We speak to fired tech workers, Asem Alnabih in Gaza about Israel’s starvation, cover the latest resistance operations in Gaza, Trump’s Gulf tour and much more.

Young people in Gaza cope with misery and boredom however they can.

The US is complicit in the slaughter of children.

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

 

“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. … Forgiveness is not an occasional act; it is a permanent attitude.”
– Martin Luther King Jr., from “Strength to Love,” 1963

“Have you considered: if your water were to become sunken [into the earth], then who could bring you flowing water?” – Quran, Surat Al-Mulk

Porsche 911

The masjid parking lot was almost empty, but at the west end, four young brothers in their twenties were shooting hoops around the freestanding basket on the edge of the lot. Their cars were parked nearby, and Deek paused to admire a gorgeous black Porsche 911. It was a classic model, with raised headlight housings, tinted windows, chrome rims, a large rear spoiler, and dual exhaust pipes. It was a work of art.

Why should he continue calling Ubers like a tourist? And he certainly wasn’t about to walk home or take the bus. Plus, he had to go to the bathroom, and he knew himself; if he ignored it much longer it would become urgent. This had happened more often as he grew older and gained weight. He’d had some close calls, where he wasn’t sure he’d make it to a bathroom in time. And there’d been one time when he didn’t make it in time. It was a shameful experience that he didn’t care to remember.

He looked back at the masjid, thinking he could use the facilities there, but it looked like everyone was gone. Zuhair’s car was just leaving the lot. The building was probably locked.

He waved to the basketball players. “Hey! Whose Porsche is this?”

They sauntered over. A short, dark-skinned youth with a massive mop of curls – probably Yemeni, Deek thought – spoke up.

“Is mine. I’m Shujaa. Thass my car. Why?” His voice was squeaky, as if he was still going through puberty, and he had a strong Arabic accent.

“How old are you?”

“Eh? What’s with the questions, uncle?”

“I want to buy the car.”

Negotiation

The boy laughed, and his friends followed suit. “You know what that is there? Thass a classic 1990 Carrera 911. Dual carburetors, Turbo wide body kit, four-wheel disc brakes, dual exhaust, Sunpro Super tachometer, three-spoke steering, hood pins, toggle switches, roll bar, Turbo-branded wheels… I built this baby myself. It could goes over two hundred miles an hour.”

As the boy described the car, Deek noted that his accent virtually disappeared, and his voice even deepened, as if his voice box was an extension of the car’s powerful motor.

“How much do you want for it?”

“Are you is serious?”

“Serious as a car crash. But how old are you? I need to know you’re a legal adult so you can make a deal.”

“I’m twenny, okay? Don’t worry about it. I’m a businessman. I own five smoke shops in this town. I sell you this car for two hundred fifty g’s.”

“Do you have a crypto wallet?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Be reasonable. I’ll give you two Bitcoins.”

“Two and a half.”

“Deal.” It was probably more than the car was worth, but Deek didn’t care. It was only money.

The boy, Shujaa, was excited but suspicious, afraid that Deek would cheat him. Eventually, they settled on an impromptu escrow arrangement by which Deek would set up the transfer, with everything done but hitting SEND. He would hand the phone to one of Shujaa’s friends. Shujaa would sign the pink slip over to Deek, then the friend would hit the SEND button.

This Was Power

Five minutes later, it was done. The boy pulled his belongings out of the trunk, piled them in the parking lot, and then handed Deek the key.

Deek climbed into the car and sat, luxuriating. The interior was amazing. Wide leather seats that were cool to the touch, spotless and in mint condition. Black dashboard with old-fashioned circular gauges. The car was well cared for. It smelled of leather, furniture polish, and also faintly of za’tar. He started the car and listened to its confident, tiger-like purr.

“Wait!” Shujaa said. “I feel like I shouldna done this. My Baba bought this car for me.”

Deek winked at him. “You’ll be okay. Hold onto the Bitcoin, it will make you rich.” He floored the accelerator and peeled out of the parking lot, narrowly missing the boys, who jumped out of the way. He tipped his head back and laughed as he hit the open road. He hadn’t succeeded in getting that jerk Ajeeb fired, but it was okay. Screw him. Zuhair was right, his offer had been petty. He was rich now. Time to put those silly grudges behind him. Time to put a lot of things behind him.

This was power now, finally. This was what money was for. You saw a car you wanted, you bought it on the spot, boom! Didn’t matter how much it cost. He’d forgotten about the sensation he’d had of tentacles rising from a dark sea inside him, trying to pull him down into selfishness and miserliness.

Instead, pushing the gas pedal down, feeling the car leap beneath him like a racehorse, he imagined himself a superhero with electricity running in his veins. Was this what it was like to be rich? The world lay at his feet, ripe and ready. He was a conqueror at the frontier of a new continent, and the only limit was his imagination.

An Urgent Need

As he sped through the streets on the way home, the feeling of needing to go to the bathroom became intensely urgent. He jiggled his knees and pressed his feet into the car floor. At a stoplight on Blackstone, he shouted at the light to turn green. He was only two miles from home, but he wasn’t going to make it. He turned the radio on, then, as loud rap music came blasting out, turned it off.

Without warning, he jerked the wheel and peeled into the tiny parking lot of the 7-11 at Blackstone and Bullard. Cars honked at him, and someone shouted. He walked quickly but stiff-legged into the store.

The bored young Indian man behind the counter was eating a pizza slice with one hand and holding his phone with the other as he jabbered away in his native language.

“Bathroom?” Deek asked.

The clerk shook his head. “Out of order.”

Deek didn’t believe that for a second. It was something they said to keep the riffraff out of their own private bathroom. He took out his wallet and put a five-dollar bill on the counter.

“Bathroom,” he said again.

The clerk scowled and shouted, waving Deek away with the pizza slice. “Out of order, out of order!”

Deek cursed, snatched the five-dollar bill, and lurched outside. The store’s dumpster was hidden inside a fenced enclosure. Deek thought maybe he could slip in there, squat, and do his business. But the enclosure was barely larger than the smelly and stained dumpster, and with his protruding belly, he couldn’t get in. He hurried back to the car, wiping his hands on his pants, and burned rubber tearing out of the parking lot, nearly hitting a fat lady smoking a vape and swigging a bottle of beer.

He was halfway home when he crapped his pants. The car filled with a terrible stink. Deek rolled down the windows and continued home with a wooden expression, his teeth clenched in shame. He prayed that no one was home, so he’d be spared the mortification of Rania or his daughters seeing him like this.

If Your Water Were to Become Sunken

This wasn’t fair. He was a multimillionaire, almost a 10% billionaire, yet he was not spared from the brutal exigencies of his aging and unhealthy body. What good was money when a simple bodily function could plunge him into a state of abject humiliation? This wasn’t how it was supposed to be!

A memory came to him of a day in his boyhood. His family had recently arrived from Iraq as refugees, and were quite poor. They were sitting at the bus stop on a hot summer day, shading their eyes against the glare, waiting for a bus to take them to the grocery store. An expensive sports car passed by and Deek pointed to it excitedly, saying in Arabic, “Look Baba, look how beautiful. This country has everything.”

In reply, his father had recited the last ayah of Surat Al-Mulk: “Have you considered: if your water were to become sunken [into the earth], then who could bring you flowing water?”

“All of this is an illusion,” his father said. “What power or wealth will they have if Allah takes away their sunlight, water, or air? Remember, Deek, we did not come here for fancy cars. We came for our freedom to worship Allah and practice our deen, and to work hard and provide for our family.”

Deek wondered now if this shame was a reminder from Allah that He, Subhanahu wa Ta’ala, could take away everything that mattered in an instant.

Shame

Rania would probably still be at work, and Amira, who was in 11th grade, would be at school. But Sanaya, whose college class schedule was irregular, might well be home. She didn’t have a car, so she either took the bus or rode her bicycle to school and work.

He let himself into the house and waddled quickly toward the bathroom in the master bedroom.

