The Sheikh told the interviewer that the fatwa contained two separate decrees, one for each of two categories of people. The first was for those who had started and spread the rumors: he deemed them liars and hypocrites. But the fatwa was primarily dedicated to the second category: believers who were weak of faith. The matter there, he said, was simple and clear. He began by confirming that piety protects people from misfortune and evil — religious scholars and ordinary citizens all knew this to be true. Therefore, if citizens were pious, God-fearing believers (and not weak of faith), they would not bring destruction upon themselves. On the contrary, he said, they would instinctively avoid suspicious people and questionable or forbidden places.
Assertions that people had been injured in the Events were clearly no more than lies and fabrications, spread by an antireligious minority who had suffered injuries themselves. Most people in the nation were believers (thank God!) and so he had no reason to fear for them, not even in the face of bullets. Yet even believers should take precautions to ensure that God keeps them from harm, he added — precautions such as dedicating one’s life to reciting prayers, for example.
The High Sheikh invoked a few passages from the Greater Book, explaining that if a believer were to be struck by a bullet (despite his prayers and supplication), his faith would guide him to the understanding that it was God himself who’d struck him down. A wounded believer should not despair or oppose God’s will. Nor should he question the unquestionable — such an act could lead him down a perilous path toward doubt. Instead, the believer must accept the will of God. He must acknowledge how lucky he was to be struck by a bullet, and exalted to a place in heaven ordinarily reserved only for the most dutiful.
At the end of the interview, the High Sheikh noted that everything he had said was part of the fatwa. The Fatwa and Rationalizations Committee had ratified it definitively in its last meeting, and it would be announced at a big press conference within days, to help reassure citizens who were suffering from confusion.
A large photograph of the High Sheikh was printed in the center of the page, him with his solemn smile and the interviewer sitting in front of him. In conclusion, the article stated that the Sheikh commended the newspaper’s efforts to uphold the word of truth, which was why he had given them an exclusive interview.
Yehya sat in front of Um Mabrouk on a plastic chair, his leg resting on the stone table. He had a cup of tea in one hand and the report that Ehab had written — a different copy of the same report that the editor in chief had ripped up — in the other. Ehab sat beside him, next to him was Nagy, and strewn around them on the ground was a mess of newspapers. Yehya shrugged and said that the editor in chief had made the right calclass="underline" the report wasn’t fit to print. The story simply made no sense — it contradicted all the other accounts in all the other papers, as well as every statement released by the Gate, and it went against the Committee’s latest fatwas, too. Ehab’s report was just based on rumors: rumors that there were citizens injured by government bullets who hadn’t come forward, and that others were blind to their injuries. Rumors that they had disposed of the bullets removed from people’s bodies, and then denied that the bullets had ever existed. Rumors that a few people had managed to climb over the stone barricades, enter the Restricted Zone, and approach the Northern Building. Rumors that some of them had been killed by birdshot, but that the survivors had rallied and retreated, only to disappear completely. Rumors that they had not been seen since.
Ehab had also included a short paragraph about the microbus driver who had reported seeing an injured young man carrying a bag of spent birdshot covered in blood, during the second Disgraceful Events. Ehab noted that after this testimony was made public, the driver had disappeared. Then the Gate had announced that the driver was a well-known, longterm drug user, addicted to hallucinogens. The young man he spoke of didn’t exist, the Gate’s statement said, and neither did his injured leg, as no trace had been found of either. Ehab quoted an article stating that the driver had been admitted to a government clinic to treat his addiction, but that no one knew where he was being treated or whether he’d been released. Yehya handed the papers back to Ehab with a snort of derisive laughter, while Nagy shifted in his seat and told him that he should make copies to distribute in the queue.
People passed hearsay, a growing number of leaflets, and newspaper articles along the queue; they feverishly searched for fresh information anywhere and any way they could, while time passed and no one moved an inch forward. Most recently, a postal worker joined the queue, carrying an official petition addressed to the Gate from a group of people called the “Disgraceful Events Victims Association.” It openly accused the High Sheikh of causing distress across the nation because he had questioned the faith of the injured in his interview in The Truth.
The petition’s signatories said that the interview had damaged their reputations among their families, acquaintances, and colleagues, and they attached certified documents proving that they were devout believers. Many held Certificates of True Citizenship, and moreover, they really were injured. Their petition included legal grounds, prepared by a lawyer who was also gravely wounded. It proved that the fatwa was riddled with errors, and they demanded that it be repealed and reviewed before being made public.
In response, the Center for Freedom and Righteousness delivered its own urgent petition to the Booth. Based on the High Sheikh’s interview, it accused the injured of failing to perform their obligatory religious duties, and stated that this negligence had directly caused their injuries. The Center demanded that these people’s files be handed over to the Fatwa and Rationalizations Committee in full, so that it could rule on their cases and take appropriate measures against them. Yet despite the general outrage, the fatwa wasn’t revoked or even amended. It had already been announced in a press conference, and a series of supporting statements was released in the days that followed, while the latest message from the Gate denied that anything called the Restricted Zone had ever existed.
THE LESSON
The man in the galabeya rose to the occasion and began his thirty-first weekly lesson in support of the High Sheikh’s fatwa. In his opening remarks, he said that the fatwa represented the esteemed Committee, which included religious scholars of purest intention and infallible opinion. He added that to question them or gossip about matters of religion — as some fools were doing — was religiously impermissible.
He and his followers had arranged rows of chairs at the front of the queue to accommodate the growing number of listeners. After a prolonged debate over proper religious seating arrangements, the first row was designated for the women, so that they wouldn’t be harassed if they stood at the back. Ines sat front and center and listened with rapt attention. She wore a drab isdal over her everyday clothes, and it fell from the middle of her forehead down to her toes, so that every hill and valley of her body was concealed. After concluding the lesson and answering all questions, the man in the galabeya looked closely at the women and then launched into a prayer praising these modestly dressed believers who followed the path of righteousness, emphasizing what good wives and mothers they were.