A new series of short stories by the editor-in-chief, Abdullah, with a new outlook on both past and present through the eyes of God-loving Muslims of various types. The goal of these is to show that no matter the absurdity of any situation, the pursuit of divine truth is always applicable.
Hear this well: I’d never have picked out these two fools if my life depended on it. In the Syrian desert, no less? It was like Allah was punishing me for a time when I’d neglected a friend in need, or something similar. They were cousins, by far the most awful men in our halqa. They weren’t drunks, ironically, but had all their vices regardless. Them being drunks would have made more sense, actually. Laziness, greed, inability to walk more than a parasang without slapping the backs of the singers they dragged along to start up another tune. One was particularly horrendous to listen to but thankfully fell ill and died a few weeks ago. One of the two, Qutlug, cried over the wretched woman. He fancied her, but she technically wasn’t his, so she was off limits. A lot of us were convinced Emir Yusuf had her poisoned when he saw how driven mad we were by her wailing. Great man –– I really hoped those savages hadn’t cut him open by now.
We weren’t long past Palmyra when we were hit. We were sweating enough to fill goblets, but supplies weren’t an issue. We had gone out at the request of a farmer who whined to the Sultan for maybe the hundredth time about the same horse-lickers stealing his goats. We were sure we’d got them, had a few heads tied on the Emir’s saddle for proof. We were at least fifty aiming to regroup with the rest on another trip––nearly two hundred more of us––when we heard the familiar cries. We’d handled this before, but not in these numbers. That blood curdling thing they do with their throats…I’ll never get over that sound.
The blood that stained me, not yet mine, ran half clear down my face when our rides met. I’d gotten lucky, came across a young one that I bashed with my shield right off to the ground, got hit by a stray arrow. Another flew past me, but I remember thinking, amid the attack, how on earth these two men had made it this far unharmed. Thinking about them before knowing nearly all of us but they––Qutlug and Shihab al-Din, I, and our Emir would survive was totally coincidental. Like my thoughts kept them alive. Just as I sliced through the side of a Tatar’s horse with a blow I thought had knocked out my shoulder bone, I saw through the spurt of blood that flew to stain me both of them riding away from the action. As you can imagine, I was livid.
After I’d quickly jabbed the tip of my sword through the neck of the rider I just knocked over, I turned back to chase them. I don’t know what exactly I intended then. I was riding off the high of perhaps my cleanest kill, maybe I thought I’d rid myself of those two for good and spare the whole halqa their nuisance forever. Turns out, their distracting me saved my life. The bastards.
I rode past the rock formation they went behind, meeting them where they would come out, just outside the circle of battle. I was instead met with another pony that sped past me. Turns out they weren’t running. They were chasing another Tatar rider, who was then circling back to ride again into the heart of the action. I could tell they were making weird faces through their helmets, soon enough I was within shouting distance.
“What on earth are you two––”
Then it happened. Another hundred Tatar riders coming out the end of the valley as if spawned there by a Moroccan sorcerer. I knew it was over instantly. I screamed for them both to stop their chase, but they wouldn’t relent. The mass of savages in the distance collided with the thirty or so remaining Turks in our Halqa and I felt the sting of failure burn across my chest. Within minutes most with our crest on their armor fell, and in the interim the two fools I chased were able to circle the one Tatar they were awfully obsessed with. Shihab knocked him down with the back of his sword, then dropped down to hold him good. We were at a good distance from the massacre at this point. None seemed to notice us, Alhamdulilah, but far off I could see them circling one last Turk. Emir Yusuf. Damn it.
They had ropes. He cut through some but soon they got close enough to disarm him. Tied him up like they were taming a horse. I yelled for Qutlug and Shihab to hide behind the rocks and wait. They dragged the Tatar with them that they still hadn’t killed. When we all huddled up close, I could finally see why. This one was a woman.
They tore off her helmet and we saw silky, thick black hair tied seven ways across. Beads of sweat fell off her forehead that smelt flowery and grimy at the same time. She didn’t say a word. It was my first time seeing one of their women up close. I’d seen plenty in the distance… war booty, rounded up whenever we hit a particularly good caravan. But thus far I’d never cared enough to have one personally. I’d also never seen one in full armor fighting. I’d heard years ago when Baghdad fell about a story of something similar. A Tatar girl that they didn’t know was a girl until she stopped fighting, then they killed her straight away. I thought it was a ridiculous tale. Once the shock wore off, I took her helmet from Qutlug’s hands and bashed him in the head with it. “So this is what got you two to run? You idiots!” Qutlug fell back, Shihab put his hands up in defense. I could still hear the savages in the distance looting our halqa’s corpses. “Yeah, it is. We were doomed anyway! We couldn’t have made a difference…might as well have run off with this one. She’s a good looking one too, see!”
