Caliphate

Al Harv Kaserne, Province of Affrankon, 30 Jumahdi I, 1531 AH (23 May, 2107)

"There shall be no compulsion in religion!" thundered the muscled, graying drill instructor, Abdul Rahman von Seydlitz, to the one hundred and nineteen newly gathered boys in the Hall of Arms. One of those boys was Hans Ibn Minden. "None whatsoever!"

The boys, none of them over twelve years of age, were positioned in what the Imperial Army would have called "the front leaning rest." Most of the world would have recognized it as the pushup position. They'd been that way so long that tears ran down faces even as arms, quivering, threatened to collapse.

In fact, some did collapse until the heavily booted feet of their overseers brought them back up to the pushup position. From those, the tears flowed without cease.

"No compulsion in religion," the senior drill instructor repeated. "Yet there is bounty, under the mercy of Allah, for those who forswear their false religion."

One of the boys, apparently no dummy, raised his head and gasped, "Bounty?"

"Indeed. It is our custom to fete those who join the faithful. It is very hard to do so with someone in the position you are in and so we relieve them of it."

Hans gritted his teeth. His mother's parting whispers echoed in his ears. My son, whatever they may take from you, do not let them have your soul as well. Keep true to our faith. God will not forget you.

Yet it was hard, hard. The work of a rural fellahin should have built good muscle in Hans' arms. And so it would have, if food had not been perennially scarce. As it was, he was not so strong as he might have been, either in body or in soul. With the rising agony in his arms, his mother's parting words grew fainter and fainter. When one by one the other boys took the drill instructor up on his offer, repeating the words, "La illaha illa Allah: Mohamedan rasulu Allah," There is no God but God; Mohamed is the prophet of God; Hans' will weakened and finally broke.

And this, thought Abdul Rahman, himself a Nazrani weaned from the faith of his fathers, this is why we take them so young.