Peregrine Hodson > Quotes

“As we talked I felt as if i had passed through an invisible barrier into another dimension governed by fundamentally different laws where the world that i had previously known had only marginal significance. Here, a man's body was a shadow, death was a process of life and the only truth was the mystery of God's purpose.”
― Peregrine Hodson, Under a Sickle Moon: A Journey Through Afghanistan

“One thing the Shuravi do not understand, cannot understand, is our religion. A man who believes in God is stronger than a man who has no religion. Ten, twenty, thirty years from now the Shuravi will grow tired of the war, like the American people tired of the war in Vietnam. Communism began a hundred years ago and already it is old and confused. But God is eternal. Perhaps now you understand, Abdul Baz, why this jehad can only end in victory.”
― Peregrine Hodson, Under a Sickle Moon: A Journey Through Afghanistan

“What do the Soviet pilots think as they press the fire control button? is there the same absense of emotion which I seek as i press the button of my camera? Do we both, for an instant, lose our humanity in machines?”
― Peregrine Hodson, Under a Sickle Moon: A Journey Through Afghanistan

“About thirty of us settled down to sleep on the trestle branches of the chaikhane but my mind refused to let go of the day's images and i got up and walked along the street till I came to some shepherds gathered around a fire, their shadows dancing on an adobe wall and a chestnut tree. I did not approach them, but stood outside the ring of firelight and looked at them. Just so, I had glimpsed the life of the people but I was very little closer to knowing what it was to be one of them. Their past, present and future were contained in the fields and orchards, the streets and the bazaar of Nahrin. My time was different and in another place.”
― Peregrine Hodson, Under a Sickle Moon: A Journey Through Afghanistan

“To travel from place to place is to travel through time, and in every place the quality of time is different. Here, now it seemed to stretch in all directions. And I felt I understood why the Prophet Muhammad had ordained the observance of prayer five times a day' to act as markers for the faithful to lead them through the desert of eternity.”
― Peregrine Hodson

“As we travelled from village to village, through the valleys with their bright streams, fields of golden maize and orchards of apricot trees it was impossible to imagine that one had stumbled into a wild garden of Eden whose people were miraculously preserved from the vileness of the twentieth century. Staying in a village for any length of time, one was drawn into another world of slow and subtle change, measurably by the colours of the corn and the height of the river, the rising of the sun and setting of the moon; a different universe whose inhabitants welcomed us with fear and kindness. But gradually the poverty, the primitive conditions and the drab monotony of an existence with nothing but the basic necessities had become oppresive. I felt like a traveller from the future, imprisoned in a present that was also the past remembered from a previous life.”
― Peregrine Hodson, Under a Sickle Moon: A Journey Through Afghanistan

“He turned to a girl of five of six who had silently appeared and was playing with Muhandis by the banks of the stream.
"This is Moheb's daughter. She hasnever known peace."
Muhandis had a Kalashnikov strapped to his shoulder and the little girl was holding on to its barrel as she steadied herself to dip her feet in the water. The war was suddenly incomprehensible.”
― Peregrine Hodson, Under a Sickle Moon: A Journey Through Afghanistan