This spring, Turkiye’s AK government, led by Tayyip Erdogan, secured what promises to be a momentous agreement with the longstanding Kurdish insurgent group, the Parti Karkeran Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) led by Abdullah Ocalan, which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state for the better part of four decades. This comes a hundred years since the first Kurdish revolt against the Turkish Republic, the 1925 revolt led by the Naqshbandi sheikh Mehmed Said against the republic’s founder, Kemal Atatürk. This first of two articles on the Kurds in Turkiye will examine the background of Kurdish activism during the final years of the Ottoman sultanate.

Background

As a multiethnic Islamic sultanate, Ottoman rule from Istanbul was systematically undermined by the nineteenth-century emergence of nationalism, which both undercut Islamic universalism and provoked unrest among the sultanate’s Christian minorities, often with support from rival European powers such as Britain and Russia. As a European import, nationalism had a limited appeal until Istanbul’s own attempts at centralizing administrative reforms, which often met a sharp backlash outside the corridors of power. As fellow Muslims who had enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy under traditional leaders such as chieftains and preachers, few Kurds welcomed Ottoman centralism and a number of major families, notably the Bedirkhans (Badr Khans) of Bohtan, resisted these measures, as well as sociopolitical upheaval caused in the borderlands with Russia and Qajar-ruled Persia. In 1880-81, the Nehri Naqshbandi preacher Ubaidullah Khalidi b. Taha led a major attack on Iran, and only relented under the pressure of Ottoman sultan Abdulhamid II before briefly challenging the Ottomans in turn.

Ubaidullah’s dissatisfaction with Ottoman and Qajar rule, as well as his insistence on an autonomous if not independent Kurdish frontier, has made him renowned as a proto-nationalist. He adopted a stance that would be echoed in many future Kurdish leaders, including his son Seyid Abdulkadir: official loyalty to the government, but parallel negotiations with foreign powers with a view to securing autonomy from centralism. In fact, the vast majority of Ottoman Kurds remained loyal to the government, and Abdulhamid increasingly armed them under the command of Millan chieftain Ibrahim Milli to fight Armenian nationalists backed by Russia during a bloody, undeclared war at the turn of the century. Stressing his title as caliph, Abdulhamid was nonetheless widely resented by a wide number of people, particularly the intelligentsia, by this point: his secretive, wary rule during a period of decline was increasingly resented and when he was ousted in the so-called Young Turk coup of 1908, traditional Kurdish leaders were among the few who rallied to his cause. Millan chieftain Ibrahim in Syria and the Barzinjis Saeed and his son Mahmoud in Iraq launched brief and unsuccessful revolts against the new regime.

Homogenization

The Young Turk coup, which brought together a mishmash of ideological and political trends united only by their desire for change, promised a more representative government, but in fact, proved far more repressive than its predecessors. Though a number of the Young Turks were Kurds, and though such Kurdish notables as Seyid Abdulkadir were given senior positions, in fact power soon came to rest with a militaristic clique that, in the “civilized” fashion of the day, viewed Ottoman heterogeneity as a potential weakness and increasingly sought not only centralizing but also culturally homogenizing practices, with the particular promotion of Turkish identity often at the expense of other identities.

Notable Kurdish families and leaders, including the Bedirkhans, Babans, and the Cemilpasazades (Jamil Pashazadas), were forced to operate underground. Others, such as the Barzanis, who had a record of rather heterodox religious activity but enjoyed a widespread following in what is now northern Iraq, briefly rebelled. Several Kurdish clans broke off their relations with the Ottomans; when, during the Balkan War of 1912-13, Istanbul came under threat, one chieftain, Abdulkadir Dirai of the Karakecili, expected that the Ottomans would fall and rebelled, only to be imprisoned once they survived. Other Kurdish clans remained loyal to the sultanate and were often employed against their local rivals.

Ibrahim Milli [PC: haberercis.com.tr]

Often, government responses were coloured by the assessment of individual officials who were not themselves necessarily Turks: for instance, Mehmed Fazil (Muhammad Fadil) and Suleiman Nazif, two of the firmest opponents of the Kurdish rebels in Iraq, were respectively Caucasian and Kurdish. For their part, some of the Kurdish intermediate class -which had historically been autonomous links between their communities and the Ottoman sultanate- were increasingly equivocal, doubting the feasibility of the Ottoman state and prepared to break away should it fall to foreign intervention. It was in this context that an explicitly nationalist idea of Kurdishness came about.

Throughout the devastating First World War that followed, Kurds fought in huge numbers for the Ottoman state: as many as three hundred thousand Kurds lost their lives in the Ottoman cause, and major units in the eastern frontline against Russia were largely Kurdish. The war saw communal displacement and upheaval on an unprecedented level, and not simply by the Ottomans’ enemies: though Russian-backed Armenian nationalists had been extremely brutal against Muslim civilians, the Ottoman state responded with a wholesale assault on the Armenian populace at large, which was massacred and systematically displaced. This was to date the worst assault of any Muslim government against a dhimmi minority; it was also a precursor to ideas of homogenization that would emerge after the war.

During the war, a handful of Kurdish notables, including Abdulkadir’s nephew Seyid Taha of Nehri and some of the Bedirkhans, openly colluded with Russia as it briefly captured the borderland. This availed them little as Russia soon collapsed, but was less momentous than the role of Arab counterparts -again, against the vast majority of loyalist Arabs- who helped Britain advance in Arabia and the Levant. Eventually, the Ottomans were forced to sue for peace in the autumn of 1918, whereupon their remaining opponents -France, Britain, and Greece, with a smattering of Italian and Armenian nationalist forces- occupied Istanbul and the surrounding countryside. The recently installed Ottoman sultan, Vahdettin Mehmed VI, sought to cut his losses, purge the Young Turks, and enter a disadvantageous peace with the victors: he hoped that a shared dislike of the Young Turks, who had brought the sultanate to ruin, would enable the European victors to view him with sympathy, but they instead aimed to split the Ottoman heartland between them. In this context, Kurdish nationalists, led by an Ottoman Kurdish general called Mehmed Serif (Muhammad Sharif), also sought the establishment of an independent Kurdistan.

Resistance and Collaboration

By contrast, other Kurds, as well as Turks and Arabs, fought this occupation of Muslim territory. In  Anatolia’s heartland, they were led by a number of renegade Ottoman generals: Kemal Atatürk, Kazim Karabekir, Ibrahim Refet (Bele), Fuat Cebesoy, and Vahdettin’s former negotiator, Huseyin Rauf (Orbay). Although the palace treated them as rebels, they insisted that they were liberating the sultan from foreign subjugation, and their argument was given strength by the European powers’ uncompromising stance toward Istanbul. They employed Islamic arguments of jihad that intermixed with already existing resistance elsewhere, both in Anatolia as well as Iraq and Syria, and these at least originally united many Kurds with Arabs and Turks.

