For three years running, Israel has prevented Muslims in Gaza from traveling to Mecca for the annual pilgrimage.

As global opinion turns sharply against Tel Aviv, its lobby and government are pouring record sums into propaganda. But will it work?

From the moment that the first ayah of the Qur’an was revealed – “Iqra!” – reading has been a foundational part of the Islamic tradition. The Qur’an was the first book established by the Muslim community, heralding the beginning of a long, rich literary tradition. The early Abbasid era marked a true love affair between Muslims and books, which in turn led to the establishment of public and private libraries across the Muslim world (pg 8-9, on the love of books in the Islamic tradition). The Great Library of Baghdad, housed in Bayt al-Hikmah, was one of the world’s largest public libraries and its destruction by the Mongols remains the source of much grief. That was then – but what about now?

Libraries continue to play a deeply important role in society. Reading remains a signifier of emotional intelligence as well as intellectual knowledge. Unfortunately, we find that many Muslims discount the value of reading, especially fiction, without understanding that even fiction exists in our historic tradition. Not all fiction is “haram”! At the same time, Muslim parents, especially in the West, often bemoan that their children are always on screens, or consuming unIslamic content. Admittedly, the cost of books has gone up (along with groceries, gas, and everything else!)… So where are we supposed to get halal Muslim books from without bankrupting ourselves? 

Cue the concept of a local Muslim library. Imagine a resource where books by Muslims, for Muslims, can be found in one place, free of cost for patrons! While this sounds amazing, someone has to actually put one together. AlHamdulillah, more and more Muslim communities are taking on the responsibility of establishing libraries in our communal spaces. As one of those who took on this project in my own community, I’ll be sharing an outline of what you need to know before you go about creating a Muslim library of your very own.

Intention/ Purpose

What kind of library do you want to establish? This might sound like a silly question, but the truth is that there’s a world of difference between an Islamic library and what I call a “Muslamic” library. Islamic libraries are focused on Islamic content; that is, Islamic knowledge across various genres, maintaining a strict adherence to solely what is Islamically correct. This has incredible value of its own, and is a fantastic resource for parents wanting to share knowledge with their children, with laypeople seeking to increase their own knowledge of Islam, and for students of knowledge or scholars who need access to Islamic texts that may be difficult or unaffordable to purchase on their own.

A “Muslamic” library, on the other hand, will contain fiction, including novels that involve Muslim characters, but – as fiction often does – include stories, events, and characters which reference or engage in things that aren’t strictly “halal.” That doesn’t mean those novels are encouraging haram things, but that they present actions or situations in the context of a character’s development, or simply referencing things that do happen in real life. This can also include genres such as fantasy, which aren’t teaching about Islamic beliefs around the ghayb, but are flights of imagination and whimsy. And yes, we’ve already talked about whether Harry Potter is haram! Muslamic libraries have the benefit of presenting diverse characters and situations that readers can experience through storytelling, providing emotional depth and insight. As for determining what’s “halal enough” to include in a Muslamic library, this will be covered in the section on how to select books for your library.

As you consider what kind of library you want to build, think about who your target audience is. Is it children or adults? Students at a serious madrasah, or just kids who yearn for stories where they can see themselves reflected? Parents who need stories to tell their kids at bedtime, or Muslim homeschoolers and educators? Students of knowledge and scholars, or the average Muslim? The answers to these questions will help you refine the process of building your library and determine what your priorities should be in terms of choosing the right kinds of books to include. 

Location and Pitching the Project

Do you have a location for your library? Where will you start this project? Will it be a religious space, like a masjid or Islamic center, or be part of a Muslim school, or will it exist in an entirely separate third space? Do you have authority within the space, or do you need to seek the approval of a masjid/ organization board? Who has final say over the books chosen?

All of these factors will impact how your library is set up, and the extent of flexibility you will have in curating the library, as well as accessibility to the library itself. Often, you will have to pitch the idea of the library to multiple organizations/ masaajid, as not everyone is interested in the idea of a public library (or the potential liabilities involved). Ensure that you have a thoughtful, detailed pitch to present! Demonstrate that you’ve thought this through, have done your research, and have an action plan for implementation and maintenance. 

Selecting Books

Great, you have a place to set up shop! Now, how are you going to choose the books to include in your library? The first point to remember is who your target audience is – that will immediately narrow down the types of books that you’ll be acquiring to start the library. For an Islamic library, are you a subject matter expert? If not, ensure that you have at least one or two people who are, as this will require filtering out work that is passed off as “Islamic” but may in fact be deeply problematic. Along these lines, what are the affiliations of the location your library will be located in? If it’s a masjid, do they have strict rules around the types of content that they will host? For example, if it’s a Salafi masjid, will they allow works by non-Salafi scholars? Books on tasawwuf? Books on fiqh based on specific madhaahib? On the flip side, is it a masjid that is completely anti-Salafi, or stringently adhering to one madh’hab? Your book selection will be thus constrained by the organization that you’re dependent on for location.

If you’ve got more flexibility around choosing books, especially if you’re able to have a “Muslamic” library instead, you still need to think about how you’ll be selecting books and determining what’s acceptable and what’s not. Not every book written by someone with a “Muslim” name is okay! There are many books (including kids’ books!) out there that explicitly promote haram relationships, belittle the Shari’ah, have internalized Islamophobia, or other problematic elements. On the other hand, there are many books that will mention these things without promoting them, but as part of the context/ setting/ plot/ character development, with characters who will then change for the better. There are also books which may not exactly promote the haraam, but simply incorporate them as part of the story without passing a value judgement on them.

You will need to consider different genres, age groups (e.g. toddler books, picture books, early reader, middle grade, young adult etc.), your own community’s culture and approach to literature, and what to do if a library patron complains! However, you don’t need to start from scratch – one very valuable resource to turn to are Muslim book reviewers, who do the hard work of going through lots of different books and sharing their reviews of craft and halal-ness. Specific accounts (and websites) that are dedicated to this purpose include The Islamic School Librarian, MuslimKidsBookNook, and my own book reviewing account, as well as Goodreads.com, where you can see reviews from readers around the world. There are also many others involved in the “Muslim bookstagram” space online, so it’s worth doing your research to ensure that you’re getting a full picture of each book selected. And yes… you will need a lot of time for this part!

Funding/ Getting books

You’ve gotten approval, you’ve even decided your criteria for selecting books… Now how are you going to actually get the books you want? Most libraries have a combination of streams: donations (in the form of people donating books – which you’ll need to check for appropriateness and physical state – or money given specifically for the library); an allowance provided by the masjid/ Islamic organization to purchase books and other associated library expenses (bookshelves, software etc.); paying out of pocket by yourself (this gets VERY expensive, very fast!); and the final option – applying for grants! Depending on the country/ city/ locale you live in, there may be government or non-profit grants offered towards “arts and culture” programming. It’s absolutely worth applying for these! AlHamdulillah, my own Islamic center’s library received a local arts and culture grant that paid for our library software as well as a fair bit set aside for books. Regular funding is extremely important in order to continue buying new books, as well as replacing lost or damaged books (which happens a lot). 

As you think about how you’ll pay for books, you’ll also need to create a budget based on the funding that you have available. How many books do you want to start with in order to launch the library? Do you have a monthly allowance that you can use to purchase a certain number of books each month? Or can you splurge and buy a hundred books right off the bat? A budget will be important in order to keep track of ongoing expenses as well, and being able to determine how much you’ll need on a monthly or annual basis to maintain the library.

When purchasing books, be creative and look for various options. You don’t have to buy everything new, or from Amazon! Websites such as BookOutlet, BookDepot, ThriftBooks, and AbeBooks are all valuable resources for purchasing heavily discounted books. Don’t disregard your local thrift store, library sales, or used bookstores either – you’ll be surprised at what kinds of Muslamic books you can find there. You may also find it valuable to create a relationship with a local Muslim bookstore and get discounts. 

