News of the week

In the seven days that followed her first encounter with Imam Ibrahim al-Shakr, and the promise whispered in Arabic by an anonymous man at the end of the evening, saying her Uncle Osama was sending help that would arrive within a week, Fatima bin Laden's head hosted tumultuous thoughts that were both new and exciting and deeply troubling.

The new included classes at UH-Windward in biology, astronomy, computers and journalism, and here her brain wasn't so much sponge as it was vacuum, eagerly inhaling all the knowledge she could reach.

Also new, the tingly sensations she felt in the presence of Lt. Basel Zakly Faris, USMC, whether in their journalism class or meeting afterward for coffee and conversation. Baz was American-born, a Marine, and was assuming a protective role with Fatima, the fresh-off-the-boat exchange student from the Philippines. In doing so, he was being the perfect Muslim gentleman, showing her respect in everything he did.

The oddest of the new occurred in astronomy lab when her friend Jennifer Hira introduced Fatima to another foreign student, Osama Higa. Osama, same as her uncle! How could this be? One of the core teachings of Islam is that Arabic is the language of God, the language in which the Koran was dictated to Prophet Muhammed. The ultimate goal of jihad was to make Islam the world's religion, Arabic the world's language. And likewise, Jenn's family name made no sense at all -- Hira was the mountain on which Muhammed first received verses of the Koran. If God's language were exclusively Arabic, how could other cultures share the same words?

The new further included her divided feelings about the teachings of Imam Ibrahim. He was obviously a pious, holy man. Evil could never appear so pure. In her heart she believed he was right -- all evil and sin come from an absence of love, and it is from love that other acts of kindness and beneficence rise. But the imam also spoke apostasy, claiming that all gods worshipped by humans were in fact many faces of the One God, Allah included, praise his name. While Baz in his personal worship was a good Muslim, praying five times a day, he embraced the imam's Sufi message of peace and tolerance.

Most troubling was this new sense of ... not doubt ... but questioning. Fatima had memorized long passages of the Koran, and there were many that forbade killing other humans. Yet others called true believers to fight the infidel, especially the line about "smiting at the neck," which led to those gruesome beheadings in Bosnia and later Iraq. (To Fatima, if you must kill for God, do it quickly, without personal pleasure.) And so here was the conflict. She believed God was love. But she had a mission of death.

She heard a knock on the cottage door and hurried to answer, hoping help from her uncle had just arrived.