The Prophet's Ladder

by Jonathan Williams

  Abū ʿAbd al-Lāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Lāh l-Lawātī ṭ-Ṭanǧī ibn Battuta walked for some hours along the main thoroughfare that led south by southeast from the city, the sea breeze gently brushing his hair from behind, washing him, blessing him with the scents of salt and fruit trees that were the joys and treasures of his homeland. I shall miss my parents most dearly, the young man thought, but this is something I must do. He encountered no others who were traveling on Hajj along the highway, which dismayed him only slightly. On his route Ibn Battuta passed Arab traders heading into the city, trailing caravans of spices, silver, and gold from the African interior, their escorts Tuareg nomads wrapped in blue cloth or dark skinned Gnawa who had sheathed their weaponry so close to civilization, preferring to sing as they traveled, strumming exotic stringed instruments that buzzed, pitched, and clamored delightfully. There in Tangier, the city of his birth, the merchants would sell their wares at the docks to Genoans, Venetians, Turks, and others: a multitude of peoples who had sailed from across the seas to partake of the wealth of the Maghreb.

  Eventually settling down in a small roadside clearing wherein other traders had previously made camp, Ibn Battuta chose to write down his thoughts before supper.

  I set out by myself, having no comrades to cheer the way with friendly conversation. Nor did I encounter any solitary sightseers with whom I could travel. Influenced by an overmastering urge and a long-cherished desire to visit those glorious havens, I have committed to leave behind, for a while, all my friends and my home. With a heavy heart I bade farewell to my parents; I feel a great sadness as I leave home at last.

  His meal consisted of tangerines and bread dipped in olive oil, a simple repast. He let the camels graze on the green brush that rimmed the clearing. He would light no fire, for the evening was warm and dry, perfect for stargazing. He thought of his schoolmates and the trifling, philosophical matters they’d debated on past evenings such as this one. They were good friends, synchronously wise and foolish in matters of the heart and mind. Ibn Battuta thought too of his mother, who had wept when he announced his intention to go on Hajj, though whether she’d shed tears of joy at his piety or from fear at his departure, he couldn’t tell. His father had merely nodded in approval, and had granted him the funds necessary for the trip. He admired his father, a wise legal scholar, an Ulama of some renown, though he was not an affectionate man like his son. He recalled the one extensive trip they had taken together, into the south, where as a young boy he’d listened to a sightless Berber recount an incredible tale of djinn and the heroes of a past age.

  Eventually, his mind was drawn back to the journey ahead. Sixteen months. The journey shall take sixteen months. That is not so great a length of time. And I shall see all that this world has to offer, Inshallah.

  Ibn Battuta the scholar, a serious, devout, youthful man of Tangier would not see his home again for twenty-four years.

  ****

  What do we have to fear from change? Nothing. We hold the Quran as the unalterable word of the Compassionate One, yet our scholars have hidden the truth: that it has evolved, like every ancient work. It has been interpreted and revised and altered. We condemn the western scholars for their historiography, for their evolutionary linguistics, and yet we do not have the courage to remove the rose tinted glasses with which we view our supposed golden age and review our accomplishments with a critical eye. God commands us “Read! In the name of thy Lord who createth!” Yet we do not. We dilly-dally and prevaricate. I say to you that the Faithful must understand that the Quran is a living document; it breathes, it changes through the epochs, and that this is a holy act, just as reading its words with true intention is holy. The ‘Satanic verses’, the absence of consonant pointing, these issues must be fully understood by the people before we can move forward, before we can heal from the recent uprising. The two issues, that of our ‘Arab Spring’ and that of our estimable Quran are not separate. Rather, they are inseparable.

  It was mid afternoon by the time Ali finished his writing in the library. He had begun to appreciate his daily routine now that his blog had become popular. Routine was of some use to him; it allowed him to set a work schedule and to keep it. It was always ‘publish or perish’ no matter if you were writing for a newspaper, academia, or for oneself. Ali had also begun tutoring a small class of primary school students at the library for some extra money, and he was expecting them shortly. Amina was on vacation in Italy with her parents for several weeks; a luxury Ali could barely begin to comprehend, let alone afford. Rome, Milan, Venice, they were only across a tiny spit of the Mediterranean, yet they might as well have been on Neptune for he and his family. It was no easy thing, getting a Tunisian passport, even now.

