The Qadi Abol Khaseb ā the spiritual guidance, rather than the military one, of the terror group Ribat Al-Tanzih ā reads from the underwater Quran not the real Quran (that would be blasphemous). This Islam is not the real one, this jihad is as imaginary as Robin Williamsā musical genie doing the can-can. Tell them not to come looking for me as if I maligned their religion, because this religion is a submerged one, an upside-down reflection of a source, and they can skip stones with tombstones all they like.
The Qadi Abol Khaseb had his chessboard broken into splinters by the Ribat Al-Tanzihās roving Vice Suppressors, who roam unfettered around the training camp in Mali š²š± finding Western innovations to destroy, even of the Qadiās personal possessions. Theyāre like robots programmed to find things that contradict this upside-down Islam; they have a higher directive. Itās fortunate that they canāt read because many books on his shelves would not meet with their stringent approval even though heās the Qadi, the theological guide for the terrorist training camp.
So he hides the game board of the Hyena Game which Khuftullah gave to him as a gift. Lib el-Merafib. The Hyena Game was a game originally played in the sand of Sudan šøš© where players draw a spiral in the sand representing the journey between the village and the well. The game pieces (short sticks, probably) stand in for the playersā mothers ā you play your own mother. Primitive dice are tossed to see how many spaces your mother moves, and to build up credits. Once a mother makes it to the well, she must spend a number of credits as she does her wash. The first mother to finish her wash and make it all the way back up the spiral to the village releases a Hyena, which travels twice as fast as a mother. But it canāt eat anything until it has drunk from the well. It spends two turns drinking, or however long the players have agreed to to account for natureās cruelty. Once the hyena has drunk it spirals back to the village, savagely eating any mothers it finds in its path.
Qadi Abol Khaseb puts his mug of gyokuro or ājade dewā tea on the Hyena Game board, disguising it as perhaps some kind of thick, glorified coaster that the Vice Suppressors would miss in their scans of Abol Khasebās cave. Gyokuro is $650 a kilogram from Japan šÆšµ and is one of the rare luxuries that anybody at the Ribat Al-Tanzih allows themselves. The Vice Suppressors turn a blind eye to teas. It is not the right vice, tea is not ideological, at least not yet. The intelligence think tank INDICIA knows all about the Qadiās love for gyokuro tea and in a file cabinet somewhere is a plan to start clandestinely introducing psychoactive drugs into the tea shipments to start disorienting the spiritual leader and steer him in a direction INDICIA likes. If only there were a way to predict the outcome of the drug, to quantify the pacification. INDICIA relishes the thought of quietly getting inside the enemyās head and steering them into peaceful cul de sacs instead of killing them. INDICIA looks at themselves as like zookeepers for the members of the Ribat Al-Tanzih, managers come into work in the morning with their coffee and paper and ask how the monkeys have been over night: Quiet? Rowdy?
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The Ribat al-Tanzih camp is only reached by taking a flight to Timbuktu in Mali š²š± across the white empty expanse of the Saharan desert. It takes a good chunk of the day. In Tunisia š¹š³ Khuftullah boards a private jet operated by people in the know, people who the Ribat have picked out, he was told. He prays aboard the plane with another man who leads the prayer, thereās enough space on the floor of the cabin to prostrate themselves. Landing in Timbuktu he then gets on board a Jeep driven by two gruff men who clearly spend a lot of time in the desert as their faces tell the tale of the elements. Theyāre wearing all black and have turbans and gear on them and one carries an assault rifle that does not look like it was just taken out of the crate yesterday.
He supposes they look at him and think heās soft. He shouldnāt need to tell them he fought the polytheist army in Kashmir šµš°. Heās important. He carries messages from the outside world. Heās the lifeline to the Global Jihadist Struggle which is churning with activity and danger of being uncovered at all times.
Various areas of the camp exist in a profuse layout but Khuftullah is headed for the caves in the hills by the wadi.
