in God's name we Trust

Understood. Here's the rewritten Cha

By January 1994, Malik Riyaz had become what village elders called "a man touched by God." His name had crossed district borders. Whispers followed him now—not of scandal, but of awe. He was respected, feared, and—most dangerously—misunderstood. After all, what other explanation could there be? A retired army sergeant living like a feudal sheikh, with mosques bearing his name, land purchased with surgical precision, and the public façade of religious charity so airtight it made the molvies nervous.

But no one really asked questions in Pakistan unless they already knew the answer. And in Malik Riyaz's case, the answer was simple: "Allah gives to whom He wills."

Arslan never spoke in these matters. He didn't need to. In the courtyard, under the neem tree he had planted himself, he'd sit cross-legged with a small Qur'an and soft lips that never stopped moving. Sometimes the gardeners heard him humming verses. Sometimes they heard silence. That silence was usually more powerful.

No one connected the boy to the land deals. No one connected him to the timing of the lottery wins, the strange yet perfectly placed donations, or the waves of land purchases that followed his "dreams." After all, what kind of fool would suspect a child who still needed help tying his shoelaces?

In truth, Arslan had learned the most critical lesson of Pakistani society: power is safest when it's hidden behind piety. And in his tiny hands, Qur'anic verses became weapons sharper than any blade.

---

The 10 million rupees won from the latest lottery were now being "returned to the community." That's what Riyaz said in front of the camera crew from Multan. A video recording was made—not for the public, but for "proof of piety" stored in some dusty drawer, just in case.

The project was called the Al-Riyaz Islamic Education Network. A cluster of modest madrasas built across rural Punjab, all registered as religious welfare institutions. Tax-exempt, untouchable, holy in name and financially bulletproof in practice.

Each center had a plaque. Each plaque had two names: Malik Riyaz and his deceased daughter. No mention of Arslan. Not even a hint.

That was by design.

Arslan's genius lay not in charisma, but in placement. Let others hold the mic. Let others be praised. He preferred to operate like shadows in a prayer hall—always present, never acknowledged.

---

The tea-stall owner in Ahmedpur, the one who had first placed Riyaz's lottery bet months ago, now referred to him as "Baba Ji." He massaged Riyaz's feet in public, not from servitude, but from calculation. Everyone did now. Teachers, farmers, imams—everyone wanted a piece of the miracle. Even the police came for "blessings," code for donations.

Riyaz played the part perfectly.

He never said too much. Never smiled too wide. He always carried a miswak in his pocket and wore a clean white turban. When he spoke, he used verses. And whenever someone asked how his fortunes had changed, he raised one hand, looked up, and whispered: "Allah's karam."

Only Arslan knew what those words truly meant. God's grace. And by God's grace, they had acquired:

Over 9000 acres of barren, now-strategic land

Several hundred tolas of gold, silver, and copper

Three functioning madrasas

One house in Bahawalpur fit for a prince

A name that no one dared question

All of it built on dreams. Fake dreams. Crafted by a child who understood better than any adult the price of truth—and the value of myth.

---

By spring, Riyaz had started receiving letters from scholars, requesting to speak at his madrasas. Their words dripped with flattery, their tone full of debt. Arslan read every letter. Then instructed Riyaz on who to ignore and who to invite. Not in direct words, of course.

"I had a dream," he would whisper.

That was all it took.

One dream got a professor a podium. Another removed a cleric from the roster entirely. Arslan made it look like prophecy. But in reality, it was just memory—decades worth of knowing who would win, who would fall, and who would sell their soul for a title and a photo.

---

By the time summer came, people stopped asking who the boy was.

Not because he spoke. But because he didn't.

Because he prayed.

Because he was quiet.

Because he was always present near Malik Riyaz—but never in his way.

And so the legacy grew, brick by brick, donation by donation, verse by verse.

And not a single person—not one—ever questioned how a man who once lived on a pension was now drawing maps with bureaucrats and building roads that hadn't even been commissioned yet.

Because in Pakistan, when God is involved, so is silence.

And Arslan's silence was golden.

The pulpit was higher than he expected. Built for grown men with grown voices, it towered like a minaret of authority, carved in aging teak, lacquered by decades of sweat and supplication. The mosque was packed. They had come from villages, from city alleys, from crumbling buses with Qur'anic verses painted on their backs. Some were barefoot. Others wore Peshawari sandals, polished for the occasion. But all wore expectation.

And at the center of it all—Arslan.

Eight years old. Dressed in white. Hair oiled and parted like a crescent moon. A boy who hadn't yet lost his baby teeth, about to lead a congregation of bearded men who whispered that he spoke with the tongue of angels.

He stepped up with the ease of one who had been here before—not in this mosque, not in this body, but in the ritual. The theater. The illusion. He paused at the mic. Adjusted it with tiny fingers. Coughed.

Silence fell like judgment.

And then—

"Alhamdulillahi rabbil 'alameen…"

His voice rang out—not loud, but pure. Clean. A sound unstained by adulthood. High and soft enough to be holy, deep enough to carry weight. The acoustics of the dome cradled it, turned it into warmth. Into truth. Or what passed for it.

