A retired college English/Journalism Professor. I have worked as a profesor and a writer for 30 years. Now I am devoted to writsing
For the main character of Sabri Bebawi God On Trial, each moment brings a torment of some kind. The character is extremely intelligent and yet disturbed by thoughts that never cease, as well as memories that evoke strong responses, eventually leading to a confusion of time and current reality. Indeed, as time progresses, the confusion grows worse; his reality rarely merges with truth. Paranoia and hallucinations take over his mind and thoughts, provoking dangerous responses on his part. As this deterioration advances, his connection with his wife becomes tenuous in that she is not able to understand the dimensions of his personal reality. He may have little intellectual connection with his wife, but one portion of his thoughts remains largely coherent. In an attempt to gain some recompense for his suffering—and possibly to protect others from similar problems—he wishes to put God on trial. With little sleep or rest, he begins to gather the data needed for such a task even as his life begins to fall apart. His rage against God takes on new proportions as he develops the case; reviewing Holy Scripture, he in fact finds God culpable in the most heinous of crimes against humanity. The case envelops his imaginings, isolating him from those who care about him most. This disturbed man is presented in Bebawi novel as a remarkably compassionate person who has experienced the worst of life in his various ailments. He is certainly representative of much of the reader's own private questionings of God and the trials that are faced by even the most innocent. Even in the midst of obvious hallucinations, he provides a lucid argument against God, definitely not the ravings of a madman. And yet mental illness is one of his problems, the most prominent one during the action of the novel. Following his thoughts through various mental states, the writing in Bebawi book is chaotic but not confounding; it is more disconcerting in that the reader witnesses the suffering of such a kind and intelligent man in the midst of mania and delusion. Bebawi skillfully leads the reader through the meanderings of his mind and leaves the indelible impression of a man who did not deserve his fate. Too, the writing is obviously sympathetic toward those with mental illness without being condescending or overly dramatic in its representation. By presenting the argument against God within the context of the thoughts of a mentally ill person, Bebawi may be providing a “safe” place for such discussion. Some may dismiss the case that the character is developing as that of delusion, and yet there are those in the novel who find it remarkable. Following the main character as he gathers his information from the various religious texts, the reader may make a similar conclusion. Or, if religious, he or she might simply find a common ground with this man in his suffering and the rage caused by it. Bebawi leaves such a decision up to the reader and his or her conscience. This intricate story is so captivating with such vivid, detailed characters, that readers will fall in love with this book. Even within the space of a short novel, Sabri Bebawi is able to present difficult—and often private—questions of life, God, and reality in the harsh existence of a mentally ill man. Through smooth prose that expresses the man's desires, Bebawi provides the reader with not necessarily the answer to whether or not God is guilty of crimes against humanity, but rather the context in which to begin answering those questions. The fictional space of the book provides only the beginning of this discussion, and yet it is a powerful beginning
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE:
THE BEGINNING
There is that tormenting feeling again. A feeling that he at times ignores; other times he descends into deep thoughts of yesterdays. He has grown so familiar with such disquieting emotions that occasionally he is not even aware.
The most amazing thing, he ponders, is the inner child’s mind, thoughts, and hunches. The inner child that is residing peacefully in all of us that many of us ignore. He does not ignore. He recognizes, respects and nourishes his inner child.
He remembers. Though more than five decades have passed, it appears as though it were only last month, or, at the risk of romanticizing history, last week. Yet, it is, indeed, more than five decades ago.
He was born in 1956 and raised in the exotic, confused, and utterly blurred, world of Egypt. He was raised in an affluent family in a small oasis in middle Egypt named Fayoum. The name originated from Coptic, original Egyptian language, Efiom, which means the sea. Fayoum is 63 miles southwest of Cairo, the Egyptian capital.
He grew up in a family of five siblings. His father was a prominent criminal and constitutional barrister. His father was a functional alcoholic, an avid gambler, and was publically branded as a philanderer.
Notwithstanding his father’s such unusual eccentricities, he grew up with all needs, as well as wants, met. His father was still a great, honorable gentleman in a time when there were gentlemen on our beautiful planet.
His mother was an ordinary housewife who afforded her children love in abundance. He and his siblings learned manners, discipline, and etiquette since infancy. His mother was the warmest and kindest of mothers; her compassion and love was unconditional.
