Reading the Holy Bible awakened in Medhat what he knew of the Quran, which was plenty. He may have memorized only one section of the Quran at his village school, but the Quran maintained a strong presence throughout his life, despite his mind being sluggish back then. He used to hear the Quran being recited everywhere, and its quotations were on every tongue. And now here were the verses, in their revealed version, coming easily to his mind. He started to switch between the two books to compare the stories of the prophets in both, and found - and was frightened, enraptured, and moved - that the image of Mary and her son existed in both books. This story was the one he felt represented the greatest and most beautiful of all portrayals of motherhood. All these stories, in his opinion, struck
