I’m at the Forum. Inspired by Speakers’ Corner and situated in a leafy park, this is where Numen pays lip service to freedom of speech which, he avows, ‘is a right imbedded in his heart’. Here, people can assemble and dispute any subject. A police unit that protects the speakers embroiders the deceit. In effect, Homeland Security selects the orators – and most of the listeners – from its database of toothless strays.
For those still with teeth, classified as ‘recusants’ – dissidents, opposition politicians, lawyers, judges, journalists, artists, writers, academics who dare expose the iniquities of Numen’s rule – Homeland Security clogs their platforms with rabble-rousers. But these stalwarts are as rare as four-leaf clovers. Most, if not all, are either in jail or under house arrest facing interminable trials on trumped-up charges.
There are few people about. I amble along.
I listen to a burly, thick-bearded Imam in a white caftan. Four women in black robes and hijabs stand behind him.
‘Our sojourn on Earth is the test that determines who merits Eternal Life. Every millisecond of our existence is weighed on Piety’s scales at the Last Judgement. Only the True Faithful enter Jannah, Paradise. Yet to those who constantly lapse, Allah, The Compassionate, gives one last chance to perform an act that glorifies Islam. Those who do so go to dwell with the green birds that nest by the Almighty’s throne. Those who still fail find Heaven’s Gates barricaded.
‘Your Jihadist Imams – like me – are chosen to guide you through the Infidel’s profane world. We are here to inform you that except for the Qur’an, Allah’s sacred pronouncements that the angel Jibril revealed to Prophet Mohammad, the Perfect Man, Allah’s blessings on him, and except for the Hadiths that reveal the words, actions and habits of the Prophet, the Cleaver of Backbones, everything Infidels assert is the blather of dogs, pigs and apes. Can those vile creatures know better than Allah?
‘What Infidels call education suffocates Islam. Their so-called enlightenment is more dangerous than bombs. Our sacrosanct texts, the Qur’an and the Hadiths, provide all the knowledge we need.
‘Politics and religion are not separate but One – like upper and lower jaws. The Qur’an has 500 verses on governance and justice – all inscribed in the Sharia. We are privy to the divination that peace will descend when Jihadism triumphs. We instruct you, as mankind’s saviours, that Islam does not tolerate pluralism. You are obliged to convert the Kuffars or, failing that, to annihilate them. Even trees and rocks denounce the Infidels! “Oh, Servant of Allah, Oh Ruby among stones,” they shout, “there are Jews and Kuffars hiding behind us! Come, kill them because religion belongs to Allah!”
‘Hear me! I am revealing Allah’s will! I am revealing the Truth!’
A mocking voice interrupts. ‘Truth’s a harlot who fucks whoever pays her!’
Two policemen bundle away the heckler.
The Imam continues. ‘When you face the Last Judgement, you must be light as air and pure as Zemzem’s water, the holy spring Allah gushed forth to quench the thirst of Ismail, Patriarch Ibrahim’s son. You will be commanded to cross As-Sirāt, the bridge above Jahannam’s fires, which is thinner than a strand of hair and sharper than Prophet Mohammad’s sword, Allah’s blessings on him. If you have honoured the Sharia, you will run across it like a child, laughing. But if you have slighted it or failed to perform a valedictory act that glorifies Jihadism, you will be cast into Jahannam where punishments in all its seven levels are inconceivable and everlasting.
‘The Jihadist who attains Jannah will be welcomed by houris – seventy-two white-skinned, eternally young virgins with wide eyes like pearls, pomegranate breasts that never hang and translucent to their marrow. Childfree, non-menstruating, non-urinating and non-defecating, they will pleasure the martyr – who in Jannah will possess the strength of a hundred men – day and night with luscious vaginas with hymens unbroken by intercourse wherein the penis will never soften.’
Another man heckles. ‘Will the women be rewarded, too? Will the martyrs pleasure them also?’
As he’s carted away by the police, the Imam replies. ‘Every woman will be provided with a husband who will satisfy her!’
Yet another man heckles. ‘That’s not what Islam is! You’re betraying the Faith by letting your cocks guide you! You’re enslaving our women! Getting erections only when you rape! Ejaculating only when you kill!’
He, too, is apprehended by the police.
The Imam’s four women shrill in unison: ‘Blasphemy! Our men have no equal! They honour our wombs!’
The Imam grins smugly. ‘Hear my wives! They revere men’s superiority! They understand they cannot be equal because they are constituted differently. Men rule, women bear children, motherhood is their function. The equality Kuffars grant women is unnatural. Even as mothers, women tend to forfeit their purity. They take pride in their seductive charms. They forget that only the immaculate will inhabit Jannah.
‘But they can be rehabilitated – as I am doing with my wives. As you can see, they are self-effacing now, but in the past, they were harridans. Ignoring the Hadith that “a woman’s Heaven lies under her husband’s foot”, they sought equality like one-breasted Amazons. They could have been stoned or beheaded for prurience or compassionately executed for being against nature and desiring other females. However, now that they have surrendered to Jihadism, I expect them to attain the purity to cross As-Sirat.’