteurs who had been sent from Baghdad to help the mission announced they were leaving. The first man planned to emigrate to the United States, while the second man returned to Baghdad to take care of family matters.
Although Clarence recovered from his illness, his relationship with Sam and Jim deteriorated until both sides wrote about their concerns to the home committee. Their answer was swift and final. Dr. Riggs was dismissed from the Arabian Mission. While this was a relief to Sam and Jim, it was also discouraging. Administering medical care was key in reaching the community with the gospel, and now their doctor was being forced to leave.
The only bright spot, as far as Sam was concerned, was the anticipated arrival of his brother Peter from the United States in December. But that was several months away. In the meantime, Sam decided to visit Baghdad.
Chapter 11
Around Mesopotamia
Sam sat in a deck chair on the small steamer, wiping sweat from his brow as he surveyed the scene. He was headed up the Tigris River that stretched for nearly twelve hundred miles north to southeastern Turkey. It was mid-July, and he was glad to escape the stifling heat of Basrah and take up the CMS missionaries’ invitation to visit them in Baghdad. Sam hoped to journey overland from Baghdad to the town of Hillah and complete the loop back to Basrah by taking another steamer down the Euphrates River. As he sat on deck, he picked up his journal, opened it, and wrote, “What is now the independent kingdom of Iraq was in those early days called by its old Bible name, ‘the land between the rivers’—Mesopotamia.”
As he looked out at the muddy river, Sam knew he was right in the middle of biblical history. The Tigris was one of the four rivers that flowed out of the Garden of Eden, and Daniel had received his vision on the banks of the river. Abraham dwelt in Mesopotamia as well, before traveling to Haran. Sam felt like one of the ancient prophets spying out the land, looking for towns and villages that might be future centers for missionary work. As he traveled up the river, he was able to speak to the passengers and crew and quietly distribute portions of Scripture to those who asked for them.
On July 25, 1892, Sam arrived in Baghdad and made his way to the home of Dr. and Mrs. Sutton of the CMS. The Suttons warmly welcomed him. Sam also visited Jakoob, the colporteur who had worked with them at the Arabian Mission in Basrah. Sam learned that Jakoob was now forbidden to travel outside the city because of his Christian activities. Nonetheless, Jakoob was determined to keep sharing his faith and had gathered several Muslim men interested in Christianity with whom he read the Bible, answering their questions. Sam was impressed with Jakoob’s zeal.
One of the Muslim men in the group was Oman, who happened to be visiting Jakoob at the same time as Sam. Oman was interested in learning more about Christianity and the gospel. When he learned of Sam’s plans, he offered to accompany him on the journey to Hillah and then down the Euphrates to Basrah in exchange for the opportunity to study the New Testament with Sam. Sam welcomed the suggestion and quickly hired two mules for the journey.
At four o’clock in the afternoon on July 27, two days after Sam arrived in Baghdad, he and Oman joined a group of Arabs, Persians, and Turks all bound for Hillah, about sixty miles south of Baghdad. Some in the group were merchants, while others were pilgrims headed to the sacred shrines in the holy city of Najaf, beyond Hillah.
Several women were traveling with the group, but they were not allowed any contact with the men. Sam felt sad for the women, knowing that they were hidden behind curtains in cagelike structures called taht-i-vans that dangled from either side of the camels. He thought about how difficult it must be for the women to travel this way, unable to stretch their legs or talk to anyone. The sight of the women in the taht-i-vans reminded Sam of how differently Muslim men treated women from the way Jesus cared for women. Muslim men did not consider women as equals and required that the women be hidden from sight.
A group of Muslim ascetics was also traveling in the caravan. Known as dervishes for their poverty and austerity, the group was recognizable by the bright green turbans they wore. To complete the caravan, several muleteers were leading pairs of mules with coffins strapped crosswise between them. The coffins contained the remains of Muslim believers who had wished to be buried in holy ground in Najaf.
As the caravan made its way south from Baghdad, there was little to see—just huge swaths of desert broken by mounds of earth under which lay remnants of ancient civilizations. Occasionally Sam saw a set of shining white camel bones strewn along the trail and picked clean by vultures.
