The leaves are quite still
Not so my heart
Nor my head
They clamor
When Ismael arrived home from a May 17 party, unaware of the drama of the last few hours, he sent a picture to Leila. It was of their mother, taken in Somaliland the previous summer. Sara was sitting on the floor with her legs tucked under her, looking into the camera. “Don’t u miss this face?” Ismael asked.
He had tried reasoning. Tried logic. He was exhausted by the whole thing and just wanted his sister to look at their mother and realize how much pain she had caused her. Leila remained silent. Ismael could not sleep. At four in the morning, he sent a picture of himself and asked, “Why are you and IS in favor of suicide bombing?”
No response from Raqqa.
Only Osman wrote. The rescue team had seen a woman in a niqab leaving the large house with a small child, and they thought it was Leila and that she had given birth. They told her they could help her get out of Raqqa. The girl had hopped into the car and sat in silence for the entire journey.
“Are they staking out the wrong girls?? Have they been anywhere near my girls at all? Remember, my girls have skin like olive oil, if this girl is from South Africa then she’s very black. My girls aren’t that black.” Sadiq added, “My wife will be upset when she finds out you thought the girls were so dark ☺.”
“Remember, we can only see their eyes,” Osman replied.
The girl had become a problem for him. He was fearful on several fronts—that she might blow his network, that she would give him away to the Turkish police and land him in trouble next time he crossed the border, that she might still have ties to IS. She knew where he lived, had seen the smugglers. He impressed upon her the importance of not exposing him. After a few days, the girl and her baby were dispatched across the border to Turkey. A family had their daughter returned to them, without having lifted a finger. Out of the war zone, delivered for free. Sadiq felt bitter. The girl had been rescued with the help of his network. The world was unfair. The pain unbearable. He had believed, though, if only for a brief time, that Leila was free …
Sadiq made no attempt to talk to the girl when he realized she was not Leila, even though she could have had valuable information about his daughters. He could not face it, as if he did not want to know how things actually were with them. Not knowing offers its own type of protection.
* * *
In Raqqa the heat had set in. The pregnancies were beginning to take a toll. When the girls were outside, they wore several layers, as well as material covering their nose and mouth. The power outages that had rendered the rooms freezing cold in the winter now stopped all the fans. For a few short weeks the sandy earth had a green tinge to it, now it was again brown, spring in the desert shifted quickly to baking heat.
But they never called home to gripe. In the caliphate everyone was happy and had faith in the future. Anything else testified to apostasy.
After a week, Leila answered Ismael’s question from May 17.
“I have never said anything about suicide bombing,” was her terse reply.
Ismael wasted no time posing a follow-up question. “What is the IS view on suicide bombers?”
“Why are you asking me about fiqh, when you don’t even believe in it?”
Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence and the interpretation of sharia as expressed in the Koran and tradition. In addition to dealing with ritual deeds like prayer, fasting, alms, and the pilgrimage, it covers civil law, criminal law, and the area concerned with Ismael’s question: the law of war. As far as IS was concerned, God was the legislator and sharia a part of the revelation that could not be altered or adapted.
“I just want to know.”
“I don’t see the point.”
“Too difficult a question?”
“No, just don’t understand why you’re asking me when you can easily find out on the net,” she answered after midnight.
“Don’t want to read propaganda. Want to hear from you, since you’re there,” Ismael wrote, and sent an image of an ear.
“What good is it to you to know these things when you neither believe in anything nor are looking for anything to believe in. I could understand if you were asking in order to get a better understanding of religion but it seems like you’re asking merely for the sake of debate.”
“I just want to see if you share my values.”
“I really don’t have the time or the inclination for a debate at the moment, starting with belief in God, because if you don’t believe in God none of the answers I give you will be of any use.”
“Stop beating around the bush. Is IS for/against suicide bombers? It’s not a debate. Merely a simple question. I’m not asking why. Just yes/no.”
After a few minutes the cursor began to move. It was one in the morning. An answer was on the way from Raqqa.
“Hey, it’s Leila’s husband … finally, mate, we get to speak.”
“Hey man. I asked my sister a question. Do you mind answering?”
“Yeah, I know, she’s just feeling tired. Due to the pregnancy.”
“My dad respects you a lot for asking to marry her. So do I.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
“Take good care of her, bro.”
“Trust me, I will, Ismael. I wanted to speak with you for a long time coming. Aaww brotherly love, how cute.”
“Back to my question though?”
“I see you like fiqh. What madhab are you btw … don’t tell me Shafi like all Somalis. FYI, electricity might cut out any second.”
Madhab is a school of thought within fiqh. There are four in Sunni Islam, including the Shafi
