In the Belly of a Great Whale

The Sage of Omaha was awoken from his midday nap by his wife's gentle, persistent voice. She politely beckoned to him to relinquish his after-lunch slumber, an old man's pleasure. He rose, and saw two men in tight white turbans sitting on the balcony, looking away.

"They are here about a crime", the wife said, pulling out the pillow from underneath him. The Sage tumbled sideways in a languid daze.

"I have never seen these two before" --in the masjid in which he is the imam-- he muttered, rubbing his eyes. "From another kampong?"

"Yes, they are. That's why they are here to see you." She dusted off his back while he affixed the troublesome button on his robe collar.

Hearing his footsteps, the two men stood up and turned to face him. They exchanged greetings and salutations, shook hands, and the Sage invited them to come up inside. The wife will bring us hot tea and biscuits, he said. They thanked him, but very politely, they said no.

The Sage became very curious.

"Tuan Haji, a young male bachelor and a married woman were caught in a lewd situation in a hotel room in Pekan this early morning", one of them said. The Sage uttered a lengthy istighfar under his breath.

"We caught them red-handed", the other man quickly added.

"Were you doing an amar maaruf raid?"

"No, it was an ad hoc operation. We had received several reports from kampong folks who kept seeing these two together in the Pekan-area hotels and restaurants. Our imam asked us to see to it."

The Sage nodded knowingly, stroking his disarrayed beard.

"We have four witnesses. All are credible witnesses according to the Sharia. The police was also with us. They saw the acts from A to Z."

"We have material evidences: hotel register, CCTV tapes, the used condoms, good DNA samples, fresh, from the bed sheets, tissues."

The Sage took a deep breath and uttered a long prayer, asking God to forgive his sins and the sins of all Muslims in this world and in the Hereafter, and asked Him to guide them through to the True Path.

"Have you informed their ketua kampung? Their family members?"

"Uhm, well", he stammered. "That's why we're here to see you, Tuan Haji. Both of them are members of your kariah. Jalan Pisang Dua--"

--"Oh Allah!"

The Sage wailed in disbelief, a primordial cry of pain, his two hands scraping the callused skin of his face, bellowing, praying --"Oh Allah!"

The two men waited for him to compose himself.

"The bachelor is the son of So-and-so, whose daughter suffers from cancer. The woman is the wife of So-and-so, the Air Force pilot."

He knew those two. One, a pensioner who, after the heartbreaking news of his daughter's terminal illness, began frequenting the masjid. The Sage approached him and offered special prayers --the Prayers of Yunus, the prophet in the belly of the great whale-- so that the man would be able to draw strength from God during his tribulations.

The Air Force pilot, a young man with a sturdy build, was the son of an army veteran who died in a freak drowning accident a few years ago. The Sage was not fond of the pilot or his late father. Neither were masjid-goers. Only the casual Eid prayers or akad ceremonies. He had adviced them repeatedly, bayan and tasykil, but to no avail.

"Also, Tuan Haji. This woman --we have not yet confirmed this with her family or her husband or a doctor-- but she says she is pregnant."

The Sage's eyes bulged in trepidation. "Did she say who fathered it?"

"Her husband, the pilot."

The Sage called out to his wife who was in the kitchen, telling her he would be going out for a short while. The wife acknowledged him from behind the partitioning drape. She reminded him to take along his black-and-white kaffiyeh. He grabbed the cloth, threw it across the length of his shoulders, closed the door behind him, and followed the two men to their jeep. He tucked himself at the back.

His lips wetted with istighfars, the Sage asked that they take the long and winding road instead. "Through Paya Duri', he told them.

The men were baffled, but nonetheless, complied to the request.

As they rode on the pickup, in his head, the Sage began formulating his judgement for the case. His chest felt heavy. The air surrounding him seemed to be thinning out with each drawn breath. Alternately, he sighed, prayed, and muttered fragments of verses from the Holy Book. The Sage was deeply distressed with what was needed to be decided. The lives and future of so many people were at stake, each would be touched, or scarred, by his edicts; fateful and foreboding.

He felt as if he was trapped inside the darkest and the most hollow of rooms, and could not help but recite the Prayers of Yunus again and again, drawing His strength and guidance, the source of Light--

There is no God but You!

Glorified be You!

Truly, I have been one of the wrongdoers!

This was written during the weeks prior to the National Election in which PAS won and took over Kuala Selangor, my hometown constituent. I wanted to tell a story of an alternate future in which Sharia Laws, namely Hudud, reigns. But as I was writing it, the story took a different turn. I found myself attracted to the inner struggles of the imam, which is a close reflection of my own personal struggles with understanding and accepting political Islam. The name 'Sage of Omaha' is chosen randomly so as not to offend anyone or associate it with any particular person. The texts in italics at the end of the story is a direct translation from the Koran. That's indeed the Prayer of Yunus a.s, the prophet in the belly of the great whale.