The Last of the Angels

by Fadhil al-Azzawi

  Women wrapped in cloaks would slip through the dark night, between the tombs, while reciting the opening prayer of the Qur’an on their way to the ruins of a nineteenth-century gristmill, guiding themselves by the feeble light of a candle placed on the ruin’s wall facing the city. Inside the mill, candles were burning on the giant, circular grinding stone in the center of the room. Atop it sat a man who was completely naked except for the red veil covering his eyes. He was reciting in Arabic in a monotonous fashion—between singing and howling—distorted verses from the faux-qur’an of the Liar Musaylima and from an Arabic verse translation by Ahmad al-Safi al-Najafi of the quatrains of Umar Khayyam. From time to time this man would strike a cheap container made of aluminum. Nude young men, weeping and pounding their chests with their palms, circumambulated the millstone. Women arriving at the mill were commanded to remove their cloaks and to circle the millstone until they were overcome by fatigue. Then the man sitting on the millstone descended with a dagger in his hand, seized one of the women by her hand, and forced her to climb onto the millstone, where he extinguished the candles. Then each of the other young men embraced one of the women in a gloomy corner of the mill and together they raised the monotonous, communal, bestial cry “Out, out,” while the woman standing on the stone swayed right and left until she entered a trance state close to inebriation. Then the young man climbed up, still carrying the dagger, and removed her clothing, one piece at a time. So the other women imitated her. Next the woman on the millstone stretched out and the young man threw a cloak over her, covering her body. He climbed inside it, repeating cryptic phrases, which were closer to Satan’s language than to that of human beings:

  Ta‘am, Labam, Bacho Halam

  Ser ya Majal, Taj Mahal

  Jan Qadar, Sunbul Bahar

  Bulbul Dalam, Qalbul Jalam.

  Meanwhile, the other women were also stretching out on the ground in the corners of the mill. The young men covered them with cloaks, beneath which they then crept to begin slaying jinn. On average, each youth found that more than one jinni was possessing the woman he was treating. Yet he was able to slay all of them. One young man even slew—with a single thrust—five rebel jinn lurking in one woman’s womb. After that, the young men wrapped around each woman’s wrist an amulet of green scraps of cloth to protect them from the evils of the jinn forever. Next the women reached their hands into their pockets and paid liberally, kissing the youths’ hands for saving them from Satan’s evils. Then they slipped away, enveloped by their black cloaks, and disappeared into the night.

  It is true that people continued to praise Qara Qul, who had benefited them more dead than alive, but the sight of the riches raining down on his mausoleum caused them to forget even his miracle of riding Buraq and ascending to heaven. Many of them felt more entitled to this wealth than a stone tomb was because it did not eat, whereas their children were hungry. What would Qara Qul—who must currently be in a circle of angels seated in a garden of riches in paradise, singing the praises of God—do with gold, silver, Iraqi dinars, Iranian tomans, Turkish liras, and Indian rupees?

  These demonic thoughts tempted them until they no longer paid any attention to the principles of Islam. In fact, they forgot Islam’s five pillars and substituted for them other principles, which they said they were compelled to follow. The first to be seduced by this wealth were the letter carriers, who started opening letters addressed to Qara Qul, looking for the banknotes that women normally placed inside the folded sheets of their letters. Their example was followed by the policemen guarding the mausoleum. They imposed on each male or female visitor to the shrine a fee for the visit. This was decreed by the deputy lieutenant in charge of the guardhouse. Although this tax was a trivial sum, Director General Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri abrogated it, threatening to inflict the stiffest penalties on anyone whose soul seduced him into placing a barrier between Muslims and the tomb of Qara Qul. The souls of these policemen did not find any rest until the director general decided to appoint Abbas Bahlawan and Mahmud al-Arabi as supervisors for the mausoleum in recognition of their heroism in the battle they led against the police in defense of the grandfathers’ cemetery—or that was what he said. As a matter of fact, he was motivated by his fear of them. This was an attempt to ensure their loyalty to him.

