Two Sisters

by Åsne Seierstad

  “They’re used to a European standard of living,” she said. “They’ll soon grow weary and are more likely to come home if we don’t nag.”

  Whenever the girls called, their mother always pointed out that there were several paths to paradise. Jihad was not the only one, the Koran said. They could get there by helping others, by helping their mother, by being good daughters.

  Sara accepted that they did not want to come home. That is, she accepted it as a fact. Sadiq did not.

  He flew from Norway on the same day the caliphate was declared. At the airport in Hatay he met Mehmut, managed to cross the border, and moved back in with Osman. The situation had grown tense and the cost of bodyguards had risen to reflect that, as had the price of weapons and gasoline. The cost of everything had increased, because war is expensive.

  He spent most of the time dozing in the backyard, because Osman said there were rumors that ISIS executioners had arrived in Atmeh to kill someone. Maybe he was the one they were looking for.

  Sadiq fasted with Osman, and broke the fast with him, the two of them sometimes hiding like naughty boys to surreptitiously enjoy a bite to eat. He suffered a bout of illness, had stomach trouble, and spent days lying on his mattress. The pains came and went, followed by headaches. Then he ran out of money. He was not one step closer to anything, only more deeply in debt.

  He wrote two identical notes, in Norwegian, which possible rescuers could hand to his daughters so the girls would understand their father had sent them: “This is Sadiq. Trust whoever gives you this. I love you.”

  He gave them to Osman. The two notes were as far as they got.

  * * *

  On his return to Norway, life went on as before. His mind buzzed with constant thoughts of his daughters. He never found peace. When he awoke, the first thing to enter his mind was: I can’t take any more. The second was: I feel like shit.

  The start of the new school year in Bærum was approaching. Sara enrolled the boys at a school in Hargeisa.

  Ismael was angry with his father for allowing his mother to decide his younger brothers’ futures.

  “The schooling they’ll get in Hargeisa is worth nothing. No country in the world recognizes a Somali education!”

  Sadiq was well aware of that—he had been required to repeat subjects at both the primary and secondary levels in Norway.

  “But what can I do?” Sadiq asked.

  “You can bring them back.”

  “Your mother is making the decisions. You have to remember, she’s a grief-stricken mother,” Sadiq told him.

  Little by little, Sara had cleared the flat of the girls’ possessions and her own. Every time she had come across clothes they had left behind it had broken her that bit more.

  The girls had already purged their wardrobe themselves, anything tight-fitting, short, or with a low neckline had been thrown out long ago, anything see-through or diaphanous was long gone. But there had been enough left behind.

  Before leaving for Somaliland, Sara had picked up a roll of garbage bags along with the groceries. On returning home, she had gone to the girls’ room, gathered their clothes and shoes, and stuffed them into the bags. She tied the tops tightly and placed them at the front door. When Sadiq arrived home, she asked him to throw it all into the Salvation Army container in Sandvika.

  Apart from a couple of beautiful hijabs and a white jacket she wanted to give to a niece in Somaliland, she had gotten rid of all their belongings. Toothbrushes, hair elastics, and underwear went into the rubbish.

  “But the girls will be back!” a friend had protested.

  “Right now there are others who need those clothes more than they do,” Sara had replied.

  The wardrobe was empty. All that remained was a large plastic box on the top shelf. She had taken a look at its contents, unopened letters, of no interest to her.

  The notes from the Arabic course hung on the walls. Happy. Sad. Young. Old. God is great. They were yellowed. The words had faded.

  25

  GOD IS NOT GREAT

  “I wish I had a big sister I could look up to, whose footsteps I could follow in and be proud of,” Ismael wrote to Ayan when he was back in Bærum after the summer holidays.

  She did not answer.

  He sent her a link to a lecture by the astrophysicist Lawrence Krauss titled “A Universe from Nothing.” The topic was cosmology, the study of the origin of the universe, how it was expanding, changing all the time, and would eventually disappear. “The universe is dynamic,” Krauss explained, and showed pictures of starry skies, galaxies, and supernovas—the fireworks of the universe. “Scientists love mysteries. The excitement of learning about the universe. So different from the sterile aspect of religion where the excitement is in knowing everything, although clearly knowing nothing.” He added that all religion was a fairy tale. Ismael shared his opinion. Religions were made up of stories people had invented to try to explain naturally occurring phenomena.

  Krauss explained that all the atoms in the human body came from exploded stars. “We are all made of stardust, and the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand.”

  Ismael was fascinated. This was the path he wanted to follow: technology, physics, chemistry, the known and the unknown. He had sent Ayan the link to the lecture so she might also understand, yes, maybe even gradually realize what a mistake she and her sister had made and return home. Because if we understand what kind of universe we live in, Krauss had explained, then we’ll also know how it will end. In a purely technical sense.

  Ayan answered on August 19, the day ISIS broadcast the beheading of the first American hostage, the journalist James Foley. The video had been posted in the morning. It started with a clip of Barack Obama announcing air strikes in Iraq. The picture shifted to Foley kneeling in an orange jumpsuit in a desert landscape. A masked man dressed in black stood behind him with a knife in his hand. He made threats against America in a rough London accent.

