Barack Obama had placed al-Awlaki on a list of people who could be killed by the CIA, which he was, in a drone attack in Yemen in 2011. He was the first American citizen in recent history executed without judicial supervision by his own president. In the wake of the drone strike, Obama stated that al-Awlaki had been “removed from the battlefield.” But the terrorist leader had in no way been removed from the virtual battlefield.
* * *
While Leila was at school, Ayan spent her days online. In addition to religious sites, she had begun checking out new types of videos. Laura in the Kitchen presented recipes for fatty American fare, from mac and cheese to peanut brownies and cinnamon rolls. Make popsicles from Nutella, Laura said, laughing. Bake a meat pie, the brunette suggested as she smiled and licked her lips. Show Me the Curry demonstrated how to make Asian dishes. Somali Food described cuisine from her parents’ homeland. On one site, Ayan studied cooking suited to simple conditions: NoSpoonsHereCooking—how to make food without measuring or weighing.
She also spent a good deal of time seeking out tips for housekeeping, visiting sites with names like Decorate Your House, Learn to Sew, Create Magic in Your Home. She sat at the computer and hungered, for magic, for real life to begin.
On Twitter, her profile was more political than before. Her first tweet that autumn, after a considerable hiatus, concerned jihad al-nikah—sex jihad. The phrase incensed Ayan. “By now you have probably already heard of the harem of Tunisian sex-warrior slaves heading to Syria in order to give up their young bodies to the appetites of ravenous rebels … and coming back to the country with bellies full of jihadi babies,” the website muslimmatters.org noted, reassuringly adding: “There is no evidence!”
Ayan was outraged that the pure intentions of these women were dragged through the mud. By making hijra, emigration, you were washing away your previous sins, and here it was being presented as if you were traveling to Syria to commit fresh ones!
The story drew attention when a Lebanese TV channel reported that the Saudi Arabian preacher Muhammad al-Arefe, who had several million followers, had issued a fatwa allowing the gang rape of Syrian women. An Arabian website followed up; the same man had encouraged Muslim women to travel to Syria and have sex with the fighters to keep morale up. The Tunisian minister of the interior said women were being tricked into going to Syria and returning pregnant.
The sheikh denied having issued the fatwa. No human rights groups found any evidence that women had traveled on jihad al-nikah. The minister did, however, have a motive for circulating the story. In terms of percentage of the population, Tunisia was the country with the most young people traveling to join the ranks of the jihadists. Perhaps fewer would be tempted if they were branded as whores.
The majority of Ayan’s posts were still Islamic words of wisdom. She petitioned God for protection with the hashtag #Pray4Syria. “If all you can do is pray, then pray hard!”
For her part, she was going to do more than pray, and she was not going to do it alone. She’d have to bring along Leila, who slept on the bunk over her. “Above all other things, the one thing that I found to benefit a person most is a suitable companion,” she retweeted from greatmuslimquotes.com.
One by one, her friends had pulled out. For her it was beginning to be a matter of urgency. All the unopened bills and reminders were stacking up in the box at the top of the wardrobe. Ayan had received letters from several banks, from all the mobile operators she had subscriptions with, then finally from the execution and enforcement commissioner containing a summons to appear before the arbitration board. All she had to do was leave the letters unopened, not show up in court. But sooner or later someone would turn up on the doorstep.
One week after her sixteenth birthday, a day before boarding a flight to Turkey, Leila changed her Facebook profile picture one last time. In red writing it now read: “MUJAHIDAH: A caring wife for a mujahid today, and loving mother of the mujahid tomorrow.”
Ayan had also found a suitable companion in Syria. It turned out he had been living just up the road from her all these years:
The Eritrean, the Dønski boy, the widower—Hisham.
After the death of his wife at the Rabita Mosque, his child’s maternal grandparents had been looking after Hisham’s infant. It was only now, in October 2013, five months after the death, that the police had launched an investigation to establish whether there was any connection between the exorcism and the cardiac arrest. But by now all the recordings from the cameras had been erased and no one could say what had taken place prior to or during the incident.
The case would be dropped.
Anyhow, the widower was again engaged.
There’s no such thing as halal dating, it’s called marriage. As soon as Ayan arrived, they were to be wed.
The Skype ringtone sounded on her laptop. She clicked on the telephone receiver symbol. They never talked with the camera on.
“Salam aleikum.”
“Aleikum salam…”
Hisham told her about his house and car, life among the other fighters. He asked her to click on the camera icon. She put on her niqab and placed her finger on the symbol. She saw him. He saw her eyes.
“So how did you become ‘radicalized,’ then?” he asked, in a flirty way. He chuckled softly. “Aren’t you actually an Islam Net girl?” In other words, a girl who did not go all the way, one who halted at the threshold.
“No, I am not! I’ll show you,” Ayan replied.
“Lift your veil, then,” he said.
She raised it and showed him her face.
“Take it off,” he challenged.
She took it off.
PART III
MASHA: It seems to me that one must have faith, or must search for a faith, otherwise life is just empty, empty …
