“Praise be to Allah!” I agreed wholeheartedly.
“Why then, I wonder, is all Dar Al-Islam not yet united under the benevolent rule of the Caliphate he bequeathed us? It seems so easy to accomplish tonight.”
“Because not all of us want to be ruled by a Caliph,” said the Iranian Ruhollah.
“Some of us prefer to elect our own democratic government,” said Kemal.
“But the Caliphate is the gift of Allah, the rightful government of all Islam, is it not, and one day, Inshallah, of the whole world.”
“No it is not,” said Hassan.
“It is not? I do not understand. Why is it not?”
“Because Islam is like a family, not a country, my friend,” Hassan told him gently. “A family of many brothers born as children to the same household in this desert, but who have made their ways throughout the world to found their own families in different lands. Muslims all, but wishing to be at home in our own countries. Just as you can be a Muslim and a citizens of the Caliphate, so can I be a Muslim and a Frenchman too. Or at least try to be.”
“All Muslims are not Arabs,” Ruhalla Ramjani said more harshly, seeing Mohammed’s continued befuddlement. “We are all Muslims in Iran, but we were Persians before Allah spoke through Mohammed. And we are Persians still, and still proud of it.”
“It is said that you Shia are apostates,” said Mohammed.
“It is said that Sunnis are apostates who murdered Ali, the true successor to the Prophet as Caliph!” Ramjani shot back angrily.
“It is also said that we Sufis are apostates,” said Anwar Mustapha in a soft sardonic tone. “It is also said that the Moon is made of cheese, but that does not make it so.”
There was nervous laughter at that, and Mohammed joined in, but then there was an uncomfortable silence.
It was broken by Mahathir, speaking for the first time. “I am Malay but I work in a Chinese restaurant. The owner wants Muslim Malays to eat there too so there are no pork dishes. The Indians don’t care what other people eat but don’t order beef. Some restaurants mix Malay with Chinese in the same dishes and some Chinese restaurants serve curries, even with pork and beef, others only with fish and lamb. The ones that try to serve everything mixed together anger everyone and please no one, fights break out in the kitchen, and they soon close. But when there is a strong chef who preserves harmony in the kitchen by making them cook only food acceptable to all, like Singapore, with a strong chef in the kitchen, it can work well.”
“As it does here on the hadj at least,” said Hassan, picking up the large platter of foods from all over the lands of Islam, puffing with the exertion as he handed it around. “Even if there is no master chef to preside.”
“Save Allah,” said Kemal.
* * * *
The umra upon arriving at Mecca was not actually part of the hadj tself, and a final circling of the Ka’aba on the last day of the hadj proper is not quite formally required either though so customary that almost all hadjis perform it. But more pilgrims than not go to the mosque to perform the circling of the Ka’aba each day while waiting for the hadji itself to begin, and so all of us took the bus to Mecca the next morning together, to perform the tawaf and also to purchase tickets for a sheep or goat to be sacrificed in our names for the Eid al-Fitr, the ritual slaughter which both marks the end of the hadj and supplies the meat for the Id al-Kabir, the traditional three day feast afterward.
When we returned in the late afternoon, we found two new arrivals in our tent; Jamal Talibani, a leatherworker from Kurdistan who spoke no Arabic but passable English and was proud of it, and Hamid Barzai, a sheep-herder from Afghanistan, looking shy and bewildered, at least at first, until he was made to feel at home after the sunset prayer together over the communal evening meal.
While we were still eating, the twelfth man arrived to complete the community of our hadjis’ tent; a black man in late middle years with graying hair cut short in a western military style and carrying a blue duffel bag with the initials “USAF” stenciled in white on it.
He introduced himself as Gregory Mohammed, a so-called “Black Muslim” from the United States, an exotic apparition in the lands of the Caliphate to be sure, but as perhaps the two most famous and highly-regarded hajis of the last century were Mohammed Ali and Malcolm X, he was welcomed with polite curiosity by all of us.
Save Hamza.
Hamza did not introduce himself but glared at the lettering on the duffel bag. When the rest of us had finished welcoming the American, he pointed an accusative finger at his luggage.
“Am I the only man among you who knows what that means?” he demanded.
He was.
“Tell them!” he ordered the American like the Sergeant that he was.
“And who are you?” Gregory Mohammed asked mildly.
“I am Bashir Ali Hamza, Sergeant Hamza of the Nigerian Army!”
“Well, Sergeant Hamza, I am Captain Gregory Mohammed, United States Air Force, retired, and retired or not, I outrank you.” The American smiled at Hamza. “But at ease, Sergeant, and don’t bother saluting, none of that matters here, now does it?”
No one knew what to make of that, least of all Hamza, who sat there glowering. There was a long silence. It was broken by the Afghani sheep-herder. “Have you eaten?” he said. “Come join us.”
Now he became the object of Hamza’s silent ire as Captain Mohammed sat down and picked up a chicken leg.
“My father told the tale of how the Americans armed us against the Russians and how afterwards liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban with their air force and even the lives of their own troops,” Hamid Barzai said. “Afterwards, things might not have gone as well with them, but Afghans still owe thanks to the Americans and the United States Air Force.”
