Shock Warning

CHAPTER TWO

The Grand Ayatollah paused and waited for the reaction from his subalterns. Like all great imams — and none was greater than he, certainly not those Sunni infidels in Cairo, no matter their exalted titles at Al-Azhar University. Unbelievers, all of them. As they — and the world — would soon discover.

He paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts, making sure they were in accordance with the sacred word of Allah, divinely revealed through his Prophet, Mohammed. He took a deep breath. How wonderful to have been freed of Western superstition — the blasphemy they called “science”—by revelation. Those years spent in England, at the London School of Economics — what a waste. How foolish had been his country and his countrymen, still in thrall to the throne of England, upon which, in just a few decades or, Allah (PBUH) willing, a few years, the new caliph would sit, resplendent in his glory and beckoning to the twelfth Imam, the Mahdi, the expected one, to deliver the world from iniquity and unbelief.

How close it all was.

“O Muslims,” he began, his intonation stentorian, as befit his station. Another pause. He looked out upon the sea of humanity — all male — that faced him expectantly. Hanging on his every word. Watching him for signs and wonders. Never was he more conscious of his station, or of his sacred duty.

The Grand Ayatollah Ali Ahmed Hussein Mustafa Mohammed Fadlallah al-Sadiq said a silent prayer to Mohammed ibn al-Hasan al-Mahdi, still occulted at the bottom of his well in Qom. Soon, my lord, soon will you come again, accompanied by Issa to unite the world of holy Muslims and benighted Christians against the Jews and infidels, ushering in the final era of peace and submission to Allah’s holy will.

Soon.

“O Muslims,” he began again. “For thirteen hundred years have we, the Faithful, awaited this holy day. For thirteen centuries, O my brothers, have we patiently and faithfully observed the strictures and commandments of the one true faith. Triumphant have we been, and oppressed by the lies of the Jews and infidels, who have taken from us the holy cities of al-Quds, of al-Andalus. We have patiently awaited the day of deliverance, the day on which even the rocks and the trees cry out to alert us to the presence of the Jew, and reveal to our holy warriors his infernal hiding place, that we might kill him, his women, and his children.”

The crowd rose and cheered its approval. The Faithful could always be counted upon.

“Signs and portents were we promised by the Prophet and his holy Imams. And today I stand before you, Ali Ahmed Hussein Mustafa Mohammed Fadlallah al-Sadiq, to bring you the joyous news of fulfillment. O Muslims, I bring you the news of our Brother Arash Kohanloo, a glorious martyr to the sacred cause, who has struck a great blow against the Great Satan, the United States — such a blow as not even the Great Atta and his fellow martyrs on that happy day of September 11, 2001, could have dreamed.”

An enormous roar rumbled up from the crowd of the Faithful, here in Azadi Square, beneath the great tower of Freedom. Let the infidels of New York call their blasphemous tower, still rising after more than a decade, a sign of their surpassing impotence and of the immanence of the Twelfth Imam, call their pitiful attempt at reconstruction the Freedom Tower. Here was the heart of true freedom, brought by the Arabs a millennium and a half ago but since purged and purified of their desert savagery. The destruction of the Sassanid Empire and the abolition of the Zoroastrian religion was a small price to pay for enlightenment.

Thus spake Zarathustra? Only in the infidel lands. Here, only Allah spoke, and always spoke the truth, immutable and eternal and preserved forever in the Holy Qu’ran.

From here he could see the Alborz Mountains to the north, from what used to be called the Square of the Shahs, Shahyad, before the Revolution. How inspiring they were — almost as inspiring as the Holy City of Qom and the holy mosque of Jamkaran.

Soon.

“O Muslims,” he began again. “Of signs and portents and wonders have we long spoken. Of the Occultation. Of the Expected One. For centuries have we endured and suffered under the false promises of men such as Mohammed Ahmad, who slew the infidel Gordon at Khartoum but left us with nothing but blood and desolation and disappointment while the Crusaders took our lands, even unto the blessed city of al-Quds, where the Jew sits, plotting against us.

