Children of Dust (17 page)

A
bu Bakr Siddiq, the first Caliph, became the second most important figure in Islam, because after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, he fought the false prophets Musaylima the Liar and Tulayha son of Khwaylid. Siddiq’s
jihad
against those pretenders assured Islam’s permanence.

Abu Bakr Ramaq, the successor, the great-grandson many times over, also had a pair of false prophets he had to fight. One of them was usurping the role of the messiah from within Islam, and the other was inviting believers to secularism.

Their names were Osama and Salman.

My first encounter with the ideas of Osama bin Laden was in the form of a news story from 1998 entitled “Muslim Fury: ‘War of Future’ Claims First Victims.”
*
It discussed the views of bin Laden and his supporters in the aftermath of Clinton’s Tomahawk missile strikes at various training camps in eastern Afghanistan. The strikes had been launched from two nuclear submarines in the Arabian Sea as retaliation for bin Laden’s blowing up two American embassies in Africa. After
a long survey of various opinions, the article concluded: “Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden—deprived of his Saudi citizenship but now elevated to the status of folk hero in the minds of many Muslims—appears secure in his Afghan fastness, promising to answer Mr. Clinton ‘in deeds, not words’ and keeping in touch with his international network by satellite fax and phone.”

After reading this article I came upon an interview that bin Laden had given to an unnamed reporter. In it he defended those who had attacked the American embassies in Africa. He also referred to Muslims as a “nation” that didn’t need to recognize the nation-state borders and urged Muslims, all of them, to fight on behalf of God against the United States.

I was astonished that bin Laden, without any formal religious training, would hold himself out as a scholar of Islam. I considered such arrogance treacherous to the faith. When I expressed my concern, however, Aslam took me aside.

“You have to take this man very seriously,” Aslam said.

“Why? He just seems like a fighter,” I replied.

“Are you not familiar with the signs of the Last Hour?” Aslam asked in astonishment.

“The arrival of the Day of Judgment?” I said. “Of course I am. My mother taught them to me when I was just a boy.”

“You must not know them very well, because Osama bin Laden was predicted in the prophecies of the Holy Messenger.”

I was irritated by Aslam’s implication that he was more knowledgeable about Islam than I was, but I was also curious. “And what did the Prophet say?” I prompted.

“There’s a prophecy he made which says that, at a time when Muslims were thoroughly defeated, around the time of the arrival of the one-eyed Antichrist named Dajjal, there would arise from the region of Khorasan a group of Muslims with black flags. First they would conquer toward the east and then head west and liberate Jerusalem. At that point the messiah, or
mahdi
, would be revealed. That
mahdi
would then destroy Dajjal, and the entire world would fall under the heel of Islam, a period of power that would last forty years. Then the Muslims
would be comprehensively defeated yet again, and that would signal the end of the world, bringing about the Day of Judgment. Do you know when that time is?”

“That could refer to
any
time,” I said.

“It refers to now,” Aslam replied. “The group of Muslims with the black flags are the Taliban. They’re from Afghanistan, which was called Khorasan. When they go east it means that they will fight against India for occupied Kashmir. Then they’ll head westward and liberate Jerusalem from the Israelis.”

I was skeptical. “What about the
mahdi
?”

“Bin Laden is the
mahdi
! That’s why I told you to take him seriously.”

“How can that be?”

“The
mahdi
was prophesied to be from Arabia, just like bin Laden, and he’s supposed to be tall and thin, just like bin Laden, and he’ll have a mark on his back, which bin Laden probably has. Most important, though, bin Laden is with the Taliban and they have black flags. By the time he’s forty, I think bin Laden will reveal himself.”

“Who is Dajjal then?” I asked.

“America.”

“Dajjal is supposed to be a one-eyed man on a donkey,” I countered.

“Yes,” Aslam said, “but Dajjal is a metaphor. The one eye refers to the camera, or media, which is what America uses to take over the world. And the donkey, that’s easy. America’s president is Clinton, and he’s a Democrat. Their symbol is the ass.”