Systems and Maintenance

You’re almost there! What else do you need to know for setting up your local Muslim library? This is where things get boring but important: the nitty gritty details. How is your library going to operate? When will the library be accessible to the public? What days/ times will the library be open? Who is going to physically be present to oversee the library’s operations? How will you keep track of the books? There’s a lot of questions, and only you will be able to answer most of them.

One of the most commonly asked questions that I can help answer is about library systems. You will need a way of keeping track of the books, and the most efficient way to do that is through a library software of some type. 

The Handy Library app is suitable for personal libraries or fairly small ones, and allows you to scan the barcodes on physical books to add them to your account’s database. For a one-time fee, you can add an unlimited number of books to your account, and keep track of people borrowing the book (which is information that you’ll have to input yourself). 

ResourceMate is a more expensive, but much more expansive library software program that connects to multiple other library databases around the world. You also have the option of purchasing custom barcodes and library cards for your library, which means that you can then operate like any other public library! There are many other options that you can research online as well and determine which is most suitable for your particular library, budget, and other constraints. 

Whatever software or system you choose, however, somebody will need to be responsible for maintaining the library itself. This means that there will need to be at least one designated person willing to show up in person, input each book into inventory, ensure that patrons are registered, keep track of books being borrowed, follow up on late returns (and contend with damaged and lost books!), and of course… dealing with library patron complaints (which are inevitable). 

All of this means that you’ll need to develop a library policy as well. What information is required for someone to register as a patron of the library? How will you be able to communicate with them for book returns? How will you hold them accountable for late fees or replacing lost and damaged items? Do parents need to sign an agreement that they, and only they, are responsible for the types of books their kids borrow? 

Building Upwards

Libraries aren’t just physical locations filled with books… they’re also a place of community and growth. Libraries often serve multiple purposes, especially in terms of providing community programming around literacy, life skills, and more. Don’t let your library remain stagnant – once you’re able to establish the library itself, consider how else you can utilize this space and community to benefit your community. Host Muslim authors for meet-and-greets, set up a book fair, organize monthly storytimes, and encourage kids to write their very own stories and share them with the community in the form of spoken word or open mic events. The potential is endless! And if you still have questions, consider booking a library consult with the MBR team!

A Final Word

The one piece of advice I want to leave you with is the importance of sincerity and of commitment. Always ensure that your intention is truly for the Sake of Allah, no matter what drama you have to deal with or challenges come your way. Don’t let people sour you off from work done for Allah’s Sake! Commitment goes hand-in-hand with sincerity. Don’t start a project just to lose interest and walk away from it; this creates a lack of trust in the community around being able to have long-lasting, meaningful projects. Of course, if life circumstances are such that you have no choice but to abandon the library, then so be it – but make sure you take the necessary steps to find a replacement who will take this project very seriously. Great projects don’t last without effort and commitment, and a library should ideally play a very special role in every Muslim community.

And… that’s it! 

Congratulations, you’ve done it! You’ve established a Muslim library of your very own! May Allah grant you barakah and tawfeeq in your efforts, and count it as a sadaqah jaariyah for all involved.

What questions do you still have about setting up a community library? What did I miss? What experiences do you have to share about your own library? What success stories can we learn from?

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The post How to Build a (Muslamic) Library appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

A promising new life with Five Star brings friendship and the beginnings of prosperity, but the job exacts a bloody price.

Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15

* * *

Books and Lessons

Seeing Zihan Ma shook me and almost made me question the path I was now on – but not quite. Still, it reminded me of all he had taught me: medicine, calligraphy, and deen. I knew in my heart that these things were treasures I should not lose. So I bought an old acupuncture text. The diagrams fascinated me. Sometimes I copied the meridian charts repeatedly onto scrap paper while trying to remember Zihan Ma’s lessons.

Other nights I practiced calligraphy by lantern light. My handwriting remained clumsy, but slowly improved.

In a secondhand Islamic bookstore near the grand masjid, run by an ancient scholar with a bent back and a beard that hung to his waist, I spent a considerable amount of money to buy two books I had seen on Zihan Ma’s bookshelf: the Forty Hadith by Imam Nawawi, and Tianfang Dianli (Laws and Rituals of Islam) by Liu Zhi. Some nights I would sit in the masjid from Maghreb to Ishaa, reading one of these books.

Three days after Zihan Ma visited me, a courier arrived at my room shortly before noon.

He wore the dark blue sash of Five Stars and carried himself with the stiff posture of a minor functionary who enjoyed the importance of his duties a bit too much.

“Darius Lee?” he asked.

I nodded.

“You are invited to lunch with Shah Suliman at the Golden Lotus Pavilion. Immediately.” He handed me a folded note bearing Suliman’s seal and departed without another word.

I stared at the note for some time after he left, wondering what Suliman might want with me. Had I done something wrong? Was I to be reprimanded? Was I in danger?

Respectable

The Golden Lotus Pavilion was one of the most expensive restaurants in Deep Harbor. I had never set foot inside it, though I had passed it many times, and seen the nobles and merchants entering and dining on the upper balcony, which overlooked the river.

I washed quickly, combed my hair and put on my best clothing, which consisted of dark trousers, a wool tunic, and my least worn cloak. I strapped my dao to my back – I never went anywhere without it. For footwear I had only the kung fu shoes and my regular traveling boots. Moving quickly, I cleaned the road dust from the boots with a damp cloth, rubbed a mixture of tallow and beeswax into the leather, then hurriedly buffed them with an old rag until they gleamed. I still looked like a caravan guard, but a respectable one.

Of course, “respectable” might mean something very different to the people who ate at the Golden Lotus. But my father had taught me never to think of myself as beneath anyone else. In their hearts and souls, not to mention when squatting on the chamber pot, the rich were no different than the poor, and were often worse in character.

Two men in embroidered jackets stepped forward the instant I reached the entrance stairs. One was as tall and wide as a door, while the other was fairly ordinary looking.

“This establishment is private,” the big one said.

“I’m meeting Shah Suliman.”

He looked me up and down openly. “And I’m having an affair with the Emperor’s daughter.”

“You’d better keep that to yourself.”

He clucked his tongue. “Get lost.”

“I’m serious,” I insisted. “Suliman sent for me.”

“Then he should have come to collect you personally. Enough.” He put a huge hand on my shoulder.

Anger rose inside me. I worked for Five Stars, I bled for them. Not to mention, I was a member of the Shah family, though no one but Suliman seemed to know that. For the first time I felt a sense of resentment that Suliman was honored, while I was treated like streetside trash because I wore travel boots and a worn cloak. Why should that be?

“Get your hand off of me,” I said flatly. “Unless you want to lose it. It won’t be the first arm I’ve taken.” I touched a hand to the hilt of my dao. “You might have heard of me. They call me Bridge Boy.”

Internally I cringed. I never thought I would use that stupid nickname to my advantage. But I could not leave Suliman thinking I had failed to show up for this meeting.

The big man flinched and yanked his hand back as if he’d touched fire. He reached for the baton he carried at his hip. But the other one stayed his hand. “I’ll go check it out,” he said.

Routine Questions

A few minutes later, during which time me and door-wide stared each other down, Suliman came down personally,

“I’m so sorry, Darius,” he said. “These men -” he snarled the world – “had instructions to let you through.”

“This kid is your lunch companion?” the big man said incredulously.

Suliman’s face went hard. “Know your place,” he said flatly. He turned to me. “Let’s go upstairs.”

My eyes moved from one person to the next. “I lost my appetite.”

Suliman nodded. “I understand. How about if we walk and talk?”

We walked back toward the canal district, and when Suliman gestured toward a cramped working-class noodle shop, I nodded. Inside, steam clouded the windows. Laborers crowded shoulder to shoulder at rough wooden tables while harried but nimble servers carried bowls back and forth with astonishing speed.

