Chapter 15

            Salem Bamahfuz sat in his ornate, dimly lit majlis with several of his aides, sipping hot sweet tea and discussing the day’s business. Bamahfuz was a merchant in Abha, not far from Najran. He imported and exported goods – mostly herbal substances from India, East Africa and Oman. He was an important member of the Shi’ite community in southwestern Saudi Arabia. Although not many knew it, he was also a prominent member of a secret religious sect known as the Qarmatians, an offshoot of Ismai’ili Shi’ite Islam. To most Arabian Muslims, the Qarmatians were extinct. They were known as an extremist sect that had ruled the eastern region of Arabia, including the great Hasa oasis and the island of Bahrain, in the tenth century of our era. They had undertaken a veritable reign of terror against the Sunni Abbasid Empire.

            The Qarmatians regarded the Muslim pilgrimage, or Hajj, to Mecca as a primitive superstition. They attacked pilgrimage caravans, and in the year 906 they massacred 20,000 pilgrims returning from the Hajj. In 930, they sacked Mecca itself, throwing bodies of pilgrims into the sacred Well of Zamzam and stealing the venerated Black Stone. The Qarmatians kept the Black Stone in one of their mosques in the eastern region for some 23 years, finally returning it for a hefty Abbasid ransom. About a century later, the Qarmatian state collapsed when its army was defeated in battle at the Hasa oasis by a combined force of Arabs and Seljuk Turks. That was the end of the Qarmatians, as far as anyone knew. But in fact the movement went underground, and its power center shifted over the intervening centuries, finding more fertile soil in southwestern Saudi Arabia, near the border with Yemen. Due to common interests, the Qarmatians received quiet support from Iran.

            Bamahfuz was a slight, lean man with a full mustache. He dressed in a spotless white robe and matching skullcap. He wore a large silver ring on his right hand, with a dark red stone and obscure ancient lettering around it. He sat against richly embroidered cushions and sipped his tea from a tiny, handled glass as his agents spoke. When their business was completed, Bamahfuz muttered instructions to them and then flicked his hand, gesturing for them to leave, which they did.  Another man, dressed in a dark gray robe and bare-headed, slowly left the shadows of the room and approached the merchant. He sat down before Bamahfuz. A servant brought him tea, refreshed his master’s glass, and departed.

            “Abu Sameer,” Bamahfuz said. “Welcome. What news do you have?”

            The visitor looked distressed. Apart from his manner – his nervousness – it was difficult to focus on him. His facial features seemed slightly blurred, almost incomplete. The visitor set down his tea and leveled his gaze at the merchant.

            “The Americans have arrived,” he said, speaking through his teeth, as if cursing. “They have headed east from Najran and are now in one of the mountain caves.”

            “How many of them are there?”

            “About ten – maybe half of them soldiers.”

            “They’re looking for the entrance, aren’t they?”

            “I’m afraid so.  By tomorrow, they may find their way into the City.”

            “We must prevent that.” Bamahfuz sipped his tea, savoring the delicate flavor. “You have a plan, I presume?”

            “Yes,” said the visitor. “We will introduce into their midst the equivalent of a suicide bomber. One of our number will explode spontaneously, killing them all.”

            Bamahfuz smiled. “You jinn are so imaginative,” he said. “Will it kill your operative as well?”

            “Yes,” said the visitor, “but he is willing, and the act is justified by our cause.”

            “May God bless you and your people,” said Bamahfuz. “We must prevent the Americans from making contact with the leadership of the City. Such an encounter would endanger all of us.”

            The visitor nodded. Then he stood and bowed in respect. As he turned, Bamahfuz spoke.

            “Remember, Abu Sameer, everything is at stake! Be very careful, and, if you must, be very ruthless.”

            The visitor tilted his head in acknowledgment, and then departed.

            I remember a time when I was in Arabia, doing research for my doctorate. Aramco, in recognition of my father’s contributions to the oil business, had given me access to a small office in Dhahran, which served as a base for my interviews and research. As I worked on my notes and ploughed through dusty tomes, I suddenly realized I was being watched from outside my office window. There was a bird, sitting on the ledge outside the window, staring at me.

            It was an Indian minah, a mostly black bird with a bright orange beak and intense, rather spooky eyes. It walked back and forth on the ledge, strutting like a tiny dinosaur as minahs tend to do, its eyes constantly fixed on me at my desk. I returned its stare for a while, then went back to my work. When I looked up about fifteen minutes later, the minah was still there, drilling me with its beady eyes.

            This went on for some weeks. Every time I entered the office, the bird was there, as if waiting for me, studying me with those tiny black eyes. It really creeped me out! Eventually I stopped going to that office, and did most of my bookwork and related research in my hotel room.

            I came to think that the bird on the window ledge was actually a jinni, and that it was there to observe my research into – what else? – the folklore of the jinn. The bird’s behavior was certainly unusual. I recalled that Indian minahs usually went about in pairs, but in this case there was only one, and it seemed to take an inordinate interest in me.
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