Cryptocurrency is Deek’s last chance to succeed in life, and he will not stop, no matter what.

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“Sometimes I think I can see right through myself. I see what I’ve become. And I don’t like it.”

— Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress

What Happened?

Zaid Karim sat with his feet on his desk, and a handful of magnetic darts in his lap. He pitched one, too hard. It hit the round metal dartboard and bounced off. He flung another, and it stuck right in the center.

“Yes! Right in your eye.”

He threw another.

“Boss!” Jalal, Zaid’s assistant and trainee P.I. threw his hands up. He was an athletic, broad-shouldered young man with green eyes and crewcut blond hair. One of those Palestinians who looks more European than Arab. He’d just gotten married, and sometimes Zaid caught him staring at a framed photo of his wife instead of working. But in general he was an excellent assistant, who took the ethics of the job seriously. More seriously than Zaid himself, at times.

“I can’t work like this,” Jalal complained. “Do you want me to find this girl or not? You’re the one who taught me that the first 24 hours are critical.”

“Did they pay us?” They’d been hired to find a nineteen year old Bangladeshi Muslim girl who had gone “missing.” Zaid wasn’t worried. He’d worked three similar cases in the past, with teenage Muslim girls who went “missing.” Once with Lonnie, and twice on his own. Every time the family put out a flyer implying the girl had been kidnapped, starting a panic in the community. And every time it turned out the girl had run away from home. Too much school-related pressure from the parents, or culture clash between immigrant parents and their USA-born daughters. In one case the girl was pregnant, and had just completed an abortion when Zaid found her. He brought her home, but never told the parents about the pregnancy.

“They paid a thousand up front and a thousand more when we find her.”

“Cheapskates. We’ll never see that second grand.”

“Boss.” Jalal sat back from the computer and raised his hands in supplication. “What happened to you? Where’s the man who put his life on the line to find a missing child?”

Zaid glared at his assistant. “This is not that.” Though perhaps it was, who knew?

“We’ll find her. Look at her Instagram, then follow the trail. Relatives, friends, or boyfriend.”

Bite Something

He threw another dart. It hit the exact center of the board and stuck, displacing the previous one. He felt a vicious sense of satisfaction. If he couldn’t do anything else right in life, he could stick these stupid darts to the bullseye.

He knew he was being a jerk, and furthermore a bad detective. But he was in a foul mood, and couldn’t bring himself to care, any more than a snake in its desert hole cared about political, social or spiritual revolution and reformation. All the snake wanted was to hide and sleep, and every now and then bite something.

Jalal made an exasperated noise, but before he could complain further, Zaid said, “Fine! I have things to do anyway. Call me when you have a line on the girl. Don’t go looking for her in person! Just find a digital trail. We need to make sure we’re the ones who physically bring her home, or they’ll claim she showed up on her own, and they won’t pay us the second half.”

It was a warm day, and the car was a baked potato on a sheet pan. He started the engine and ran the AC. He had barely slept last night. He’d dreamed of one of the men he’d killed, the driver. They’d been sitting in a Yemeni coffee shop, having a conversation as blood welled from the man’s chest. The man complained that the coffee had no taste, and Zaid pointed out that he was dead. The man looked shocked, then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed into a pile of ash and bones.

A few years ago the city had planted palm trees along this previously barren stretch of East Belmont. They stretched toward the sky, tall and proud, uncompromising. Muslims one and all, standing in ranks like the believers at Badr. Zaid himself was a gnarled oak, twisted, nearly unkillable, and harboring life in his way, but plain and fruitless.

Agent of Destruction

He couldn’t kill one more human being. He couldn’t continue to live like this, functioning as an agent of destruction in this already mad world. He was at the end of his rope with this private detective gig. But what else could he do? He had no other training, no other skills.

He began to drive. He needed to talk to someone, but who? His friends could literally be counted on the fingers of one hand. Tarek Anwar was dead. Zaid had found his body two years ago, half in and half out of an abandoned refrigerator, the heroin needle still sticking out of his arm like a parasite that had died with its host.

His best friend, Saleem Haleem, who worked as a project manager at a homeless shelter, was at ‘Umrah. Yahya, the Kenyan sufi who lived like an ascetic and saw auras, was speaking at the ICNA conference in Baltimore. Titus Palumbo was a police detective, and Zaid felt it was best to stay away from him for now. As for Imam Saleh, he would not understand. He was a man of faith, a decent and peaceful man. Zaid’s lifestyle was beyond his ken.

As his mind worked he had been driving, and he looked up to see that his subconscious had already made the decision for him. He had come to a stop in front of the Bookazon bookstore, one of many money laundering fronts owned by his childhood friend Amiri Sulawesi, known by everyone else in the world as Badger. Zaid happened to know that Badger dropped by here often.

Coming here made sense, in a twisted way. Zaid needed advice on how to escape violence. And what greater expert was there on the subject of violence than Badger?

A Bad Day

The bookstore was small and overfull, with books cramming the shelves and stacked on the floor. A handful of youths – probably students at City College down the road – browsed, or sat in armchairs, reading. The clerk at the counter – a paper-white, thin young man with a ponytail, whose name Zaid had forgotten – Jimmy, Jerry? – claimed he didn’t know anyone named Badger.

“I’m quite sure no one with a name like that would be associated with our store,” Jimmy sniffed.

Zaid wasn’t in the mood. He had a clear memory of this pale, skinny fool addressing Badger as, “Mister Badger Sir,” like he was a character from a children’s story. He circled around to the back of the counter and seized the young man by the throat with one hand, the other hand going to the knife clipped to his pocket.

“Listen, Jimmy, you might not remember me but I remember you, and I know very well that you know Badger, so get him on the phone and tell him that Zaid Karim wants to see him, before I lose my patience and use you to test the edge of my knife. Do you understand? Nod to tell me you understand.”

The clerk’s face flushed as red as a beet, and his entire body went stiff. With eyes averted, he made helpless pawing motions in the air.

Zaid realized that the man was terrified into paralysis. This happened sometimes with chokes. People fell into profound fear states that shut down the higher mind entirely. Shocked at his own violence, he released the young man and stepped back.

“I’m so sorry, Jimmy. I apologize. I’m having a bad day. Do me a favor and make the call, alright?”

The clerk coughed and cleared his throat, holding out a hand as if to ward Zaid away. To his credit, he said, “Screw you, creep. And my name is Jerry.”

Zaid nodded, smiling. “Of course. Jerry. My apologies. I really do need you to make that call, though.”

Still red-faced, and not taking his eyes off Zaid, Jerry got on the phone, spoke for less than ten seconds, then hung up and spat two words at Zaid: “Fig factory.”

No Witnesses

That was all Zaid needed to hear. Two years ago he’d gone to Badger to request a favor. The price had been to act as lookout on one of Badger’s raids. Zaid had reluctantly agreed, only to find himself sucked into a massive gunbattle between Badger’s crew and a Samoan gang. He’d saved Badger’s life, and had watched helplessly as Badger’s henchwoman Pinky shot a naked lady in a shower. When it was all over, they had retreated to an abandoned Arkadian Foods fig processing plant in the countryside to patch up their injuries. Zaid had been emotionally devastated, until he learned that the naked lady had survived.

He was surprised that the gangster-killer was still using the same hideout.

The old fig factory, out in the countryside southwest of Fresno, was unguarded. A long gravel road led to a high fence and a rusted iron gate secured with a huge padlock. Miles of empty fields stretched out around him—no houses, no witnesses, just silence. There was a new signpost, with a triangular red and yellow sign declaring, “Hazardous Waste Site.”

If something were to happen to him here, his body would never be found, he was sure of that. Sure, Badger was a friend, but he was also a killer with a heart as cold as stainless steel in the Arctic.

Fig Factory

The padlock was not locked. Zaid opened the gate and drove up to the factory’s loading dock. For some reason a number of stray cats stood about the property, as if waiting for something to happen.

The rollup door was open, and he drove right into the factory, parking beside a nondescript gray Corolla. Badger was as rich as a Saudi prince, but his cars were always plain.

