Chapter 153
The debate that had initially unfolded in a calm tone, with voices emerging from throats still dry from the dust of Heraclea and the lingering tremor of liturgy that had not yet fully left their minds, slowly transformed into something else, into a discussion that grew sharper, faster, more like two blades that never truly touched yet kept moving through the air at a speed that made anyone watching afraid to blink.
Nirma and Arya sat facing each other within that room, a strange room that had no windows, no doors, no walls visible to eyes that only understood surfaces, only a flat floor serving as the point of footing for two time wanderers weighing the possibilities of the future, only air that moved in ways that could not be explained by the physics they knew, only silence that was never truly empty because in every unseen corner, time spun with a rhythm that never synchronized with the heartbeat of any human being.
In a place like this, every intention could become direction, every desire that grew too strong could open doors that were never meant to be opened, every small movement could drag the body into an entirely different century, into a year they had never planned for, into a place where an enemy might already be waiting with weapons that had no name in any language they knew.
Because of that, both of them remained seated cross-legged, maintaining their balance as if even a single inch of movement could send them falling into a bottomless abyss of history, keeping their breathing in the same rhythm, keeping their hands resting upon their thighs with palms facing upward, keeping everything that could move from moving, except for their thoughts and words that required no space to travel.
Arya stroked his slightly bearded chin with an unhurried motion, a gesture born from a habit he had never abandoned since his early days in the Temporal Cross-Police when he still sat in meeting rooms filled with maps and reports and debates about time that no one could ever truly win, his eyes fixed on an empty point between himself and Nirma, as if arranging timelines within his mind, as if pulling invisible threads from one event to another, as if trying to see a pattern that might not even exist yet still had to be found because there was no other choice but to search for it.
"We cannot ignore the era of the Rightly Guided Caliphs," he said again, and this time his voice was firmer than before, more like someone no longer asking a question but stating a conviction he had tested with all the data he possessed, all the reports he had stolen, all the information he had gathered in ways he had never told anyone, "not only because that era is the foundation of everything that came after, not only because it was during that time that the Muslim community had to learn, for the first time, to live without the physical presence of the one who had been the source of revelation and law and guidance, but because it was during that time, specifically under Umar ibn Khattab, that something happened, something that may be more important than all the battles and conquests recorded in the history books we read. Umar halted the writing of hadith, Nirma. He halted it not because he did not understand the importance of recording the Prophet's words, not because he underestimated future generations who would never hear the voice that spoke those words, but because he understood something, something that perhaps only someone sitting at the highest seat of power in the midst of a history just beginning could understand. He understood that if hadith were written down at that time, when memories were still fresh, when the companions who had heard directly were still alive and could bear witness, when not a single word from the Prophet's mouth could be falsified without being immediately recognized by those who had also heard it, then there would never be room for اختلاف of opinion, never room for ijtihad, never room for the Muslim community to grow in ways he could not foresee. He chose to let hadith remain within the chest, chose to let memory become the sole guardian, chose to take the risk that one day, when the companions were no longer there, when all that remained were generations who had never seen the Prophet's face and never heard his voice, there would be those who would claim falsely, there would be fabricated hadith created for political interests that never invoked the name of God, there would be chaos he might never have imagined but chose to accept because he believed that this community, with all its flaws, would be able to distinguish what is true from what is false."
Nirma listened to those words coming from Arya's mouth with an unusual speed, with an intensity he had never shown when speaking about targets or missions or escape routes, and within her chest, within the space she had long filled with hatred and vigilance and a resentment she never allowed to heal, something moved, something like admiration she did not want to admit, admiration for the man sitting before her, a man who had once been part of the institution she hated most, a man who had read more reports than she could imagine, a man who stored all that information within his mind with an order she had never possessed.
This time, using all that information for something she had never imagined she would do together with Arya in this nameless room.
Debating the history of two great religions that had never been her primary focus throughout her years as a fugitive.
But that admiration lasted only a moment, lasted like lightning striking across the night sky, lasted exactly as long as it took her to inhale and exhale, because she was Nirmala Surdaya, a high-class fugitive hunted by every agency of the Temporal Cross-Police across time itself, a woman who could not allow admiration to blur the reality that before her sat someone who might be wrong, who might be leading them in the wrong direction, who might be wasting time they could not afford to waste on something that would not bring them any closer to the answers they sought.
"And that is exactly where the problem lies, Arya," she cut in, her voice sharper than before, like a blade freshly honed, a tone that made Arya, who had been absorbed in the timelines within his mind, suddenly look at her with slightly widened eyes, "Umar chose to let hadith remain unwritten. He chose to let memory become the sole guardian. He chose to take the risk that one day there would be chaos, that one day there would be fabricated hadith created by hands that had never known the Prophet, that one day the Muslim community would split into dozens of sects each claiming they were the most correct, the most faithful, the true inheritors of the purest teachings from the most authentic source. And that chaos, Arya, that chaos he chose to accept because he believed in his people's ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, that chaos is the most fertile ground for something that seeks to twist meaning, for something that seeks to plant seeds that will grow into a tree never intended by those who first planted it. Is it not easier to twist something unwritten? Is it not easier to alter something that exists only in memory that will die with the body that carries it? Is it not easier to create a new truth when no one can verify whether that truth truly came from the Prophet's mouth or is merely a fabrication born from interests that never invoke the name of God? Umar may have believed he was protecting his people from a greater danger, that he was creating space for ijtihad that would keep Islam from stagnation, that he was building a strong foundation in a way no religion had done before. But what he did, Arya, what he did by choosing not to record hadith, was open a door that could never be closed again, open a door for anyone to enter and claim they carried the Prophet's message, open a door for chaos that would last for centuries, open a door for the very thing we are searching for to enter and sit upon a throne it never built but gladly occupies because that throne was prepared for it a thousand years ago."
To be continued…