Suliman seemed comfortable. We ordered beef noodles, pickled vegetables and tea.

He asked me a series of fairly ordinary questions:

How were the routes?

Which guards worked well together?

Had Karim trained us well?

Did I prefer horseback escort or wagon duty?

I answered cautiously.

Finally he set down his chopsticks and said, “You’ve done well so far.”

“Thank you.”

“The reports on you are excellent.”

“You get reports on everyone?”

“Reports are written on everyone. I don’t read them all personally.”

“But you read mine.”

“We have investigated you thoroughly.”

Father’s Footsteps

I sat back, digesting this. “What do you mean?”

“My men followed your father’s footsteps. They went to the town where he raised you. They even saw your mother’s grave. We have confirmed that you are Shah Nur’s son.”

I crossed my arms and pursed my lips. “I don’t need anyone to confirm what I already know. And I don’t care what you or anyone else thinks.”

“Are you sure?”

I ignored that, as curiosity had overcome me. “Your men saw her grave? How does it look? And the farm? And Lady Two?”

“Your father’s farm has been incorporated into a larger company farm owned by a wealthy businessman. Your father’s house is gone, but the grave is well tended. I don’t know who Lady Two is.”

I wondered if the “wealthy businessman” was the Mayor. A strange hollow feeling opened inside my chest. I was happy that whoever had bought the farm had enough respect to maintain my mother’s grave. But I hadn’t thought of her much lately, and I felt my heart stutter with guilt. She was the only person in my life who had ever truly loved me, and I was forgetting her. I needed to go back there, to sit by her side and talk to her.

“I hear,” Suliman said, “that Zihan Ma came to see you. What did he want?”

I stiffened. “You know about that?”

“I know many things.”

I took a bite of food. “Not that it’s any of your business, but he wanted me to return to live with him.”

“Are you considering it?”

I frowned. “No. Not really.”

He stirred his tea slowly. “Perhaps you should.”

“Why?”

He met my eyes, and I sensed genuine unease beneath his calm demeanor.

“It may be better for you in the long run.”

“Why?”

“Well.” He stood, leaving a large sum of money on the table – a lot more than was needed in this establishment. “May Allah protect us all.”

“You’re leaving? What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Everything we just talked about. You’re doing well. Consider Zihan Ma’s request.”

With that, he left me sitting there with more questions than answers. I pocketed the wad of money and finished my food.

Scut Work

Five Star began sending me on longer routes, which paid better. Sometimes I was accompanied by one or two of the other rookies I’d trained with, and occasionally by all. Because we were rookies, we were given the scut work.

Veteran guards rode at the front and rear of the caravan where the danger was greatest and the prestige highest. We rookies spent our days doing everything else.

We tended the horses, cleaned tack, inspected hooves for stones and cracks, hauled water, unloaded wagons, set up camp, dug latrines, and stood the least desirable watches. If a merchant wanted help erecting a tent, we were summoned. If a wheel broke, we repaired it. If a horse threw a shoe, we chased it down and held it while the farrier worked.

Worst of all, whenever wealthy merchants needed to relieve themselves along the road, a guard was expected to accompany them into the bushes to ensure they were not attacked by bandits, wolves, or overly curious travelers.

I spent many hours standing awkwardly among trees while pretending not to notice what was happening a few paces away.

“It is an honorable profession,” Ahmed informed me solemnly one evening.

I threw a pebble at him.

Even so, I found myself enjoying caravan life.

The roads carried us through mountains, forests, villages, farms and bustling market towns. Every journey revealed something new. Sometimes Longwei pointed out distant kingdoms or trading routes. Sometimes Ahmed told stories from the war. Sometimes Meilin complained so loudly and continuously that everyone else rode faster simply to escape her.

Unexpectedly Cheerful

I found myself unexpectedly cheerful whenever Deng Weili was in my caravan. I told myself it was only because she was such a good shot, so having her around made us all safer.

Once she found me studying the acupuncture text after we’d made camp for the night.

“You study medicine?” she asked skeptically.

“A little.”

“And hurt people professionally?”

“I don’t think of it that way.”

She shook her head slowly. “You are a strange person, Darius Lee.”

There came a time when I started wondering about her. Where was she from? Where were her parents? What else did she like besides archery? What did she think about during the long days on the road?

I didn’t know why I wanted to know these things.

Ambush

The longer routes brought greater danger.

One autumn afternoon we were escorting a shipment of medicines and dyed textiles through a wooded valley north of Deep Harbor. The road wound between steep hills thick with pine trees, and as we entered the narrow pass, a feeling of unease settled over me. The place felt wrong somehow. There were no farmers working nearby fields, no travelers moving in either direction, and not even the sound of birds. The only noises were the creaking of wagon wheels, the clatter of harnesses, and the occasional snort of a horse.

Ahmed seemed to sense it too. He guided his horse alongside mine and scanned the ridgelines.

“Too quiet,” he muttered.

I nodded. I was about to ride forward and speak with one of the veteran guards when the attack came.

Arrows burst from the trees without warning. One struck the side of a wagon with a heavy thump. Another buried itself in the neck of a horse, causing the animal to rear and scream. Merchants shouted in panic as guards scrambled into position. Before the echoes of the first volley had faded, armed men came rushing down the slopes carrying spears, axes and crude swords.

Training took over before conscious thought could catch up.

The veteran guards moved immediately, forming a defensive line around the merchants and wagons. Ahmed was already shouting orders. Kuangren had an arrow nocked and flying before I had even drawn my dao. Somewhere behind us, Meilin charged forward with a double-headed sword she sometimes carried, screaming insults so colorful that several merchants later adopted them into their foul-language repertoires.

I remember glimpses more than a coherent battle: Deng Weili standing atop a wagon, loosing arrows with terrifying speed and accuracy; Longwei dragging a wounded merchant to safety; frightened horses straining against their reins; the smell of dust, sweat and blood mixing in the autumn air.

Then one of the attackers came for me.

He was older than I expected, perhaps forty years old, with a graying beard and the gaunt appearance of a man who had not eaten properly in months. He carried a wood axe and wore patched clothing that hung loosely from his frame. For a brief instant he looked less like a bandit than a desperate farmer.

Then he jabbed at my chest with the axe. It was a halfhearted attack, as if he were testing the strength of a river’s current

Wielding my dao, I knocked the weapon aside and slapped him in the face with the flat of the blade. I don’t know why I did that. Five Star policy was to kill bandits. Yet in the moment I chose to simply stun him. He staggered backward, shaking his head, but instead of retreating he tightened his grip and attacked again.

This time I struck his weapon arm hard with the spine of the blade, and heard his arm break. Remarkably, he did not drop the weapon. He groaned in pain and transferred the axe to his other hand.

“What’s the matter with you?” I shouted. “Don’t make me kill you! Just run away.”

Fear flashed across his features, then shame, only to be replaced with grim desperation.

“No choice,” he said.

He took a step forward and I knew that either he would die or I would.

As he swung the axe at my neck with all his strength, I stepped inside the radius of the swing, seized his weapon arm with my left hand, and drove my dao all the way through his torso. His eyes widened in shock and bewilderment, and his face went white. He stumbled backward and fell, taking my dao with him, pulling it free from my hand. That had never happened to me. I leaped forward, put my foot on the man’s thin chest, and with two hands pulled the dao free from his dead body.

A Little Too Well

I stood there with my dao hanging at my side, dripping blood, as the battle raged around me. What was the matter with this stupid old father? Why was he even here? I bent over him and shouted, “Why did you do that?”

My shout attracted another of the bandits, who came at me.

