The Prophet's Ladder (3 page)

Uqba suddenly felt his feet grow wet, and he looked down to see that, strangely, a good amount of water was flowing out of the ground beneath him. Shocked and bewildered, the general and his men leapt away from the torrent that quickly began to fill the depression they’d stood in. The water flowed unceasingly, and many soldiers cheered with pleasure, for they and the animals both could slake their thirsts in full tonight.

Uqba bent over and sipped from the growing pool. The water was refreshing and clean, not brackish or muddied in the slightest! He knew he’d not had water this pure in an age; the liquid tasted as if it were from the sacred well of Zamzam itself, thousands of miles away. How was such a thing possible?

“This is a miracle from the Exceedingly Compassionate, the Shaper of Worlds!” Uqba exclaimed. “We are all as Ishmael was tonight. Truly we are blessed.” And the men drank their fill, then and thereafter, for Uqba knew that this
Kairouan
was a holy place, destined to become a site of pilgrimage comparable to Mecca or Jerusalem itself.

Uqba ibn Nafi smiled, for he knew Allah watched and shielded him and his men, guiding them on their journey across this vast, immeasurable land. 

****

Todd faced his computer screen in the empty coffee shop. It was late in the evening, and the only other soul in the room was the barista who was busy cleaning the espresso machine. Todd glanced at the tiny box that displayed his head on the video-chat program. He combed back his dirty blond hair, which was always slightly unkempt for some reason, and took a deep breath. He never liked interviews, even informational ones. They always reeked of superficiality and bullshit in his opinion, and Todd assumed that whatever he said during this type of thing was being dissected and overanalyzed for hidden meaning a hundred times by the interviewer, just as he would do afterwards. To his mind the added burden of communicating via a computer screen and the slight delay in sound and speech it always entailed simply exacerbated the difficulty of it all.  Abruptly, an unfamiliar face appeared on the screen as the call connected.

“Good afternoon Mr. Wittry,” said a man with dark hair and sharp brown eyes in accented, intelligible English. “My name is Karim Al Thawadi. I am in the employ of Al-Hatem Aerospace. I am pleased you’ve decided to speak with us today about our offer.”

“Yes, thank you. I’ve reviewed the documents you’ve sent me, very interesting. I’ve also asked my colleagues about your company, and I must be honest Mr. Thawadi…”

“Please, call me Karim,” interjected the man on the screen. He was wearing a fitted suit and tie, gold and black. He appeared sharply dressed and fashionable, a man in his mid forties.

“Karim,” Todd corrected himself. “Not many have heard of your organization.”

“Well, we are indeed a nascent aerospace engineering firm that is true,” said Karim, nodding, “but I believe some of our recent accomplishments, noted in the literature we sent you, speak for themselves as to the quality of our team and our willingness to innovate. You would be well suited here, Mr. Wittry. We’ve reviewed your CV as well, and we are quite impressed. Your work on the Curiosity project is quite exciting. Our CEO himself specifically asked me to bring you on board.”

Todd smiled, despite himself; when it came to his work he was as susceptible to flattery as the next underappreciated engineer. “That is very kind of you, Karim. I have a few questions for you, if I may?”

“Of course.”

“Is it true that you’ve secured access rights and construction permits for a spaceport launch facility in the
Rub al Khali
desert?” Todd asked.

“That is correct, Mr. Wittry,” replied Karim. “In truth, construction is already well underway on the state-of-the-art facility. We expect full operational status in a few months time.”

“And what is your operational budget?” asked Todd.

“Officially or unofficially?” Karim smiled.

“Is there a difference?” Todd’s interest was piqued.

“Oh yes indeed. We are a public-private partnership, Mr. Wittry. Nominally we have some funding and grants from the UAE government, approximately $1.5 billion, as well as some capital from our private investors, totaling some $1 billion in additional funds this fiscal year. Unofficially... well, I can’t really discuss that since we are not face to face, but let me assure you that there are some...interested parties who wish to assist us in our work, benefiting themselves in turn.”

Todd head was reeling from the numbers he had just heard. He centered himself, trying to maintain a dispassionate mien. “Even so, $2.5 billion is nearly 15% of NASA’s budget. How can the UAE afford such a thing?”

Karim appeared slightly miffed at Todd’s crudeness, though he swiftly masked his expression. “You need not concern yourself with the politics of it all Mr. Wittry, we leave that to our board and CEO, and they have it all well in hand. Did you find the salary offer and benefits package to your liking?”

