values with differing priorities. Religion, family and friends came before career in this society and I can't say that I could find much fault in that. One of the questions I came away from Canada with was, 'Why have so many people in the world embraced religions different from the one in which I was raised and why do the so-called differences in these religions cause so much war and hardship around the world?'  Simple logic told me that all these people couldn't be wrong. Despite his relative youth, Chas had a wife and children back in Bradford. He was respected by the Saudis for his knowledge with telephones and for the fact that he could converse with them in Arabic. He also spoke fluent Urdu, which came in handy when visiting family in Pakistan. His desk was across from mine and he encouraged and assisted me in my Arabic studies. He was also a keen and competent squash partner for me in the evenings in which we indulged in sport. I asked Chas about the origins of Islam. Chas happily explained, "It was about the year 610 that an Arab merchant retired with his family to a cave on Mount Hira in the Meccan valley to make a spiritual retreat. This is a place that I and many, many Muslims visit during Hajj each year. On the seventeenth night of Ramadan the merchant, Muhammad ibn Abdallah, or, as you know John, 'Muhammad, Son of Abdallah', was torn from his