The factory interior smelled of rust and old syrup. The combination was sickly sweet, and made Zaid’s stomach rumble in discomfort. An immense complex of pipes and vats occupied the north side. The scattered furniture was aged, though the makeshift first aid clinic in one corner was better equipped than in the past. A heavy-duty first aid kit was laid open on a folding table, its contents sorted with clinical precision—bandages, syringes, surgical scissors, and a bottle of iodine.

A large wooden table held a scattering of weaponry, including shotguns, rifles, handguns and bullet proof vests.

Where there had been mattresses on the floor in the past, there were now three pairs of bunk beds. A portable battery pack hummed faintly, feeding power to a hot plate, a dented oscillating fan, a phone charger, and a tiny mini-fridge, all wedged together beside a stack of ammo boxes and what looked like a Quran with no cover. That last item surprised Zaid, but gave him some hope that Badger still retained a shred of faith.

The voluptuous Hispanic woman named Jelly sat cross-legged on one of the cots, sharpening a folding knife against a ceramic plate. Pinky, her petite lesbian lover, lounged nearby with a massive pearl-handled revolver in her lap and a lit cigarette dangling from her lips. A young man Zaid did not know sat on the floor in the shadows, black hair to his shoulders, eyes dark and unreadable, watching Zaid with a look that might have been curiosity or disdain.

In the middle of it all was Badger. Short and wiry, seated on an upturned bucket like a child’s throne. A ray of sun painted a yellow stripe across his hard brown face. His expression was not welcoming, and Zaid knew right away that he’d made a mistake in coming here.

Eight Years Ago

Eight years ago, Zaid had been part of a robbery along with Badger’s father, Malik Sulawesi. Malik had been shot protecting Zaid, and had bled to death in Zaid’s lap, in the back seat of a car, on the way to the hospital. The crew had dumped Malik’s body in the driveway of the hospital, abandoning him to his corporeal fate.

No one alive knew this. It was a secret that Zaid had buried deep in his own mind, on a level that even he did not visit.

After Malik’s death, Badger had gone on a campaign of vengeance against the gangsters he believed responsible, killing more people with his guns than a carpet-bombing run would have done. While all the while the man responsible was his own best friend.

The last time Zaid had visited Chausiku Sulawesi – Badger’s mother – the woman had implied that she knew Zaid’s secret, and had threatened to tell Badger if Zaid ever bothered her again. Ever since then, the possibility of such a revelation had been nagging at Zaid’s heart like a dog worrying a bone.

Badger glanced sidelong at Zaid, lips twisting into a cold smile. “Didn’t think I’d see you again, Stick. Funny, right? Life got this way of makin’ the past come back around. Like the cosmic powers-that-be wanna force you to examine all your dark, dirty secrets. You ever notice that?”

Zaid tensed. What was Badger implying? He studied his murderous friend. Badger was slender to the point of being delicate, and those who did not know him sometimes fatally underestimated him. Zaid never made that mistake.

Avoiding the connotations of Badger’s comments, and ignoring Badger’s unwelcome use of his old nickname, Zaid said, “What’s with the cats?”

Badger shrugged. “Jelly started feedin’ ’em, and they kept comin’.”

Scars

“Look at you,” Badger went on. “What happened to your face, homie? You look like you went ten rounds with a cotton harvester.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Oh yeah? Show me.”

Zaid had not come here to entertain others with his scars, but what the hell. Badger’s mind was like a supercomputer, and computers functioned on data. The more information you fed them, the more useful the answer.

Matter of factly, without embarrassment or hesitation, he pulled his t-shirt off and let Badger study the mass of twisted skin that covered his left shoulder; the long, fiery scar that ran up his left arm; and the pockmarked bullet scar on his right shoulder.

“Now for the featured attraction.” He put his t-shirt back on, and pulled his pants down to his knees. The skin on the front and inside of his thighs was a frightening, chaotic mess of scars atop scars. They were not neat lines as one might get from a knife wound, but scores of misshapen, twisted rents and tears of all shapes.

Badger whistled, long and low. “You was tortured.”

“Ay Dios,” Jelly whispered.

Zaid pulled his pants back up.

“Who did that to you, Stick?” Badger demanded. “Gimme their names and I’ll exterminate ‘em all.”

Zaid regarded his old friend solemnly. “I already did that.”

Badger did not ask for names or details. He merely grunted and said, “Good man.”

No Future

“Fool prolly makin’ it all up,” the young man offered from the shadowy corner where he crouched. “Prolly had a car accident.”

Zaid looked at the youth. His soulful eyes were deep and haunted beneath a mop of curly dark hair. He was not more than nineteen, yet radiated anger and sorrow, as if already resigned to a bleak ending that hadn’t yet come. The sad part was that, working for Badger, the young man had no future. He’d already thrown his life away, and didn’t know it yet.

“Shut up, Ofelio,” Jelly said lazily. She was lying back now on the cot, her long black hair fanning out on the small pillow. The tight jeans and t-shirt she wore barely contained her figure. Zaid remembered the time they’d nearly killed each other, when she’d pressed a gun to his forehead as he had put a knife to her femoral artery. Her breath had been spicy, and her eyes as deep as the Mariana Trench. She was watching him closely now, fascination in her gaze as she twirled a knife between long, manicured fingers.

Zaid’s eyes flicked to Pinky, the diminutive and insanely jealous Asian killer. Her eyes darted rapidly between Jelly and Zaid, her slender fingers nervously twitching at the handle of a pistol she never hesitated to use.

“So,” Badger went on as if the young man had not spoken. “Watchu doin’ here, Stick? Must be pretty bad if you come to see me.”

“I came to talk to you,” Zaid said at last. “Not your whole crew.”

Badger’s lips twitched into a half-smile, the slightest nod acknowledging old bonds. “Just protocol, Stick. You know how Jelly and Pinky get when they miss the action.”

“What about the big mouthed kid? Who’s he?”

“I’ll show you who’s a kid,” the young man snarled, standing and drawing a long dagger.

“You better sit down, Ofelio,” Badger remarked, “if you know what’s good for you.”

Ofelio took a step toward Zaid. “Naw boss, I’ma show you that this guy is all talk.”

Zaid wondered what was going on with the kid. Was he jealous of Zaid’s friendship with Badger? Was he new to the crew, and feeling a need to prove his chops? Or was he just crazy? Nevertheless, a threat was a threat.

“Act like you have an ounce of brains,” Zaid said, “and sit down.”

Later, he wondered why he had said this. Was it a half-hearted attempt at deescalation? Or was he actually trying, on some poorly illuminated subconscious level, to provoke the young man?

Regardless, Ofelio took another step forward and raised his long dagger.

Suddenly, fluidly, Zaid drew the large folding knife from his right-side front pocket, snapped it open and flung it hard and fast. The blade and handle were black, and in the gloom of the factory the weapon was little more than a shadow flicking through the air. The blade embedded itself deep in Ofelio’s thigh. The young man screamed and fell to the ground, clutching at his leg. “He stabbed me! The fool stabbed me!”

Badger threw back his head and roared with laughter. He laughed so hard he fell off the bucket. Rolling on the floor, he clutched his stomach and guffawed as the young man moaned in pain.

Seeing this, Zaid could not stop the corners of his mouth from quirking upward into a smile, though he hated himself for it.

“You never even warned me!” Ofelio shouted.

“Why would I warn you? This is real life, not a kung fu movie.”

“Pinky,” Badger commanded when he’d recovered himself. “Patch the kid up. Jelly, make us some tea. You know the kind I like.”

A Taste for Murder

Badger sat back down on the bucket. “Never mind the kid. Just say what you wanna say, Stick.”

“I killed three men the other day.”

“Oh yeah?” A genuine smile touched Badger’s lips. It occurred to Zaid that although Badger’s mission had started out as one of revenge, somewhere along the way he’d developed a taste for murder. The very mention of it pleased him, like an addict talking about his drug of choice.

“And it wasn’t even for me. I was helping out a brother in trouble.”

“That’s the only way you would kill, Stick. For someone else. I’m the opposite, I only kill for myself. That’s why you’re the hero of this story, and I’m the villain.”

“What story?”

“Life.”

