by Ibrahim Essa
“So the penalty for apostasy would apply to him?”
Hatem leaned back and answered calmly. “Well, madam, if you were to ask the opinion of the sheikhs who have sprung up all over the country these days, then it does apply, but I’m convinced there is no penalty for apostasy in Islam.”
Farida pricked up her ears but she wanted to be sure. “You know, what worried me most was that I found my husband researching the penalty for apostasy on the Internet. He left his laptop open on the bed one morning.”
She stopped and bowed her head. Perhaps she was thinking he had left it open deliberately. Then she continued: “And I Googled it and found ten sites with articles about the penalty for apostasy.”
“Madam, what I’m going to tell you now I wouldn’t dare say openly, on television or in an interview or a discussion, but I’m convinced that the two incidents in which the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, is said to have killed apostates are not properly attested and the people who narrated those hadiths were not reliable, incontestable sources. In his book Nayl al-Awtar, the imam al-Shawkani, who is a very important imam, madam, and his book is a major reference, says these hadiths have weak chains of transmission. Do you know what chains of transmission are?”
He didn’t give her a chance to reply, but explained anyway.
“It’s where the hadith says that so-and-so heard this from so-and-so who heard it from so-and-so, who said the Prophet said this and that and so on. That’s called the chain of transmission. The hadith is based on what someone quoted the Prophet as saying or doing. The chain is weak here in the sense that it doesn’t come from any of the Companions of the Prophet who were known for telling hadiths, or it could be that it comes from someone who told lies about the Prophet or was known for making up stories or from someone who’s just a bit dodgy. So it hasn’t been proved that the Prophet ever punished anyone for apostasy. There are some relevant hadiths in Bukhari and Muslim, which are the most important compilations of hadiths for Muslims, although I’ve just had an argument about whether everything in Bukhari is correct.
“In Bukhari and Muslim there’s a Bedouin man who pays homage to the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, and who later asks the Prophet to release him from Islam, in other words to let him renounce Islam, which would clearly be apostasy, but nevertheless the Prophet didn’t penalize him but let him leave town peacefully. Bukhari also cites a hadith from Anas—Anas was one of the Companions of the Prophet and a servant of his—that says that a Christian man converted to Islam and then reverted to Christianity, and that was during the lifetime of the Prophet. But the Prophet didn’t punish him for his apostasy. Also during the life of the Prophet a group of Jews apostasized after becoming Muslims to lure Muslims away from their new religion, and the Prophet didn’t punish those apostates. But you will find a thousand sheikhs or preachers who’ll tell you we have to cut their heads off or slaughter them or apply the penalty for apostasy, although there isn’t a penalty for apostasy in the first place. Recently society has wanted there to be a penalty and people see this as being religious and committed to Islam, and they’ve forgotten all the concepts of freedom in Islam, things like ‘Those who want to can believe, those who don’t want to don’t need to’ and ‘You have your religion and I have mine.’ Now the slogan is ‘I have my religion and I’ll root yours out.’”
Farida let out a laugh despite the way she felt, then went straight back to feeling miserable.
“Is there any hope that Hassan will turn Muslim again any time soon?” she asked.
“To be honest, madam, I can’t even tell you whether Hassan will come back to my house soon, so how could I tell you whether he’ll go back to being a Muslim soon? As for there being no penalty for apostasy, that’s my view, but apostasy exists of course, and it applies to Hassan, despite the deep mystery about his motives. Hassan is a mysterious young man. But there’s definitely hope that he’ll return to Islam, plenty of hope, especially as I still believe that Hassan hasn’t yet fully abandoned it. Roughly speaking, he’s in a kind of limbo.”
“And where is Hassan?” Farida asked, and Hatem didn’t have an answer.
“But what’s your father’s position on this problem?” asked Hatem. “I thought he was with you at dinner when the subject of Musaab and his conversion came up.”
She bowed her head and looked mortified. “My father’s the quiet type. You rarely hear him angry or shouting. His answers to questions are vague and sometimes rather like the clues in a crossword puzzle. That’s why Hassan, being young, has grown very distant from his father, and Father has been very busy too, of course.”
