Download the Book - Islam and Science Fiction

would carry apparatus and reagents to manufacture assorted gasses
and explosives from innocent onboard materials.
The carefully detailed plans we were given spelled out our goals.
We were to gain control, coerce a minimum contingent of the crew to
run the ship, and eliminate the rest. We should be prepared for a long
stay in space, far enough out to make us impossible to detect, but
close enough to receive timely microwave instructions. A position
well out in the Oort cloud was specified.
Less than a week later, the Mahdi broadcast one of his cryptic
parables that most of the world ignores. Even if you heard it
translated, no doubt you would have missed its meaning. Its meaning
was clear to his followers, though. He said the Day of Reckoning was
close at hand, and that the Earth would soon be consumed in fire, as
God had promised Noah. He called on his small core of faithful
followers to gather reminders from the holy shrines, assemble their
belongings, and gather aboard three massive fusion freighters bought
with what little wealth the Shah had not stolen from us when he
regained the throne. In space, they would await the availability of a
new world, which would be revealed to us.
Just which world he had in mind was a mystery. Of the few new
worlds accessible by Gate, none would pass for Eden, although a
couple might have passed as an upper level of Hell. The best of those
was, ironically, probably Mazra'ih, the planet first settled by Baha'is
we had driven from Iran.
The following day there came an announcement that stunned the
world of Islam. The Holy Ka'ba in Mecca had been attacked by a
suicide squad. For most of the day they held the Saudi security forces
at bay while they accomplished their mission. With a tiny charge that
rent the Muslim world and which will reverberate for all time to
come, they blasted the Black Stone, the sacred rock set by Abraham,
designated by Muhammad as the focus of our prayers, and the object
of pilgrimage for every able-bodied believer. Before they died in the
final assault, the attackers launched a fragment of the holy relic out of
the shrine by a small guided rocket. It disappeared into the desert,
and could not be traced.
I was stunned at the atrocity. Which of our enemies could have
done such a thing? The Zionists? The Baha'is? The western powers?
The Saudis themselves? The act reinforced my willingness to strike
for our cause.
I sought Zeid's company, needing his faith. I found him in
prayer, and in tears. I thought I understood. I did not. He stood up
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