Though the sultan and Atatürk reached an uneasy agreement by the end of 1919, in spring 1920 Britain sabotaged this with a full-scale crackdown in Istanbul. This forced the remaining parliament to flee to Ankara, where Atatürk set up a “shadow government”. The last humiliation for the sultanate came in the Sèvres Accord: though Vahdettin had hoped that he could salvage a good deal through cooperation with the occupation, in fact, the European powers decided to split up his lands and thus lent credence to the Ankara-based parliament’s call for a jihad. Although the Accord rewarded Mehmed Serif’s lobbying with a vague reference to Kurdistan, in actual fact this came after a year of fierce fighting between Britain and large parts of the Ottoman Kurdish population.

Kurdish participants in resistance included several Kurdish chieftains: Ali Bati of the Haverkan clan, Abdurrahman Aga of the Shernakhlis, and Ramadan Aga of the Salahan. Similarly, Karakecili chieftain Abdulkadir Dirai and Millan chieftain Ibrahim’s son Mahmud were released from prison to lead Kurdish forces. But the political uncertainty and ambiguous jurisdiction of the period, and suspicion and rivalries among the participants often clouded events. For instance, when Bati captured Nusaibin in May 1919, the army led by Kenan Dalbasar wrongly suspected him of French-backed subversion and drove him out, where he was killed. Similarly, when Istanbul sent a governor, Ali Galip, to arrest Atatürk that autumn, he was accused of being in league with French-backed Kurdish secessionists, causing the palace huge embarrassment. Finally, in early 1921, a particularly ruthless Turkish general, Nurettin Konyar, uprooted a largely Alevi Kurdish revolt by the Kocgiri clan in eastern Anatolia, with a ferocity that alarmed even his colleagues in the resistance. This revolt had demonstrable links to the British occupation and to Serif’s secessionists, thus cementing a suspicion of Kurdish agitation that was to resurface again.

In fact, Kurdish collaboration with Britain was the exception to the rule. Resistance was especially fierce in British-occupied Iraq, in whose north Ottoman veterans such as the Young Turks’ former defence minister Ismail Enver encouraged Kurdish revolt among historically rivalled clans such as the Zebaris, the Barzanis, and the Surchis. Participants included Mala Mustafa of Barzan, Karim Fattah of Hamawand, Faris Agha of Zebar, Mahmoud Dizli of Hawraman, Nuri Bawil of the Surchis, Abbas Mahmoud of Pizhdar, and Mahmoud Barzinji. Their local rivals backed Britain, along with opportunists such as Seyid Taha as well as chieftain Ismail Simko of the Shikak clan, a marauding freebooter on the Turco-Persian borderland who had once fought for the Ottomans but often changed sides.

Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji (Kurdish: Mahmud Barzinji (1878 – October 9, 1956) was the leader of a series of Kurdish uprisings against the British Mandate of Iraq. He was sheikh of a Qadiriyah Sufi family of the Barzanji clan from the city of Sulaymaniyah, which is now in Iraqi Kurdistan. He was styled King of Kurdistan during several of these uprisings. [PC: Alamy Stock Photo]

In summer 1921 Britain, at their wits’ end and by now reconciled to the inevitability of a Turkish victory in Anatolia, decided to cut their losses and set up a nominally independent Iraqi state under Faisal I bin Husain, who had supported them against the Ottomans in Arabia but been deprived of a kingdom when France had conquered Syria from him in 1920. The new state would be largely comprised of Faisal’s followers as well as parts of the largely Arab Iraqi intelligentsia from Ottoman rule: though Ataturk was not averse to letting go of Baghdad, the Turks and British both laid claim to Mosul, which was believed to contain vast deposits of oil.

In summer 1922, Ankara dispatched Sefik Ozdemir (Shafiq Ozdamir), the descendant of a notable Mamluk family who had most recently fought France and, during the World War, encouraged a shared Muslim opposition to the European foe. Far more than other Turkish officers, Sefik won the trust of Kurdish clansmen, supporting Karim and Abbas in battle against the British occupation. Unable to trust the weak Taha or the adventuresome Simko, Britain turned instead to Mahmoud Barzinji, who promised to repel the resistance if they let him rule Sulaimania. Once installed there, however, he made contact with Sefik and joined the revolt to announce himself shah of Kurdistan.

It was not until 1923 that this joint Turkish-Kurdish resistance was defeated. Though Mahmoud Barzinji was expelled from Sulaimania, British rule in the Kurdish region was extremely tenuous, and he was able to return repeatedly over the next few years. In order to beat him and other Iraqi opponents, Britain relied on massive aerial bombardment, a novel technology a the time that wrought havoc on the Kurdish countryside in a process that would be repeated by one government or another against Kurdish rebels over the next century.

[…to be contd.]

 

Related:

– The Role Of Kurds In The Dissemination Of Islamic Knowledge In The Malay Archipelago

– Calamity In Kashgar [Part I]: The 1931-34 Muslim Revolt And The Fall Of East Turkistan

The post Nationalism And Its Kurdish Discontents [Part I of II]: Kurds In An Ottoman Dusk appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Cryptocurrency is Deek’s last chance to succeed in life, and he will not stop, no matter what.

Previous Chapters: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

“Those with gold in their pockets gather, but in the hush of their greed they learn that voices of love grow faint. So they end up dining alone—no one dares place real trust upon them.”

— Chinua Achebe, A Man of the People

Travelize

When Zaid ended his salat and stood, Deek repeated, “I don’t know what to do next. I’m not ready to go back to Rania. She needs to show me something. I need a sign from her.”

“Why don’t you show her something? What signs have you given her?”

These interrogatives threatened Deek’s mind with turmoil. Instinctively he resisted, pushing the questions away.

When he did not answer, Zaid said, “Why don’t you check into a hotel for a few days?”

“I’m not liquid yet. There’s cash coming, but at the moment I’m down to a hundred and fifty bucks.”

“Didn’t you just offer me a million dollars?”

“Yeah but in crypto. It’s in a crypto wallet. Not cash.”

“Aren’t there any hotels that accept crypto?”

Deek stared at the lean, scarred detective for a moment, then slapped his own forehead. “Of course! Travelize! It’s a crypto company that lets you book hotels or flights with crypto. Man, I actually own Travelize tokens. What a dummy I am.”

His phone charge was down to 10%, but he did a quick search. There were several hotels in Fresno that worked with Travelize, mostly Motel Sixes, Hampton Inns and Comfort Inns, but there was also the Ramada, a Marriott, and – boom! – the Marco Polo, a high-end boutique hotel that had just opened in north Fresno two years ago. In dollars the Venetian Suite was $1,550 a night, but Travelize accepted a wide range of cryptos. Deek booked a room for a week. With the wealth he now possessed, fifteen hundred dollars a night was nothing.

Allah, Deen, Family

Zaid told him that the Namer had said he could keep the flannel pajamas. Somehow this made Deek happy. This place was special. He was only sorry he hadn’t met the old woman. Or at least he assumed she was old, though now that he thought about it he had no idea.

As the two of them extinguished the candles and exited the house together, Deek paused. “I can’t believe we’re leaving it unlocked. It’s nuts.”

Zaid said nothing, but looked troubled.

“You’re going to tell me again,” Deek said, “that I should go back to my family.”