She looked up and added innocently, “My father would frighten anyone who could hurt Hassan, but he could hurt Hassan himself if it affected the family.”
Hatem understood something he didn’t want to understand, but he promised her that everything would be fine, perhaps to reassure himself rather than to reassure her.
Hassan’s cell phone was “unavailable.” Hatem realized that the phone was the only link he had to Hassan. He was trying to find a way out of the trap, although he had already eaten the poisoned bait at its entrance.
Hatem summoned Sirhan from where he was sitting in the garden room and asked for the telephone number of Father Mikhail. When Sirhan said he hadn’t saved it, Hatem jumped down his throat, shouting and ordering him to obtain it instantly from any of the people he had met on the day they opened the store and visited the church. He had promised Farida he would find Hassan that night. The kid’s absence was a serious blow and, even if he did turn up now, the two of them wouldn’t be out of trouble. He felt that he and Hassan were in the same shoes. They might both be in mortal danger and God alone knew which of them might take the bullet.
When Sirhan came up with his cell and put it to Hatem’s ear, Hatem was muttering, “God is the only source of power and strength.”
“Speak,” said Sirhan.
“Who is it?”
“The priest. Didn’t you want to speak to him?”
Hatem felt his hand trembling and he tried to steady his nerves.
“Good afternoon, Father Mikhail,” he said. Mikhail’s voice sounded devious though apprehensive.
“Good afternoon, Mawlana. What an honor, to see you and hear your voice two days in a row!”
Hatem decided to get straight to the point. He didn’t have the luxury of time to be cunning.
“Where’s Hassan, Mikhail?” he asked.
Mikhail didn’t speak for a moment as he absorbed the question, but Hatem had no time to wait.
“I’ll be quite upfront with you. The kid’s disappeared and you know I could make tonight the last night you remember what your name is. I won’t say anything to State Security or to the government. I’ll just express my misgivings about you and your church to the janitor at the mosque next to you. Notice that I didn’t even say the sheikh of the mosque, no, I said the janitor. Let me put it this way, Father. If I don’t find out where the kid is within one hour, Father, I’ll turn the church upside down on you.”
Mikhail got his breath back after the succession of verbal assaults.
“By the living Christ, I don’t know anything about him,” he whispered.
“By the living Christ you’ll know something about him within the hour. Make some phone calls and find out and give me a call.” Hatem hung up without saying goodbye. He looked thoughtfully at the phone; he had run out of patience. He ran through the names with his fingers and found the one he wanted. He pressed the key to call him. When he heard a voice on the other end, he put on a little act.
“What an angelic voice!” he said. “Anyone would think it was one of those famous Quran readers! I tell you, Ahmed Pasha, you could work as a broadcaster, when you retire from the Interior Ministry, after you’ve served as minister of course.”
“And what can I do for you, Mawlana?” asked Brigadier Ahmed el-Faisal.
“Nothing really. I was calling just to say hel
lo and ask whether you’re satisfied with us,” said Hatem.
“Mawlana, after the lady came to see you at home, you ask me if we’re satisfied! I should be asking if you’re satisfied with me,” Ahmed replied enthusiastically.
Hatem was speechless for a moment, but he was soon back to his ingratiating routine.
“So the satellite was taking a really close look at our house then!” he said.
The officer smiled, “We’ve got you covered in more ways than one, to tell you the truth.”
“In fact I was calling just to ask after Khalil el-Nahhal.”
“What about him?”
“Not much. He’s the sponsor of my Ramadan program but I wanted to make sure he’s a good guy and you’re happy with him sponsoring the program,” said Hatem.
“Any reason to think otherwise?”
“Not at all. But I wanted to check for myself.”
“He’s a man who’s seriously Saudified but, as you know, those Saudified types aren’t interested in politics, so they don’t bother us and we don’t have any trouble with them,” said the officer.
“You mean he’s fine?”
“Happy Ramadan, Mawlana. Enjoy your iftars.”
“You too.”
