Stephen Coonts - The Disciple

The majority of Tehranis were followers of Shia Islam, but the rest covered the entire religious spectrum, from the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East to Zoroastrianism, and everything in between, including Sunni Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sufism, or Mystic Islam, the religion of the legendary Whirling Dervishes.

This religious soup was the intellectual food for Dr. Israr Murad, an elderly scholar who lectured on an irregular basis at the University of Tehran. Today Ghasem glanced at his watch as he parked his car, locked it, then trotted across campus. He opened the door and slipped into the back of the lecture hall just as Dr. Murad was making his final remarks.

When the students had left the lecture hall, Ghasem went forward to help Dr. Murad gather his notes. Murad was in his early eighties; he was still mentally active, yet arthritis and heart ailments had slowed him down. He sat and watched Ghasem pack the last of his notes in his leather briefcase.

“It went well?” Ghasem asked.

“Aii,” the old man said, and made a gesture. “They ask the same questions that their fathers asked, and their fathers before them. If only they would think up new questions…”

“Their minds work in predictable ways,” Ghasem murmured.

“And religions give predictable answers.” The old man sighed and levered himself erect. “Did you bring the car?”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

It had been Dr. Murad’s car, but when he had decided he was no longer capable of driving it safely, he had given it to Ghasem.

When they were walking in the heat toward the automobile, Dr. Murad held on to the younger man’s shoulders. He seemed lost in thought. Halfway there he signaled a pause and stood swaying, waiting… for his heart to stop hammering futilely, Ghasem thought. There was a bench just steps away, so Ghasem eased the old man over to it and helped him seat himself. Then he sat beside him.

“I have a question,” Ghasem said and waited for his grandfather to nod an acknowledgment.

“I heard Uncle Habib make a remark that I have been thinking about ever since. He said Iran is surrounded by enemies of God. By that he meant American armed forces. Still, in light of our conversations, I have been thinking, and wondering. Can God have mortal enemies, enemies of flesh and blood?”

The old man smiled wanly. “What do you think?” he asked.

“He could have such enemies only if He tolerates them.”

“If He wishes to have them?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Murad smiled again, then said, “Your god is large and powerful. Habib’s is small and impotent.”

“Habib Sultani doesn’t see it that way.”

“Indeed,” the professor acknowledged. “Many men have an extraordinary ability to ignore the obvious.”

Ghasem took a deep breath, then said, “So we are once again back to the core question: Is Islam a religion or a political ideology?”

“Unfortunately,” answered the old man, “it is both. I say unfortunately, because Islam cannot survive in the world as a political ideology. The jihadists cannot win. If martyrdom is the fate of all true believers, then Islam will perish with them. Islam can be the faith of the dead or the faith of the living, but it cannot be both.”

Automatically, Ghasem glanced around to see if anyone overheard. No one had. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. His grandfather was under suspicion-well, he had been under suspicion since the Islamic Revolution. The revolutionaries had closed the universities for three years, lectured professors and students on what they could teach and jailed, tortured and interrogated those who didn’t toe the line of fundamental Islam. True, there were many other religions in Iran, but the official state religion was Shia Islam-Khomeini’s version-and woe to the man or woman who didn’t understand that and bow down. A wrong word, a gesture, a facial expression-anything could ignite the Revolutionary Guard, who roamed the campus in black uniforms, carrying weapons.

Dr. Murad gestured. “Help me up,” he said. Ghasem did so, and they resumed their journey toward Ghasem’s automobile.

“There is an Islamic professor in Germany,” Ghasem said, “who said that the Prophet, may he rest in peace, is fiction. That he never existed. What do you think of that argument?”

“Muhammad’s was the most documented life of any of the prophets,” Murad said slowly, measuring his words. “Thousands of pages, thousands of facts. One suspects there was such a man, but by all accounts he was illiterate. He dictated his revelations to a scribe. The assumption has always been that the scribe was merely a scrivener who wrote down the Prophet’s words verbatim. And yet the Prophet dictated the most sublime piece of literature ever written in Arabic. The language inspires and soars, it is beautiful and majestic and grand. Indeed, the language of the Koran became the Arabic that everyone wanted to speak. That scribe…”

“God told Muhammad what to say.”

“Or the scribe took the ruminations of an illiterate, charismatic tribal chief and founded a religion.”

“You should be working on your book,” Ghasem said, “instead of wasting your strength on lectures.”

“I don’t lecture; I just talk,” his grandfather said. “The students do not want to hear or think about the problems with Islam, and you know it. They have the perfect religion; they wish to hear about the strange beliefs and practices of infidels and pagans.”

Since he taught comparative religion, Murad was under constant, intense scrutiny. He had survived by refusing to discuss Islam at all and discussing other religions as if they were voodoo practiced by illiterate natives starving on an isle in the sea’s middle. Still, his classrooms were packed, and Revolutionary Guards were ever present, listening. Even discussing other religions was a dangerous game: Converting to Christianity was a capital offense in Iran, and if any of his students did it, Murad, the scholar, would be implicated.

A moment passed before Dr. Murad said, “I have almost finished the book.”

Now Ghasem stopped short and looked at the old man’s face. “When last we spoke, you said you were at least two years away.”

“Your cousin Khurram was there when you asked, if you will recall.”

Ghasem thought about it. “I remember.”

“I do not want Khurram reading it. Nor discussing it.”

Ghasem nodded. Khurram was very conventional, without a mote of intellectual curiosity. He was a chip flowing along on the fundamental Islamic stream that had ruled Iran since the fall of the shah.

“Nor your uncle Habib Sultani.” The professor paused, then added, “Why my daughter Noora wanted to marry him is one of life’s mysteries.”

“You gave your consent.”

“I did. Sometimes I wonder if Noora wishes I had refused.” Dr. Murad sighed. “I want you to read the manuscript,” he continued, returning to the subject abruptly. “Show it to no one, make no notes. Read it… and tell me what you think.”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“I have made no copies. The one you will have is the only one.”

Ghasem nodded.

They came to the car. When Ghasem had the old man seated in the right seat, the windows open and the car crawling through traffic, Dr. Murad said, “A few more days, and it will be finished. Read it quickly. My heart is acting up again. My time is drawing to a close.”

After he dropped his grandfather at his house and helped the valet get him comfortable in a chair, Ghasem drove to the building where he lived. He shared a tiny apartment with a friend from the university, Mostafa Abtahi.

A licensed civil engineer, Abtahi had found a job at a printing firm that sold maps to tourists. He spent his days hunched over a drawing table updating maps of Tehran and the Iranian road system. His ambition, which he discussed endlessly with his friend Ghasem, was to go to America and get rich. Several months ago he had written to the American State Department requesting an American visa, and he was still awaiting a reply.