That perturbing feeling comes again with vivid memories that are graphic and distinct. He is not sure whether he is awake or asleep. He sees and converses with the child in him. The child is only four years old. Then he is five; then six, then seven. He senses the continuity, the consistency, and the permanence.
He is feeling unwell. He is always not well.
“What is wrong, son? How are you feeling?” He factually hears his mother asking, just as she always has each time he is stricken by some bizarre illness.
“I am not well, Mom. I cannot move; I have a headache and I want to vomit.”
He confusingly replies in a loud shivering voice that startles him for he hears himself. Now he is certain he is awake, or at least semi-awake. He is conversing with someone in the room, though he is alone, lying in bed in a semi-conscious state.
He feels her; she gently, as she does each time he is sick, checks his fever by inserting a strange looking long instrument into his rectum. The oddest thing is that he actually feels the thermometer inserted into his rectum right now.
“Oh! Lord Jesus, the Virgin Mary; your temperature is very high, son.”
His mother’s voice rings in his ears. He plainly feels her check his reddish feverish body. He hears her scream:
“We need to call Dr. Manoli right now.”
“Ah! Dr. Manoli.” He reminiscences. Dr. Manoli was a Greek citizen; one who managed, and no one knows how, to avoid President Gamal Abdul Nasser’s order to deport all foreigners and Egyptian Jews from Egypt and seize their businesses, properties, and all their assets. Dr. Manoli was a short, semi-heavy man with a bold head, small eyes, and a bulging abdomen. He spoke Arabic with a Greek accent, but was clearly understood. He was the family’s doctor and would often visit whenever needed.
His thoughts leap into a different direction not related to his illness. The name of Dr. Manoli makes him remember his neighbors Yolanda and her old mother the night before they were to be deported to Greece by order of the Egyptian government. His mother, grandmother and other people he cannot recall are around Yolanda and her mother trying to comfort them over tea. The government seized their villa and they were to leave the next morning with nothing but their clothes. He remembers how sad that evening was. He sees tears flowing from Yolanda’s eyes. He remembers her young beauty, her unique accent and her long, blond hair that made her face sensual and her lips kissable. He mumbles, “Damn politics; damn government; damn Egypt.”
In his state of semi-consciousness, he is unable to understand why the government takes Yolanda’s father’s successful metal shop business, seizes their only residence and forces them to depart the place they have known for years. He feels heaviness in his heart and his body shakes in a sudden movement.
He sighs. His reminiscences rewind back to the situation at hand before his distraction by the thoughts of Yolanda and her family. He glances through the bedroom door and sees his mother pick up, as she has always done, the old black phone sitting on a dark brown table at one corner of the salon. She rolls the hand crank, and his father gets on the other end from his office.
“Call Dr. Manoli to come immediately. The middle one is very sick. He has a rash all over his body, a fever, a stiff neck, and he says he wants to vomit. He cannot walk. My baby cannot walk”
His mother hangs up the phone and about fifteen to twenty minutes later, the doorbell rings.
Zakia, the nanny, opens the door and announces,
“Madam, Dr. Manoli is here.”
“Let him in, Zakia, thanks to the angels of God; blessed be the virgin.” His mom utters.
The doctor comes to his bed. He takes his stethoscope and other strange medical instruments out from his doctor’s bag and he starts to examine him.
It all seems so real to him. He is still lying on his bed alone in his room; in his thoughts, he is not alone. All is in real time. The child in him is creative, imaginative, and, in a more subtle way, visionary.
Dr. Manoli listens to the heart; he checks the body all over; he asks him to open his mouth wide and take his tongue out. The doctor inserts something wooden and long into his mouth that makes him gag. He tells the doctor about his nausea, headache and his overall ailment. He sees gloom over the doctor’s face; he notices worry on his mother’s demeanor; and he sees fright in Zakia’s eyes. Though he might be aware that was more than five decades ago, the experience is actual and tangible. He is now confused and fairly terrified.
Dr. Manoli puts his instrument back in his bag and asks the mom to go outside with him to speak with her. He could in point of fact hear his mom cry loudly and hears both Zakia and Dr. Manoli trying to comfort her.
It is baffling to him. How can an event of five decades that passed become so alive and real? He is certain, and his adult medical examinations prove, that this childhood illnesses, including Meningitis, left him scared for life.
He now knows he is awake; he is neither dreaming nor hallucinating, he is merely reliving yesterdays. He is experiencing one of his unceasing trances. Fatigue and exhaustion of all this jamais vu takes him out of his trance and for a very short time he falls asleep.
