Disaster

He loved what he did by principle, but at times he thought he especially enjoyed the travel. He had been granted one of the top administrative positions in his organization and that meant he was bestowed with the gift of frequent voyages to lands far and unknown.

He had seen already the best (and the worst) of what God’s green earth currently had to offer and hoped in time to see more. As the years ticked by: the pyramids of Giza, Pythagoras’s trousers, the atom bomb, dodo birds, the darkness.

He’d seen his fair share of destruction during these trips and knew it wouldn’t ever get any better. Over the course of his sojourns, however, he’d come to realize that there was beauty in the destruction, a sublime grace to the elimination and effacement and the ritual cleansing of the nation of mankind. And even though he would never have thought to question the workings of providence or express criticism in any way, that revelation had been a comfort.

It had stayed with him during all the ruin he had witnessed, all the ruin he would witness. The arc lost in the flood waters. The bejeweled mansions. The pillar of salt outside the barren city. The lone crucifix.

The revelation always lingered, faithfully.

How can you deny God? Did He not give you life when you were dead, and will He not cause you to die and then restore you to life? Will you not return to Him at last? He created for you all that the earth contains; then, ascending to the sky, He fashioned it into seven heavens. He has knowledge of all things.

When your Lord said to the angels: “I am placing on the earth one that shall rule as My deputy,’ they replied: ‘Will You put there one that will do evil and shed blood, when we have for so long sung Your praises and sanctified Your name?

He said: ‘I know what you know not.’

Where he was sent was to him entirely a matter of chance. There were always so many places to go, an endless list of possible assignments. Someone, somewhere, was always up to something that required their attention and intervention. It would have been easier to let these simple little infractions go, except that was not how they operated. And the simple little infractions were never simple or little.

And so he was often sent to carry out the terms of the accord with those who willfully or ignorantly chose to break it. Sometimes he received specific destinations; other times, the matter was handled without the middleman.

He didn’t know which method he preferred. But it wasn’t for him to say in the first place.

His orders were swift and specific and he was expected to carry them out fully and perfectly. He hadn’t ever disappointed and he didn’t have the power to do so anyway.

The good thing was that he had always heard of the city beforehand; it was one that they had all been monitoring and advising for some time before they resorted to the final arbitration. He always knew of the city and its people, he was always familiar with them – as familiar as he could be, given the situation.

And so even if he didn’t always know exactly where he was being sent, in some sense, he almost always did. He couldn’t decide if that made his job easier or more difficult; he couldn’t decide if he would have preferred the impersonality of the affair.

But that had never been his decision to make in the first place.

You are forbidden to settle disputes by consulting the Arrows. That is a pernicious practice.

The city he’d been sent to today was one that he’d seen a thousand times over. They were all the same, really. This one was, like the others, situated in an extraordinarily warm climate and the scorching desert sand stretched out to every horizon, the only relief found in the oases that dotted the landscape. Tall date palms dominated these little outgrowths of paradise and deep wells sent up clear, shimmering water for the inhabitants. The buildings were mostly clay and dirt with several large windows to a wall. The wealthier inhabitants lived in slightly nicer stone houses, but the dwellings were generally modest and unassuming. A promising sign.

When they listen to that which was revealed to the Apostle, you see their eyes fill with tears as they recognize its truth. They say: ‘Lord, we believe. Count us among Your witnesses. Why should we not believe in God and in the truth that has come down to us? Why should we not hope our Lord will admit us among the righteous?’ And for their words God has rewarded them with gardens watered by running streams, where they shall dwell forever. Such is the recompense of the righteous. But those that disbelieve and deny our revelations shall become the inmates of Hell.

There were animals, too. There were always animals involved. Herds of sheep grazed to his left while small groups of camels sat together on his right, munching cakes of dried date pits. Chickens pecked the gravel in a little communal lot toward the center of the city and he could hear the bleats of multiple goats from the slaughtering pen.

