The Aisha Prophecy (5 page)

FOUR 

The Saudi, Mulazim, had not been alone in dismissing the talk of this prophecy. Most Muslims, men and women, shrugged it off at first hearing. Abbas Mansur, a senior mullah in Iran, had certainly been among them. Now what, he’d wondered? An Islamic Joan of Arc? And she’s supposed to show up any day now?

Yes, a young woman. More than that, a quite beautiful and radiant young woman. They never seem to be homely, thought Mansur. But that aside, what is her purpose? Why is she coming? Is she to be the promised Mahdi who’ll bring peace to the world by converting all its people to Islam? No, her mission is considerably more specific.

But first, the best part. Who is she, exactly? It’s seems that it’s none other than Aisha herself. It’s the Prophet’s favorite wife, his warrior wife, the one who went into battle at his side. The one who led an army, well after his death, against the break-away Shiites. She led it while dressed in white head to toe and perched high on the back of a camel. Called “The Lady of the Camel” ever since.

And now she’s back. Reborn. Flesh and blood, or so we’re told. And with a whole new agenda. It isn’t just Sunni versus Shiite this time. Nor is it merely to correct any other departures from the teachings that Allah made known through her husband. No, it seems that she’s gone feminist on us. Aggressively feminist. According to the bloggers who’ve been spreading the word, she intends to box the ears of all Muslim men who have failed to give our women their due.

Well, if so, she’ll have her hands full, thought the mullah.

And coming where? Right here. To the Republic of Iran. Specifically, to its capital, Tehran. Or at least that seemed to be the consensus as to where she planned to make her first stop. But she’s definitely coming, says the Internet buzz. Well if so, she certainly took her time getting round to it. The original prophecy that foretold her return is more than nine hundred years old.

Not only old, but obscure in the extreme. He, a scholar of no small repute, could not recall reading or hearing about it even in terms of apocrypha. He’d had to ask an assistant to research it. He’d expected the assistant to come back and report that nine hundred hours was more like it.

But there really was such a prophecy.

The original still existed, written in Berber, or rather in one of that language’s dialects no longer in use in written form. It is on a vellum scroll that is stored in the vaults of the old Hassan Mosque in Morocco. Rarely seen, of little interest to historians or scholars. No record of anyone examining the text since Morocco was under French Colonial rule. The only other references that Mansur could find were by some Sufi mystics a few decades later. These said that she will come when all hope seems lost that Islam will ever regain its old vigor. She will bring a new dawn. She will show the way back. She will do so by raising up Islam’s women. Woe to anyone who gets in their way.

But nothing from them since. Not from anyone else either. And yet here it is. And it’s everywhere. Worldwide. Wherever there is access to the Internet.

Why, he’d wondered, would a prophecy so long ignored suddenly be a topic in chat rooms? His assistant could think of only one reason. His guess was that someone was researching its author, found a reference to it on Google or wherever and saw that it seemed to foretell, not just Aisha, but also the invention of the internet.

“Look at the language,” said his assistant. “She will speak to all nations with words writ on wind. Her words will ride the lightning. They will be as shooting stars.’ Whoever found it couldn’t help but be struck by the fact that these words fit the internet very nicely.”

“Too good not to pass on?”

“But anonymously. This is playing with fire.”

Mansur rubbed his chin. “So… we’re to believe that Aisha sat back for nine hundred years waiting for technology to make her job easier?”

His assistant could only spread his hands.

He’d asked the assistant, “She’s still coming here first?”

“To Tehran? Some still think so, but now most are not sure. It was only that so much of the original traffic seemed to come from one Internet café here.”

“The one at Jaam-e Jam Mall? Where our young people congregate?”

The assistant nodded. “In the food court there, yes.”

The food court, thought the mullah. With its pizza and burger stalls. Where young singles are allowed to intermingle unmolested. Not legal, strictly speaking, but winked at until lately. And Aisha, according to the language of the prophecy, will be making her move when she reaches full womanhood. What’s full womanhood these days? Sixteen or so? Eighteen? That’s about the average age of those young singles.