  Actually, Abbas Bahlawan and Mahmud al-Arabi did not even have recourse to a go-between. They met the mullah one day in the Chuqor community and told him half in jest, “We heard that you had appointed us supervisors for the mausoleum. You shouldn’t have done that, Mullah, without at least consulting us. All’s well that ends well, however; we accept.” Disconcerted, the mullah apologized, “I knew you would accept; I would not think of accepting the post of director general without you beside me.”

  A deep friendship between Abbas Bahlawan, Mahmud al-Arabi, and the policemen in the guardhouse began the very first day they worked in “The General Directorate for the Shrine of Qara Qul.” This was the official name, which Hashim al-Khattat—the most famous artist in Baghdad—had undertaken to paint in Neskhi script on a silver plaque that Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri affixed to the curved façade of his directorate’s entry, which he painted green. When the policemen vented the complaint that was troubling their heart—the abrogation by the director general of the visitation tax—Abbas Bahlawan laughed and commented, “If your worries involve money, you can forget them from now on. Each of you will have a share of the money Qara Qul receives. Why should you think that a locked door, the key of which the mullah places in his pocket, will hinder us from accessing the wealth that fills the tomb? I wonder what Mahmud al-Arabi has learned during his lifetime if not the care of locked doors.” Mahmud al-Arabi, who was enjoying a tumbler of tea in the police guardhouse, replied, “There’s always at least one way to solve any problem.”

  This assurance, which restored hope to the hearts of the guardhouse’s men after the unhappiness they had suffered, led the deputy lieutenant to rise and embrace both Abbas Bahlawan and Mahmud al-Arabi. He observed, “I’ve expected only the best from you two from the very beginning. I knew that you would think of us.” His men followed his example, and a policeman from Talafar, his emotions getting the better of him, went so far as to kiss Mahmud al-Arabi’s hand, saying, “Son, God bless your hand, which will keep us from having to beg from everyone who comes along and which will preserve our dignity.” Abbas Bahlawan and Mahmud al-Arabi were touched by the sentiments of these men, for they realized that their meager salaries would not even feed their children. It was true that government service offered a status that others in society envied, even if it was only that of policeman, but how could a man provide sustenance to his children when all he had to show for a month’s work was seven dinars, which would evaporate during a single week?

  The two men circled round the mausoleum after that, examining everything about the place, as though checking out the strengths of an adversary. As he glanced at the twin locks on the mausoleum’s door, Mahmud al-Arabi confided to Abbas Bahlawan, “It would not be difficult to break these locks, but that’s not what we want, since the mullah would discover the matter the next day. There is a much easier way than breaking the two locks. We’ll obtain what we want without even opening the door.”

  Abbas Bahlawan responded jestingly, “I know you’re a thief, but if you’re also a magician, that’s news to me.”

  Mahmud al-Arabi cast a speculative glance at Abbas Bahlawan and contracted his bushy eyebrows. Then he said, “The matter requires intellect, not magic, and this is precisely what you lack.”

  Abbas Bahlawan cursed him affectionately, “And this is precisely what you must prove exists in your empty head.”

  Mahmud al-Arabi replied, “Fine! You’ll see that this evening when people cease visiting the shrine.”

  The method that Mahmud al-Arabi contrived to reach the cash inside the mausoleum was truly simple. He brought a long stick, stuck a piece of gum on one end, and poked it through the grille on the shrine’s win
dow. He used this to pluck banknotes and coins, one after the other, deliberately leaving some behind so that Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri would not catch on to the scheme when he opened the door, normally each Friday morning, to collect the donations, which were recorded by the Islamic law student from his mosque—Aziz Shirwan, whom he had named as his personal secretary—in a large ledger that the mullah had purchased for him for this purpose. He considered these funds to be contributions to a religious endowment for the shrine. Naturally there was no safe where the mullah could place this income. He simply had burlap sacks that he carried to his house, where he placed these in large jars he buried beneath a non-fruiting date palm. He asserted that the funds constituted a trust for which he was the guardian, and that a man had as great a duty to protect trust funds as his own money.