“The thing is,” Zaid said, “I did it easily. I didn’t even consider alternatives. I cut those men down like the grim reaper. This isn’t who I am. It’s not who I want to be. I need a way out of this life and away from violence. So I thought, who understands violence better than Badger? Understanding a thing means you know both sides of it.”

Badger nodded slowly. “You need to achieve escape velocity, huh? But you know better than anyone—ain’t no easy roads out here. Just circles.”

Zaid met Badger’s gaze, resolute. “Then help me break the circle.”

Badger watched Zaid carefully. “You think,” Badger finally began, voice calm and measured, “you can just step away from violence, like it’s a barrio you grew out of. Made some money, wanna move to a gated community. But violence isn’t geography, Stick. It’s gravity. It pulls you, holds and don’t let go.”

Zaid tilted his head, listening, but silent.

“It’s basic physics. Every action,” Badger said, tapping his chest, “ripples outward endlessly. All the killing you’ve done has changed you. It’s inevitable.”

“I know,” Zaid murmured. “But that’s the problem. It was too easy. Killing them shouldn’t have felt so—”

“Natural?” Badger interjected softly. He leaned back, the bucket creaking quietly. “Marx spoke about alienation. Workers lose themselves when their actions become commodities. The same happens with violence. When you detach the act from the self—when killing becomes automatic, instinctive—you’ve become alienated from your humanity. The self is lost in the process.”

“Then how do I get it back?” Zaid asked, barely audible.

Jelly came with a small folding table and a tray and silently poured three cups of tea, handing one to Zaid. The silver cup was small and ornate. Zaid sipped it, reveling in the rich flavor of chocolate and peppermint that flooded his mouth. It was delicious.

On the other side of the warehouse, Ofelio was moaning nonstop as Pinky tourniqueted his leg, cleaned the wound and began to stitch it up. Zaid felt no remorse for what he’d done, and that was the problem.

An Anchor

Badger’s eyes hardened. “You want to reclaim humanity, you must reclaim agency. Choose consciously. If violence must occur, it can’t be reflexive. Anarchists understood this. Any genuine action must originate from deliberate choice, not necessity or impulse.”

Jelly had pulled up a chair and sat sipping her own tea and listening to the conversation. The pressure of her eyes upon him was like the constant emanation of a space heater.

Zaid frowned. “You’re not exactly a pacifist yourself.”

“No,” Badger admitted, sipping his tea. “But I never lie to myself about why I do what I do. The moment violence becomes easy, you become a slave to its gravity. Breaking orbit means making different choices—deliberate choices that reflect your values, not your reflexes. You need an anchor.”

“An anchor,” Zaid echoed softly.

“Exactly.” Badger stared directly into Zaid’s eyes. “Find an anchor outside violence, something strong enough to pull you free from its orbit. Art. Community. Philosophy. Pick a different center of gravity. Otherwise, you remain trapped in violence’s perpetual cycle.” Badger leaned forward, voice lower. “You’re troubled not because of the act, but because you’ve glimpsed clearly what you’re capable of. So decide who you gon’ be, Stick, and mean it. Otherwise, these streets gon’ keep decidin’ for you.”

Zaid finished his tea and stood. Badger was making sense. Except for one thing.

What About Allah?

“What about Allah?” Zaid challenged. “The person who remembers Allah and the one who does not are like the living and the dead. If I have learned anything in life, it’s that everything begins and ends with Allah. I know this better than I know my own name. So how can you, or me, or anyone, make a true change without the light and guidance of Allah?”

Badger shrugged. “You’re the Muslim, you figure it out.”

“You don’t consider yourself Muslim anymore?”

“Come on, homie. After all I’ve done? I’m a monster, I know it. Could be I’m a sociopath. I display all the markers.” He made quotation signs with his fingers and recited: “Pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of others. Failure to adhere to social norms. Lack of remorse. Don’t matter what I consider myself, ain’t no God about to forgive me.”

“You’re cherry-picking. I took an abnormal psychology class in the pen. Sociopathy also includes impulsiveness, irritability and an inability to form meaningful relationships. None of which I see in you. Anyway, Allah forgives, brother. Don’t you know that? If you come with an ocean of sins and make tawbah, Allah will come with forgiveness greater than that.”

“Could I be forgiven?” Jelly asked.

“Of course. You feed cats. There’s mercy in you, which means you are open to receiving mercy as well.”

Badger laughed. “You better get goin’, Stick, before you convert my crew and steal ‘em away.”

“You have a copy of the Quran,” Zaid persisted.

“Do I?” Badger’s surprise was genuine.

Zaid gestured. “Right there on top of your ammo boxes.”

“Actually,” Jelly said with uncharacteristic shyness, “that’s mine.”

Zaid studied the beautiful young woman for a moment, then, on impulse, and knowing it was probably a bad idea, took out his wallet and handed her one of his cards. “Text me and I’ll give you my wife’s number. You can talk to her about God, the Quran, faith, or whatever you like.”

Badger stood. “You’re crossing a line here, homie.” His voice was low and dangerous.

Zaid met his old friend’s eyes. “I don’t think I am.” He waved his arm to encompass the dilapidated factory. “I want more than this for you, Badge. You’re capable of so much more. I care about you.”

“See that!” Badger gestured to his compatriots. “That’s sincerity. That’s why I never murdered this dude, and never will.”

“How heartwarming.”

In the first aid clinic, Ofelio had been treated and sedated, and was asleep. Pinky walked over to join the group, carrying Zaid’s knife. Zaid tensed. Pinky had never liked him. But the petite Asian killer tossed the knife gently, and Zaid snatched it out of the air. It had been cleaned and disinfected.

“Thanks,” he said.

The fig factory suddenly felt not just like a hideout, but a tomb. Badger was a dead pharaoh, already wrapped and mummified, while the crew members were his acolytes, worshiping him even beyond death. There was no life here, no truth, no answers. Badger could perhaps point the way toward something true – that Zaid was a human being with free will, and the capacity to make different choices – but Badger himself was stuck in his own nightmare, and was so used to it that it seemed like home.

Zaid walked to his car, backed out of the factory and drove away, thinking of Badger’s final comment – that he’d never murdered Zaid, and never would – and what it might imply.

***

[Part 12 will be published next week inshaAllah]

 

Reader comments and constructive criticism are important to me, so please comment!

See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s other stories on this website.

Wael Abdelgawad’s novels – including Pieces of a Dream, The Repeaters and Zaid Karim Private Investigator – are available in ebook and print form on his author page at Amazon.com.

 

Related:

Day Of The Dogs, Part 1 – Tiny Ripples Of Hope

Gravedigger: A Short Story

 

The post Moonshot [Part 11] – The Fig Factory appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

We speak with Helena Cobban about fallout from Israel’s attack on Iran. Israel suffered its highest casualties in Gaza in a year, even as it massacres civilians. UK ban on Palestine Action, and more.

Exclusive: Former Met officer Neil Basu says there is link between UK foreign policy and radicalisation, and atrocity did lasting damage to race relations

Foreign policy was a driver behind the 7 July 2005 attacks on London , with the atrocity leaving a “soul-destroying” legacy of a rise in hate, a former head of counter-terrorism has said.

Neil Basu said governments needed to accept that foreign policy, such as Britain’s stance on the Israel-Gaza war, could have a direct effect on domestic security.

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Many feel counter-terrorism policies and brazen Islamophobia have increased hostility and isolation experience by community

For many in the British Muslim community, the tragedy of 7 July 2005 lives long in the memory. The bombings sent shockwaves through the nation but also marked a turning point that left many grappling with grief, fear and a new scrutiny of their identity.

Twenty years on, feelings of suspicion, isolation and hostility experienced in the aftermath of the attacks have, for some, only worsened after decades of UK counter-terrorism policies, and a political landscape they say has allowed Islamophobia to flourish.

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A monthly digest of key developments in Palestine showcasing powerful images by photojournalists.

Yousef Raed is back in Jabaliya with his small family, but still suffers the scars of 20 months of terror and torture.

Israel kills leading doctor, one of only two remaining cardiologists in northern Gaza.

Israeli attacks killed over 60 people in Gaza City and the north on 30 June.