He hung up, worried that he might have paid a price for worrying about Hassan and being anxious to find out whether the security people knew anything about his whereabouts that might have come to the attention of Ahmed el-Faisal. The pretext he had given for calling was ridiculous because neither Khalil el-Nahhal, nor indeed the month of Ramadan, could move an inch without prior approval from the security people. But Hatem decided against asking him directly about Hassan when he realized they knew that Farida was at his house.
Hatem looked around the house wondering who the informer was.
He went back and examined the guava tree, marveling at the structure of the leaves. Who knows, he thought. Maybe they found out from Farida herself or from her bodyguards. The whole country leaks like a sieve.
He found Omayma, who had sat down next to him some minutes ago without him noticing.
“By the way, Omar says hello,” she said. It was as if she had breathed new life into him.
“I want to speak to him. Please, Omayma!” he said.
She stood up and walked away.
“There’s no need for me to remind you of things we don’t like to remember, Hatem,” she said.
The tension was unbearable. He felt a sharp pain in his stomach and sweat began to run off his forehead and drip down his nose. He took his turban off. He hadn’t taken it off since he had gone in to meet Farida. He put it on his lap, sunk in thought about visiting Omar in the hospital. Omar’s doctor, a friend of Hatem, had assigned a pretty Ukrainian nurse to look after Omar after he came out of his coma, and she thought Hatem was the local priest, come to be alone with the child and give him spiritual comfort. She fell in love with the voice the sheikh used exclusively for reciting the Quran to Omar. The place was rather like a luxurious morgue and his angelic child was sleeping there, tearing at all his heartstrings with his blank stare and his lost memory. He couldn’t remember who Hatem was. They were at the stage where Omayma, the doctor, and the Ukrainian nurse were all trying to teach Omar that she was his mother and that Hatem was his father. Sometimes Hatem would weep so much that they chased him out of the hospital.
His phone rang and he shuddered. He answered the phone when he read the name of the caller. Sirhan had given the number the misspelled label “the preest.” Speaking more calmly and less angrily, Hatem said, “Yes, Father. Have you found out where Hassan is?”
“I have,” replied Mikhail, exhausted. “But that’s all I’ve managed to do.”
“Why? Where is he?”
“In the Vatican Embassy in Cairo.”
As night fell Hatem didn’t know what to do now that Father Mikhail had told him Hassan was in the Vatican embassy.
“By the way,” Mikhail had continued, “that kid is crazy, Mawlana, and he’ll be the ruin of us all. Apparently he heard the story of my grandfather and he got it into his head to convert in the Vatican, so he went to the embassy in Zamalek and asked to meet the papal nuncio. Of course he didn’t meet him, but he sat with the consul there and told him he was seeking political asylum in the Vatican because he was being persecuted after converting to Christianity. The man didn’t know what to do and of course he suspected that the boy was deranged. They explained to him that it would require lengthy procedures and he could come around in a week after leaving all his details, but the boy insisted and said he wouldn’t leave. The nuncio was told about it and in fact the man was very sensible and was worried that the boy might get into trouble if he contacted the Egyptian foreign ministry or the police, so he told them to let the boy stay. The boy refused to give them any details about his family and just showed them his passport.”
“How did you find out all this, Father?”
Mikhail was being deliberately evasive.
“A friend in the embassy called a friend in the church and asked him for advice, then the friend in the church called me to get my opinion a few minutes after you spoke to me, and I asked him the boy’s name. He made a call and found out and told me the name, and I advised them not to agree to his request and to wait for me to contact them,” he said.
Hatem realized that there were networks of relationships at play here and for the moment he wasn’t interested in finding out about them. He asked Mikhail for the telephone number of his friend’s friend in the Vatican embassy.
He hung up and called the number. A man picked up and answered in formal literary Arabic. Hatem said he was calling on behalf of Father Mikhail and he wanted to speak to Hassan or Boutros.
“Tell him it’s Sheikh Hatem el-Shenawi,” he added.
The man from the Vatican shuddered at the name and didn’t speak for a moment. Then he asked for a few minutes and said he would call back.
After one ring, Hatem picked up and found Hassan on the other end.
“Was it my sister’s husband who told you I’m here?” he asked.