  Ayan did not mention the beheading, which photo analysts found out was filmed near the sand dunes south of Raqqa. She was stubbornly preoccupied with responding to her brother’s accusation that he no longer had a big sister he could be proud of.

  “Ismael, you know deep down in your heart that I am exactly the type of big sister you can look up to and be proud of! Tell me, if I had chosen to go to university, could I not have been whatever I wanted? Did I not have good grades at school? Was I not the one you woke up in the middle of the night to follow you to the toilet and lay awake with you afterward because you were frightened? Was I not the one who physically dragged you to school all these years? Haven’t I always supported you and been there for you no matter what? So what makes you want to hurt me in this way now? Is it because I have made a choice you don’t understand? Were you not the one who was so scared on the plane trip to Stavanger that you read the Koran? Were you not the one who read the Koran in your sleep? Are you not the one who is scared of jinn? You believe in Allah swt and are a Muslim deep down inside, don’t allow yourself to be fooled by the kind of rubbish on that video, pick up the Holy Book and read it from cover to cover and then you will understand why you read it back when you were frightened and felt safe right away!”

  It was soon midnight in Bærum, the August night was soft and mild.

  “Ayan, I don’t believe in God. The Koran has its good parts and its bad. God seems so limited. But you don’t see that.”

  In Raqqa it was still hot.

  “God is anything but limited, did you know the sun has 365 points in its path? Allah swt swears by all of these points in the Koran. Btw where’s Dad?”

  Ismael did not answer the question about their father. It was too painful. Sadiq had entered a parallel universe, where dream and fantasy mingled with events around him. His hope reshaped reality into a fairy story of his own invention. Just like religion.

  Instead Ismael argued against the omnipotence of God: “1. God cannot guide everyone to the right r
eligion. 2. God cannot give me my sisters back. 3. God cannot create peace. 4. God cannot kill me right now. 5. He cannot = limited.”

  Ayan protested: “What about when death does come, who can stop it?”

  “Death is not God,” Ismael replied.

  “Your sisters are still alive. Wait a couple of years and you’ll see there’ll be peace. All that will be from God!”

  “Nope.”

  “Just read the Koran properly.”

  “I don’t view the Koran as sacred.”

  “Read a translation of it and then you’ll understand. You’re just frightened.”

  “No, I’ve lost any uncertainty I had. God is a dictator. He compels you to do things you might not want to. But he ‘loves’ you. AND if you don’t do as he asks, he punishes you for eternity. I have nothing against peaceful religions but unfortunately Islam is not one of them. You are indoctrinated to such a degree that you choose not to notice that, seeing as you’re already in deep shit. STILL LOVE YOU. Just can’t handle having a sister I’m not going to see again.”

  Ismael concluded his statement with a red heart. He then sent her a link called “Atheist & Muslim Debate,” which was a half-hour discussion between a physics professor arguing against the existence of God and a Muslim student who believed he had proof that He exists.

  “I know that Islam is not a peaceful religion, but every living thing has the right to defend itself,” Ayan replied.

  “God seems so selfish. I don’t like the idea of God. Creating mankind in order for them to worship him.”

  His sister replied three nights later.

  “Shut up you stupid little boy before the ground opens up and swallows you. Never talk that way about God! Otherwise I’ll have nothing more to do with you.”

  “Now you’re on, finally!” Ismael typed. “Before the ground opens up and swallows you? When everyone interprets a holy book differently it’s not so holy.”

  “I feel sorry for you, you’re so arrogant and think you have all the answers,” Ayan wrote, adding, “Where’s our dad? Answer me that.”

  Again he was reticent when it came to their father. He wanted to be neither a spokesperson nor a messenger for their parents.

  “You’re the one who thinks you’ve found the truth,” he answered.

  “Islam is the truth,” came the response from Raqqa.

  “You accept so many things I never thought you would. How can you believe it’s morally correct to force people to convert or pay a tax because they see things a different way?”

  Ismael was referring to the system of jizya, a tax historically levied by Islamic states on non-Muslim subjects residing in their land.

  “People in Norway are made to pay taxes as well. The unbelievers have to pay tax just as Muslims do, we pay zakat aka tax and they pay jizya aka tax. It’s fair and is just a tax by other names; I mean if Muslims have to pay taxes, why shouldn’t they pay too? How much tax do you pay in Norway at the moment? You pay approximately 36%, almost half of what you earn, you’re a slave without being aware of it, especially with all the oil Norway has.”

  “Do you know where your taxes are going?”

  “Yes, but think about how much you pay compared to how little we pay here. Do you know I get money from the state here?”

  “Not working and being given money is not exactly something to brag about.”

  “I don’t lift a finger and I get everything I need, money, doctors, medicine, a house, water, electricity, the lot!!!”

  “You’re boasting about being handed everything on a silver platter. That’s Somali logic. ‘I’m on welfare in Norway.’ Hard to beat free money.”

  “I have a right to what I’m given, we’re not demanding more than we’re entitled to. We are given our share of the money coming into the state.”

  “You’re entitled to get things for free?”

