Chapter Forty-Four: Revisiting the Temple of Gods

  One day the messenger of God will come from heaven, his body pure, holding a staff that will emit lightning. He will lead you to exchange true wealth and freedom with blood and life. — Saladin

  Egypt is a conquered country, as early as 3100 BC, by Menes from the south unified Upper and Lower Egypt, establishing the first slave dynasty. At this time, Egyptian culture has matured, began to use hieroglyphics, and pioneered pharaonic autocratic politics. The successive dynasties built a batch of world wonders such as the Great Pyramids, Sphinx, and numerous sculptures.

  It was successively conquered by the Assyrian, Persian and Roman empires from the 7th to the 1st centuries BC. It was incorporated into the Byzantine Empire from the 4th to the 7th centuries AD.

  Many people in history have become famous because of Egypt, and the most famous one is the founder of the Roman Empire, 'Caesar'. However, in Egyptian history, Caesar was not considered a 'conqueror', but rather as a 'conquered' person. The reason is that at that time, the Queen of Egypt, 'Cleopatra', conquered Caesar with her beauty, making him willingly help Cleopatra kill her brother and successfully ascend to the throne.

  The eternal truth that 'heroes are hard to pass through the beauty pass' is the same everywhere in the world. It's even more so for a peerless beauty like 'the Egyptian queen'.

  In the early thousands of years in Egypt, the local pharaoh was a god's agent, worshiping the brilliant sun god. In addition to the main god, there were also 12 animal gods. However, after being continuously conquered by the Crusaders led by Christianity twice later on, large-scale immigration and religious propaganda caused the local Egyptians to believe in Christianity again.

  In the mid-7th century, Arab armies first conquered Syria and then Egypt. From 639 to 642 AD, the second caliph Umar sent military leaders Amr ibn al-As and Zubayr ibn al-Awwam to conquer Egypt. They successively occupied Al-Arish, Pelusium, Ain Shams, Babylon Fortress, and Alexandria. The Byzantine governor and patriarch Cyrus was forced to sign a surrender treaty with Amr, and Egypt became part of the Arab Empire, marking the beginning of the spread of Islam and Arabic language in the region.

  Amr ibn al-As built the settlement of Fustat as the capital, constructed the first mosque in Egypt, and some Copts began to convert to Islam. Later, the caliph Umar sent a judicial officer and a teacher to Egypt, promoting the spread of Islam. During the Umayyad dynasty, Egypt was made a province, governed by a governor, implementing policies that promoted Islamization, causing many residents to convert to Islam, and large numbers of Arabs moved into Egypt, merging with the Copts. Egypt became a base for the spread of Islam to North Africa and West Africa. The Arabs directly ruled Egypt for about two and a half centuries, during which time Egypt was largely Arabized and Islamized, becoming one of the centers of Islamic culture.

  In 1798, France's Napoleon I invaded and ruled for three years. In 1882, British forces occupied Egypt, which became a colony of the United Kingdom, although still nominally part of the Ottoman Empire. After World War I broke out, Britain declared Egypt to be its "protectorate". Due to resistance from the Egyptian people, Britain declared Egypt an independent state in 1922.

  Although Egypt is an independent country, in reality the British have only given a nominal statement. The massive influx of capital has made it impossible for Egypt to have its own industry. Locals are still in a semi-agricultural society. And the ownership of the Suez Canal, Egypt's most important asset, also belongs to Britain. Britain has stationed large numbers of troops in Egypt and suppressed all underground activities opposing Britain.

  Pashebek, a small town 300 kilometers south of Cairo. It's an abandoned place for a long time. There is a low hill with a small ancient Egyptian temple on it. The temple that has not been worshiped for a long time is now in ruins, and the weeds are growing stubbornly from the giant stone seams of the temple, showing desolation and desolation. There are also tall stone pillars here, but compared to other Egyptian temples, they seem much smaller.

  However, at this time, the altar of the temple hall was surrounded by many flames. Ten people wearing large robes with golden threads and yellow turbans were sitting on the ground, muttering to themselves. It seemed like they were holding some sort of ceremony. In the dark night, the whole ceremony looked solemn and mysterious.

  Before long, the ten men finished their ritual and stood up. They all walked together, only to hear one of them say in a hoarse voice, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have been serving as the Grand Elder for 40 years. My body no longer allows me to lead you here next year to wait for the arrival of God's messenger. My position will be taken over by my son, Little Ari. However, he is not yet capable of leading you, so I need to select another one from among you to take on the role of Grand Elder."

  "Respected Elder Amul, you can't leave us. We won't succeed without your leadership." The others chimed in.