Guards let him through, not checking him for devices like the ones at the drag performance did, funny that, those people were more paranoid then the people here at the camp. Leadership at the camp are found here in the underground, where a network of chambers were dug out using machines and blasting explosives.
He can tell Abol Khaseb is in long before he comes to the office because he can smell the odor of tea and books. The old man somehow managed to transport his library with him as he was on the run from the anti-terrorist security services of the world.
He looks older. Dark brown turban covering white hair, beard white like an owl concealing itself in Himalayan snow. Glasses have been broken and repaired, broken by the world but the eyes clear.
āI brought you something,ā Khuftullah says after they exchange formal greetings. Itās a box containing a wooden table top version of Liāb Merafib, the game they play in the sand in Sudan. Hyenas eating mothers on their way back from the well, you eat an opponentās mother in a widening spiral. A good laugh.
āIt doesnāt have a microphone in it, does it?ā Abol Khaseb asks in Bengali. Khuftullahās home tongue. It feels like everything resets. Old friend, old language, old memories. Old man.
Abol Khaseb holds out his hand, impatient for the SD cards.
Khuftullah, never knowing as much as his spiritual leader, put himself in his hands.
The books on Abol Khasebās shelves were embossed in gold foil, flowers, lettering that looked like ribbons of banners blown on a wind of history, wind of death. He knows he wasnāt supposed to think so but he did. You would even think the man was peaceful to listen to him. Heās talked Khuftullah out of rash, hot-headed war plans some ten times with the reasoning that it was not permitted as a form of jihad. He stepped out of a book. He lived in a library in a cave, like a white ghost. He could find any book in there blindfolded, Khuftullah was sure.
Poetry of Kashmir heād recite, in Persian, he told the young man. Heād explain that if you could but see the words, you would see that each poem was made up of words made up from letters from the same category of Persian orthography, so no letters were dotted, all were dotted, none were disconnected, all were disconnected. A little game the poet played. On paper it lives. He said, I will teach you the alphabet. Calligraphic construction of the word by God.
If you only knew the theological hairsplitting that took place throughout history. With this wink wink āunderwater Quran.ā The anthropomorphisms of God dodged by using grammatical tricks: the words without vowels in the old Arabic script which allowed you to read, instead of yanzilu (āHe descendsā) the factitive form yunzilu (āHe causes to descendā), sending angels to descend every night to the lowest of seven heavens when one-third of the night it left, to call for prayers, wishes, and pardons of sins. Instead of descending Himself as the Hadith-text originally seemed to be interpreted in anthropomorphizing ways. Descent implies directionality and locatedness which implicates God in having a body.
The library was magically transported thousands of miles across nations following the Qadi. Like magnets. Khuftullah saw it in one place then not long after it was in another as if shipped into a tunnel book by book, carried by the wind, something Disney would do in an animated film.
Ashāarite, Muātazilite, what was the young courier, what was anybody. It was important to know and yet impossible until you opened your mouth and spoke about Allah. Shifting. Subject for much debate. He didnāt know himself, only what others told him. The young fighters put it into action after listening to the old men talk about ideology. It was frustrating. There were levels to Khuftullah like levels to an underground complex that was not well-lighted, electricity had not reached down there yet.
For INDICIA the tanzim was like a rat maze you introduced different things into. Drugs to change the pattern of the rats running everywhere. You wanted to make the rats find the cheese, find the way out according to when you wanted it, control. Through ideological messages. Strategy messages. Deceive. Disinform. Whatās happening in Iraq is not really happening. Aspects of the battleground were like a puppet show, or making a dog think you threw a stick to watch it run to catch it, the dog gets confused and looks for the stick. The stickās behind you.
Khuftullah didnāt know about INDICIA who were playing him, but he knew this to a degree from watching the news, as it didnāt match up with what messages on SD cards he was carried, the few times he decided to look at them himself in a breach of security. How did he know? And why would no one at the Ribat listen to him if he tried to point out the discrepancy?