Sadiq skimmed the text. Muslims had to unite under one caliph. That had to be fought for by the sword.
Abdullah Azzam was the father of modern jihadism. He had become acquainted with Osama bin Laden while teaching in Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s, and was a driving force behind the Saudi businessman’s financing of mujahideen—the holy warriors who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan. There his friendship with bin Laden deepened and he set down a fatwa concerning the rules for when jihad was an individual obligation—fard al-ayn—and when you could let others fight for you—fard kifaya.
“To offer prayer—as opposed to waging jihad on the battlefield—is like the trifling of children,” Azzam wrote in contempt for what he perceived as cowardice. “For every tear you have shed upon your cheek, we have shed in its place blood, on our chests. You are jesting with your worship; while you worshippers offer your worship, mujahideen offer their blood and person.”
The Palestinian scholar wrote that if a piece of Muslim land, even the size of a hand span, was infringed upon, then jihad became fard al-ayn for all Muslims, male and female. “The child shall march forward without the permission of its parents and the wife without the permission of the husband.”
This was what the girls wanted him to know from this book—that their obligations to the Muslim ummah meant they could depart without his consent, that the teachings of the learned supported them. Sadiq closed the document.
Jihad.
Caliphate.
Martyrdom.
Nonsense.
Read the ENTIRE book before replying. And the part that hurt the most: We have planned and thought this through for almost an ENTIRE year.
Sadiq did not sleep that night.
The heavens had come crashing down.
2
VEILED
A new day broke.
As soon as he woke up, Ismael checked Viber, Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp. Nothing.
“Ayan, Leila, are you alive?” he wrote beneath the thread from the previous night.
Sara was crying. “Someone must have tricked them into going!”
“Brainwashed them,” Sadiq said.
Although Ismael was no longer trembling as he had been the night before, the shock lingered in his body, like a punch he had been unprepared for. He blamed himself for not having seen this coming. The hours on YouTube listening to clerics and preachers. Their anger that he did not attend the mosque. The accusations. Their abhorrence of kuffar—unbelievers.
“Don’t use that word!” their parents had admonished them. “It’s disrespectful.”
The girls had refrained, for a while, but their contempt for infidels returned. It was as though they could not be pure enough when everything around them only grew dirtier.
Leila had often spoken about the day of judgment, when only the true believers would be spared God’s wrath. This life was a test, she said. Real life came afterward, in paradise, but only if you followed God’s teachings. Then you would live in a garden where every kind of delicious fruit grew, by a river of milk, have everything you desired, and experience intense well-being. All your emotions would be beautiful and pure. You would never feel anger, sadness, pain, or regret. Only perfect harmony, happiness, and sheer joy. You would walk on floors of diamonds in houses with walls of gold. The angels would sing and you would sense the presence of God at all times.
When Ismael expressed his doubts about all this, Leila grew annoyed.
“What do you think happens when you die, then?” she had asked.
“I think you die, you’re buried, and then … well, that’s it.”
“No,” Leila corrected him. “Either you go to paradise or you’re cast into hell. Ismael, believe me, it’s not too late. Let me help you. I can show you the right path.”
To question the word of God was blasphemy, she pointed out. And the rightful punishment for it was death.
He realized how extreme they had become. How could he not have seen where they were headed?
Ismael reread the long message Leila had sent the night before. She had written that being able to answer to God on judgment day was more important than worrying about hurting people in the here and now. “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 the afterlife.” By enlisting in holy war, she would save them all from hell. If you died as a martyr, you could choose seventy family members to join you in paradise. She had sacrificed herself for them.
* * *
Later that morning, Sadiq received a phone call from the district division of the PST, the Police Security Service, where somebody had finally read the message about the girls being in Turkey. The policeman asked several questions about the girls, places they frequented, whom they socialized with, if the parents could think of anyone who might know something, if they had any leads.
In order for the police to issue a bulletin, they said, the family had to report the girls missing.
Sadiq put down the phone. The two smaller boys came padding into the living room. Sara had not roused them from sleep this morning. Sadiq was not going to struggle to lace their shoes. There would be no arguments about who sat in the front seat because no one could summon the energy to take them to school.
“Was it wrong of them to go?” Isaq asked.
“Yes,” Sadiq answered.
The boys looked at him, then sat down to play computer games.
Who could know something? Who had known? Sadiq attempted to unearth some clue, some trace, anything. During the night he had racked his brain, trying to understand. By early morning he realized he had no idea what his daughters had been doing or whom they had spent their time with over the past year. Sometimes he had driven them to the Tawfiiq