  "Ah, I, as a descendant of Saladin, have dedicated my life to that prophecy. Even when I strayed from the teachings of God, I became a sinner. Now I feel the call of Allah and can exchange it for Allah's forgiveness, I am very satisfied. I will not make another mistake."

  "But, Great Elder, what are we to do? For this prophecy of 750 years ago, we have waited for 100 years. From the time of our ancestors, we began this ritual of worshiping a foreign deity; now you're telling us that we were all wrong?" an elderly elder said.

  "Not so," Amrul, the elder, shook his head with difficulty. Then he said, "Our common ancestor 'Saladin' was a great man, who sacrificed his faith to save the people from the evil rule of Christianity and borrowed magical powers from the animal gods of Egypt. And using that power secretly killed his original superiors and kings. Because his original superiors and kings only knew how to cruelly oppress their people every day, rather than leading the people to resist the evil Christian army."

  After a pause, the great elder 'Amrul' continued to say "Later our great 'Saladin' led a powerful army with the help of Egyptian animal gods, defeated the evil Christian Crusaders and recovered our holy city 'Jerusalem'. Our 'Saladin' is a true hero, he is not a bloodthirsty person. He released all his prisoners without asking for ransom."

  "Our Saladin is a man of peace and love, but not a weakling. He has made war to make the enemies who try to peek at our holy city understand that we are not afraid of bloodshed and sacrifice. His wars have forced the enemy to sign their names on treaties of peace." said Al-Moultham the elder.

  "He also opened the holy city to those true Christian pilgrims. His broad-mindedness earned him extraordinary respect from his enemies. When he died, he left behind only 1 gold coin and 47 silver coins, as well as his prophecies for us. Can you say that we are wrong to guard his prophecies for such a great ancestor?" The elderly Amur panted slightly.

  "But why do we have to come to this desolate Egyptian temple every time to worship, can't we do it in our own temples?" As Amun's high priest was about to leave the world, people hastily raised a question that had been lingering in their minds for decades.

  "It's absurd, our temple is a place where we communicate with God, it's clean and sacred for us to worship. How can you do such things." Amul, the elder scolded the crowd like his father did 40 years ago.

  Looking at the crowd, Amur, the great elder, spoke again, "There are too many people in our temple, we can't cover up easily, it's easy to be discovered. And most importantly..."

  Everyone listened carefully and quickly perked up their ears, afraid of missing any information.

  "The most important thing is that my father once told me that I must hold the ceremony here," said Amur, the great elder.

  "But why? Why must it be held here?" The crowd asked in a hurry.

  "I'm not quite sure about this either..." said Amur, the elder.

  Dizzy, everyone can't help but have a feeling. The problem that has been lingering in their minds for decades still has no answer, of course, it's unbearable.

  However, I still found some clues from the historical archives. Said 'Amur' elder calmly.

  The crowd's hearts, which had just cooled down by half, were stirred up again by Ah Mu Er's words. They hastily asked, "What clues? Quickly tell us."

  Looking at the anxious eyes of the crowd, 'Amur' the great elder was not anxious at all. He slowly stroked his nearly one-foot-long white beard with his hand, straightened his slightly hunched chest, and then reached into his clothes to take out a delicate silver bottle filled with water, seemingly wanting to drink some water.

  Seeing the old man 'Amour' acting like this, everyone hated him so much that they wanted to kick him to death. However, for the sake of solving the decades-long mystery, they had no choice but to hold their temper and wait for him to finish drinking water.

  At last, Amrul the elder drank two mouthfuls of water and ate a piece of dry bread before continuing in his hoarse voice, "I found out from historical records that Saladin once came to this temple after his first defeat."

  "What? 'Saladin' has been to this temple? What did he come here for?" The crowd asked in confusion.

  "Heh heh, I mean that Saladin once came here." replied Amr the elder.

  "We want to know what Saladin is doing here. Not whether he has been here or not, elder, please tell us quickly."

  Amulon, the great elder, said: "How can you be so obtuse? If I knew what Saladin was doing here, wouldn't I have told you already?" But as a great elder, he also had dignity and was someone who knew 500 years ahead and behind. Of course, he couldn't directly say those four words "I don't know".

  However, Amur's elder was still very experienced in this regard. He stroked his beard again, puffed out his chest and said "He came here to..." Before he could finish his sentence, Amur's elder widened his eyes and stared at the altar, stuttering as he continued "...wait... for... the arrival of the messenger of God."

  Everyone saw the appearance of Amur's great elder and immediately turned around to look up at the altar. It was better not to look, but when they did, everyone was shocked.

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