Chapter 60: Publisher's Note

So ends the First Tower of the Servant of the Guide. Readers will also want to see the Second Tower, Abdul Hadi's collection of over eight hundred sermons written in his six Holy Decades as an eternal virgin. The Second Tower is of course the foundation of our modern catechisms.

Abdul Hadi's Third Tower has the popular but unofficial title of "And The Government Shall Be Upon His Shoulders," and details the period from 8316 to 8447, describing the creation of the modern government and ending with the celebration on the six-day Preacher's Judgment of 8448 and the start of the current Holy Millennium. The reader may wonder why we still base our calendar from the date Bandar the Wanderer entered the city of Punta Arenas after the global nuclear war, but Bel'dar's calendar was admired by Abdul Hadi, and we keep it as a sign of our respect for the true preacher.

For pure emotional appeal, Abdul Hadi's unfinished Fourth Tower is without question his finest work. The love poetry he wrote with his wives and the ballets he co-authored with the legendary musician Hadassa are incredibly beautiful.

Two notes on township legends. Confirming evidence was discovered centuries ago that Abdul Hadi originally wanted to title his First Tower "Dark Judgment", but at the pleading of his wives who were editing the manuscripts, he agreed to change the title to "The Preacher Man", even though he told his wives he found the title somewhat embarrassing.

A more interesting confirmation of a township legend occurred just three years ago, in the discovery of a series of private communications among Abigail, Eleora, and Kefira from the year 8315. A safe and effective cure for eternal virginity had been verified in December of 8314, based on viral-enhanced stem cells that would re-generate the critical memory processing abilities of the brain. But the cure required resources that were scarce at the time, and it would take three years to cure all those afflicted, over ten million women and one man. Historical medical records show that the last woman was cured in November of 8317.

Throughout 8315, Abdul Hadi's wives would ask him to accept the cure, and every day he would decide anew to refuse, saying that as the last person to be afflicted, it was fair that he wait to be the last person cured. We know now that Eleora made a personal plea to Abdul Hadi in late 8315, begging him that her life was almost over and it was breaking her heart to live her last years while her husband was still not cured of his affliction. In love for his wife, Abdul Hadi agreed to begin treatment on December 24, 8315. Eleora died at 104, in October of 8317.

And so here we are now, a thousand years after the time death freed Abdul Hadi from his mortal body. We owe the man so much. We don't live in paradise, and each generation seems to find a new challenge that it must face. But nothing over these last thousand years compares to the nightmare times from which Abdul Hadi woke us. The musician Hadassa in the First Tower was perfectly correct to call him our savior. And he is more. The Servant of the Guide taught us how to live, and he taught us how to Pray.

The Central Publishers of

The Islands of New Jerusalem

Judgment 4, 9570