Land of Promise Read Free

their phones. That was the App of the World Islamic State, creation of the Thirdists, and it was available in 14 languages. If one of the Thirdist police found that you didn’t have it on your phone, then you would get seven lashes, right on the spot, and a flag would be added to your name in the database: “No WIS App installed.”
    In some ways, A’isha thought now, the First IS -- the one that had been instituted by the wild-eyed jihadists of ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant -- had been easier to live under. They didn’t make appointments. They didn’t distribute Apps. They were not well organized. Rather, their modus operandi had been driving around almost randomly, shooting “Infidels” and cutting off heads. They were the ones who had killed her parents, back in 2017. A’isha was just ten years old when that happened. But now she was middle-aged, married, with children of her own. The second iteration of IS -- WIS -- was worse, in many ways. It was cold, calculated, bureaucratic, and neatly organized. Their databases cataloged everything they could find about everyone: school records, medical records, and even genealogies. Instituting their totalitarian state emphasized focusing on family groups and using threats against selected family members to coerce behavior on parents, children, and siblings. They had taken association networking and mapping to the next level. The WIS enforcers were also punctual, always arriving on time. And although their vehicles were an odd assortment of cars and trucks, they always wore the same neat black uniforms, black keffayahs, and highly-polished black boots. They each carried a regulation whip (braided in strict accordance with Caliph Dictate 87/B), a tablet computer, a Taser, and a short-barreled Krinkov folding-stock AK. All of their clothing, weapons, belts, and assorted gear were color-coordinated in black. Those bastards had style. And the Salafist cops always came smiling, with their smarmy little bureaucrat smiles. Their greetings almost always began with, “It is The Will of Allah that…”
    She recited the Lord’s Prayer aloud, and then added, “Help us, Lord Jesus. Please, I pray, deliver us from these evildoers.” She looked at the phone’s screen again: Five minutes left. She could hear her daughters sobbing and wailing in their bedroom. Ghahda was 14 years old, and Hadiyah was 16. They were the real reason that the Sharia cops were coming. This WIS system wanted them as al-sabi -- female slaves. They’d bring a tidy profit at their Abd Auctions. A’isha was not as pretty as her daughters, and her many years of hard work as a washerwoman showed, making her less attractive to the slave brokers. But she could still be sold as a useful slave. In contrast, her daughters would surely end up as rape toys by their new owner, to be passed around to his friends -- probably for years .
    A’isha wept bitterly. Her phone now showed that she had just three remaining minutes of freedom. She decided to spend those few minutes hugging her daughters and praying with them.

Chapter 1: Conspirators
    “This new Caliphate is crucial to ISIS. Here’s why: Islam purports to be a universal religion. In other words, its teachings encompass all aspects of life and its ultimate goal is the establishment of a global Islamic state.” -- Jay Sekulow, in Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can’t Ignore . Howard Books, 2014
    Edinburgh, Scotland -- March, Three Years After Declaration of the Caliphate
    It all came together over cups of coffee in the back room of The Elephant House, a tea and coffee shop in Edinburgh. They had been meeting once a week for nearly a month to discuss global politics, the relentless advance of the new Thirdist branch of Islam, and the persecution of Christians. Their meeting room in The Elephant House overlooked Edinburgh Castle. The teahouse was a famous hangout for Edinburgh’s cognoscenti, writers, and assorted eccentric expatriates. Before