Season of Martyrdom

by Jamal Naji

  Saleh succeeded in making me believe that my wife was in the throes of death. I did indeed believe him despite the fact I didn’t trust him.

  The bundles of firewood were ablaze, and a large number of mujahideen had gathered around, among them Darrar. The flames and sparks of the fire glowed against their faces and the machine guns they had strapped to themselves while they talked optimistically about the future of Islam and the Muslim lands.

  I wondered to myself whether my wife would die before I had a chance to see her.

  I remembered when she came to me as a shy bride in all her virtue and timidity, and committed herself to me according to the Law of God and His noble Prophet, thus becoming my dwelling place in the world. I abandoned her to follow the call to jihad for the sake of God less than a year after our marriage, and all she could bring herself to say was that she would wait for me to return safe and sound, God willing.

  A man’s lifespan is in the hands of God Almighty, but I just couldn’t believe that my wife who was barely twenty-six years old, had suffered a stroke – the kind of thing that usually afflicted the elderly, not the young.

  I kept my secret to myself and didn’t tell any of my mujahideen brothers about it, especially since my brother-in-law might be a worthless liar.

  The next day after we finished eating breakfast, I sat with Sharhabil on a couple of sheepskins under a shady tree at the southern edge of the camp, until it was time for him to leave on another mission whose contents and whereabouts he didn’t disclose to me. It seemed to be one of high importance.

  While we were in the midst of reminiscing about our brothers who had been martyred and had left this life, my cell phone suddenly rang. That ring was more like an alarm system connected right to my heart. I checked the number and it was Saleh. I picked up immediately.

  His voice was strained and sad, and I could hear the din of people around him and the sound of someone reciting the Quran in the background.

  “God rest her soul,” he said. “And may you be granted a long life after her.”

  I hung up the phone and burst into tears.

  Yes, by God, I wept like no man has ever wept before. Tears streamed down my face and mingled with my saliva and the dirt. Sharhabil consoled me and lessened my distress with comforting words and verses from the Quran calling one to submit to God’s will and divine decree. But in his eyes I could see restrained tears.

  He was quiet for a while and then he said, “Strangers, Abu Hudhayfah . . . We came into this world as strangers, and we leave it and our loved ones leave it as strangers. So why this grief, which weakens the heart and the mind and undermines the determination of the mujahid?”

  Then he headed towards a car that had entered the camp. He got in and sped away.

  My brothers in the camp came to me and offered their condolences. They spoke heartfelt words that helped calm my soul. They told me about dear ones who had passed away in their absence – mothers, fathers, children, brothers, and sisters.

  I calmed down a little, but the ghost of my wife continued to haunt me after that. At times I would hear her inciting me to fight for the sake of God, and other times I would hear her blaming me for abandoning her.

  Darrar al-Ghoury came to me late at night. He had gone by motorcycle to a nearby hideout to treat some wounded mujahideen there.

  He consoled me and offered fervent condolences for my loss. Then he asked me about Sharhabil, who he loved like a brother. When I told him that a car had come, picked him up and sped off with him, he appeared worried. He asked if he was going to be gone long.

  Darrar, God bless him, loved Sharhabil very much. But I noticed that maybe he was a bit more interested in him than was necessary.

  Sari Abu Amineh

  I received three strange photos from Darrar, with no explanation: one of chunks of flesh that made me want to vomit, one of pools of blood, and one of the remnants of the mangled car.

  I didn’t understand any of it.

  I called him and he said, “That’s all that’s left of the target al-Walid. He carried out a suicide mission, may God have mercy on his soul. I was the one who encouraged him to do it.”

  It was ten o’clock at night. Even though it wasn’t the proper time to visit the Basha or to speak with him, I called him, filled with excitement. “I have some big news. It would be best if I came to see you in person.”

  He was silent at first and then said, “Come over.”

  On my way over, some devilish thoughts crossed my mind about that wretch Darrar. And about my success in diverting the course of fate.

  I went to the Basha and found him sitting alone in an armchair in his office, wearing a blue robe over white silk pajamas. Between his fingers was a fat cigar about half-way consumed.

  The office was filled with the smell of tobacco. The Basha had dark circles around his eyes that I hadn’t noticed before. Quiet flute music played in the background.

  “Walid is dead, Basha,” I said.

  His eyes widened and he raised his thick eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course,” I said. I showed him the photos I had received from Darrar. “This is what’s left of him, Basha. There is nothing to worry about anymore.”

  He inspected the pictures and then sighed and said, “Who killed him?”

  “He carried out a suicide mission,” I said.

  “And the man you sent, what did he do?” he asked.

  “He’s the one who arranged for the mission and encouraged him to do it.”

  He looked away from the photos and looked directly into my face. “And so we have defeated fate. The one at whose hands my demise was to come is now dead!”

  “We should celebrate, Basha,” I said. “We have all played a part in defeating fate.”

  But then he suddenly went silent, and signs of anxiety flashed across his face. Then as he blew out a puff of cigar smoke he said, “And what if his comrades are victorious in Syria?”