“O Muslims — the time has come, for I bring you joyous news.” He paused once again, for effect but more — for divine inspiration. He breathed the air in deeply, letting the breath of Allah wash over him, purging and cleansing him, revealing holy Truth to him as had been vouchsafed to only a handful of great men in the centuries since al-Hasan secluded his holy person in the sacred well.

Greatness. It felt good. It felt holy. It felt right.

“O Muslims. The Day of Deliverance is at hand.”

He stopped and waited. Part of being a holy man was the sacred caesura, the final dramatic pause that signified to the Believers that Truth had been revealed, the sacred Promises had been made — Promises that must and would be kept. Because a holy man also knew that Promises unrealized, Promises unkept would be turned back on him with the force of a thousand suns — with the force of the infidel Jew Oppenheimer, who said “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” at the birth of Trinity.

So far away and yet so near. Deep in the heart of the Jew city of New York, at one of the Jew holy places for a people who had lost their faith. No longer would the Brothers bomb their so-called holy places, for not even the Jew believed in them anymore.

No, this time they would strike at the heart. Their great financial center the Believers had already destroyed. But that was not enough. Not enough for the Jew, who could always find money. Money could be lost and found again — they had been doing that for centuries, frustrating the Believers, who had forced them into dhimmitude in al-Andalus and made both them and the Christian dogs like it.

But health — life — was something else. They might die for money, but unlike the Believers, they would not die for Death.

The infidel West no longer believed in the afterlife. It was too cowardly, too solicitous of its own misery. But a Believer would willingly give up his life and the lives of his women and children, in furtherance of the Truth.

Which was, at last, in the person of Ali Ahmed Hussein Mustafa Mohammed Fadlallah al-Sadiq, so near to hand.

“O Muslims,” he shouted. “The Messiah will not rise unless fear, great earthquakes, and sedition take place. The worst kind of humans will become leaders. Women will rid themselves of the hijab. Men will dress like women. Adultery will become common.”

They responded with a roar. The signs and portents were all around. They knew that the time of the Coming was near. They were shaking their fists at the heavens, their ranks a sea of signs proclaiming DEATH TO THE GREAT SATAN, DEATH TO ISRAEL, DEATH TO AMERICA.

“O Muslims, on all sides we are afflicted with oppression and injustice, just as the holy Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, so long ago predicted. And what did he say? That a nation from the east will rise…”

He was working the crowd now, letting their anger and their faith swell and build like a mighty wave.

“… and prepare the way…”

“Allahu akbar!” shouted the crowd.

“… prepare the way — for the Coming of the Imam Mahdi!”

He threw out his arms as if to embrace all of creation, slowly raising them upward.

As that moment, a blinding flash of light tore through the sky. It was like a lightning bolt hurtled from the hand of Allah, propelled to earth, there to form and coalesce into…

“O Muslims,” shouted al-Sadiq, “so it is written, so shall it be done. After a thousand years — behold the Face!”

For a moment, as the vision became manifest, nobody said or did anything. And then, as one, the men prostrated themselves upon their prayer rugs in homage, and let out a deafening cry that shook the heavens:

“Allahu akbar!”

“Allahu akbar!”

“Allahu akbar!”

And then, once more as one, they rose, their faces purple with rage and yet suffused with a divine fire. Truly had they become holy warriors, mujahideen, ready for the final battle, which was now at hand.

The Face hung in the sky, the Face that none had ever looked upon, the Face that only blasphemers and infidels had ever imagined in their degenerate art… the Face now revealed at last to the Believers, the Face that would lead them to the final confrontation and to ultimate victory.

The Face of the Prophet, as he had been in life, and so was in life eternal.

“Allahu akbar!” he cried, and then dared to gaze once more upon its magnificence, forbidden no longer.

He glanced in the direction of the sacred well of Qom, the holy well in which dwelt Ali, the occulted Twelfth Imam, in hiding from the infidels and the crusaders all the Unbelievers since the year 941 in the Christian dog calendar. Deep within, he could already sense the stirrings…

“Allahu akbar!!”

He heard the sound. And it was good.

At last, after more than a thousand years, He was coming.

And he, the Grand Ayatollah Ali Ahmed Hussein Mustafa Mohammed Fadlallah al-Sadiq, was the instrument of his holy wrath.