Abdi, fled Somaliland while Somalia’s military indiscriminate campaign culminated. The war separated him and his family; he voyaged via Berbera coast and ended up in a coastal town in Yemen; nonetheless, the Arab coastal guards repeatedly asked him. “Were there any women with you in the trip?” having dehydrated by the sea’s heatwaves and near-to-death drowning, he could barely answer to their demands. Above all, he didn’t understand the essence of the question about the repetition of women or why women alone are saved from drowning.
Abdi’s brief encounter with Yemen’s ill-disciplined navy, following his few days of rest, decided to pass to the sacred land of Saudi Arabia of the two holiest cities to kiss the Black Stone the Ka’aba. No doubt, Mecca and Madina cement compassionate behavior and culture of altruism. Reminiscing of the sweet stories, sure of its truthfulness and beyond fabrication prior to the Wahhabi’s spread in Somalia, he escaped the border’s guards and reached downtown Mecca to see precisely what the city where the prophet lived a thousand year ago looks like.
He cried out of joy when companions-like beardy people wearing a white robe and moustache-less appeared of nowhere like a miracle. Legendries of giving small water to heavily-wounded Sahabi companions and all of them died of thirst while passing to each refusing to sip the water for the sake of altruism enabling him to picture how altruistic the Muslims were to each other and can be today. He never thought books and the practice can differ or Muslim solidarity was just confined in the mosques’ sermons and became bunkum. He fell to the ground, unconscious but awoke in the hands of Mudawaciin or volunteering police of the prophet’s loving image.
He watched Somali refugees in Europe pretending sick whenever see the naval forces to be treated for free and get welfare immediately after arrival. However, something else happened to him.
The civilian Saudis interrogated him and found him desperate, having no place to return; they sent him to the hellish desert. During the night, he was trained on how to drive a dilapidated bulldozer and construct a road. He eats spicy food with Indians bought off as semi-slave workers. “You are an Arab and Muslim, we’ll give better remunerations, don’t worry, but you must work hard.” The Saudi who took him with their car from Mecca and dropped him in the middle of the desert told him.
Two unpaid months passed by, but Abdi was knowing from his heart that Muslims are told not to cheat and rob people. He holds the Saudis to higher standards of piety having being Quraysh and descendants from the prophet. This imagination keeps him going and gets fed from the Indian section of the restaurant while his peers from Africa but genuine Arabs like Egyptians and Sudanese eat out at Arab wing of the restaurant which provides a rich menu of a variety of dishes from European to Israeli cuisines.
Eating white rice without any chicken or meat but dates and drinking filtered or unfiltered seawater made Abdi became skinny, and he lost the teeth and barely can see of anything because of his poor sight. He hears in his mind. “Is this the way the prophet’s time is treated with the Bilals. Is there a special Sharia law for my people?” However, he can’t express his mind lest blasphemy laws in the Kingdom for the marginalized Muslims from Asia and Africa. He kept going thinking things will change sooner. Allah, however, went AWOL. he insisted.
Another two unpaid years have gone, he broke his leg at the worksite, and his leg deformed because of the lack of proper treatment; though other workers are sent to Saudi-German Hospital for treatment, his leg was fixed by blind Arab healer to get his leg blessed, he was told. Unworthy of any riyals even the medications, he waited for Allah to intervene but so far the Arabs insist that his Hindu and Sikh colleagues are unpaid too. “Work, work, work.” His recruiters began to threat deportation whenever he asks his bloody wages. He sneaked out of the heavily-guarded camp to an Imam known for his boldness and piety in the village and requested his arbitration that thinking that Imams in the holy land have bowels of compassion.“You are Abad or slave,get out of my line of the prayers.” The Imam yelled at him in the mosque.
Mr Abdi a nice innocent Somali guy didn’t know that Arabs’ discrimination degenerated to that level of prayers’ line: first line for Gulf worshippers, second line for other Arabs, and blacks in the last line. “Wakhar wara” (get behind) the Borgias Imam was super white speaking Libyan Arabic accent since Saudis have no time to lead in the prayers while partying in Sydney, LA, Casablanca, Beirut, and other sex tourism cities. Qataris now were denied access to the Hajj because of the Gulf fallout—Qataris is said to make their pilgrimage to Al-Aqsa instead of Mecca, and the State of Israel perhaps is welcoming them.
He get stuck in the Brigadoon camp for the next ten years unable to escape to another country while Somalia at war wasn’t a returning option.
Abdi lost patience with Arabs’ inhuman behavior and tried to get his payments, but his ‘brother’ Muslims ordered to keep his mouth sealed off and continue digging with bare hands when the bulldozer breaks down. He once again lost his fingers and smell senses of toxic inhaling. The Saudi employer finally informed the Labor and Immigration office of Abdi’s illegal status. Without questioning for how long he was working with the company or if he was paid or not, they have deported him to Mogadishu under Al-Shabab’s fire. He begged the officers to deport his money with him; laughing and making fun of his sun-burnt face and a broken leg and missing fingers, they directly deported him to Mogadishu wrapped in a body bag while they could send him to Hargaysa or other stable cities in Somalia to survive the Mogadishu’s gunfire.
Immediately after landing, the Jihadists in charge of Mogadishu asked him to martyr for Allah having seen his open bruises and scares. “He is fit for the suicide bombing” they recommended him.
As a Muslim who never met companions or the prophet but, their great-grandsons thought of this story of passing water to each of the severely injured knight jihadists at the time of the prophet these stories are either sugar-coated to portray his faith in a positive light or never happened. No way had it happened. “As a Muslim, how do I reconcile with the honeyed stories in the books dictate and what I have seen, met, touched and still happening to my people?” he rhetorically questioned. He spent his last years in sad seclusion amid the alien corn. He knew antisemitism was the unifying element and consensus among many Muslim so Israel was off table what happens to him.
Another Jihad war broke out in Mogadishu. He journeyed via the Sinai desert and gave in to Israel border guards. Haunted by Arabian’s demonizing music against Jews, Abdi changed his Muslim name to something culturally unidentifiable opaque, but before any documentation, he was taken to an Israeli military health post for rehydration and nutritional feeding.
He was given free accommodation, and unlimited residence for his case of asylum was substantiated with facts and wasn’t forced to speak Hebrew to Jewish police officers on patrol. Abdi joined top-notch schools in Israel for scholarship and allowed to further his education anywhere in the world, including the US with another award. After his master degree, Abdi found a job in an international institute for Middle East affairs based in Washington DC. “I was deported from the land whose medieval tyrants know no Allah nor manhood, after that I went to the land of Israel of the humanistic values where my faith not just tolerated but respected despite Palestinian Muslims’ unrelenting Jihad against my hosting nation.” To this day and age, Abdi’s books and the closed pages of the book of life he witnessed firsthand are irreconcilable, and its resulting shock is far from over.
About the Author
The Writer and Journalist is a Somaliland Activist and Senior Editor at The Democracy Chronicles, African news edition; his upcoming novel ” Lily in The Dumpsite.” a girl whose father wanted her to be a boy to fight for him and his tribe because females are burden and someone’s else comfort and sex object.
