We were in Dagestan, the mountainous Republic of the Russian Federation in the Caucasus. Our mission was too dangerous to bring Childe Asher, so we had left him in the care of a trusted nursemaid.
We were sent there, on Hrant’s recommendation, by a global organisation that researches the collateral ravages of conflicts.
Dagestan’s predominantly Muslim population prides itself on resisting the Russification policies of the former Soviet Union of which it was a member state. After the Union’s dissolution in 1991 it became an arena for ethnic, nationalist-separatist and Islamic movements.
Our brief – surprisingly initiated by Russian authorities who normally conduct their investigations behind closed doors – was to provide an independent report on the mass suicide of sixty-five young males in Kaspiysk, a city twenty kilometres south of Makhaschkala.
The grisly event had occurred a week ago in the vast refectory of a derelict wharf that had been part of Russia’s Caspian naval base before it was moved to a more spacious location.
Numerous hypodermic needle marks on the corpses’ arms and a large stock of heroin suggested that the youths had overdosed ritually.
The calamity was discovered when a truck-driver had managed to avoid hitting a delirious youngster who had rushed at his vehicle on the main road. Taken to hospital, the youth, Anwar Sahin, barely seventeen, had gabbled that he was the only survivor of sixty-six boys, that since the death he was meant to share with them had eluded him, he had tried to throw himself under a car.
A security team from Moscow escorted us to the wharf. As if to prove that Russia, unlike the Soviet Union times, was now an ultra-efficient superpower, the ‘crime’ scene had been set exactly as it had been found – including, macabrely, mannequins representing the youths set around a large heroin-laden table.
We were given carte blanche to question Anwar.
Repeating his previous statements, Anwar related that the youths – none older than twenty – had been kidnapped from cities and villages up and down Dagestan by four three-man teams of the Black Standard officers. The operation, spread over several weeks, had been conducted with exemplary professionalism. Surprisingly, these seasoned Jihadists had not been circumspect. They had divulged how they had contracted reliable mobsters – always ready to associate with well-funded radicals – to keep the wharf ‘out of bounds’ both from the authorities and the locals. They had also boasted about their cause, their brutalities, even how they rose from the ranks. Hence Anwar disclosed not only the noms-de-guerre of the twelve Black Standard bearers, but also that six were from Syria, three from Europe and three from Dagestan itself.
Following incarceration in various safe houses, the youths had been brought to the disused wharf, a few at a time, six weeks ago.
Anwar clarified that the purpose of the abductions had been to convert the youths – Sufis all – as fresh recruits for Black Standard’s Caliphate. Since Sufis profaned Islam as grieviously as Jews and Christians with their pursuit of cosmopolitanism, converting their youths into ruthless warriors would have the cachet of divine punishment.
The decision to kidnap sixty-six youths was inspired by Abjad numerology in which each Arabic letter has a numeric value. Since Allah’s four-lettered Name, bearing the values 1+30+30+5, amounted to sixty-six, the conversion of the same number of kuffars would please the Almighty especially.
The Black Standard had sound-proofed the wharf. Again, dealing with mobsters, they had purchased sleeping bags, septic tanks, bottled water, toiletries, detergents and ample supplies of food, alcohol and drugs. Lastly, they had summoned a Black Standard Imam proficient in mass hypnotism.
The refectory served as a madrasa. From dawn to sundown the youths watched and listened to incessant recitations of the Qur’an on laptops and large screens. To ‘hone’ their souls this phase was periodically bolstered with cocaine-spiked sherbets. Any resistance incurred immediate confinement in the wharf’s rat-infested boiler room. In the evenings they were encouraged to help prepare lavish meals as preludes to the banquets waiting for them in Paradise. The feasts were followed by communal mainlining and screenings of pornographic films that evoked the houris’ ‘rapturous skills’. Lastly, to induce ‘the sleep of angels’, the hypnotist Imam, flashing stroboscopic lights, indoctrinated them with Jihadism’s resolve to conquer the world.
Initially, the Jihadists either mainlined their captives forcibly or supervised them while they did so themselves. After three weeks, when most of the youths had become addicts, the supervision slackened.