Zaid waved this off. “It’s up to you. But really, what else is there? Allah, deen, family, doing work you love, and doing good in the world. And by the way, if you really want to give away a million dollars, give it to some of the charities operating in Gaza. The situation there is beyond dire. It’s unspeakable. And you purify your wealth in the process.”

Deek grunted. That was a good idea.

“I was thinking,” Deek said, “of changing my name to Asad.”

Zaid raised his eyebrows. “Changing your name is a big thing.”

“Not my family name. Just my first name. And not even legally, just in daily use.”

“So you want me to start calling you Asad?”

“No… I’m not sure. I’ll let you know.”

They parted ways with a handshake.

The Marco Polo

The Marco Polo Hotel was stunning. The four-story hotel had only 20 spacious suites – five per floor – with each modeled on a theme based on Marco Polo’s travels. The lobby was furnished with elegant velvet-upholstered armchairs, featuring carved wooden frames and cushions in shades of aquamarine or deep wine-red. Live olive trees in planters, stretching up toward the high ceiling, while Murano glass sculptures of seabirds caught the sunlight streaming in through the windows and refracted it in every direction.

On one side of the lobby, a full sized vintage gondola had been installed as a reading nook, with velvet upholstery inside. A young woman in a flowing yellow dress sat inside it, looking at her phone, while a tall, bald man in a suit – presumably her father – sat nearby, reading the Los Angeles Times.

Deek checked into the Venetian Suite, on the fourth floor. For a moment he simply stood in the doorway, the keycard warm in his hand, as his eyes swept across the room. Everything glowed in sun-washed gold—cream-colored drapes drawn open to tall windows, a vaulted ceiling painted with soft clouds, and polished marble floor that caught the light like water. The silence was broken only by the delicate sound of trickling water.

In the center of the room, rising from a round base of veined Carrara marble, stood a fountain. White and flawless, carved with meticulous detail. Three lion heads—fierce, proud, unmistakably Venetian—spouted arcing streams of water into a shallow basin. It was beautiful. And utterly absurd.

He walked a slow circle around it, unable to stop himself from staring. The lions’ eyes were narrowed in eternal judgment. He felt like they were staring at him.

He lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. The mattress barely shifted beneath his weight, and the silken sheets were so smooth they felt unreal beneath his fingers.

Dislocation

He knew it wasn’t rational. He’d paid in full. The suite was his for the week. But payment wasn’t the same as permission.

He looked around again—at the fountain, the chandelier that sparkled like crystal rain, the velvet chairs, and the desk that looked like it had been stolen from a Renaissance library—and the ache returned. A soft, hollow pang in his chest. Not quite grief. Not quite fear. Just… dislocation.

He remembered the couch he’d grown up with—brown corduroy, cracked at the seams, with stuffing poking out the arm. It smelled like frying onions, baby powder, and dust. The floor in that apartment had creaked. The heater had hissed. The entire family had shared one bathroom, and he and Lubna had shared a bedroom, sleeping in a bunk bed. Deek on the bottom, Lubna on top. But it had been home.

He stood again and wandered to the writing desk. It was inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the drawers lined in blue velvet. Inside one drawer, he found thick, cream-colored paper and a pen that looked like a relic from some old Venetian council chamber. He didn’t know what to write. He didn’t even know how to sit in a chair like that.

The minibar was stocked with bottles he couldn’t pronounce. The music panel on the wall offered a playlist labeled Venezia Notte. He didn’t touch it.

The First to Pray

His father often used to tell him that any part of the earth on which a man prayed would speak for him on Yawm Al-Qiyamah. Deek wondered if anyone had ever prayed in this room. If not, he could be the first.

He wandered into the bathroom, which looked like a room in a palace, with a cream-colored marble floor polished to a mirror shine, a massive arched mirror, a freestanding octagonal bathtub set into a niche decorated with Venetian mosaic tilework, and cabinets that appeared to be cherry wood or walnut. Plush white slippers and a thick white robe rested on a wooden bench near the tub. Deek picked up the robe, and his eyes widened. It was monogrammed DS – his own initials!

It was too much. It was not the luxury that overwhelmed him, but the strangeness of it. With shaking hands he performed wudu’, then used a towel as a musalla, praying ‘Ishaa in the sitting room. It calmed him, and reminded him that some things did not change. Allah was still Allah, and always would be. He, Deek, was a servant of Allah, and – by the grace and will of Allah – always would be.

A Long Way From the Moon Walk

He turned off the lights, one by one, but couldn’t figure out the chandelier. There was no visible switch. So he changed into the bathrobe and lay down on the bed in the illuminated room, the soft gurgling of the lion fountain filling the silence.

He thought about Rania, and wondered what she was doing at that moment. Probably quilting. Sewing quilts was her favorite hobby. Every friend she’d ever had probably owned at least one or two, given as gifts on birthdays, anniversaries and baby showers. She said that the hour she spent quilting before bedtime relaxed her and helped her sleep.

This was a long way from the Moon Walk Motel and its sagging mattress. Somehow he’d been more comfortable at the Moon Walk. Until he was kidnapped, anyway. He hadn’t thought much about the kidnapping. The killing of those men was like a movie scene in his mind. Grand and cinematic – cue the music. He felt no guilt or remorse. Those thugs had gotten what they deserved. He certainly remembered the pain of the beating the men had given him, and the terror he’d felt, yet it was remote now.

He had money now. Enough to stay here, to buy security and silence, along with cool air, bottled water and simulated serenity. But no one had told him what to do once he got here.

Fair Weather Friends

The next morning, the suite smelled like sunlight and saffron. Deek sat on the edge of the silk-draped bed in a plush monogrammed robe, a room service tray spread out across the coffee table beside him. His fingers, still stiff with sleep, tore a buttery croissant in half. The flake-crackle of crust and the warm scent of honeyed pastry filled the air. He dipped it into a demitasse of strong espresso, the bitter steam rising to his face, then chewed slowly, listening to the low sound of the marble fountain gurgling like a small spring.

The suite was silent, padded in velvet and marble, but Deek’s mind was restless. He’d slept too well, too deep—waking with a vague disorientation, as if he’d surfaced from under warm water only to realize he didn’t know the shore.

He unlocked his phone, almost absently, and saw the red dot: 9 new voicemails. He frowned. There had been only three yesterday. And he didn’t recognize any of the numbers except that of Faraz, the bright, enthusiastic facilities manager at Masjid Madinah. Faraz, a 35-ish Bangladeshi American who treated the English language like a rapper’s hummed tune, was into crypto too. The two of them had bounced ideas and strategies off each other for years. Many times Faraz had invited him back to the masjid kitchen and brewed some coffee for the two of them as they talked about cryptocurrency developments.

He listened to Faraz’s message first, whose voice was bright and animated:

“Yo, Deek! Brooo! SubhanAllah man, I seen it! Don’t even try to act low-key, I been tracking you on Pump—your wallet straight up exploded. You always had the eye, wallahi. You flipped that New York Killa like a champ, bro, three hundred to four milli? I told my cousin, I said, ‘This guy? He’s him. He’s him.’ Look, we gotta catch up, man. I’m talkin’ coffee, donuts and graphs. Lotta brothers tryna connect with you now—real talk. You the main event. Hit me back.”

