The Delirious Derailing of Mullah Khan’s De-Radicalization

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Mullah Khan, the irrepressible zealot and his sons, had been forced to attend the first ever de-radicalization programme, sanctioned and championed by none other than the British Prime Minister himself, Davis Cameroon.  Khan and his sons were deemed social menaces with their firebrand Islamism, their desperation for Britain to become an Islamic state, their adoration for the self-styled caliph of ISIS, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, and also for their failed mission to blow up a pig farm in Dudley with an explosive that they named “Kufr-Killer”.

So Cameroon, fresh from an election victory and smug as a bug, cosied up to a few decent moderate ex-Islamists, re-read his copy of “Islam For Idiots”, by Robert Spencer, and subsequently announced that British Muslims were ineffectual in dealing with their scriptural anachronisms and their bad apples:

“I shall embark on plucking out these bad apples myself,” he proclaimed, shaking his fist, “drill inside, find the Islamist worm and then crush it, leaving behind a wholesome, moderate, red, empire apple. Or golden delicious if you prefer.” He chuckled at his own joke at this point in the press conference.

So Mullah Khan and sons were the first to be purged of their Islamism. This new, governmental initiative involved ex-radicals working with the family, encouraging introspection, victim impact analysis and embracing the universal values of love and peace.

And things looked pretty dire from the very start.

Mullah Khan arrived at the centre, a stately home in the middle of the Chiltern hills, clad in parachute-style, light blue salwar qameez, a pair of white Reeboks and a green baseball hat, sporting the Pakistan flag. His beard hung below him like a cascade of black, candy-floss. His eyes bulged in their sockets, dark and terrible. His sons, triplets, all in their late teens and basically teenage versions of their dad, all jumped out of their dad’s grey Toyota Yaris with the nifty little spoiler and Islam4UK stickers in the back window.

The manager and coordinator, Gary Juggan, a withered-looking Southerner, skinny as a flint in a navy blue suit and Union-Jack tie, came to greet the family outside the centre, pleasantly offering his hand to Mullah Khan.

“KUFR!” Exclaimed Mullah Khan, pointing at Gary’s face.

“SHIRK!” Cried his son, Mullah Shah, pointing at Gary’s tie.

“BIDAH!” Shrieked the next son, Mullah Jang, pointing at Gary’s mobile phone.

“NIFAAQ!” Shouted Mullah Hamza, gesticulating at the entire building.

Gary Juggan looked rather bemused at first, but laughed it all off.

“Sorry,” he began politely, “but I don’t seem to follow you…”

He was interrupted very quickly with the same chorus:

“KUFR!” Cried Mullah Khan.

“SHIRK!” Cried Mullah Shah.

“BIDAH!” Growled Mullah Jang.

“NIFAAQ!” Yelled Mullah Hamza.

Juggan now began scratching his head, completely flummoxed, but he thought it would be better to lead the family into the centre to get processed.

“OK,” he said, very slowly, “all of you,” pointing to the man and his sons, “you follow me here…”

A Moslamic volcano erupted.

“KUFR!”

“SHIRK!”

“BIDAH!”

“NIFAAQ!”

Then all four of them started punching their fists in the air and shouting slogans:

“DEATH TO THE QUEEN! DEATH TO THE WEST! SHE’S AS DRUNK AS GEORGIE BEST!”

That day, as the family were processed and settling in the centre, Juggan sought some solace from the newly appointed consultant on the six-figure salary instituted by Cameroon, Najeed Mawaz.

“Najeed,” stated Gary, as the two observed the family, behind the screen, in their large room, setting up their beds to face Mecca and sticking ISLAM4UK stickers all over the place, “what are those words they keep saying whenever they see me?”

“Well Gary,” started Najeed, pleased at the opportunity to educate his boss, “kufr is the Arabic word for unbelief, shirk is the word for idolatry, bidah is for misguiding innovations and finally nifaaq is the word for hypocrisy.”

“Oh,” said Gary, hesitating and looking worried, “I see…So basically, I am the walking personification of the infidel for them.”

“No, no. Don’t worry,” reassured Najeed, patting Gary on the shoulder, “once they’ve been with me, they’ll be fine; just you watch. I am sure I will learn something from them as well. They’re only human at the end of the day.”

So, the next day, the family was summoned into a well-lighted, modern seminar room. They each took a seat and waited. There were biscuits, jammie dodgers, bourbons and chocolate chip cookies scattered on plates before them, with piping hot tea and milk.

They all responded with, “KUFR! SHIRK! BIDAH! NIFAAQ!” But then they started tucking into the beverages and biscuits with wide smiles on their faces.

“Bloody kafirs make lovely biscuits though,” remarked one of the brothers.

“The red circle in the middle is a right bidah! But tastes lovely!” Said another.

“Stupid cookies get too soft and soggy like a mushrik!” The third complained.

“BURP!” Went Mullah Khan, after slurping on some tea, and downing a whole plate of bourbons.

Suddenly, a sharp-looking gentleman entered the room. He was dressed in a Calvin-Klein, grey, fitted suit, white shirt without tie, a smooth face, interrupted by a cool grey goatee on the chin, thick grey curls, well-groomed, milk chocolate face.

“As salaamu alaykum, my dear, dear brothers, my name is Najeed.”

