My Muslim Brother.

A chapter from "Diary of a Travelling Preacher" by H.H. Indradyumna Swami.

Each day, before downloading my email, I mentally prepare myself for dealing with the good, the bad, and the ugly. With hundreds of disciples and many other devotees regularly corresponding with me, the laws of nature force me to see the gamut of situations in this world.

March 16, 2006, was no exception. There were names to be given for babies, condolences for the families of departed souls, blessings for disciples (and chastisements for two), guidelines for a new marriage, and a plea for a departed student to return.

One name on the list in my mailbox caught my eye. It was Jahnukanyaka Dasi, a devotee from Sarajevo, Bosnia. I had met her years ago, on my first visit there. She risked her life to preach throughout the three-year war that took over 100,000 lives there in the early 1990s. Such a devotee deserves attention, so I immediately opened her email.

I was hoping to read of the recent success the Sarajevo devotees had had in book distribution, but instead I learned with great sadness of the departure of a good friend of mine, Doctor Abdulah Nakas.

I first met Dr. Nakas in April 1996 in the bloodstained hallways of the partially destroyed central hospital in Sarajevo just days after the war had ended. Our chanting party had been attacked by knife-wielding Muslim soldiers that day, and several of our devotees had been seriously wounded.

After taking the other devotees back to the temple, I went to the hospital to check on the injured. When Dr. Nakas heard that a leader of our movement was there, he came out to meet me. "Your people's wounds are serious," he said, "but not critical. They will live."

He raised his arms in the air. "I am a devout Muslim," he said, "but I am ashamed of what my people have done. The war is over, but now we are spilling the blood of foreigners in our town. Please forgive us."

He put out his hand. "We are brothers," he said, in a gesture of humility I will never forget.
I took his hand, red with the blood of the devotees and still holding a scalpel. "Doctor," I said, "you are not to blame, and neither is your religion. This is the act of a fringe element."

He once again turned his attention to the injured devotees.

While I was waiting, some of the soldiers who had attacked us came to the hospital to finish the job. They surrounded me and spat in my face. Dr. Nakas heard the commotion. He rushed out of the operating room and screamed at the soldiers to leave. Although he was defenseless and had no weapons, they backed down and went away.

Read on . . . http://www.iskcon.com/new/060428_diary.html