From William B. Smart, author of “Messages for a Happier Life”. . . ‘Inspiring Essays from the Church News”:
Cutting across the mountainous border separating Pakistan and Afghanistan lies the Khyber Pass, the historic invasion route from Central Asia to India and most of what is now Pakistan.
In recent years, a different kind of fighting raged along those passes as Afghanistan tribesman battled to throw off a foreign yoke from their country. Their courage and determination prevailed; the invaders finally left in defeat.
But the war left a bitter legacy. Sprawling below the Khyber Pass, the fabled city of Peshawar is still crowded with refugees. The victims are easy to spot—men clumping along on one leg, children missing hands—maimed by mines sown by enemy planes. On a dusty Peshawar street, the Afghan Surgical Hospital houses the most severely injured. Some without eyes, some with faces burned away, some with brain damage or internal injuries, many with missing limbs they lie in crowded wards, stolidly waiting for healing through surgical and medical skills, time and faith.
Especially faith. That’s the one common denominator that permeates every ward of this grim place. Twice a day, everyone stops. The staff and all patients who are able to move to the courtyards, kneel with foreheads to the ground, facing Mecca. Those who can’t assemble turn in their beds.
These are warriors in what their Muslim leaders called a jihad, a holy war. They are men qualified in the crucible of pain to testify to the message of the Arabic banner hanging above the courtyard:
Desperation is only for unbelievers
Those who believe in God never lose heart
~ William B. Smart, Messages for a Happier Life, Inspiring Essays from the Church News (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989), 14-15 (continued)