“You thank the Great Satan!” Ruhalla Ramjani snarled.
“The Americans bombed Christians to save the lives of Muslims,” said Kemal, “and not once but twice, in Bosnia and again in Kosovo. While Iran and the rest of Dar al-Islam did nothing.” He shrugged, he frowned. “And neither did Turkey, I am ashamed to admit.”
“This is true?” exclaimed Mohammed. “Americans fought Christians for Islam?”
“Americans fought for what was right,” replied Gregory Mohammed. “We also took casualties trying to guard food deliveries to Muslims in Somalia. A real fuck-up, but we did try.”
“But why would the American government do such things?”
“The American government didn’t want to and neither did the desk-jockeys in the Pentagon, but the American people weren’t having any. We’re not the kind of people to just stand around and watch such shit on TV.”
“We, black man?” sneered Hamza.
“We Americans! I’m black, I’m an American, I’m a patriot who served my country and am proud of it, and I’m a Muslim on hadj, I see no contradiction, and if you do, maybe you’re the one who doesn’t belong here.”
“And you…see no contradiction between Islam and what…your country is doing in Nigeria to steal our oil?”
“No more than you seem to see any contradiction in black Africans fighting other black Africans over the same oil, nigga!” Gregory Mohammed held up his hand and winked. “One nigga to another.”
“We are jihadis of Islam fighting infidels to preserve the unity of our country!”
“Oh yeah? Then why doesn’t Nigeria cut the same deal as the Biafrans with the United States for the oil? Speaking as an American, the war would be over on your terms before the ink was dry on the contract.”
“America fights for what is right but you would abandon your Christian soldiers?”
Gregory Mohammed shrugged. “I’m not saying it would be right, but it might just happen.”
“You would fight for our oil with your robot warships and fighter planes but you would not die for such a cause, now would you?”
Gregory Mohammed shrugged. “I sure wouldn’t want to, but if I was still in the Air Force, I’d be honor-bound to obey orders.”
“Like a good Nazi!” said Yassir Abass.
“You are warriors without honor!” declared Hamza.
“The honor of the American military has never been broken and never will be, Mister,” Gregory Mohammed said coldly. “We do the fighting and we leave political decisions to the democratically elected government whether we like it or not. If we don’t like it, we can vote against it as citizens in the next election instead of playing coup-of-the-month like the officer corps in a few countries I could mention. I do know a thing or two about the history of Nigeria.”
Sergeant Hamza fell sullenly silent.
“So says the enemy of Islam!” shouted the Iranian Ramjani.
“America is not the enemy of Islam,” Gregory Mohammed replied coolly. “America is the enemy of anyone who treats America as an enemy, which is a real stupid career move, as they say back in Washington.”
“America ruthlessly pursues its own national self-interest!” insisted Yassir Abass.
“What country doesn’t?”
“Please, brothers, we are hadjis together!” Anwar Moustapha shouted, the first time I had heard the Sufi raise his voice above his customary tranquility, then lowered it as he spoke into the resulting silence.
“When Muslims were fighting Christian Crusaders for Jerusalem under the noble Saladin—”
“—a Kurd not an Arab and the greatest of all Muslim warriors!” declared Jamil Talibani.
“—he extended a succoring hand to Richard the Lion Hearted when he fell ill, even though the Christian was his enemy, for they were brother knights, each after his own faith. Here we are all Muslims together, and how can there be enemies among hadjis, for we are all brothers in the eyes of Allah, are we not?”
“Inshallah,” the American said with apparent sincerity. “We had to be reminded that we’re both soldiers by a civilian? I served my country and—”
“—and I serve mine—”
“—and you serve yours, and we both serve the Will of Allah here as we see it. Can’t we leave it at that?”
He favored Hamza with a conspiratorial wink. “Come on, bro,” he said, “we gonna let these civilians think two dead white guys were better men than two black soldiers?”
Hamza glared at him for a long moment. Then his expression softened somewhat and he raised his hand and saluted ironically. The American returned the salute.
Hamza picked a morsel of very fiery mutton stew off the communal platter, took a bite out if it and handed it to the American. “Try this, Captain, in Nigeria, we wean our babies on it,” he said, studying him with expectant amusement as Gregory Mohammed bit into it.
“Too strong for an American officer to handle?”
Gregory Mohammed chewed it down slowly without so much as blinking.
“Could do with some Tabasco,” he said. “I can see you’ve never had chipotle chili in New Mexico.”
CHAPTER 21
The next morning, the day before the haji was to begin with the trek of some ten miles across the desert plain of Arafat past Mina to the vicinity of the “Mountain of Mercy,” there was a discussion of how to make the journey. These days more hadjis than not made the pilgrimage in buses or cars along good highways provided for the purpose, but with millions of hadjis on the move along the highways, there figured to be a ten mile traffic jam moving at a crawl under a broiling sun that would put engines in danger of overheating.
“I have heard that this is always a terrible mess,” said Hassan.
Mohammed, experienced in such matters, had a better idea, or so he thought. “We should avoid the roads by renting camels and riding directly across the desert. Good camels could take us there in five hours, even poor ones in six.”
