Lords of Misrule: A Novel

By Joel D. Hirst

Aliuf Ag Albachar, born into the noble Tuareg ancestry, is just thirteen when he crests a dune with his mother, looks down from atop his camel onto the ancient fabled city of Timbuktu, and contemplates the day it will finally be his. Unfortunately Aliuf has no idea that misfortune will soon force him to flee across the desert away from everything he has known and toward something greater than he ever imagined.

Propelled by restlessness and the indomitable spirit of his clan, Aliuf bravely pushes onward through a dangerous coming-of-age journey that leads him through a barren land. While following his heart through the vast expanses of the Sahara, he becomes a student enthralled with the great works of Islams golden age, a warlord who leads his army of angry men through the colossal dunes of the Sahara to battle the enemy, and finally an Islamic judge who makes a monumental discovery that shakes the foundation of his beliefs and forever shapes his destiny.

Lords of Misrule is an epic tale of redemption, forbidden love, and atonement against all odds as a young man is led on a path of enlightenment across the Sahara where he ultimately must face the consequences of his decisions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781532007866

Joel D. Hirst

Joel D. Hirst is a writer and novelist. He was a Fellow in Residence at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow in Human Freedom at the George W. Bush Institute. Hirst is a graduate of Brandeis University. He lives in Gilbert, Arizona.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

A liuf Ag Albachar knelt in the hard sand at the center of the Place de Sankore. His knees were raw, and one of his camel-skin leather sandals was missing. His indigo tunic, so carefully donned for Friday prayers, had been torn as he was dragged suddenly and deliberately from the house he was occupying and through the dusty streets of Timbuktu. His short-cropped black hair was streaked with sand, and there was mud and blood on his face from the occasional blow. He looked as vulnerable as he felt, his thin figure slightly stooped as he knelt in front of the line of men dressed all in black. His hands had been tied viciously behind his back, cutting into his wrists, which had begun to bleed, and the big sand flies had found the feast and were buzzing in a black cloud behind him, tickling the wounds. The sour smell of his own blood that wafted upward in the stifling heat was making his stomach turn, and he tried not to vomit. Above him the sun was clawing its way higher in the sky while he waited. Suddenly the wind whipped up, and the hot Sahara sand stung his exposed face, narrowing his eyes—his shameful weakness before those who had been his brothers; his betrayal, his salvation. His anger. His repentance. His fear. But oddly enough, also his peace.

He looked up, squinting through clear gray eyes at the black flag flapping in the breeze above the triangular mud minaret of Sankore Mosque. It had not been his choice, fighting as he had instead for the soothing yellow, red, and green—the colors of Azawad; but neither had he objected that fateful day when they had lowered his flag, replacing it with the Islamists flag of death. Had he not also taken the oath? Had he not also surrendered to the new laws? Had he not even replaced his tagelmust—the elaborate turban and veil—for a uniform of black?

At the end, he had to admit that he had failed. In embracing the violence, he had betrayed his great cause, but it had come so naturally. Since the very beginning of time, the Tuareg story had always been written in blood using the sharpened edge of the takouba—the traditional Tuareg sword with which they made their place in the world. They were men of honor, those fearless warriors of the sand and the sky carving out their kingdoms of dune and sun with only their indomitable will. Their destiny had always been freedom on their dry patch of land; it was their desert after all, for which they had always had to fight the great powers. The Garamantes of the Fezzan, the Romans, the Arabs, and the Ottomans—all had tried. But the Tuareg did abide, at the margins of empire and making a living from their dominion over that great sea of sand when all others blanched at the endless barrenness.

This time it had almost been theirs, his—he had been so close. Azawad, that mystical land that existed only in their collective imagination. Ideas of self-determination, of victory and glory. A place of prosperity and freedom. Doesn’t the very word for man in Tamasheq—amajagh—mean freeman? How close they had come to finally having their homeland, and how ironic that the epic struggle of his forefathers, laid as a mantle of opportunity upon Aliuf’s young shoulders so long ago, had ended here, under the shadow of that black flag. He knew he had nobody to blame but himself. He had turned to violence, like so many others before, but there is always someone more violent.