“Come and spend the night at my place,” Hatem said calmly, “and I’ll take you to the Vatican in Rome myself.”
Hassan didn’t answer.
“You do realize,” Hatem continued, “that I could tell your sister or her husband, or forget them, I could speak to your father, and the papal nuncio would come out now and announce in front of you that he’d turned Muslim so that you’d get out of his face. In less than an hour you’ll find Sirhan waiting in the car opposite the embassy gate. Come out and come here immediately.”
*
Sirhan came in first and announced he was back.
“And where’s Hassan?” Hatem asked.
Sirhan didn’t answer because Hassan appeared right behind him. Hassan stood in silence in front of Hatem, who was sitting on the ground-floor patio that opened onto the garden. Hatem looked at him; he was pale with bloodshot, glazed eyes. His eyelids were drooping as if he was exhausted. Feeling sorry for him, Hatem stood up and sat Hassan in a nearby chair.
“Thank God you’re safe. You look completely wrecked,” he said. Hassan didn’t speak. He just stared into the garden.
“Are you hungry?” Hatem asked. “I could make you lunch, or has the Vatican invited you to grilled prawns?”
Hassan didn’t respond to Hatem’s attempt to be funny.
“Would you like some tea?” Hatem tried. “Sirhan, make some tea with milk quickly,” he shouted to the driver.
Hatem sat up straight to face Hassan.
“Look, Hassan,” he said, softly and sympathetically, “you and I are now trapped in a sealed box at the bottom of the ocean, and we have to find a way to get out and escape drowning. You want to officially convert to Christianity for a reason that can’t have anything to do with either Islam or Christianity, because you don’t understand Islam and you don’t know much about Christianity. But you’re free to do so, as I’ve told you a thousand times. At the be
ginning I imagined that this idea had nothing to do with religion and now I’m sure of it. Your family thought I could convince you, and in fact I don’t know what to convince you of anyway. But the issue’s now very much bigger and more complicated. Your sister’s frightened for you, not for your religion or your mind or whether you go to heaven or hell, but for your life. And I’m frightened for myself and for my future because apparently I’m not allowed to fail in the mission I’ve been assigned. Did you notice how many times I said ‘frightened’? Now let’s get back to the box under the sea. No, I said the ocean, because it’s deeper, and by the way it’s the Atlantic and not the Pacific, because the Pacific is pacific and predictable. I have one last suggestion, a solution that might pay off, but I’m not going to tell you now. First I want you to drink your tea.”
He gestured to Sirhan to put the tray he had brought on the table in front of Hassan.
“Tell me, Hassan, have you ever taken drugs?”
Hassan was taken aback by the question and blinked. His pupils narrowed and he shook his head.
“You’ve never tried weed, for example?”
Despite himself, Hassan’s lips widened with a smile but he quickly suppressed it.
“No,” he said.
“Okay, have you ever drunk beer?”
“I never touch it.”
“So why are you alive, for God’s sake, if you don’t take drugs or smoke weed or drink beer?” Hatem snapped.
Hassan finally let out a short laugh and his face relaxed.
“Great. I know you don’t drink coffee and you only like tea with milk. So I’m going to put in a clear request to you, so that I might present to you the proposed final solution.”
Hatem stood up and patted Hassan on the shoulder.
“Go upstairs and have a hot bath, then swallow this tablet,” he said.
He took a strip of tablets out of his pocket. He opened one of the tabs, took Hassan’s hand, opened the palm, and put the pill in the middle.
“Don’t worry. This is Calmepam, a tranquilizer. In a case such as yours, with no alcohol or caffeine, you’ll fall asleep a quarter of an hour after taking the tablet and sleep for ten to twelve hours. Tomorrow, you’ll wake up exhausted, feeling a little heavy-headed and dizzy, but your mind will be completely empty, as if pumped full of air. Stay at home, relax, play Xbox, and forget everything about everything. Then later in the day I’ll be back from recording the program and we can sit in the garden here and I’ll tell you the solution, provided you don’t tell anyone else. Not the Pope in Rome nor the Coptic Pope in Alexandria nor your father or even your mother. You can speak to Omayma if you like, though I’d rather you didn’t.”