Chapter 27
Kandahar Province
Afghanistan
Three Weeks Prior
War came to the mountains.
Dawood tucked his face into his scarf as the wind of the valley whipped around the trees, sluiced down a rocky gorge. Towering peaks shielded their valley. Their new camp.
Rickety trucks clambered over the flinty shale roads, carrying the brothers and their supplies. They slid, skidding out, and came to a stop beside an eternally dry wadi, desiccated for over a millennium. The sun, just starting its descent for the evening, glinted through the scraggly trees at the top of the range. Sharp rays cut through the fading daylight, sucking color from the valley.
Kandahar, Afghanistan, was a wild, untamed, vastness. He thought he’d been at the end of the world before, in Bajaur, on the mountain with no name. But, this, in the depths of Afghanistan, was the bitter end. A land of endings, of ghosts, of dead things.
The wind seemed to carry voices, snippets of whispers and soft cries, echoes of screams and laughter, the lives of so many cut short, the voices as broken as the bodies who once spoke. Their valley, for the moment, seemed to shiver, echo like Dawood had picked up the world and held it to his ear, as if he could hear all of the world’s woe like holding a seashell and hearing the ocean. Torment scratched at his bones.
“It is time to pray!” Dawood called. He waved to the drivers, to the brothers in the backs of the trucks. “Time for salah!”
The brothers hurried to form lines behind him, jostling shoulders. He waited while they unfurled their prayer mats and quieted.
In the mountains and as they crept across borders, they did their wudhu, their ablutions, with dust.
“In the name of Allah, the most compassionate, the most merciful.” Dawood kneeled, cupping the cold earth and rubbing it over his hands. He let the grains blow away, then rubbed his palms over his face.
He breathed in, the scents of life, of Afghanistan. Allah was in these hills. He was with these men. He’d been with them the day war arrived in their mountain home, in Bajaur, three years before. When the bullets and the bombs fell, and the soldiers arrived, and the sky had burned the mountain to the ground, turning everything to dust.
Pakistan Northwestern Frontier
Bajaur Province
Federally Administered Tribal Areas
Three Years Before
Pakistan, pressured by the United States, pushed into the tribal territories, sweeping for extremists, for terrorists. Their sweeps were broad, their attacks indiscriminate. The bees, the drones flown by the CIA and the US military, appeared overhead, as did their constant, ceaseless hum.
When the bombs fell, and the fires burned through the farms, everyone tried to hide. Tried to hunker down and ride out the surging violence, the waves of attacks from the military trying to cleanse the mountains of all living souls. No matter who they were.
Bombing the mountain out of existence seemed to be the strategic plan. All night, fire rained, stars seeming to fall, bombs that erased families from the face of the world. Farms. Homes. Lives. Dawood huddled with ’Bu Adnan in the trees, lying on his belly.
He heard every agonizing scream. Every cry from the children he’d cared for, had helped bring from infancy to adolescence.
He heard their cries go silent, cut short, after the blasts, after the shock waves tore through their homes.
One bomb took out Behroze’s family home. Another the qala. A third and fourth obliterated farms, spread fire to four families’ homes.
It was no use staying. It was suicide to remain. They fled, running from the flames, running for their lives. Dawood carried Behroze, burned, but alive, playing in the fields behind his house when the bomb fell. They stumbled down a ragged goat path, hiding from the sky.
’Bu Adnan made it halfway down the mountain.
He stumbled, fell. Cried out to Allah.
Dawood, leading everyone, called for a halt. Tucked his people into dark spaces between the trees, hiding women and children and old men as best he could.
The drones hovered overhead. He could feel their optics, feel the hunting gaze of the pilot. Predator drone. Predator. What an apt name. He felt like an animal. Desperation flooded him, sang in his veins.
He slid to the dirt beside ’Bu Adnan, the man who’d become his baba. Six years, they’d been a family. Six years, he’d had a father again.
“Baba, we must keep going.”
“Astaghfirullah, ibni. I cannot.” ’Bu Adnan clutched his chest. His heart. Six years, and ’Bu Adnan had gone from the man of strength, built like an ox, to an old man, almost paper frail. He’d aged before Dawood’s eyes, as if time was robbing him. Robbing them. “I knew I could never make it down the mountain. Even with Allah.”
“You can do this, Baba. You can. I will carry you—”
“You must carry Behroze now, Dawood. He needs a father, now more than ever.”
