Prologue

The air was still this Friday morning but the rustling palms swayed in the searing heat as the chorus of ‘Allah-hu akbar’ rumbled from the Grand Mosque. Dhuhr, midday prayer, had ended and the congregation slipped out into the sunshine. Collecting their shoes and sandals at the entrance they mingled in the courtyard pressing hands, exchanging kisses with familiar faces – sharing news.

‘Make way, make way,’ screamed a megaphone and the crowd parted to allow a truck and an ambulance through.

‘Baba, Baba, what’s happening?’ asked a boy, watching the police in khaki spill from the back of the truck.

‘There’s going to be a show.’

‘I can’t see. Can we go to the front, Baba?’

The police formed a cordon and the mutaween shepherded the crowd, wielding their canes.

‘There’s to be a beheading,’ said a man.

‘And a stoning,’ added another.

‘And a westerner is going to be flogged for brewing.’

‘This I must see.’

Hush fell as a white Suburban with tinted windows approached and the police cleared a path.

A black man in a thobe alighted and was escorted into the courtyard by two men with machine guns.

‘Who’s the big man, Baba?’ asked the boy.

‘That’s Mohammed, the executioner.’

The police led a dishevelled figure wearing Afghani dress and a blindfold into the square. He was barefoot, with shackled feet and hands cuffed behind his back. The chain clinked along the ground leaving a mark in the dirt as the crowd stared and hissed.

The prisoner halted and turned his ashen face to the sky, smiling as the sun kissed it. He heaved a sigh and began reciting verses from the Qur’an, seeking salvation. An official read aloud the prisoner’s name and his crime. ‘Our country does not tolerate drugs. Let this be a lesson to those who deal in this evil,’ he said sanctimoniously in a resonant voice. A murmur of approval passed through the crowd and heads shook in condemnation.

‘Kneel!’ commanded a policeman and the man fell to his knees and bowed towards the Holy City of Mecca.

The executioner jabbed the scimitar in the man’s back and made him jerk his head up. The executioner’s arm rose high and paused. Silence hung in the air. The sun flashed across the blade, it arced through the sky and then the man’s head tumbled from his shoulders spurting a fountain of blood, its lips still reciting the Shahada. The body keeled over raising a puff of dust and its twitching made the chain jingle. The parched earth was quenched by rivulets of blood.

A collective gasp escaped from the crowd and several men fainted. ‘Bismillah’ was on every lip followed by silence. The boy screamed and grabbed his father’s thobe.

‘Why, Baba, why?’ asked the boy.

‘It’s Allah’s will,’ replied his father.

Conversation returned and rippled through the crowd.

‘That was quick,’ a white-faced man said, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief.

‘Mohammed’s good at his job,’ replied another man.

‘His father was too,’ someone agreed.

‘The stoning is next,’ called out an excited voice from the back and pointed at a pile of rocks.

‘I wouldn’t miss that for the world,’ said his neighbour.

‘It’s very messy,’ said a young voice.

‘The adulteress must suffer!’ shouted an older man. ‘That’s the way!’

‘I don’t have the stomach for that,’ came a weak voice.

‘A sodomite’s going to die too,’ cried the voice from the back.

‘Alhamdulillah ,’ chorused a group around him.

The boy watched the ambulance drive away with the body and shook his head.

‘I don’t understand, Baba,’ he mumbled.

The father patted his son on the head and they walked away.