“Yes, thank you, it is very generous.” Todd humbled himself. The offer on the table was lavish in the extreme for an engineer who had spent his whole career in the public sector. “I must admit, Karim, the offer is tempting. May I consider it for a few more days? I would like to discuss all of this with my wife.”

“Take all the time you need, Mr. Wittry,” Karim replied. “You may contact me at my email or by phone.”

“And may I ask you one more question?”

“Certainly.”

“What project would I be working on initially, were I to come aboard? Satellite test launches, general groundskeeping, getting things up and running, that sort of thing?”

“Oh no, Todd.” Karim’s face had changed, his pleasant disposition shifted to something akin to deadly seriousness. “ We would have you managing a team of engineers, some 20 or so, working on tether component construction, access, and remote handling.”

Todd’s world dropped out from under him. “Tether components? You mean…”

Karim’s eyes seemed to sparkle on the computer screen, betraying a hint of childlike enthusiasm. His accented voice returned after a slight buffering delay. “Yes, indeed Mr. Wittry. Tethers. Elevator tethers.”

****

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon the following day, Ali entered his father’s favorite corner cafe, across the street from the local
jamea
, or mosque. Immediately, as always, the profusion of noises, smells, and sounds overloaded his senses. There were thirty or so men in the narrow, smoke filled establishment. Two televisions attached to the walls were loudly playing at once; one displayed a football match around which many of the patrons had gathered expectantly, shoulder to shoulder. The other TV had on a 1980’s Hollywood action film, one starring that droll Austrian muscleman, Ali reckoned, with subtitles both in Arabic and French.

Men sipped liters of coffee and scalding hot mint tea, spooned
bisara
into their mouths, and smoked cigarettes to excess. Some older haji in brown and blue d
jellabas
sat around a checkerboard as two of their number played, faces furrowed in deep concentration, each attempting to preempt the other’s stratagem with every move. There were no women in the cafe; such a place would not have them.

Ali scanned the establishment where his eyes eventually fell upon his father, who was pouring tea from a silver teapot into three small red glasses for himself and two of his friends. The water streamed steaming from the pot at an impressive height, a full meter above the table. This was a prime example of a display of tea pouring prowess unique to the peoples of the Maghreb. He approached with some hesitance, not wanting to interrupt his father’s performance.

Ali’s father dipped the teapot to the serving tray as the liquid stopped its profusion from the spout, and laughed as his friends clapped in approval of his performance. He looked up to see his son standing above him. “Ali, my boy!”  he bellowed above the din of the cafe. The men watching the football match had begun to shout at the television. “Have you come to watch my performance? God is great!”

“God is great, father. It was very impressive. I recall you showing me that trick when I was a boy.”

“Yes, yes. You and your brothers always loved it.” Ali’s father, named Salah, nodded in agreement.

“Father I have come to talk to you about mother…. she is not doing well. Perhaps it would be good if you were to visit her soon?”

“Nonsense,” Salah replied, “She told me she was, God willing, feeling better when last I spoke to her.”

“Perhaps you are right,” Ali looked away, deferentially. “However, I think she would like to see you.”

“ Inshallah
. God willing,” Salah said automatically. With a casual turn of the head, he dismissed his son and returned to conversing with the two men at the table.  Ali, resigned to his father’s nonchalance, walked out of the cafe into the afternoon air. Perhaps he would visit her after all...one never knew the whims of that man. It had taken a concerted effort on the part of his older brothers to keep the hanut from permanently closing shop. Salah’s passions were enjoying life and spending time with his friends; his family and his work had always come second.

Ali walked for a while, contemplating his father’s negligence. Eventually he came to a bench located in a small, unkempt park off the main boulevard.  Several children were running back and forth across the dirt path, attempting to lift homemade kites into the air with little success; there simply wasn’t enough wind today. Ali sat down, took out his laptop from his backpack and began to write.

What have our parents taught us: That it is appropriate to accept the governance of the flawed, that stolid, pragmatic conservatism is preferable to innovation, that the ways of our grandfathers and grandmothers was always as such?