Behroze was a young teenager, wide-eyed and wondering, forever slipping away from his family. It was that which had saved him. He had too much curiosity in his eyes, too many questions that wanted answers. He was destined for heartbreak.
“Baba—”
“It was never Allah’s will that I leave this mountain, ibni.” ’Bu Adnan clutched his chest again. Heaved a ragged breath. His eyes were wet, burning into Dawood, twin rubies shining through the dusty depths of time, strong despite his withered frame. He reached a shaking hand for his Quran, lying in the dirt beside him, the one item he’d carried from their home. “This belongs to you, now, habibi.”
“Baba, no. We are all getting off this mountain.”
Gunshots, in the distance. Answering fire from the ridgeline. Fighters on the ground. Military, warlord, jihadist. He couldn’t know. The sky was on fire, the mountain was falling, and his father was dying.
Again.
“Habibi.” ’Bu Adnan cupped his face. He couldn’t hide the pain, the way he curled over his chest. His ragged breaths. But he tried. For Dawood, he tried. “Take our family away from here. Keep them safe.”
“There’s nowhere safe in the world, Baba. That was it. Our home—” His throat clenched. His vision blurred. Not again, in shaa Allah, not again. “What do I do, Baba? What do I do?”
“Follow the Prophet, ibni.” ’Bu Adnan gritted his teeth. His hand clasped Dawood’s cheek, gripped his face, bruisingly tight. “You know in your heart what your path is. What it always has been. Allah laid out your life for you, habibi. You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.”
“No…” Dawood leaned over ’Bu Adnan, pressing his forehead to his father’s. His path had once been twisted and rotten, full of darkness and pain. His path was supposed to circle that mountain endlessly, live out his days in the light with ’Bu Adnan.
Why was Allah dragging him back to the darkness? To death, and anguish, and war? “Baba, I don’t want to.”
“Allah alone is charge of our days, habibi. His will for you is laid out. And His will for me is to die.” ’Bu Adnan shuddered. “Bismillah, Allah granted me that you shall be my last sight.”
“Baba!” Dawood grabbed ’Bu Adnan with both hands, cupped his face. Held him close. “Baba—”
His father held him, and he held his father in return, as ’Bu Adnan exhaled his last breath.
He shouldn’t cry. He knew he shouldn’t. Everyone’s time on the planet was determined by Allah, and to cry over a death was to subvert Allah’s will. But tears built and tumbled from his eyes, dropped onto his Baba’s still face.
It wasn’t fair, losing everyone he loved, everyone, in his entire life.
What path was this Allah had laid for him? What point was there to this pain, this anguish, time and again? What point was there to the darkness, the rage in his soul?
Screams rose from the scrub brushes he’d hidden his people in.
Sounds of running, men bursting through the trees onto the goat path they were following. Clad in black, with fighters’ vests and jihadist masks, every man carried a rifle.
Dawood laid ’Bu Adnan down and rose. Two strides placed him between his people and the fighters. His hands clenched.
“As-salaam-alaikum.” One of the fighters made his way to Dawood. His eyes darted over Dawood’s people. “Brother, where have you come from?”
“Wa alaikum as-salaam,” Dawood grunted. “We come from up the mountain. The bombs, they drove us down.”
“Those dogs are bombing everything! The entire range! They’re trying to destroy these mountains, yallah!” He looked beyond Dawood, to ’Bu Adnan’s still body, lying in the dirt. “Subhanallah, what happened?”
“My baba. He—” Dawood couldn’t speak.
“Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'oon.” May Allah give him an easy and pleasant journey and shower blessings on his grave. The fighter held his hand over his heart. “He is a martyr, brother. Do not grieve. He is already in Paradise, with Allah.”
The mountain rumbled, and on the flinty peak above them, fire bloomed, a shower of earth exploding in a mushroom cloud.
“They are trying to take down the mountain!” The fighter reached for Dawood. “Come with us. We will protect you and your people.”
What could he do? The sky was falling, the world was burning, and his family was going to die if he didn’t move. He had no idea where to go, no plan, nothing but blind fear that guided them down the goat path.
Was his path, instead, to follow this man?
He pressed his hand over his heart. “Shukran, brother. But I will not leave my baba.”
The fighter handed his rifle to Dawood. “Do you know how to use this?”
Dawood nodded, once.
“I will carry your father. My men will lead us down. Care for your people.” He stooped and gathered ’Bu Adnan in his arms, cradling his body. ’Bu Adnan’s lifeless cheek fell against the fighter’s chest, against his vest and his ammo clips. “Yallah, we must hurry! Before more bombs fall!”
