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Birth and Death
Tariq ibn Iqbal was born Tariq Nawaz in 1924 in Dubai before there was ever such a thing as the United Arab Emirates. It was a rich city which much like its surrounding states had gained independence and self government from the British through a series of treaties in the preceeding century. Dubai was a modern city for its time, a place where Western thought and Western money were quite welcome. The city perfected a mixture of Islamic and secular courts with a limited but vital sense of religious freedom.
In his youth, Tariq changed his last name to ibn Iqbal in honor of the Indian Muslim philosopher Muhammed Iqbal, foremost among the Islamic Modernists. The idea that the closing of the gates of Ijtihad, that is, the end of individual interpretations of the ahadith and Quran to define Islamic law, and the reliance on ijma and the opinions of the elite ulama had struck a blow to Islam, destroyed the dynamic system which produced Islamic law in the first place, was the dominant idea behind Dubai's government and Tariq took the concept to extremes.
Tariq was a devout Muslim, but he believed so passionately in what happened to be the prevailing idea, that it was easy to mistake him for one just towing the popular line and taking it to extremes. A Circle of the Crone Gangrel decided to embrace him, sure that the obviously weak and spineless man would break under the pressure, abandon his faith, and serve as a stirring example of the weakness of faith amongst the leading idealogues.
The Gangrel was mistaken. He was also put to death for illegally embracing a somewhat public figure in a marginally Sanctified town. Tariq's faith did not so much as waiver. The quick discovery of the crime and execution of the offender, and the knowledge written in his very blood that the embrace was in fact a sin, only shored up his zealous faith in submission to Allah. He entered in the Lancae Sanctum, and began to progress towards the priesthood, while trying to find a non-heretical way to marry the validity and importance of the Prophet Mohammed with the Lancae Sanctum's focus on Longinus and his relationship to Jesus Christ. The conclusion he eventually reached however, would mushroom out and leave a lasting mark on his own unlife, and on the kindred society of Dubai.
An Interview
I want to make a record of who you are, that if you are destroyed, your revelation might not die.
Alright.
I want to start by you telling me about this memory of mine. It's 1976, in Dubai during confession at a grand mass presided over by the Bishop, a respected lay member of the congregation stands and speaks:
"Brothers, my heart is heavy, but it is not my sin which weighs me down, it is all of yours. You say we are doomed to our fate, that we are the damned and that we must embrace and embody this. The Prophet of Allah, Allah's blessing and peace be upon him, says in The Spoils that 'Allah would never change His favour that He conferred on a people until they changed what was within themselves.' Kindred, my fellows, Allah's will is immutable, but our place in it is not. Allah wishes you all to seek change within yourself, to become greater than that cursed, wretched state to which you've fallen. Do not seek to Longinus to guide you, you must change yourself."
"Brother Iqbal, you dispute that we are the damned?" The Bishop asks a pointed question with an obvious view to accusations of heresy.
"I can not say if there is salvation for us Your Excellency, I do not even say we should seek it. But how can any Kindred here say he has not resigned himself to damnation and this most despicable existence? You say it is Allah's plan and so we should not question it, but are we not all the servants of Allah? And does not the master wish His servants to be the greatest they possibly can be? Allah does not wish stagnation upon you, you must seek change, for we all know we have not the favor of Allah, and so the fault MUST be with us. If Allah damns us, why should--"
He stops talking abruptly, because the Bishop, in all his grand splendor, long flowing robes trailing behind him, was charging forward with frenzied hatred and murder in his eyes.
My name is Tariq ibn Iqbal. That was I.
How were you not killed?
Praise Allah for marble floors and Gangrel blood.
They didn't wait for you? They didn't dig you up?
Allah provided a path.
A path?
You were there. You remember.
The dark interior of the same Church. Someone has apparently blocked the sun out of all the windows which were very much transparent earlier. Two kindred with a sledgehammer stand around a spot in the floor, waiting. One is recognizable as the same Bishop who'd frenzied. The second is the interviewer. A nod from the bishop and the interviewer swings the hammer. Again, and again, and again. On the seventh strike the marble erupts upwards and Tariq rises forth. He appears exhausted, and surprised, but no fear shows on his face. The Bishop breaks the silence.
"Brother Iqbal, You have always been dedicated and faithful. Kneel and repent of your heresy, and there may be forgiveness for you. The sin of doubt is a difficult sin indeed."
The surprised Gangrel stands tall, he glances a long time at the interviewer before he speaks, and then looks the Bishop in the eye.