“Hi Baba!” Sanaya called from the kitchen. “Eww, what is that smell?”

Deek’s face grew hot with shame. He continued toward the bathroom. “It’s the car I bought,” he called over his shoulder. “The old owner had body odor. I’ll get it cleaned.”

“You bought a car? How? And why would you buy a smelly one?”

Deek shut the bathroom door and spent the next half hour cleaning himself and washing his clothing. He opened the bathroom window, sprayed the room with lemon air freshener, and lit one of Rania’s vanilla-scented candles. The bathroom would smell like a bakery, or so he hoped.

As he cleaned up, he found himself reciting the poem Dr. Zuhair had recited:

Forgiveness is among the traits of the noble,
And pardon is the mark of the great.
The truly gallant is he who forgives
Even when he has the power to retaliate.

It was a lovely little stanza, especially in Arabic. But who was Deek supposed to forgive? Rania, for being short-tempered with him? Fine, he forgave her, whatever. But Ajeeb? No way. The man had mocked him in public. It was an offense against his pride and honor. Deek would rather push the man’s head into a toilet and drown him than forgive him.

Zuhair was an interesting dude, widely admired in the community. Deek, who had not dealt with the man much, had always assumed it was because Zuhair had money. But now he realized it was more than that. Zuhair radiated a quiet, confident charisma. He’d stood there casually plucking and eating an orange as he turned down a million and a half dollar donation. On top of that, he was intelligent, and even though he was in his sixties, was built like a wrestler. Some people had it all, it seemed. The lucky ones. The chosen ones.

The Greatest Blessing

Deek was not one of those. He’d always struggled to earn money, lose weight, make friends, and be respected in the community. Nothing had ever come easily. The greatest blessing he had was his family. Rania, Sanaya, Amira. These were his treasures. How Rania had put up with him and loved him all these years, he did not know.

And now there was this. Money. Vast riches. It was incredible. He felt vindicated, as if Allah had anointed his forehead with olive oil and made him a king. As if he’d been walking in darkness for decades and Allah had suddenly plucked him out and brought him into shimmering light. And the best part was that it had happened through his own hard work and persistence. Years of studying, experimenting, losing money and trying again, working late into the night, never giving up.

When he emerged, cleaned and changed, Sanaya was nowhere in the house. He went outside and found her admiring the Porsche.

“It actually doesn’t smell all that bad,” Sanaya said. “Just needs a good detailing, inside and out. It’s a beautiful car. But I don’t get how you paid for it. Aren’t we, like, practically broke?”

Sanaya was a tall girl, taller than either of her parents, with mahogany skin, a prominent nose, and long black hair that she kept beneath a hijab when outside, like now. She wore thick glasses – a personal preference, as she didn’t like the feel of contact lenses. She always smelled of coffee, and Deek suspected that a disproportionate amount of her study time was spent at the university coffee shop. But she was an excellent student and should have attended a state university or UC, except that the family could not afford it, so she went to community college. She never even complained about it.

That was all over now. Sanaya could attend any university of her choosing, even an Ivy League school. And she didn’t have to work that night job at the convenience store anymore. Deek was suddenly choked with emotion, thinking about what a sweet girl his daughter was, and how patient she had always been. Amira too. They were both angels.

Work Husband

“Alhamdulillah,” he began to say, “I made some -”

“Mom’s home!’

Rania’s chocolate brown mini-SUV pulled into the driveway and parked behind the Porsche. She liked to park in the garage, and the Porsche was blocking the way. She wouldn’t be happy about that. But Deek had been in too much of a hurry when he’d arrived home to care about such things.

Rania emerged from the SUV with a cautious smile. There were circles beneath her eyes, and her shoulders sagged. Deek felt a pang of concern for her, and for an instant thought of going to her and embracing her. But her tone was tight and cold when she said, “What’s this? Do we have visitors?”

“Baba bought a car!”

“He did what?” Her smile was stiff now, as if she were wearing a mask.

“We really need to sit down and talk,” Deek said.

“That’s why I came home early. We need to talk about boundaries. Coming to my work like that was unacceptable. But is it true you bought this car?”

“Yes.”

Rania’s eyes went to the car, then to Deek. “I don’t even know what to say. It was one thing when you were nothing but a burden. A drain on our finances. But now you’re actively trying to sabotage this family. Your daughter -” Rania flung out a hand toward Sanaya – “goes to community college because that’s all we can afford! And here you are, an anchor around my neck -”

“Mom!’ Sanaya exclaimed.

“Are you having an affair?” These words came to Deek’s lips unbidden. He would never have suspected such a thing, but Rania had been so unkind and impatient with him lately, and the idea just popped into his head.

“I… What? No, of course not.”

Deek’s breath caught. “You don’t seem certain.”

“No, no, no. I mean, there’s a man at work, a doctor. He’s a friend, we talk. We eat lunch together. The other nurses call him my work husband.” Rania laughed nervously. “So silly.”

“I don’t want to hear this!” Sanaya covered her ears with her hands and walked quickly into the house.

“I guess I don’t either,” Deek said wearily. “I will remove the anchor from around your neck.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Overreacting

Deek walked into the garage, found two empty suitcases, took them into the master bedroom, locked the door, and began to pack. He didn’t pack carefully, but tossed items into one suitcase haphazardly. A handful of underwear, a pair of pants, and his pathetic little rock collection that he kept in a shoebox. Vanilla-scented smoke drifted from the bathroom, from the still-burning candle.

Rania began to knock, saying, “You’re overreacting. Let me in and let’s talk.”

Into the other suitcase he placed his computers, packing only the towers, keyboards and mice, and not bothering with the monitors. The whole job took only fifteen minutes.

When he opened the door, suitcases in hand, Rania said, “What the hell are you doing? I thought you wanted to talk?”

Deek thought he should be angry. If he was leaving his wife, didn’t it make sense to be angry? But he was only tired.

“I’ve been trying to talk to you for two days,” he said. “You smacked me in the chest and put your hand on my mouth to shut me up, then you shouted at me in front of your co-workers. And now you say that I’m an anchor around your neck. You’ve changed. You were never like this with me before. It’s how I guessed about your work lover, or whatever you call him. I suppose that’s why you didn’t want me showing up at your work.”

He began to walk toward the front door, pulling the rolling suitcases behind him.

“I changed because you changed!” Rania yelled. “You used to work, you used to be a responsible man who paid the bills and cared for his family. Now you’ve become a sloth that sits in front of a computer all day, losing money. I want my husband back, the man I married.”

Deek opened the front door. “Seems like you’re on your way to finding someone else.”

“That’s nothing. He’s a married man. He flirts with me, it makes me feel good. That’s all!”

Rania followed him out into the driveway. “If you leave,” she said in a threatening tone, “the house is mine. Forget about getting anything at all.”

Deek looked at her sadly. “You jumped to that awfully quickly. That’s fine, you can have the house and everything else.” He could only fit one of the suitcases in the Porsche’s little trunk.

What About This Car?

“And what about this car?” Rania kicked one of the tires. “What insanity is this?” She was getting angrier by the moment, and Deek feared she might get a fireplace poker and start smashing the car’s windows.

He sighed heavily. “I’ve been trying to tell you. I’ve had some good trades. I made money.”

“Then where is it? You spent it on a car when we have all these bills?”

“Check your bank account.” He went around to the passenger’s side and put the other suitcase in the seat. He realized at that moment that the car still smelled bad. He opened the suitcase, and the clothing he’d stuffed into it spilled out. He snatched up a t-shirt and leaned over to wipe the driver’s side seat, hoping Rania could not smell it. Then he put a towel on the seat. He closed the door and turned to find Rania standing right in front of him, holding up her phone.

“One hundred three thousand, five hundred ninety-two dollars? What on earth? There’s over a hundred thousand dollars in the account. Where did this come from?”

Deek shook his head. “You really don’t listen at all, do you?”

She stared. “Oh. The crypto? Your good trade that you were talking about?”

“Yes.”

“And you bought the car with that?”

“Yes.”