  “God forbid, Basha.”

  The tone of his voice did not betray much joy or delight at the death of Walid. It was idle, not pleased, and not pleasing either. It was not at a level proportionate to the significant news I had given him.

  After a contemplative pause he said, “It makes me happy that I was able to change fate, and it bothers me that for thirty years I was unable to search for Walid. To buy him, for example.”

  “You didn’t know he existed, Basha,” I said.

  “Because I didn’t follow my instincts like I always do!”

  Darrar al-Ghoury

  A few days after inventing the story of Sharhabil’s martyrdom and getting Sari to believe it, the mujahideen left camp to confront Syrian government soldiers who had overtaken villages in the western sector.

  They chose to do a surprise attack on those soldiers at night, aided by mujahideen from other bases. This was because the government soldiers were able to reach the western sector, which posed a direct threat to our encampment and to all of the nearby hideouts, according to Commander Al-Thuqafy’s early morning speech to 200 mujahideen.

  As he spoke Al-Thuqafy had girded himself with his belt of explosives and was wearing a specked black kufiyyeh scarf that was tightly wrapped around his head and connected with his black beard. He was holding a cloak in his hands the color of dirt that was stained with dry blood. He stood up on a boulder overlooking the crowded assembly of mujahideen with their weapons, and delivered his effective speech, which he began by saying, “O mujahideen, union of troops who have vanquished the heretics and the secularists . . . O tower around which have gathered the infidels and the nonbelievers, the Nusairis and the Safavids, the Persians, the Arabs, the white, the red, the brown, and the black, and all the devils of the earth. O you traversers of lands and gulfs and continents who are impeded by nothing and are stopped by no one. O you who have increased in number in the mountain paths
of God, and His seas, and His skies which He has opened to you and whose gateways He has widened for you, without anyone knowing the secret of your patience and perseverance and triumph but Almighty God . . .”

  Then he began to incite the fervor of the mujahideen, talking about the gratification of victory over the infidels, about the true goal of the mujahid, which is martyrdom for the sake of God, where one finds that Paradise God promised to the mujahideen, with its wide-eyed houris, full-bosomed beauties, who neither menstruate nor give birth, with no mucus nor saliva, no defect and no impurity . . . beauties among the most perfect of God’s creations.”

  Then he raised the cloak he was holding in his right hand, saying, “You all know Abu Junayd, who was martyred three months ago during our raid on the passport offices, may God have mercy on his soul and let him enter His spacious Paradise. Abu Junayd was the grandson of the great mujahid Al-Amir Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iry, and his heroic deeds we will never forget as long as we live. This is his cloak, stained with his blood . . . the cloak of Abu Junayd.”

  Then he took a big whiff of it and breathed in its smell before us.

  “By God, the musky fragrance of his blood still fills the air ninety days after his martyrdom. And this is just one of the miracles of God the Mighty, the Sublime. By God, the white dove almost never leaves his graveside in the village of Al-Jalaa which God blessed with the opportunity to embrace his pure body.”

  Then he pointed to one of the mujahideen, approached him, handed the cloak to him, and asked him to take it around to show all the others, who breathed in its smell, one after the other, and shook their heads with emotion.

  The voices of the mujahideen rose up and grew louder. Their voices were interconnected and bolstered one another, and the way they enunciated inspired strength and resolve into each other’s hearts and souls.

  When darkness fell, everyone had left the camp. Only four guards remained at the main entrance to the camp, and a number of guards on the edges, in addition to fifteen wounded men in the trenches and the tents.

  While I was in the midst of examining the wounded, I heard the sound of a man moaning and groaning in pain coming from the direction of one of the tents. I walked towards the sound and found a mass of some sort wrapped in a blanket on the gravel. I hadn’t seen the thing before. I went closer to it, attempting to get a better look under the light of my little flashlight, when suddenly the blanket opened and whoever was inside fired three shots at my chest and my head using a revolver with a silencer on it. I fell to the ground and the shooter got up out of the blanket and took off.

  I screamed and reached to feel the top of my head and my chest. I could feel the hot flow of my blood. I heard the voice of one of the camp guards calling to me and then I passed out.

  Samah Shahadeh

  I suggested to Fawaz that we get away from it all for a while, take a trip for a week or two until things calmed down and the threat on him that he talked about had passed. It had been months since we’d traveled together. As he put his eyeglasses on and adjusted them, he answered, “How can I leave my work in this kind of atmosphere?”

  “If you’re under threat, what choice would you make – your business interests or your life?” I asked.

  “Of course I choose life,” he answered. “But this life of ours is tied to our interests!”

  Maybe he was right. Fawaz had dedicated more than thirty-three years of his life to reach where he’d gotten. He embarked on risky ventures, and faced numerous schemes from his competitors and those who envied him, who teamed up against him more than once, and nearly ruined his relationship with two of the most prominent figures in the country, thanks to their craftily constructed plots. He even told me one time that they delivered a report to the prime minister and others about a plan Fawaz supposedly had hatched for undermining the national economy, in cooperation with people with interests and organizations outside Jordan. A plan that – according to their report – rested on inciting international and local entities to force the central bank and those in charge to unpeg the dinar from the dollar, and peg it instead to a basket of currencies. According to the supposed plan, Fawaz would profit from the new exchange rate and insider trading during the chaotic transitional phase which usually accompanies currency fluctuations.