Bin Laden’s promises of deliverance rang hollow to me. He seemed like nothing more than an opportunist. Another in a long line of pretender messiahs. The worst thing about him was that he turned Islam into a shooting star. Into fireworks. Into a gunshot. He touched believers by the light of the faith but then encouraged them to become a flame, which he fanned into a conflagration. Such an affirmation of Islam was utterly pointless. It soon fizzled out. As Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad said in his online essay “The Poverty of Fanaticism,” extremist Muslims often got burned out on Islam, and eventually did things the
religion prohibited, such as getting non-Muslim girlfriends, thus proving that their faith was weak. To make his point, Shaykh Murad gave the example of an Egyptian extremist named Hamdi who, years after launching attacks at Coptic Christians, ended up with a Christian wife from Australia.

I believed in an Islam that was permanent, unchanging, and solid. Being Muslim wasn’t just a state of mind, as bin Laden argued, but a state of existence. Islam was all-consuming. A total condition. A state of submission to the will of the Almighty. It wasn’t a system or formula or prescription that one utilized for a little while, in order to gain revenge against one’s enemies. Islam was way bigger than that; it was the primordial state of being. Bombing and killing, marauding and murdering, taking up arms against America and Israel—these were a waste of time. They were childish acts carried out by insecure Muslims, by precisely those Muslims who judged success in life according to
worldly
terms.

What mattered, as I saw Islam, was the afterlife. That was the most important part of living. Bin Laden, meanwhile, was not concerned with the afterlife.

The other false prophet, a siren of secularism, the author of a book called
The Satanic Verses
—modernity’s anti-Quran—was Salman Rushdie. He was out to undermine every Muslim’s faith, it seemed to me.

I had heard about
The Satanic Verses
in Pakistan when the book, newly published, had spurred riots and book burnings. Back then I had lived in a world where all books and writing utensils were considered sacred. Ammi had often told Flim and me that “if a book so much as falls to the floor, you better pick it up; otherwise the Day of Judgment will arrive.” When I heard that people were burning a book, I become anxious. One day I even snuck out to the site of a public protest after it had been cleared and poked through the burning tires to see if something remained of the novel.

That was then. Before I learned that I was a Caliph in waiting. Now I had to protect the flock of believers. Sitting in the stacks of the university library, I read through the novel in order to figure out how to undermine it.

It was a secularist’s manifesto. The wondrous Prophet Ibraham was depicted as heartless. A girl in charge of a group of eager pilgrims cruelly led them to an oceanic death. An
imam
who resembled the Ayatollah Khomeini was shown as wily and power-mongering, rather than pious and honest (as any true, God-fearing
ayatollah
would be). The whores of Mecca took on the names of the Prophet’s wives. Finally came the real problem: the part about the Prophet Muhammad and the circumstances surrounding the revelations that became the Quran. This part suggested that first Satan and then Muhammad’s Persian scribe Salman had both tampered with the Quran, changing words outright.

It was this part that made the book vile to Muslims, because it promoted doubt. Skepticism opened the door for believers to think there was a chance that revelation wasn’t from God, that the Quran was written by men and thus wasn’t otherworldly. Widespread skepticism would be the ultimate victory for secularism, which had previously subjected the Torah and the Bible to just the same attack. What the secularists wanted—Rushdie among them—was to establish the supremacy of reason over and above revelation, something that all religious people had an obligation to resist, because if reason became dominant, the world would fail.

I had learned these things from reading the text of a 1999 lecture titled “The Changing Face of Secularism and the Islamic Response,” given by Zaid Shakir in Aylesbury, England. In that lecture he claimed that secularism was un-Islamic. Whereas God said in the Quran, “I have only created
jinn
s and mankind that they might worship Me,” secularism demanded that we worship the earthly, the immanent, the tangible. Shakir explained that secularism forced the people of the hereafter to become the people of the here and now. Rather than looking at death as a gift, which brought an opportunity to be near God, secularism looked at death as a curse, the moment when one became divested of the world. Shakir explained that secularism was trying to destroy the last normative religion in the world. It wouldn’t use swords or guns to separate the creation from the Creator; rather, it would use a sinister idea called freedom.

That was what Salman Rushdie was selling.

My revolt against secularism involved shelving Rushdie’s book in the art history section of the library when I’d finished reading it. That way no Muslim of a weaker constitution would encounter it, since Muslims—who considered images
haram
—didn’t usually study art history. Hiding the book was way better than burning it—which drew attention to it.

