David began to preach. His voice projected in a rhythmic rise and fall as he chanted the words of the Koran: the sacred words given by Allah and transcribed by his prophet Muhammad. He sang as a muezzin, his voice vibrating as the words of Allah poured forth from his heart.
Time passed. The heat from the obelisk diminished, and the force of his prayers lessened until at last they became a whisper. The golden light extinguished, and he fell silent.
Weary, like a water skin drained of its liquid, David slid his back down the stone until he sat. His eyes closed, shutting out the empty desert. A deep, dreamless sleep took him.
David woke with a start. A man in a white Ihram, his face inches away, poked David’s arm.
“Al-Mahdi?” he asked.
Confused and displaced by the spiritual enlightenment he had undergone, David blinked to clear his eyes. The hill was again crammed with bodies. A few hundred pilgrims clustered in a semicircle at his feet.
“Al-Mahdi?” He heard it spoken in whispers among the crowd. A hushed reverence filled the air.
The man who had woken him spoke again, in English. “Are you the Mahdi? Are you the Messiah?”
David looked at the gathered people. The murmured sounds of the Koran being read aloud had ceased. A waiting silence hung over the group. All eyes turned to him.
“I am Dawud,” he said. Then, “Bism Allah Allahu Akbar.”
Those sitting close spoke the words back to him.
Again he spoke, but louder. “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.”
Voices from below him on the hill echoed his phrases and David completed the prayer, “wa lil Lahi Alhamd.” The prayer chant spread beyond the group at David’s feet. More and more took it up until ten thousand raised voices pledged, as one, their love for Allah.
The faces of the pilgrims were lit with joy from the epiphany they had shared at Mount Arafat.
David, for the first time, saw a clear path ahead. The mist had lifted. Allah had guided Imam Ali, and through that guidance, his father had moved the family to Ohio. That move had enabled David to study, to excel in science, and finally, to create nanobots — a technological breakthrough. He thought of the meeting Imam Ali had arranged with a stranger. Allah had planned this meeting, so David could help this man. And the son shall complete the work of his father.
There, on the hill of forgiveness, David pledged obedience to Allah. From this point forward, Allah alone would guide David’s path in life. With a huge weight lifted from his shoulders, he began the march back to Mina.
A haji hurried alongside, matching steps with him. “Dawud?”
He recognized one of the pilgrims who had traveled with him from Jeddah. David could not bring himself to speak. He had forgotten how to converse. For three days, he had spoken only to Allah. He nodded to the man.
“Dawud, in America, are you an Imam?”
The question confused him. He shook his head.
“Then how did you learn to recite the Koran as you did on the Mount?”
With difficulty, David formed words and spoke. “I… I read from the holy book each day.”
“But you spoke from the heart. You preached for an hour. Even Imam Ali cannot move me as you did.”
“Allahu Akbar,” David said.
“Allahu Akbar,” the pilgrim replied.
Chapter 6
The bus dropped David and the other hajis at the mosque in Jeddah late in the evening of the sixth day. The men hugged as they parted, no longer strangers, now Muslim brothers. When the hajis dispersed to their homes, David remained. The Ihram, so revealing and thin when he boarded the bus before the Hajj, was now a second skin. A warm breeze brushed over his bald pate, shaved clean on the fourth day. He stared at the open doors of Imam Ali’s mosque and felt the weight of the moment.
Finally, he climbed the marble steps, removed his sandals, and, with back straight and head high, walked with purpose across the empty prayer space, conscious of the air flowing past his face as he moved.
He knocked on the office door. When he saw Imam Ali, David began to cry. Not with childlike tears of sadness, but from a welling of powerful emotions that spilled down his cheeks. The Imam opened his arms and enfolded him as a father would a long-lost son.
“I see on your face that you have accepted Allah as your one God.”
David nodded, his head buried in the Imam’s robes.
“I heard of your revelation at Mount Arafat. I called your father and told him how Allah had touched your spirit.”
“I saw a golden light.”
“You are blessed, Dawud, but with this blessing comes great responsibility.”
David pulled back and wiped his face with the loose end of his Ihram. “Allah has shown me my path. I ask your help in attaining it.”
Ali placed a hand on David’s shoulder. “I promised your father I would aid you as if you were my own son.”
David looked Ali full in the face and spoke in the strong, confident voice gained on his Hajj. “I wish to become an Imam.”
“Dawud, at Mount Arafat you led the prayers as only an Imam could.”
David smiled at the truth in Ali’s words. “Imam, before my Hajj, you spoke of a meeting. Allah has commanded me to help this man.”
Ali nodded. “He comes tomorrow. But in this thing, I am like Yahya — I opened the way, and I can guide you, but Allah calls to you alone, Dawud. Now come, eat, then you must rest. The Hajj takes a physical toll. Allah needs his servant to be strong.”
That night, David slept peacefully on a mat in the conference room.
The next day, he folded the Ihram in his suitcase, showered, and pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. The clothes felt strange, false.
He walked through the prayer hall and knocked on the Imam’s door.
“Come!”
Imam Ali sat at a small table beside a large man dressed in black shirt and jeans. The stranger stood and offered his hand. The man’s neck was thick, like a bull. A scar, red and angry, distorted the left side of his face. Rough laborer’s hands delivered a powerful grip that crushed David’s fingers.
“Dawud, this is Imam Ghazi.”
Ghazi bowed. “Dawud-bin-Hussein-bin-Ferran, it is an honor. Imam Ali told me of your Hajj, Allahu Akbar.” The man’s voice was deep and resonant.
“Allahu Akbar.” David met the stranger’s gaze. “Allah commands that we meet. I am yours to instruct.”
Ghazi nodded, and David noted with pride the look of approval on Ali’s face.
Ali poured dark, aromatic tea from a silver pot while Ghazi spoke. “Many years ago, I took my Hajj alongside my good friend, Ali. We were young, twenty-two. We returned changed men and dedicated ourselves to the study of Islam. Those were wonderful days, filled with the joy of doing God’s bidding.” Ghazi paused to sip his tea, the cup was a toy in his hand.
Ali smiled along with his friend’s reminiscence. David felt honored to be accepted in such exalted company.
“In my early thirties, Allah called me to help my Muslim brothers at the place of their greatest need. I parted from Ali and traveled to Jerusalem.” Ghazi’s face grew solemn.
“Israel is the front line in a war on Islam. I tried to help. I talked to representatives from the UN, and to Western Peace Commissions. I pleaded with rabbis, ministers, and priests. Islam is the one true path for all mankind, yet in Jerusalem, each day, its followers are crushed.” Ghazi’s raised voice filled the room, strong with passion. Here was a true soldier of Allah.
“The Western powers and the Arab puppets they use to control the Muslim people want one thing; to drive Islam from the face of the Earth. They fear Islam because the words of the Koran expose them as charlatans and thieves.” When he picked up his tea again, his hand shook, the spoon rattling in the saucer.