Dawood rounded up his people, took Behroze back into his arms. Behroze was a young teen, but still small. Easy for Dawood to carry on one hip with the jihadist’s rifle still in his hands.
Together, the band of fighters and villagers crept down the mountain.
Kandahar Province
Afghanistan
“Allahu Akbar.” Dawood held his hands by his ears. The brothers behind him repeated the call, the glory to God. “Allahu Akbar.”
He centered Allah in his heart, his intentions. Oh God, this is the path You have led me to. Through the twists and turns of my terrible life. You have led me to this place. You give everything form, and then guidance, oh Allah. It is only now, at the end, looking back, that I see the path for what it is.
He placed his arms over his stomach and looked down. “Praise and glory be to You, O Allah. Blessed be Your Name, exalted be Your Majesty and Glory. There is no God but You. In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. You alone do we worship and You alone do we call on for help.”
Remember, Dawood, ’Bu Adnan had said once. Every beat of your heart functions only by the permission of Allah.
Why does he keep me alive? Why keep me here?
Because he loves you, habibi.
“You who believe, be steadfast in your devotion to God. Do not let hatred of others lead you away from justice, but adhere to justice, for that is closer to awareness of God. Be mindful of God! God is well aware of all that you do. Allahu Akbar.” He led the brothers in the Quranic verse before he bowed. “Glorious is my Lord, the most great.”
When you called on your Lord for help, He responded to you.
Was his whole life a cry to Allah? Had he been too stubborn to see the signs? Had he been crying in the dark, raging in isolation, and had missed Allah’s reach for his soul? Days that built from shifting sands, unstable foundations, the hole in the center of his soul always leaking his anguish into the world, coloring everything in shades of pain, in loss?
Kris…
Dawood bowed his head.
Pakistan Northwestern Frontier
Bajaur Province
Federally Administered Tribal Areas
Three Years Before
The fighters led Dawood and his people down the mountain, into the tangled valleys of Bajaur, away from the bombs and the strikes, hidden deep in jihadist territories.
The first dawn, they buried ’Bu Adnan. Dawood led his people in prayer, and Ihsan, the man who’d saved them, brought his fighters to join in. He helped Dawood dig the grave and lower ’Bu Adnan on his right side, facing Mecca. Helped him cover the body in dirt and say the final prayers over the grave.
Later, convoys appeared, long lines of trucks and technicals, pickups with machine guns mounted in the back. Black flags flapped from the tailgates.
“Jihad?” Dawood asked Ihsan.
“It’s all we have left,” Ihsan said. They were standing around a fire, the first they’d had in days. Dawood couldn’t feel any warmth, though. Behroze curled at his feet, sleeping in a borrowed blanket. He never left Dawood’s side.
“Time stops for the West whenever they wish it. When they are angry, when they are hurt. But a thousand Muslims die in Afghanistan? A thousand more in Iraq, in Sudan? A thousand, again, in Chechnya? Time never stops us for us, brother. No one cares about our lives. Only we care.”
He stared at the fire, memories playing in the flickering flames. His father’s execution in Libya by Qaddafi had been the most evil thing in his entire world at ten years old. He’d thought the entire universe would react, that everyone would see the evil of Libya’s Great Guide, their dictator, that there would be salvation and justice from the world. But the world kept turning, even though the ground beneath his feet had stuttered to a halt. Everyone else kept moving on, following the rise and fall of the sun, kept moving forward in time. In Egypt, there wasn’t even a headline about the execution. In America, most everyone said “Libya” like it was a dirty word, a nasty country, and he was just lumped in with everything and everyone that made Libya such a terrible place.
No one came to rescue him, or his family. No one cared about his father’s murder. Ten years old, and he’d known a truth then, something he refused to face as a boy.
But as a man, the truth was inescapable. The twisted, horrible path of his life, revealing the same truth to him, a dozen different mirrored ways. Reflections of agony, reflections of evil.
Where did it all end? How? Had the paths of history become so hopelessly entangled that there was no end? Just a ceaseless cycle of violence and death, killer and murdered always trading places? Where was reason? Where was justice?
What was his role in this life?
“Subhanallah,” Dawood muttered. What would his baba say? ’Bu Adnan, and his father before him? What would either man have said of Dawood sitting side by side with Ihsan?
