According to Marco Polo, it was between Baudac and Mosul that something wonderful happened. The wicked and cruel caliph was always plotting atrocities against the Christians. Wanting to force them to become Saracens, he stripped of their possessions those who refused to convert and had them put to death. One day, the caliph found in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, in the Holy Scripture, the following passage:
If a Christian had faith as great as a grain of mustard seed, by the strength of his prayers before the Lord he could move mountains.
The caliph rejoiced, for he thought this could be the pretext that would allow him to condemn all the Christians to death. He therefore had them summoned and assembled before him.
When they arrived, he asked if they all considered themselves Christians, to which they replied that they indeed bore that name and truly were so. Immediately, the caliph had the passage from the Gospel read aloud and asked them if it was true.
The Christians did not hesitate to say that it was indeed true and that even greater things were possible.
The caliph asked:
? Do you then assure me that a Christian who had as much faith as a grain of mustard seed could, through prayer to his God, compel the mountains to come together?
The Christians answered with certainty.
Then the caliph gave them two options: among so many Christians, surely one of them must have a little faith; if they managed to move the mountain, they would prove their faith. Otherwise, he would kill them all as false Christians. The other option was to convert to the law of Muhammad, and he gave them a period of ten days to decide.
Terrified, the Christians resolved to trust in their Creator, hoping He would help them in that danger. So they began to pray day and night, begging God to have mercy on them.
On the eighth night, a holy angel from heaven, sent by God, appeared to them and told them to go and find a shoemaker who had only one eye, so that he might pray to God for the mountain to move. This shoemaker was a man so devout that he had torn out his own eye to avoid temptation.
When the appointed day came, the shoemaker, together with the Christians, and the caliph, together with the Saracens, began the trial. The shoemaker started to pray and, as soon as he finished his prayer, the mountain began to move, the whole earth trembling under their feet.
Seeing this, the caliph exclaimed: "Great is the God of the Christians!" Many Saracens converted that day, but what is most surprising is that, at the caliph?s death, a cross was found beneath his garments, which he had secretly carried with him from that day forward, fearing the reaction of the Saracens.