I went a little crazy then. I fell into River Flow, and moved from one bandit to the next, cutting, slashing and thrusting. I felt no fear. It was an exercise, a training session beneath the stars. When there were no more opponents I moved in a circle, dao ready, my eyes sliding over everything like those of a man who sees either nothing or everything. Men stood in a wide circle around me, but they were Five Star guards.

“Darius!” one of them shouted. “Snap out of it!”

It was Ahmed. I let River Flow go and stood up straight. There was a trail of dead bodies behind me. I looked from one to the next. I had killed six men.

“Darius,” Ahmed said again. “Sheath your weapon.”

I gave the dao a flick to clear the blood, took a rag from my pocket and gave it a quick wipe, and sheathed it.

The circle around me dissolved. The surviving bandits had fled into the hills, leaving their dead and wounded behind. The merchants celebrated their survival. The guards congratulated one another. Someone clapped me on the shoulder and called me a hero.

I did not weep or vomit. I felt empty. I sat beside a wagon, and Ahmed handed me a waterskin. His expression was solemn, not celebratory.

“You did the job,” he said quietly. “Maybe a little too well, but it’s what they pay us for.”

That night, I tossed and turned, and shouted in my sleep.

Cat Toy

The next day the caravan passed through a market town, and we guards were allowed to go shopping in shifts. I went to the market with Weili. She bought bootlaces, a silken cord for her hair, a comb made from buffalo horn, and tea.

I bought warm gloves, a sesame sweet, and a small bag of spiced nuts. When we passed a vendor who sold cat combs and toys, I found it funny. Would people really spend money on such things? I picked up a toy that consisted of a thin stick with a string and a little toy bird on the end. The bird had real feathers, and I dangled it, making it dance. With a smile, I wondered what Far Away would think of it. Would he turn up his nose, or go crazy for it? And Haaris, he would probably laugh his head off.

Suddenly my hands began to shake. I put the toy down and turned away, and before I could take a step, I burst into tears. I walked to a corner where the marketplace wall met the wall of a vendor’s stall, and slid down with my back against the wall. I covered my face with my arms as I shook and moaned. An arm went around my shoulders and Weili said, “It’s okay. Tomorrow’s a new day. Take it one day at a time.”

“What do you know about it?” I finally managed to ask.

She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Too much.”

My life took a turn then. I found myself praying less. Ahmed would call us for salat and sometimes I’d join, but often I’d make an excuse. I tucked the Islamic books away under my bed back in Deep Harbor and stopped reading them.

I didn’t want to be this way. I looked back at the naive, eager young man who had spent his time reading Islamic books, and wanted to be that man again. Truly I did. But the blood that had flowed from the edge of my sword told the truth about me.

I was promoted from scut work to proper guard duty, up front with the veterans. I was the youngest one there. But no one questioned my age when robbers came screaming from the hills with blades in their hands, and I was in the front lines, fighting like a man who didn’t care if he lived or died. No one told me to choose between healing and violence when my sword saved those around me from murder.

The merchants respected me because I was useful. The guards respected me because I fought well and never boasted. Even Kuangren, who disliked nearly everyone, stopped mocking me after I pulled him off his horse during an ambush moments before a spear would have taken him through the chest.

At Ishaa time I listened to Ahmed reciting the Quran and he led the Muslims in salat. Tomorrow’s a new day, I would think to myself. I repeated the thought like a mantra as I fell into night after night of troubled sleep.

* * *

Come back next week for Part 17 – The Old Man

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.

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The post Far Away [Part 16] – Five Star Trading Company appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Is he right about Aukus? Or is he set on undermining Richard Marles as payback for being dumped from cabinet? ALP sources speak out

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Ed Husic swapped his work suit for a T-shirt on 4 May to mark what’s known among sci-fi fans as “Star Wars day”.

Shared with his “fellow nerds” on Instagram, the Labor backbencher’s apparel depicted an X-Wing fighter jet and the words: “REBEL SCUM.”

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Fire and rescue services operating with limited resources face unsustainable and dangerous burden in Gaza.

New United Nations report documents Israeli gang rapes of Gaza detainees and raises further questions about unverified mass rape claims from 7 October.

Through humor and anguish, Voices of Resistance provides an intimate look at daily life in Gaza.

What if certain famous moments from the seerah have been misunderstood? A closer reading reveals a Prophet ﷺ of greater dignity and compassion than we sometimes give him credit for.

When Popular Retellings Go Wrong

Many Muslims first encounter the Seerah (the biography of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ) through khutbahs, lectures, short reminders, and simplified retellings. These stories are often told with sincere intentions. Speakers want to make the Seerah vivid, emotional, and memorable. Over time, however, subtle embellishments can accumulate. Tone gets added where the narrations themselves are silent, and sometimes it’s the wrong tone. Motivations are assumed where they don’t exist in the text. Personalities become exaggerated and flattened at the same time. The Prophet ﷺ and his Companions slowly begin to resemble sermon archetypes rather than real human beings.

But Prophets are people too, and so were the Sahabah, and their actions were often more nuanced, compassionate, and reasoned than we give them credit for.

This is most certainly not to accuse scholars or speakers of dishonesty. Most are simply retelling the stories as they themselves inherited them. One popular lecture might say that the Prophet ﷺ was angry at a particular moment, and that gets repeated until it becomes an assumed part of the story. Yet when we return carefully to the original narrations, we often discover something richer, subtler, and more profoundly human than the popular retelling.

The real Seerah does not become less beautiful when stripped of exaggeration. It becomes more believable. More textured. More emotionally intelligent. The Prophet ﷺ does not need theatrical embellishment to inspire awe.

Let’s look at four case studies from the Seerah that illustrate how misinterpretation of emotion or motivations risks flattening the character of the Prophet ﷺand those around him:

1. Khabbab ibn al-Aratt and the “Angry Rebuke.”

Khabbab ibn al-Aratt was among the early Muslims who were tortured in Makkah. He was a slave, employed as a swordsmith. His “owners” pressed red-hot steel bars to his back until his flesh melted and ran. Later, hot iron was applied to his head. His screams could be heard throughout the neighborhood.

He was a teenager. Some say 16 or so, alone with no family.

Yet even with that, he found time to learn and teach the Quran, as evidenced by the famous story in which Umar ibn Al-Khattab was on his way to kill the Prophet ﷺ, and was informed that his own sister was Muslim. He stormed to her house, and learned that indeed she was Muslim – and, after quieting down and opening his mind, met the young man who had been teaching the Quran to his sister and her husband. This was none other than Khabbab. SubhanAllah! This young man had the courage and heart of a thousand men.

Yet the torture began to get to him, until he and others of the Sahabah came to the Prophet ﷺ to beg for relief.

In an authentic narration recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, Khabbab himself relates:

We complained to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while he was reclining in the shade of the Ka’bah, resting on a cloak of his. We said, “Will you not seek help for us? Will you not supplicate to Allah for us?”

He said:

“Among those who came before you, a man would be seized, and a pit dug for him in the ground. He would be placed in it, then a saw would be brought and placed upon his head, and he would be cut into two pieces, yet that would not turn him away from his religion. Iron combs would rake through his flesh and bones, yet that would not turn him away from his religion.

By Allah, Allah will complete this matter until a rider travels from Sana’a to Hadramawt, fearing none but Allah and the wolf for his sheep. But you are being hasty.”

Today, this incident is often retold as though the Prophet ﷺ became angry with Khabbab. I have heard this many times: “The Prophet became angry and stood.” Or, “The Prophet became angry and raised his voice.” One frequently hears dramatic descriptions of him sitting upright in irritation, sharply rebuking the Companions for their impatience, or sternly scolding Khabbab despite his suffering.

Astaghfirullah. La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah. Consider the character of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He was a deeply compassionate man – a mercy to the worlds. He was moved and touched by the plight of his Companions and used to make dua for them. Does it seem believable that he would become angry with a young, powerless man, a boy, who is being tortured in a way that would break 99.99% of human beings?