Congregated around him were the unwilling residents of the newest province of the caliphate. They were standing in a semicircle, having responded to the calls of their overlords to assemble in the plaza, like they always did when the Islamic Police went through the town announcing through their megaphones a more exotic punishment. He was in the center of the sandy, clean spot equidistant from the mosque and the great Ahmed Baba library. The plaza was enclosed on three sides by the walls of the buildings and homes, mud bricks in the Moroccan style sealed with a traditional mortar. The brown of the sand and walls continued up into the brown sky—an approaching sandstorm. The spectators stood a safe distance from him—nobody wanted to return home splattered with blood. They knew what was coming. They dared not look him in the eye, perhaps from guilt at what they were about to witness or from powerlessness at something they could not stop. Mostly they were there out of fear; Aliuf knew this. He too had been on the other side of the telek, that ornamental dagger used for sacrifices that was now hovering behind his neck. He could sense the cold decision of the blade and the looming malevolence behind him of the figure who once had been his greatest friend.

Aliuf Ag Albachar. The powerful voice cut through the dry air, bouncing off the two-story outer walls of the great Ahmed Baba library to ricochet off the mosque and back onto the cowering assembly gathered before the condemned man.

Yes, that is my name, Aliuf said without emotion. He’d known this moment was coming for a long time, since long before his wistful farewell to Azter. She was safe, at last, and he was at peace with his decision—his sacrifice. His atonement.

Do you know why you are here? the voice behind him asked. I am giving you one opportunity to repent so your soul may find its place in heaven even if your sins require your death.

I am here … Aliuf whispered.

Speak up so all may hear your confession and be instructed.

I am here, Aliuf said, louder now, bolder—his last moments lending confidence, because I dared to think and to learn—and to love.

"No, you are here because you blaspheme. You deny Allah and the Prophet—blessed be his name. You are here because you are kafir, excommunicated from the faith because God no longer knows you."

Salif, my brother …

I am no longer your friend, and you are no longer my brother. I am here to carry out the will of God—nothing more.

Aliuf felt Salif’s hand grip his hair more firmly, felt the heavy weight of his friend’s boot planted on his calves as he knelt in the sand. Then the knife drew closer, and Aliuf breathed deeply as he felt a stab of pain and saw a blinding white flash of light, accompanied for a brief instant by the image of Azter, her red hair blowing in the warm desert winds. Then the darkness.

CHAPTER 2

H aving anticipated this day for so long, Aliuf could not help but let escape a disappointed whine as they crested the final dune to look down from atop their camels onto the ancient fabled city.

There it is, said Zeinabou. Timbuktu.

That, he said, trying to sound older than his thirteen years, is it? The golden city of his childhood imagination—the gateway to his great desert—spread out before his eyes, only a dusty village clinging to the edge of the Sahara. It was tiny, about a dozen roads crisscrossing each other—a camel could cross it in under ten minutes. The famous mosques were less grand than he had imagined, made of a very ordinary mud—like the homes that crowded the narrow alleys filled with runoff sewage and stray cats. There was only one paved road, with potholes as deep as dried-out ponds. A fog of smoke lay over the town, with run-down cars and the occasional rusted green minibus honking as they maneuvered around the braying donkeys and sought to avoid the treacherous asphalt.

Zeinabou said nothing.

But where are the gardens? Where are the libraries? Where are the palaces? asked Aliuf.

It has been a long time since Timbuktu was the seat of great wealth. Its treasures now come only from its ancient dusty books and its place in the memories of men.

Aliuf pondered the sight. Well, aren’t we going down? he said at last.

Zeinabou grimaced as she squinted into the melee that churned through the market. There are far too many people. The crowds and the smells and the press are too much for my spirit to take right now. I need some time to prepare for the mob. Come on. We’ll camp here tonight and head down in the morning. The banks, the governor’s office—they can wait until tomorrow. Paperwork, alas, is as constant as the river, and as unchanging. Zeinabou and Aliuf turned away from the town to find a sheltered crease between two dunes wherein they could pitch their camp with their small entourage. It was second nature, laying out their campsite evenly upon the sand under the twinkling stars they loved so much—just the right distance from the other families and travelers in the caravan. First they raised their akahet, the red tent made of goatskin, rounded at the top and with no flap over the door. It was placed in the opposite direction of the wind, something that Aliuf had learned to do very early in life after several unpleasant nights. They dug the fire pit and filled it with wood they had carried on the backs of their pack camels, along with the camel dung they picked up during the journey, starting a fire with matches from their packs. Over the fire they prepared the sweet tea and eghajira, a meal of millet and goat that they would eat along with nuts and fresh milk for dinner after prayers.