The first thing to do would be to find the inhabitants of this peaceful little hamlet. He needed to talk to someone from the city, so he set about looking for the appropriate one.

There was a heavy-set woman sitting at the edge of a watering hole with her wash, but she looked quite stern and very busy so he didn’t bother her. Besides, someone sitting that close to the water wouldn’t be able to help him.

An old man tended sheep under the shade of a date palm tree, but from the looks of it he was sleeping. The sheep were beyond noticing and didn’t take advantage of the fact to run away. They simply nibbled on the short, sweet desert grass, the same grass he walked across. Even if he were to wake the old man up to ask for his help, the shepherd would be unable to leave his position on the grassy plain and would be of little help.

The dry desert breeze carried the voices of several young men, and he looked up to see four or five of them perched atop one of the buildings. They appeared to be repairing the roof with twine and dry branches from the date palm, but were using the opportunity more to smoke and laugh than anything else. They were too far off the ground to be of any consequence at the moment.

Perhaps one among the young women was the one he sought. They always seemed able to provide the sort of help he found himself currently needed. They were fountains of information, and could very rarely keep it to themselves.

But the young women were busy with their work now, before the sun climbed too high. It was the common way for people of this clime to get to their work in the early mornings, while the oasis retained the coolness of the night before. By the time the sun warmed the land from its highest perch, the people would retreat inside to sleep the heat away.

He had wandered the entire city like the nomad among the nomads and found no one of help. And no one noticed him as he stood in the center and gazed listlessly through the vacant streets of the lost town.

By the heavens, and by the nightly visitant!

Would that you knew what the nightly visitant is!

It is the star of piercing brightness.

For every soul there is a guardian watching it. Let man reflect from what he is created. He is created from an ejaculated fluid that issues from between the loins and the ribs…

By the heaven with its recurring cycles, and by the earth, ever bursting with new growth; this is a discerning utterance, no flippant jest.

They scheme and scheme and I, too, scheme and scheme. Therefore bear with the unbelievers, and let them be awhile.

Finally, he found a little boy playing alone in the sand by the well. All thoughts of the other forgotten, he quickly made his way to the child.

This was the one.

The boy didn’t notice him coming and continued to build a little castle out of the mud and loose earth. He had long, dark hair that tumbled past his brow, making him look as if he were always hiding from something.

The boy was an orphan, the grandson of the lone shepherd sleeping against his staff under the date palm. His status as a parentless child made him somewhat of an outcast in the city, a condition no doubt exacerbated by his grandfather’s poverty and the fact that the boy had no uncles.

Still, he was the one.

He was the one upon whose shoulders this entire endeavor sat: the boy had but to say the words – or not say them – and all would be changed.

The child didn’t notice the strange man walking toward him. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have called out. Strange men were common in the desert. Strange men had built the desert.

THE DISASTER! What is the Disaster?

Would that you knew what the Disaster is!

On that day men shall become like scattered moths and the mountains like tufts of carded wool.

Then he whose good deeds weigh heavy in the scales shall dwell in bliss; but he whose deeds are light, the Abyss shall be his home.

Would that you knew what this is like!

It is a scorching fire.

It was uncommon for a desert nomad to wear white. The Bedouin rarely did. There was too much filth in the desert that even the sand could not wash away.

But the man calling out to him wore nothing but white. In the brightness of the growing day, he stood illuminated next to the earthen well. He probably glowed in the dark as well. His long tunic was starched and free of wrinkles and his leather sandals barely peeked out from underneath. His footfalls did not send up small clouds of dust.

The boy looked up as the stranger approached, his little castle left with only half a turret. The man smiled kindly as he drew closer and the child felt warm all over. He appeared to be a nomad, and he carried himself with the grace and power of Dhul-Qarnayn. But this was not a dangerous man.

He knelt down next to the boy and noted the half-finished castle, exclaiming in wonder at its careful construction. The boy grinned and drummed his heels in the sand. Yes, the castle was good enough to live in.