  Later, as Ali tutored the four young boys in Arabic grammar his mind wandered to a dispatch he had received earlier in the day. A French newspaper, Record de l'Atlantique, had apparently seen the news broadcast and had contacted him via his website; the paper requested he write a series of op-ed pieces on the state of North African society for its readers. This was a tremendous opportunity for Ali, but it didn’t entirely sit well with him. He would be writing in French for a primarily European audience, but about his own people, his own culture. He would be an embedded reporter in his hometown, as it were, and he could choose if he wished to publish the pieces under a nom de plum. Was this a means to effect true change? Or was it a medal to pin on his jacket, a matter of prestige and pride? The Record had given him a week to consider their offer, and Ali believed he would have to spend much of that time mulling it over.

  “Yes, excellent, my friends. Now the third accent goes here…” he illustrated the proper spelling of the word from their lesson book, the boys diligently taking notes. His mother would be expecting him for dinner in forty minutes. She couldn’t cook in the kitchen like she used to, given her condition, so he would be making lentils and chicken, a cheap, easy, healthy meal. They are offering a lot of money; I could better support mom, get her the real medicine and care that she needs. The lesson was almost over, and his students looked rather bored and tired. They’d already suffered through eight hours of school, in addition to his tutelage, and he could tell that they’d reached their limits for the evening.

  “That’s all for tonight, guys. Good job. Tell your parents I’ll see you next Tuesday. Head on home.” The formerly exhausted students suddenly bolted upright with energy, sliding their books and papers into backpacks half their size before scampering off, screaming and yelling. A grumpy woman looked up from the stacks in the adjoining room and frowned at Ali and the boys. Ali slunk away, also feeling a renewed sense of energy. Maybe I will take that offer, write under a pseudonym. It would be nice to save some money for when Amina and I get married, after all. The walk back to his house in the old medina went by quickly, stopping only to pick up the chicken, its carcass warm and freshly plucked by a jovial, fat butcher. The man had laughed in his blood stained apron, handing Ali the dead bird in a plastic shopping bag. Behind him his assistant was running another chicken through an intricate defeatherer that resembled a washing machine with spinning hooks. “Too many feathers! I should sell pillows! Haha!” Ali smiled back and paid the butcher his coin.

  He could tell something was wrong as soon as he turned the corner; the family home’s front door was slightly ajar, and the alleyway was strangely deserted. Even at this hour there should’ve been a mendicant or a food cart vendor selling grilled corn or escargot soup, but the narrow cobblestone way was cold and silent. A sinking feeling in his stomach, Ali nervously pushed the door open. “Hello? Mother? Dad? Why is the door open? I brought dinner…”

  A heavy wooden stock slammed into Ali’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him, instantly bringing him to his knees. He gasped for air but was unable to breathe, an absurd amount of pain coursing through his body. Ali tried to lift his head to see who had struck him, but he could not bring himself to move; only several pairs of green military fatigues and black boots were visible from h
is crippled vantage. Another swift blow cracked the back of his skull, and consciousness began to slip away. The last thing Ali heard before the blackness overwhelmed him was his mother’s sickly voice, screaming.

  He briefly regained consciousness for a few moments, and noted that a burlap sack, one that smelled of vegetable matter, had been tied tightly over his head. His hands were bound behind his back, and he was seated in a moving vehicle that was driving quickly over rough terrain, the axles creaking, tires bouncing over and over again unpleasantly. His mind reeled, unable to make sense of what was happening.