“How much did the car cost?”

“Two and a half Bitcoin.” Seeing her blank look, he translated. “About a hundred and twenty-five thousand.”

Rania clutched her throat as if she were choking. “A hundred and twenty-five thousand? Are you utterly mad? Don’t you think you should have discussed it with me first?”

“I tried, remember?”

Millions

“How much did you make on your trade?”

“It wasn’t one trade. It was a series of good trades over the last two days.”

“How much?”

Deek regarded her. Part of him counseled silence. What had Zuhair said? It’s clever to be discreet with your assets. If he and Rania were splitting up, it was not in his interest to tell her how much he’d earned. On the other hand, he wanted his vindication. He hungered for it. He wanted to see the look in her eyes when she realized just how badly she’d misjudged him. In the end, he only said, “Millions.”

Rania took a step back. “Millions?” She looked aghast. “For real?”

Deek nodded. Rania suddenly swayed on her feet. Deek leaped forward and grabbed her, then eased her down to the ground. She sat on the driveway with legs splayed and her face in her hands, breathing heavily as Deek kneeled beside her.

***

[Part 5 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:

Death in a Valley Town, Part 1 – Moving Day

The Deal : Part #1 The Run

 

The post Moonshot: A Short Story [Part 4] – If Your Water Were To Become Sunken appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Spiritual practices can induce a sense of being part of something that is bigger than oneself

• Making sense of it is a column about spirituality and how it can be used to navigate everyday life

When I was a kid, my sister’s favourite biblical passage was from the gospel according to Luke. “Suffer little children to come unto me,” Jesus told his disciples, “for of such is the Kingdom of God.”

My sister had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and she understood Jesus to be saying that children like her, who felt pain, would inherit paradise. Her favourite saints were the youthful martyrs – Angela of Fatima, Bernadette of Lourdes, Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower. Every week my parish gathered to pray for my sister and the priest offered up her suffering, everyone’s suffering, all the suffering of the world, to God.

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Timothy Evans (John Hurt) is led to the gallows in 1971 film 10 Rillington Place. He was later proven to be innocent.

Peter Hitchens, writing for UnHerd this week (and in a videoed discussion with its editor-in-chief, Freddie Sayers), makes a case for bringing back the death penalty, abolished for murder in the UK in 1965. He opines that capital punishment, when “properly conducted”, “makes a country less vengeful and more gentle” and that the alternative of long imprisonment is damnable on the grounds of its cruelty to the convict, a point made by the utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill in 1868. He would require a number of reforms to the judicial system before supporting reinstating the death penalty, among them abolishing majority verdicts, imposing stricter controls on juror selection such as a higher minimum age and requirements of life experience and education and allowing judges to “halt trials where they believe the prosecution is employing emotion rather than evidence”. He also alleges that the abolition of the death penalty weakened the British tradition of the unarmed police, leading to the arming of the police by the “back door” with the use of Tasers and “a new informal death penalty — but one without charge, trial, appeal or the possibility of reprieve, carried out by frightened men and women in a microsecond of fear and doubt”. It also correlates with a vast increase in incidents of both homicide and woundings that, but for improvements in modern healthcare, would have meant a massive increase in murders since the death penalty was abolished in 1965.

I take issue with the suggestion that a country with the death penalty is “less vengeful and more gentle”. He asks us to look not at the USA but at Britain up until the mid-1950s. Hitchens was born in 1951 and thus his memory of that period will be a little sketchy. The execution of Derek Bentley, a 19-year-old with a learning disability whose 16-year-old accomplice had shot a police officer dead during a robbery, took place in 1953; his alleged words, “let him have it”, were assumed to mean ‘shoot’ rather than “hand over the gun” (and both the accused denied these words were said). The Home Secretary, David Maxwell-Fyfe, cited public opinion among the reasons not to grant clemency to Bentley, in particular because the victim was a police officer. He dismisses the example of the US, “an empire haunted by its history of slavery and violence”, but in the US, the only other country in the developed world to retain the death penalty, families campaign to have those who killed their loved ones executed even after decades in prison on death row (as in this case in Indiana, a state that never had slavery); in the UK, it is generally accepted that murderers whose crimes are not highly aggravated (e.g. by the victim being a child, or there being multiple victims, or being tortured or raped before their killing) will be released after serving their minimum period of imprisonment, albeit on a monitored life licence. And surely the reason our police continue not to carry firearms, unlike in the US, is that the population mostly does not possess them. American police carry guns, whether they work in a death penalty state or not, and the ready availability of guns is the major reason our murder rates do not approach theirs.

I’m not fundamentally opposed to the death penalty in the sense of believing that we are somehow no better than murderers ourselves if we put a serial killer or war criminal to death. Hitchens, however, characterises this as a position of the radical left (though not the ‘serious’ Left, as “two of the greatest figures of the British Left, Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin”, along with many working-class Labour MPs, voted in its favour in 1948), yet I have seen it expressed in recent years by figures very definitely of the Right (e.g. Lawrence Fox), including on UnHerd recently. Although Labour were in power when it was abolished, it has survived three subsequent bouts of Tory government, one of them lasting 18 years. With it having last been used in the early 1960s and abolished for other than treason in 1965, sixty years ago, three whole generations will have never known a world in which it existed. This seems to be the case of members of parliament exercising their judgement rather than sacrificing it to their electors’ opinion. I do believe it should be available to war crimes tribunals, precisely because the risk of misidentification is that much less and also because the gravity of the crimes that much higher: kidnap, torture, rape and murder on a grand scale, on the orders of political and military leaders. A person picked up by police at the roadside and accused of being Ratko Mladić could prove his innocence more easily than a Black man picked up in Mississippi and accused of a murder committed by another Black man in a society where many white people would fail to distinguish one Black person from another and might even say “they all look the same”.

Hitchens notes that the two executions he witnessed in the US were for crimes which were long in the past, and were so disconnected from those crimes as a result that they could not be expected to deter anything. However, that time lag occasionally allows for an innocent person to have their case re-examined; when the UK had the death penalty, it was carried out weeks after the sentence was issued. Timothy Evans, for example, was tried for his wife’s murder on 11th January 1950 and hanged on 9th March the same year. A major witness was John Christie, his ground-floor neighbour, a man with multiple previous convictions for thefts and one for malicious wounding (from having hit a woman on the head with a cricket bat), supposedly a reformed character after serving as a special constable (a volunteer policeman) more recently. Three years later, Christie himself was revealed to be the killer, having been arrested for numerous other murders of women including his wife. His trial began on 22nd June 1953 and he was hanged on 15th July the same year. This is considerably less time than it normally takes for a miscarriage of justice to be acknowledged and redressed; first appeals nearly always fail. The majority of the victims of the 1970s miscarriages of justice, such as Stefan Kiszko and many of the groups convicted wrongly of IRA bombings, would have been executed less than two months after trial. So, we have the choice of a swift execution or a long wait on Death Row in the hope that some mistakes might be corrected.

To be fair, Hitchens says he would not support the return of the death penalty in the present legal climate, without some significant reforms. There is a perception that no amount of judicial safeguards and no evidential threshold will be enough to prevent all miscarriages of justice and one is too many. In the event that a bill is proposed to reintroduced the death penalty, I suspect it will not have such safeguards because it will be in response to an egregious murder and laden with demands to execute more murderers rather than make sure we don’t execute anyone wrongly. He suggests abolishing majority verdicts (i.e. requiring unanimous ones), a measure justified by the need to circumvent “juror nobbling” in trials of professional criminals or gangsters (perhaps unanimity should be required outside of those particular situations). When someone is convicted, the law does not distinguish between a majority verdict and a unanimous one, or a case won on the basis of a welter of scientific and other types of evidence and a case won on the back of a lot of weak circumstantial evidence. People later suspected or proven to be innocent were portrayed and perceived as the most evil and depraved person in the country at the time of their conviction; Hitchens mentions Lucy Letby, but the cases of Sally Clark and Donna Anthony (bereaved mothers accused of murders which did not in fact happen at all), or Gerry Conlon, told by his trial judge that he should have been charged with treason so he could be sentenced to death, then by the appeal judge that it was better that a few innocent people suffer than the whole system be impugned, are just as instructive. In the kinder, gentler world of 1951, all these people would have been hanged in six weeks, rather than the years it took to prove their innocence.