“Recalling” Israel’s crimes is an empty gesture.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned as a 'vile provocation' a cartoon in a satirical magazine that appeared to depict Prophets Mohammad and Moses, amplifying an outcry by religious conservatives after the arrest of four cartoonists. In a statement on X, LeMan said: 'The work does not refer to the Prophet Muhammad in any way'

• Turkish police arrest cartoonists over drawing ‘showing prophet Muhammad’

• Clashes and arrests in Turkey over magazine cartoon allegedly depicting prophet Muhammad

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Followers of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light urged to sell possessions and donate their salaries to the cause

A religious sect, whose leader claims to be the new pope and whose followers say he can make the moon disappear, is operating out of a former orphanage in Crewe, Cheshire, where at least a dozen children are being home schooled.

The Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL) was founded by Abdullah Hashem, a former documentary maker turned self-proclaimed “saviour of mankind” who uses YouTube and TikTok to proselytise to potential recruits.

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Four artists held over magazine illustration alleged by critics to depict Muhammad and Moses shaking hands

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has condemned a cartoon in a satirical magazine as a “vile provocation” for appearing to depict the prophets Muhammad and Moses, amplifying an outcry by religious conservatives.

The cartoon, published a few days after the end of a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, appears to show Muhammad, Islam’s chief prophet, and Moses, one of Judaism’s most important prophets, shaking hands in the sky while missiles fly below in a wartime scene. Four cartoonists were arrested on Monday over the illustration.

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On the street in Gaza City and at an airdrop site, a writer learns how language is changing in Gaza.

Turkey police face demonstrators after prosecutor orders arrests at LeMan magazine, whose editor-in-chief denies allegation and says image has been deliberately misinterpreted

Clashes erupted in Istanbul with police firing rubber bullets and teargas to disperse a mob on Monday after allegations that a satirical magazine had published a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad.

The clashes occurred after Istanbul’s chief prosecutor ordered the arrest of the editors at LeMan magazine on grounds it had published a cartoon that “publicly insulted religious values”.

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[…contd.]

As Turkiye mends its fences with a long-running Kurdish insurgency led by the Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (PKK), the first part of this two-part series focused on Kurdish activity in and immediately after the First World War, where European powers occupied much of the former Ottoman realm only to be driven from Turkiye. This second part will focus on the first major Kurdish revolt against the modern Turkish state, the revolt of Naqshbandi preacher Mehmed Said in 1925, and its aftermath.

From Independence to Subjugation

Having fought the European powers to a standstill in the early 1920s, by the mid-1920s the Anatolian resistance was in a much stronger state and recognized as the government of Turkiye, seen as both an independent power and a useful bulwark to the Bolshevik Soviets who had taken over Russia and northern Eurasia. This gave Kemal Atatürk tremendous room to manoeuvre; rather than live up to the rhetoric of jihad and Muslim brotherhood that had marked the independence war. However, he would resort to far more limited and limiting aims of forming a Turkish nation-state.

At the 1923 Lausanne Accord, Atatürk agreed to relinquish Iraq and Syria, with the ownership of Mosul deferred till later. Muslims, Arabs, Kurds, and Turks outside Turkiye who had fought under an Islamic banner were left to their own devices. The rise of nation-states over the next decades would automatically split up the Kurds between Turkiye, Iraq, and Syria in addition to the prior frontier with Iran. An early step in the consolidation of the Turkish nation-state was the removal of Vahdettin Mehmed VI (Wahiduddin Muhammad) as sultan and then his successor, Abdulmecid (Abdul-Majeed) II, who had supported the resistance against the occupation, as caliph.

These measures, coupled with an increasingly open secularism and centralization of power around his own personage, alienated many of Atatürk’s original colleagues in the revolt against the occupation. An astonishing number of these Turkish leaders, in fact, went into opposition: they included Kazim Karabekir, Fuat Cebesoy, Ibrahim Refet, and Huseyin Rauf – who had most recently served as Atatürk’s “prime minister” in the last years of the war. Other dissidents included Nurettin Konyar, corps commanders Tayyar Egilmez, who resigned from the army to join this party, and Deli Halit (Deli Khalid)- who was bizarrely killed in a fight at parliament by Atatürk’s enforcer Ali Cetinkaya.

The Kurdish uprising leader Sheik Said Efendı

These were not the only quarters of discontent. Kurds had supported the new Turkish state against an Assyrian revolt, led by a Christian minority whose leaders were heavily supportive of Britain in both Iraq and Turkiye at this time, now Kurdish officers, including Halid Cibran (Khalid Jibran), from the Cibran clan, and Ihsan Nuri, planned a revolt. Halid’s brother-in-law was a revered Naqshbandi preacher, Mehmed Said (Muhammad Saeed) of Piran, who in early 1925 mounted a revolt in the region around Diyarbakir.

The revolt employed both Islamic and nationalist characteristics: Said abhorred Ataturk’s abolition of the caliphate and secularization, but echoed the nineteenth-century sheikh Ubaidullah Khalidi in his advocacy of Kurdish separatism. Said’s brother Sheikh Abdurrahim engaged an army patrol ahead of schedule, but once lit, the fire spread rapidly. Notably and unusually, not only the sheikh’s followers but also chieftains from various clans -including Begs Kadir, Mustafa, Rashid, Salih, and Yado Aga- joined the revolt. Said himself was influential among the region’s Zaza Kurds, and one major follower, Sheikh Serif (Sharif), was both a religious and clan leader. There were, of course, exceptions: Musa Beg opposed the revolt and was killed in battle. The minoritarian Alevi Kurds in Dersim also opposed the Sunni rebels, and longstanding Kurdish activists such as the Cemilpasazade family also kept their distance. Said’s attempt to contact Mahmud Ibrahim, the son of the Millan chieftain and Ottoman militia commander, went unanswered.

Nonetheless, the revolt initially captured Bingol, Elazig, and Palu to lay siege to the region’s major city Diyarbakir. The city’s tough corps commander was Hakki Mursel, a veteran of the wars with Russia who styled himself “Baku” after his battlefield experience in Azerbaijan. He held out for reinforcements against the Kurdish siege, which were soon dispatched under Ataturk’s aide, Kazim Dirik.

In the aftermath of the revolt, Atatürk cracked down hard. His loyalists, including Ali Cetinkaya and a Kurdish officer called Ali Saip, set up a show trial that accused Said of treasonous collaboration with Britain. That some other Kurdish elites had recently entertained relations with Britain might have contributed to this impression, but there is no evidence of this in Said’s case: in fact, Britain was increasingly coming to see Atatürk’s Turkiye as a bulwark against the Soviets. Just before his hanging, Said signed off to the Kurdish judge Saip with the chilling words, “I like you. But you and I shall settle our account on Judgement Day.” Saip himself would be falsely accused of attempting to assassinate Atatürk a decade later. 

This marked the start of a long crackdown on Kurdish elites: also executed was Seyid Abdulkadir, who by all accounts had nothing to do with the revolt. But the crackdown extended elsewhere as well: the opposition led by Kazim Karabekir was implausibly accused of having conspired in the revolt, and their party was immediately banned. A year later, when Atatürk survived an attempt on his life, Kazim and the other dissident leaders were systematically hounded out of public life.

Said’s revolt was a watershed moment not only for Kurds in Turkiye but for Turkiye itself: it marked the start of a progressive concentration of power around a foreign concept of the nation-state. Though he abjured the extraterritorial ambitions of Turkish nationalists, Atatürk shared the common nationalist idea that heterogeneity was a weakness and sought to fashion a new, modern type of Turkish citizen: the Kurds were simply treated as backward specimens of “mountain Turk” who would have to be “civilized” by force. This provoked revolt, notably led by Ihsan Nuri at Agridag, which was crushed with greater brutality in the early 1930s. Led by such hardline Kemalists as Kazim Dirik, the regime began a policy of social engineering that, while not restricted to Kurds, was particularly violent in their case. Repression, including against as basic a fact of life as the Kurdish language, was ferocious; in the late 1930s, the Dersim Alevis, who had opposed the 1925 revolt, were themselves brutally crushed.