Step Back and Read More Carefully

Go back to the narration. It does not state that the Prophet ﷺ became angry. Nor does it say that his face changed color. It does not describe a harsh tone, nor any severe rebuke. Those details are supplied later by storytellers and speakers, perhaps unintentionally, in order to heighten the emotional intensity of the moment.

When we step back and read the narration carefully, another interpretation emerges, one more consistent with the Prophet’s known character: he was comforting and strengthening his followers.

If you think of it in these terms, it falls into place. Imagine, perhaps, the Prophet ﷺ taking Khabbab’s hand gently, and saying, essentially:

I get it. You are suffering badly. Take comfort in the fact that you are not the first. Worse was done to those before you, and they remained steadfast. But don’t worry, I assure you that Islam will prevail. There will come a time when we control all of this peninsula, and safety will reign. You will not have to endure this forever.

And when he said, “You are being hasty,” this is a gentle correction born from compassion and perspective. There is a difference between correcting someone and becoming angry.

I’m not saying it happened exactly that way. Rather, I’m offering a more plausible way to interpret the mood of the moment.

Read the narration again now. The emotional movement points toward reassurance rather than rebuke. The Prophet ﷺ does not belittle Khabbab’s pain. He does not tell him to stop complaining. He does not accuse him of weak faith. Instead, he gives him historical perspective, spiritual meaning, and hope.

Sometimes, without realizing it, speakers import harshness into the Seerah where the texts themselves are measured and dignified. The Prophet was a compassionate man who loved his followers. Let’s keep that in mind in our readings.

2. The Dumping of Refuse on the Prophet’s Back

Among the most painful incidents of the Makkan period is the famous narration in which the Prophet ﷺ was praying near the Ka’bah when some of the Quraysh decided to humiliate him publicly.

In the authentic narration recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, Abdullah ibn Mas’ud relates that while the Prophet ﷺ was in prostration in front of the Ka’bah, Uqbah ibn Abi Mu’ayt – responding to a challenge by Abu Jahl – brought the entrails and filth of a slaughtered camel and dumped it on the Prophet’s back and shoulders while the Quraysh laughed among themselves.

Ibn Mas’ud watched the scene unfold, but he – as a person of low social status, without any tribal support in Makkah – was powerless to intervene. Someone went to fetch the Prophet’s daughter Fatimah , who was roughly ten years old at the time. She came rushing to remove the filth from her father.

At that point, the Prophet ﷺ stood and supplicated against seven of the leading men of Quraysh who had participated in the abuse, naming them one by one, which instilled great fear in them. (Ibn Mas’ud comments that he later witnessed every one of those men killed at the battle of Badr).

This incident is often retold today with additional dramatic details. One frequently hears that the refuse was so heavy that the Prophet ﷺ was physically unable to rise from prostration, trapped helplessly beneath the weight until Fatimah arrived to rescue him.

Yes? Have you heard this? “The refuse was so heavy that he could not stand up.”

What? Says who? The narration itself does not say this. It says only that the Prophet ﷺ remained in prostration until Fatimah came and removed the filth.

The Prophet ﷺ was not physically frail. The Seerah repeatedly describes his strength, endurance, and resilience. He wrestled the famous strongman Rukanah and defeated him. During the digging of the trench at Khandaq, he worked alongside the companions with his own hands under brutal conditions of hunger and exhaustion. When Salman al-Farisi sought to purchase his freedom, the Prophet ﷺ personally participated in planting the palm trees required for his emancipation. This was not a man unaccustomed to physical hardship or exertion.

Are these speakers saying that Uqbah was strong enough to carry the entrails, and ten-year-old Fatimah was strong enough to remove it, but the Prophet ﷺ was not strong enough to shrug it off if he wished?

Then why didn’t he do so?

What Actually Makes Sense

A more natural explanation emerges directly from the character of the Prophet ﷺ: he chose to remain calmly in prayer despite the abuse, rather than abruptly reacting to the humiliation his enemies intended to provoke. He was a dignified man, not shaken by insult or mockery. In prayer, his connection with Allah was absolute. Do you really think he would have broken his prayer and jumped up, outraged?

When we understand that he chose to remain in prayer, the moment takes on a completely different emotional tone. Instead of a scene of helpless panic, it becomes a scene of extraordinary composure. The Quraysh attempt to degrade him publicly, yet he remains focused upon his worship until the prayer is complete, or until his young daughter arrives, pushing her way through the onlookers, upset but undaunted; at which point he stands to show her the proper way to respond to such insults: by invoking Allah . He thereby complements her strength with his own, as is fitting, considering that Aishah bint Abi Bakr later said:

“I have not seen anyone more closely resemble the disposition, mannerism, and characteristics of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, than his daughter Fatimah, may Allah honor her countenance. If she entered his home, the Prophet would stand for her, take her by the hand, kiss her, and seat her in his place. If the Prophet entered her home, she would stand for him, take him by the hand, kiss him, and seat him in her place.” – Sunan Abī Dāwūd 5217, Sahih by Al-Albani

I did not witness these events any more than the modern speakers I have criticized. My interpretation is just that: another interpretation. Yet it is one that – I would argue – is more consistent with the character and dignity of the Prophet ﷺ. If we understand him as having chosen to remain in prayer, the suffering he experienced is still real. The humiliation is real. But the Prophet ﷺ does not appear as humiliated by the cruelty of Quraysh. Even in moments of public abuse, he is a man of immense self-control and inner strength, as befitting the final Prophet and Messenger ﷺ to humanity.

 

[Come back next week for Part 2 – The Old Woman Who Could Not Enter Jannah]

* * *

 

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:

Reconstructing Our Understanding of the Sīrah

Rethinking How We Teach The Topic Of Sīrah In K-12 Settings

 

The post Prophets Are People: Rethinking Misinterpreted Events From The Seerah [Part 1 of 2] appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Mouin Rabbani on Israel’s collapsing public image, Also Hizballah’s FPV drone videos and Israel’s Eid massacres in Gaza.

Tackling financial instruments which aid a genocide.

Israel kills hundreds but envoy blames Hamas for negotiations impasse.

As Darius embraces the dangerous freedom of caravan life, success and adventure cannot erase the ache of the home and family he left behind.

Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14

* * *

Training to Exhaustion

I arrived before dawn at the Five Stars western compound, expecting a few drills and lectures before being handed a uniform and sent onto the roads. After all, I’d already won a fighting tournament, right?

First we were all de-loused, then given physicals. Upon learning of my cracked tooth, the screener gave me a note and sent me to a dentist two streets over, who applied a resin to seal my tooth. Then I returned to training.

It did not consist of easy drills and lectures. Instead, Sergeant Karim nearly killed us.

There were twenty-three candidates on the first day. To my surprise, five of these were women, including Deng Weili, the young woman who’d won the archery competition. Five Star apparently cared far more about ability than background..

“I don’t care if you squat to pee or not,” Sergeant Karim declared on the first day. “I don’t give a crap if you come from merchant or warrior families, or if you crawled out from under a rock. I don’t care if you are Muslim, Buddhist, Confucianist or if you pray to your own left foot. I don’t even care if you are a Korean lunatic, Tibetan navel-gazer or Uighur yak driver. All I care about is whether you can perform. The second I see weakness in you, the instant you say, ‘I cannot do it,’ you’re gone.”

Sifu Lu was not among the trainees. He apparently fought in the tournament only for status; he had a thriving school and I supposed he did not need the caravan guard job.

By the end of the second week, only eleven remained, myself and Deng Weili included. Sergeant Karim believed in exhausting men and women until their true character emerged.

“If you cannot function while tired,” he barked repeatedly, “then you cannot function at all.”