“In shaa Allah, brother, we must restore the Caliphate. Every battle we fight, we’re trying to push the invaders away. Little by little, we must reclaim what was once ours.”
“The world is too big now. The Caliphate, a land of our own, is now just a dream. We can never go back to the past, to the Caliphates of old.”
“Don’t you want a home of our own? Muslim lands? Where we can be free? You know, the children of Saqqaf are trying. In the Sham. They’ve taken half of Iraq, half of Syria.”
“Saqqaf?” Dawood snorted. “Saqqaf was a thug. He was no Muslim. His followers were not Muslims. Nothing built in his name is any glory to Allah. He, and everything he brought into the world, go against Allah.”
Ihsan sighed. “The children of Saqqaf call themselves the Islamic State. They have declared that they are the Caliphate renewed.” His eyes were dark, burning with something that looked like wariness as he judged Dawood. “Al-Qaeda broke with them recently. For being un-Islamic.” Ihsan sighed. “I lose fighters to the Islamic State every month. They yearn for that Caliphate. They want to be part of a world where we are not subjugated any more. Where Islam lives and breathes, and our lives are one with Allah.”
“They will not find that with Saqqaf’s children. That is not Islam. That is a death cult. They have turned Muslim against Muslim, slaughtering anyone they wish. Nothing they do reflects the Prophet’s teachings, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam. Allah’s wrath will fall upon them, swiftly.”
“Then where, brother? The Arab Spring was supposed to liberate our people.” Ihsan shook his head. “Democracy was supposed to be the salvation. Finally, dictators would fall. The people would speak! Islam would rise! But, after the people spoke, the military took control, seized the government in a coup after elections brought our brothers to power. Eight hundred brothers and sisters were massacred in Egypt. The Syrians are trying to rise up, seize their freedom from the brutal hands of their leader, but the world ignores their cries for help. For justice. The world just looks the other way when it’s Arabs and Muslims who are dying. What must we do, in this world, for our freedom? For our Muslim lives to mean something, to matter, to this world?”
“A Muslim is a Muslim no matter where he is or what the world does. As long as he is close to Allah. The more difficult the world, the more a person’s closeness to Allah is tested.” Dawood swallowed. If he could boil his life down to one statement, that would be it. His words tasted empty, though. There was a war being waged for the soul of Islam, battles that tried to shape their existential reality. Where did he fall on those battle lines?
Ihsan’s eyes pinched as he stared at the fire. “Who are you, Dawood? You do not speak like an Afghan, or like a Pakistani. Or like a man who has lived his entire life on top of a mountain. You are your people’s imam. But how? What brought you there?”
“You do not speak like an Afghan or a Pakistani, either.”
Ihsan laughed. “I’m Saudi. I came to join the mujahedeen after the coup in Egypt. We must defeat these dictators. And clear our lands of the infidels. Until we have something of our own again.”
Dawood took his time answering. “I was born in Libya. I have traveled the world, to all the corners. My being has been shaped by the West. But I was born Arab and Muslim. And I have been pulled back to who I am by Allah for a reason.” He met Ihsan’s gaze. “I’m still figuring out that reason.”
Ihsan smiled. “In shaa Allah, perhaps we are meant to meet. Have this conversation. Become friends.” He clapped Dawood on the back, laughing.
Overhead, the moon rose from behind the shattered mountains, bloodied and haze-red from the fires, the smoke, the blood in the air and the ground. Dawood’s eyes lifted.
Kris. My bones are exhausted. My soul. I can’t understand this anymore. This life. This path. Not a moment passes where I do not wish to hear your voice again. The answers I need are in your soul. But you’re gone. What do I do?
He prayed to Allah, asking for blessings for Kris, for Kris’s soul to be at peace. Ihsan caught his whispered dua, watched his moving lips.
“Brother, you are not alone.” Ihsan wrapped one arm around him. “Come. Join us.”
“I’m not a fighter. Not anymore.”
“There are many ways to perform jihad, brother. Jihad of the mind. Of the tongue. Of the heart. I don’t need to tell you this. You are the imam of the mountain. Come, we need an imam. Ours was killed in the bombing. Is this meeting not meant to be?”
“Joining you would be a jihad unto itself for me,” Dawood snorted.
“All Muslims must fight to right injustice,” Ihsan said, finger wagging like he was teaching a lesson. “You know this. It’s in the Quran. It’s required by God.”
“Where will my people go?”