It is not true! It is all a lie. I choose not to believe in their teachings. The Holy Quran, as recorded by our estimable prophet, peace be upon him, says this: "When they are told to follow what Allah has revealed, they say: ‘Nay we shall follow the ways that we found our fathers following!' What! Even if it is Satan beckoning them to the penalty of the blazing fire? "

I do not wish to burn in the fires of this Hell, brothers and sisters. For if there is a hell on earth it is the stubborn intransigence of the generations before. I will not be blinded by those who will not open their eyes to see, I will not be deafened by those unwilling to hear the word. False stories and fairytales are not worthy of our devotion. Let us instead craft an Eden here in this time, for the glory of God.  Let us govern ourselves fairly, impartially. Let us educate our children in the higher mathematics, in the sciences that we have uncovered.

A great astronomer once said, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. I agree entirely.

Ali
scanned his blog post for grammatical errors and, after making a few corrections, clicked the submit button. Closing the laptop, he trudged home to check in on his mother. He would text Amina later to see if she wanted to have some coffee in one of the upscale establishments near her work.

Chapter 3

643 CE, Cyrene, North Africa

The sky was a brilliant blue as the army of the faithful arrayed themselves in several echelons opposite the Byzantine conscripts. Green, black, and white pennants, the colors of the Ummayids, swayed in the gentle breeze. 40,000 infantry, armed with cruel iron spears, swift curving blades, and others with bows of bone and sinew. 5,000 mounted cavalrymen, their armor gleaming scale and rich coats of leather, capped bronze helmets expertly forged in the fires of Medina and Damascus. Imams traveled up and down the lines, speaking words of encouragement to the swarthy men who had come here to enlighten the uneducated, the ignorant
Rum
.

Across the trackless, fallow field stood the Christian Byzantines: 7,000 in all. It was an army composed mostly of farmers and peasants. Splintered wooden spears stood alongside pitchforks and hoes, the standing men garbed in cotton shirts and rusted mail. What banners there were amongst their lines displayed the
Chi Rho
and the Holy Cross in faded blues and reds. Despite their appearance, these were hard men. They’d seen a multitude of troubles in their time, and this was their home, though their city, Cyrene, had seen its golden age long past.

Some few cataphracts there were amongst the Greeks, and these were well armed and armored, having come by sea in haste from Byzantium. Armored knights in scale-mail wielded their much feared
kontos
lances, each four meters long, the tips deadly sharp and capable of skewering a man in one swift blow. Their captain was renowned, a veteran of conflicts past. Giannikas was his surname, though his men called him the Wolf, for he was cunning and fast, a predator on the battlefield.

As the Greek soldiers watched across the field, by some unseen signal the Ummayid army as one faced eastward and knelt; the cavalry dismounted too, and their noble figures merged into the mass of prostrating figures. A lone voice carried on the wind the
adhan
, the call to prayer. The muezzin’s voice was warm and sonorous, and his words lifted the hearts of the Muslims.

“God is great. God is great. There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet.”

The Greek army, wary of this alien custom, began to chatter and talk as they witnessed the spectacle of the enemy bowing in unison. Some priests among them administered communion and spoke derisively of these heathens and their barbaric ways. “These are not Christian men!” they called, and admonished the men of Cyrene to slaughter the foreigners in the name of their Lord and the Emperor.

Soon thereafter, the Arab army arrayed themselves again facing the Byzantines. Horns sounded and the multitude advanced towards the Greek lines, pennants and standards bobbing and swaying as the men marched. The Bedouin cavalry as one trotted to the left flank of the Ummayid lines, keeping to the southern slope of a hill and thus remaining out of sight of the Greeks. One Byzantine archer, a farmer whose given name was John, was the first to let loose a white-feathered arrow, its shaft hewn from good cypress. The missile whistled as it flew upwards and fell back down into the invaders’ lines, its iron tip striking a dark eyed spearman in the shoulder who screamed as he fell to the ground. A hundred more arrows soon followed, and the Ummayid men raised their embossed, circular shields skyward for protection. Arab archers began to return volleys of fire as they moved to the rear of the Ummayid formation. Advance. Stop. Draw. Fire. Advance.

