In the holy Quran, Am’men Yujeeb al-Muth’ttareh Itha Da’ah wa Yekshif al-Sou translates to: 'or, who listens to the soul distressed when it calls on him, and who relieves its suffering.' In times of ultimate despair and fear of the unknown I have found solace through repeated reciting of this particular Ayeh/verse. This painting was a spontaneous response to a documentary on British television covering the Gulf War. Captured on camera, a horrified young Iraqi soldier, more dead than alive, was reaching out of his war tank, burnt body and melting face, left with nothing more than bulging and frozen eyes, his eyelids burnt away. Through inconceivable misery he was gazing at what he knew was his last breath, his final glimpse of life. The intense emotions generated by this horrific scene were instantly transferred to a canvas, on which I had previously laid my usual applications of turquoise (in expression of spirituality and hope). I concealed the entire surface using for the first time the colour black, leaving only a faint remnant of the original background; a trace of hope. Then, those eyes…those haunting eyes, four and not only his tormented two; perhaps it was my way of sharing his grief, for one knows we were not created alone, one knows he once ‘‘belonged’’. Then straight from the oil colour tubes: Am’men Yujeeb al-Muth’ttareh Itha Da’ah wa Yekshif al-Sou...Am’men Yujeeb al-Muth’ttareh Itha Da’ah wa Yekshif al-Sou... Being the positive person I pray to have the strength to be, I could not help but write the holy words in colour.