Weili made me nervous. She was nineteen years old, with intelligent dark eyes and an expression that often suggested she was privately amused by everyone around her. She wore her hair tied neatly braided and moved with quiet confidence whether holding a bow, climbing a wagon or cleaning horse tack. When she was around, I felt like I could not put my feet right.

There was another woman survivor as well. Her name was Meilin, which meant beautiful and delicate, which was funny because she was in her thirties, ruddy faced and a bit chubby, yet as muscular as an ox. I didn’t know if she grew up in a wushu school or what, but she could do cartwheels and flips, and could wield a variety of weapons with skill, including the three-sectioned staff and the broadsword. Yet she looked like a farm woman. Watching her was like encountering a young piglet, thinking how cute it was, and seeing it transform into a tiger before your eyes.

Fortunately, there was little time for male-female interactions, or any socialization at all. We recruits rose before dawn each morning. Out of the eleven, seven were Muslim, and were given the opportunity to pray Fajr. Then we ran the warehouse perimeter carrying sandbags on our shoulders. After prayer came conditioning drills: climbing ropes, hauling crates, lifting wagon wheels, carrying injured men on stretchers and pushing overloaded carts through mud pits behind the stables.

The Real Instruction

After breakfast the real instruction began.

Environmental awareness was Karim’s obsession.

“A caravan guard who notices danger after the attack begins is already dead.”

So he trained us to observe constantly:

• disturbed mud beside roads
• unnatural silence in forests
• travelers who avoided eye contact
• broken branches
• missing birdsong
• fresh horse dung
• suspicious movement on ridgelines
• hidden weapons beneath cloaks

Several times daily he deliberately tested us. One moment we might be marching normally; the next he would suddenly bark:

“How many blue doors did we pass?”

“Which horse is limping?”

“What was the innkeeper’s daughter carrying?”

“Who was watching us from the alley?”

Or we’d be marching through the forest, and a volley of dull arrows would come flying from an unseen location – once from archers perched high in the surrounding trees. These arrows could still bruise and cut, and in once case broke a man’s arm. He was not eliminated from the program, but was put on leave, and would have to repeat the training from the beginning when he recovered. So we were down to ten.

Wrong answers to questions earned punishment – usually running. There was always more running.

We learned hand signals for silence, danger, retreat, ambush and changing formation. Karim expected us to communicate almost wordlessly while moving.

“The roads are noisy,” he said. “People panic. Horses scream. Rain falls. Learn to use your eyes and hands.”

Group combat proved even harder. Individually many of the trainees were competent fighters. Together we were a disaster. Men collided with one another, blocked each other’s strikes or line of sight, broke formation and forgot their assignments entirely.

Karim beat us across the shoulders with a bamboo rod whenever we drifted out of position.

“You are guards,” he roared. “Not opera performers!”

The exception was a man in his thirties named Ahmed. He was slight of build, but with muscles as hard as stones sliding beneath his skin. He was a rare veteran of the war against the invaders, highly experienced in all battlefield tactics and maneuvers. Very little in the training program was new to him, and I was surprised they even put him through it. He was also a faithful Muslim, and would rally the rest of us to pray together every day. I made it a point to stay near him in training, watch him and learn from him.

Another vital lesson was that the merchants and cargo always came first. This was the prime responsibility of a Five Stars guard.

“If a guard dies protecting the wagons, that is acceptable,” Karim shouted. “If the wagons burn because a guard chased glory, he has failed.”

We practiced defensive wagon circles, escort formations and retreat drills. We learned how to shield the caravan merchants during attacks and how to prioritize wounded horses versus damaged cargo.

Horse Care and a Bad Companion

Horse care itself consumed astonishing amounts of time.

I had cared for and occasionally ridden the donkeys on the farm, but had never ridden a horse in my life. Suddenly I had to learn horse feeding schedules, hoof cleaning, recognizing sickness, repairing tack, calming frightened animals, and spotting exhaustion before collapse.

“An abused horse remembers,” Karim warned us. “And a dead horse can delay the entire caravan.”

I learned why Ahmed, our unofficial Imam, had been forced to go through this program: he had no experience with horses. He’d been an infantry soldier, and never even brushed or shoed a horse. It was odd to see this battle-hardened veteran shying away from a rearing horse. I showed him how to approach an animal gently, and speak to it softly to win its trust.

These concepts did not sit well with one of the recruits, a sallow-faced, mean young man named Kuangren, whose name meant madman. I supposed that was a street nickname that he was proud of. He was the son of a noble, skinny and bad tempered, and he always whipped the horses too hard.

“They’re stupid beasts,” he would complain. “You have to show them who’s boss.”

In spite of Sergeant Karim‘s earlier lecture about absolute egalitarianism, Kuangren often seemed to get a pass. Sure, the Sarge often shouted at him, but he never put his hands on the sullen young man. It was said that Kuangren had been excommunicated from his rich family for excessive drinking, gambling and consorting with prostitutes. He was arrogant and did not work well with others. I had to admit that he was good with a bow and a sword. Still, I found it baffling that he hadn’t been cut.

Afternoons were devoted to languages, customs and etiquette. That surprised me, as I had expected lessons in fighting, not lectures on understanding cultures. But Karim insisted: “A stupid guard starts wars. A smart one smooths over conflict.”

We learned basic greetings from neighboring regions, local taboos, negotiation etiquette and religious customs.

“In some places,” Karim explained, “showing the sole of your foot is an insult. Elsewhere refusing tea is offensive. Somewhere else touching a man’s wife, even bumping into her by accident in the marketplace, might get your throat cut. Learn the difference.”

One trainee laughed during the lecture.

Karim expelled him from the program. “Go live ignorant,” he said.

Nine of us were left. Then a boy, the youngest of us at only 14, loosed an arrow by mistake and shot another recruit in the leg. The boy was fired, and the other one was given leave.

Yet another young man became violently ill after eating or drinking something bad. He continued to waste away until he was sent to a Five Star medical clinic.

Good At Everything

Deng Weili, the archer girl, was somehow even more intimidating up close than she had been on the tournament field. She was good at everything, and Karim clearly respected her, which meant the rest of us suffered for it.

“Observe Deng!” he barked repeatedly. “She notices things before you idiots step in them!”

The other trainees grumbled openly about this. Not me though, I admired the girl.

Unfortunately, whenever Weili spoke directly to me, my brain stopped functioning. Once she asked me to hand her a water bucket and I nearly dropped it onto my own foot. Another time she caught me staring at her archery practice and raised one eyebrow.

“You trying to put the evil eye on me?”

“I was only observing your form,” I replied.

“And what conclusions did you reach?”

“That you rarely miss.”

She smirked slightly. “You are more right than you know, Bridge Boy.”

I had no idea how to answer that, beyond to say, “Don’t call me Bridge Boy.”

She walked away shaking her head while several trainees laughed openly at me.

At night we slept in long warehouse barracks smelling of sweat, leather and horse blankets. Men snored and shouted in their sleep. Bruises covered my body constantly. My hands blistered. Twice I considered quitting, but each time I remembered sleeping beneath the bridge. Besides, if the women could make it, so could I.

Occasionally Shah Suliman visited the compound to confer privately with Karim. The two would stand overlooking the training yard discussing routes, supply reports and candidates while Karim gestured toward us with visible irritation. Suliman never approached me directly, but more than once I noticed him watching me thoughtfully while I trained.

Six of us graduated: myself, Ahmed, Meilin the chubby farm fighter, the nasty youth Kuangren, Deng Weili, and a tall, muscular man named Longwei, who was thought stupid because he spoke slowly, but who – if you took the time to converse with him – was well travelled and thoughtful.

Caravan Work

Within a month the six of us were traveling with caravans as armed guards. At first we were assigned only to local routes between Deep Harbor and the surrounding provinces, where the roads were dangerous but still reasonably well patrolled.