As the lines closed, the difference in size between the two armies became readily apparent. The Arab formation like a crescent moon slowly began to encircle the Byzantines. Archers on both sides retreated as the waves of armored swordsmen and spearmen slammed into one another with a deafening clash. Screaming the names of their God, each army meted out vicious blows with sharpened metal. Suddenly, with a terrible cry the mounted Greek cataphracts, flashing scale armor blinding in the noonday sun pierced the Ummayid army’s western echelon, attempting to break out of the enveloping swell of their enemy. Men were trampled wholesale underfoot as the chargers thrust full gallop into the Ummayid lines. The cataphracts’
kontos
lances skewered infantrymen as the professional Greek cavalry, well practiced in this ancient art of warfare, pushed onwards, led by their wolfish captain.

With a howling likened to a thousand
djinn
, the Arab cavalry, unseen until that moment, counter-charged the Byzantine knights. African horses bucked and whinnied as spears and long scimitars slashed their sides; many of their riders dismounted or hacked down in the fray. The Greek lines, already exhausted as they fought, rippled with desperation upon seeing their valiant knights overwhelmed.

It was all over rather quickly. Forty minutes after the battle had begun the Byzantine conscripts’ lines broke and fled to the city, pursued by the victorious Arab army. Most of the Greek fighters were captured, for such were the orders of the Ummayid general. “Submit, or die,” were his terms. In this, he was merciful, for in truth he did not want these lands or its wealth for himself; rather, he sought the conversion of its people to Islam. He fought, as he always did, to save these people from themselves.

Some Byzantine men and their families would not convert and attempted to escape the city under the cover of the evening darkness, heading north to the sea. Others took their own lives rather than abandon their deeply held Christian faith. Many more sought merely to pay lip service to conversion and would practice as Christians in secret, hiding their holy icons and imagery from their conquerors. Assimilation would take time the general reasoned, correctly. And though the Ummayid army would move on, a garrison would be left behind in Cyrene to ensure the true faith was kept: that the
salat
be undertaken five times a day, that the
zakat
be given to the poor and needy. Thus it was with all the caliphate’s new lands, for all eternity if Allah willed it.

****

Todd arrived home to his one story ranch house in Palm Bay after he submitted his resignation notice on a Friday. He had been dreading quitting; his career after grad school had begun at NASA and he had both respected and admired his colleagues there. His supervisors had taught him a great deal, about aerospace engineering, robotics, the higher sciences, but also about navigating a bloated bureaucracy that sometimes didn’t give you what you needed to flourish. Oftentimes over the years, as he climbed the agency’s corporate ladder and began managing mission teams of his own, it was this morass of intransigent politicians, lobbyists, petty bureaucrats, and private interest groups that proved the greatest impediment to success. Quitting felt like letting down his friends, his team; Todd didn’t like to disappoint people. Still, it had all been worth it, the years of effort, that sense of accomplishment when you landed a piece of humanity, even if it was just a machine, on an alien world.

Anne was standing by the kitchen counter scooping some kibble into Thor’s dinner bowl. A bottle of cabernet with a blue and white “Congratulations!” balloon tied to its neck, purchased from the supermarket, stood on the table. The balloon bobbed up and down from the current generated by the ancient air conditioner that hung in the nearby window.

“Hey beautiful,” Todd nodded at the bottle. “You didn’t have to go through the trouble.”

“Oh it wasn’t any trouble at all.” Anne was beautiful, more beautiful now in her late thirties than when he’d met her at twenty-seven. She wore a floral print sundress and her hair was dyed dark red, almost cinnamon, from henna; a habit she’d picked up whilst living in Africa. The color complimented her eyes, which were a greenish-grey; their pigment seemed to shift with her mood.

Todd kissed her on the cheek. “Well it was thoughtful of you, regardless.” He began sorting through the mail that was piled on the counter. Thor, their belligerent beagle of seven years, marched over to his meal and began to scarf it down. “Want me to make dinner?”

Anne shook her head. “Nope! I made your favorite, spaghetti with meatballs from the co-op.”

“You cooked?” Todd was shocked. Anne hated cooking. How she survived the Peace Corps when she could barely make toast was still beyond his understanding.

“The occasion seemed to warrant a special effort. And besides,” she nudged him as she delivered the dish of noodles to the table in the living room. “Spaghetti isn’t rocket science.”

The joke was anathema to anyone who worked for NASA, but he let it slide this time. They would be moving in less than a week, with most of their possessions going into storage or to Anne’s grandmother’s place in Pennsylvania. Todd sat down to eat dinner at the table with his wife, leaving his tablet and smartphone in the den; there was a strictly enforced “no electronics” policy at the dinner table.