  ****

  Ali awoke again, hours or days later, he couldn’t tell. His arms were still bound behind his back with what felt like thick hemp rope, though the sack that had been tied over his head was now gone, and he could see, despite his swollen and severely bruised face, his surroundings. So far as he could tell, he was in a dimly lit warehouse, a spacious cavern of a room filled with stacked rows of military-grade equipment and supplies. Wooden and plastic crates labeled in Arabic, Russian, English, and Chinese lined the walls, a single incandescent bulb swinging from rafters far above him. The cold concrete floor on which he rested had a bolt driven deep into its foundation, his legs shackled to the loop at its head. He senses were unable to discern if it was day or night, though the room was cold enough to make him wonder if he was underground or even up in the mountains.

  A large man sat hunched on a wooden pallet opposite him smoking a pungent cigarette, the features of his face obscured by a grey rzzza headwrap and the shadows of the room. He wore an ancient green military jacket over khakis fatigues. The black combat boots looked familiar, Ali’s gut clenching in remembered pain when he looked at them. Ali, his mind ever observant even in his injured state, noted that the man was unarmed but for a long, serrated combat knife tucked into a leather belt at his hip. The blade was blackened metal except its edge, which had been recently sharpened; the man looked as though he was intimately familiar with the weapon’s qualities and care. With a lackadaisical, carefree slowness, the kidnapper looked up at him, having heard the stirring on the floor.

  “You look like camel shit, dog.” The man laughed, his lips curling around the edges of his cigarette. Ali was too frightened to come up with a scathing retort, though he noted that the man spoke Arabic with an Algerian accent. Instead, in an attempt to remain in control of his already shattered nerves, he began fishing for information that could aid in his escape.

  “Who...who are you? Where am I? Why have you beaten and kidnapped me?”

  The man snorted. “Who are we? We are your death boy. You have offended God, and so we will bring about your destruction.”

  “How have I offended God? I haven’t done anything! I’m a journalist!” Ali was distraught at the mention of his possible death. The man in the military fatigues stood up and stepped toward him, unsheathing his knife as he did so in one practiced, easy motion.

  “We know who you are boy. We know what you’ve written.”

  Ali’s stomach twisted again, and he almost threw up, though he knew he hadn’t eaten anything in a long while. “I don’t know what you’re talking abou…” The man slapped him hard across his face, his left cheek stinging sharply with the blow.

  “Don’t lie. Don’t lie to us. You sit upon the precipice of the hereafter, on God’s holy doorstep, and you lie to us, His servants on Earth! How dare you.” The man grabbed Ali by his matted hair and began tracing lines into his exposed neck with the tip of his knife. Despite a lack of pressure the blade was so sharp it drew a small trickle of blood, which Ali felt roll down his shoulder and soak into his shirt. “Confess. Confess and we will make it easy for you.”

  “Please, I’m just a journalist. I’m sorry if I offended you. I am a Muslim. I pray. I fast at Ramadan...please…” The man slapped him again on the other cheek.

  “You are not a true Muslim, you are not one of the faithful! The man yelled in his ear, his harsh accent reverberating in the large storage room. “We’ve seen your website boy. Inshallah you will burn for it in the fires below.”

  Ali lifted his head, barely able to focus on his interrogator’s face, which was still obscured by cloth. Only his olive colored eyes and darkened mouth were visible. “My...my website? Do you mean my blog?”

  “Yes, yes. Good. You remember. You are wondering how we found you? Your father talks too much boy. He talks too much and too loudly in the cafes and coffee shops in Tunis.” The man chuckled, a phlegmy, disgusting sound. “Our agents are everywhere, doing God’s work.”

  Ali frowned inwardly. Of course. Father, why? He should never have said anything. His brothers shouldn’t have told the family about the blog. Our petty sibling rivalry will get us all killed.

  “Please, don’t harm them. They don’t know what I’ve done.”

  The man looked down at Ali, an apathetic expression on his face as he sheathed his knife. He had expected more resistance from such a passionate young man.

  “We won’t harm them if you confess your sinful nature to the world, on camera. If you do this, and take down your website and destroy your writings, and never write such blasphemy again, we will leave you and your family unharmed. Do you agree?”

  Ali had no choice. How could he let his mother and the others suffer on his behalf? “Agreed.”