I saw red. I grabbed him by the neck, spit in his face.
“Our whole group is dead, we’re stranded here, and you’re impressed you caught one Tatar girl?”
Qutlug spoke up, “We can trade her for the Emir!”
I laughed. How did they know she was in any way important? They objected, saying that, with utmost certainty, they saw her ride into us besides the commander at the front. I looked out from the side of the rocks just a little to see our violators packing up to go. I realized this strangely female side of beef could have screamed and gave us away, but she didn’t. Definitely thought we’d slit her throat. I don’t know about these two, but I certainly would have. I only had the word of these fools that she was in any way important, too. Emir Yusuf was a high-class grab, if this woman was any less than a Noyan’s wife we were screwed.
With my natural grasp of authority, I told them to stay put until our guests left and were closer to sundown. Then, we’d move.
Seeing in which direction the Tatar took Emir Yusuf, I knew they would be headed for Mosul. They’d taken it from Badr al-Din Lu’lu’s incompetent sons a year ago, and last we heard one of Hulagu’s lesser Noyans was there. It made perfect sense, so we hedged on it and made for a slow crawl along a farther off route, aiming to join another Mamluk Halqa belonging to Emir Yusuf’s cousin, another Emir named Mahmud. Emir Yusuf was a young star, but Mahmud was a grizzled veteran who survived the initial waves of invasions into Anatolia. There was always an air of longing for the jihad in him that I didn’t see in any of the other Emirs, not even in the Sultan. One of those mad men that make it through life through brute force and a will to make it at all costs. I remember after Ain Jalut he walked through the injured camp (where, I should add, a Frankish bondmaiden with the softest hair was stitching up my shoulder) and yelled that we needed to resist the desire to sleep at all costs, even if it’s a flesh wound. “That’s when the angel of death gets you, when you think you’re just going to rest your mind for a bit as you’re staining your cot!”
Once we were well on the road, the Tatar girl started talking. She started off mumbling things to herself occasionally, then frequently, then she snapped and started to curse us in her tongue and whatever broken phrases in Turkish she knew. Hearing her Turkish brought down my spirits, it was so unlikely now that she was anyone important if she knew this little. Qutlug loved it though. He kept responding, correcting her and playfully cursing her back. I could see it in his face, he wanted to tame this one. Young men. Instantly, I gave him and Shihab a stern warning not to bed her. They accused me of being a jealous old man. I turned away and kept riding. Let them figure out what I mean.
When we finally set up camp for the night, we decided to take her out of the rest of her armor. It took all three of us to figure out how to untie the pieces whilst fighting back against her struggling against us. Once she was down to garments, I couldn’t help but laugh. She was pretty for sure, her joints were a little larger than the typical woman, but she was stocky and filled out in her upper body like no other female I’d ever seen. I imagined a great khan sizing her up and determining in swift order she was better off in the stables or the on the battlefield than in his tent.
That didn’t throw Qutlug off though. He still stared at her like she was a Greek maiden.
I laid back after praying Isha’, and as I tried to drift away amongst the chattering of my travel buddies I got flashes of Ain Jalut again. I remember…I was in the third row of riders behind Qutuz. We thought it was over for most of us, but he pushed through anyway. Sultan Baybars was vicious. I could have sworn he cut a man in half riding past, his hulking body slightly bouncing on his horse that looked more scarred than he was. Sometimes, after a long burst of grueling effort where you didn’t believe you’d make it but did, you reminisce on it out of a profound sense of humbleness. I heard some of us saying then that it felt like our own Battle of Badr. When you think about it, each few hundred years of Muslims has their own Badr. A time when they thought all was lost until they won a victory against a superior number, aided by angels and the dear Prophet’s (SAW) prayers. It comes after an era of decadence, constant loss, and some of the worst humiliations. Allah gives us the chance to redeem ourselves and prove to this sick, filthy world that Islam will never die after a century of humiliation.
It was these thoughts that concluded my awful day. May Allah bring a better one soon, I’m going to need it.