A Long Shadow

Kazim Karabekir and Kemal Ataturk

It is often claimed that Kurds are the world’s largest nation without a state; this, however, internalizes the same nationalist logic that produced nation-states in the early twentieth century, that each ethnic group must have a distinct state. More to the point is the overwhelmingly harmful impact that nationalist homogenization and government centralism throughout the region have had on Kurds, who have been split between four states in Turkiye, Iraq, Syria, and Iran–respectively known as Bakur (North Kurdistan), Bashur (South Kurdistan), Rojava (West Kurdistan), and Rojhilat (East Kurdistan).

Experiences often varied: in Syria and Iraq, the atmosphere grew increasingly fraught with the emergence of Arab nationalism led by rival wings of the Baath party. Iraq, originally been relatively open, but where Barzani leader Mala Mustafa remained one of several charismatic rebels, and Iran in the 1970s backed one another’s Kurdish opposition as the two neighbours entered a major war that lasted through the 1980s. A particularly brutal assault by Iraq’s Baath regime on its Kurds ensured that when an opportunity came in the 1990s, the Iraqi Kurds set up a practical American protectorate in Bashur, a duopoly led by the feuding Barzani and Talabani cliques. Though they maintained links with Kurds abroad, they also had complicated relations with the governments that other Kurdish activists opposed.

Though Turkish politics opened up after the Second World War, the deep state maintained a close watch on politics and jealously sought to guard Atatürk’s legacy. Crackdowns on Kurds resumed in the 1980s when Abdullah Ocalan, a Stalinist activist who formed a personality cult, led a new revolt that differed in style from previous Kurdish revolts but shared their aim of throwing off rule by a military-led Turkish government, and worked closely with the Syrian regime of Hafiz Assad. Ankara eventually persuaded Assad to relinquish Ocalan, who was captured in 1999 even as his organization was repeatedly pursued into Bashur. Though many Turkish officials, including Prime Minister Turgut Ozal, were themselves Kurds, they could not shake a solidly uncompromising military and bureaucratic establishment that again domestically reared its head in the late 1990s, when it cracked down on Islamic practice with the close support of the United States and Israel. 

As a consequence, Islamic activists in Turkiye came to see this ideological autocracy as a shared enemy with the opposition Kurds. The Islamic-leaning AK party that came to power in 2002 repeatedly sought to bury the hatchet with Kurdish insurgents, meanwhile taming the military. This process stuttered in the mid-2010s when American support for the Karkeran’s Syrian wing emboldened the main organization in Bakur to return to insurgency. That provoked yet more cross-border Turkish incursions, this time into northern Syria (or Rojava, West Kurdistan). Only a decade later, with Washington losing interest in the Syrian misadventure and a pro-Turkish Islamist government in Damascus, did negotiations resume, with the ethnically Kurdish Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan playing a major role.

Importantly, it was Turkish nationalist leader Devlet Bahceli, whose party has traditionally abhorred concessions of Kurdish rights, who opened up negotiations with Ocalan. The Turkish parliament proved similarly receptive, and in May 2025, Ocalan announced the disbandment of the Karkeran in return for cultural rights. It remains to be seen whether this will play out as negotiated, but it marks a rare opportunity to end a century of injury for the Kurds of Turkiye and take a more organic approach to Kurdish rights in the region.

 

Related:

– Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire: Trade Across an Inverted Imperial Divide – MuslimMatters.org

– Part I | The Decline of the Ottoman Empire – MuslimMatters.org

 

The post Nationalism And Its Kurdish Discontents [Part II of II]: Kurds And Turkiye After Ottoman Rule appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Matriculation exams postponed for second time during Gaza genocide.

This spring, Turkiye’s AK government, led by Tayyip Erdogan, secured what promises to be a momentous agreement with the longstanding Kurdish insurgent group, the Parti Karkeran Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) led by Abdullah Ocalan, which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state for the better part of four decades. This comes a hundred years since the first Kurdish revolt against the Turkish Republic, the 1925 revolt led by the Naqshbandi sheikh Mehmed Said against the republic’s founder, Kemal Atatürk. This first of two articles on the Kurds in Turkiye will examine the background of Kurdish activism during the final years of the Ottoman sultanate.

Background

As a multiethnic Islamic sultanate, Ottoman rule from Istanbul was systematically undermined by the nineteenth-century emergence of nationalism, which both undercut Islamic universalism and provoked unrest among the sultanate’s Christian minorities, often with support from rival European powers such as Britain and Russia. As a European import, nationalism had a limited appeal until Istanbul’s own attempts at centralizing administrative reforms, which often met a sharp backlash outside the corridors of power. As fellow Muslims who had enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy under traditional leaders such as chieftains and preachers, few Kurds welcomed Ottoman centralism and a number of major families, notably the Bedirkhans (Badr Khans) of Bohtan, resisted these measures, as well as sociopolitical upheaval caused in the borderlands with Russia and Qajar-ruled Persia. In 1880-81, the Nehri Naqshbandi preacher Ubaidullah Khalidi b. Taha led a major attack on Iran, and only relented under the pressure of Ottoman sultan Abdulhamid II before briefly challenging the Ottomans in turn.

Ubaidullah’s dissatisfaction with Ottoman and Qajar rule, as well as his insistence on an autonomous if not independent Kurdish frontier, has made him renowned as a proto-nationalist. He adopted a stance that would be echoed in many future Kurdish leaders, including his son Seyid Abdulkadir: official loyalty to the government, but parallel negotiations with foreign powers with a view to securing autonomy from centralism. In fact, the vast majority of Ottoman Kurds remained loyal to the government, and Abdulhamid increasingly armed them under the command of Millan chieftain Ibrahim Milli to fight Armenian nationalists backed by Russia during a bloody, undeclared war at the turn of the century. Stressing his title as caliph, Abdulhamid was nonetheless widely resented by a wide number of people, particularly the intelligentsia, by this point: his secretive, wary rule during a period of decline was increasingly resented and when he was ousted in the so-called Young Turk coup of 1908, traditional Kurdish leaders were among the few who rallied to his cause. Millan chieftain Ibrahim in Syria and the Barzinjis Saeed and his son Mahmoud in Iraq launched brief and unsuccessful revolts against the new regime.

Homogenization

The Young Turk coup, which brought together a mishmash of ideological and political trends united only by their desire for change, promised a more representative government, but in fact, proved far more repressive than its predecessors. Though a number of the Young Turks were Kurds, and though such Kurdish notables as Seyid Abdulkadir were given senior positions, in fact power soon came to rest with a militaristic clique that, in the “civilized” fashion of the day, viewed Ottoman heterogeneity as a potential weakness and increasingly sought not only centralizing but also culturally homogenizing practices, with the particular promotion of Turkish identity often at the expense of other identities.

Notable Kurdish families and leaders, including the Bedirkhans, Babans, and the Cemilpasazades (Jamil Pashazadas), were forced to operate underground. Others, such as the Barzanis, who had a record of rather heterodox religious activity but enjoyed a widespread following in what is now northern Iraq, briefly rebelled. Several Kurdish clans broke off their relations with the Ottomans; when, during the Balkan War of 1912-13, Istanbul came under threat, one chieftain, Abdulkadir Dirai of the Karakecili, expected that the Ottomans would fall and rebelled, only to be imprisoned once they survived. Other Kurdish clans remained loyal to the sultanate and were often employed against their local rivals.

Ibrahim Milli [PC: haberercis.com.tr]

Often, government responses were coloured by the assessment of individual officials who were not themselves necessarily Turks: for instance, Mehmed Fazil (Muhammad Fadil) and Suleiman Nazif, two of the firmest opponents of the Kurdish rebels in Iraq, were respectively Caucasian and Kurdish. For their part, some of the Kurdish intermediate class -which had historically been autonomous links between their communities and the Ottoman sultanate- were increasingly equivocal, doubting the feasibility of the Ottoman state and prepared to break away should it fall to foreign intervention. It was in this context that an explicitly nationalist idea of Kurdishness came about.

Throughout the devastating First World War that followed, Kurds fought in huge numbers for the Ottoman state: as many as three hundred thousand Kurds lost their lives in the Ottoman cause, and major units in the eastern frontline against Russia were largely Kurdish. The war saw communal displacement and upheaval on an unprecedented level, and not simply by the Ottomans’ enemies: though Russian-backed Armenian nationalists had been extremely brutal against Muslim civilians, the Ottoman state responded with a wholesale assault on the Armenian populace at large, which was massacred and systematically displaced. This was to date the worst assault of any Muslim government against a dhimmi minority; it was also a precursor to ideas of homogenization that would emerge after the war.