Possibly Related Posts:

• Teens, sex and “statutory rape”
• What part of ’32 weeks’ don’t people understand?
• Not just a child
• The danger of a return to the death penalty
• Inquest travesty

Irish rap trio Kneecap’s hounding is part of an intensifying crackdown on pro-Palestine solidarity in the UK.

Quaker college’s president fails to speak against Israeli war crimes amidst her condemnations of anti-Semitism.

The man who stabbed and partially blinded novelist Salman Rushdie in 2022 has been sentenced to 25 years in prison on Friday for an attack that also wounded a second man, a district attorney has said. Hadi Matar was sentenced in a western New York courtroom, where a jury found him guilty earlier this year of attempted murder and assault. The 27-year-old stabbed Rushdie multiple times, blinding him in one eye, as the author was about to speak at the Chautauqua Institution

• Man who stabbed Salman Rushdie sentenced to 25 years in prison

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Two Khan Younis hospitals bombed, killing dozens, including prominent journalist Hassan Aslayeh in his clinic bed.

The sound of his laughter still echoes in my heart, even now. Hanafi, my husband of 14 years, had a way of filling a room with warmth and light. His humour was subtle but sharp, a quiet wit that always found its mark. He would smile in that knowing way of his, delivering lines that would catch us off guard and leave us laughing long after. He was our joy, our anchor, the man who made our house a home.

It happened swiftly. Too swiftly for me to fully comprehend. One moment, we were celebrating the arrival of our second daughter, a miracle we had waited 11 long years for. The next moment, I was standing in a living room filled with a silence so heavy it was almost deafening. I had a newborn cradled in my arms, her soft coos oblivious to the storm that had descended on us, and an 11-year-old daughter whose laughter had been replaced by tears.

My eldest, Hanafi’s shadow, had always been close to her father. She adored him in the way only a daughter could. She had hung onto his every word and shared his love for subtle jokes. When I told her what had happened, her wail pierced the stillness of the house. She clung to me, her tears soaking my shoulder, her voice trembling as she asked, “Why, Mommy? Why did Allah take him away?”

How could I answer her when I was struggling with the same question? How could I console her shattered heart when mine was breaking into a thousand pieces? I held her tightly and whispered the only words that brought me comfort: “Allah will not abandon us, sweetheart.”

The Day Everything Changed

The day my husband returned to Allah began like any other. I spent the morning preparing for and conducting a mid-semester test for my students, completely unaware of the test that awaited me later that night. Hanafi and I had chatted briefly about our plans to travel back to our hometown for the long weekend. We were excited, as always, to spend time with family. The day unfolded as it always did, an orderly routine, with no sign of the storm about to come.

That night, the phone rang just before midnight, shattering the silence of the house. I picked up the phone and, on the other end, I could hear wailing and screaming in the background. The person on the other line was clearly struggling to speak, and it took several moments before they finally delivered the words that would change everything: “Hanafi collapsed on the badminton court. It was a heart attack… he didn’t make it.”

The news hit me with a force I couldn’t comprehend. My knees buckled, and I gasped for air as my mind struggled to process what I had just heard. It felt as though the ground beneath me had disappeared, but somehow, my heart kept beating, even as my world shattered around me.

Breaking the news to my eldest daughter was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I walked into her room, my hands trembling, and gently shook her awake. She blinked at me, her face still heavy with sleep, and asked, “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

I struggled to find the words, but there was no way to soften the blow. When I finally told her, she froze and stared at me in disbelief. Then the tears came, deep, wrenching sobs that filled the room. She clung to me, crying. Her anguish mirrored my own, and all I could do was hold her tightly and cry with her.

As I stood between my two daughters, one shattered by grief and the other blissfully unaware of the loss that had forever changed her world, I realized this was indeed a great test: a test of faith and trust in Allah’s Plan, even when everything felt unbearably heavy.

The Legacy of Hajar

Hajar [alayhis] held onto tawakkul in her darkest hour. [PC: Emma Van Sant (unsplash)]

“Allah will not abandon us” – these words aren’t mine. They come from the story of Sayyidatina Hajar , a woman whose faith continues to inspire countless believers. Imagine her, standing in the barren desert of Mecca with no food and water for sustenance, and no shade to protect them from the relentless sun. Her husband, Prophet Ibrahim had left her there with their infant son, Ismail , under Allah’s Command. She did not waver. Instead, she asked one simple question: “Has Allah ordered you to do so?” When he replied yes, her faith shone through her words: “Then He will not abandon us.”

I hold on to Hajar’s story of trust and resilience. If she could summon strength in such dire circumstances, then, إن شاء الله “If Allah wills”, I could find it too. Her story is not just a historical tidbit. It is a timeless reminder that Allah never abandons His servants.

The Final Goodbye

At the forensic unit, many of our family members had already gathered to bid him farewell. Friends and relatives remarked on my calm demeanor, surprised that I wasn’t hysterical or wailing, as they might have expected when faced with such devastating news. Outwardly, I appeared composed, but inside, my heart was breaking into a thousand pieces. Every step I took toward him felt heavier than the last.

When I saw him, lying there so peacefully, he looked as if he were merely asleep. I had the honour of washing his body, a task both painful and sacred. It was a final act of love, the last time I would hold him. My hands trembled as I completed the ritual, my tears falling silently. At that moment, I made dua’, asking Allah to have mercy on him and to reunite us in Jannah one day.

It was then that I truly understood the meaning of inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un—to Allah we belong and to Him we shall return. As much as my heart ached, I knew this was part of Allah’s Plan, and I clung to the hope of meeting him again in the hereafter.

The Light of His Humour

Even in the darkest times, memories of my husband’s wit always bring us so much joy.

Once, the vet sent a message to Hanafi’s phone, which was registered with the clinic, so they contacted him whenever we sent a cat for treatment. My sister had recently sent her cat, Ani, to the vet, and the message simply stated it was time to pick Ani up.

Hanafi, ever the joker, announced that we needed to pick up Ani from the clinic, knowing full well that we also had an aunt named Ani who lived hours away. The confusion was immediate. Why would our aunt be at the clinic? And how had she ended up there? Hanafi let us stew in our bewilderment, quietly enjoying the chaos, until it finally dawned on us— the Ani he was referring to wasn’t our aunt but was the cat instead. The realization left us in fits of laughter at the absurdity of the situation and at Hanafi’s quiet delight in watching us unravel the mystery.

He also loved to tease. He knew my eldest daughter couldn’t stand seeing us display affection with one another. So, with his usual cheekiness, he’d purposely tease her by using pickup lines on me. “I need the tea sweet like you,” he’d say to me, with a mischievous smile, knowing it would earn him a dramatic eye-roll or an exaggerated groan.

Even now, in the midst of my grief, memories like these continue to bring a smile to my face, reminding me of the light he brought to our lives.

Faith as a Refuge

In the quiet moments, after the visitors had left and the house fell silent, I turned to Allah . Tears streamed down my face as I raised my hands in dua’, “Oh Allah, guide me through this. I cannot do this alone.”

It was in those moments of vulnerability that I felt the most strength. I thought of the Quranic verse:

“And with Him are the keys of the unseen; none knows them except Him. And He knows what is on the land and in the sea. Not a leaf falls but that He knows it. And no grain is there within the darknesses of the earth and no moist or dry [thing] but that it is [written] in a clear record.” [Surah Al-An’am; 6:59]

If Allah knew the falling of a single leaf, surely, He knew the state of my shattered heart. Surely, He had a plan.

