Joel Rosenberg - The Twelfth Imam

“No,” she conceded.

“Well, shouldn’t you pick a team and root for it?”

“Maybe,” she said at last, pulling a box of Junior Mints from her knapsack and eating a few without offering him any. “All right, which party should I sign up for-Republicans or Democrats?”

David laughed again. “Well, it’s really not for me to say,” he said, sure she was going to prove to be a liberal Democrat like him but wanting her to come to her own conclusion lest he look too pushy. “How about this? I’ll give you a little test to see if you’re a liberal or a conservative. Then you decide which party is best for you. Deal?”

Marseille thought about that for a moment and liked it. “Deal.”

“Okay, let’s see. Are taxes too low or too high?”

“Too high.”

“Should government spend more or less on education, health care, the environment, and other important necessities?”

“Government spends too much as it is,” she said. “I think they should let people keep more of what they earn.”

David continued cautiously, surprised by her answers. “Should the government protect a woman’s right to choose?”

“You mean abortion? No way! It’s a baby, David. You can’t kill a baby in her mother’s womb.”

David gulped.

“Don’t you agree?” she pressed.

“Well…”

“Isn’t government supposed to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?” she continued. “Life-it’s the first one, for crying out loud. Life comes first, then choice. If you switch that around, you’ve got chaos. Right?”

David was stumped and decided to move on. “What about gay rights?” he asked.

“Well, you shouldn’t be mean to gay people, but they shouldn’t have special rights. After all, marriage is a beautiful, sacred thing, between one man and one woman, don’t you think?”

David nodded weakly.

“ Don’t you think?” she pressed a bit stronger, popping a few more Junior Mints into her mouth and smiling.

“Absolutely,” he insisted. “Beautiful, sacred-absolutely.”

He asked her some foreign policy questions, then a few about trade policy and immigration. When he was done, he just sat there for a few minutes, trying to process all that he’d just heard.

“Well?” she asked, practically glowing in the fiery rays of the sun beaming through the window. “What am I?”

David shook his head. “You’re a 99.967-percent rock-solid conservative.”

“Really?” she said, seeming happy with the sound of that. “So that’s the Republicans, right?”

David nodded but was crestfallen. He liked this girl. But he couldn’t fall for a Republican, could he?

“So are you a Republican too, David?”

At that, he shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

Marseille was aghast. “What do you mean? Don’t you agree with me on all those things?”

They talked and argued-civilly, but passionately-as the afternoon slipped away unnoticed. For someone not interested in politics, she certainly had strong opinions! Before they realized it, the sun had fully set, and they were arguing by the light of their flashlights. David suggested they’d better put their political feud on hold and get back before their fathers sent out a search party for them. Reluctantly, Marseille agreed.

“Maybe we should change the subject,” David said as they bushwhacked their way to the camp.

“Maybe.” They picked their way around a fallen tree in the darkness. “So what about you? What do you dream of doing someday, aside from running for president as a lunatic Democrat?”

“Very funny,” David said. He stopped walking for a moment. “You really want to know what my dream is?”

She nodded, expectantly.

“I dream-” he hesitated, and her eyes widened-“of having some of those Junior Mints.”

Marseille laughed. “Dream on. These are my own special treat.”

“You’re really not going to offer me one?” he said. “Not even one?”

“Maybe if you really tell me your dream.”

He smiled. “All right, it’s a deal.”

“Go ahead,” Marseille said. “I’m listening.”

“Actually, I’ve never told anyone this…”

“It’s okay,” she said. “You can tell me.”

He took a deep breath.

“My dream…”

She leaned in. “Is…?”

He paused again, letting the suspense build further. “… to get back to camp without being eaten by a bear.”

With that, he took off in a sprint for their camp, laughing, with Marseille running after him, yelling and trying to catch up.

Sadr City, Iraq

Najjar lay in bed and closed his eyes, but he could not sleep.

His mind raced as he pored over every detail of the kidnapping and his encounters with the taxi driver and later with the beggar. Then he thought of the little boy who had rescued him from a beating by those bullies when he was just ten years old. Was Allah calling him? Najjar wondered. Had he sent angels to protect him, to speak to him? Was he truly being chosen to know and serve the Promised One? It couldn’t possibly be. He had no parents, no money, no religious clerics in his family, no political power, no influential friends, no reason of any kind to attract the attention of the Mahdi, peace be upon him. Yet how could he deny this bizarre chain of events?

He dared not ask his aunt or his uncle about any of this. He couldn’t confide in anyone he knew. They would think he had gone mad. And maybe he had. But maybe not. Maybe Khomeini really hadn’t been the one the Islamic world was waiting for but rather just a forerunner. Perhaps the end of days was truly approaching. Perhaps the messiah was coming after all-and soon.

As the sun began to rise in the eastern sky, a weary Najjar slipped out of bed, quietly opened his bedroom door, scanned the hallway for any signs of movement, and then carefully crept to the living room, hoping he wouldn’t wake anyone. On the shelf beside the television, there were a handful of books-the family Qur’an, of course, and then a series of Shia histories and theological textbooks. His uncle, a devoutly religious man, had wanted to be a mullah before abandoning his studies to join the family business. But even to this day, whenever he had a little spare change, he bought another of the religious books he loved to study, and Najjar loved him for it.

One particular book on the highest shelf was by an Iranian man named Dr. Alireza Birjandi, one of the most renowned Shia scholars in the world and an expert on Shia eschatology, or End Times theology. His book, The Imams of History and the Coming of the Messiah, was a classic, arguably the definitive book on the subject. It told the stories and legends and controversies surrounding all twelve of the Imams, but the stories of the last-the Twelfth Imam-had always intrigued Najjar most.

The Twelfth Imam, Dr. Birjandi explained, was not a mythical character or a fictional construct. He was a real, flesh-and-blood person who had lived in the ninth century and would someday reemerge to change the course of history. Born in Samarra, Iraq, in or around the year 868, his name was Muhammad Ibn Hasan Ibn Ali. Like the eleven Shia Muslim leaders who went before him, Muhammad was a direct descendant of the founder of Islam and was thought to have been divinely chosen to be the spiritual guide and ultimate human authority of the Muslim people.

But before he reached an age of maturity when he could teach and counsel the Muslim world as was believed to be his destiny, the Twelfth Imam had vanished from human society. Some said he was four years old. Others said five or six. Some believed he fell into a well in Samarra, though his body was never recovered. Others believed his mother placed him in the well to prevent the evil rulers of the time from finding him, capturing him, and killing him-and that little Muhammad subsequently became supernaturally invisible. That’s why some called him the “Hidden Imam,” believing that Ali was not dead but simply hidden from the sight of mankind until the end of days, when Allah would once again reveal him.