  That report received a lot of attention, because Fawaz was well-known for his far-reaching relationships inside and outside the country, in addition to owning numerous currency exchange offices which could profit a great deal from such a transformation if it were to occur.

  However, Fawaz was very strong in his position.

  Actually, he became strong after my father stepped in, in his inspired way – from a distance, but with amazing efficacy.

  My father didn’t like traditional methods. He dealt with problems like a skilled billiard player who aimed north in order to hit the south or the east or the west. When the report on Fawaz became known, my father made a public statement to one of the newspapers stating that he was in the process of hiring a research center to do a study on fraudulent reports being presented to the government, and to income taxes from agencies and companies and some individuals, and that he would be submitting the study with its supporting evidence to the audit office, free of charge, as a service to the national economy.

  That was how he rescued Fawaz. Then he phoned me and said, “Tell Fawaz he should be able to sleep in peace now.”

  That public statement resulted in an instant change in the course of the attack on Fawaz. The report was considered “conspiratorial” and an attempt by those who had prepared it to create chaos in the country and defame the image of the national economy. Another fallout was the dismissal of the minister of finance and two higher-ups in the Central Bank.

  We were sitting in the living room, Fawaz and I. His cell phone rang. The ring tone was an excerpt of a piece by Bach that I had picked out for him.

  Fawaz had been obliged to familiarize himself with Beethoven and Mozart and Bizet and Bach, in order to make me feel he shared my interests. Music had not been on his list of interests when he married me.

  He looked at the colorful screen of his cellphone and then headed out of the living room before starting his phone conversation in a hushed voice.

  Darrar al-Ghoury

  I regained consciousness and found myself swimming in my own blood. I discovered my chest and head were wrapped in white bandages and tape, and there was a group of mujahideen congregated around me. Beside me was Abu Hudhayfah, and above my head stood Sharhabil, who kneeled down beside me the moment he saw me wake up, and grabbed and shook me.

  “Tell me who did this to you!”

  “It was very dark,” I said in a feeble voice.

  “Why don’t you answer?” he said, agitated. “Who wanted to kill you?”

  “I did answer you, Sharhabil,” I said. “I didn’t see his face because of the dark.”

  He looked at Abu Hudhayfah and said, “What’s wrong with him? Why doesn’t he answer?”

  “He can’t speak, Commander,” he said. “It seems there’s something wrong with his tongue, or the part of his brain that controls speech. That happened to one of the mujahideen in Afghanistan, and he got better, thank God.”

  Abu Hudhayfah calls Sharhabil “commander”? What about Al-Thuqafy? What happened while I was unconscious?

  “What’s with you?” I said. “I am speaking. Where is Commander Al-Thuqafy?”

  They didn’t seem to hear what I said.

  I noticed that the way Sharhabil looked at me was different, as was the way he looked at the others. And he spoke sharply. His facial features seemed stern to me, too, far-removed from the patience that had characterized him in the past.

  Sharhabil remained bewildered and unsettled. He started pacing and forming a tight fist with his right hand, then relaxing it. He stopped and put his index finger to his lips, thinking. Then he came back to m
e asking once again for details I didn’t know. I wondered what had happened to warrant Sharhabil’s interest in investigating me. And not only that; they also brought the camp security guards to him and he submitted them to a lengthy interrogation in front of me. Even the wounded were not exempted from his interrogations. He seemed more like someone who had gotten wind of a conspiracy. I heard him say as he shouted at them in a very stern voice, “What were you doing? How did he get into our camp and shoot Darrar without your nabbing him? Don’t you know that dogs only enter through an open door? Why did you leave the borders of our camp open?”

  Then he turned to me, peering with his angry eyes into mine, as though he wanted to read what was behind them, and asked me, “Why did they come after you, out of all the mujahideen?”

  I smiled innocently. I was confident and coherent despite having lost the ability to speak. The attempt to kill me had really happened, no doubt about it, and if not for God’s protection and mercy, the bullet would have pierced my heart and I’d be dead.

  Maybe death would have been better. But I wasn’t sure if such a death would be considered martyrdom.

  Muntaha al-Rayyeh

  As I usually did when misfortunes arose and life became harsh for me, I went to visit my mother, hoping she had something to say that might comfort me.

  Her face was tired, and her eyes were sunken into their sockets. Her voice came feebly from between her shriveled lips.

  My father was in his bedroom, which he didn’t leave except when absolutely necessary, due to his need for someone to lead him since losing his eyesight to diabetes. At any rate, he was far from being concerned with what was going on with me.

  I made two cups of tea and sat down beside her. I told her what happened.

  I didn’t see anything in her eyes indicating she was the least bit moved by what I told her about Sari’s visits and his having been sent by Fawaz al-Shardah and all his questions about al-Walid.