  As a matter of fact, the gifts presented to the shrine and received by Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri were so varied that it would be difficult to list them: gold liras, gem-studded necklaces, silver bracelets, rare watches from China, and objets d’art from Syria. Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri placed all of these in additional jugs, which he buried beneath the sole palm tree in his home’s courtyard, keeping them secret even from his wife, whom he deliberately encouraged to visit her sister’s house or the neighbors, so he would be alone, after bolting the door. There were, however, also other gifts he could not bury. Villagers brought many eggs, chickens, goats, and sheep. Merchants presented sacks of sugar, rice, and wheat and boxes of tea. Of course not all the gifts found their way to Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri because the policemen, joined by Abbas Bahlawan and Mahmud al-Arabi, greeted people bearing gifts at a distance and urged them to place these in the police guardhouse, on the grounds that this was Qara Qul’s very own guardhouse. Many people refused, however, insisting on delivering the goods directly to the shine’s window and then having them officially recorded by the receipts clerk. At this stage as well, a portion of the gifts was divvied up by the clerk and the other employees, including the director general’s secretary Aziz Shirwan, who handed over most of the eggs, chickens, lambs, sugar, tea, rice, and wheat to the city’s Communist leadership. These boons caused the head of the organization to affirm, “Had it not been for this saint Qara Qul, the Party would have starved to death.” He therefore suggested they recommend to the central committee the award of the Red Star Medal to the dead man once the Party came to power.

  Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri was perplexed about what to do with the gifts that did not fit well inside his jars. Truth be told, he had at first begun to distribute these to the poor in the Chuqor community and other neighborhoods. Then he turned away from this. Believing that excessive generosity would corrupt the poor, he began to sell these goods to shop owners, adding the new money to the buried funds. Eventually, in the small souk, he opened up a shop, which his unemployed son-in-law managed, to put on sale the shrine’s gifts that defied burial. He named it “The Depository for the Islamic Shrine.”

  Despite the zeal Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri displayed with respect to the Muslims’ riches, which he described as his sacred trust, he was not immune to gossip and innuendo. This is customary in a city like Kirkuk, where the residents are renowned for their envy, and Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri, who had never risen above the mentality of a mosque imam even after he became a director general, committed more than one error in handling his high post. It would, for example, have been appropriate for him to forward some of the shrine’s benefits to the governor, the police chief, and other high-ranking officials in the city, but he had not done this. Indeed he had even forgotten the ministers of the interior and of religious endowments, as if they were “a couple of scarecrows,” in the words of Khidir Musa, who alluded to the matter in one of his coffeehouse sessions with Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri. The mullah, however, rebuffed him in such a way that he never returned to the topic again: “So you want me to pay a bribe taken from assets that do not belong to me and to abuse the trust that Muslims have placed in me?”

  The other matter that inflamed people’s sentiments and stirred their resentment was his use, when he went out every afternoon, of Ibn Sa‘ud’s gold wheelchair to convey him to the coffeehouse, on the pretext that his legs hurt dreadfully from rheumatism and that it would be hard for him to walk. Even though he took two armed policemen with him to guard the gold wheelchair, children followed him, screaming and singing all the way to the door of the coffeehouse. Men who encountered him en route would stop, overwhelmed by what they saw, and women would dart to the doors of their homes to catch a glimpse of the mullah steering his gold wheelchair.

  Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri did not shortchange the plump widow of Qara Qul or their four children, even though rumors reached his ears that strangers visited her home, that she adorned herself inappropriately, and that this was not right for the widow of a saint. He would merely respond, “Some suspicions are sinful.” Each week he sent her all the sugar, tea, rice, and chickens she needed, in addition to a monthly salary of fifteen dinars, which he had allotted her and her children and which she would come and pick up herself. Nonetheless, Satan whispered his temptation to her and she proceeded to demand—incited perhaps by her lovers and neighbors, or even influenced by the flood of African-heritage visitors who came to her home from Egypt, the Sudan, Ethiopia, Senegal, and the Ivory Coast—a real share of the donations presented to her husband’s tomb, pointing out that her young, orphaned children had more right to ride in King Ibn Sa‘ud’s gold wheelchair than Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri, who was afflicted by senility and love of ostentation.

