One nation, under Allah: an interview with Robert Ferrigno

[Zafir]

By Orrin C. Judd

web posted March 20, 2006

 

Best-selling novelist Robert Ferrigno burst onto the crime thriller scene with his critically-acclaimed 1990 debut, The Horse Latitudes. With his penchant for rendering truly scary psycho-killer villains against a sunny Southern California backdrop, he soon developed a reputation for delivering a combination of what NY Times mystery reviewer Marilyn Stasio termed, "frantic energy" and "macabre fun." But his new futuristic thriller, Prayers for the Assassin, represents a considerable departure.

 

In the year 2040, New York City, Washington, D.C. and Mecca have all been devastated by nuclear warheads, the attacks admitted to by Mossad agents who were trying to drive a wedge between the West and the Islamic world (giving the event the title the Zionist Betrayal). The resulting chaos has led to the creation of an Islamic States of America, making up most of the Northern and Western states of the old Union. An uneasy truce exists with the Bible Belt states of the South after a long civil war, and the Catholic Church is tolerated, but the federal government is essentially an Islamic republic.

 

Within this richly imagined context, Mr. Ferrigno sets the story of Rakkim Epps, a former elite soldier in the American Fedayeen, and Sarah Dougan, a young historian who has uncovered evidence that casts doubt on the official version of the Zionist Betrayal. The two were raised by Redbeard, the head of State Security -- Rakkim an orphan he found on the street; Sarah, the daughter of Redbeard's assassinated brother. When Sarah disappears, Redbeard asks the estranged Rakkim to find her, without revealing why she's gone into hiding. As he searches, Rakkim soon finds himself shadowed by Darwin, an assassin and psychopath, who serves the Wise Old One, a fundamentalist leader who thinks Redbeard and others in the government too moderate.

 

All of the author's usual chops are on full display, so fans and thriller readers will be satisfied, but the background he provides will interest even policy wonks and political mavens. Fiction is used here to make us consider why a billion people choose Islam and whether it's too far-fetched to think that Americans might find it attractive under the right circumstances. As Mark Steyn said in his review, "If it's a choice between the defeatism and self-loathing of the Piss Christified West and a stern unyielding eternal Allah, maybe it's Islam that will prove the great seducer."

 

Mr. Ferrigno kindly took time out from his author's tour to answer some questions about where he got his ideas for the novel and what he hopes readers will take away from it.

 

 

The Interview

[Castro]

Hey Zafir, did you even read the interview? Do you still think this dude is pro-Islam? LOL.

 

This is one of his many blunders in it:

 

Yes, my views did change. I started out hostile to Islam and after a couple years immersion I gained a greater understanding of the faith,

recognizing its strength and power over believers

. At the same time I feel that the hierarchal aspects of Islam, the subordination of self and the rigor of its doctrine ---

Islam means "submission" --- is profoundly out of phase with the modern world

.

He might as well call himself Daniel Pipes.

[Zafir]

Cas, I have, I thought of him as one contrary mother sucker. This guy is completely insane; he says one thing and before the sentence is done says something completely opposite.

 

Ps: I was so hoping that he would say, he sometimes referred to Somalia online for ideas and opinions.