Chapter VII

CHAPTER 7

Tension ran high in the Council of Leaders’ Headquarters. Everyone knew Farid Jammali looked with burning hatred and very deeply-held, long-standing desire to kill, at Annuar Kadap Gandalani.

Their mortal family vendetta had been resurrected only recently over the affections of a woman, Bai (Lady) Talihah Adnucan who held the key to the throne of the 27th descendant of Sultan RajahMuda. But Bai Talihah herself was oblivious to these petty troubles she caused. She had barely touched the soil of her hometown and Farid and Annuar already restored their age-old contempt for one another and each other’s entire clan. Soon it became known to all who considered it their business to dwell on everyone else’ lives except their own.

The Bai was spared of the knowledge, dreadful as it was.

At this council meeting, everyone nearly expected daggers to issue from both young men’s hands and stuck upon the chest of his opponent. Yet the counsel of the elders prevailed. Some confreres thought, just as well.

This gathering resolves how much money each division should be allotted for the entire year now that the funds are available. No one desired petty jealousies and feuds to mar this assembly. Nonetheless, negative comment kept spewing from the mouths of some of the confreres. Resentment ran high among the heathen gathered. The recent state of affairs of the Islamic independence movement was the cause of this.

Five of those present kept a persistent harangue against profiteers and unscrupulous robber barons as well as money bags. Against the land grabbers. They could not stop commenting that this group gathered now in the meeting cannot accomplish their work for Al’lah if they strayed from the Path of Righteousness.

It was the True and Only, Path of the Mujahideen, they declare.On the other side of the table, young Turks and peasant-looking, self-declared Commanders of hitherto nonexistent organizations, and suspected to be mere pawns, goons or private armies of Governors, Congressmen and Mayors in the Sulu-Basilan circuit, complained that the high council could not afford to make their groups of hoods, rascals and scoundrels eat three times a day.

“Will our brother Muslims pillage our Muslim and neighbor non-Muslim towns and villages for food, meager clothing and a brief shelter in their victims’ houses with the local women?” The gang of hoods laughed loud but they showed they were not joking. Not at all.

“We just bombed Maguindanao, Zamboanga, other cities, to make candidate Zacan Acandaw lose in the election for Regional Governor of Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao,” one of the youngsters said.

Then Farid with his large bandana covering his face, intoned. “Why did you have to bomb the Darrul Islam?”

“We were told by a certain Baclang who gave us the money that Lamundin Pagadangan must win at all costs! We were paid handsomely for that!” Annuar boasted.

Still one of Annuar’s own group interjected.

“We might have killed a few people on the streets. So what?!? Haven’t the elders begun the war with the satrub?”

“No killings,” an elder softly replied. “If you kill, no funds.”

Annuar rebutted, “And take away the excitement?”

Some of the elders went into a harangue.

“What wrong had Zacan Acandaw done to you children?”

“Don’t call us CHILDREN!!!”

“How dare you try to destroy one of the beloved leaders of this Bangsa Moro nation!”

“I spit on you traitors!!!”

Bobby Jupatan cried out from the kitchen, “Please stop all that nonsense Annuar. How dare you all come to our house and cause troubles like this. Why must you bring your hostile attitude here? I invited you like men, so men you be not animals!”

Then as Bobby Jupatan came into the room carrying the tray full of roasted goat meat and an M-16 rifle on the other hand, Annuar remarked with his head bowed, his voice mocking.

“You are full of shit! We all take money from pigs. We are all just like them. Haven’t you told the elders that we willingly accepted many millions of pesos from the infidels?”

On hearing this, Bobby’s face turned ashen. He put the tray on the table, his eyes seeing only red with his anger, Bobby cocked the M-16 and pointed the tip of the barrel at Annuar’s ears, and then gestured with the gun for the young man to leave at once.

Annuar rose, kicked off his chair and tromped out of the place with his comrades.

“I tell you, many Christians died and at least a few Muslims got killed too!!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!”

And then they rode off on two new gleaming motorbikes.

At least six others of the 21-man Council of Leaders, only one of whom was always conspicuously abstaining, kept their peace. They were old and wiser. And they knew what happened in every nook and cranny of this increasingly more violent part of Darrul Islam.