All the while, Aliuf worked alongside his mother. Zeinabou was an important woman in their world, daughter of a clan chief and well respected in the deep desert. She was rotund but not fat, a sign of wealth where so many were starving. Her teeth were covered with the silver that also adorned her neck, and her light skin was painted with the singular Tuareg tattoos—intricate shapes of triangles and lines in black ink that emphasized the prominence of her lips and high cheekbones. Her long black hair was braided and covered with an elegant azure head cloth; her face was uncovered, following Tuareg traditions where only the men wore veils. She smelled of a strong perfume meant to drown out the smells of sweat and camel from days journeying without water to wash. Aliuf loved the way she always gave him peace of mind, and the strength of her faith calmed him. Even when his brothers had been killed. One after being thrown from a camel during a race and the others fighting in Libya, led there by their father, who Aliuf could barely remember, who had himself died fighting in the Chadian civil war. Aliuf was the only child left at home, and this was his first trip on one of his mother’s increasingly infrequent expeditions, this one not to trade but to do the menial tasks of seeking out the right pieces of paper from a government that hated the Tuaregs. It was ironic, not funny, that they should need to travel so far in order to ask permission to exist from people they had once bought and sold. But the times had changed; Aliuf knew this—even if he didn’t like it.

I still don’t know why we don’t just take a truck, Aliuf had said to his mother before they had set out. It’s quicker. The days of salt panels, huge rectangular slabs cut from the mines and strapped to the backs of camels that traveled along secret desert highways, was over. Now trade was piled high on broken-down trucks that made the trip over well-worn roads pounded into the sand.

Because I refuse to sit on the back of a truck like a bag of kola nuts, she had said. We will go from water hole to water hole using the stars—like we always have done. If we lose this skill, Aliuf, we would be totally at the mercy of those who pretend to rule us—but who only ever do us harm. They already occupy our lands—those who call themselves our government. We must not let them change our customs lest we are subjugated forever.

While the adults went about preparing the camp for night, Aliuf and the other adolescents drifted away to engage in a game of takadant where they tried to imagine what each other was thinking—summoning their personal djinni to try to give them an advantage. Aliuf was the first to lose—predictable as he always was imagining himself a great Tuareg warrior dressed in flowing blue upon a camel as he raided a French outpost, putting to death the accursed infidels and freeing his people.

Having lost, Aliuf ascended again to the top of the high dune overlooking Timbuktu. He passed through the cordon of warriors who were there to protect his mother, several men armed with old AK-47s, their attentive eyes seeing through dust and over dune, able to spot danger in a puff or a pattern or the configuration of a flock of birds flying overhead. One of them nodded at him, and he returned the gesture. Aliuf came to sit cross-legged on the ground, daydreaming. It was the month of December, and the breeze that came off the Niger River in the distance cooled his restless spirit. He had finally begun. The years of herding camels from oasis to oasis were over; he would be a traveler, a wanderer, a warrior.

Timbuktu. His mother had told him the stories so many times that he felt like he’d been there before. Mansa Musa, the great king. The Niger River, where the pirogues with slaves, gold, and ivory would meet the Tuaregs with salt and cloths and weapons to trade.

Timbuktu, he said, this time out loud. That great city that held the powerful universities, that old Tuareg town that had become wealthy and fat and finally subjugated—the Songhai, the empire of Ghana, the Moroccans, and finally the blacks down south, the most humiliating subjugation of all.

He observed the town from his perch as the sun pushed his shadow longer toward the city below him. He looked down as the lights of the town began to awaken; a solitary twinkling became a dozen and then a hundred. The final call to prayer echoed around the dunes, and then the smells of wood for cooking stoves and food wafted up, reminding him he was hungry. When the pangs of hunger became unbearable, he stood, stretching his arms to grab at the first stars that appeared like diamonds in the tarry sky above and issued a silent prayer, God grant me this city one day, and I will give it to His glory, and he walked back to join his mother in the tent.