The relentless programme caused havoc in the youngsters’ minds. Most of them verged on insensibility. Many stopped disdaining the indoctrination. But a few – five in all – inspired by Rustam Khabib, a staunch wayfarer on Sufism’s spiritual path and at twenty the oldest of the captives, managed to remain relatively lucid. (Months later these youths, acclaimed as Hamsa – meaning ‘five’ in Arabic – were compared to the open-palmed amulet against the evil eye.)
On the fifth week, the captors decided that the youths were ready to be sent to Syria. Once there and wrapped up in the black flag, their conversion would be immutable.
Thereupon, leaving behind the three Dagestani Jihadists as guards, the nine Black Standard bearers and the hypnotist Imam left for Turkey to arrange the youths’ transportation.
At that juncture, the Hamsa seized their chance. After the evening banquet, they waited for the guards to indulge in their routine of drooling over the porn, chain-smoking cannabis and getting drunk. As intoxicants are forbidden to the Faithful, the guards should have eschewed arak. But for front-line men stimulants had become standard issue.
Eventually, when the guards started gushing patriotic songs, the Hamsa, frantically fighting withdrawal symptoms, attacked the guards and disarmed them. Then, leaving them with a liberal supply of drugs, arak, water and food, they locked them in the boiler room.
While the guards pounded the boiler room’s metal door and threatened to kill the youths unless they were released immediately, the Hamsa arranged the refectory trestles into a large round table.
Onto this they piled jugs of water, hypodermic needles, citric acid, cotton wool, spoons, Bunsen burners, matches, tourniquets, bags of heroin, laptops and camcorders.
Rustam invited the youths to sit facing each other.
Below is the transcript of the video recorded by the laptops.
Rustam: ‘We are seemingly free now. Let’s not fool ourselves. We’ve been defiled – reduced to carrion – by a creed that is not a religion but an evil ideology that sanctifies killing, conquest and spoils. An ideology that instead of purifying souls for Allah kills both Allah and souls.
‘Were we just innocent bystanders? Or were we being tested to see if in our hearts we covet extremist Islam, harbour thoughts of power, glorification, material goods and the savagery of beheadings, burnings, stonings, live burials; do we harbour fantasies of bedding houris instead of attaining union with the Beloved?
‘Were we being punished for our weaknesses when the only punishment we fear is abandonment by the Beloved?
‘We’ll never know. They’ve broiled our minds.
‘So, where do we go now? How do we shed our putrified souls?’
Rustam pauses as his fellow-captives exclaim. ‘If only we could …’
Rustam pacifies them. ‘I think we can!’
Some youths beseech him. ‘How? Tell us!’
The pounding on the boiler room door and the guards’ threats get louder.
Rustam takes a deep breath. ‘We have two options. One: since we, Sufis, keep our doors open to everybody, we can crawl back to our communities hoping they can cleanse us.’
The youths groan.
Rustam continues. ‘Two: Although we’re irreparably wounded, “the wound”, as Rumi says: “is the place where the light enters”. If we can look at our plight in that light, we can see a solution. We can kill our polluted selves and come back from the dust to try again to become people of faith!’
The youths protest loudly.
Rustam outshouts them. ‘Returning to our communities in our present selves would be unconscionable – it would be like spitting on their souls. Very likely we’d contaminate them. But the second option – suicide – is transgressive!’
The youths, in two minds, argue incoherently.
In the background the tumult from the boiler room continues.
Rustam raises his hands to silence the youths. ‘I’m as addled as you are. Islam forbids suicide. Yet most of its doctrines have been open to interpretation. The Ayatollah, the Hamads deployed suicide-bombers – “poor man’s atom bombs”, they called them. They justified that those who blow themselves up not only serve Islam but also attain martyrdom. Today the Black Standard and Jihadists of its ilk are using the same polemic for their suicide-bombers.
‘Our objective would be different, the very opposite in fact. We would commit suicide not for warfare but to save our souls. We’d do so knowing that unless we sacrifice the Self – kill its demands and cleanse its impurities – we can never ascend the Seven Heavens.’
He pauses.
A silence, disturbed only by the pounding on the boilerroom door, ensues as the youths ponder the implications of Rustam’s reasoning.