"Doubt is not sin, doubt is required of us by the will of Allah. Ibrahim, the friend of the Compassionate, and his sons had the word of Allah, and they followed it well, but it was not complete, because Allah did not yet wish to reveal himself in completion. And Jesus of Nazareth then had the courage to doubt what he was taught and accept the Divine Revelation, and so refine the words of Allah. And Longinus too, who had lived a life of such sin, had the courage to doubt what he knew, and accept the word of Allah to change his life. The Prophet of Allah, Allah's blessing and peace be upon him, did the same, and so must I."
"Mohammed? What do we care about Mohammed? Who are you to doubt the word of Longinus, the Dark Father? How have you the gall to say this heresy is divine? You place Muhammad, some fool kine, above the dark father?"
Tariq stares long and hatefully into the eyes of the Bishop, who stares back. Both focus intently on the other, until abruptly, the sledgehammer swings viciously across the Bishop's face. His head crushes utterly, and he falls.
That's how it happened, more or less?
Yes, Allah sent you to me, and filled you with his glorious inspiration.
Then we waited for nightfall. The Bishop had come to me in secret, about you. He said he'd planned to interrogate you himself but he thought an inquisitor should be there. So I went, and I betrayed my Bishop, and I betrayed Longinus who sought to be venerated as Allah. I believe that you are correct now, I do. But, I struck because I saw opportunity. The Bishop trusted me, because he feared he might be too weak to face you on his own. His time was past. Anyway, when the local kindred found you dug up, the Bishop reduced to ash, and no sign of you, they made the obvious conclusions. Tell us about the Dragons.
As I later heard it told, they used the Shadow's Sight to see that those ashes were brought to nothing beneath my fangs, and to see that the sledgehammer had been in your hands, and had felled him. The Sanctified were dealt a mighty blow from the Divine. The Bishop dead, an inquisitor and myself a kindred of some standing guilty of it. That was the end of theocracy in Dubai. Your intent may have been selfish but Allah had other plans for you.
You didn't know that they were so hurt though. Why didn't you run, or hide?
Because Allah gave me recourse to logic. Crippled, the Sanctum did what they always do and turned to the Invictus for aid. The Invictus did what they always do and sought to extort more power from their supposed ally. The two godless covenants fell to squabbling, and the Crones and Carthians were similarly reduced to idiocy and squabbling over the opportunity for a coup. The Dragons, very quietly, were the only ones to actually and competently investigate. They came to arrest us and win favor with the regime. Do you recall?
I don't, I was asleep.
Tariq is prostrated in prayer, facing Mecca, in a small, dirty room. It's noon, and he's forced himself awake to make the five times daily prayer. The interviewer sleeps quietly in the next room.
A vehicle pulls up outside, and two ghouls extend a structure similar to an airplane walkway to the door. Hearing the commotion, and finishing the noon al-Salat, he stands up tall, and goes to answer the door. The three kindred in the walkway are thoroughly shocked.
"Ah, visitors. Pilgrims perhaps. Welcome to my home"
A little shaken, the three enter quietly, and take seats on straw mats on the floor. Tariq sits facing the trio.
"Why are you...awake?"
"Sleep is no excuse to fail to perform al-Salat."
"You're always awake at noon?"
"I always try to be."
"You killed the Bishop."
"I did. He did not understand the need for change from within, and would have stifled my revelation from reaching others. None may stand in the way of the will of Allah."
"You know they'll kill you if they find you."
"Allah will provide a way, because I go in the way of Allah."
"You said you believe change is necessary.? Tell us more about this."
"We are cursed by Allah, yes?"
"Yes."
"Then we have not his favor, and Allah changes not his favor until those he favors or disfavors change themselves."
"So it's only redemption you seek? Forgiveness?"
"No. One cannot seek forgiveness. It is a mandate to change the self, to become more. If Allah has forgiveness so be it, if not, so be it. I serve him all the same."
And that was it?
Mostly. We spoke at length. If Allah commands us to change, then who but the Ordo Dracul is doing Allah's will? Whether they know it or not, it is they who engage in jihad in the way of Allah. They struggle and fight to create change. And so do I among them, only different by my consciousness of the will of Allah, and hence driven to pursue greatness by it.
Atlanta
Tariq has only been in Atlanta for about two years. His covenant is declaratively neutral, and he's done his best to remain so as well. Generally, this has meant steering clear of political intrigues. It's meant putting a lid on his tendency for proselytizing and picking theological arguments with the Circle of the Crone and the Lancae Sanctum. It's meant, to an unfortunate extent, cloistering himself with his studies.
He is a Dedicated Scribe of the Curse at present, and this affords him a minimal amount of standing in the Academy. He hasn't particularly done anything of note in the city, and it's never surprising when a longtime resident of Atlanta happens upon him and has no idea who he is, or vice versa.