Deek blinked, mid-sip. The espresso turned to charcoal in his mouth.

How the hell does he know?

Then he remembered. Pump fun usernames were tied to wallets. And Faraz traded too—they’d swapped strategies back in the day, even co-invested in a few doomed meme coins. If Faraz had his wallet address, he could’ve been watching the whole time.

Everything on-chain is visible. That’s the point. No one knows your identity, but they can see exactly what’s in your wallet. And if they know your wallet address, they know what you’re holding.

He put down the tiny cup and leaned back, thumb hovering over the next voicemail.

A young voice. Pakistani accent.

“Assalaamu alaykum, brother Deek. This is Anas—I work for Sierra Engineering? We met at Jummah once. Anyway, I’d love to grab coffee if you’re free.”

Delete.

Next. A slow, oiled voice. Palestinian maybe.

“Brother Deek! This is Nabeel. You remember my dealership—Royal Auto, right off Shaw? Come by anytime, let’s break bread. I’ll even give you a deal on an S-Class.”

Delete.

Six more. All variations on the theme: Salaam, coffee, lunch, maybe dinner. Some tried to play it casual. Others sounded like they were calling a long-lost cousin. One even said, “We should hang out again,” though Deek couldn’t remember ever hanging out with the guy in the first place.

He stared at the screen, thumb hovering.

They wouldn’t have said two words to me a month ago. Now I’m a millionaire on-chain, and suddenly I’m a long-lost brother.

A curl of bitterness tightened behind his ribs. He was sitting in a palace, his breakfast likely costing more than his old car payment, and yet it all felt… exposed. He hadn’t asked for attention. He’d bought New York Killa on a gut feeling and sheer desperation. He didn’t want to be anyone’s poster boy or networking opportunity.

He deleted the remaining messages, one by one. The tap-tap-tap of his thumb sounded final, almost satisfying.

Then he opened a message to Faraz:

Appreciate the congratulations. But I didn’t want people knowing. Disappointed you shared that without asking. Would’ve expected better from you.”

He stared at it for a moment, then hit send.

The phone felt heavier in his hand. He set it down beside the untouched slice of melon and leaned back, listening to the lazy fountain and the faint creak of sunlight through the heavy drapes.

All this marble. All this gold. And still, the old feeling settled back into his chest like it never left. He was alone. Still stuck in the closet, choking on his own sweat and isolation. Only the view was better.

Charts on Cracked Screens

A text reply came from Faraz:

Astagfirullah, wallahi I’m sorry bro. I didn’t mean to put you on blast. I just got hyped. You know me, I get loud when I’m proud. You been grindin’ since forever. I won’t say a word to nobody else. Just happy for you, akhi.

Deek sighed. He knew Faraz meant well. That brother had been riding shotgun in the struggle—back when they were both scraping coins together, watching charts on cracked screens, chasing the same wild trades and sharing bad coffee in the masjid kitchen.

He remembered Faraz’s smile as he poured Turkish brew from a dented kettle, steam rising, the aroma cutting through the masjid’s dusty storage smell. The way his eyes lit up when he said, “If you ever catch a true moonshot, bro? You better remember who made your coffee when no one else believed in you.”

Deek smiled in spite of himself.

He typed, slowly:

It’s alright. Just lay low with it, yeah? And we’ll link up soon, inshaAllah.

Steak and Italian Shoes

He went out that day and bought two flat screen computer monitors with the $5k he’d transferred to his bank account. He ate at the hotel restaurant, which served high-end American food like Angus steak, wild-caught salmon and gourmet burgers. Deek still had no desire for junk food of any kind, and found himself eating healthy, balanced meals. He sat in a corner of the restaurant, eating alone, reading crypto news on his phone. More voicemails came in. He deleted them all without listening.

The hotel had its own clothing store, providing tailored suits and Italian shoes. Deek bought three outfits. All of this was billed to his room and paid for with crypto.

He set up his workplace and resumed trading. The Namer’s potion continued to do its magic. His body had nearly completely healed from its injuries, and he felt energetic and strong. His mind was sharp and clear as well, while his emotions were curiously dulled. He found himself making the best crypto trading decisions of his life.

A few of the speculative AI tokens he’d bought recently had crashed to almost zero, but two were up considerably, and one of them had done a x30, netting him more than ten million dollars. He sold 90% of it and parked half the money in USDC stablecoins for now. It was always good to have a stablecoin war chest in case of mid-cycle corrections. The other half he dropped into some very low cap – less than $500K – AI related tokens, as well as a meme coin and a new NFT trading site. By the end of the day, he was up another ten million, bringing his net worth to over one hundred million dollars.

The Namer’s Potion

The spacious, air conditioned hotel office was a far cry from the cramped and stifling closet he’d worked in for five years, and he found himself resenting Rania for putting him through that, for hiding him away like some deformed and crazy uncle.

The Namer’s potion was still working inside him, though. While in the past this resentment might have simmered in his gut, growing worse with each day, now he found himself able to dismiss it. He reminded himself that she’d worked and supported the entire family for five solid years while he lost money, throwing it down the drain of one bad investment after another.

Several times that day, Rania sent texts saying, “Why don’t you respond to my messages?” Deek replied, “Busy at the moment. We will talk soon.”

He missed Rania and loved her. They’d been through so much together. He remembered when they had first married, when they lived in that cramped little apartment on Millbrook Avenue, with the threadbare carpet, and the air conditioner that kept breaking down in the middle of summer, leaving them sweating like horses, cranky, and exhausted. Whenever the heat became unbearable they walked hand in hand to Einstein Park on Dakota, where they ate lunch outdoors in the shade of an elm tree. They fought, but they loved each other, and forgave everything.

But she’d said he was an anchor around her neck. The words haunted him. Every time he thought about going back to her the words rang in his head. Anchor around my neck. That wasn’t how you spoke about someone you loved.

Sitting there in that palatial suite, as comfortable and cool as a head of broccoli, Deek hated himself and his own clenched, self-centered, unforgiving heart. The feeling was so strong that it broke through the Namer’s potion, making him wince and rub his face in shame. Why was he like this? Why did he hold onto grudges like a man in quicksand holding onto a rope, when in reality the rope was on fire? Why was he so unbearably proud? Why couldn’t he be the bigger person, the better person? Why was he now richer than he ever dreamed, yet all alone?

That night, Deek woke up at two in the morning and ordered a mac n’ cheese from room service, because he could – the kitchen was open 24 hours – and because Latifah. If she could do it, so could he. They brought it to him in a metal goblet, as if he were an earl or a duke, but he wasn’t, he was  a count – the Count of Crypto, counting his crypto. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, half asleep, eating the creamy, tangy concoction with a long metal spoon. His legs were crossed and his chin lowered in the posture of a mendicant, assuming a position of humility before the passing crowds, begging for whatever filthy coins they might drop into his goblet.

Where was everyone? Where was Rania, Sanaya, Amira, Lubna, Zaid, Marco, Rabiah Al-Adawiyyah, and Queen Latifah? All the people who loved him, and he loved them?