  “I’m entitled to have a share in the wealth of the Islamic State, yes. A proper welfare state.”

  “You sound pretty spoiled if you ask me (nice to talk to you by the way).”

  “Do you mean that or are you being sarcastic?”

  “I mean it. Are you still married?”

  “Yes, I’m still married hehe.”

  “Same guy?”

  “Yep. He’s still alive. In case you were wondering.”

  “All you hyper-religious types think life is an action film starring you in the main roles on a mission to accomplish what God wants.”

  “Life is not a Facebook like or a movie, it’s about what you choose to prioritize. You can view it in two ways, either live until you’re 80 before you die and then nothing. Or live until you die and after that life begins.”

  “That’s so sweet,” Ismael replied.

  “How was everything created? How did it all begin?” Ayan asked.

  “That’s the beauty of it. I don’t believe the world was created for us but that we adapted to it. Let’s drop this ☺. Do you think it’s morally defensible to cut the hands off someone for stealing?”

  Ayan suddenly disappeared, prompting a disappointed Ismael to ask, “Do you not want to talk anymore?”

  She turned up again a half hour later. “Had to buy more internet access.”

  Ismael repeated his question: “Well?”

  “I think so, yeah, because when people see what the punishment is for stealing they won’t steal. We asked Syrians what they thought about life here now compared to before and they told us they feel safer. Crime has nosedived. Entire cities where drug use was endemic have become well-functioning societies. There are very few people here being punished now, I can promise you that,” she wrote, adding, “shock therapy.”

  “So you don’t believe a person can change?”

  “Of course they can change and you have no idea just how few people receive that punishment. What happens to people who break the law in Norway?”

  “They’re punished in a humane way.”

  “Yes, they receive a sentence; actions here have consequences. In any case, these questions have nothing to do with the existence of God.”

  “They have to do with sharia/Koran so I regard them as relevant. Can you walk around town on your own?”

  “Yep. I often go shopping actually.”

  “And do you have to be home by a specific time?”

  “That depends on where my husband draws the line and has nothing to do with the state. All the women here can walk the streets ALONE.”

  “So you can’t do anything your husband doesn’t want?”

  “Of course I can.”

  “Seeing as how you were created from his rib. Eh? You can?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you punished? Can he strike you?”

  “No and no! You know that my husband is from Norway, right?”

  “Sure, but if it was written in sharia you would probably have accepted it, since you’re going to heaven anyway ☺ right? Have women as many rights as men?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t men have to cover themselves?”

  “They do. They have to cover parts of their bodies as well.”

  “Their faces*. It seems very strange if you ask me. I find it offensive to men that women have to cover themselves up because men can’t exercise self-control. What a load of bull.”

  “It’s for the sake of our honor, everyone shouldn’t be made to look at my body. What good has it brought the world that people walk around half-naked?”

  “Joy! But on a serious note, I think it’s disrespectful to assume that I’m going to rape a girl just because she’s half-naked.”

  “Nobody assumes that.”

  “Religion is so regional. People are born into the ‘right’ religion and indoctrinated not to listen to what other people have to say.”

  “Do I not know more about Christianity than many Christians? Eh … Don’t I know a good deal about Judaism and the other world religions? Why did I choose Islam?”

  “Because from the time you we
re small, innocent, and ignorant you were forced to believe in Islam. Right up until you liked it.”

  “I was never forced.”

  “You were forced, in the same way Jibril and Isaq are being now.”

  * * *

  As their three elder siblings had in Bærum, the youngest brothers now attended Koran school in Hargeisa. They learned verses from the holy book and to love and fear God. All summer long, Sara had tried everything to get Ismael to return to the path of religion. His apostasy pained her. She had taken him to see a well-known sheikh in Hargeisa for guidance. The two of them had met once a week in a mosque and sat on the cool floor of the holy building discussing matters. Ismael thought the sheikh a good man. He listened, presented his arguments, then allowed Ismael to expound his views before commenting on them. Ismael liked him. The sheikh often contradicted him but never pressured him to believe.

  After Ismael had traveled home, they had continued to correspond. One argument Ismael had advanced to him, he now copied and pasted to his sister. “We see something, we don’t understand what it is; therefore: God,” he had written to the sheikh, calling it “the argument of ignorance.” Vagueness provoked him. He wanted evidence. “Can there be other explanations than the ones you offer me?” he had asked the sheikh. “Is there anything besides scripture that can confirm what you say? There is no shame in not knowing something. But claiming to have knowledge of something you have no proof of is shameful. How was the universe created? We don’t know. How did life come about? We’re not certain. You say: picture a puddle on the road. It has a form, it has mass, it has edges, and the puddle fits the hole in the road PERFECTLY! The shape of the puddle, in all its uniqueness, fits exactly. GOD IS GREAT! This hole was PERFECTLY MADE to fit this puddle!!! What you call God I call evolution. We adapted to our surroundings, they were not created for us.”

  “So thus far you’ve found out that religion is stupid?” Ayan replied.

  “Yep. It’s only personal opinions. I know you won’t convince me nor I you, so all I have to say is I love you as a person. I’m happy to have shared 19 years of my life with you. But you have no idea how much I hate religion.”