“Wherever they wish. We have a camp for some of the families hidden in the hills. It has never been bombed. We stay far, far from it. We can have a guide transport your people there. They will be safe and will be given new lives.”
“My people must be safe. They must be cared for.”
“Say no more, brother. They will be. In shaa Allah.”
Dawood stared up at the moon again. You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you, ’Bu Adnan had said. But his life had led him down a path that was nothing but death, years and years of terrible death. Was that truly where he was meant to go, again?
Above, the blood moon stared down at him, eternally, perfectly silent.
Kandahar Province
Afghanistan
Cold wind swept from the ridgeline, down from the haunted mountain passes of Afghanistan. The wind came from Khost, and beyond, from Tora Bora. Passed through Kabul, picking up more souls, more lost dead. Dawood felt the wind lift his scarf, circle around his neck. He heard their whispers, the lamentations, across his skin.
He stood and raised his hands. “Allah hears those who praise Him.” Behind Dawood, the brothers rustled, rising and reciting their prayers under their voice. Over his shoulder, he saw Ihsan, eyes tightly closed, fast whispers falling from his lips. Ihsan’s faith was hard, desperate, a cry in the dark for what he craved.
“Allahu Akbar.” Slowly, Dawood dropped to his knees and prostrated. His forehead touched the ground, the dust of ghosts.
How many ghosts had sought Allah? How many had been just as desperate as Ihsan, reaching out with both hands for hope? How many had died for the wrong reasons, or for choices others had made for their lives? How many ghosts were like his father, who had just wanted to live, to love Allah?
How many were the ghosts of the wicked? He felt the chill on the back of his neck slice his skin, the cold turning razor sharp.
He’d tried, for three years, to convince Ihsan that Allah was not a brother to be hugged, a power to be grabbed on to and seized, or a missile that could be shot at the heart of his enemies. Allah was subtle and hidden, found in the whispers of the world, but only if one could listen. Finding Allah was like spotting a firefly in the corner of your eye. Like seeing the sun break the horizon, and that first beam of light stretch into the night sky and touch a star. Gone so fast, but for the moment, perfect.
You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.
Paths were made of choices, choices that men made. Allah had given him, and all men, the freedom to choose their own steps along the path He laid out. Each step drew a man closer or further from God, kept him on his path toward Allah or led him off it. Allah gave each man a key to their life, and it was up to each man to turn that key.
The choice to seek Allah, or the choice to stray from Him.
The choice to seek answers, or the choice to ignore.
The choice to build, or the choice to destroy a life, a soul.
Life was a mystery that stretched to infinity, and only at the end could a man look back and see the pattern of his life.
Dawood breathed in the dust of ghosts as he whispered his prayers. Even on his knees, even pressed to the dirt, Allah heard his whispers.
He was on Allah’s path.
Afghanistan-Pakistan Border
Three Years Before
He sent the families to Ihsan’s safe camp. They kissed his cheeks, cried, squeezed his hands. Thanked Allah for him, for the years he’d been with their qala. He prayed with everyone, holding the men’s hands, brushing away tears from the faces of the children.
“When you miss me,” he told the children, “look to the moon. I am always looking at the moon, and we will be looking together. If you wave, I will wave back. The moon will be our messenger.”
They nodded and hung around his neck, refusing to let go of their hug.
Behroze wouldn’t leave.
He’d become Dawood’s shadow since the mountain, since his family was murdered. When Dawood turned around, there was Behroze. Every morning, Dawood woke with Behroze curled into his hold, lying in the dirt as close as he could get.
“Don’t make me go,” Behroze whispered.
“Behroze…”
“I want to stay with you.” He laced his hand through Dawood’s. “Let me fight. Please. I can, I can. Bismillah, I can.”
“Behroze…” Dawood pulled him close. Hugged him, as if he could merge their atoms. “Fighting is not what I am going to do.”
“You’re going with those men. With the black flags.”
“I’m going to be their teacher. Like I was your teacher.”
“I still want to be your student.” Tears rolled down Behroze’s cheeks. “I won’t run anymore, I promise. I promise to Allah, I won’t run away anymore. I will always stay at your side. Please, please just don’t send me away.”
There was a unique pain in breaking a child’s heart. A very specific anguish that shattered the soul. He felt the moon fall from the sky, felt the sun reverse its course. “You won’t be safe, Behroze.”
“I’ll do everything you say, I promise.” Behroze’s sniffles turned to sobs. “I promise, I promise.”