The Path Forward

“The days are long, and the challenges are many, but they are interwoven with moments of joy.” [PC: Dila Ningrum (unsplash)]

Single parenthood was a path I had never envisioned for myself, yet here I am. The days are long, and the challenges are many, but they are interwoven with moments of joy; my daughters’ laughter, their milestones, and the deep love we hold for each other.

My eldest, despite her grief, has shown a resilience that astounds me. We talk about her father often, sharing his jokes and remembering his wisdom. It’s our way of keeping his beautiful memory alive in our home. My youngest, too young to understand the loss, is now almost three years old. She is growing up healthy, cheerful, and looking more and more like him each day.

Each day begins with a dua’ for strength and ends with gratitude. Gratitude not only for what I still have, but also for what I have finally come to understand. I have learned that tawakkul, reliance on Allah , is what steadies the heart. I have also realised that vulnerability is not a sign of weakness. It is a path toward resilience and unimaginable strength. 

A Traveler’s Perspective

Life is a journey, a temporary stop on our way to the Eternal. The loss of Hanafi has made this reality clearer than ever. I am a traveler, as are we all. And while the pain of separation remains, knowing that he is now under the care of our Merciful Rabb brings me calm, and the hope of reunion in Jannah continues to sustain me.

Hajar’s story ends with the miraculous spring of Zamzam, a manifestation of Allah’s Promise and Mercy. My story is still unfolding, but I know one thing for certain: My Rabb will never abandon us.

If you are reading this and carrying your own burden of loss, know that you are not alone. Your pain is seen, your tears are counted, and your struggle is known by the One who created you. Trust in Him, even when the path is unclear.

As the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said upon the loss of his son, Ibrahim :

“The eyes shed tears, and the heart grieves, but we will not say except that which pleases Allah. Indeed, we are grieved by your departure, O Ibrahim.” [Sahih al-Bukhari 1303]

May Allah grant us the strength to endure, the faith to persevere, and the hope to continue our journey toward Him.

 

اللهم أجرني في مصيبتي، واخلف لي خيراً منها

“O Allah, reward me in my affliction and replace it with something better.”

 

Related:

– My Dearest Fetus: Enduring Unimaginable Loss

– Sharing Grief: A 10-Point Primer On Condolence

 

The post My Rabb Will Never Abandon Us: A Personal Journey Through Love, Loss, And Tawakkul appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

I am among the lucky because I have one meal per day.

Exclusive: Christian, Muslim and Jewish representatives write to prime minister after ‘island of strangers’ speech

• UK politics live – latest updates

More than a dozen bishops and other senior Christian, Muslim and Jewish faith leaders have written to the prime minister after his “island of strangers” speech, urging him to use a more “compassionate narrative” about migrants.

The letter was sent to Keir Starmer after his speech on Monday, which preceded the publication of the government’s immigration white paper that has been widely criticised by migrant rights organisations and civil society groups.

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A missing persons center in Gaza is trying to locate more than 14,000 people.

After 19 months of a genocidal war, several governments finally call for action.

Dr. Nadeem Haddadin-Crowe discusses witch hunts in the National Health Service prompted by politicians and Israel lobby groups.

“We know what happens when our youth enter these universities…” The speaker pauses, his tone shifting to one of grave concern. “There are… influences.” His meaningful glance sweeps across the room of parents. “Even in Muslim Student organizations, we must be vigilant about certain… activities.” 

He leaves the specifics unspoken, allowing parental imaginations to fill the gaps with their worst fears. In the back of the room, young Muslims exchange knowing glances. Once again, their campus efforts (the dawn fajr prayers coordinated during exam weeks, the comprehensive mentorship systems developed for incoming Muslim freshmen, the tireless negotiations that secured permanent prayer spaces and halal dining options) are reduced to vague insinuations of moral compromise. The concerned nods from parents -who have never even visited these spaces- speak volumes about the power of suggestion.

The Subtle Betrayal

There exists a betrayal more subtle than outright rejection of faith. It operates within our own communities, powered by those who claim to protect Islam while undermining its future. It is the systematic dismantling of Muslim youth organizations under the banner of “moral vigilance.” While external forces challenge our faith, we fracture from within, transforming principles into weapons against progress. Have we forgotten the divine warning?

“O you who have believed, avoid much [negative] assumption. Indeed, some assumption is sin. And do not spy or backbite each other. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his brother when dead? You would detest it. And fear Allah ; indeed, Allah is Accepting of repentance and Merciful.” [Surah Al-Hujurat; 49:12]

This betrayal is particularly devastating because it comes from those positioned as guardians of our tradition.

When young Muslims are already navigating hostile environments where their identity is questioned, their faith is misrepresented, and their very presence is sometimes unwelcome, they deserve safe harbors within their own community. Instead, they often face a second front of criticism from those who should be their strongest advocates.

Many critics speak as though our educational institutions and youth organizations represent existential threats to Islamic identity, despite evidence to the contrary. The reality? The overwhelming majority of Muslim students maintain their prayers, fast during Ramadan, avoid prohibited substances, and strive to live honorably despite immense pressures.

Terms like “haram” and “bidah” are deployed with devastating casualness, transforming spiritual concepts meant for careful scholarly application into blunt instruments for social control. This linguistic violence does not strengthen faith; it fractures it, creating unnecessary divisions where unity is desperately needed.

Celebrating Our Youth’s Achievements

What critics consistently overlook, whether through oversight or intention, is the extraordinary achievement these young Muslims represent. Beyond the noise of criticism stands remarkable evidence: vibrant MSA communities, transforming inhospitable campuses into sanctuaries of Islamic identity, Young Muslims nurturing high schoolers at their most formative age. These are not mere social gatherings but sophisticated institutions where Quran study deepens, dawah reaches seeking hearts, halal dining expands, and belonging flourishes in environments that often question their very presence.

“These organizations provide essential lifelines that transform campus life for Muslim students.” [PC: Kiko Camaclang (unsplash)]

These organizations provide essential lifelines that transform campus life for Muslim students. Many establish vibrant spiritual rhythms by organizing regular congregational prayers, with some even coordinating fajr prayers at dawn, creating sacred spaces where students can gather amid hectic academic schedules. In some MSAs, you’ll find daily Quran halaqahs for recitation, while others host weekly dhikr sessions that nourish spiritual hearts, or organize Quran memorization groups where students support each other in preserving divine words. These aren’t merely social groups but often serve as spiritual sanctuaries where faith practices that might otherwise be abandoned in college find enthusiastic revival.

During Ramadan, these organizations frequently become essential support networks, with some planning community iftars strategically scheduled around midterms to ensure no student breaks fast alone during stressful academic periods. What mainstream narratives miss is how certain student groups, despite crushing academic pressures, coordinate full eight-rakat taraweeh prayers, organize transportation for late-night qiyam prayers at local masjids, and maintain spiritual discipline while embodying the prophetic emphasis on community building, the very foundation upon which Islamic tradition thrives.

Beyond spiritual practices, many establish dedicated prayer rooms through persistent advocacy with university administrations, often after years of negotiations. Some organize interfaith dialogues that challenge Islamophobia, execute sophisticated charity and volunteering initiatives that benefit wider communities, and create comprehensive support systems for incoming Muslim freshmen navigating campus life. Some have established weekly “chai and chats” that build brotherhood and sisterhood, sustaining students through the isolation that often accompanies minority faith status.

Across campuses, these groups negotiate for halal food options in dining halls, establish collective funding systems for brothers and sisters experiencing financial strain, and create resources that benefit Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The leadership pipelines, governance structures, and resource management in some of these organizations exceed the effectiveness of established Islamic centers operating with decades of donations and professional staff. These aren’t amateur efforts, but sophisticated institutions built by students who apply Islamic principles to create models of community that many masajid could learn from.

These Muslim organizations nurture spaces where Islamic identity is worn without apology. Hallways resound with confident “As-salamu alaykum” greetings, spoken not in hushed tones but with dignified assurance. Young men fulfill responsibilities requiring physical presence, Sisters lead with intellectual rigor and administrative precision while maintaining unwavering commitment to their values.