During the war, a handful of Kurdish notables, including Abdulkadir’s nephew Seyid Taha of Nehri and some of the Bedirkhans, openly colluded with Russia as it briefly captured the borderland. This availed them little as Russia soon collapsed, but was less momentous than the role of Arab counterparts -again, against the vast majority of loyalist Arabs- who helped Britain advance in Arabia and the Levant. Eventually, the Ottomans were forced to sue for peace in the autumn of 1918, whereupon their remaining opponents -France, Britain, and Greece, with a smattering of Italian and Armenian nationalist forces- occupied Istanbul and the surrounding countryside. The recently installed Ottoman sultan, Vahdettin Mehmed VI, sought to cut his losses, purge the Young Turks, and enter a disadvantageous peace with the victors: he hoped that a shared dislike of the Young Turks, who had brought the sultanate to ruin, would enable the European victors to view him with sympathy, but they instead aimed to split the Ottoman heartland between them. In this context, Kurdish nationalists, led by an Ottoman Kurdish general called Mehmed Serif (Muhammad Sharif), also sought the establishment of an independent Kurdistan.

Resistance and Collaboration

By contrast, other Kurds, as well as Turks and Arabs, fought this occupation of Muslim territory. In  Anatolia’s heartland, they were led by a number of renegade Ottoman generals: Kemal Atatürk, Kazim Karabekir, Ibrahim Refet (Bele), Fuat Cebesoy, and Vahdettin’s former negotiator, Huseyin Rauf (Orbay). Although the palace treated them as rebels, they insisted that they were liberating the sultan from foreign subjugation, and their argument was given strength by the European powers’ uncompromising stance toward Istanbul. They employed Islamic arguments of jihad that intermixed with already existing resistance elsewhere, both in Anatolia as well as Iraq and Syria, and these at least originally united many Kurds with Arabs and Turks.

Though the sultan and Atatürk reached an uneasy agreement by the end of 1919, in spring 1920 Britain sabotaged this with a full-scale crackdown in Istanbul. This forced the remaining parliament to flee to Ankara, where Atatürk set up a “shadow government”. The last humiliation for the sultanate came in the Sèvres Accord: though Vahdettin had hoped that he could salvage a good deal through cooperation with the occupation, in fact, the European powers decided to split up his lands and thus lent credence to the Ankara-based parliament’s call for a jihad. Although the Accord rewarded Mehmed Serif’s lobbying with a vague reference to Kurdistan, in actual fact this came after a year of fierce fighting between Britain and large parts of the Ottoman Kurdish population.

Kurdish participants in resistance included several Kurdish chieftains: Ali Bati of the Haverkan clan, Abdurrahman Aga of the Shernakhlis, and Ramadan Aga of the Salahan. Similarly, Karakecili chieftain Abdulkadir Dirai and Millan chieftain Ibrahim’s son Mahmud were released from prison to lead Kurdish forces. But the political uncertainty and ambiguous jurisdiction of the period, and suspicion and rivalries among the participants often clouded events. For instance, when Bati captured Nusaibin in May 1919, the army led by Kenan Dalbasar wrongly suspected him of French-backed subversion and drove him out, where he was killed. Similarly, when Istanbul sent a governor, Ali Galip, to arrest Atatürk that autumn, he was accused of being in league with French-backed Kurdish secessionists, causing the palace huge embarrassment. Finally, in early 1921, a particularly ruthless Turkish general, Nurettin Konyar, uprooted a largely Alevi Kurdish revolt by the Kocgiri clan in eastern Anatolia, with a ferocity that alarmed even his colleagues in the resistance. This revolt had demonstrable links to the British occupation and to Serif’s secessionists, thus cementing a suspicion of Kurdish agitation that was to resurface again.

In fact, Kurdish collaboration with Britain was the exception to the rule. Resistance was especially fierce in British-occupied Iraq, in whose north Ottoman veterans such as the Young Turks’ former defence minister Ismail Enver encouraged Kurdish revolt among historically rivalled clans such as the Zebaris, the Barzanis, and the Surchis. Participants included Mala Mustafa of Barzan, Karim Fattah of Hamawand, Faris Agha of Zebar, Mahmoud Dizli of Hawraman, Nuri Bawil of the Surchis, Abbas Mahmoud of Pizhdar, and Mahmoud Barzinji. Their local rivals backed Britain, along with opportunists such as Seyid Taha as well as chieftain Ismail Simko of the Shikak clan, a marauding freebooter on the Turco-Persian borderland who had once fought for the Ottomans but often changed sides.

Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji (Kurdish: Mahmud Barzinji (1878 – October 9, 1956) was the leader of a series of Kurdish uprisings against the British Mandate of Iraq. He was sheikh of a Qadiriyah Sufi family of the Barzanji clan from the city of Sulaymaniyah, which is now in Iraqi Kurdistan. He was styled King of Kurdistan during several of these uprisings. [PC: Alamy Stock Photo]

In summer 1921 Britain, at their wits’ end and by now reconciled to the inevitability of a Turkish victory in Anatolia, decided to cut their losses and set up a nominally independent Iraqi state under Faisal I bin Husain, who had supported them against the Ottomans in Arabia but been deprived of a kingdom when France had conquered Syria from him in 1920. The new state would be largely comprised of Faisal’s followers as well as parts of the largely Arab Iraqi intelligentsia from Ottoman rule: though Ataturk was not averse to letting go of Baghdad, the Turks and British both laid claim to Mosul, which was believed to contain vast deposits of oil.

In summer 1922, Ankara dispatched Sefik Ozdemir (Shafiq Ozdamir), the descendant of a notable Mamluk family who had most recently fought France and, during the World War, encouraged a shared Muslim opposition to the European foe. Far more than other Turkish officers, Sefik won the trust of Kurdish clansmen, supporting Karim and Abbas in battle against the British occupation. Unable to trust the weak Taha or the adventuresome Simko, Britain turned instead to Mahmoud Barzinji, who promised to repel the resistance if they let him rule Sulaimania. Once installed there, however, he made contact with Sefik and joined the revolt to announce himself shah of Kurdistan.

It was not until 1923 that this joint Turkish-Kurdish resistance was defeated. Though Mahmoud Barzinji was expelled from Sulaimania, British rule in the Kurdish region was extremely tenuous, and he was able to return repeatedly over the next few years. In order to beat him and other Iraqi opponents, Britain relied on massive aerial bombardment, a novel technology a the time that wrought havoc on the Kurdish countryside in a process that would be repeated by one government or another against Kurdish rebels over the next century.

[…to be contd.]

 

Related:

– The Role Of Kurds In The Dissemination Of Islamic Knowledge In The Malay Archipelago

– Calamity In Kashgar [Part I]: The 1931-34 Muslim Revolt And The Fall Of East Turkistan

The post Nationalism And Its Kurdish Discontents [Part I of II]: Kurds In An Ottoman Dusk appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Cryptocurrency is Deek’s last chance to succeed in life, and he will not stop, no matter what.

Previous Chapters: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

“Those with gold in their pockets gather, but in the hush of their greed they learn that voices of love grow faint. So they end up dining alone—no one dares place real trust upon them.”

— Chinua Achebe, A Man of the People

Travelize

When Zaid ended his salat and stood, Deek repeated, “I don’t know what to do next. I’m not ready to go back to Rania. She needs to show me something. I need a sign from her.”

“Why don’t you show her something? What signs have you given her?”

These interrogatives threatened Deek’s mind with turmoil. Instinctively he resisted, pushing the questions away.

When he did not answer, Zaid said, “Why don’t you check into a hotel for a few days?”

“I’m not liquid yet. There’s cash coming, but at the moment I’m down to a hundred and fifty bucks.”

“Didn’t you just offer me a million dollars?”

“Yeah but in crypto. It’s in a crypto wallet. Not cash.”

“Aren’t there any hotels that accept crypto?”