The four stopped chomping and slurping and looked at the new arrival suspiciously, who had just parked himself on the chair at the other end of the round table.

“Look, I just want to start by saying that I am not here representing the government. I am here as a true brother to you in Islam. I am your akhee.”

The four looked at each other stone-faced and then back at Najeed. He twitched slightly.

“Okay, so look. The first thing we are going to do today is to make introductions. I will start. My name is Najeed. I used to be a fighter for the Islamo-Liberation front and I was imprisoned by the regime in Blaggakisstan. I know what it means to be angry. I know what it means to want the West to suffer. I know what it means to desire for laws according to the Quran and Sunna.” He stopped and briefly observed his listeners to ascertain any impact. They still sat stone-faced. He coughed slightly and carried on:

“So I know how it feels my brothers. But in time, I learned that hatred and violence is the opposite of Islam. I learned that the things they taught me to hate, like democracy, like women’s liberation, like homosexuality, like McDonalds and the Queen, all these things I once hated, I learned in time, that actually, they are all the creation of Allah. Allah is vast and inviting. Allah is one but Allah is for all. So that’s me, do you want to go next Mullah Khan?”

Mullah Khan folded his arms impressively so that his wistful beard rested on his wrists.

“Sons, you go first.”

Mullah Shah piped up first, “listen to this you walking piece of nifaq, with your bidah beard and your shirky talk, we don’t have to listen to you.”

“Yer, you’re not our akhee, Mr Bidah! You are just full of kufr!” Mullah Jang added.

“Now hang on!” Protested Najeed.

“No, you hang on,” Chimed in Mullah Hamza, “we will not rest, we will not stop, we will listen only to the power and the might of the caliph of Islam who dwells in Iraq called Baghdadi, and we will never rest until all the kurf, shirk, bida and nifaaq are cleared from the world. There is no God but the tawheed of Allah!”

Then the three triplets began chanting:

“I’D RATHER HAVE TAWHEED! INSTEAD OF NAJEED!

GIVE US TAWHEED! SCREW NAJEED!”

After that meeting, Najeed swiftly visited Gary.

“I think we’re gonna have to get some help with these guys. I’ve never seen anything like it!”

And during that week, Gary and Najeed, first enlisted the help of trained counsellors. After two days, they all quit.

Then they brought in the hardnuts from MI5 to try the hard way.

“You’ve tried your de-radicalization,” muttered the suited agent to the two Gary and Najeed, “now let us try some rather unorthodox methods…”

But the agents couldn’t even get anywhere close to the father and his sons without being shouted down as, “KUFR! SHIRK! BIDAH! NIFAAQ!”

After just half an hour of being subjected to the constant bombardment, the MI5 agents were beginning to crack and even Gary and Majid were noticing it:

“I can’t get those words out of my head…” Remarked one of the agents, haunted.

“No more kufr. No more shirk.” The second agent began mumbling under his breath as he left the building.

Incidentally, two years later, the two aforementioned agents were found in Raqqa, Syria, slurping on mint tea while shouting to the camera, “KILL THE PORK!”

In fact, the whole centre, the admin staff, the cooks and the the guards were all falling under the spell of Mullah Khan and his sons. Until, to the horror of Najeed and Gary, they heard choruses of the following chants echoing in the kitchen, the admin office and the bar: “NO MORE BIDAH! NO MORE SHIRK! KILL THE KUFR! JOIN ISIS!”

Najeed was forced to admit his failure to Cameroon, who had to keep this all quiet, so he had a group of trained killers, like Jason Bourne, execute all involved in this project.

Mullah Khan and his sons were shipped off to Raqqa by direct orders of the prime minister, who his aides remarked was having nightmares of himself dressed in a turban, shouting, “KILL THE MUSHRIKS!”

Mullah Khan and his sons were treated like royalty when they entered the ISIS stronghold and were given private audience with none other than the self-styled caliph himself, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi. But when he entered into the room, it is reported that Baghdadi was carrying a mobile phone and was wearing jeans, to which the Khan family responded with a resounding: “KUFR! SHIRK! BIDAH! NIFAAQ!”

After some minutes, the caliph could not take it anymore, and he ordered for them to be sent away to the furthest border possible. Some say afterwards Baghdadi was found many days later, after being reported missing, with a circle of dervishes by the Tigris, wailing and crying: “save me Allah! Oh save me!”

Mullah Khan ended up with his sons, on the border of a well-known kingdom.

“Dad, where are we?” They asked.

Mullah Khan’s eyes welled with tears and a grateful smile appeared on his face:

“Sons, Allah has brought us to a special kingdom. This is the realm where we will find no kufr, no bidah, no Shirk and no nifaaq! WE HAVE ARRIVED IN THE ISLAMIC KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA MY SONS! LEAD US TO THE KING!!!”

This entry was posted in satire, Short Stories and tagged , , by Novid Shaid. Bookmark the permalink.

About Novid Shaid

I am a Muslim writer and English teacher. I have written poetry, short stories, a play, and I am currently working on a novella. My subject matter and themes are related to Islam, Sufism, politics and also my job as a secondary school teacher. My work is copyrighted and any works published here may not used or copied without my prior consent. You can contact me via the "Contact Me" page, if you wish to use any these writings. I am keen to gain the notice of publishers and if any are interested in my writings, please contact me via the "Contact Me" page. Was salaam, Peace

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