The Last Testament: A Memoir (40 page)

⁸
I spent a good deal of time mulling over which world culture would most ably serve as the ethnic foundation for this new faith.

⁹
The close runners-up were the Mayans; I simply cannot get enough of their passion.

¹⁰
But in the end I went with the Arabians, for they were the pagans most ready to accept the one true God;

¹¹
And also I knew something they knew not, regarding a certain black substance buried in massive quantities beneath their endless sands;

¹²
And I thought that, when this substance was discovered, if the people atop the land worshipped the same God as Christians and Jews, it could be allocated peacefully and without rancor amongst all my believers.

¹³
(I will say it again:
I am not perfect.
)

¹⁴
And so once more I sent my advance team out in search of a worthy prophet, for this time I wanted my word spread by an actual human being; not only to retain my centrality, but because after the last time out I received numerous complaints about nepotism.

¹⁵
We very quickly settled upon the right candidate, a hard-working, God-fearing, patriotic leader:

¹⁶
Muhammad: a true Allah-Meccan boy.

¹⁷
Muhammad was not just a Prophet, but
The
Prophet; easily the best one I ever worked with.

¹⁸
Charming, wise, astute, charismatic, judicious, well-spoken—the man was everything thou wouldst want in the founder of a major world religion.

¹⁹
The only problem with him was that he came from Mecca; which though today is synonymous with a haven, bore in his time a reputation similar to that, among modern Americans, of Peoria.

²⁰
Lo, it was common to hear a Bedouin merchant say, “Yea, this caravan of silk and spikenard may prove popular in the cosmopolitan trading ports of Yemen; but will it play in Mecca?”

²¹
Nonetheless I sent the angel Gabriel to him one night in the cave where he was wont to meditate, to tell him I desired him as my prophet;

²²
But at dawn Muhammad ran away, hesitant to embrace his new role.

²³
At first this did not surprise me; I knew from long experience that resistance was the typical first reaction of those called to prophecy.

²⁴
(For there are five classic stages of being called to prophecy: resistance, anger, paranoid schizophrenia, being swallowed by a whale, and acceptance.)

SURA 3

¹
Y
et three years in, Muhammad was still showing reluctance, and a reluctant prophet is of little use to me; he is like unto a motivational speaker who intersperses his pep talks with phrases like “I guess” and “or not.”

²
Finally I sent Gabriel back to visit him at his cave; this time more casually attired, and wingless.

³
They conversed for a while of lighter matters; of family, and trade, and politics; specifically the Sassanid Empire, and the no-good crumbums who ruled it.

⁴
Finally Muhammad came to the point: “Gabriel, it is humbling that Allah has chosen me to share his message with the people; but I beg thee to ask him to find some other messenger;

⁵
One who is more pleasing to the eye; one not so . . . hideously deformed . . . so grotesquely repulsive . . . so revolting to gaze upon!”

⁶
Whereupon Gabriel looked at Muhammad, and saw he was handsome, well-proportioned, and of attractive features; so he said, “Muhammad, I know not of what thou speak.”

⁷
“Do not mock me!” replied Muhammad. “Dost thou not see the horrible, disgusting blemish rendering my appearance like unto that of a Pachydermous Man?”

⁸
And he pointed to the right side of his chin, on which lay a small discoloration: a birthmark, perhaps one square inch in size, with two tiny curled hairs growing therefrom.

⁹
It was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

¹⁰
Bubkes.

¹¹
“Muhammad,” said Gabriel, “that is naught but a small birthmark; it is utterly unnoticeable, except from very close distance; I do not even see it.”

¹²
“
Because thou art an angel!
” screamed Muhammad, concealing his face in anguish; “Thou canst look past such superficialities into the true essence of things.

¹³
But I cannot put myself before fellow human beings as Allah’s rightful messenger with this, this . . . ugly, wretched, grotesque
nightmare
of a deformity that would leave onlookers groaning in horror and
shrieking
in revulsion . . .”

¹⁴
And on and on he went, having somehow convinced himself that this tiny mark was a colossal monstrosity.