Deek stared at the lean, scarred detective for a moment, then slapped his own forehead. “Of course! Travelize! It’s a crypto company that lets you book hotels or flights with crypto. Man, I actually own Travelize tokens. What a dummy I am.”

His phone charge was down to 10%, but he did a quick search. There were several hotels in Fresno that worked with Travelize, mostly Motel Sixes, Hampton Inns and Comfort Inns, but there was also the Ramada, a Marriott, and – boom! – the Marco Polo, a high-end boutique hotel that had just opened in north Fresno two years ago. In dollars the Venetian Suite was $1,550 a night, but Travelize accepted a wide range of cryptos. Deek booked a room for a week. With the wealth he now possessed, fifteen hundred dollars a night was nothing.

Allah, Deen, Family

Zaid told him that the Namer had said he could keep the flannel pajamas. Somehow this made Deek happy. This place was special. He was only sorry he hadn’t met the old woman. Or at least he assumed she was old, though now that he thought about it he had no idea.

As the two of them extinguished the candles and exited the house together, Deek paused. “I can’t believe we’re leaving it unlocked. It’s nuts.”

Zaid said nothing, but looked troubled.

“You’re going to tell me again,” Deek said, “that I should go back to my family.”

Zaid waved this off. “It’s up to you. But really, what else is there? Allah, deen, family, doing work you love, and doing good in the world. And by the way, if you really want to give away a million dollars, give it to some of the charities operating in Gaza. The situation there is beyond dire. It’s unspeakable. And you purify your wealth in the process.”

Deek grunted. That was a good idea.

“I was thinking,” Deek said, “of changing my name to Asad.”

Zaid raised his eyebrows. “Changing your name is a big thing.”

“Not my family name. Just my first name. And not even legally, just in daily use.”

“So you want me to start calling you Asad?”

“No… I’m not sure. I’ll let you know.”

They parted ways with a handshake.

The Marco Polo

The Marco Polo Hotel was stunning. The four-story hotel had only 20 spacious suites – five per floor – with each modeled on a theme based on Marco Polo’s travels. The lobby was furnished with elegant velvet-upholstered armchairs, featuring carved wooden frames and cushions in shades of aquamarine or deep wine-red. Live olive trees in planters, stretching up toward the high ceiling, while Murano glass sculptures of seabirds caught the sunlight streaming in through the windows and refracted it in every direction.

On one side of the lobby, a full sized vintage gondola had been installed as a reading nook, with velvet upholstery inside. A young woman in a flowing yellow dress sat inside it, looking at her phone, while a tall, bald man in a suit – presumably her father – sat nearby, reading the Los Angeles Times.

Deek checked into the Venetian Suite, on the fourth floor. For a moment he simply stood in the doorway, the keycard warm in his hand, as his eyes swept across the room. Everything glowed in sun-washed gold—cream-colored drapes drawn open to tall windows, a vaulted ceiling painted with soft clouds, and polished marble floor that caught the light like water. The silence was broken only by the delicate sound of trickling water.

In the center of the room, rising from a round base of veined Carrara marble, stood a fountain. White and flawless, carved with meticulous detail. Three lion heads—fierce, proud, unmistakably Venetian—spouted arcing streams of water into a shallow basin. It was beautiful. And utterly absurd.

He walked a slow circle around it, unable to stop himself from staring. The lions’ eyes were narrowed in eternal judgment. He felt like they were staring at him.

He lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. The mattress barely shifted beneath his weight, and the silken sheets were so smooth they felt unreal beneath his fingers.

Dislocation

He knew it wasn’t rational. He’d paid in full. The suite was his for the week. But payment wasn’t the same as permission.

He looked around again—at the fountain, the chandelier that sparkled like crystal rain, the velvet chairs, and the desk that looked like it had been stolen from a Renaissance library—and the ache returned. A soft, hollow pang in his chest. Not quite grief. Not quite fear. Just… dislocation.

He remembered the couch he’d grown up with—brown corduroy, cracked at the seams, with stuffing poking out the arm. It smelled like frying onions, baby powder, and dust. The floor in that apartment had creaked. The heater had hissed. The entire family had shared one bathroom, and he and Lubna had shared a bedroom, sleeping in a bunk bed. Deek on the bottom, Lubna on top. But it had been home.

He stood again and wandered to the writing desk. It was inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the drawers lined in blue velvet. Inside one drawer, he found thick, cream-colored paper and a pen that looked like a relic from some old Venetian council chamber. He didn’t know what to write. He didn’t even know how to sit in a chair like that.

The minibar was stocked with bottles he couldn’t pronounce. The music panel on the wall offered a playlist labeled Venezia Notte. He didn’t touch it.

The First to Pray

His father often used to tell him that any part of the earth on which a man prayed would speak for him on Yawm Al-Qiyamah. Deek wondered if anyone had ever prayed in this room. If not, he could be the first.

He wandered into the bathroom, which looked like a room in a palace, with a cream-colored marble floor polished to a mirror shine, a massive arched mirror, a freestanding octagonal bathtub set into a niche decorated with Venetian mosaic tilework, and cabinets that appeared to be cherry wood or walnut. Plush white slippers and a thick white robe rested on a wooden bench near the tub. Deek picked up the robe, and his eyes widened. It was monogrammed DS – his own initials!

It was too much. It was not the luxury that overwhelmed him, but the strangeness of it. With shaking hands he performed wudu’, then used a towel as a musalla, praying ‘Ishaa in the sitting room. It calmed him, and reminded him that some things did not change. Allah was still Allah, and always would be. He, Deek, was a servant of Allah, and – by the grace and will of Allah – always would be.

A Long Way From the Moon Walk

He turned off the lights, one by one, but couldn’t figure out the chandelier. There was no visible switch. So he changed into the bathrobe and lay down on the bed in the illuminated room, the soft gurgling of the lion fountain filling the silence.

He thought about Rania, and wondered what she was doing at that moment. Probably quilting. Sewing quilts was her favorite hobby. Every friend she’d ever had probably owned at least one or two, given as gifts on birthdays, anniversaries and baby showers. She said that the hour she spent quilting before bedtime relaxed her and helped her sleep.

This was a long way from the Moon Walk Motel and its sagging mattress. Somehow he’d been more comfortable at the Moon Walk. Until he was kidnapped, anyway. He hadn’t thought much about the kidnapping. The killing of those men was like a movie scene in his mind. Grand and cinematic – cue the music. He felt no guilt or remorse. Those thugs had gotten what they deserved. He certainly remembered the pain of the beating the men had given him, and the terror he’d felt, yet it was remote now.

He had money now. Enough to stay here, to buy security and silence, along with cool air, bottled water and simulated serenity. But no one had told him what to do once he got here.

Fair Weather Friends

The next morning, the suite smelled like sunlight and saffron. Deek sat on the edge of the silk-draped bed in a plush monogrammed robe, a room service tray spread out across the coffee table beside him. His fingers, still stiff with sleep, tore a buttery croissant in half. The flake-crackle of crust and the warm scent of honeyed pastry filled the air. He dipped it into a demitasse of strong espresso, the bitter steam rising to his face, then chewed slowly, listening to the low sound of the marble fountain gurgling like a small spring.

The suite was silent, padded in velvet and marble, but Deek’s mind was restless. He’d slept too well, too deep—waking with a vague disorientation, as if he’d surfaced from under warm water only to realize he didn’t know the shore.

He unlocked his phone, almost absently, and saw the red dot: 9 new voicemails. He frowned. There had been only three yesterday. And he didn’t recognize any of the numbers except that of Faraz, the bright, enthusiastic facilities manager at Masjid Madinah. Faraz, a 35-ish Bangladeshi American who treated the English language like a rapper’s hummed tune, was into crypto too. The two of them had bounced ideas and strategies off each other for years. Many times Faraz had invited him back to the masjid kitchen and brewed some coffee for the two of them as they talked about cryptocurrency developments.

