The Tear of Allah
THE SERIES OF events that would transform Zhuman Ramazan’s life began 4.6 billion years ago, millions of miles from Earth, when dust, rock, and other celestial debris gathered into an asteroid. In the late neolithic period, sometime around the dawn of writing, the asteroid crashed into Earth’s atmosphere, scattering silvery-black meteorites across the Eurasian continent. Many landed in what is now northwest China’s Xinjiang region, a swath of mountains, deserts, and high-elevation plains about four times the size of California.
In July 1986, Zhuman, a Muslim and ethnic Kazakh herder, was tending his flock on his 100-acre pasture in the region’s far north. Suddenly, a sheep darted away, and Zhuman, then 30, followed it on horseback. Around him, the Chinese county of Altay rose into snow-capped mountains delimiting Kazakhstan to the west, Mongolia to the east, and Russia to the north.
Zhuman noticed a boulder that he’d never seen before, partially hidden behind a granite slab. It was eerily reflective and about the size and shape of a small car. He knocked it with his fist, and it made a soft pinging noise. He knew nothing about meteorites, he says, but was “excited about finding something unique and different.” Zhuman informed the village’s Communist Party officials, and they congratulated him on his discovery. One called the meteorite “Zhuman’s Strange Stone.” Local herders devised another name for it: the “Tear of Allah.” They considered it a gift from God and often gathered near it to pray. Back then, China was liberalizing its economy, and Zhuman thought he could perhaps someday make it a tourist attraction. He watched over the boulder for 25 years.
Then in October 2011, city officials arrived with a backhoe and dragged the Tear of Allah away. Zhuman was livid. In 2015, he filed a lawsuit demanding the meteorite’s return. When that failed, he filed another suit demanding compensation.
As the case wound through China’s convoluted legal system, the world around Zhuman shifted in ways big and small. That year, Zhuman’s son had a daughter, Aifeili, and doctors diagnosed her with a congenital heart defect. Zhuman was faced with a terrible choice. Either he could sell his livestock to pay for an expensive surgery, leaving his family destitute, or Aifeili would grow up facing the risk of serious disability, perhaps even death. For Zhuman, now 63, the lawsuit became
