A long time ago, a few months after Noah and Najma’s first son Shem was born, a long and painful birth, the family had been happily welcomed by the neighbourhood they had just moved into. A distant cousin of Lamech, Noah’s father, had left the cottage farm uninhabited after his death, one which was mourned by none and whose sepulture was attended by none. In the community, Fahd was hated and despised, not just because his arrogance occupied every conversation, but also because he held a different set of beliefs than everybody else.

It wasn’t always like that, especially not in the beginning of his life. His father was a respected man of society and was well regarded in both the noble Ur circles, as well as in the close by Eridu community. Up to old age, Fahd’s father held several consultancy positions in the area, ranging from helping out local traders with their financial situations to advising little shopkeepers what to buy and what to avoid. A very versatile man in work and pleasure, and when it came to religion, he was a very versatile and polytheistic person also.

And in this he was just like the rest of society. Though some monotheistic fads had swept the area from time to time, none had sticked in the community and the polytheistic beliefs reigned still. Yet, there was one person who took the fads for truth. Fahd had become a monotheistic believer very early in his life, when he was about eight years old. A somewhat older friend with a long dynastic line had told him once about the secret faith his family believed in, and Fahd had been mesmerised and enchanted by it from the very first word this friend spoke. He never spoke publicly about this faith, until his father died and he considered himself free of family judgment. Fahd took every opportunity to talk about it, and while his neighbours thought it was a cute little character flaw in the beginning, as time went by and more and more was spoken about it by Fahd, they slowly began turning their backs to him.

At first, he had not noticed anything, but when his trade began to destabilise and his profits went down, he had no other option but to notice it. The older friend tried reasoning with Fahd and advised him to stay quiet about his faith, but Fahd didn’t want to hear anything of it. He was free to make up his own mind and there was no reason why he shouldn’t be passionate about his faith.

So it came to be that nobody spoke to Fahd and that he could only trade with people who were not that religious of nature themselves — which was rare. He never married, not just because no woman held the same beliefs as he did, but also because no family would ever agree to a marriage to a monotheist. When Fahd died of loneliness and impecuniousness, the neighbours did plan a funeral for him, but no one attended, mostly out of fear to be thrown out of society just like Fahd had been. A wealthy and sympathetic woman who lived in Eridu had contacted Fahd’s family, and soon after a distant nephew of his arrived in the city to claim Fahd’s lands and trade.

The community was gushing with excitement that they were getting a normal “replacement” in their community, and in the first week of Noah’s stay, traders by the dozen visited the farm to establish business. Many were turned down because Noah had a very particular taste, but those who weren’t spread the news both in Eridu and Ur that a new, polytheistic trade business had opened at Fahd’s old place.

It took only a month for Noah’s family trait to première. And when it did, it was not in a private conversation, or in a closed-off dinner. When a group of wise men visited the area and spoke of the most amazing stories, Noah had publicly denounced them and spoken against them. The society gossiped of outrage for months to come and slowly but steadfastly the family losed friends, allies and trade. Yet, they never gave up their beliefs, and each of the three sons preached and spoke about the monotheistic faith they belonged to. When they married it was not with just anyone, but with women who came from the fields where Noah originally came from, and as such also believed in the strange faith.

A faith that was quickly spreading because of immigration and the fact that noble and wealthy inhabitants of the greater area took up an interest into it. Why it did catch on outside the Eridu-Ur area and not so much within that community is simple. While there lay great power in those who were monotheistic outside the area, frankly no one with that much power believed in it within Ur, the informal capital of the region. Noblemen and women were still greatly out-forced by those who held the real power — traders and those who provided the middle man’s work. And all those people believed in a strictly polytheistic religion.

Even so, in private minds who wondered about the issue of mono versus poly, in recent days more often the pick turned out to be mono instead of poly, and society began to take up a firm stance against people who did not believe in the general faith. Especially in Ur commoners were tireless about it, even though they turned a blind eye to those in the fields who were different — like Noah.

Until the day that those monotheists outside the field were discovered to be a little bit too influential on decision makers inside the city.