The looks on the elders’ faces as they looked the remaining young commanders in the eyes, seemed to inquire at each and every one of them who stormed into this meeting.

“What went wrong here? What is wrong with you young people?”

Indeed, that most of all was in their minds. They taught these young men. Virtues. Values. They sang and recited proclamations of The Prophet Mohammed (SWT). All, when they were young, until they grew to the age of majority.

They taught fairness, love for kaadilan (justice), and most of all the struggle for self-perfection, jihad al akbar (The Greater Jihad – the war against the negative aspects of oneself and its diminutive – the jihad al-asgar (The Lesser or Smaller Jihad – the war against others who have done Islam wrong.)

Apparently, that schmuck of a satrub who came years ago with the sacrilegious misinterpretations of the Holy Qur’an, had succeeded. Even that filthy P2,000,000 a month budget — blood money! Bloody dirty money!!! They all cried in disgust. Now these so-called advocates of faurat are in the limelight and flooding the towns and villages with their millions of pesos — even dollars that suddenly came in from nowhere — on many occasions. These dogs of war, the elders viewed them with contempt. They were for hire, the lowest form of knifers and satrub and yet some of them were Muslims! A shame!

The elders anyway have always held these pseudo-mujahideens in great contempt. And now they are being glamorized by the younger Muslim population. Only because they were liberal in spending their newly acquired blood money. On these meetings, as the elders held sway at the end with their wise counsel during the deliberations they kept their silence. Seething with their own private disgust.

How ugly that vulnerable children are now being abducted and taken into their camps to be brainwashed! They know that there will be a point when no one will believe them any longer. They want robots! Unacceptable!!!

Halim vividly recalls, how his own aunt, his mother’s beloved sister, sang a sad dirge on her death bed after she caught an unintended bullet at the left temple:

“Al’lah will now be joined my little oneDon’t cry over me! The devils be damnedThey took all our land, treasures from Our ancestors that we guarded for so long!Be not sad, my little one, but pray for Strength and Al’lah’s merciful guidanceMay He empower you, to bring back to Our shamed House, stewardship of our land...”

Sarif’s aunt could not continue her song further for soon, she succumbed. He recalled recitations about those who are true to their faith from the Noble Qur’anic verses in the section Al-Baqarah, always her aunt’s favorite topic with him.

“My little one,” she used to say, “listen:”

"4. ... who believe in (the Qur'ân and the Sunnah) [5] which has been sent down (revealed) to you (Muhammad Peace be upon him ) and in [the Taurât (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel), etc.] which were sent down before you and they believe with certainty in the Hereafter. (Resurrection, recompense of their good and bad deeds, Paradise and Hell, etc.).

"5. They are on (true) guidance from their Lord, and they are the successful.”

At times when he complained repeatedly to her about both his real and imagined enemies, she would console him with the verses about those on whom Al'lâh looks upon with disfavor:

"6. Verily, those who disbelieve, it is the same to them whether you (O Muhammad Peace be upon him ) warn them or do not warn them, they will not believe.

"7. Al’lâh has set a seal on their hearts and on their hearings, (that is, they are closed from accepting Allah’s Guidance), and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be a great torment.

"8. And of mankind, there are some (hypocrites) who say: "We believe in Al’lâh and the Last Day" while in fact they believe not.

"9. They (think to) deceive Al’lâh and those who believe, while they only deceive themselves, and perceive (it) not!

"10. In their hearts is a disease (of doubt and hypocrisy) and Al’lâh has increased their disease. A painful torment is theirs because they used to tell lies.

"11. And when it is said to them: "Make not mischief on the earth," they say: "We are only peacemakers."

"12. Verily! They are the ones who make mischief, but they perceive not.

"13. And when it is said to them (hypocrites): "Believe as the people (followers of Muhammad Peace be upon him, Al-Ansâr and Al-Muhajirûn) have believed," they say: "Shall we believe as the fools have believed?" Verily, they are the fools, but they know not.

"14. And when they meet those who believe, they say: "We believe," but when they are alone with their Shayâtin (devils - polytheists, hypocrites, etc.), they say: "Truly, we are with you; verily, we were but mocking."

"15. Al’lâh mocks at them and gives them increase in their wrong-doings to wander blindly.