Sergeant Karim rarely traveled with us himself, but his presence lingered constantly in our minds. Any time someone failed to notice a suspicious rider, a wobbly axle, or a poorly secured crate, one of the others would mutter in Karim’s growling voice, “Use your eyes, idiot,” and everyone would laugh nervously.

Our group settled into familiar roles surprisingly quickly.

Ahmed naturally became the steady center of us all. When arguments broke out over routes or guard rotations, he calmed them. As it happened, all of us new guards were Muslims except for Kuangren and Meilin. There was a scattering of Muslims among the veteran guards as well. When prayer time came, Ahmed called us together for salat quietly no matter how exhausted we were. Longwei called the adhaan in his slow, steady style, and we each put down a blanket, no matter where we were.

Ahmed had seen enough real warfare that ordinary danger did not excite him much. Once, after we fought off robbers along a forest road, I found him sitting calmly beside a wagon afterward, patiently sewing a tear in his sleeve while everyone else still argued excitedly about the fight.

Meilin was perhaps the strangest among us. Around campfires she complained constantly about sore feet, bad food and cold weather, sounding every bit the weary farmwife she resembled. Then robbers would appear and suddenly she became terrifying. More than once I saw bandits recoil in genuine alarm after she shattered a spear shaft with her three-sectioned staff while charging straight into them screaming curses.

Longwei spoke so slowly that strangers often assumed him dim-witted. In truth he had a strong mind. He could identify accents from distant provinces, predict weather changes and accurately estimate the value of cargo. During long rides he told fascinating stories about foreign ports and mountain kingdoms he had visited in his youth.

Kuangren remained unpleasant. He drank too much whenever we entered towns, gambled recklessly and treated locals badly. Yet he fought with real courage when attacks came. I could not deny that. During one ambush he took an arrow through the shoulder and still managed to shoot his attacker from horseback before collapsing. Afterwards, while Ahmed stitched the wound, Kuangren cursed continuously and accused us all of incompetence.

Deng Weili, meanwhile, continued making my life difficult merely by existing.

She rode with impossible confidence and could loose arrows accurately even from horseback at full gallop. Merchants adored her because she was polite and intelligent. The rest of us respected her because she never panicked under pressure. During one tense crossing through flooded roads, she spotted hidden movement in the reeds nearly a full minute before anyone else, giving us enough warning to prepare for the attempted ambush.

“You see?” she told me afterward while checking her bowstring. “That’s why Karim likes me more than you.”

“I think he just likes the turn of your ankles.” This was a cruel thing to say, and completely untrue, but it popped out of my mouth unbidden.

Weili glared at me for a moment, opened her mouth as if to berate me, then her face softened into a sly smile. “Oh, does he? That’s what he likes?” She walked away, leaving me standing red-faced.

Caravan work might seem glamorous to some, but it was hard work. Harder than working the docks, even. We escorted merchants, medicines, textiles and food shipments through increasingly dangerous roads. Refugees, deserters and starving men prowled the countryside. Rarely, robbers attacked openly. Other times they followed us for days waiting for weakness.

Riding a wagon for hours left me feeling like my bones were dice being rattled in a cup. There were times, passing through dangerous areas, when the caravan stopped neither for sleep nor meals, and we prayed and ate on the move. The constant need for vigilance wore on a man’s mind. I noticed Kuangren, for example, becoming increasingly irritable and paranoid. Once he shouted, “Ambush!” and let loose several quick arrows, only to find that he had killed a squirrel. Everyone laughed uproariously, and he sulked for days afterward.

An Unexpected Visit

Every time a caravan returned to Deep Harbor, we were given several days off. With the money I was now making, I rented a permanent room above a noodle shop near the western canal district. It was a tiny room with a narrow bed, cracked wash basin and boarded up window that rattled in the wind. The chatter from the noodle shop came through the walls, vendors shouted in the street outside, and roaches scurried across the floor.

It was my home. I accepted this fact. I missed my past, I missed Haaris and Far Away, but this was my life now. New adventures opened before me. Still, there was a part of me that didn’t know what I was doing anymore, or why. I was lonely. I wrote this feeling off as fear of something new, and ignored it.

I bought sturdy boots. Better clothing. A winter cloak lined with wool. I repaired and sharpened my dao regularly, oiling the blade with almost religious care. Every now and then I returned to the bridge with donations of food and warm clothing. There, with my old riverside companions, I felt comfortable and whole, for a while.

Sometimes, when we were given leave, I followed my colleagues to see what their lives were like. One by one, I learned their secrets: Kuangren immediately vanished into gambling houses and brothels. Longwei visited teahouses and storytellers, and fought in amateur wrestling competitions for money. Meilin always ate enormous meals at restaurants, then went to stay with a woman who looked like her sister. Ahmed spent much of his free time at the masjid. As for Weili, she went to an archery range where she practiced shooting for hours, then to a little rooming house on the other side of town from my own. I wondered, did she not have a family? Was she an orphan too?

Having learned these things, I realized that the knowledge meant nothing and did not ease my loneliness. I stopped following them.

I was in my little room, eating noodles purchased from the shop downstairs, when a firm knock sounded at the door.

I felt a rush of excitement. Who could it be? Maybe one of my work mates had come to visit?

I opened the door and found Zihan Ma standing before me. He looked different. There was gray in his hair that had not been there before, and new lines creased his forehead. Either I had grown or he had shrunk, for I stood the same height as him now. He wore walking boots and a medical bag slung over one shoulder.

What I noticed most, however, was that his eyes were tired.

A Grievous Error

“Uncle!” I blurted out. “How did you find me?”

He took a slow, deep breath. “I have been looking for you, Darius. For many months I have looked.”

“You have?” I remembered, some months ago, seeing him standing in front of the masjid, watching the faces of the men as they entered. “But why?”

His eyes met mine. “I judged you wrongly. I committed a grievous error. I ask Allah’s forgiveness and yours. We miss you. We want you to come home.”

This speech, short as it was, carried such weight that I took a step backward, then another, until I found myself sitting in the only chair in the room, beside a small table.

“May I enter?” Zihan Ma asked.

I waved to him to enter.

“May I sit on the bed?”

I nodded dumbly.

“What…” I paused to gather my thoughts. “So you now do not believe that I stole the bracelets and the gifts?”

“I know you did not.”

“How do you know?”

He swallowed. “Your Nai Nai sent a letter by courier, only a week after you met her that day. Those bracelets had been locked in a secure chest. She confronted her husband, and he admitted that he ordered the servant to plant them in your pack. His justification was that you were a bad seed, and it would be better for the family to get rid of you.”

I tilted my head back and looked at the wooden ceiling rafters. “So now you know I’m not a bad seed, is that it?”

“I never thought that.”

“What if… What if Nai Nai had not written that letter?”

Zihan Ma sighed. “I made a mistake, Darius. Have you never made a mistake that you regret deeply, and that you are ashamed of?”

I gave him a blank look. “Not really.”

He winced at that. “Haaris misses you. You’re his brother. And he has to do all the farm work by himself again. It’s hard for him.”

That hurt me. “That’s not fair.”

“Your Lee Ayi talks about you every day.”

I stood suddenly. “I have a new life now. I have to go forward, not backward.”

Zihan Ma stood as well, pushing on his knees with his palms. “Our home is your home,” he said. “You can return anytime, to live or to visit. You don’t even have to knock. We love you. I… Well, I love you.”

This nearly made me break into tears but I held myself rigid. Zihan Ma turned to leave.

“Uncle. How is Far Away?”

He smiled. “He runs, climbs walls, suns himself atop the house. Bao Bao can’t keep up. He even jumps onto the donkey’s back sometimes. Alhamdulillah for all His mercies upon us. The world is built upon rahmah, Darius. Mercy. Nothing else. I forgot that for one moment. I am sorry.”