  “Very well then.” The man reached behind a shelf and hefted a bucket of foul smelling water in his direction. Reaching down, he unbound Ali’s hands. “Here. Clean yourself up. We need you to look presentable for the world.”

  The jihadist walked out of sight, a metal door slamming behind him on rusted hinges. Ali, barely able to move his arms, began rubbing his sore muscles, noting the friction burns on his wrists from the rope that now lay on the ground. He remained chained and shackled to the bolt in the floor. Briefly, he wondered if he could pick the lock, but quickly realized he had no tools or even the skill necessary to do so. Instead, he meekly grabbed the sponge that floated in the bucket and began washing himself. The water smelled of turpentine and grease, but at least he’d be able to rinse the blood from his hair and face.

  What the fuck. Why has this happened, God? I am not a fighter. I sit in libraries and write. How can I face such gross violence, such hate?

  His cellphone and backpack neither on his person nor anywhere in site, Ali resigned himself to his immediate fate. He would say whatever these fundamentalist madmen wanted him to say, so long as he could avoid their violent retribution. Perhaps I can make note of my surroundings, figure out just where the hell I am, and bring back some law enforcement or the military. Can I play the complacent spy? I don’t know, I don’t know… Ali suddenly remembered the man’s accent. Oh shit, he sounded Algerian. Am I across the border? How far into Algeria could we be? I couldn’t have been knocked out for that long…could they get through an actual border-crossing checkpoint?

  A thousand questions crisscrossed the stage of his conscious mind, stressing his already strained mental state to its breaking point. Slowly, he began to focus on his breathing and on washing his body with the sponge. Having a panic attack would do him no good, especially not now, not here. Breathe in, breathe out. In. Out.

  Ali resigned himself to his current predicament. If he tried some foolhardy gambit or panicked it might only hinder his cause. I’ve got to try; I’ve got to make it, if only for my family. For Amina.

  The light bulb above him flickered on and off, the glow worn and desperate like its solitary imprisoned companion.

  ****

  Amina had been unable to get ahold of Ali since last night. It had now been a whole day since she’d been back in the country, and she was starting to grow worried. This was so unlike him; he’d always responded to her calls, emails, texts, even when he was working on a story or when she was abroad. Her family had just taken the long ferry ride from Sicily to Tunis, and she hadn’t had cell service during the trip. She never understood why her father insisted on traveling by boat instead of by air as often as possi
ble. He always claimed that it was about “appreciating the true distance” or some such, but it just an inconvenience for her. She suspected that, in truth, her father was afraid of flying.

  That afternoon she’d decided to make her way to Ali’s family home in the old medina. It was a bit of a trip, and she’d have to hire a taxi to get her back to her father’s after the bus stopped running at five, but she needed to find him, Amina’s intuition getting the better of her.

  Turning the corner onto her suitor's street, she immediately noticed the police officer standing outside Ali’s family’s doorway. Adrenaline flooded her body as she quickly approached the officer in his blue and black uniform. “Sir, please, my fiancé lives here. What is the matter? What happened?”

  The policeman looked at her; he had a young face. “You know the Al-Aziz family? Who is your fiancé?” His voice conveyed urgency, worrying Amina further.

  “Ali. Ali ibn Abd Al-Aziz. Please, tell me what’s going on!”

  “You’d better come with me miss. Chief!” The officer called inside the doorway to a superior. “The boy’s fiancée is here.” Amina stepped inside.

  Ali’s home was crowded with police, neighbors, extended and immediate family members, it seemed like the whole block was jammed into the small dwelling. Law enforcement personnel were busy interviewing witnesses, taking testimony amidst the chaos. Many of Ali’s female relatives crowded around his mother, Sharifa, attempting to spoon-feed her warm broth, combing her hair, wiping her forehead. Her face was wet with tears as her body gently shook from slow, silent sobs. Amina began maneuvering around groups of people towards Sharifa but was pulled aside by another, higher-ranking police officer. “Miss, my name is Radhouen Al-Din, I’m in charge of this district’s law enforcement bureau. Am I to understand that you are Ali ibn Abd Al-Aziz’s fiancée?”