The Martyr's Prize: Inspired by True Events

I DON'T USUALLY read fiction, but someone I respect recommended The Martyr's Prize to me, and I just finished it. I liked it a lot. And oddly enough, I felt that the book brought to life the reality of our situation better than dry factual data has ever done.

One "scene" in the story especially affected me; a conversation between a Saudi prince and a young mujahadeen. Their conversation actually kept me awake late into the night, thinking about it.

The mujahadeen only knew about and understood the "hard jihad." But the prince sat him down and laid out the full picture — the carrot and stick of Islamization. On the one side, "life must be made impossible" for the non-Muslims, and they must be in constant fear of their lives; and on the other side, give them a path to peace — submitting to the rule of Islam. The invasion must be simultaneous on all fronts, explains the prince. Speak publicly of peace, but attack anyone who even implies you have "unsavory associations." Buy friends at the newspapers. Use the courts to harass. Make trouble for criticizers. "At that moment something clicked," and the young mujahadeen "suddenly understood the brilliance of the plan. A jihad that could never be defeated because it would be all encompassing; everywhere at once. No focal point to attack with Western military might. Immune, because the West would never engage in genocide; would never outlaw a religion; would never take the steps necessary to defeat such an ideology..." This conversation occurs near the end of the book, and the reader is ready to fully understand it by then. The book starts out with an interesting and provocative premise: Two supervisors at a university IT department find an online video giving instructions in Arabic showing step by step exactly how to make a bomb. It was a tutorial. They trace it and discover to their dismay the video was posted by someone at their university! And in the comments on the video, it said, "Brothers. I have posted this vid in the hopes that someone can translate it into English. Holy Jihad will not wait and we need to prepare. The materials are available and waiting as we speak." These two supervisors were not counterjihadists. They didn't know anything about Islam or jihad. But the idea of someone showing Americans how to build bombs within the country to kill Americans really got under their skin. The more they thought about it, the more they felt motivated to do something about it. But what? They eventually come up with the idea of making a video just like it, except for one small change: To alter the instructions so the bomb detonates while the bomb maker is constructing it! I marked a huge number of passages in the book that I wanted to share, but now I don't want to give them away and spoil the story for you. I would like to quote this little bit, however, to give you an idea of how the author weaves good, valid information into the narrative:

While the bomb tutorial had undeniably been the initial spark, the true turning point was the sniper video. Like a wormhole, it had sucked them in, transporting Jason and himself to another world. Within the week, an embedded link in an online article about a beating in Paris had led to another web site, this one tracking jihadist activity worldwide. He'd been amazed by the sheer number of attacks occurring on a daily basis. For that week alone there'd been thirty-six in various countries, with a body count of 221. For the month, 185 with 943 dead and 1,223 critically injured. The total since 9/11 had crested 14,000 in mid 2009. What would that be? — roughly? 71,000 dead and 92,000 seriously wounded? Digging deeper, it occurred to them that all over the world people were being killed in staggering numbers. And the West just couldn't come to grips with it. The fact that The Religion of Perpetual Outrage claimed religious and minority status gave them immunity, at least as far as the major media and various governmental bodies were concerned. According to the reports, Islam was misunderstood. Islamic scholars themselves clearly couldn't articulate the actual peaceful words of the Prophet. The passages that exhorted coexistence with others — on a permanent basis — were assumed by all to be there, but the subject always seemed to get switched at the last moment, just as the question was about to be raised...

You can read The Martyr's Prize for your own enjoyment. But I think we can also use it to help us educate our fellow non-Muslims. Reading it is like watching a good action movie; it grips your attention and won't let go. Some people don't read much nonfiction, but they'll read a good story, and this is fast-paced with a contemporary storyline and plot-propelling dialog — but it also delivers a motherload of information, and makes many good points. It may be a way to help educate a certain kind of people. Read it yourself first, and then see who in your life might be interested in reading a story like this, and talk it up to those people. Loan your copy to them. It could help people really come to grips with what jihad is really about and what we're up against. In the preface, the author, Brooks William Kelley writes: "The concept of this book was a simple one really — to take stories ignored by the Western media and weave them together to form the plot of this book..." He says, "In my writing, I've made it a point to use actual incidents as a basis for the story. Specifically, the 'workplace accidents' of 2008 and 2009 were instrumental in inspiring one of the main storylines of the book. For those who wonder whether such events in fact occurred, simply pick one and Google it." Kelley has done something really good here: He has given us a new way to reach people, and a way for all of us to more fully come to terms with our situation as non-Muslims.