¹⁵
But Gabriel, being a patient sort, reasoned with him; for two hours he wrestled with the Prophet’s body dysmorphia issues;

¹⁶
Until finally Muhammad relented, and said, “I can contend with thee no longer; thou art Gabriel, the archangel of Allah, and I must obey thy commands.

¹⁷
But I ask thee this boon: from now unto eternity, however many may speak of me, however many may revere me, however many people may come to know the glory of Allah through the teachings I will transmit;

¹⁸
No pictures.

¹⁹
I’m serious.

²⁰
No . . . pictures.
”

²¹
And Gabriel sighed and said, “Fine.”

SURA 4

¹
S
o Muhammad began preaching my truth, and the news of his teachings quickly flourished; like a thriving Twitter account did it blossom, and its words of wisdom were soon RT’d throughout Mecca; and these teachings became the Koran.

²
Now, in the six centuries since my son’s non-death, I had tried my blessedest to take a more selfless, compassionate approach to godding; but verily, I found it difficult.

³
So I deliberately chose to write the Koran in a distinctly old school/Testament voice.

⁴
Over-the-top praise; under-the-bottom condemnation; visions of paradise; angry propaganda; the constant threat of dreadful punishments for nonbelievers . . .

⁵
It was like the Torah in a turban.

⁶
More than any other piece of literature ever written, the Koran is a book people have either really, really read, or really, really not.

⁷
If thou art in the former group, then thou knowest its three main, and more or less only, themes:

⁸
1. I am awesome.

⁹
2. Agree? Good.

¹⁰
3. Disagree? Not so good.

¹¹
But if thou art in the latter group, I will do no more here than encourage thee to read it.

¹²
I say this despite the linguistic challenge thereby posed; for though the Koran has been translated into nearly every human language, it loses many subtleties of meaning when not read and recited in the original Arabic.

¹³
For example, in Arabic, the 35th
ayat
of the 24th
sura
, “Al-Nur,” provides this mystical vision of Allah:

¹⁴
“The parable of his light is as if there were a niche and within it a lamp; the lamp enclosed in glass; the glass as it were a brilliant star.”

¹⁵
That is the literal meaning; yet in the most common English translation, that same
ayat
reads as follows:

¹⁶
“We will burn thy churches, and subvert thy way of life, and replace all thy mayo with tahini.”

¹⁷
Thou canst see the loss of nuance.

¹⁸
Yet still I would encourage all non-Muslims seeking better relations with Islam to read the Koran.

¹⁹
And at the very least, I would encourage all non-Muslims who seek better relations with Islam
not
to flush the Koran down the toilet in front of Muslim detainees at Gitmo.

²⁰
For within the sphere of interfaith tolerance, the difference between having read the Koran and not having read the Koran, is smaller than that between not having read the Koran and flushing it down the toilet in front of Muslim detainees at Gitmo.

²¹
I guess what I am saying is: if thou findest thyself holding a Koran for the first time, and are contemplating whether to a) read it, or b) flush it down the toilet in front of Muslim detainees at Gitmo,

²²
Go with a).

SURA 5

¹
I
n 622 A.D. Muhammad and his followers fled Mecca for Medina, marking the beginning of the Muslim calendar.

²
(I must note here how much it confounds me that my three great faiths have three different calendars; making the year of this book’s publication 5771 to Jews, 2011 to Christians, and 1432 to Muslims.

³
Yea, I know the Muslim calendar is lunar; and the Christian, solar; and the Jewish, lunisolar, which covers both bases; typically shrewd.

⁴
But I am not partial when it comes to chronology; of no consequence to me whatever are the numbers inscribed upon thy checks; for though I work in time, I dwell in Eternity.

⁵
If I wert thou—which I am
not
, thank me— I would synchronize my calendars, that you may all literally be on the same page;

⁶
Choosing a day agreed upon by everyone as having no religious import whatsoever, and calling it the first day of Year One, and then celebrating Rosh Hashanah and New Year’s Day and Al-Hijra every year on the same day.