The Caliph, further, cautioned me thus: “I have always known you to be a good man, Abu Abd, wise and reverent to Allāh. I will therefore interpret your words in that context, and send you from here to recover your wits. However, should you ever speak of this in my presence again, or should I learn that you have mentioned it to another living soul, I shall be forced to intervene.”

I was thus confronted with a dilemma: the information that I had uncovered through my research was such great importance that I could not consign it to the flames of memory and time. But to broach the topic again, even to reveal it to my heirs, was to invite the appearance of apostasy and a terrible retribution upon myself and my family. I had to record the information in such a way that it could not be traced to me, and yet would be of use to some future scholar.

My solution was to gather together a group of sages and learned men with whom I often discussed astronomy, and put to them the following question: “How can one write a hymn of praise to Allāh such that it will survive and be readable in ten thousand years’ time?”

One suggested I carve it in a stone. “But what if the carving is worn off by sand or water?” I replied. “And how do we know the men ten thousand years hence will be able to read our script?”

A second recommended that I write the message in pictograms and bury it in the furthest reaches of the dry and desolate Rub’ al Khali, with its location inscribed, also in pictograms, in secret places throughout the Caliphate. My response: “But an item buried may be exposed or moved by the shifting of wind and sand, and pictograms are simple enough to be misunderstood and the information thereby lost.

The third sage suggested that I encode the message in an oral legend, an adventure story, which in its structure would include both the message and the key to decoding it. “But,” said I, “the tongues of men are easily corrupted. How are we to know that the story will endure as written when spoken by one man, let alone generations?”

Finally, one of the sages spoke to me thus: “It seems that we can devise no solution that will satisfy you, Abu Abd. Will you tell us your own solution?” I had been listening carefully and within moments proposed my own plan, which all present applauded as remarkably prescient.

Only time will tell if they are correct.