Sinbad awoke to the singing of the early morning birds basking in the rays of the new morning sun. At first he was disorientated but then regained his knowledge of his surroundings. He lethargically heaved his expensive silk woven blankets off of himself and stumbled to his prodigious wardrobe, where he found one of his priceless robes. He threw it on and left the room.


As he strode through the maze-like corridors of his luxurious estate he came upon his commanders in the living room, quarreling over different battle plans. One would present a strategy and the other would shoot it down exclaiming that it was ludicrous and ineffective. Sinbad decided to engage in their conversation.


“The enemy are attempting to attack our troops,” one of the commanders said in a worried. They all looked to Sinbad for guidance, and after an extensive pause he spoke.


“Do not fear those to whom you have never had the honor to greet. You don’t know anything about this so called “enemy”, meaning you have nothing yet to fear. Once you calm yourselves then we’ll take the troops and march against this enemy of which none of us have ever met. Arm yourselves. We prepare for war!”


The group of commanders looked around at each other with questioning gazes of fear. However, as Sinbad started to suit himself up in his magnificent armor their confidence started to grow. They all took part in morning prayer, where they asked for blessings from Allah. Then they set off for the rugged fields of battle. A seen in which for many of them would be their last.


Around late morning they began their march to engage the enemy. This worried Sinbad because he knew they only had about an hour before the mid day prayer began. He started to ponder the thought of pulling the troops back, but he struck the thought out of his mind. The two armies began to pick up their pace as they lessened the gap between each other. Suddenly, all of the enemy troops stopped and began to kneel. They started to touch their fore heads to the ground and pray to Allah. Sinbad was taken aback. He had never known any army besides his own that worshipped Allah. As the thought crossed his mind, his troops started to kneel and pray to Allah. Sinbad paused and a revelation hit him. They shouldn’t have been fighting these people. They were of the same culture and society. He called for a meeting between him and the opposing army’s leader. There meeting extended well into the night. The troops of Sinbad’s army began to worry that the two generals were fighting with one another over a truce. Without warning the troops went bursting through the entrance of Sinbad’s tent to find the two men merrily laughing with one another. The troops, astonished as they were, asked what was going on. Sinbad explained that the two armies are allies and that there wouldn’t be any battle between the two sides. Fighting was all the men knew and to hear this news confused them. After a few minutes it finally struck them that they were done fighting and were free. A smile cracked across all their faces, and they went flocking to the center of the camp where they started joyously celebrating.


After the news had reached the other camp troops from that side also began to celebrate. The war was over and they could finally visit their families. This is how one small prayer saved thousands of brave men from perilous deaths on the battlefield.