"16. These are they who have purchased error for guidance, so their commerce was profitless. And they were not guided.

"17. Their likeness is as the likeness of one who kindled a fire; then, when it lighted all around him, Al’lâh took away their light and left them in darkness. (So) they could not see.

His beloved aunt’s mentorship consoled him. Now, alas! his aunt could no longer continue her songs, dirges and recitations of the Qur’an further that used to be music to his ears. And so he raged. How he raged! Over how unjust it was that the war was so foolish and excruciating. Over how the innocent got punishment they certainly did not deserve!

His aunt died from a stray bullet that actually just grazed her temple but made her seriously ill since. From where it came, from friend or foe, no one did ever learn.It was one of the lowest points in his life. It drove him to unspeakable anger. His own life work, following that incident, became a series of involvement in Muslim resistance on the one hand, and collaboration with Christian peers on the other, just so as to see the day when their ancestors’ heritage will be restored in the name of the household once more.

In the old times, during the Golden Age of Islam in the southern parts of the archipelago, the Rumah Beecharra (literally the House of Debate or Discussion), acted as the Council of Leaders.

Whereas, in those times, each member of the Rumah was the holder of a noble title, performed official functions in the Sultanate that told of his high mark, nowadays there are bandits like these who have infiltrated the higher Councils, like this equivalent of the Rumah Beecharra.

Soon, these evil ones will even play more havoc with the faith, as they did when they had mass-reproduced a phony series of so-called Discourses (fatwah) that their soulless puppeteers in the North were marketing as the true spirit behind the faurat bandits! Pirates, all of them.

To think that historically, these bandits worked for the white jinns (evil spirits), getting paid to fight a war in Afghanistan.

“Damn them all to hell!” Halim fumed. He remembered, as if it were not long ago, that tens — albeit even hundreds — of thousands of Muslims perished in the resistance wars against those white jinns.

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He saw a lot, for an old man, al-Draz Halim did. He sometimes saw too much for his own comfort, he would console himself.

Sarif al-Draz Halim never counted himself among the collaborator middle class. He kept to himself, like his fathers and grandfathers.

He was born to Draz Kadar and Haniyyah Ni'mah. The name Sarif was more a title and his name Halim (Gentle, Mild-mannered One) came from his own great, great grandmother Halimah.

His clan had always been in the service of the Sultan. The role of his father and those before him was to advise the Sultan. Which is the reason behind the title of Sarif. In the years, decades and centuries of loyal servitude, Halim’s forebears accumulated not only wealth but estates within the realm in the Sultanate of Maguindanao. His clan’s properties marked the map of the kingdom of Maguindanao – most of these prime estates.

Through time, the opulence of the Sarif’s clan increased along with that of the Sultan. Being highly educated, the Sarif’s clan were able to hold on to their estates. However, in contrast, the constituency of the Sultanate gradually were at the losing end. Unable to understand the significance of their properties, neither able to document them, they lost their own land to unscrupulous strangers from other places who swarmed into the Sultanate.

Halim worried for his people. On his own, he saw with his own eyes that his people suffered extremely when the Americans by centralizing political and administrative authority dispossessed the Southern Muslims of their livelihood. Christian leaders from the North of the archipelago and Central Philippines, took advantage of the rich South by concentrating power and control in Manila.

Corruption and graft intensified. Muslims no longer tread upon a level playing field. Their enterprises would never improve beyond the barter stations, the raw rubber supply market and other similar backward, marginal subsistence trades.

Poverty hit the Muslim south very hard. Each Muslim could feel the pinch. Even their noble or royal households could no longer enjoy everything they used to have. No other but the impoverished lower Muslim classes resented the Christians more. But the Americans, in Sarif al-Draz’s time, were forgotten. And now these bandits, puppets of the jinn were all over his skin!

But occasions like the one at the Jupatan household evoked lucid memories of what the Holy Book says what should not ever be at all. And what is supposed to be in the Ummah.

How he felt left all alone to fend for his own and his people. But how, with the rascals, the small men lording it over all that was happening around him. In spite of his inspired life, he felt wasted. Terribly wasted.

And then he remembered his own grandfather who said, "My son, beware of the meztizos (half-breed Muslims). They are only half-human, but their other half comes from the devil himself." That made him even more greatly depressed.

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