The Caliphate

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The sound of automatic weapons blends with the call to prayers. The pre-dawn adhan rises and falls along with the gunfire, carried by the loudspeakers which run throughout the city. I throw back my covers and slip across the narrow aisle which separates my bed from my little sister's.

"Nasirah!" I shake her. "Wake up!"

My little sister murmurs, a thin red book still clutched to her chest. Thin, grey stripes of light stream through the window-boards to reveal the title: Lozen: A Princess of the Plains.

"Nasirah!" I shake her frantically.

The gunfire comes closer.

Nasirah opens her eyes.

"Eisa?" she smiles. "Is it time to pray?"

"Yes."

I half-drag her down into the aisle between our beds. The brick will protect us from bullets, but the window is vulnerable. I glance up at one of the small, black holes in the plaster. That one tore a hole in the fabric in my hijab.

Shouts erupt outside our window, along with engines in pursuit. The pre-dawn adhan provides a wailing, surrealistic backdrop to the crack of gunpowder and screams of men as they die.

Nasirah slips the book underneath her mattress. I pull up her hijab. In me, the gesture is instinctive, to cover up your bosom. But Nasirah is only nine. She doesn't understand the hijab keeps her safe.

I fumble on the nightstand for my prayer beads, bits of black tektite which fell from the heavens. They are strung into a misbaha of thirty-three small beads, a large bead which connects them, and three silver discs engraved with birds.

Behind them sits a photograph of me, Nasirah and our brother from the time before the Ghuraba. It seems like a dream, me in my pretty pink party dress, Nasirah's golden baby curls, Adnan smiling, and Mama wearing her flowered hijab and white doctor's coat, holding an award for furthering public health. Papa stands between us, his arms stretched wide to encompass all of us, wearing a crisp dress blue uniform with five golden stars.

A prolonged gunfight erupts outside our window. Plink! A bullet flies through the boards and covers us with shattered glass.

"Eisa!" Nasirah screams.

I shove her head down to the floor.

"Pray!"

I clutch my misbaha, praying with all of my might as the call to prayers drones on. I picture Him fervently, standing there between us and the window.

"Oh, Allah, we ask You to restrain them by their necks and we seek refuge in You from their evil…"

Nasirah clings to me as I recite the dua'a for protection. We shake as the voices stop right outside our window.

The gunfire stops just as the morning call to prayer ceases wailing.

Men shout.

One voice speaks, chilling and ominous. A voice I have heard a million times, on the radio, on the television.

In my nightmares…

I know what's coming, but I still weep when the man begins to scream. It goes on and on, rising and falling like the pre-dawn call to prayer. At last it dies down into a sickening gurgle.

And then there is silence…

I clamp a hand over Nasirah's mouth so she doesn't cry out. I want no reason to draw their attention.

The Ghuraba laugh as they get into their trucks and leave.

Tears stream down Nasirah's cheeks.

"Do you think they killed him?"

I get up and peek through the slats in the window boards as the sun finishes rising over Caliphate City.

"No," I lie.

I do not tell her about the blood which mars the snow.