A
fter rationality, the most potent weapon that secularism wielded was sex. It was a pious believer’s constant temptation, assailing from every angle, weakening us. My particular temptation was called Kara.

One day, when I was at the student center with Moosa Farid, we both saw a curly-haired brunette wearing a tank top.

“Damn,” I said suddenly, unable to control my tongue. “That girl has nice tits.”

Moosa stared at her also. “Wow!” he said. “And she looks Muslim on top of that.”

“I’d like to get on top of that,” I said, leering.

“We need to stop staring,” Moosa cautioned, suddenly remembering Islamic decorum.

“Right. She’s hot, but hell is hotter.” I turned away as I mouthed the slogan, but my eyes were drawn right back to her.

“Hell is way hotter,” said Moosa, sharing my weakness.

“I think we need to change that slogan,” I said. “Something like: sometimes hell is barely hotter.”

“Just lower your gaze,” he warned.

“I will when you do.”

“I don’t have to stop,” he said. “I’m still on my first look. You, on the other hand, broke the first look.”

“What do you think she is?”

“The embodiment of sin.”

“Ethnically, I meant.”

“Arab. Look at those thighs. Thick.”

“I want her,” I announced dreamily.

“I do too, but I’m not risking hell for her. An infinite number of virgins are waiting for me in the afterlife. I’m going back to the dorm.”

“Just a few minutes,” I said. “I’ll admire her for just a few minutes. I promise to make extra
nawafil
to ask God’s forgiveness.”

Left in peace to take in the scenery, I noticed that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breasts stayed pert and afloat and rippled when she laughed. As she looked my direction my heart lifted, but then just as suddenly I was filled with despair. Why bother trying to meet her? I couldn’t be with her in any case. She probably wasn’t a Muslim, which meant I couldn’t marry her—not because Islam forbade it, but because Muslims around me would censure me. And even if she
was
a Muslim, she was clearly wack, which would lead people to impute her wackness onto me.

Still, when she left the student center, I followed after her. When she turned into a lecture hall, I stepped closer to read the sign on the door. It was a student forum on women and religion. Interesting, I thought, and went in and sat down next to her, my heart racing, my conscience guilty, my body tingling.

She saw me looking at her and smiled. “My name is Kara,” she said, extending her hand.

I mumbled my name and stared at her hand—a lovely hand that Western manners would have me hold but that Islam forbade me to touch. It would take the fire of
jahannum
to erase the sin of shaking that hand. As for looking her in the eyes, I had to avoid that as well, because that would lead to a temptation one couldn’t resist.

“I don’t shake hands,” I said, with eyes downcast. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she said, retracting but not offended. “I thought you might not. I grew up with Muslims. I’m Lebanese…but Christian.”

“Like Khalil Gibran?”

“You know the poet?” she asked, thoroughly pleased.

“I read his book
The Prophet
last month.” Then I recited a verse I remembered: “For even as love crowns you he shall crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.’” I didn’t tell her that I’d read the book because I thought it was written by a Muslim and had been disappointed to find out that he was Christian.

“That’s my favorite line!” she exclaimed.

“Mine too.”

Then we became quiet as if we had each confessed a tremendous secret.

I was relieved when another student rose and introduced the forum. For an hour or more I sat thinking of Kara as ideas about women and religion were exchanged around me. I didn’t contribute anything to the discussion, but she talked several times, each comment revealing both character and intelligence.

“I’m going to go over to the cafeteria for a burger,” she said when the forum was over. “Want to come?”

“Sure,” I said, overriding my own intentions. “I’ll have some fries and a shake.”

Worried that a Muslim might see me with an immodest girl, I led her toward the back of the cafeteria. Still, despite the paranoia, I was sure that I wanted to be in her company. She was beautiful and intelligent and I wanted to impress her. As we ate, we talked about Islam. Our eyes kept connecting throughout the meal, and her easy smile made my heart beat faster. After we finished eating, we walked around the city, sharing a cup of
chai
at a Starbucks and another one at a Suheir Hammad poetry reading at NYU. Hours later we came to a stop at the university gym, where we planned on parting ways.

We stood looking at one another for a long moment. Then, just as I was about to walk away, Kara grabbed onto the buttons of my coat.

“Amir?”