Beyond protecting identity, MSAs transform souls. Cultural Muslims, raised with little more than Eid celebrations and occasional prayers, discover in these spaces what their homes never provided: Islam as a living reality rather than inherited custom. Their peers demonstrate faith not as a burden, but liberation. For truth-seekers adrift in a sea of relativism, these organizations become islands of clarity where authentic Muslim youth, intellectually engaged yet spiritually grounded, embody an Islam that speaks directly to modern hearts.

This living dawah converts more souls than a lifetime of formal lectures ever could; More astonishing still is Allah’s transformation of these newcomers into Islam’s most passionate advocates. Those who embrace shahada in these environments frequently become, within just months, the very speakers whose fresh perspectives move lifelong Muslims to tears, and some become activists whose principled civic engagement commands respect across campus. Having known both spiritual emptiness and fulfillment, these new Muslims bring unmatched conviction to their work. While critics obsess over minor infractions, Allah guides souls to eternal salvation through these imperfect but sincere communities. The critics’ fleeting words will vanish; the reward of those who guided others to goodness will remain forever, as our Prophet ﷺ promised: “Whoever guides someone to goodness will have a reward similar to the one who does it.”

What critics consistently misunderstand, is the remarkable balance achieved in these spaces, where tradition finds harmony with contemporary realities without compromise. These students aren’t diluting their faith but revitalizing it through practical application, proving that Islamic principles thrive when embodied with sincerity rather than performative rigidity.

Civic Courage

Perhaps most remarkable has been their civic engagement during watershed American moments. While others posted on social media or complained in private, these young Muslims mobilized thousands, educated communities, and shaped national conversations. From standing against the genocide of Palestinians to other humanitarian crises, they’ve demonstrated that Islamic values demand collective action.

MSA-led civic engagement [PC: HasanMajed (unsplash)]

These young Muslims understand that the Islamic tradition has always been one of engagement, not isolation. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ did not retreat from society but transformed it through active participation. Despite facing potential academic penalties and career repercussions, these students risked their futures by organizing campus sit-ins, educating peers about humanitarian crises, and boldly challenging institutional silence. They embody the Quranic principle:

“And cooperate in righteousness and piety, but do not cooperate in sin and aggression.” [Surah Al-Ma’idah; 5:2]

The Hypocrisy of Selective Standards

The hypocrisy is striking. The same speakers who condemn young Muslims for gathering in cafes after taraweeh move comfortably through mixed gatherings at conferences and fundraising events. They enforce rigid standards specifically where young people gather, while granting themselves contextual flexibility. Our Prophet ﷺ warned: “It is enough evil for a person to belittle his Muslim brother.” The Quran cautions:

“O you who have believed, why do you say what you do not do?

Great is hatred in the sight of Allah that you say what you do not do.” [Surah As-Saff; 61:2-3]

This rush to judgment stands in stark contrast to our scholarly tradition. The great Imam Malik ibn Anas demonstrated true wisdom through intellectual humility. When asked why he would answer some questions with ‘I don’t know’ despite his vast knowledge, he replied: “Nothing destroys knowledge more than when a scholar is too ashamed to say ‘I don’t know.'” Yet today, self-appointed guardians appear to know everything about everyone’s failures, proclaiming judgments where even the greatest scholars would hesitate.

Constructive Criticism vs. Destructive Condemnation

These organizations deserve scrutiny -all Islamic institutions do-, but criticism must come with dignity and wisdom. When concerns arise, let them be delivered with the adab of our tradition: privately where possible, with specific remedies rather than vague condemnation, and wrapped in recognition of the broader good being accomplished. The Prophet ﷺ corrected without humiliating, guided without destroying, and nurtured growth rather than cultivating shame.

True guardianship means standing beside these young Muslims as they navigate complex realities, offering wisdom when asked and support throughout. This approach honors both the critic and the criticized. As Imam al-Shafi’i wisely noted: “I have never debated anyone without praying that Allah would cause the truth to flow from his heart to mine, and from my heart to his.” This spirit of mutual respect preserves the dignity of our youth while allowing their organizations space for growth.

A Message to Parents

Parents, consider carefully. The vast majority of Muslim youth maintain their faith through college years and beyond. They pray. They fast. They avoid prohibited substances. They strive for halal relationships.

Your greater concern should be their mental well-being in environments often hostile to their identity. Fear the consequences of isolation far more than the phantom threat of moral corruption. By fueling suspicion against these organizations, you may sever them from the very support system they desperately need. Remember Allah’s Command:

“And hold firmly to the rope of Allah all together and do not become divided.” [Surah Ali ‘Imran; 3:103]

A Call for Prophetic Wisdom

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, upon seeing a man being pursued for a sin, silenced those chasing him, saying: “You have not helped him with regards to Allah, nor have you helped him against his own self.” Where is this prophetic wisdom today?

What these youth represent is not merely the future of our community; they are its present. They are not Muslim leaders in training; they are Muslim leaders now, addressing challenges their elders often cannot see or understand.

Conclusion

Let those who rush to condemn our young people remember the words of Imam Ali: “Do not look at who speaks, but look at what is said.” The achievements of Muslim student organizations speak volumes, creating leaders, maintaining Islamic identity in challenging environments, and building sustainable structures for faith to flourish.

To those building these communities despite criticism: Your work stands as testimony. Every student who finds their way to Allah through your efforts is the true measure of success. “Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” [Surah Ar-Ra’d; 13:11]

The sustainable future of Islam in Western contexts depends not on perfect adherence to every detail, but on building robust communities where faith can grow. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Make things easy and do not make them difficult, give glad tidings and do not repel people.”

Perhaps it is time we followed his example in how we treat those building the future of our faith.

 

Related:

– From The Chaplain’s Desk: Valuing And Nurturing Faith On Campus

– Quranic Verses For Steadfastness For The Valiant Protesters On Campus

 

 

The post Guardians Of Faith, Not Gatekeepers: Honoring The Work Of Muslim Student Organizations appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Friendships in Gaza are tested by genocide and distance.

Our radiant friend would not want us to feel pain when mentioning her name.

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

Previous Chapters: Part 1 | Part 2

 

“If you want to find out what a man is… give him power. Any man can stand adversity — only a great man can stand prosperity.” – Robert G. Ingersoll

“Anything I do to elevate myself in the eyes of others is hollow.” – Wael Abdelgawad

Tentacles Slithering Up

As he walked out of the hospital, the Jumu’ah prayer alarm sounded on his phone. Man, he’d forgotten it was Friday. The crypto world operated every moment of every day and night, so one day was no different from another. He’d often missed Jumu’ah when trading crypto, but he wanted to attend today. He felt like he’d been a prisoner in a tiny cell for five years, and had just been liberated. Plus, he owed it to Allah, to thank Him for this long-awaited success.

It was too late to go to Masjid Madeenah, where he usually attended. Instead, he caught an Uber to Masjid Umar, the mostly Arab masjid in north Clovis. He wasn’t fond of Masjid Umar. The community was insular and wealthy, and although Deek himself was Arab, he never felt like he fit there.

In the Uber, he checked his crypto wallet. Solana was up 15%, and New York Killa was up 29%. His net worth was now $80 million. If he’d kept the bulk of the New York Killa, rather than selling, he would have much more. But what did it matter? He would never be able to spend $80 million anyway.

On impulse, he cashed out some of the Solana and initiated another transfer to the joint bank account, sending $80,000 this time. His only regret was that these funds had not yet arrived in the account. He would have liked to go shopping before prayer, so he could show up wearing something snazzy. An Armani suit maybe, and Italian leather shoes. And perhaps some jewelry and a new haircut. As it was, he was wearing his same old jeans and Hawaiian shirt that he wore every day.

Deek was aware that all these thoughts – divorcing Rania, keeping the money secret, showing off for the people – were like tentacles slithering up out of a dark sea that swelled inside him. He was not a fool. He knew how Shaytan could whisper in a man’s ear. When he was a boy in Iraq, he’d learned the Quran at his father’s feet, as well as studying Hanafi fiqh with the local shaykh. He had a good understanding of Islam and had not forgotten it.