He never finished the mac n’ cheese. His chin dropped to his chest, his eyes closed, and the spoon slipped from his hand, clattering onto the marble floor. If a crow had peered through the window, it might have thought he was dead, or awaiting death’s arrival. It might have called out to him. Or it might have simply watched and waited.

***

[Part 11 will be published next week inshaAllah]

 

Reader comments and constructive criticism are important to me, so please comment!

See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s other stories on this website.

Wael Abdelgawad’s novels – including Pieces of a Dream, The Repeaters and Zaid Karim Private Investigator – are available in ebook and print form on his author page at Amazon.com.

 

Related:

Asha and the Washerwoman’s Baby: A Short Story

No, My Son | A Short Story

 

The post Moonshot [Part 10] – The Marco Polo appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Despite the dryly informational tone, this documentary guide to the prophet Muhammad’s final resting place features breathtaking footage

Here is a tour guide of the Islamic holy city best known in the UK as Medina in Saudi Arabia, a major destination for religious tourism, second only to Mecca. It is home to Islam’s first mosque, and the prophet Muhammad’s final resting place. For anyone planning a visit, this documentary about the city’s sacred sites is well worth a watch. Non-Muslims may find themselves reaching for their phones to look up terms and historical events.

There is an antiquated, mildly academic feel to the voiceover, like a BBC documentary from the 1970s. It begins with a brief overview of the prophet’s migration from Mecca to Medina in 622AD, marking the start of the Islamic calendar. In the present day, the faces of pilgrims are a window into the significance of this spiritual journey for those with faith – but none are actually interviewed.

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The vicious reaction to his New York mayoral success tells us this: the establishment will not countenance mainstream voters making common cause with Muslims

Zohran Mamdani’s stunning win in New York’s mayoral primary has been a tale of two cities, and two Americas. In one, a young man with hopeful, progressive politics went up against the decaying gods of the establishment, with their giant funding and networks and endorsements from Democratic scions, and won. In another, in an appalling paroxysm of racism and Islamophobia, a Muslim antisemite has taken over the most important city in the US, with an aim to impose some socialist/Islamist regime. Like effluent, pungent and smearing, anti-Muslim hate spread unchecked and unchallenged after Mamdani’s win. It takes a lot from the US to shock these days, but Mamdani has managed to stir, or expose, an obscene degree of mainstreamed prejudice.

Politicians, public figures, members of Donald Trump’s administration and the cesspit of social media clout-chasers all combined to produce what can only be described as a collective self-induced hallucination; an image of a burqa swathed over the Statue of Liberty; the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, stating that Mamdani’s win is what happens when a country fails to control immigration. Republican congressman Andy Ogles has decided to call Mamdani “little muhammad” and is petitioning to have him denaturalised and deported. He has been called a “Hamas terrorist sympathiser”, and a “jihadist terrorist”.

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UK government seeks parliamentary approval to ban direct action protest group.

Deadly ambush whips up dissent against “pointless” war.

Correspondents frequently ignored Palestinian deaths in Gaza in days after Israeli military’s attack on Iran.

Maersk quietly divests from illegal Israeli settlements.

Tehran still faces enormous dangers from determined enemies, but proved its resilience.

Brussels continues to fund Ahava, a firm with strong links to the illegal occupation of the West Bank.

We received the evacuation notice in Khan Younis on 12 June, but we could not find a car to get out of the city until the next day.

How can Iran counter a US-Israeli assault aimed at its destruction?

Cryptocurrency is Deek’s last chance to succeed in life, and he will not stop, no matter what.

Previous Chapters: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

“Be bold, be brave enough to be your true self.” – Queen Latifah

A Foolish Indulgence

Bandar dropped the bucket of popcorn. The greasy kernels spilled all over his lap and onto the floor. He cursed and tried to rise, dumping the liquorice onto the floor as well, but the armed man seized his shoulder and pulled him back down. He shot a glance over his shoulder to his bodyguard, who began to stand, until the scarred man flicked open a knife and put the point to Bandar’s throat.

“Tell him to sit and relax,” the man whispered. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.”

Bandar waved to the bodyguard to sit, and the hulk did so reluctantly.

“I asked if you know who I am.”

Sweat broke out on Bandar’s forehead. He closed his eyes. “You are the Palestinian detective. I don’t remember your name.”

“Zaid Karim. Why did you send men to kidnap Deek Saghir?”

“I don’t know what you are talking a-”

Zaid jammed the gun harder into Bandar’s ribs, making him grunt in pain, and snarled, “Listen, dope king -”

Bandar was outraged enough to momentarily forget his fear. “I don’t sell dope! Who told you that? Liquor and smokes, that’s my game.” In fact the Sinaloa cartel had tried to pressure him to use his network of shops as fronts for dope peddling, but he had refused, even when they threatened his life. So how dare this upstart accuse him of being a drug dealer?

“Whatever. I’m not in the mood for games. Answer my question.”

“He stole a car from my son.”

“That’s crap. I know Deek Saghir, he’s not a thief.”

“So my son is a liar?”

“You tell me. Is your son trustworthy?”

Bandar looked around. A few people were looking their way, annoyed that they were talking in the theater. But it was still just the previews, and in the darkness no one could see what was happening. Bandar was acutely aware of the gun against his ribs and the knife at his throat. He’d never felt so vulnerable in his life. He saw now that these Saturday movie nights were a foolish indulgence. Pain surged in his stomach, and he pressed a hand to it. Yet in the midst of it all, he sighed, for he had to admit that his son Shujaa was not trustworthy at all, and had most likely lied to him. And because of that, three of his men were dead, most likely killed by the maniac beside him.

A Name Spoken In Whispers

In spite of his fear, and his realization that Shujaa had played him, he put on a show of bravado and said, “I have more men where those came from.”

“And I have a lifelong friend who would do anything for me.”

“What friend?”

“Badger.”

Bandar’s blood went as cold as ice. This was a name he’d heard spoken in whispers, the way one spoke the name of a demon. Badger was an independent killer who robbed and murdered drug dealers. It was said he had wiped out entire gangs, and was utterly remorseless. The number of men he’d killed could not be counted.

“That’s right,” Zaid said, reading Bandar’s reaction. “I’ll pit my Badger against your thugs any day. And if it comes to that, we won’t stop with your men. We’ll put you down too.”

“What is it you want, Zaid?” Bandar said finally.

“Don’t come near Deek Saghir again. I swear to you, if you harm him again or even look in his direction, I will return, and it won’t be to talk, and you won’t see me coming.”

“Done.”

Zaid jammed the gun harder into Bandar’s ribs. “And return the car. Leave it in the parking lot at Masjid Madinah, with the keys in it. Within one hour.”

Grimacing in pain, Bandar nodded. Shujaa would catch fire for this. It was back to Yemen for the little punk.

A theater employee approached, wearing black pants and a red vest, and shining a dim flashlight their way. “Hey. What’s going on here?”

Zaid Karim stood and walked out, leaving Bandar with popcorn in his lap and a sheen of sweat covering his entire body.