“Yes.”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Yes?”

‘ “When his wings enfold you, yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.’”

I stood dumbstruck. I recognized the words as a verse from Gibran. It was from the same section—Love—as the one I had quoted. The verse plummeted into some unexplored part of me like a pebble thrown into a lake from a great height. All this time in New York I had felt so lonely. Now here was a Gibran-quoting beauty who understood Muslims and was interested in religion. I felt an overwhelming desire to touch her. I wanted to make her mine. I wanted to kiss her mouth and taste Levantine leaves.

Yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it. As she moved closer, I pulled away. I invoked Islam and Muslims and marriage and responsibility and the tortures of hell. Then I turned and ran in the other direction, chanting the Verse of the Throne as loudly as I could.

I left a broken button behind.

A
few days later I went to an MSA meeting in the prayer hall. The brothers—sincere, severe, serious—sat in a semicircle facing the window, with me at one end. The sisters—soft secretive silhouettes—made a semicircle on the opposite side. The brothers actively looked away from the sisters so that everyone could see how hard they were trying to avoid getting tempted and ending up in hell. The sisters adjusted their
hijab
s to cover as much of them as possible so that everyone could see how hard they were trying to make sure they didn’t inadvertently send brothers to the fire.

Just as the meeting began, the door was flung open and in walked Kara. She didn’t have on a
chador
or a scarf. In fact, she was wearing tight jeans and a tank top. Her breasts were prominent, the cleavage at least as deep as the Prophet’s trench around Medina. She walked over and sat down on the floor next to me.

“Hey, you,” she said, bumping shoulders and smiling.

I was filled with dread. I scrunched away as if she were diseased. Her presence and her close proximity were reprehensible. I knew that
the MSA sisters would look at us and assign her immodesty to me. The brothers, meanwhile, would act like nothing had happened, which was worse.

For a few tense minutes I tried to remain composed. Then, unable to bear the weight of eyes that consciously averted themselves, I asked Kara to step outside with me.

“You coming here was a very bad idea,” I said, once we’d escaped into the hallway.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just had to see you.”

“You need to go,” I ordered, punching the down button on the elevator to expedite her departure.

When the summoned car arrived, she stepped inside and the steel doors closed between us, while I went back to the meeting, took my seat, and remained very quiet. I knew—as did everyone around me—that I didn’t deserve to be included. Feeling ashamed, I left the meeting early and went back to my dorm.

Locked in my room, I stood beside the window and looked out at the rowdy couples on the street flirting on a Friday night. With a mixture of fear and disgust, I watched people going in and out of a pub across the way—some staggering out drunk. There was a group of scantily clad women going into a Thai restaurant, followed by a young man with his hand on the small of a girl’s back. All of these immodest sights and sounds seemed to be purposefully joined in a conspiracy against my faith. I could see what I had always suspected: behind everyday life in America lay temptation, lay the demonic beckoning of freedom; it curled out of the sewers, splashed down from the skies, and infused itself into each human body. I was witnessing the slow but steady imperialism of secular life. It was insidious because it wrapped itself in sex. I was being chased by women now the way Moosa Farid had been chased by homosexuals when he first got to campus. It was horrible.

I sat on my bed and cursed Kara. She had been irresponsible, coming into the meeting like that. Stupid non-Muslim girl! She didn’t understand what was at stake. Nothing less than the future of Islam! She didn’t understand what a meticulously crafted and fragile shadow this Muslim man truly was. She didn’t understand that Islam was in a war,
not just for its own integrity, but on behalf of all monotheism. Why did she make me want her? It must be because she didn’t respect me, the way all of Western culture didn’t respect Muslims.

The more I thought, the drowsier I became. Willing to drown my depression in sleep, I closed my eyes. Instead of darkness, I saw Kara—and I wanted her. I could picture her in my bed. I could imagine myself in bed with her. Clutching my sheets, I moaned into my pillow. I wanted to pick up the phone and tell her that I was coming over.

Suddenly tears formed in my eyes—tears of guilt and penance. Soon I was weeping, and I couldn’t stop myself. I did what I had only read about: I cried myself to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, everything was inexplicably clear: Abu Bakr Ramaq needed a pious Muslim wife. Otherwise, he would commit fornication and no longer be worthy of serving the religion.