Hassan’s mom held her arms out with the imaginary baby resting in her hands. Hassan scooted forward, holding his breath, his eyes wide.
“One of Yazid’s men shot a poisoned arrow through the neck of the baby, killing the child and pinning his neck to his father’s arm.”
Hassan gasped. A baby killed! And not by Jews or infidels! By other Muslim warriors!
“They demanded that Imam Hussein surrender, but he would not. ‘Death is superior to disgrace, and I am ready to die defending Islam and the Muslims,’ he said. And then the battle began.”
Hassan listened breathlessly as his mother described the conflict-the imam mounting a black stallion and wielding a sarif, cutting down dozens of Yazid’s soldiers. But eventually, the brave man was overwhelmed by his enemies. “The evildoers cut off his head and left his body to rot for three days without burial,” Hassan’s mother reported with great sadness.
Hassan was crestfallen. The good guys seldom lost in his mother’s stories. And when they did, it was never like this. Killed. Left to rot. His baby dead in his arms.
Hassan looked toward his older brother, checking for a reaction. As usual, his brother was stone-faced. Just as he had been the day that Hassan’s mother taught Sura 99, the lesson about the earthquake and the Day of Judgment. Hassan had shivered in fear as she described the tormenting flames of hell. “If your bad works outweigh your good works, you will go to hell,” Hassan’s mother had explained. And Hassan had known immediately that hell would be his lot. His conscience had tormented him for days, and nightmares had haunted his sleep.
But his brother had seemed unfazed. What did he know that Hassan did not?
His mother’s voice brought him back to the story. “But it didn’t matter what Yazid’s men did to Imam Hussein’s body because he was no longer there,” Hassan’s mother explained, her tone reflecting the excitement of a big secret she was about to share. “He was sitting on the shore of a crystal river, surrounded by many women who were feeding him and taking care of him.”
Hassan recognized the description immediately. It was Jannah! Paradise!
His mother closed the Qur’an and looked solemnly from Hassan to his brother. “We call Imam Hussein ‘Sayyid al-Shuhada,’-the Lord of the Martyrs. When you die a martyr-a shahid-you do not feel death. It is more like the minor pain of a mosquito sting. You wake up in Jannah, and Allah smiles at you, placing a crown of virtue on your head.”
Hassan’s mother held two of her fingers and her thumb together now, opening them slightly, as if letting go of a tiny precious thing. “No matter what you have done wrong in this life, you will be forgiven with the first drop of your blood that is spilt. With the second drop, you may redeem seventy family members who would have gone to hell.
“To die a martyr is to never die at all.”*** the present washington, d.c.
Hassan received the text message on Wednesday night. The young wife of a prominent leader in a Norfolk mosque had left the faith. She had been seen in the company of a married American man, a devout Christian. She was making a mockery of her marriage and, more importantly, of Allah.
The Norfolk mosque to which she belonged had been started as part of the Islamic Brotherhood’s Strategic City Initiative, a plan to plant prominent mosques in all of America’s most important cities. Norfolk had made the list because of its strategic military bases as well as its proximity to Washington, D.C. The mosque was one of the few Islamic success stories in the South, exceeding all projections for growth. Its imam, Khalid Mobassar, was a highly respected, charismatic leader, though he pushed reformist ideas that were sometimes detrimental to the faith. Others in the mosque, outspoken defenders of the orthodox faith, served as a counterbalance. Fatih Mahdi was one such man.
But now, Mahdi’s young wife had become an infidel.
The first text message Hassan received was terse and unequivocaclass="underline" Ja’dah Fatima Mahdi has converted to the Christian faith. She has defiled herself by consorting with an American man, disgraced her family, and dishonored Allah. She must be given only one opportunity to repent and return to the faith. If she refuses, the honor of her family must be restored.
The second text message had a picture attached-a photo of a young Lebanese woman and a middle-aged American man. The second message was shorter than the first: If you attend Beach Bible Church on Saturday night, you will find her there. May Allah guide you.
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In Hassan’s view, Beach Bible Church epitomized everything wrong with American Christianity. It seemed like a godless blend of amusement park, social club, and rock concert. The parking lot spanned acres, the “sanctuary” would have dwarfed most concert halls, and the music was so loud that Hassan had a headache before the third song ended. The women dressed in provocative clothes while the men pretended not to notice. There was no community prayer, no reverential silence, no dignified reading from a holy book. It was all flash and glitter and noise.
A worship service, Hassan thought, without worship.
He sat on one of the padded folding chairs three rows from the back, trying to remain inconspicuous in a church that was surprisingly full for a Saturday night service. The people were friendly, though he tried hard to ignore them.
There were no cameras in the church. No security guards. There didn’t appear to be anyone surveying the crowd, looking for suspicious strangers with Middle Eastern complexions and hard eyes. This was America, not Beirut. The members of Beach Bible Church were blissfully ignorant.
The pastor talked about sacrifice, about taking up a cross daily and following Christ. But the examples he used were trivial. What if somebody insults you? What if you lose your job? What if your classmates start rumors about you because you’re too radical in your faith?
What did Americans really know about sacrifice?
What if Allah asks you to lay down your life? Hassan wanted to ask. What if he asks you to strap a bomb to your body and blow up as many infidels and Jews as possible? To the American Christians, sacrifice was a theoretical concept. For Hassan, it was a way of life.
Ja’dah Fatima Mahdi was indeed in the service. Hassan had followed her from her home in downtown Norfolk to this church in the Kempsville area of Virginia Beach. She had made one stop along the way, pulling into a deserted parking lot, where she sat in the car as it idled for several minutes. Hassan had parked too far away to see what she was doing. But when she pulled out of the parking lot, he drove close enough to get a better look and realized that Ja’dah Mahdi had changed her clothes.
When Ja’dah had left her home, she’d been dressed conservatively, wearing a hijab to cover her head, though she did not veil her face. When she arrived at church, she was wearing too-tight jeans and a white blouse with a neckline much lower than would ever be allowed in any mosque, and her hair was pulled into a tight braid. She was a beautiful woman, maybe fifteen years younger than her husband, but she was no longer modest. Hassan believed that beauty was like a jewel-if something was precious, you kept it hidden until the treasure was meant to be uncovered. Only Western women advertised their wares for the entire world to see, leaving little to the imagination. For Hassan, a place of worship-even godless worship like this-seemed a strange venue to promote lust.
During the service, he positioned himself on the opposite side of the sanctuary from Ja’dah. Occasionally, he would steal a glance at her. During the singing, he noticed that Ja’dah sometimes closed her eyes and raised her hands. At one point, he thought he saw a hint of moisture in her eyes.
After the service, Ja’dah went to an out-of-the-way restaurant with a group of church members. They were all relaxed and smiling. Hassan recognized one of them as the man from the text message. An hour and a half later, Ja’dah came out of the restaurant with the middle-aged man. The man climbed into the front seat of Ja’dah’s car, and the two of them talked for another thirty minutes. The man had his Bible open, and before he left, they bowed their heads and prayed.