Divorce Islamic Style Read Online Free PDF Page A

mission I attended an important meeting. Little Cairo is a joint operation of the SISMI, the C.I.A., and the Mukhabarat, the Egyptian secret service. Judas introduced two colleagues: an American named James and an Egyptian, Antar.
    The meeting place was outside Rome, near Nettuno. The room was well equipped, the perfect setting for a spy thriller or a war movie. Photographs of the suspects in the first cell rolled by on a large screen. At the top of the list was Akram; there were the photos that showed him at Mecca.
    Antar, my new Egyptian colleague, asked permission to speak and he made a couple of observations: “The dates on the photographs are extremely important; they’re the incontrovertible proof that Akram did not go to Mecca for the ritual pilgrimage. On those particular days he should have been, like the rest of the pilgrims, in Medina, performing the various rites. The question is: what was he doing in Mecca?”
    The American, James, answered quickly, “On the basis of reliable information we’ve discovered that Al Qaeda takes advantage of the period of the hajj to organize gatherings without attracting attention. It’s impossible to check millions of pilgrims.”
    At the end of the meeting Captain Judas urged us all to be prudent: “Let’s try not to make amateurish mistakes, as in the case of the three Egyptians in Anzio.”
    On the retreat, while we prepared for the operation, Judas had told me about that case. In October of 2002 three Egyptian immigrants in Anzio were arrested on charges of planning attacks on the American military cemetery in Nettuno, the McDonald’s in Rome, and the Fiumicino airport. In their house the police had found a gun and about a kilo and a half of TNT. The press attributed great importance to a belt (immediately christened “the suicide-bomber belt”) found in the closet of one of the three suspects eight days after the initial search. It turned out that it was the type of belt that the Muslim faithful wear when they go on a pilgrimage, to keep their money and documents safe. During the trial it emerged that the landlady had had a key role in the affair: in the preceding months she had quarreled frequently with the three suspects on matters having to do with payment of the rent. Further, it was discovered that she had had free access to the scene of the crime, thanks to the fact that the police had neglected to seal it . . . And what was the connection of the three accused men with Islamic terrorism? Only the testimony of a neighbor, an old man who stated that, while going up the stairs, he had heard one of them utter the name of bin Laden! In April, 2004, the Court of Assizes acquitted the three Egyptians of the charge of international terrorism, “because no crime was committed.” In the meantime those poor wretches had done almost two years of prison. Who had wanted to set them up? And why?
     

Sofia
     
    T here are scenes that stick in your mind like an unremovable tattoo. For example, I remember the day I cut my sister Nadia’s hair for the first time. She was desperate, because she didn’t have the money to go to a professional hairdresser. She couldn’t miss her best friend’s wedding, and she especially didn’t want to make a bad impression on the other girls, who were all rich kids. She trusted me and I didn’t fail her. I got it right on the first try. The haircut was stupendous and all her friends liked it.
    So I became the underground hairdresser of the poor girls of the neighborhood. I didn’t care about money, I accepted whatever they gave me. Often they gave me small presents: a shirt, a skirt, a purse, a fashion magazine. It was absolutely necessary to improve my technique, and, to keep up with the news of the profession, I devoured foreign women’s magazines like
Femmes d’Aujourd’hui
,
Marie Claire
,
Elle
,
Vanity Fair
,
Vogue
, although tracking them down was a real undertaking.
    As an adolescent one tends to think on a grand scale, without