Sadiq called the police and gave them the information his daughter had unwittingly provided. It was past eleven o’clock at night.
“We’re in a desperate situation. You need to help us right now. Find them before it is too late!” Sadiq urged.
His words were taken down in the operations center and the information forwarded to the local department of PST, the Norwegian Police Security Service.
The message lay there, unread, in an unopened e-mail, all night, while the girls settled down to sleep at the Grand Hotel in Adana, where they had checked in using their own passports and under their full names.
* * *
Half an hour before midnight, Sadiq’s laptop notified him an e-mail message had been received. It was from Ayan. It contained no greeting, no dear Mom and Dad, but got straight to the point.
Read the ENTIRE book and find out who the author is before replying, we have planned and thought this through for almost an ENTIRE year, we would never do something like this on impulse. Yours sincerely Ayan
Sadiq opened the attachment. It was a book manuscript and on the first page it read:
DEFENSE OF THE MUSLIM LANDS
The First Obligation After Iman
By Dr. Abdullah Azzam
(May Allah accept him as Shaheed)
It started with a quotation from Muhammad: “… But those who are killed in the Way of Allah, he will never let their deeds be lost.”
Sadiq remained seated and read. Ismael shut the door to his room. He lay on the bed with the phone in his hand, staring at the ceiling. It all felt unreal. He logged on to Facebook, scrolled, clicked, and his mind whirled. Suddenly he saw that Fatima Abdallah was back online again.
“Ayan. It’s Ismael,” he typed. “I know you have left. What are you planning to do there? Like, actually do. When do you land in Syria?”
His big sister replied right away. “First, what’s happening at home? Are the police there? Are child services there?”
“No. No.”
“Thank God! Is Mom in a coma?”
“She’s crying. Is miserable. Your turn.”
“Well, we’re going to do what we need to do.”
“What do you mean by that exactly?”
“Everything from fetching water for the sick to working in refugee camps.”
“Mom thinks you’re going to get married. With men waging jihad in order to satisfy them. Lol. Mom thinks you’re going to be raped.”
“God forbid. You know we’re not like that.”
“I’m not sure what I know anymore.”
“What do you think I am, a whore?”
“I don’t know,” answered Ismael, adding a sad emoji. “Thought you trusted me more. You could have at least said something to me.”
“You would have stopped us!” his sister wrote. “Tell Mom we’re sorry for the worry we’ve caused, but Allah comes first, before anyone else.”
“She’s mad at you, in her coma.”
“She’s not in a coma.”
“She can just about manage to speak, and she’s crying. What would you call that?”
“If she’s crying then she’s not in a coma. Don’t lie to us about things like that.”
“Hmm, I exaggerated, I can make a video of her.”
“Nooo.”
“How did you get the money?”
“I worked.”
“How much money do you have?”
“We have enough. Anyway, ask Dad to read the whole book I e-mailed him.”
She handed the telephone to her sister.
“Ismael, dear Ismael, it’s Leila. I love Mom more than anything on earth, but when it comes to ALLAH and the Prophet, I fear what ALLAH will ask me on the day of judgment. I know I am hurting a lot of people here in dunya, but I am not thinking of dunya at the moment. I’m doing this because I love my mother and father and my whole family sooo much, it’s not just for my akhirah but for all of yours too. I’m not a particularly good daughter and I don’t give my parents what they REALLY deserve, but this is my chance to make up for that by being of help to them in akhirah. Please try to understand. If you had the chance to help your parents on judgment day at the expense of maybe hurting them in dunya but in so doing help get them into Jannah, wouldn’t you also do EVERYTHING in your power for that chance?”
The message came in bits. Leila was pressing Send line by line as she wrote. Ismael knew enough about Islam to understand the content. Dunya was life here on earth, akhirah was the afterlife, and Jannah was paradise.
“Are you coming back? Like, ever?” Ismael wrote from his bed.
“We don’t know for sure, but we have no wish to,” Leila answered.
“So we’re probably never going to see each other again?” Ismael included a crying emoji.
“Don’t ever think that, we always have Skype, haha.”
“But in real life?”
“You never know.”
Ismael sent a disappointed emoji and added, “Oh, well.”
“How are you?” his little sister asked.
“Feel weird. Dunno. Sad.”
“It hasn’t sunk in yet for us either. Don’t be sad, we’re not dead and we’re doing fine. Try to think positive. Think pink ☺ Remember in the spring? You said I would NEVER do anything like this because I was too cowardly?”
“Yeah, you win. Can you come home now?”
Leila did not reply right away, so he added quickly: “Haha. Have fun. Do what you think is right.”
“We will.”
“I’m cool,” answered Ismael.
“Good night.”
Leila sent a smiley and a heart.
She logged off.
Ismael lay in bed with the phone in his hand. Tears trickled down his cheeks.
* * *
In the living room, Sadiq was reading Defense of the Muslim Lands while keeping an eye on his mobile phone and Facebook account in case his daughters texted him or went online.
“There is no Caliphate,” the text began. “A glorious empire the world once feared. A people entrusted with the final revelation of God. The religion destined for the whole of humanity. Where is it today?” asked the writer. “The unclean have duped the dull masses of Muslims by installing their wooden-headed puppets as false figureheads of states that remain under their control. Colonialism has taken a new face. They have come
