White Teeth

require an alim of Islam to be a towering height, or indeed for a moment dare to suggest that the Creator had not made Brother Ibrahim ad-Din Shukrallah precisely the height that He, in all his holy omnipotence, had selected. Still, one couldn’t help thinking, as Hifan awkwardly lowered the microphone and the Brother Ibrahim awkwardly stretched to meet it, you couldn’t help thinking, in the Brother’s very own style of third-word emphasis: five foot five.

The other problem with Brother Ibraham ad-Din Shukrallah, the biggest problem perhaps, was his great affection for tautology. Though he promised explanation, elucidation and exposition, linguistically he put one in mind of a dog chasing its own tail: ‘Now there are many types of warfare… I will name a few. Chemical warfare is the warfare where them men kill each other chemically with warfare. This can be a terrible warfare. Physical warfare! That is the warfare with physical weapons in which people kill each other physically. Then there is germ warfare in which a man, he knows that he’s carrying the virus of HIV and he goes to the country and spreads his germ on the loose women of that country and creates germ warfare. Psychological warfare, that is one of the most evil, the war where they try to psychologically defeat you. This is called psychological warfare. But ideological warfare! That is the sixth warfare which is the worst warfare…’

And yet Brother Ibraham ad-Din Shukrallah was no less than the founder of KEVIN, an impressive man with a formidable reputation. Born Monty Clyde Benjamin in Barbados in 1960, the son of two poverty-stricken barefoot Presbyterian dipsomaniacs, he converted to Islam after a ‘vision’ at the age of fourteen. Aged eighteen he fled the lush green of his homeland for the desert surrounding Riyadh and the books that line the walls of Al-Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University. There he studied Arabic for five years, became disillusioned with much of the Islamic clerical establishment, and first expressed his contempt for what he called ‘religious secularists’, those foolish ulama who attempt to separate politics from religion. It was his belief that many radical modern political movements were relevant to Islam and moreover were to be found in the Qur’an if one looked closely enough. He wrote several pamphlets on this matter, only to find that his own radical opinions were not welcome in Riyadh. He was considered a troublemaker and his life threatened ‘numerous, countless, innumerable times’. So in 1984, wishing to continue his study, Brother Ibrahim came to England, locked himself in his aunt’s Birmingham garage and spent five more years in there, with only the Qur’an and the fascicles of Endless Bliss for company. He took his food in through the cat-flap, deposited his shit and piss in a Coronation biscuit tin and passed it back out the same way, and did a thorough routine of press-ups and sit- ups to prevent muscular atrophy. The Selly Oak Reporter wrote regular bylines on him during this period, nicknaming him ‘The Guru in the Garage’ (in view of the large Birmingham Muslim population, this was thought preferable to the press-desk favoured suggestion, ‘The Loony in the Lock-Up’) and had their fun interviewing his bemused aunt, one Carlene Benjamin, a devoted member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- Day Saints.

These articles, cruel, mocking and offensive, had been written by one Norman Henshall and were now classics of their kind, distributed amongst KEVIN members throughout England as an example (if example were needed) of the virulent, anti-KEVIN element that bred in the press from even this foetal stage of their movement. Note – KEVIN members were advised – note how Henshall’s articles end halfway through May ’87, the very month that Brother Ibrahim ad-Din Shukrallah succeeded in converting his aunt Carlene through the cat- flap using nothing else but the pure truth as it was delivered by the final prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him!). Note how Henshall fails to document the queues of people who came to speak with Brother Ibrahim ad-Din Shukrallah, so many they stretched three blocks round the centre of Selly Oak, from the cat-flap to the bingo hall! Note the failure of this same Mr Henshall to publish the 637 separate rules and laws that the Brother had spent five years gleaning from the Qur’an (listing them in order of severity, and then in subgroups according to their nature, i.e., Regarding Cleanliness and Specific Genital and Oral Hygiene). Note all this, brothers and sisters, and then marvel at the power of word of mouth. Marvel at the dedication and commitment of the young people of Birmingham!

