Egypt in the ninth century AD: an Arab, Muslim ruling class governs a country of mostly Coptic-speaking Christians. After an exorbitant land tax imposed by the caliph's governors sparks a
peasant revolt, Bedeir is dispatched to the marshlands of the Nile Delta as an escort for a church-appointed emissary whose mission is to persuade the rebels to lay down their arms. But he is
soon caught up in a swirl of events and concerns that alter the course of his life irrevocably, setting him on a path he could never have foreseen. The events that befall him and the insights
he gains from them bring about a gradual but inexorable personal transformation, through which his eyes are opened to the fundamental commonalities - practical, spiritual, and existential -
that bind Muslims and Copts, and he emerges as an emissary of a new sort.