The Crusher

His family came to the USA when he was nine years old. He did well in school, but after high school, he rebelled and went to art college, and became a fine art painter, much to his father’s chagrin. He was talented, and put on a few gallery shows. But when he married Rania he gave that up and took a more respectable job teaching elementary school. Until, sick of laboring in the lower middle-class echelon, tired of being poor, he quit that in turn to risk everything on the crypto revolution.

His parents were both gone now, which was a blessing in a way, as they had not been around to see what a failure he had become.

He still remembered much of the Quran he’d learned as a youth. Obviously he still knew Juz ‘Amma, and could recite Surat Al-Humuzah:

Woe to every backbiter, slanderer,
who amasses wealth and counts it ˹repeatedly˺,
thinking that their wealth will make them immortal!

Not at all! Such a person will certainly be tossed into the Crusher.
And what will make you realize what the Crusher is?
˹It is˺ Allah’s kindled Fire,
which rages over the hearts.

It will be sealed over them,
˹tightly secured˺ with long braces.

The surah painted a stark portrait of an evil man hunched over his money, counting it obsessively. Someone who, perhaps, had accumulated wealth through the cheap labor and suffering of others, or a leader who stole the resources of his own people. Such people crushed the spirits of others in order to enrich themselves, and so Allah would crush them in turn.

That was justice. Deek did not consider himself such a person. He’d earned his money lawfully and through his own study, dedication, and sleepless nights. He hadn’t robbed anyone.

Yet still he was frightened. He had to find a way to avoid being eaten alive by this wealth.

The Blockade of Bani Hashim

Masjid Umar was encircled by tall palm trees, and as the Uber pulled up Deek saw that three of them had been torched. They still stood, but they’d been badly burnt. The whole area stank of charcoal and ash. He wondered what had happened, but there was no time to speculate, as he was late. He hurried into the masjid.

The prayer area was small and crowded. There was no room to sit, so Deek stood at the back. The Imam told the story of the mushrikeen’s boycott and blockade of Bani Hashim during the Makkan period, and the extreme hardship and even starvation it had caused. The Imam spoke about how this boycott ended. Namely, five of the disbelievers, who in spite of their rejection of Islam were fair men, agreed to speak against this injustice.

At the same time, the Prophet had a dream in which he saw that the agreement the mushrikeen had signed to impose the boycott had been destroyed. The document had been stored in the Ka’bah, and the Prophet saw that all of the paper had been eaten by ants, except for the words Bismillah.

It was a fascinating story, and was yet another example of how Allah never abandoned the believers. Though the Prophet and his family and followers had gone through a period of extreme hardship, Allah the Most High engineered events that brought them out of hardship, though not immediately, as the most terrible blows of all still awaited the Prophet . His wife, Khadijah, and his protector, Abu Talib, both died. With Makkah having become unsafe for him, he walked to Ta’if to preach to the leaders there, but they rejected him and ordered him stoned.

It was only after all of this that the people of Madinah began to embrace Islam, and the hijrah began – finally ending the oppression of the Makkan period.

To Be Sincere

Deek felt that it was destiny that he had come to this particular masjid today, as he needed to hear this message. Problems end, he thought, but not immediately. Sometimes you go from the frying pan to the fire, and only then, if you are patient, do you escape to the garden and the cool river running through it.

I must do better, he thought. I must not let the wolf eat me alive. I mustn’t lose myself. I have to do good with this money. I have to be sincere.

These thoughts were like an intellectual exercise, however, or like trying to solve a problem of color or texture with a painting. Wasn’t it all subjective? He had no idea what it meant to be sincere with money, since he’d never had money. All he could think of was that he should donate. Donate to the poor, orphans, the masjid, and so on.

The opportunity presented itself sooner than expected. The salat ended, and people began to file out of the masjid. Deek found a chair to sit in to put his shoes on. He’d gained a lot of weight during the crypto years, and it was difficult to bend over enough to put on socks and shoes. When he was finally ready to go, most of the crowd had dissipated.

A Detested Countryman

Outside, a group of five middle-aged brothers stood beside the burnt trees, gesturing and talking animatedly. Two of them he recognized immediately. One was Dr. Zuhair, a classically handsome Egyptian engineer with a thick mustache, who looked like he could play Gamal AbdelNasser in a movie. Zuhair sat on the boards of many local Islamic organizations and was said to be very wealthy.

The other man he recognized was Dr. Ajeeb, the former principal of the Islamic school Deek’s children had attended for many years. The tall, thin Iraqi wore a loose black suit with a white shirt and red tie, which made him look like a flagpole from which the Iraqi flag hung limply. His face was thin and brown, while his teeth were cigarette-stained.

Deek remembered now. Ajeeb had been fired from the principal job a few years ago and was now the program director for this masjid. He was not a medical doctor, but rather had a PhD in Islamic Sciences from the Islamic University of Najaf in Iraq.

In spite of being countrymen, Deek and Ajeeb had never gotten along. Back when his kids had attended the school, Deek had complained many times that the Islam, Quran, and Arabic programs were hidebound by Middle Eastern tradition. Everything was rote memorization, and the teachers were recent immigrants who could barely speak English. Some still thought they could discipline students by shouting or hitting their hands with rulers. It was disgusting.

Furthermore, the only organized sport at the school was soccer, rather than the baseball, basketball, or American football that were more popular in this country. It was as if they had used a thousand cranes to lift a school out of the Middle East and drop it into the USA. Deek would have pulled his children out, except the thought of sending them to public school terrified him. He himself had attended an American public school, and he knew what a moral cesspool it was.

Deek had actually gone to the board and complained about Ajeeb, but they hadn’t been interested. Deek was poor and could barely pay the monthly school fees. He certainly was not a financial supporter or donor. His opinion carried little weight.

He’d been happy when Ajeeb was fired, but disappointed that one of the local masjids hired him.

An Offer To Help

Deek walked up to Ajeeb and put a hand on his shoulder. “Doctor,” he said. “What happened here?”

Ajeeb turned and smiled thinly. “Brother Deek. Someone tried to burn the masjid.”

“Who?”

“We don’t know.”

“Doesn’t look like they tried very hard. These trees aren’t even close to the building. Someone wanted to make a statement, maybe. Or kids.”

Ajeeb made a tut-tut sound with his tongue. “This is very serious, brother. It’s not for joking.”

“Why,” demanded a portly Egyptian with curly hair and thick glasses, “aren’t there security cameras?”

“We have been meaning to do it,” Ajeeb replied. “We didn’t have the funds.”

“I could help with that,” Deek offered. “I’ll cover the whole thing, cameras and installation.” It felt incredibly strange to say these words. A voice inside him, representing a persona still stuck in the past – and in his case, the past meant yesterday – protested, What are you doing? You can’t afford that! Rania will kill you. Having money was a strange sensation, like being alone in a room for forty years, then suddenly finding a beautiful woman sitting on the bed with you. It would take him a while to believe it was true.

Ajeeb turned only partway to face him and held up a hand. “This will take more than your $100 donation, ya Deek. But thank you.”

The portly brother snickered. A few other men in the group smiled. Only Dr. Zubair did not share their amusement. He frowned disapprovingly at Ajeeb, but said nothing.

An Incident From The Past

Deek felt himself go cold with rage. Ajeeb’s mocking comment was a reference to an annual school fundraiser several years ago. It was a banquet, with almost 500 local Muslims in attendance. Ajeeb had the microphone and was asking for $5,000 donations, having worked his way down from $25,000. Teenage boys and girls walked the floor with pledge cards, ready to take pledges. Deek, who was there with Rania and the girls, waved a girl over to his table. Most donors filled out the pledge cards with promises of large donations. Deek couldn’t do that, but he always tried to give something, so he handed the girl a hundred dollars in cash.