His words trailed off but the man’s kind eyes never wavered from his. He braced two long fingers on the hard earth, balancing himself.

‘Can you help me boy’

The child tilted his head to the side. “What?”

‘I need your help’ he repeated. ‘Will you’

No one had ever asked for his help, and so the boy didn’t even stop to think twice. “Yes, tell me!”

We have decked the heavens with constellations and made them lovely to behold. We have guarded them from every cursed devil. Eavesdroppers are pursued by fiery comets.

We have spread out the earth and set upon it immovable mountains. We have planned it with every seasonable fruit, providing sustenance for yourselves and for those whom you do not provide for. We hold the store of every blessing and send it down in appropriate measure. We let loose the fertilizing winds and bring down water from the sky for you to drink; its stores are beyond your reach.

We ordain life and death. We are the Heir of all things.

We know those who have gone before you, and those who will come hereafter. Your Lord will gather them all before Him. He is wise and all-knowing.

We created man from dry clay, from black moulded loam, and before him Satan from smokeless fire. Your Lord said to the angels: ‘I am creating man from dry clay, from black moulded loam. When I have fashioned him and breathed of My spirit into him, kneel down and prostrate yourselves before him.’

The stranger’s voice was almost lyrical, but quite solemn. It was unlike anything the boy had ever heard before. He crossed his legs and wrapped his hands around his ankles and waited to see what was expected of him.

‘I am looking for someone’ he said, his two fingers still braced against the dirt of the street that had been packed down hard by the passage of countless bare feet. ‘I do not know where he is I hear you are all very good with knowing such things in this city’

The boy puffed out his chest, taking pride in the state that ignored him. “Yes. We are! Me very much. We all know how to tell these things. What do you want to know?”

‘I am looking for someone’ he repeated. ‘Can you tell me where Gabriel is’

The name was a strange one, one that the child had never heard before. They didn’t even have the sound of the first letter in their language. “Who?”

The stranger closed his eyes. These people here would not know that name. That was the name used in other parts.

‘Jibreel’

“The angel Jibreel Alayhis Salaam? That’s who is called Gabriel to you?”

‘Yes I need to know where Jibreel is’

Blessed be He who in His hand holds all sovereignty; He has power over all things.

He created death and life that He might put you to the proof and find out which of you acquitted himself best. He is the Mighty, the Forgiving One.

He created seven heavens, one above the other. You will not see a flaw in the Merciful One’s creation. Turn up your eyes: can you detect a single crack?

Then look once more and yet again: your eyes will in the end grow dim and weary.

“Let me to find a stick,” the boy instructed, hopping to his feet and scampering a short distance away. He waited where he was, crouching in the sand, until the child had selected one and came skipping back to his unfinished castle.

“This is a good one,” he informed him, brandishing the foot-long stick. “Now let me see.”

The desert stranger nodded and folded his arms over his knees, watching.

The child drew shapes in the ground. Circles, lines, simple points. Some intersected; some were set far apart from the others. As he worked and wrote with his left hand, he gathered together a fistful of dust with his right hand. This he would sprinkle at intervals over his drawings. Some of it he would construct into a small pile in the middle of one of his circles. Some he would blow across his palm, between his fingers, and into the air above the etchings.

‘Do you know’

“I am looking,” he replied curtly, the very tip of his tongue protruding from the corner of the thin mouth. “Let me to look.”

Well have you deserved this doom; well have you deserved it.

Well have you deserved this doom: too well have you deserved it!

‘Well’

His tongue poked out just a little further, a sweet mark of concentration. “I am finding trouble seeing your Jibreel-Gabriel.”

‘What do you mean’

The child let the sand filter through his fingers over a series of small points poked into the hard earth, then began scratching again with his stick. “From what I see, he is not in the Seventh Heaven with God.”