Rustam resumes: ‘Should you, like me, choose to end your lives here, there’s more than enough heroin for a fatal overdose. Anybody who considers this the wrong option is free to leave.’
Again, a long silence as the youths deliberate.
Finally, some youths shout: ‘You have lit the way, Rustam.’
The rest clamour in support: ‘We’ll “seek the unseen and see beauty appear!”’
Chanting the Beloved’s many names, the youths begin to heat the heroin.
Laughter, hugs and kisses harmonise their farewells.
Later the guards break down the boiler room’s door.
Bewildered and disoriented by their captives’ suicide, they grab their guns and run off.
Much later Anwar, having regained consciousness and distraught that he is still alive, frenziedly staggers out of the refectory.
Russian Security summed up the aftermath. Helped by Anwar’s descriptions, they cornered the guards on the outskirts of Khasavyurt near the Chechen border and killed them.
Identikit pictures of the Black Standard officers and the hypnotist Imam, again based on Anwar’s descriptions, were circulated to many foreign Security Services. Seven of the nine and the hypnotist Imam were located in Iraq and arrested by American forces.
We went to say goodbye to Anwar before we left.
Belkis: ‘The case is closed. They’ll let you go now. You should start thinking about the future, Anwar.’
Anwar: ‘I have. I’ll join my friends.’
Belkis: ‘You have a beautiful religion. You can guide your people.’
Anwar: ‘Not as carrion.’
Oric: ‘That’s not what Rumi says:
“Come; come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, idolater, worshipper of fire,
Come even though you have broken your
Vows a thousand times,
Come and come yet again,
Ours is not a caravan of despair.”’
Anwar: ‘There is another view:
“Till you reach Nothingness you cannot see
The Life you long for in eternity.”’
That night Anwar slipped out, leaving behind this note: ‘I’m swimming to Kazakhstan. It’s about 400 kilometres. That should purify me.’
His body was found the next morning.
The post-mortem reported that far from being bloated his body was translucent.
I should admit I felt I had come of age in Dagestan. I had come to understand, as true Dolphineros always understood, that questions always produced many different answers and that often truth and untruth are indistinguishable.
Belkis, ever judicious, thought Hrant had an ulterior reason for involving us in the mission. ‘Perhaps he wanted to prepare us for our end. To let us see – as proof that death is a lie – the luminosity a soul leaves behind when it departs for its next existence.’
I asked her. ‘Do suicides become Leviathans?’
‘There’s a more important question: What’s the difference between those who kill people who don’t believe in a cause as zealously as they do and those who kill themselves equally zealously for their beliefs? Particularly when in both cases the killings are oblations to a Divinity?’
‘I want to say there’s no difference. But I don’t know …’
‘Do you know now?’
‘What?’
Willis snorts some cocaine. ‘Whether there’s a difference between killing for a cause and sacrificing oneself for one?’
I stare at him.
‘You were babbling. About Dagestan.’
‘Oh …’
‘Well, do you?’
I’ll never know. So I growl. ‘Death is a lie …’
‘That’s your stupid mantra! Not an answer.’
Belkis would know. But she’s still hobnobbing with the women on the top floor.
Then I look at Childe Asher, heatedly conducting his disputation. ‘Go and listen to my son. He’ll know.’
Willis takes a few pills. ‘I want your answer.’
‘For what it’s worth, I’d like to believe there is a difference. A matter of choosing between Good or Evil.’
‘How can we tell which is which?’
‘The ethical self tells you.’
Willis guffaws. ‘Can we trust whatever that is?’
‘It’s innate. You can trust it.’
‘If it’s innate it must vacillate. Everything human vacillates.’
Childe Asher appears at my side. ‘Ethical selves never vacillate! If evil frightens them, they run away. If they can overcome fear, they stand shoulder to shoulder with goodness.’
Willis snorts. ‘That sounds like religious brainwash. Silver-lined toxin.’
Childe Asher rebukes him gently. ‘Only if you keep your head in the sand!’
Then he runs back to his debaters. ‘See you, Dad.’
Proud of my son, I turn to Willis. ‘There you have it.’
Willis shakes his head. ‘There I have nothing.’ He points at his drugs. ‘Except these short-cuts to never-never land!’
I give him a pitying look and leave.