Queen Latifah

Once again, Deek dreamed that he was in the desert of southern Iraq, seeking the elusive cache of silver from the kingdom of Ur. He expected to encounter Shaykha Rabiah again, and a part of him dreaded her rapier-like judgment – but no -this time it was Queen Latifah, the famous actress and rapper, sitting casually in the shade of the ruined wall of an ancient caravanserai. She wore a flowing green robe and a green scarf that draped her head and chest, and was eating mac n’ cheese from a small pot. Deek could smell the cheddar tang, and it made his mouth water.

“What’s up, Deek?” Latifah said.

“Isn’t it a bit hot for mac n’ cheese?”

“Not for me. This is Vermont white cheddar, baby. I would kill for this. Check this out. If you tell me a secret, I’ll tell you one.”

There was something wholesome and real about Latifah that made you trust her. A trickle of sweat ran down Deek’s face, and he wiped it with a dusty sleeve.

“I’m looking for a hidden treasure,” he said. “It’s somewhere near here. It’s priceless.”

Latifah laughed. “If it’s priceless, how would you spend it?”

Deek frowned. “That’s not the point.”

“Isn’t it? Well, I promised you a secret too. Here it is: I’ll never say no to mac n’ cheese, even at two in the morning.”

Deek scoffed. “I already knew that. I’ve known you since we were kids, remember?”

Latifah looked astonished. “I remember that now!” The wind kicked up a swirl of ochre dust, and Latifah covered the pot with her scarf. “My old friend Deek. Let me give you some advice. Be bold, be brave enough to be your true self.”

“This is my true self. I am determined to be rich. It’s my destiny.”

“I don’t think so. I mean, you might be rich, who can say? But I think your true self is the man who loves his wife, and thinks she’s an angel, and loves his daughters, and wants to make them happy. I should know. We’ve known each other since we were kids, remember?”

“I was thinking of changing my first name to Asad.”

“Lion! It suits you. There’s power inside you, dormant. If you unleash it you could change the world.”

“You speak Arabic?”

“I do here.”

It’s Over

Deek awoke to the smell of candle smoke and the sound of cats meowing at the back door. The sky through the window was black, but the room was lit by five votive candles on the floor. From the kitchen came the soft murmur of the Quran being recited. He climbed out of bed, picked up a candle, and found Zaid Karim in the kitchen, seated at the candle-lit table, listening to the Quran on his phone and eating a sandwich that -judging from the powerful fishy smell- contained sardines.

“No wonder the cats are meowing, with that stench. Have you fed them?”

Zaid laughed. “You settled right in, it seems.”

“What is this place?”

“I told you in the note.”

“The Namer’s house.”

“Yes. She’s a Miwok medicine woman. Her real name is too difficult for most people to pronounce. She means everything to the people around here.”

“She’s a miracle worker. Look at me.” Deek held his arms out wide. “They beat me half to death, and I feel almost recovered. And I’m thinking more clearly. She could market this potion and get rich.”

“She’s happy with who she is.”

Deek shrugged. He felt like he was back in one of his recent dreams, with Shaykhah Rabiah asking him, Who are you? Or Queen Latifah telling him to be his true self.

“I don’t even know where we are, man,” Deek commented. “This doesn’t look like Fresno.”

“It’s definitely Fresno. East Belmont.”

Deek raised his eyebrows. East Belmont was the worst part of Fresno. No sane person went there, especially at night.

“I thought East Belmont was a no-man’s-land.”

“Hey, watch it. My office is in East Belmont, not four blocks from here. It’s a poor neighborhood with working-class people, that’s all.”

“So what’s next? How long do I have to stay here?”

“You don’t. It’s over. You won’t be bothered again. And I got your car back, it’s parked out front.” He reached into a pocket, then held up the keys and jiggled them.

“Really?” Deek snatched the keys and went outside to his car. There it was in the narrow driveway, as beautiful as ever. A minute later, he came back in and held something up triumphantly. “Bag of wavy chips, right under the seat where I left it!”

Zaid rolled his eyes. “I’m so glad I rescued you and recovered your car, so you could have your potato chips.”

Deek snagged a few chips and popped them into his mouth, then grimaced. The chips tasted overly salty, greasy, and disgusting. He dropped the bag on the table.

“They don’t even taste good,” he complained. “What did this Namer woman do to me?” On impulse, he took a tomato out of the basket and took a bite. The tangy, acidic flavor flooded his mouth. It was the best thing he’d ever tasted in his life. He groaned out loud. “This is incredible!”

Zaid nodded. “Her medicines are tailored to the person. Whatever she gave you is exactly what you need at the moment.”

Brutal and Hard

Deek’s face grew serious. “You have no idea how grateful I am. You truly saved my life. When you leaped into the van wearing your hat, I knew I was safe.” For a moment, he choked up and could not continue. He rubbed his eyes and cleared his throat. “Do you want a million dollars? Download a crypto wallet, and I will send you a million dollars in crypto right now.”

Zaid held up a palm. “I did this as a family favor, not for money. But if you’re determined to pay me, my rate is seven hundred dollars a day plus expenses. I’ve put in two days on this, so with expenses, call it fifteen hundred.”

Deek stared. The man was saying no to a million dollars? A bitter thought came to him, though the bitterness was distant somehow, not acidic and fiery as it would normally be for him.

“You don’t believe,” Deek said, “that I really have that much money, do you?”

“Oh, I believe it. I always believed in you, remember?”

Deek nodded, letting the shadow of bitterness go. “Yes, I remember. You told me to go the distance.”

“Did I?”

“You said, ‘Life is waves, peaks, and troughs. Prove you can persist, show that you can go the distance, and you will succeed, inshaAllah.’”

Zaid smiled. “MashaAllah. Yes, you’re a highly intelligent and determined man. I believe you one hundred percent. It’s just that…” The detective rubbed his face with one hand. “What I did was brutal and hard. It was necessary, but such things are not easy on the heart, Deek. If I were to take so much money for it, I would feel dirty.”

Deek didn’t know how to feel about that. It almost seemed like Zaid was saying that his money was dirty. That wounded his pride, and in any other circumstance might have angered him to a degree that he would have held a grudge. But considering what Zaid had done for him, he decided to let it go.

The New Generation

“What do I do now?”

Zaid shrugged. “Whatever you want. If you’re asking me, I say go back to your family.”

“You sound like Queen Latifah.”

Zaid frowned. “Is she that elderly sister at Masjid Madinah?”

“No, Queen Latifah the rapper. She told me to be bold and brave enough to be my true self, and she says my true self is a man who loves his family.”

“You know Queen Latifah the rapper?”

“Sort of.” He snapped his fingers. He had forgotten about the messages from his family. “Feed the cats for me, will you? I have to do something.”

Zaid laughed again, but picked up the bag of cat food and a candle and headed out back. Deek retrieved his phone and settled into a chair.

He read the messages from his daughters first. They always texted. Youth of their generation considered voice calls and even voicemails old-fashioned, rude, and even aggressive.

