Laylat al Qadr

It�s 20 degrees in Washington this morning and the capital is bracing for a winter storm. People all over the metro region are hurrying to the Safeways and Giants to make the ritual purchase of eggs and  bread and toilet paper, whether they need them or not, and all are wondering where the snow shovels were thrown after last season. We only had a total of three inches all last year, and the soft but ominous words on the radio tell us that we will get more in this storm alone. This is an annual ritual, the sporadic coming of the snow, and is celebrated in an unchanging ritual that goes back to the beginning of the last century and the birth of the motor-car. When the first flakes come down, the Virginians begin to spin off the road and into the trees.

Out in the wide world another spiritual event is coming to a close. The holy month of Ramadan is almost over, the lunar cycle coming to an end. I can see that from my balcony. Orion does his stately progress his above the east-west axis of Route 50. Venus hangs like a searchlight in the morning sky, above the dawn, and the moon, a sliver yesterday, is gone altogether.

The Prophet decreed this month a month of sacrifice. No food or drink will pass the lips during daylight while the holy lunar cycle continues. Anyone who has lived in a Muslim country during the month of fasting will tell you that even the most devout are getting cranky. But soon the regimen will be over, and life will go back to normal. The faithful will be able to eat during the day, and the world�s blood-sugar level will return to something a little less manic.

But this particular night is something special in the Ramadan cycle. Starting at sun-down, tonight is the Laylat al Qadr, the Night of Destiny. The Koran came down from God to his Prophet in one night long ago. Any sacrifice made on this night is said to be multiplied a thousand times. We were pretty spooked last year, the three great faiths of The Book all having overlapping holy days by accident of the moon and the calendar. Hanukkah coincided with Ramadan and the Christians were ramping up for the festival of the Virgin Birth. For those of us who have little understanding of Islam, it seemed like a night that was so fraught with symbolism and coincidence that the opportunity for an attack was too good to pass up.

But nothing happened and the holy night passed without incident. On reflection, it seemed that our terrorist foes choose anniversaries of their own activities, like the bombing of the USS Cole and Bali, and the big events have tended to come after meticulous planning and at intervals of a couple years. Last year�s Laylat al Qadr was too soon in the cycle, and it may be that even Osama is loath to trifle with the holiest days of his faith. Or not, I don�t know. The Kenyans have arrested another seven in the investigation of the Paradise Hotel in Mombassa. The Networks are panicked by the use of the SA-7b missiles against the Israeli charter airplane. The computer graphics on the news this week were pretty spectacular, so if the terrorists were watching they have a great visualization technique. But the missiles were from a lot number built in the old Soviet Union in 1974, sisters to the one that was fired at a U.S. plane at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi a few months ago. That one missed. This time they tried two.

Our adversaries learn and tinker with technique. My problem, aside from the way the television news makes this all a textbook for the bad guys, explaining everything for them, is that there are a lot of newer missiles out there. Barry McCaffery was interviewed and he explained we could equip the civil airline fleet with active countermeasures against the shoulder-fired rockets for as little as $4 million an aircraft. At some point you just have to shrug and move on.

Islam does too. There are dispensations to dietary restrictions of Ramadan for those who are traveling, or in battle, but the word of the prophet is clear on the Law. Like here. This was the heaviest travel weekend of the year just past, and we can be thankful that new Transportation Security Agency is vigilant at our airports. Seized at the gates during the Thanksgiving crush: 15,982 pocket knives, 98 box-cutters, six guns and a brick.

I have no idea what that passenger intended to do with the brick, but I am sympathetic. One, in Vietnam, a delegation I was managing had the opportunity to watch the destruction of the infamous Maison Central, the old French colonial jail. Our pilots knew the place as the Hanoi Hilton. The Vietnamese were moving on, putting the legacy of the war behind them. We saw it as a historic opportunity to have a piece of that history. The local Americans presented us each with a brick, still crusted with mortar. The delegation was thrilled, and when the little ceremony was over, each member turned to me and handed me their souvenirs, which I built into a little masonry wall that I carried in my luggage through Saigon and Hong Kong and Beijing and Pyongyang and Seoul and finally from the Dulles airport limousine to my door. Maybe the heaviest carry-on item in the history of aviation. I don�t know what the TSA would have made of me.

Sometimes there is a perfectly good reason to be carrying a brick. Whoever the hapless traveler was, I just wanted to send my condolences for getting caught. He might very well have been a Mason.

In the meantime, I await the Night of Destiny and the snow with equal interest.

Copyright 2002 Vic Socotra