Dawood hung his head between his shoulders. What was right? What did a shattered child need? Distance, a life far away, safe from war? Isolated, and with a hardened heart, with no family left in the world for him? The qala would care for him, of course. But how dark would his heart turn? Left alone?
He knew, he knew what that felt like.
But to bring a boy into a viper’s nest? Into a war?
Where was the worse sin?
Behroze was on the cusp of teenagerhood. Could Dawood help him cross that threshold, shape him into the man he would become? What did he know about boys becoming men? He’d had to make that journey alone, with only American television and high school to help. A million miles away, another lifetime. What could he possibly do now?
“If you come,” he said carefully, “you must never pick up a rifle. Never, ever. You are not to become a fighter, Behroze! Your jihad is of the heart! Do you understand?”
Behroze nodded, his body shaking too hard to speak. He pitched forward, collapsing into Dawood’s arms. Dawood felt his tears run down his neck, felt his sobs against his skin.
They moved out the next day, to link up with the rest of Ihsan’s fighters. They were making a press across the border, heading south.
Into Afghanistan.
Afghanistan was a faded memory to Dawood, pictures in random sequence, scattered like postcards on the floor. He remembered half moments, frames from movies that felt like another person’s life playing in half-second loops. The sounds of the drone bay. Ryan’s scowl. Helicopter blades whirring, the tremble in his bones as the helos lifted off. Kris’s laugh. The light in his eyes. The warmth of his body in their shared bed. Morning kisses tinged with coffee and exhaustion.
A blast that burned his soul. Pain, so much pain. Thirteen still, unmoving bodies on the ground.
Kris. He hadn’t moved after the blast. He hadn’t moved once.
Dawood pushed the memories away, smearing them across his mind.
He was not that man any longer.
Those memories belonged to someone else.
Kandahar City was a reflection of the soul of Afghanistan.
The province of Kandahar was an arid, desolate waste, as if the sun wanted to blast the land from the surface of the earth. The homeland of the Taliban was a place of extremes, of blinding light and too-thin air, of choking dust and lifeless, empty horizons.
Kandahar City was a fortress, an outpost in the endless stretch of nothingness. From nothing came a harsh and brutal siege fortress, a city built upon suspicion and the distrustful gaze against outsiders. A city that had turned its back on the world long ago, convinced that only danger came from the outside, that Others were not to be trusted. That there was no future outside the city’s walls, or in trusting anyone or anything.
Ihsan and his fellow units linked up in the warrens of Kandahar City. The streets were dusty, unpaved, the inhabitants even mistrustful of such things like concrete and asphalt for they were of the outside world. Kandahar City had been a no-go zone for years for the CIA, for the military, for NATO.
Walking through the city felt like walking back in time, to Dawood.
With the odd juxtaposition of rifles and AK-47s, RPGs and homemade bombs sharing space with donkeys and bazaar stalls. Women in blue burqas whispered through the streets. Dawood’s heart ached for them, for the secrets they kept beneath their layers, for lives they could only half live. There was nothing in the Quran that required women to don anything close to the burqa. The requirement for modesty in the Quran spoke to men first, admonishing men to dress modestly as well, and to lower their gazes, to respect, to the ends of the earth, all women. Where had this come from, the imprisonment of half of humanity behind silence and cotton?
The first three generations that follow the Prophet will be blessed. And following that, the Muslims will lose their way. They will be confused, and take hold of evil things, and wickedness. The human soul is prone to darkness in the absence of Allah. Man will lose his balance between the good of Allah and the darkness.
Dawood followed Ihsan to the jihadist quarter of the city. Held his hand over his heart as he was introduced as Imam Dawood. “I am also a medic,” he said.
“Allahu Akbar,” Ihsan said, grinning ear to ear. “The Doctors Without Borders hospital has pulled out of Kandahar Province, and we have had no one to take our wounded to. Truly, Dawood, our meeting was meant to be.”
Ihsan gave him and Behroze a room in one of the many mudbrick homes the jihadists occupied in Kandahar City.
He had no idea what to do for the boy. He hadn’t had a father at Behroze’s age, didn’t have a model for how to take care of him. But he did know how the loss of a father shattered the soul, and how a boy without a future, and with the knowledge of evil in the center of his heart, was a crumbling sandcastle, a tree in the desert stripped of its bark by a punishing sandstorm.
He placed Behroze’s prayer rug beside his. He bought Behroze a djellaba, the same as the one he wore, day in and day out.
