Download the Book - Islam and Science Fiction

Hussein laughed. “Closer than you think. Contrary to what you
might have heard, Muslims don’t dislike Jesus. Fine fellow. No more
related to God than any of us, and we don’t call him Christ, but we
like him just fine. And he’s supposed to reappear at around the same
time and help the Mahdi re-establish peace, love, brotherhood, and all
that. But here’s the kicker. There is no way, none whatsoever, that
the man who has been calling himself Mahdi is the actual Twelfth
Imam, because there’s no peace, love, brotherhood, justice, or
anything good happening when he’s around. The stuff he preaches is
positively at odds with Islam. Basically he’s just a defrocked and
demented old Ayatolla who likes proclaiming that people should be
killed for any number of made-up reasons.”
“Well, well, Mr. Daryadel,” Raj chided, “I don’t think I’ve ever
heard you say a demeaning word about anyone. You’re usually polite
to a fault. Evidently this conversation has touched a nerve,” Raj
noted. “He had a pretty big following once?”
Hussein nodded. “When he first proclaimed himself to be Mahdi,
a lot of people got excited, hoping it was so. But I understand his
following is now down to a few thousand. And if the recent
speculation is right and he’s behind the desecration of the Ka’ba, I’d
guess his following will soon be zero. You simply cannot imagine
just how angry the whole Muslim world is over that.”
Jan thought for a minute. “Is he nuts enough to try to hijack a
starship and destroy Earth?”
Hussein hesitated only a heartbeat. “Probably.”
“That terrorist organization of his, the Shia Ali, are they
competent enough to pull it off?”
Hussein’s face darkened to a scowl. “Those loathsome bastards
… they have no right to use that name!” He sighed. “There I go
again. I guess I’ve picked up bad habits from the crew, saying what I
really feel. There probably are not that many of them, but those few
are really bad news. They think they’re pretty clever. They’ve
managed to sneak into a number of countries and kill Iranian exiles
who were speaking out against them. They probably do have sleeper
cells. I’m told some of them are pretty skilled. But my experience
with them is limited to when I was a kid in Iran. What I remember is
their hatred. I wonder if they could ever learn to mask it?”
“Profiling is illegal,” Jan stated. “But I would sure like someone
on my team that has met these guys before. I hope I’m just being
paranoid. I hope this new team of visitors is just ordinary decent
folks. Maybe you can ease my mind on that?”
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