The group traveled for only four hours in the 110-degree Fahrenheit heat before stopping to rest under the starry sky. At midnight they were off again, taking advantage of the cooler night air. The caravan did not stop until mid-morning, when the passengers took shelter in a public khan, or inn. The khan consisted of a large enclosure with heavy walls made of sun-dried bricks. It had a single entrance wide enough for heavily laden beasts up to the size of a camel to pass through. The center of the khan was a courtyard open to the sky. Along the interior of the khan’s four walls were a number of alcoves, or niches, about ten feet long and six feet wide and raised four feet off the ground. The niches were resting places for those traveling in the caravan, and Sam and Oman sought out one to rest in.
From his niche, Sam surveyed the scene. In the center of the open courtyard were a well and a large prayer platform. As the khan filled and there were no more empty niches, people began to sleep on the platform. The rest of the courtyard was used to stack the baggage that the animals were carrying and for the animals to roam and rest. The keeper of the khan provided feed for the animals to eat and sold other food supplies to the travelers.
Before he slept, Sam had a conversation with the sheikh of the small village. The sheikh was an old man who sat surrounded by his greyhound dogs, which he explained he used to hunt gazelle. Sam was surprised to learn that herds of gazelle were in the area. He had seen no signs of animal life except for birds and the camel bones.
At midnight the caravan was off again. By now everyone in the group knew that Sam was a Christian, and several of the men engaged in lively conversations with him. In the quiet moments, Sam read the Bible to Oman and answered his questions.
After twelve hours of traveling that day, they reached the Euphrates River. The riverbank was fringed with thick groves of date palms—what a contrast to the barren and dusty land they had passed through! Sam paid a toll, and he and Oman were ferried across the river on a rickety raft to Hillah, where they rented a room in an inn.
The next day the pair toured the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon, four miles north of Hillah. Parts of the crumbling old city wall were still visible, and mounds of clay bricks that had once been houses and other city buildings were everywhere. While Babylon, long abandoned, was now just a pile of rubble, it still amazed Sam to be viewing a site that figured so largely in the Old Testament.
On July 31, 1892, Sam and Oman left Hillah and began the journey down the Euphrates, sailing in a native boat. The Euphrates River was muddier than the Tigris but less winding. The boat sailed downstream all night until it arrived at Diwaniyah the following afternoon. Along the way it passed villages on the riverbank. One of the Arab crewmen pointed out a site that was believed to be the tomb of Job.
Once he reached Diwaniyah, Sam was directed to the serai, or government house, where he was welcomed. The local pasha, an officer of high rank, invited Sam to join him for a meal and peppered him with questions while they ate. He wanted to know how the laws in the United States worked and whether Abraham Lincoln’s son had seized power after his father was assassinated. Sam answered the questions as best he could, trying to remember how little he had once known about the culture of the Middle East.
The pasha warned Sam about the risk of piracy on the river south of Diwaniyah and advised him to hire two soldiers to protect the boat. Sam accepted the pasha’s advice and hired Salim and Salad. The men hardly acted like soldiers, spending time patching their uniforms, sleeping in the bottom of the boat, and eating bread and dates. Still, Sam was beginning to understand that this was the way things were done in Arabia. Foreigners, particularly those who could be intimidated, were seen as an endless source of revenue for the local people.
As the boat continued south toward Samawah, Sam noticed there was more activity along the river’s edge. Herds of large, black water buffalo swam across the river pursued by shouting, swimming, and swearing herdsmen. As night fell, the boat approached the town of Rumaythah, where a hundred tents were spread out beside the river as people gathered for a religious ceremony. The captain seemed worried about docking the boat for the night, but there was little he could do. The rapids ahead were too dangerous to be run by starlight.
The air was hot and sticky, and Sam didn’t sleep much that night. He was wide awake when a group of local men rushed the boat armed with flintlock rifles and mikwars, heavy sticks knobbed with sandstone. Sam’s heart raced as the two soldiers he had hired stepped forward with their guns drawn and talked to the local men. To Sam’s great relief the local men left as quickly as they had come.