Behroze slept beside him, still a frightened boy in the middle of the night. When mortars fell, or jets screamed over the city, he wailed, terror seizing hold of him as he clung to Dawood, senseless cries of horror as he replayed memories of the mountain burning, of the sky falling.
It took a year for him to sleep on his own.
Kandahar City
Two Years Before
The day Abu Dujana arrived was a normal one for Kandahar City. Gunshots rang outside the city walls. Military helicopters swirled around the sky. Spies walked the streets, slinking out to report back to the NATO military base nearby. The Belgium forces were in command at Kandahar Air Base, and they left Kandahar City alone, for the most part. Heat and hatred swirled in the air, resentment turned outward from the city walls, against anything and everything that threatened their lives.
“I hear you have a new imam,” Abu Dujana said to Ihsan, after greeting him, sharing the bonds of brotherhood. “And that he came from the mountains of Bajaur.”
“Brother Dawood, yes.” Ihsan beckoned Dawood to join them. “Brother Dawood is a blessing from Allah. Our paths were meant to cross.”
Abu Dujana’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me. What do you know of a stranger brought to the mountains, years ago, by brother Al Jabal?”
“He’s dead. He died in the mountains.” Dawood’s heart pounded, palms slicking. ’Bu Adnan had said the mountains were Al Jabal’s biggest secret. That he would never, ever, risk his family. Dawood was supposed to be a ghost after Al Jabal died.
“Brother Jabal was my closest friend. He confided everything in me. Everything.” Abu Dujana stepped closer, frowning. “Your accent, brother, is strange. Where are you from?”
“Libya.”
“The stranger in the mountains was from Libya as well.”
“Brother Dujana, what is this?” Ihsan interrupted, shaking his head. “What are you saying? What stranger?”
“You remember when Brother Jabal and Sheikh Zawahiri conspired with Brother Hamid to strike the CIA at their base, years ago? You remember the spy Brother Jabal captured?”
“The spy was tried and executed.”
“No, Ihsan. The spy lived. Brother Jabal took him to the mountains. He hid him with his father, and he told me he’d go back one day. That after the dust settled and the CIA had forgotten about their spy, he would drag him back out and begin the real trial.” Abu Dujana lifted his chin, smiled. There was something predatory in that smile, a wolf that had cornered its prey.
“Brother Dawood?” Ihsan’s trembling voice, his confusion, spanned years, his gaze wavering over the knife blade of uncertainty, of betrayal, of a thousand questions that had no answers.
“I told you,” Dawood whispered. “He is dead. Maa shaa Allah, everything that he was, Allah remade. The stranger—to Allah, to the brothers—no longer exists. I swear it.”
Ihsan hissed, inhaling like he’d been stabbed through the back. Like his world had been flipped upside down. “You—”
“Everything of me is for Allah now. In shaa Allah, I exist only for Him. He knows the length of my life, the weight of my heart. My sins. And I have given everything to Him to judge. It is in Allah that my heart now finds rest.”
Ihsan swallowed. He looked down. Exhaled, his breath shaking.
Abu Dujana gripped his shoulder. “Brother Dawood. Allah calls you now. There are things that only you can do. Knowledge that only you have. Will you help us, brother? It is Allah’s will.”
You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you. He held Abu Dujana’s gaze. Black fire burned in the depths of his eyes. Black fire that reflected the anguish of the mountains, the distilled agony of a Muslim soul. That promised change.
Something inside Dawood awoke.
“What would you have me do?”
Kandahar Province
Afghanistan
Dawood rose from his prostration and sat on his knees. “Allah, forgive me,” he whispered. “Have mercy on me. Strengthen me. Pardon me.” His breath faltered, his whispers dying on Afghanistan’s harsh wind.
Abu Dujana kneeled beside Ihsan, whispering his own prayers. Soon, they would move out, cross the border again, head to Peshawar. Ihsan and Abu Dujana were about to embark on their mission.
And Dawood on his own.
For two years they’d planned. Everything came together slowly. Dawood watched the patterns, watched the ripples of history moving forward and backward in time. Watched his path straighten, the steps before him made clear by Allah.
He offered up a final prayer, a private one, the words of an old imam from centuries back circling his heart. “Allah, make the best of my life be the end of my life, and the best of my deeds the last of them. Make the best of my days the day that I will finally meet You.”
Looking right, he performed the tasleem, gave blessings to the angel on his right shoulder, and then again to the angel on his left. “As-salamu alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.”