“How’s your Arabic coming along?” Anne asked, between mouthfuls of spaghetti.

“So-so.” Todd replied. “I haven’t really had time to listen to those podcast lessons. But I do remember how to say hello and thank you. ‘
Ahlan
.’ ‘
Shokron
.’ How about you?”

“Ummm, I’ve been focusing on planning my sabbatical.” Anne had requested a year’s leave of absence in order to follow Todd to the Gulf. She’d be guest lecturing at a few of the well-established biotech schools in the region, in addition to surveying the native desert flora with colleagues from some of the local universities. She’d set it all up so fast, like she’d been planning to do it before Todd had even gotten the offer from Al-Hatem.

Todd guffawed. “Hah. All right. Well, from what I’m told there are a lot of westerners working in the UAE; English is becoming the
lingua franca
of the region, so we should be all right starting out. Oh, I got my work visa yesterday, too.”

Anne nodded at him. “You know they rely on a lot of imported labor from South Asia. Have you read about that? Some say it’s just slave labor wrapped up in bunting.”

“Yeah, but Al-Hatem is all high-skilled labor. There’s no brick-laying or dirt tilling there.”

“If you say so.”

After dinner, Todd continued the monumental task of packing his entire life into two footlockers and a carry-on backpack. He’d been told that the apartment at the complex they’d be living in was fully furnished with all the necessaries: a bed, linens, silverware, cooking implements, furniture, etc. Todd only really needed his clothes, his books, and his electronics. Anne and he were shipping what few household ornaments they valued.

An hour and a half into the folding, the sorting, and the parsing of his life, a strange feeling came over Todd. It had little to do with the packing and boxing. Rather, it felt as though he were being watched, as if from a distance. He looked up from his spot on the floor of the bedroom where he was filling a lockbox with photos and sentimental trinkets. It was an absurd notion; the curtains were closed, there was nobody else in the room. Thor and Anne were down the hall. Still, the feeling didn’t go away, and he grew strangely nervous, unable to focus on the task at hand. Getting up from the floor, Todd decided he needed a break. He went to the back door of the house and stepped out onto the deck. A few of the neighbors were grilling, and the smell of hamburgers wafted over from the adjacent yard. The salty breeze that rolled in off the ocean a mile distant calmed him; it was a typical summer evening. 
I’m just stressed from the move, is all,
Todd thought.

He watched the sun drop below the horizon of picketed fences and mundane, Floridian suburbia. Anne came and stood with him shoulder to shoulder, a glass of red wine in her hand.

The night air washed away the sticky humidity of the day, and a throng of fireflies blinked on and off in the sky above the grassy yard. It was entrancing, the tiny flashes of lime yellows and iridescent greens, no set pattern, just minute chaos and unintelligible, alien communication. They walked back inside, abandoning, for now, the boxes and packing for the pleasure of one another’s company.

****

“Ali you dumb shit!” his brother Abdel screamed at him through his cellphone. “Where are you? What have you done? You’ll kill our poor mother!” Ali, sitting outside the library, held the phone at arm’s length, face drained of all color. He was sure the phone’s speakers would bust from his brother’s outburst. After a few more expletives, the tirade slowed, his brother expecting a response.

“I don’t know what you mean, Abdel. I haven’t
done
anything. Mother is at home, in bed.” Ali looked around, but none of the sidewalk pedestrians paid him any attention, intent on their afternoon trips to the souq or to the market. He had been writing a freelance article on the history of the most recent Syrian conflict when his brother had called.

“You stupid ass. Your blog is being discussed on
Tunisia Today
!”

Ali’s stomach churned, and he suddenly felt like he was going to throw up.
Tunisia Today
was the most watched show in the city. Why would a dumb talk show that covered politicians’ petty ineptitudes and the affairs of national newsmakers be discussing his blog? His mind began racing as his brother continued to squawk at him over the phone. Had he revealed any personal information in his posts? Anything that could lead the more prominent religious figures, some of the senior imams, to condemn his family? His brothers and friends knew about the blog, Amina too, but no one at his former place of employment. “Brother, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you soon,
Inshallah
.” Ali interrupted his brother mid-sentence and quickly ended the call. He began walking at a rapid pace to the nearest cafe, somewhere where he could ask an employee to tune in the shop’s television to
Tunisia Today
. Both fortunately and unfortunately for Ali, it was likely that numerous cafes already had it playing.