Their eagerness and enthusiasm was so remarkable (extraordinary, outstanding, unprecedented) that almost before the Brother emerged from his confinement and announced it himself, the idea of KEVIN had been born within the black and Asian community. A radical new movement where politics and religion were two sides of the same coin. A group that took freely from Garveyism, the American Civil Rights movement and the thought of Elijah Muhammed, yet remained within the letter of the Qur’an. The Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation. By 1992 they were a small but widespread body, with limbs as far-flung as Edinburgh and Land’s End, a heart in Selly Oak and a soul in the Kilburn High Road. KEVIN: an extremist faction dedicated to direct, often violent action, a splinter group frowned on by the rest of the Islamic community; popular with the sixteen to twenty-five age group; feared and ridiculed in the press; and gathered tonight in the Kilburn Hall, standing on chairs and packed to the rafters, listening to the speech of their founder.

‘There are three things,’ continued Brother Ibrahim, looking briefly at his notes, ‘that the colonial powers wish to do to you, brothers of KEVIN. Firstly, they wish to kill you spiritually… oh yes, they value nothing higher than your mental slavery. There are too many of you to fight hand-to-hand! But if they have your minds, then-’

‘Hey,’ went a fat man’s attempt at a whisper. ‘Brother Millat.’

It was Mohammed Hussein-Ishmael, the butcher. He was sweating profusely as ever, and had forced his way through a long line of people apparently to sit next to Millat. They were distantly related, and these past few months Mo had been rapidly nearing the inner circle of KEVIN (Hifan, Millat, Tyrone, Shiva, Abdul- Colin and others) by virtue of the money he had put forward and his stated interest in the more ‘active’ sides of the group. Personally, Millat was still a little suspicious of him and objected to his big slobbery face, the great quiff emerging from his toki and his chicken-breath.

‘Late. I have to close up shop. But I been standing at the back for while. Listening. Brother Ibraham is a very impressive man, hmm?’

‘Hmm.’

‘Very impressive,’ repeated Mo, patting Millat’s knee conspiratorially, ‘a very impressive Brother.’ Mo Hussein was partly funding Brother Ibraham’s tour around England, so it was in his interest (or at least it made him feel better about donating two thousand quid) to find the Brother impressive. Mo was a recent convert to KEVIN (he had been a reasonably good Muslim for twenty years), and his enthusiasm for the group was two-pronged. Firstly, he was just flattered, downright flattered, that he should be considered sufficiently successful a Muslim businessman to ponce money off. In normal circumstances he would have shown them the door and where they could stuff a freshly bled chicken, but the truth was, Mo was feeling a bit vulnerable at the time, his stringy-legged Irish wife, Sheila, having just left him for a publican; he was feeling a little emasculated, so when KEVIN asked Ardashir for five grand and got it, and Nadir from the rival halal place put up three, Mo came over all macho and put up his own stake.

The second reason for Mo’s conversion was more personal. Violence. Violence and theft. For eighteen years Mo had owned the most famous halal butchers in North London, so famous that he had been able to buy the next door property and expand into a sweetshop/butchers. And in this period in which he ran the two establishments, he had been a victim of serious physical attacks and robbery, without fail, three times a year. Now, that figure doesn’t include the numerous punches to the head, quick smacks with a crowbar, shifty kicks in the groin or anything else that failed to draw blood. Mo didn’t even phone his wife, no matter the police, to report those. No: serious violence. Mo had been knifed a total of five times (Ah), lost the tips of three fingers (Eeeesh), had both legs and arms broken (Oaooow), his feet set on fire (jiii), his teeth kicked out (ka-tooof) and an air-gun bullet (ping) embedded in his thankfully fleshy posterior. Boof. And Mo was a big man. A big man with attitude. The beatings had in no way humbled him, made him watch his mouth or walk with a stoop. He gave as good as he got. But this was one man against an army. There was nobody who could help. The very first time, when he received a hammer blow to his ribs in January 1970, he naively reported it to the local constabulary and was rewarded by a late-night visit from five policemen who gave him a thorough kicking. Since then, violence and theft had become a regular part of his existence, a sad spectator sport watched by the old Muslim men and young Muslim mothers who came in to buy their chicken, and hurried out shortly afterwards, scared they might be next.