longer at liberty to pursue truth for its own sake. Islam and the teachings of the Prophet-may Allah’s peace and blessing be upon him-were by no means responsible for this, but narrow minds that claimed to speak for Islam were.”
Al-Rashid went on to cite passages from the Qur’an that stressed the importance of free inquiry and tolerance, such as Sura 2:256-“In religion, there is no compulsion”-and how later on, stringent mullahs tried to explain away such verses. He then lashed out at the current fanaticism and violence fostered by Islamic fundamentalists and jihadists that not only endangered the world but were an insult to Islam itself.
He capped his argument with a powerful illustration. “Lest you think that this is not the case today, I would call your attention to what happened very recently. The Arabic edition of a book by a well-known American professor, Jonathan P. Weber of Harvard University, contained a misprint or innocent error that has since been corrected. And yet this professor was instantly attacked by today’s mullahs, and fanatic mobs inspired by them caused riots in various countries that led, tragically, to some deaths. Not only that, but straining all canons of logic, a fatwa was even issued against the professor, which should immediately be lifted. We call on our Shiite brothers in the faith to nullify that fatwa.”
“Jon, did you hear that?” Shannon asked unnecessarily.
Jon himself was speechless. What a magnificent development-in fact, a true answer to prayer! If the fatwa were lifted, their summer plans were intact once again.
The university imam closed with an appeal that Islam resurrect its past glories and world cultural leadership by returning to the path of free inquiry, which alone could lead to truth itself in all fields of human knowledge. His final words, of course, were the formulaic “All praise be to Allah, the Lord Sovereign of the universe, and may Allah praise his Prophet Muhammad and his household.”
Moments of stunned silence followed, and then deafening applause erupted, especially from the students, with shouts of “Allahu Akhbar! Allahu Akhbar!” “God is great! God is great!” Of the seventy-five al-Azhar faculty members sharing the platform that day, some were smiling, while others wore frowns of deep concern.
Jon shook his head. “It’s the finest address by a Muslim that I’ve ever heard-and certainly the best since 9/11. This is the voice of moderate Islam that should have been much louder following what happened in New York and Washington. What a man! I’ll bet the archconservatives in the Islamic world cordially hate him.”
“Do you think it’ll take some of the heat off of us?”
“It certainly should, Shannon. It looks like we may be heading for Greece and Turkey after all.”
They called Washington the next morning and discussed the matter with Morton Dillingham of the CIA. He was his usual cautious-perhaps paranoid-self. Jon was sure there must be a plaque on his office wall that read, The light at the end of the tunnel is an approaching freight train. Yes, he admitted that the climate had improved for Jon since the now-celebrated commencement address by al-Rashid. He also reported that the CIA operatives in Tehran had reported very little public follow-up on the fatwa issue. It was no longer news there, and there were no further riots.
“Then it should certainly be safe for my wife and me not to alter our plans for Greece and Turkey, right?” Jon asked.
“Oh, I’m not sure that’s the case,” he demurred. “It only takes one fanatic, one unstable-”
“We’re fully aware of that threat, Mr. Dillingham, but our decision is to go ahead with our plans in any case.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Finally Dillingham replied, “Well, you’re free citizens, and we can’t stop you. But please fax me your specific itinerary, along with dates, after which I’ll dispatch you a complete protocol of procedures to avoid danger, CIA contacts overseas, and other security measures.”
“Thank you, Mr. Dillingham. That will be very helpful.”
“But while you’re abroad, always look behind you. Always.”
A fortnight later, Jon and Shannon were on an Olympic Air jet, flying from JFK to Athens. As the plane settled into its cruising altitude, she turned to him and said, “You know, Jon, despite all the traveling we do, this trip is the first one in a long time that almost feels like a vacation.”
Jon squeezed her hand. “Whoever said that business and pleasure can’t be mingled?”