It seemed to Deek that a lot of the new generation’s ideas came down to the avoidance of reality. The reality of the professional workplace, which required people to show up on time, dress appropriately, and write in complete sentences with proper grammar. The reality of honest communication, which must be face-to-face, not TikTok and YouTube-based. Even the reality of the male and female gender, which was what it was, not what people imagined it to be.

This was something that Deek liked about Islam, though he was by no means a good example of a Muslim. Islam was a religion created by Allah for human beings as they truly were, in all their glory, brilliance, love, misery, and self-degradation. Everything from the prohibitions of intoxicants and gambling -two of the most socially destructive sins ever invented- to the worship practices of salat, Hajj, and fasting in Ramadan, which were all powerful communal spiritual experiences, not to mention physically transformative.

Even Islamic economics: zakat -which was a tax on long-term capital holdings rather than income-, and the prohibition of charging interest. Taken together, these were brilliant strategies to prevent the exploitation of the poor and stop the accumulation of vast wealth in the hands of a few people, while maintaining the free market. It was amazing stuff, providing real solutions for real people.

Still A Team

There were two texts from Sanya, his elder daughter. “What’s up, Dad? Hearing strange things from Mom. Everything alright? Let me know.” And, “Just checking in.”

That was typical Sanaya. She found emotional expression embarrassing. It was always straight to business with her. She used brevity like a shield against the world.

He replied: “All is well. Mom and I are just having a fight like we do. Not a big deal.”

Amira’s messages were more anxious and poignant:

“Baba, I don’t know what’s going on, but come home and work it out. We’re a family. I walk in your shoes and you walk in mine.”

This made Deek sad, or at least he thought it did, for the sadness was distant, not painful. Amira’s words came from an old blues song, “Walk a Mile in My Shoes,” and was something he always used to say to the girls when they were young. “Nobody knows what it’s like to walk in your shoes except your own family. I walk in yours every day, and you walk in mine.”

Amira’s next message read, “This is a mid-life crisis, isn’t it? Mama says you apparently made a lot of money, that’s a barakah, right? The new car is fly. But Mama is upset, and I don’t like that. You better get back to me today or I will hunt you down.”

That made Deek laugh. There were a few more messages like that. But the last message cut through the strange anti-emotional armor that surrounded him and pierced his heart: “Don’t leave me, Baba. We’re supposed to be a team!”

He stood and took a deep breath. He’d always imagined that if he hit it big in crypto, all their lives would change. And he still believed that. But he’d thought it would happen for all of them together. Things had spun out of control very quickly, and he found himself in a place he didn’t recognize, literally, in a life he could not have predicted.

He wrote to Amira and explained about the crypto windfall and how it would better all their lives, inshaAllah. He ended with, “We’ll never stop walking in each other’s shoes, I promise. We’re still a team. I love you.”

Mixed Message

He sat and braced himself. Time for Rania’s voicemail:

“As-salamu alaykum habibi. First, I want you to know that I have requested a transfer to a different department at the hospital, so I won’t be working with Dr. Townsend anymore, and I’m not having lunch with him anymore either.”

Deek supposed that was good news, and it was a significant gesture on her part, as he knew she loved the intensive care department. But hearing her talk about her “work husband” again – even if she hadn’t used that phrase – set Deek on edge. A thought occurred to him. He’d vowed to drug the man who was flirting with Rania, and drown him in the river. It was a matter of honor. The man was trying to seduce a married woman – a married Muslim, Arab woman. Deek was going to seriously consider the viability of killing the man. But later, not right now. He didn’t feel the requisite rage at the moment.

“Come home,” Rania continued, “and let’s talk things out. I don’t even know where you are. You can’t just disappear. Zaid told me that you’re okay, but that’s all. I don’t know what to believe about this crypto stuff. If you really made so much money that’s amazing mashaAllah, but you’ve been at it a long time, and suddenly you have a new car and there’s $100K in our account. It seems weird.”

Deek stopped the message. There was more, but the fact that she still didn’t believe him made his nostrils flare. She was the one who had been deceiving him, not the other way around. He had never lied to her about anything in their lives, except for little things like how many sodas he’d drunk that day or how many cookies he’d eaten, or if the pimple on her chin was noticeable. He didn’t need this hassle.

He went looking for Zaid, and found the man on the back patio, praying as the cats lounged about him.

Deek winced from the guilt that surged in his chest. He himself had not prayed a single salat since Jumu’ah. What kind of Muslim was he? Allah had blessed him with all this wealth, the culmination of years of hard work, and he had not put his head to the ground to show his gratitude.

***

[Part 10 will be published next week inshaAllah]

 

Reader comments and constructive criticism are important to me, so please comment!

See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s other stories on this website.

Wael Abdelgawad’s novels – including Pieces of a Dream, The Repeaters and Zaid Karim Private Investigator – are available in ebook and print form on his author page at Amazon.com.

 

Related:

Day Of The Dogs, Part 1 – Tiny Ripples Of Hope

The Covenant: A Short Story

 

The post Moonshot [Part 9] – A Religion For Real Life appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

A member of Islamic State opened fire on Sunday inside Mar Elias Church in the east of Damascus before blowing himself up, killing at least 22 people and injuring 63 others, Syria’s interior ministry said. Eyewitnesses inside the church reported a second gunman who did not blow himself up, but also shot at the 150 or so worshippers present. The attack on Sunday night was the first major IS operation and the first suicide bombing in Syria since former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December and replaced by an Islamist-led government

• Islamic State suicide bombing in Damascus church kills 22 and injures 63

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Louise Casey

Last week Louise Casey’s report (PDF) on the long-running issue of grooming gangs, a system of criminality in which young girls are ‘groomed’ through younger boyfriends, plied with alcohol and free food and then trapped so they could be raped by sometimes numerous older men, was published, recommending a national inquiry as the type of gang has appeared in many towns and cities across the UK over several decades. Her report also recommended that mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse by certain professionals be made law and that taxis be regulated strictly locally, with a loophole that allows a taxi driver to be licensed by one authority and then operate in another to be closed, but also that the law on rape be amended such that any sexual activity between an adult and anyone between ages 13 and 15 be classified as rape rather than merely “sexual activity with a minor” (currently that law only applies when the younger party is younger than 13), which I think is a bad idea, but the government announced on Monday evening that they would be making these specific changes to the law demanded in the report. The report notes that the ethnicity of both victims and perpetrators are not reported in a large number of cases, meaning that we cannot tell how many perpetrators are in fact Pakistanis (or other mostly Muslim ethnicities such as Kurds) and how many not. We have seen demands for the deportation to Pakistan of the perpetrators, and even of a mass deportation of British Pakistanis. It seems a lot of people have made up their mind that the problem is simply Pakistanis, or even Muslims, and nothing that comes out of this review will satisfy them if it does not confirm their beliefs.

Who is a Pakistani?