When he left, and the door was firmly closed, I fell onto my bed and wept.

* * *

Come back next week for Part 16 – Five Star Trading Company

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.

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Moonshot: A Novel of Marriage, Love and Cryptocurrency

The post Far Away [Part 15] – Caravan Guard appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

The other day I heard the former British prime minister Tony Blair being interviewed on Radio 4, twenty minutes after the more recent former PM Rishi Sunak being interviewed on the same channel. Blair was promoting a long essay he had written about what he sees as the directionless state of the Labour government and the essay and interview has been described as a repudiation of everything he stood for when he was PM. Both, however, eagerly promoted something they called the “AI revolution”, and when the interviewer put it to Blair that he was advancing the interests of the tech giants that fund his think-tanks and his pal Larry Ellison (of Oracle), he said that he promoted it because it was great technology. I remarked on my socials after hearing it that Blair had not learned from the principal mistake of his time in office, of putting the needs of business over everything else including the needs of ordinary people (a major example being opening the doors in 2004 to east European workers, an action not taken by the rest of the EU as had been the case previously when countries with weaker economies joined, a disastrous mistake which ultimately cost us our EU membership), which goes some way to explaining why Boris Johnson could get away with saying “f*** business”, a remark which would have sunk any mainstream politician under previous Tory governments. 

In his essay, he posits that “the technology revolution led by developments in artificial intelligence … will change everything”, that “governing in the age of AI will be the principal challenge”:

There is no point in debating whether this technological revolution is a good or bad thing. Just know it is a ‘thing’. In fact, it is ‘the thing’. It will displace jobs, though creating new ones, but no one yet knows the full consequence. Companies and countries will rise or fall on the back of it. It will revolutionise the private sector and should in time revolutionise public services and government. Yet people in most countries, including Britain, have no idea what is about to hit them.

What is a revolution? Usually the term means an upheaval that leads to major, and at least partly positive, social and political change. In practice, ‘revolutions’ are often the result of military coups, palace coups or civil wars and sometimes bring about regimes as tyrannical as those they replaced (e.g. Russia). The recent rise of a particular type of AI may seem revolutionary to those able to generate content easily that previously would have taken imagination and skill, but to many of us it feels more like a reactionary coup in the public space and takes power out of the hands of ordinary people and puts it in the hands of tech giants. Its ability to impersonate a human being, on the face of it more convincingly than anything previously available, is a gift to fraudsters and other species of criminals and scoundrels; it frees companies and other large bodies, including government departments and local councils, from having to engage with their clients on a human-to-human level. To give an example, when trying to complain about the poor signal on my mobile phone in my local town centre, I first took to Twitter, on which there was previously an account run by actual people; now the responses are by a chatbot, which told me to call 150, the network’s customer service number. That offered me no way of talking to a human being about the problem, only a computerised menu, which ultimately told me to use the provider’s mobile app, which told me there was no problem with the signal at my home address, which is true. That was not my complaint; my complaint was about the centre of the nearest town, which has had poor signal for years.

AI has been described by Cory Doctorow (of Enshittification fame) as “the asbestos in the walls of our technological society, stuffed there with wild abandon by a finance sector and tech monopolists run amok”, something that will in the future be ripped out of systems as the mineral was from buildings. The social sphere, both the platforms that have corralled social interaction online and the video sharing spaces, have been filled with junk text that is full of inaccuracy, junk videos and poorly-enhanced pictures, often portraying a post that was never real. Schools and colleges fight to make sure nobody gets qualifications on the basis of auto-generated and plagiarised essays while students find that they are penalised because their work is misidentified as AI because of some stylistic detail such as the “em-dash” (rather than the obvious inaccuracies that are normally the red flag for AI-generated text; people assume that computers do not make mistakes, the same assumption — baked into law — that led to the Post Office accounting scandal). Job applicants are now being screened by AI before a human being even reads their application, often complaining of getting no response at all. AI requires large data centres, which require water for cooling, which comes out of the public water supply, often at the expense of locals’ domestic water. It has disrupted the chip industry, resulting in one major supplier of consumer memory withdrawing from that market as it is more profitable to supply the AI industry.

Some will say that the poor output of AI in 2026 is because it is new, and that refinements will result in better output in the future. A mineral does not change — asbestos is still asbestos — but technology does. Maybe this will mean better customer service, but maybe it will also mean fakes so convincing that we cannot trust a picture or video anymore, if we can even now. But to bring it back to Tony Blair, it is noticeable that his essay makes no reference to regulating the use of AI such that it does not become a blight on the public sphere, online or off, or an obstacle to or substitute for public or customer service; rather, he talks of “governing in the age of AI” as if the changes wrought by it were inevitable, demanding that the planning system be sacrificed to it and North Sea oil and gas resources be thrown at it. We must make it compulsory for large companies to employ customer service staff who live here and can communicate with British customers fluently, and the same goes for central and local government bodies, and not allow companies to sack people en masse in favour of letting AI do their job cheaply, but invariably worse and less satisfyingly and more frustratingly for the customer or the citizen. We must not cave into demands for data centres which will put a drain on public resources, especially the water supply. In a democracy, AI must remain “on tap, not on top” (if tolerated at all) and its demands never allowed to trump people’s needs. British politicians have a poor record of striking such balances; they now have the challenge of finding ways to employ AI in ways that are beneficial to society rather than to those who merely seek power or profit and care nothing about its environmental dangers, resource hunger or the technology’s own enormous potential for harm.

The two hatreds have rarely been seen as related dangers. But they overlap even as Muslim and Jewish communities are pitted against each other

The shooting at a mosque and school in San Diego has forced Muslim Americans to ask themselves painful questions. After the killing of three people in an armed attack last week, they now wonder if other places of worship will be targeted next, whether they can still send children to school and trust that they will return home unharmed, and whether they can still safely walk the streets as people identifiable by their faith.

These are also questions that Jewish communities are reckoning with, most recently after the stabbings in London’s Golders Green neighborhood. Over the past three years, against the backdrop of wars in the Middle East, antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate have flared across the west, with each rising to record levels. But these two hatreds have rarely been seen as related dangers, let alone confronted as a common threat to societies.

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Israel building earthen barriers, military bases inside Gaza during so-called “ceasefire.”

The New York mayor scored a range of responses attending Eid prayers in an outfit combining football and faith

Since Arsenal won the Premier League for the first time in 22 years this month, the visibility of the club’s shirts has soared, with celebrities including Romeo Beckham and the singer Mahalia wearing them.

One particularly notable fan moment occurred when Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York, wore a kurta made out of the team’s 2025-26 away kit to attend Eid al-Adha prayers in the Bronx.

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Rising heat in Saudi Arabia threatens millions of Muslim pilgrims – but cutting fossil fuels would keep it safer

Global heating has “fundamentally altered” the climate of Mecca and is exposing millions of hajj pilgrims to extreme and dangerous heat even in months outside summer, new analysis has found.

Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels means scorching temperatures of 40C (104F) are now regularly experienced in May, the study showed. In past decades, such peaks would only have occurred in summer. The researchers said that hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, would take place amid dangerous heat almost all year round by the end of the century without a rapid transition away from fossil fuels.

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People around the world gathered to celebrate Eid al-Adha, or the Festival of Sacrifice, from Mecca in Saudi Arabia to India-controlled Kashmir.

This is the second major holiday in Islam, and approximately 2 billion Muslims worldwide offered prayers as a sign of devotion, adherence and unity.

In Gaza, people gathered for prayer despite the vast majority of residents still being displaced and living in tents, with some struggling to find joy in the occasion

• Muslims gather for Eid al-Adha in Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia – in pictures

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Roqayah Chamseddine reports from Lebanon. Jon Elmer analyzes Hizballah’s drones. Ali Abunimah debunks a new report claiming mass rapes.