Shannon was almost prepared for “no dancing in the aisles” on their plane, based on Olympic’s ads, but she was quite content to settle for tasty introductions to Greek cuisine. They were served calamari (“almost like chewing rubber bands,” Jon commented), angarodomata salata, pastitsio, souvlaki, dolmas nicely drenched in a thick avgolemono sauce, with a main course of either baked lamb or chicken and potato slices bathed in lemon olive oil. To be sure, there were also olives from first to last-not the modestly flavored Spanish sort cored with pimento, anchovies, or nuts. No, these were dark and salty Greek olives-totally salty-the kind that took command of your mouth and provided a day’s suggested sodium intake apiece. It took several glasses of retsina wine-Jon intentionally mispronounced it “rinsina”-to “rinse” the palate for the deliciously sweet baklava that followed. Cups of steaming elliniko kafe capped off the gustatory marathon.
Suddenly, and apropos of nothing, Shannon sat up straight and asked, “Jon, the case with the manuscripts from Pella-where is it?”
He stared at her, wide-eyed, and seemed to grope for words. “I… I thought I… I hope I… didn’t leave it at the JFK security line.”
When Shannon gaped at him in horror, Jon quickly stood, opened the overhead compartment, and extracted the case. Holding it overhead as some sort of trophy, he returned it to the compartment and sat back down.
“Are you proud of yourself, Professor Prankster?” she asked.
“Sorry, dear. Someday I’ll grow up.”
“Doubtful!” She gave him a playful poke in the ribs.
Over the snowy Alps, down the long peninsula of Italy, and then eastward across the Adriatic, they flew until Pelops’s vast “island” came into view, hung on the Greek mainland by the slender isthmus of Corinth. Now their jet lost altitude, glided across the Saronic Gulf, and curved northeastward over Laurium Mountain to land smoothly at Venizelos International Airport, the vast new structure built just in time for the Olympic Games at Athens in 2004.
“I wonder what ‘Venizelos’ means in English, Shannon,” Jon wondered, tongue in cheek, as they disembarked.
“It means ‘Venizelos,’ you dunce!” she laughed. “It’s a proper name and you know it!”
“Ah yes, Eleftherios Venizelos, the prime minister of Greece in the early 1900s, a statesman with so much charisma he’s often called ‘the father of modern Greece.’”
“Enough lecture for now, Jon.”
They breezed through passport control at Venizelos to the reception concourse, which was festooned with welcoming signs in both Greek and English. They spotted their guide even before reading the Dr./Mrs. Jonathan Weber sign he was holding, a bearded young man dressed from head to toe in ecclesiastical black. He doffed his cylindrical hat and bowed slightly as he said, with studied formality, “In the name of Christodoulos II, archbishop of Athens and all of Greece, I bid you a most cordial welcome, Professor and Mrs. Weber.”
“Kalimera,” Jon replied. “You must be Father Stephanos Alexandropoulis?”
“Nai, nai!” he said, nodding in response.
Shannon smiled, recalling her first encounter with the Greek language when she learned that something so negative-sounding in fact meant “Yes, yes.”
“Please to follow me and get your luggage,” Father Stephanos said.
En route to their hotel, Jon acted as self-appointed tour guide to sights along the way, since Shannon had never visited Greece. “This is where chapters 17 and 18 in the book of Acts really come to life,” he commented as they drove through the heart of Athens and along the western side of the Acropolis on the Odos Apostolou Pavlou -the Street of the Apostle Paul. “There’s the Parthenon atop the Acropolis.” He pointed to the right. “And just northwest of it-see that rocky rise?-that’s the Areopagus, where St. Paul gave his famous Mars Hill address. And we’re just passing the agora, where he met the philosophers who invited him to give that speech.”
Father Stephanos was nodding proudly, almost as if he had arranged all the sites for their benefit. He told them how other tourists who had money but not culture infuriated him with inane questions: “Why don’t they tear down all those ruined buildings on top of that big hill?” Moments like that made the holy man want to strangle the inquirer, he admitted.
Now they drove through the Plaka to Syntagma Square and their hotel, the Grande Bretagne. Father