CHAPTER 3

M orning comes early for the wandering nomads of the Sahara. They know to finish their work with the camels before the blistering sun blankets the vastness. But for Aliuf that morning, it could not come soon enough. He had tossed and turned all night, lying in the tent listening to his mother’s heavy breathing over the simple partition that provided basic privacy. Finally he surrendered and silently rolled his leather sleeping mat and tiptoed from the akahet , spreading out instead in front of the embers of the dying fire. Lying awake, head resting upon the neck of his camel laying at his side, he watched the constellations chase each other across the sky. Occasionally the stars above him would darken, the outline of a large bat in search of insects—and the night would tear for a moment from the shrill shriek as the animal found its prey. The chill soothed him, and he must have fallen asleep, for the next thing he heard was the clinking of teapots being filled and the shuffling of full-grown feet upon the cool sand.

Aliuf catapulted to his feet. The morning was crisp, the last light of the stars finally extinguished by the approaching dawn. He rolled up his mat to return it to the tent, finding Zeinabou already awake, and together they stored the mats and blankets, removed the partition, and went outside to restart their fire to heat the teapots—eating nuts and dried fruit while drinking powdered milk. Finishing their frugal breakfast, they mounted their camels and made their way at last into Timbuktu.

The tired old town was shrouded in a mist that had rolled in off the Niger. The smell of fresh bread, a legacy of the French occupation, wafted above the town. First upon entering they encountered the square mass of the Djinguereber Mosque emerging from the haze, ominous and imposing, silent as a sentinel that had guarded the city through the ages.

It is eight hundred years old, Zeinabou said. It was built by a Spanish architect who returned with a great emperor after the hajj. His name was Abu Es Haq al-Saheli, and he built the three great mosques of Timbuktu. He even built the mosque at Djenne, but you must never go there—places below the river are the domain of wicked djinn. Staring up at the mosque, Aliuf had to admit that it was much more impressive than it looked from up on the dunes. It was the largest building he had ever seen—and the permanent scaffolding, made of thick planks that stuck out of the banco gave it an exotic and sinister appearance. The great wooden door at the entrance was intricately engraved with delicate patterns and polished metal. Peering inside as they walked past, Aliuf could see the mats on the sandy floor and the fans above rotating slowly. The many mud pillars made the large room appear cluttered, private even—like an indoor forest of dying trees. At the front was a small dais where he assumed the Imam would preach every Friday. The place was quiet and magical.

They continued without stopping. It was important to arrive early; the lines at the governor’s office and the bank formed quickly, Aliuf had been told. Atop his camel, Aliuf imagined he was a great chieftain of old, returning from a season of battle to a town that would receive him with fear and respect. He looked down at the passersby, giving them a haughty nod as he passed. Then came the large open market teeming with people, none of whom ever ventured into the deserts. Aliuf shared his mother’s dislike of the mobs, but for him it was always overcome by curiosity. So many types of people—he never tired of examining them. Some were pitch black like the obsidian rocks he would sometimes find in the desert, others brown like the color of the sweet tea they drank in the mornings, and still others white like the color of the camel’s milk that flavored that tea. Some were tall and thin like sticks, with slanted eyes and straight teeth, and others were round like the Jericho roses that tumbled sometimes through the desert. Some were bald, and others had hair hanging like long ropes from their heads. There were men and women, old and young, and so many children and babies running around that Aliuf’s head spun. The noise was deafening—screaming peals of infant laughter amid the bartering debates of the market goers over the braying of donkeys. Looking down into their stalls, he marveled at the assortment of merchandise he had never seen before in his life. Some things he’d only ever heard about, like padlocks. Why would a Tuareg need such a lock? There were tiny squawking radios emitting a cacophony of scratching voices in a foreign tongue. Knives, broaches, belts, pants, shirts, furniture, mirrors and large metal boxes—all things that would make moving around impossible. He shrugged. What a bunch of junk, he said to his mother. Imagine. We couldn’t fit any of it on the camels.

Many people place value in what they possess and not who they are—how much they can accumulate and not the story of their lives and their people. They will find that, at the end, their graves are the same size as ours—and some malcontent will inherit their hoard.

