First Grain of Sand — Page 30
14 FIRST GRAIN OF SAND Abdul Majid [a Companion of the Promised Messiah] who needed to travel to the Iranian city of Tehran for a preaching expedition. The three of us reached the Iranian border town of Duzdab [now known as Zahedan] by train. To reach our next destination of Mashhad, we needed to cross a 600-mile area of rough and barren land, which took us 45 days to complete. This long journey over rugged terrain required us to walk at times, while riding camels and donkeys, or the occa- sional caravan at other times. There was no train line that existed within these 600 miles of arid desert, which was extremely dry without any source of water for dozens upon dozens of miles at a time. And even at the points where there would be some water, it was often so filthy or even contaminated and, thus, undrinkable. On this perilous trek through the desert, we passed many dead camels and donkeys on our path, which had succumbed to death from thirst. I particularly remember when traveling from one stop to another along this path, there was a span of 56 miles with liter- ally no water in sight. We were riding donkeys through this trek and were carrying our own supply of water. We had planned to cover these 56 miles in two days but realized along the way that our water supply would be insufficient to get us to the next stop. Therefore, Mohammad Amin Khan rode one of the stronger don- keys more quickly ahead and was able to join a larger caravan. Shahzadah Abdul Majidra and I followed behind him, but ultimately the extreme levels of thirst forced us to dismount our donkeys and begin travelling on foot because our donkeys could not walk anymore without water. We walked for some distance until my travel companion, Shahzadah Abdul Majidra, who could no longer put up with the acute thirst, laid down on the