In his sleep state, he recalls his religious mother pray non-stop to the angels, to the Virgin, and to all saints. Saints he knows about; others he does not. His mother has always believed, until this moment, that his survival was a direct result of her prayers.
His inseparable companion, insomnia, shakes him hard enough to awaken him. He is now fully awake again. He gets up, walks to his desk and lights one of his Dunhill cigarettes. He wonders why he is in and out of these unusual reveries.
Professional Reviews
Hollywood Review
http://sabri.org/HollywoodReview.html
Hollywood Book Reviews
Title: God on Trial
Author: Sabri Bebawi
Publisher: Create Space
ISBN: 978-1491212035
Pages: 280, Paperback/Kindle
Genre: Mystery
Reviewed by: Krista Schnee, Hollywood Book Reviews
Date Review Completed: October 15, 2013
For the main character of Sabri Bebawi God On Trial, each moment brings a torment of some kind. The character is extremely intelligent and yet disturbed by thoughts that never cease, as well as memories that evoke strong responses, eventually leading to a confusion of time and current reality. Indeed, as time progresses, the confusion grows worse; his reality rarely merges with truth. Paranoia and hallucinations take over his mind and thoughts, provoking dangerous responses on his part.
As this deterioration advances, his connection with his wife becomes tenuous in that she is not able to understand the dimensions of his personal reality. He may have little intellectual connection with his wife, but one portion of his thoughts remains largely coherent. In an attempt to gain some recompense for his suffering - and possibly to protect others from similar problems - he wishes to put God on trial. With little sleep or rest, he begins to gather the data needed for such a task even as his life begins to fall apart. His rage against God takes on new proportions as he develops the case; reviewing Holy Scripture, he in fact finds God culpable in the most heinous of crimes against humanity. The case envelops his imaginings, isolating him from those who care about him most.
This disturbed man is presented in Bebawi novel as a remarkably compassionate person who has experienced the worst of life in his various ailments. He is certainly representative of much of the reader's own private questionings of God and the trials that are faced by even the most innocent. Even in the midst of obvious hallucinations, he provides a lucid argument against God, definitely not the ravings of a madman.
And yet mental illness is one of his problems, the most prominent one during the action of the novel. Following his thoughts through various mental states, the writing in Bebawi book is chaotic but not confounding; it is more disconcerting in that the reader witnesses the suffering of such a kind and intelligent man in the midst of mania and delusion. Bebawi skillfully leads the reader through the meanderings of his mind and leaves the indelible impression of a man who did not deserve his fate. Too, the writing is obviously sympathetic toward those with mental illness without being condescending or overly dramatic in its representation.
By presenting the argument against God within the context of the thoughts of a mentally ill person, Bebawi may be providing a "safe" place for such discussion. Some may dismiss the case that the character is developing as that of delusion, and yet there are those in the novel who find it remarkable. Following the main character as he gathers his information from the various religious texts, the reader may make a similar conclusion. Or, if religious, he or she might simply find a common ground with this man in his suffering and the rage caused by it. Bebawi leaves such a decision up to the reader and his or her conscience.
This intricate story is so captivating with such vivid, detailed characters, that readers will fall in love with this book. Even within the space of a short novel, Sabri Bebawi is able to present difficult - and often private - questions of life, God, and reality in the harsh existence of a mentally ill man. Through smooth prose that expresses the man's desires, Bebawi provides the reader with not necessarily the answer to whether or not God is guilty of crimes against humanity, but rather the context in which to begin answering those questions. The fictional space of the book provides only the beginning of this discussion, and yet it is a powerful beginning.
TITLE INFORMATION
GOD ON TRIAL
A Short Fiction
Bebawi, Sabri
CreateSpace (212 pp.)
$9.95 paperback, $0.99 e-book
ISBN: 978-1491212035; November 8, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Distressed by the state of the world, a man decides to prosecute God.