  Relying on an attorney known for winning all the cases he represented by bribing judges, she presented a claim in the second court of first instance of Kirkuk. In this she asked Kirkuk’s shari‘a judge to award her four-fifths of the gifts presented to her husband’s tomb, relying in this claim on Islamic jurisprudence, which sets the share of the public treasury in any profit or business as a fifth. That enraged Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri so much that he publicly accused her of turning her home into a brothel where men and women met and of practicing black magic, which was something out of keeping with the standing of Qara Qul. The plump, dark-complexioned widow asserted, without anyone believing her, that Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri had attempted to seduce her more than once, although she had kept quiet about it for fear of a scandal and out of respect for her husband’s lofty status. Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri almost went crazy when he heard this accusation relayed to him and began to scream at the top of his lungs, “I’d rather sleep with a cow than touch this black bag’s pussy.” After gaining control of himself, he commented, “I don’t know why God afflicts his righteous worshipers with fallen women like this widow. Behind it, there must be some wise purpose that our limited intellects do not comprehend. God assisted Qara Qul, who had to live with this whore, but—Glory to Him and may He be exalted—He compensated him for his worldly life with the hereafter, where he now lives in paradise, surrounded by beautiful companions. How disparate are the beauty and manners of these heavenly companions from the ugliness of this widow and her morals.”

  The city of Kirkuk split into two rival factions, each supporting one side in this dispute, which many considered to be linked to their own destiny. One faction thought that all the wealth was the personal property of Qara Qul himself, and this meant legally that it all accrued to his wife and children, since he was unable to receive it personally, once he was transported to an abode in paradise. Many religious scholars declared in a statement they released—at the prompting of her attorney, who was hopeful of winning the case—that the commerce of a Muslim devolves on his children after his death and that the government has no right or standing to seize and confiscate this commerce. They affirmed their rejection of Communism, which—unchecked by morality or conscience—would plunder the riches of the Muslims or nationalize them. In their declaration, these scholars demanded that the government reinstate the rights of the family and that
Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri be removed from his position, in view of his offenses against the principles of religion.

  Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri sensed the peril threatening him and understood that he was in danger of losing everything. He was forced, once again, to fall back on Khidir Musa, broaching the matter with him. Khidir Musa, who had been annoyed with the mullah ever since the day he had refused to offer a cut of the shrine’s proceeds to government officials, accusing him of attempting to corrupt him, remained aloof, however, as if the matter was no concern of his. The only comment with which he favored Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri was: “I knocked myself out getting you this post. Beyond that, you’re on your own.” These few words sufficed to cause the mullah, whose nerves were already shot, to explode into an angry tantrum that surprised even Khidir Musa: “I know you envy me the blessing I’ve achieved. Don’t forget that you were once a shepherd and that that’s how I’ll always think of you.” Khidir Musa replied disdainfully, “I’ll never forget that.” Then Khidir Musa rose and left the coffeehouse, returning home.

  The mullah was afflicted by a bout of severe coughing that left him weeping. He realized that he had gone too far and that he had risked everything by being insolent to the man to whom he owed everything he had achieved. Although the mullah felt defeated, he resolved to combat the greed of Qara Qul’s widow and her attorney. A difficult battle was confronting him now that he had rebuffed the friendship and protection of Khidir Musa. He thought of going to apologize to him for what he had blurted out, but his embarrassment at what he had done prevented him: “Perhaps I can do that tomorrow. I’ll do it eventually, unless I lose my mind and go off the deep end.” He paid for the tea he had drunk and went out to the street, overcome by the feeling that he was nothing more than a corpse walking on two feet. The mullah had scarcely reached the nearby barbershop when he saw Hameed Nylon emerge from the salon. Traces of powder were still visible on the back of his neck and he smelled of cologne. Hameed Nylon asked, “Do you like my haircut, mullah? This young barber Yawuz has fingers that know how to cut hair. His problem always is the lice people bring him in their hair.”