He asked the assistant, “So this started with the mall rats?”

His man blinked. “Excuse me?”

“An American expression. Girls who hang out at malls. Do we now have a patron saint of mall rats?”

The question troubled his assistant. “You would, of course, know better than me… that in Islam we do not have saints.”

The mullah made a calming gesture. “It’s a joke, my young friend. Just a figure of speech. Another one would be, ‘Let us lighten up a little.’ I ask you again. That’s where this started?”

The assistant shook his head. “Not started at. Spread from. It popped up one day on several screens at that café. Where from? No way to tell. It’s untraceable.”

“Like most urban legends,” said the mullah.

“Not many urban legends cause this much excitement. Young people all over our region these days are arguing about where she ought to come first. They discuss what regimes have held women back the most. The Saudis seem to be the primary target, but some think she’ll hit us all at once.”

“Good,” said the mullah. “Let her knock herself out. Let’s not waste any more of our time on this.”

Abbas Mansur was no doctrinaire zealot. He was known to have an open and inquisitive mind, respected even by the reformists. A former diplomat, a scholar, widely traveled and an athlete. He coached soccer and basketball, he skied and he fenced. His eyes, blue and piercing, were his dominant feature. They suggested wry wit and intelligence. But for all his intelligence, he had grossly underrated the impact that this prophecy would have.

What began as a trickle some three months before had turned into a flood, a tsunami. It had not only swept across all of Iran, it now seemed the talk of the whole Muslim world. Women, all over, were spreading the word that the day of “Hislam” was coming to an end and having a grand old time doing so. The Council of Guardians, which he currently chaired, was demanding that action be taken.

He’d asked, “What sort of action? We need only to debunk it. It’s a spurious prophecy. No one’s coming.”

“And yet it keeps spreading. It must be stopped.”

“Stopped how? Mass arrests? Let’s try not to go crazy. It will stop soon enough when she fails to appear. It’s a fad. A passing fancy. Nothing more.”

First Danish cartoons and now this, thought Mansur. An under-reaction would be nice for a change. So would a president of Iran, for a change, who doesn’t antagonize the whole western world every time he steps up to a microphone. Calm down. Give this time to blow over.

But the fancy didn’t seem to be passing. If anything, it was picking up momentum every day and not only among the young and restless. Groups of women, all ages, gathering in public. Not really demonstrating. Simply waiting and praying. In doing so, defying their husbands and fathers. Enduring taunts from the crowds that they attract. All those women risking being pelted or worse. Crowds egged on, in some cases, by demagogue clerics, but most often by reporters with video cameras. Reporters start more riots than clerics.

He’d placed a call to Colonel Aram Jalil inviting him over to shoot a few baskets in the schoolyard down the street from his office. Jalil was with Savama, the secret police, but a fair man, a thoughtful man, not a zealot like some. The colonel knew that when Mansur said, “Let’s go shoot some hoops,” it really meant “Let’s talk in private.” Both knew that it was almost impossible to eavesdrop past the sound of a ball being dribbled.

Mansur got there first, wearing sneakers and sweats with the ball that he kept in his office. Four young men were using the opposite court. They nodded their respect, but kept their distance. Jalil arrived wearing street clothes, a gym bag in hand. Mansur dribbled as the colonel laced up his sneakers. He asked him, “This prophecy. How serious?”

“The coming of Aisha?” Jalil let out a breath. “It’s grown far beyond what I’d thought possible,” he answered. “I would say it’s very serious indeed.”

“And they’re actually starting to believe that she is coming?”

“Not starting,” said Jalil. “Tens of thousands already. And not coming; they think that’s she’s already come. They believe that the prophecy has been fulfilled. Some, through anonymous postings on the web, have claimed that they have seen her, spoken to her, described her and now have flocked to her banner.”