Apparently the girl was confused, not knowing what to do with the cash. Dr. Ajeeb said, “I’m looking for one more $5,000 donation. Ask yourselves what you can spend for the future of your children and this community.” At that exact moment, the girl, still standing beside Deek, raised her hand and called out, “One hundred dollars?” A few people laughed, while Ajeeb waved an irritated hand toward a table beside the dais, where three college students were collecting the pledge cards.

It was humiliating. Later, as he drove the family home, Rania rubbed his shoulder and assured him that the girl had not intended to embarrass him. But as she said it, she smiled. Deek never forgot that smile. He could forgive people their trespasses against him, though not easily. But he was not the type to forget.

A Dark Fantasy

Deek stood beside the burnt trees, beside these men, but not among them. The men stood in a circle and did not move to admit him. The nonverbal message was clear: You are not our equal. Let the important people talk. A vision came to Deek’s mind. Ajeeb would be walking at night, perhaps out for an evening stroll after dinner. Deek would steal up behind him and sedate him with a chloroform-soaked cloth. He would drag Ajeeb into a van, drive him down to the San Joaquin River, and drown him. The river would carry his body away, and it would never be traced back to Deek.

It was only a dark fantasy. He’d had such thoughts many times, about various people, but would never do it. But what could he do in the real world to spoil things for Ajeeb and make his life harder? He was a man of resources now. Money talked, and BS walked.

The Dashing Dr. Zuhair

He approached Dr. Zuhair and took his arm. The man’s muscles were firm beneath Deek’s hand. MashaAllah, Zuhair was probably sixty-five years old, yet Deek could picture him in a camo vest and carrying an AK-47, pursuing bandits in the Sinai. Deek led the handsome man away from the group and toward the back wall of the parking lot, which butted up against a residential neighborhood on the other side. Orange and lemon trees stretched their branches over the wall.

Deek said, “Doctor, are you on the board of this masjid?”

“Yes,” Zuhair replied cheerily. “I’m the board president. Why?”

“I’m serious about paying for the cameras. Actually, I want to make a large donation to the masjid.”

“Pardon my frankness,” Zuhair said, “but how can you afford that? Don’t take me wrong, I respect everyone regardless of financial status, but you are not known to be wealthy.”

Deek pursed his lips, considering. If he wanted to be taken seriously, he would have to give something up.

“Are you familiar with cryptocurrency?”

“I own a little Bitcoin. I am far from an expert.”

“Well, I am an expert. And I have done very well with it, alhamdulillah.”

“Okay… How much would you like to donate?”

Deek licked his lips nervously. “One million dollars.” Even to his own ears it sounded like a jest, so he was not surprised when Zuhair laughed, punched Deek’s shoulder, and said, “Okay, you got me brother. That was a good joke.” Zuhair reached up to one of the overhanging branches, snagged an orange, and began to peel it.

Providing Proof

“How is your family these days?” Zuhair asked as he popped an orange wedge into his mouth. “You have two daughters, yes? They attended school with my daughter when they were young.”

“They’re good, alhamdulillah.”

A pigeon landed in the parking lot and strutted by, cooing.

“I’ll show you something,” Deek said. “Give me a minute. But I need your word that this stays between me and you.”

“Okay, no problem,” Zuhair said, eating more of the orange. “I give you my word. This orange is amazing, mashaAllah. You should have one.”

“Aren’t those the neighbor’s trees?”

“Yes, but the branches are on our side. They can’t pick them over here.”

Deek took out his phone and held it at an angle where Zuhair could not see the screen. Opening the Phantom app, he saw that Solana was holding steady, but Killa was up a bit more. His balance was 81 million and change. He quickly created a new wallet and transferred $3 million in Solana to it. There was no point in letting Zuhair see the full extent of his wealth. That was not for anyone to know – not the government, nor even his wife.

The whole process took only a minute. Then he turned the phone to show Zuhair the screen.

Zuhair gave a long, low whistle. “You made three million dollars in crypto. That is very impressive, brother. You should teach me how to do that!” A sly look crept across his face. “Tell the truth. Is this a prank? Am I on a hidden camera show?”

“It’s real. And I want to donate one million dollars.”

Two Conditions

“Allahu Akbar!” Zuhair tried to clap his hands but ended up clapping the orange. “This is wonderful. You are giving one-third of your wealth. That is so generous.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“Allah barik feek, may Allah bless you. There are many things we can do with this money. We have been wanting to build a proper basketball court for the youth, and an outside wudu’ area for when the main building is locked, and -”

“I have conditions, though.”

Zuhair lifted an eyebrow. “Most people do not impose conditions. They donate fee sabeel-illah.”

“Most people don’t donate a million dollars.”

“True.”

“I want a seat on the board, and I want Ajeeb fired.”

Zuhair shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. “The position on the board is not impossible for a donation of this magnitude, but as far as Doctor Ajeeb, this request is beneath you. It is inappropriate. Even if I already wanted to fire him, I would not do it for money.”

“I’m giving you a million dollars.”

“You could give a hundred million, I would still say no. It’s a matter of integrity. We simply don’t do things that way. Please. Just donate the money with a pure heart, with no conditions. It will bring you great rewards from Allah.”

Deek glared. He was pretty sure that if he gave a hundred million, Ajeeb would be out on his skinny behind in a hot minute. Everyone had a price. It sounded like Zuhair already wanted to fire the man anyway. So what was this talk of integrity? As if Deek was trying to corrupt him somehow.

The Traits of the Noble

“What if I make it a million and a half?”

“Wonderful, ma-sha-Allah.” He pocketed the orange peels and reached up to pick another. “SubhanAllah. These oranges are so juicy.”

“But,” Deek said pointedly, “with the same conditions.”

“Then no.”

Deek’s voice rose. “What if I buy the whole masjid then? I could do whatever I want after that.”

Zuhair laughed softly. “You’d need a lot more than three million for that.”

“I have a lot more than three million.” As soon as he said this, he chastised himself for letting his ego get the better of him.

“Ah.” Zuhair wagged a finger at Deek. “It’s clever to be discreet with your assets. But still no. The masjid belongs to a non-profit organization. You cannot buy a non-profit org, there’s no provision for it under the law. It’s an interesting intellectual problem, though. You could try to buy the organization’s assets if they were willing to sell. As I said, you could perhaps negotiate for a seat on the board if you donated enough. Or you could always start your own masjid.”

“That’s not the point. Ajeeb is not a good person. He’s not good for the community.”

Zuhair sighed as if Deek were a recalcitrant pupil, then ate another orange wedge. “There is a poem,” he said between bites, “by Mufti ʿAbd al-Latif bin ʿAli Fathallah. He was a Lebanese poet from the eighteenth century. He wrote:

العَفوُ مِن شِيَمِ الكِرامْ

وَالصّفْحُ مِن شَأْنِ العِظامْ

وَأَخُو الشَّهامَةِ مَن عَفا

عَن قُدْرَةٍ عَلَى الانْتِقامْ

“That means -”

“I understand it,” Deek broke in. He recited:

“Forgiveness is among the traits of the noble,
And pardon is the mark of the great.
The truly gallant is he who forgives
Even when he has the power to retaliate.”

Zuhair nodded, impressed. “Very good.” He reached up and plucked another orange from the tree, and held it out to Deek.

Forgiveness did not come easily to Deek. His homeland was a nation of ancient feuds and brutal dictators. Even though he’d come to America quite young, the scorching blood of his people blew through his veins like the desert winds. Or maybe that was a cop-out. Maybe he was fully capable of being a better man. But did he want to? He wasn’t sure. Money was what he had always craved, and he had it now.

Without a word, and without taking the proffered fruit, Deek turned and walked away. He’d tried to do the right thing. He’d tried to give away a million and a half dollars, and they didn’t want it. How was he supposed to use his money for good when the people on the other end wouldn’t cooperate? He was done with that. It was time to think of himself and his own needs. Everyone else could get out of the way, or get run over.

***

[Part 4 will be published next week inshaAllah]

 

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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

Pieces of a Dream | Part 1: The Cabbie and the Muslim Woman

 

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