“That was how it must have been done before motor cars,” said Hamid Barzani. “Camels are more reliable in desert country than anything with an engine.”
“We would need six camels for twelve men.…” said Mohammed.
“That sounds very expensive,” said Anwar.
“We might make do with four carrying three men apiece if they were good pack-camels…but it would slow us down.”
Hamza and Gregory Mohammed exchanged skyward rolls of their eyeballs.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Sergeant?” said Gregory.
Hamza nodded. “We need a military all-terrain transport vehicle.”
“Somehow I don’t think we’re going to be able to rent an armored personal carrier in Mecca…”
“Maybe one of those old American Hummers?” suggested Hamid.
Gregory shook his head. “We’d need at least two Hummers.”
“The Americans left many of them behind when they left Afghanistan. Wooden platforms were bolted onto the rear behind the driver to turn them into trucks. One of these would carry us all if we can find one here.”
“I have seen these things,” said Mohammed. “They frighten camels so I do not like them, but they are common.”
“Worth a try,” said Hamza. “I’ll take the bus into Mecca and see what I can do.”
“My dad kept an old Hummer going when I was a kid,” said Gregory. “I’d better go with you.”
Hamza shrugged his indifferent agreement.
“And how are we supposed to pay for such a thing?” demanded Yassir Abass. “Is there a rich man among us?”
No one spoke up.
Mahathir fished out a few bills and handed them to Hamza. Hassan added some hundred euros, Kemal, Ruhollah, about the same. Yassir produced a bit more. Mohammed, Anwar, Jamil, and Hamid, shamefacedly only token sums.
Hamza shrugged. “A Nigerian Sergeant’s pay isn’t much, but…” And he added two hundred euros, which seemed to me magnanimous.
“Neither is my retirement pay, and the airfare was really expensive,” said Gregory Mohammed, but not to be outdone by a junior officer, he matched it.
Hassan counted the money. “Enough for the rental if we can find what we’re looking for, but they’re going to want a bigger deposit than what we have, and they won’t take credit cards for it.”
It was down to me, and as the youngest of them by a decade at least, and a mere student as far as they had been told, I knew that they could hardly be looking to me as their financial savior.
But for the first time in my life I felt accepted as a member of a collectivity that I truly felt a part of. These men might not exactly be my friends, but we were hadjis together, and for the time we would spend together before we parted, were we not more than friends, were we not brothers? And did I not have more than six thousand euros in my possession, unknown to my brothers?
“How much would it take?”
“Perhaps a thousand euros,” Hassan replied dispiritedly.
I counted out the money and tried to hand it over.
“We can’t take that from you, Osama,” said Hassan.
“It’s probably all he has…”
“We can always take a bus…”
“Take it!” I told them.
“We can’t take all that you have,” said Kemal. “It would shame us.”
But it was I who felt shame for deceiving them. My whole life had been deception since I arrived in Lebanon. Yet now I found I had to make one more deception in order that they would accept what was really less than the fifth part of my funds or expose myself as the far greater deceiver that I was.
“Take it,” I said again. “It may be all that I have, but it’s only a deposit, after all, to be returned to me later.” I shrugged, I smiled. “If the Koran did not forbid it, I could charge you interest.”
* * * *
Hamza and Gregory did not return to the tent until late in the afternoon, and afoot, but from their smiles, t
riumphantly striding gaits, and comradely good humor, it was immediately apparent that they had succeeded. As vehicles could not be brought into the tent city, they immediately ushered us all to the parking lot to show us their prize.
Such as it was.
The body work of a large Hummer covered with sun-bleached blue paint pocked with rust had been crudely hacked off just behind the front seats. Wooden planking with a cloudy plastic window had been bolted behind the seats to form a cab. The frame of the vehicle behind the cab supported a wooden platform some three or four feet wider than the Hummer itself and five feet longer. A three-strand rope railing hung loosely from posts driven into the platform.
“Not much to look at,” said Gregory, “but the motor is sound, the transmission doesn’t make too much noise, and as you can see, there’s no oil on the ground under it. It’ll get us there and back.”
Hamza nodded his agreement. “We’re running trucks that look even worse in Nigeria.”
“We made gas-guzzling dinosaurs in the United States back in the day, but they’re still running, and you can still beat the shit out of them.”
* * * *
Immediately after the sunrise prayer the next morning, Hamza and Gregory mounted the cab, the rest of us piled onto the precarious truck bed, and off we went towards Mina. We had thought to make an early start to beat the crush, but we were far from the only ones. The parking lot was crowded with people trying to board vehicles and there were already traffic jams on the access roads leading to the main highways eastward.
Mina was only about six miles away at the west end of a narrow valley beyond which lay the larger and even more sere plain of Arafat, but there were two ranges of rocky hills to be traversed before the Hadj could arrive there. Tunnels had been blasted straight through them for the highways, so that one could drive to Mina along them in about half an hour if the traffic was moving freely. But of course it was not; to judge by the congestion on the access roads, it was already crawling.
Osama the Gun Page 16