‘That is where he usually remains’

“When he’s not traveling,” the boy corrected. “Often must he leave the Throne of the Lord and go do His work. The leader of the clan was looking for Jibreel two moons ago and found from his drawing that he was in Jerusalem.”

‘That is quite far’

“Jibreel can go many places, and very quickly. But he’s not like our God: the Lord can be here, or in Makkah, in Jerusalem and on the moon at the same time!”

‘Keep looking can you find him’

A frown creased the little boy’s brows under the curtain of dark hair. “He is not in the heavens at all. That is strange very much. No one said that he had work to do at this time, so soon before the new moon.”

‘Does Jibreel not work before the new moon’

“From what we have learned, no. We always know when he must leave the other angels and go to do God’s work. We always know.”

‘If you always know how come you cannot find him now’

“I will, I am, I can, I do. Just let me to look longer, I will find your Jibreel-Gabriel.”

‘Please do I really need to know where he is right now’

The boy looked up suspiciously. “Why?”

The man’s placid features gave nothing away but compassion. ‘There is a lot that depends on my finding him’

If you render Him no thanks, know that God does not need you.

‘Try Jerusalem maybe your friend is there again’

“I don’t think he would be, but I’ll look.” Again the child scratched away at the earth, revealing the secrets of time and place.

The man shifted but did not interrupt.

“He is not in Jerusalem. I will check near the House that Abraham built.” Now he broke the stick into two shorter pieces and, relinquishing his hold on the sand, grasped one in each hand and began drawing anew.

‘Is that how you learn of earthly matters’

“With two hands?” the boy inquired, looking up and receiving a nod. “Yes. When we want to know earthly things we use both our hands. But Jerusalem it does not count – Jerusalem is God’s land, not our earthly land. With our two hands, this is how we know when there will be famine or when there will be drought, or a flood or heavy winds or a poor harvest or many goats for the slaughter or who will be blessed with a boy and who will have to bury a girl. We know all earthly things by these two hands. All there is to know.”

‘Only God may know all there is to know’

He shrugged. “Maybe, but we do, too.”

The stranger waited as he drew. ‘Anything yet’

“He is not in Makkah or Yathrib,” came the reply. “Let me to look a little while longer.”

He nodded and slowly rose to his feet, stretching out his long legs that didn’t get as much use as perhaps they should. He looked around the little town, noticing that now the other inhabitants were beginning to head back to their own homes for sleep as the sun reached its zenith. Now as they walked, they noticed him for the first time and stopped to watch.

He stood calmly in the middle of the city and looked back at them. He had nothing to say to them. If they wanted to come closer and talk to him, they hid the desire and remained where they were. The boy was helping him, they saw. He’d receive what he needed and then he would leave.

The child was still scratching away in the dirt and as he stretched out his scrawny limbs to provide more room for the growing diagram, he caused the finished half of the turret to come crumbling down from his little castle.

When Earth is rocked in her last convulsion; when Earth shakes off her burdens and man asks, ‘What may this mean?’ – on that day she will proclaim her tidings, for your Lord will have inspired her.

‘Anything’

The boy put the sticks down and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, rubbed them there, and then looked up at the stranger. His obsidian eyes glittered as he absently played with the twigs without looking away from the desert wanderer.

‘Can you tell me where Gabriel is’

The child shrugged his shoulders, a ghost of a smile playing across his lips and then disappearing. The man waited.

“Yes, I have the answer.”

‘Yes’

“Either you are Gabriel, or I am.”

Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of Daybreak from the mischief of His creation; from the mischief of the night when she spreads her darkness; from the mischief of conjuring witches; from the mischief of the envier, when he envies.

As the eavesdropping villagers rejoiced in the boy’s skill, the man closed his eyes. The comfort, the revelation, came to him and wrapped itself around him. He closed his eyes and closed his body to the world, lifted and vanished as a series of convulsions rocked the land and the city was forever wiped off the earth.

The DISASTER. What is the Disaster?