The independent (elected as Reform) MP Rupert Lowe has demanded that perpetrators be deported and that Pakistan could be threatened through the aid he believes they receive from the UK to accept the deportees. The phrase “Pakistani ethnicity” keeps being repeated as if it were the most significant factor. The truth is that Pakistan has six major ethnicities (Sindhi, Muhajir, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Pashtun and Baluch) and many smaller ones; the people involved in the gangs could be from any of those, or more than one, but they all have different languages and cultures although they are bound by Islam. More importantly, not every British ‘Pakistani’ actually has any right to Pakistani nationality anymore; there have been two or three generations born here and the younger generation may have no nationality except British. In the case of the actual immigrants, many had been born in British India and thus were not Pakistani for very long and have an unbroken chain of British nationality going back some 300 years. Pakistan is quite within its rights not to take ‘back’ people whose grandparents left the country in the 1960s, who were born in England and went astray in England. This does not mean we should not deport people who are not citizens who commit serious crimes, let alone people who came here on criminal business, but a British citizen is no less British for having committed a crime and this was not a plot hatched in Mirpur or Karachi. Without that principle, citizenship becomes a glorified visa.

The former Clacton UKIP MP Douglas Carswell, now extolling the virtues of the state of Mississippi on YouTube, has posted a call for a mass deportation. That is a ludicrous, unjustified, racist demand; the majority of British Pakistanis are not criminals and some contribute positively to our community. We also should not fall into the trap of assuming that any interracial relationship between a white working-class girl and a Pakistani is a grooming/rape case in the making. Most Pakistanis are normal people, not gangsters, much as most Italians are not mafiosi.

What is and isn’t rape?

I often finding myself explaining to people why the media commonly report on people “having sex” or “sexual relationships” with people under the age of 16 or even 18 which is the age of consent in much of the US. “That’s rape,” they say; “why don’t they call it rape?”. The answer is that until now, the UK reserves the term rape for, well, rape: forcing someone to have sex against their will, or having sex with them when they do not know what is going on because of unconsciousness, being too drunk, or being too cognitively impaired to be able to understand being asked their consent. The law distinguishes between sex which is not legally valid and the total lack of consent, or no attempt to seek it, or the lack of consent being the whole point. The exception is when the younger party is 12 years old or younger: then, it is classed as rape and is a strict liability offence, i.e. defences such as believing they were over 16 do not apply (presumably because a 12-year-old cannot reasonably be confused with a 16-year-old, and will usually be too young to have any desire for sex anyway). This law was only introduced in 2003; until then, rape always meant rape.

David Blunkett boasted that one of his achievements in the last Labour government was the introduction of “statutory rape”. It wasn’t, though. In countries where statutory rape exists in the law, it’s a separate offence from rape. It’s a different name for what we call sexual activity with a minor. Yvette Cooper, the same politician now planning to classify a group as ‘terrorists’ for throwing paint at an aircraft suspected of being used for the Gaza genocide, plans to enshrine a lie into law: that there is no difference between having sex with a willing 15-year-old and raping them. The former may be inappropriate and the adult should know better, and the teenager may be left broken-hearted and feeling used, and there’s a good reason why it is illegal, but it’s not rape. This change in the law will result in an absurd situation: a charge of rape where the victim is an adult will leave no doubt that the victim was forced, while the same term when the victim is an adolescent could mean that no force needed to be used as the ‘victim’ was willing, and an actual rape victim who had been that age at the time might find herself having to explain that fact. Casey (who gets the law wrong in her report: sex with an under-13 is not merely illegal, but is charged as rape on a strict liability basis) claims that the ‘ambiguity’ in the law had resulted in charges being dropped because it appears that the girls had consented, but there was no need for charges to be dropped as sex with a minor is still a crime; it is just not called rape. Some of the cases of charges being dropped or cases collapsing would have been the result of this pattern of offending being new to the legal system; as it becomes better understood, prosecutors know to look for signs of grooming and of grooming gang activity.

Casey calls for protections to be put in place to avoid criminalising consensual relationships between teenagers; in my experience, public attitudes (and the attitudes of feminists in particular) have been getting harsher towards boys in recent years. I have heard feminists online call a relationship between a 17-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl creepy and inappropriate, when this age gap could be as little as a year and half in reality and the two could be only a year apart at school, and insisting that a 15-year-old boy had ‘raped’ a 13-year-old girl because she was 13; his age was irrelevant to them and when I pointed it out, I was called a “rape apologist”. There will be pressure to make any such window as narrow as possible. Such a window should be enshrined in law rather than mere practice; the latter could be overruled if a girl’s family is wealthy or powerful and a boy’s isn’t, for example.

Grooming and racism

There is no doubt that racism has been boosted by the issue of these gangs and also influences the debate. There are people who have been railing against “mass immigration” for some years, and have jumped on this particular issue to prove that “these people” have a culture which is incompatible with “British culture”. The gangs are assumed to be made up of ‘immigrants’ when in fact British Pakistanis go back, as a large community, to the 1950s; when the three young girls were stabbed in Stockport last year, racists jumped on rumours that the attacker was a Muslim, and started a riot. There is an assumption that the rest of the Muslim community knows who is involved and turns a blind eye; in fact, the groomers often operate away from the eyes of the rest of the Muslim community (in the case of Rochdale, for example, much of the activity went on in the predominantly white Heywood area). It is quite different from the culture of sexual abuse in the churches which was known of in the recent past; the abusers are not pillars of the community but low-skilled workers such as kebab shop owners and workers and taxi drivers. Since this behaviour is contrary to Islam on numerous grounds (the supply of alcohol and drugs, coming between girls and their families, the deception involved in giving ‘gifts’ to justify later abuse, sex outside marriage, let alone rape), it should be no surprise that the perpetrators are in a lot of cases not particularly observant. The problem is a particular class of criminals, not a “problem with Islam” or Muslims in general.

Grooming gangs are far from Britain’s only example of a culture of violent misogyny. Young boys freely access pornography on their mobile phones that give the impression that women enjoy being raped, and lap up the drivel of Andrew Tate and other popular misogynists. Social services and police (the latter of which has been notorious for harbouring rapists and domestic abusers in its ranks) turned a blind eye for decades, calling the victims child prostitutes and sometimes criminalising them instead of pursuing the abusers. Yet when a particular group of offenders appear to be mostly Muslims, the default response is that their ethnicity or religion — how they are “different from us” — is the problem rather than that this is how misogyny has manifested itself among the less scrupulous of them. There have in fact been a number of gangs convicted of sexual abuse and other forms of organised modern slavery whose members are not Pakistanis or Muslims, and the same people always shouting about Muslim grooming gangs say nothing when the gang members are white. It’s a bit less complicated when you can’t say their culture is not ours or is not compatible with ours, but if you are only angry when the perpetrators are not white and the victims are, that is a good indication that you are a racist.

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• Axel Rudakubana is guilty, and nobody else
• Musk, Goodwin, racism and rape
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Evening attack is first major atrocity by Islamist terror group in Syria since President al-Assad was deposed

A suicide bombing by Islamic State (IS) targeting a church in Damascus has killed 22 people and wounded 63, Syrian state media have said.

The attack on Sunday night was the first major IS operation and the first suicide bombing in Syria since former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December and replaced by an Islamist-led government.

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Gaza's patients still manage to smile.

My friend was working on his own training center when Israel killed him.

War of attrition could favor Tehran over Tel Aviv.

Pro-Israel pressure brought The Lancet to heel in 2014 with lasting consequences.