Then they were in a different part of the market—where chickens were packaged in open wire crates stacked one on top of the other, squawking their distress. Dozens of goats were tied to posts driven haphazardly into the dry ground. Between the goats’ feet, rats the size of small rabbits ran to and fro, stealing what they could from the unwary vendors. The noise and the mess were insufferable, and the smell almost knocked Aliuf from his camel. He held his nose until they were through. On the other side of the road from the animal pens was the vegetable market, where old toothless women sat in front of plastic sheets upon which were placed small piles of tomatoes and carrots and potatoes, cabbages and leeks and onions and even fruit—like apples and even pineapples, which Aliuf had never tasted before. Aliuf’s mouth was watering. This he could understand; vegetables were such a rare luxury in the desert that to see such an assortment here made his heart sing. He absorbed the chaos of the bustling market morning—the press of human flesh against each other, the bartering and yelling. The raucous laughter as a group of men engaged in a board game. A yell as a small boy not much bigger than Aliuf ran through the crowd holding a chicken by its neck, followed by a black man in a round, pointed hat screaming in an unknown language.

Finally they moved beyond the market to clop through a quiet neighborhood of three-story houses pressed against each other, their open windows eyes that kept a suspicious watch over the narrow alleys through which open gutters ran and small naked babies wandered around in the shade. The stench was unbelievable. Atop their flat roofs were awnings where the people slept and round dishes, to catch the television his mother had told him, something that seemed extremely unlikely to Aliuf. The doors were ornamented wood and closed fast against the night and the day, against strangers and friends alike. He peered through one window as they walked along and saw a room with a fan twisting unevenly above an assortment of unmatched, overstuffed couches all centered around the television emitting noise and images that Aliuf could not understand. A group of people sat staring vacantly at the box—unmoving—holding their French bread in one hand and the sweet tea in the other. On the walls were pictures of men, which Aliuf had always been told was haram—forbidden. The floor was covered with a large green rug.

The sun exploded from above the house, hitting Aliuf full in the face, and he tucked his veil more tightly around his nose and mouth, hurrying to follow his mother as they exited the maze of dust-colored houses into a round central plaza dominated by a massive statue of a white horse. We’re here, Zeinabou said, pointing around the plaza in fast succession. There’s the governor’s office. Over there is the mayor’s office. That’s a base for the soldiers, and that one, she stopped to face the building, holds a private library. One of the many, which have made this city well known the world over. The governor’s office was a somber two-story building with a small courtyard out front—which hosted a flagpole with a Malian flag flapping in the morning wind—in front a high dirty wall, beside which a line of people were standing, leaning, or squatting on the broken sidewalk. Zeinabou bought two small bags of cold water from a girl carrying a rusted metal tray-full on her head, and they took their places in line. The camels had been left tethered in a vacant lot behind. The sun marched slowly toward the zenith as they waited, waves of shimmering heat engulfing the central rotunda. Occasionally the people in front of them would step forward, and they would follow suit. Aliuf kicked at pebbles on the sidewalk and threw dried seeds at the large statue.

This is boring. Remind me again why we’re here? he asked, knowing full well the answer.

We need our papers, Zeinabou said. The old ones expired. She held up a plastic card with an old picture on it.

Aargh! Standing here, with the riffraff waiting to get a piece of plastic—permission to trade our salt in Tamanrasset. It still seems ridiculous. He hated the whole thing. His mom was a clan chief’s daughter—and he the grandson. They were always treated with respect in whatever village or oasis they stopped at, getting the first foods and the finest places to pitch their tent. We should just march up there, he pointed to the metal gate, and demand they attend us.

Ja, Zeinabou laughed. Patience, my son. Here, of all places—in the city that we built and that should be ours—we are less than the beggars. We wait with the others where we are told, when we are told, for how long we are told. We pay what we are asked, and we do not object. There is no love between the Africans and the Tuareg, so we must be cautious.

Aliuf looked up and down the long line. Fat women with too much skin exposed to the sun—stupid women. Men smoking, yellowed teeth grinning maniacally as they leaned against the wall chattering with each other. An adolescent girl, her naked baby squatting in the dirt, defecating for all to see. Boys wearing shirts with garish writing on them, moving ridiculously to unheard music—wires protruding from their ears. Why should they, desert nobility, be forced to sit here in the dirt with this throng? Well, I’m not waiting here, he proclaimed.

Up to you, said his mother, but be back before the sun starts its descent.

Fine.

And one more thing.

He was already sprinting away but turned to run backward slowly. Yes, Mother? he answered without enthusiasm.

Don’t listen to that djinni of yours. You know she is trouble, and we have no time for any mischief on this trip.

"Yes,