The unnamed main character in Bebawi’s (A Dream is Just That, 2011) novel vividly recalls suffering from a severe
fever during his otherwise pleasant childhood in “the exotic, confused, and utterly blurred world of Egypt.” He also
remembers how, decades later, as a California-based English teacher on vacation in Paris, he experienced an inexplicable
seizure in his leg that ended as quickly as it began. The seizures continued with increasing frequency, frustrating the man
and worsening his lifelong insomnia to the point where he feared he’d start hallucinating (other people count sheep when
trying to sleep, Bebawi writes, but his protagonist “counts the number of wars that have taken place before and after his
birth”). While watching and reading news of a world seemingly falling apart—among many topical issues, the exile of
National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden gets a good deal of attention—and in his nervous, hyperstressed,
“semi dream state, he feels the need to impeach God.” Specifically, he’ll try God in absentia before the Human Rights
Council for crimes against humanity. He cites the Torah and the Old Testament as being “the original texts of
bloodbath”—i.e., retribution and violence toward others—and moves on to the Quran, in which he finds God clearly
inciting acts of terrorism. As the man’s obsession picks up momentum, his wife, friends and colleagues understandably
become worried for his sanity. His project grows increasingly elaborate as he tallies up the “atrocities against humanity”
that this unseen entity has committed, ranging from wars to plagues and famines, and he finds little evidence that these
offenses have decreased in number even in the allegedly more peaceful New Testament. “God’s nature,” he concludes,
“always has been vindictive, abusive, and violent.” Through mysteries and well-laid legal wrangles, the novel accelerates
toward a fascinating, surprisingly spiritual climax. There’s a great deal of food for thought here, for believers and
nonbelievers alike, and it’s all presented in a fluid, gripping narrative.
A man’s arraignment of God for crimes against humanity becomes a passionate investigation of faith.
Kirkus Indie, Kirkus Media LLC, 6411 Burleson Rd., Austin, TX 78744
indie@kirkusreviews.
Pacific Book Review
http://www.pacificbookreview.com/God-on-Trial.php
Review
Is it plausible to blame God for the abuses and ills that we may suffer in life, especially when it comes to the acts of those that follow the tenants and texts of religious worship. God on Trial, which is a dramatic fictional work by author Sabri Bebawi, not only addresses this question but also takes a delving look into the issue, from an interesting but disconcerting angle. Portrayed through the actions, thoughts, and circumstances of the protagonist – an unnamed 57-year-old English Professor and mediocre writer -who suffers from initially, undiagnosed schizophrenia. Finding himself at odds with the conditions of the world around him, He takes steps to start proceedings to impeach God in the International Court of Human Rights. He intended to prove his case by compiling a manuscript titled “The Indictment of God” filled with adverse religious doctrine inclusive of the three major faiths Judaism, Catholicism and Islamic. He determined that it was God’s fault the abuses and miserable conditions of man exist, including his own suffering. He saw God as the provocateur of such conditions by virtue of writings contained in various Holy books. He saw God much like a mafia boss - he gives the orders through various religious doctrines but does not get his hands dirty.
He suffered through a rough childhood filled with numerous stressors; repeated illness, sexual abuse, a father lost to his vices, conflicts within family, government and religious institutions, and anxiety brought on by religious contentions (he was raised a Coptic Christian but forced to embrace the Islamic faith). Moreover, with repeated exposure to the most catastrophic sections of the Bible and the Quran, it created within him an unhealthy fear of God from a young age. His suffering through these issues seemed to lend towards his illness running rampant within him until, he began to portray dangerous outward signs of his disorder. Because, schizophrenia, affects the way a person thinks, feels and interacts with the world, this caused him to often lose touch with reality. Remaining immersed in his deluded abyss, he often interacted with people aloud in public, that did not exist, such as the lawyer, Juliana he requested assistance from, in order to prepare his case against God.
For the protagonist, things spiral so completely out of control that the lines between reality and his world become completely obscured leading to his wife being murdered, and ultimately his own demise as well. In an ironic twist, his grieving sister pays a loving tribute to him by picking up where he left off, pursuing the case against God.
This novel is a realistic depiction of the sad human condition that is the world today, as well as a heart-wrenching depiction of one human’s condition - the result of his contact with the people of God’s world. Overall, I found this to be a good read that held my interest, it presented a controversial subject matter in a unique way and contained some thought provoking points, about faith, worship and God. God on Trial is an out of the ordinary read that has great potential and I would recommend this book to readers that are looking to clarify the connection between the current state of the world and worshipping God.
Full free audiobook. Listen now. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAQROzxB6ow&list=PL8eJT6MpCTmJoUx0_Bf5-InKdP5Kogy4b) This book is about life and death and overcoming personal struggles to discover the real you that is hidden inside. The story empha
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