The mullah grunted. “One-upmanship. That’s how stories grow. There’s always someone who’s ready to embellish them.”

“All the same, some believe them,” said Jalil.

“Some always do, but what of the rest? Are they actually convinced that she’s reborn as their champion? Or do they only wish it to be so?”

“If you ask how many wish it,” said the colonel from Savama, “the number must be tens of millions. I judge this from the hits on all those internet sites and the comments that many of them post. Not just here. It is everywhere. Name almost any country. And it isn’t only Muslim women either.”

Mansur arched an eyebrow. “Oh? And who else?” He arched the ball toward the basket. It missed.

Jalil took the rebound and dribbled in turn. “Well, of course, all the feminists. The usual activists. But the bulk of them seem to be ordinary women. They give their names and their ages. They are mostly young women. And many of them write, ‘I am not a Muslim, but… ’ They say if it’s not true, it ought to be true. They have seen what’s happening here on TV. They are cheering our women on.”

The mullah had seen the TV coverage himself. Programs beamed down by satellite, impossible to jam. Groups of women, sometimes scores of them, holding candlelight vigils. They gather at the Jaam-e Jam Food Court where the word of her coming first appeared. They gather hoping that she’ll turn up there in the flesh. They stand, their lips moving in silent prayer. Others stand chanting her name.

Many, especially the youngest among them, brazenly baring their heads. Doing so to show off an unusual hairdo that’s lately become all the rage. Hair cut short at the nape and shaped like a helmet. Shaped like, well… a female warrior’s helmet, the hair flanging out at its base. Some of them being beaten for refusing to disperse. Some of them being dragged off.

Dragged off by whom? Sometimes by male relatives. By fathers and brothers who are against what they’re doing or are at least fearful of their safety. Beaten by whom? The Basij Militia. The same ones who show up at every student demonstration and start, as they put it, “giving moral advice,” by smashing heads and knees left and right. Always easy to pick out with their green and yellow headbands. And otherwise referred to on those satellite broadcasts as “Iran’s version of the Hitler Youth.”

Not entirely fair, thought Mansur, but close enough. He’d been trying for a year to get that bunch disbanded. It was high on his list of priorities.

But here again something different is happening as well. Here and there we see some of them facing off against each other. Some seem, if not in sympathy, at least more reluctant to club defenseless women and their daughters. A few have even prevented some of Colonel Jalil’s men from taking down names and addresses.

Jalil faked past Mansur and drove to the basket. His layup went in off the backboard. He passed the ball to Mansur.

Mansur said to the colonel, “You have a wife and a daughter. What do they say about this?”

“To me? Not much. They are mindful of my office. But they certainly speak to each other. Only yesterday, I heard them at my daughter’s computer. My daughter was surfing the prophecy sites. New ones appear every day. I heard her marvel at how big this was growing.”

“With pleasure?”

“With… concern.”

“Please speak freely,” said the mullah.

The colonel wet his lips. “She’s enjoying it, yes. It’s my wife who is concerned. I heard my daughter say, ‘This is really getting good.’ My wife replied, ‘No, this is already trouble. It’s going to get some girls your age killed.’”

The mullah frowned. He shot from several feet beyond the key. The ball went through the net cleanly. Then came polite applause from the opposite court. Mansur acknowledged it with a grin and a wave. He asked Jalil, “Has that happened?”

The colonel sighed. While dribbling, he answered, “We don’t know, but I would think so. Some might have been killed by their husbands or their fathers. Honor killings happen. They are seldom reported. As you’ve seen, however, there are many who’ve been beaten. Dozens arrested in this city alone. Hundreds more have gone into hiding or they’ve fled across the border into Kurdish Iraq. Other women, sympathizers, are helping them to flee.”

“What other women? The Nasreen Society?”

“That bunch? Not this time. Surely not on this scale. The Nasreens couldn’t handle such numbers.”