And then he was done. He stayed kneeling, though, for a moment. He’d finished his last prayer service for the brothers. Soon, they would separate, go down their different paths. Find their different ends.
You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.
After he rose, Ihsan and Abu Dujana gathered the brothers around him. Ten in all, young faces, eager to embark on the mission. They wore mismatched camo jackets and cargo pants, black-and-white scarves tied around their necks. He, too, wore the garb of a fighter. Gone were his prayer robes, his djellaba.
Abu Dujana smiled, urging him on. He was supposed to make a speech.
He swallowed. Inhaled slowly.
“To be a Muslim is to live with a pain that sits in your soul. A pain the rest of the world cannot know. It is Muslim pain. To have everything of our greatness ripped away. Everything of our history, destroyed. The world once saw us as people to admire. To love. But now, the world sees only ruin.” He took a breath, a shaking inhale. “I know what it’s like to be hated for who you are. To have your life dictated by others, and your choices, your path, made for you. There is a rage that lives inside us, brothers. There is a rage that screams, ‘we will prove everyone wrong’. We are more than this.”
Murmurs. Ihsan’s eyes glittered. Abu Dujana nodded, fury and passion in his gaze, in the way he looked at Dawood. Like Dawood was the answer to his prayers.
“Yallah, this is Muslim pain,” Dawood whispered. “And we will not feel this pain any longer.”
Cheers rose, breaking like waves over the ghost lands of Afghanistan. The brothers fired their rifles into the air. Shots echoed, cries of Allahu Akbar mixing with private dua, prayers offered to Allah. Abu Dujana pocketed his audio recorder. Dawood’s message would go out to the whole world, soon. His stomach clenched. Who would hear his words?
Behroze waited for him, standing apart from the fighters. His big brown eyes stared into Dawood’s. No longer was he small, underfed and slight. He gazed into Dawood’s eyes as a young man. A scraggly beard, a young man’s beard, dusted his cheeks, his chin. “Imam,” Behroze said slowly. “I still don’t understand.”
Everyone had their mission, their destination. Except for Behroze. He was to go to Islamabad, stay in a house Dawood had scraped and saved for. Once, he’d had a home on the other side of the world, a place of peace, grand and expansive. What he was able to give Behroze was a one-room square made of concrete and tin, with no running water. But it was a home, and it was what he could do. The rest of his meager savings, he sent to an imam at a madrassa and asked for Behroze to be taken in, taught to be a scholar, to follow in Dawood’s footsteps as an imam.
“Your jihad has always been of the heart, habibi. To love, when it feels like love is impossible. To love like Allah does, continuously, eternally, with no conditions.”
“Why are you leaving?” For a moment, Behroze wasn’t a young man, verging on the cusp of adulthood. He wasn’t the young man who had devoured what Dawood had taught him. He was the boy from the village again, his lip quivering as Dawood stitched his arm. Held him as he sobbed. As he curled close and wailed when mortars launched, or fighter jets screamed overhead. “Why must you do this?”
There were no answers for Behroze, not now. He handed Behroze a piece of paper, folded tight. “Check this email, habibi. Check it every day. One day, you will have your answers.”
A single tear slipped from the corner of Behroze’s eye. “You make my jihad so much harder, Baba. Why—” His lips clamped closed. He rubbed away his tear.
Dawood dragged him close, enveloping him in a father’s embrace. “Look to the moon, habibi,” he whispered. “We will always be under the same moon.”
“In shaa Allah,” Behroze whispered. “Please, please tell me when you’ll return?”
Dawood stayed silent.
“Your name will always be on my lips and in my prayers.” Behroze stepped back. His face twisted, his struggle exposed for everyone to see. His eyes gleamed, shining, wet.
“As will yours, habibi.” It seemed he was destined to leave, always be separated from the ones he loved. Was this another outcome of the path Allah had given him? Endless goodbyes, endless broken hearts?
“It is time!” Abu Dujana’s cry broke over the brothers. “Brothers, it is time!”
Behroze lifted his chin. He clutched the Quran ’Bu Adnan had given to Dawood and tried to bury his heart. He walked away from Dawood, toward the convoy that would take them over the mountains and back into Pakistan. Into his future.
You must follow the path Allah has laid out for you.
Kris. Dawood closed his eyes. The moon hadn’t risen yet, but still, he whispered to him. Soon, we will be together again. This life is drawing to a close. This path is winding to its end. And, after everything, my only hope is you.