He listened to Faraz’s message first, whose voice was bright and animated:

“Yo, Deek! Brooo! SubhanAllah man, I seen it! Don’t even try to act low-key, I been tracking you on Pump—your wallet straight up exploded. You always had the eye, wallahi. You flipped that New York Killa like a champ, bro, three hundred to four milli? I told my cousin, I said, ‘This guy? He’s him. He’s him.’ Look, we gotta catch up, man. I’m talkin’ coffee, donuts and graphs. Lotta brothers tryna connect with you now—real talk. You the main event. Hit me back.”

Deek blinked, mid-sip. The espresso turned to charcoal in his mouth.

How the hell does he know?

Then he remembered. Pump fun usernames were tied to wallets. And Faraz traded too—they’d swapped strategies back in the day, even co-invested in a few doomed meme coins. If Faraz had his wallet address, he could’ve been watching the whole time.

Everything on-chain is visible. That’s the point. No one knows your identity, but they can see exactly what’s in your wallet. And if they know your wallet address, they know what you’re holding.

He put down the tiny cup and leaned back, thumb hovering over the next voicemail.

A young voice. Pakistani accent.

“Assalaamu alaykum, brother Deek. This is Anas—I work for Sierra Engineering? We met at Jummah once. Anyway, I’d love to grab coffee if you’re free.”

Delete.

Next. A slow, oiled voice. Palestinian maybe.

“Brother Deek! This is Nabeel. You remember my dealership—Royal Auto, right off Shaw? Come by anytime, let’s break bread. I’ll even give you a deal on an S-Class.”

Delete.

Six more. All variations on the theme: Salaam, coffee, lunch, maybe dinner. Some tried to play it casual. Others sounded like they were calling a long-lost cousin. One even said, “We should hang out again,” though Deek couldn’t remember ever hanging out with the guy in the first place.

He stared at the screen, thumb hovering.

They wouldn’t have said two words to me a month ago. Now I’m a millionaire on-chain, and suddenly I’m a long-lost brother.

A curl of bitterness tightened behind his ribs. He was sitting in a palace, his breakfast likely costing more than his old car payment, and yet it all felt… exposed. He hadn’t asked for attention. He’d bought New York Killa on a gut feeling and sheer desperation. He didn’t want to be anyone’s poster boy or networking opportunity.

He deleted the remaining messages, one by one. The tap-tap-tap of his thumb sounded final, almost satisfying.

Then he opened a message to Faraz:

Appreciate the congratulations. But I didn’t want people knowing. Disappointed you shared that without asking. Would’ve expected better from you.”

He stared at it for a moment, then hit send.

The phone felt heavier in his hand. He set it down beside the untouched slice of melon and leaned back, listening to the lazy fountain and the faint creak of sunlight through the heavy drapes.

All this marble. All this gold. And still, the old feeling settled back into his chest like it never left. He was alone. Still stuck in the closet, choking on his own sweat and isolation. Only the view was better.

Charts on Cracked Screens

A text reply came from Faraz:

Astagfirullah, wallahi I’m sorry bro. I didn’t mean to put you on blast. I just got hyped. You know me, I get loud when I’m proud. You been grindin’ since forever. I won’t say a word to nobody else. Just happy for you, akhi.

Deek sighed. He knew Faraz meant well. That brother had been riding shotgun in the struggle—back when they were both scraping coins together, watching charts on cracked screens, chasing the same wild trades and sharing bad coffee in the masjid kitchen.

He remembered Faraz’s smile as he poured Turkish brew from a dented kettle, steam rising, the aroma cutting through the masjid’s dusty storage smell. The way his eyes lit up when he said, “If you ever catch a true moonshot, bro? You better remember who made your coffee when no one else believed in you.”

Deek smiled in spite of himself.

He typed, slowly:

It’s alright. Just lay low with it, yeah? And we’ll link up soon, inshaAllah.

Steak and Italian Shoes

He went out that day and bought two flat screen computer monitors with the $5k he’d transferred to his bank account. He ate at the hotel restaurant, which served high-end American food like Angus steak, wild-caught salmon and gourmet burgers. Deek still had no desire for junk food of any kind, and found himself eating healthy, balanced meals. He sat in a corner of the restaurant, eating alone, reading crypto news on his phone. More voicemails came in. He deleted them all without listening.

The hotel had its own clothing store, providing tailored suits and Italian shoes. Deek bought three outfits. All of this was billed to his room and paid for with crypto.

He set up his workplace and resumed trading. The Namer’s potion continued to do its magic. His body had nearly completely healed from its injuries, and he felt energetic and strong. His mind was sharp and clear as well, while his emotions were curiously dulled. He found himself making the best crypto trading decisions of his life.

A few of the speculative AI tokens he’d bought recently had crashed to almost zero, but two were up considerably, and one of them had done a x30, netting him more than ten million dollars. He sold 90% of it and parked half the money in USDC stablecoins for now. It was always good to have a stablecoin war chest in case of mid-cycle corrections. The other half he dropped into some very low cap – less than $500K – AI related tokens, as well as a meme coin and a new NFT trading site. By the end of the day, he was up another ten million, bringing his net worth to over one hundred million dollars.

The Namer’s Potion

The spacious, air conditioned hotel office was a far cry from the cramped and stifling closet he’d worked in for five years, and he found himself resenting Rania for putting him through that, for hiding him away like some deformed and crazy uncle.

The Namer’s potion was still working inside him, though. While in the past this resentment might have simmered in his gut, growing worse with each day, now he found himself able to dismiss it. He reminded himself that she’d worked and supported the entire family for five solid years while he lost money, throwing it down the drain of one bad investment after another.

Several times that day, Rania sent texts saying, “Why don’t you respond to my messages?” Deek replied, “Busy at the moment. We will talk soon.”

He missed Rania and loved her. They’d been through so much together. He remembered when they had first married, when they lived in that cramped little apartment on Millbrook Avenue, with the threadbare carpet, and the air conditioner that kept breaking down in the middle of summer, leaving them sweating like horses, cranky, and exhausted. Whenever the heat became unbearable they walked hand in hand to Einstein Park on Dakota, where they ate lunch outdoors in the shade of an elm tree. They fought, but they loved each other, and forgave everything.

But she’d said he was an anchor around her neck. The words haunted him. Every time he thought about going back to her the words rang in his head. Anchor around my neck. That wasn’t how you spoke about someone you loved.

Sitting there in that palatial suite, as comfortable and cool as a head of broccoli, Deek hated himself and his own clenched, self-centered, unforgiving heart. The feeling was so strong that it broke through the Namer’s potion, making him wince and rub his face in shame. Why was he like this? Why did he hold onto grudges like a man in quicksand holding onto a rope, when in reality the rope was on fire? Why was he so unbearably proud? Why couldn’t he be the bigger person, the better person? Why was he now richer than he ever dreamed, yet all alone?

That night, Deek woke up at two in the morning and ordered a mac n’ cheese from room service, because he could – the kitchen was open 24 hours – and because Latifah. If she could do it, so could he. They brought it to him in a metal goblet, as if he were an earl or a duke, but he wasn’t, he was  a count – the Count of Crypto, counting his crypto. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, half asleep, eating the creamy, tangy concoction with a long metal spoon. His legs were crossed and his chin lowered in the posture of a mendicant, assuming a position of humility before the passing crowds, begging for whatever filthy coins they might drop into his goblet.

Where was everyone? Where was Rania, Sanaya, Amira, Lubna, Zaid, Marco, Rabiah Al-Adawiyyah, and Queen Latifah? All the people who loved him, and he loved them?

He never finished the mac n’ cheese. His chin dropped to his chest, his eyes closed, and the spoon slipped from his hand, clattering onto the marble floor. If a crow had peered through the window, it might have thought he was dead, or awaiting death’s arrival. It might have called out to him. Or it might have simply watched and waited.

***

[Part 11 will be published next week inshaAllah]

 

Reader comments and constructive criticism are important to me, so please comment!

See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s other stories on this website.

Wael Abdelgawad’s novels – including Pieces of a Dream, The Repeaters and Zaid Karim Private Investigator – are available in ebook and print form on his author page at Amazon.com.

 

Related:

Asha and the Washerwoman’s Baby: A Short Story

No, My Son | A Short Story

 

The post Moonshot [Part 10] – The Marco Polo appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Despite the dryly informational tone, this documentary guide to the prophet Muhammad’s final resting place features breathtaking footage

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