Men wept.

Women behind the curtain placed trembling fingers to their chests.

Even the molvies, cloaked in turbans thick with self-importance, nodded with theatrical solemnity.

Arslan continued. Verse after verse. Qur'anic recitation with melody so precise it made scholars jealous. He spoke of humility. Of gratitude. Of the mercy of God. Of the trials of Prophet Yusuf. Of the beauty of patience. Of the sanctity of obedience.

And all the while, behind the verses, behind the trembling lips and the tilted head and the eyes so sincerely half-lowered—

His mind was elsewhere.

> Obedience is easy when it's rewarded.

Gratitude is easier when your enemies are dead.

Mercy? Mercy is a myth told by the victorious to sleep better.

He shifted seamlessly into Arabic. A flourish of tajwid that sent chills through the rows of rusted ceiling fans.

> "If you fear Allah, He will make for you a way out…"

A pause. Just long enough for someone in the third row to gasp. He knew the rhythms of performance. The tempo of religious awe.

He looked up now. Just slightly. Just enough to catch the eyes of the front row.

Three molvies.

The one on the left had accepted a gold watch from Riyaz last week.

The one in the center had beaten his nephew to the edge of paralysis for missing Fajr.

The one on the right had two wives, both illiterate, both pregnant, both forbidden from leaving their home.

All three now bowed their heads in fake humility.

Arslan didn't smile. His face was the definition of piety. His eyes moist with divine fatigue. But in his head—

> If God loves these men, then Hell must be under renovation.

He began the sermon proper.

Arabic gave way to Urdu. Flowing. Rhythmic. Rehearsed to sound unrehearsed.

> "My brothers. My elders. My teachers. My uncles in faith..."

Every line began with reverence. Every point ended in a verse. He spoke of the youth losing their way. Of the temptation of cities. Of the corruption of television. He condemned Western values, praised village simplicity, and quoted Imam Ghazali with the precision of a boy too young to lie—therefore, impossible to mistrust.

> "...and if we do not return to the path of the Prophet, then perhaps Allah will replace us with those who will."

Gasps again.

He knew when to breathe. When to pause. When to close his eyes and sigh, like the weight of revelation had settled on his small shoulders.

He didn't believe a word of it.

> If returning to the Prophet's path means letting men like Rizwan live, I'll take exile.

If village simplicity means letting girls be sold like livestock, I'll take corruption.

If God needs this theatre to forgive us, He's just another tyrant in the audience.

He closed the sermon with a du'a. Voice trembling now. Not from emotion. From calculation.

He prayed for rain.

For orphans.

For peace in Kashmir.

For the price of wheat to fall.

Each prayer perfectly curated. Marketable. Uncontroversial.

He did not pray for justice. Justice makes people nervous.

When it ended, there was no applause. Of course not. This was sacred ground. But the silence was louder than any clapping. A stillness that followed him down the pulpit steps like a halo dragging behind him.

The molvies approached. Kissed his forehead. Called him shehzada. One gave him a box of dates from Madinah. Another slipped a small envelope into Malik Riyaz's coat—money, most likely. "For the network," he whispered. "May Allah increase it."

They meant it. Arslan had brought prestige to their circles. He was proof that Islam could still produce miracles. Still inspire awe. Still silence dissent.

He had become their favorite product.

And like all favorite products, he would be protected, promoted, and polished.

He walked out of the mosque with Malik Riyaz beside him, silent as always. The boy in white. The man in myth. The sun sharp above them, the air thick with incense and sweat and whispers.

A woman reached out from behind the crowd, touched the hem of his kurta.

"Bless me," she said.

He looked at her.

Eyes sunken. Wrists bruised. A widow or worse. Her faith clung to him like rot on fruit.

He gave her a small smile. Raised his hand. Whispered:

> "Tawakkal 'ala Allah."

Trust in God.

She wept.

He didn't stop walking.

In the car, Malik Riyaz finally spoke. "You made them believe."

Arslan didn't look at him. "They already did."

And then, softly, as Bahawalpur drifted by in broken roads and desperate gazes:

> "Faith," Arslan thought, "is just power wearing perfume."

He looked at his hands.

Still soft.

Still small.

But holy now.

He could ask for anything. A province. A title. A party ticket.

But he didn't want power yet. He wanted roots. Deep ones. So deep no storm could touch them.

And this sermon?

It was just the seed.

By 1995, Malik Riyaz had every MNA in Punjab on speed dial, and every patwari trained to look away. His haveli in Bahawalpur no longer needed an address—letters simply arrived, couriers bowed lower, and ministers called twice if he didn't answer the first time.

Every unknown village in southern Punjab was half-bought. Every dirt road mapped with surgical precision. The best corners—those with long-term shade, future-facing drainage, and silent neighbors—were quietly bought a decade early. Some before the roads themselves existed. In files stamped by bureaucrats who didn't know they were drawing someone else's empire.

Arslan was the cartographer.

He still gave divine dreams. One a month. Sometimes two if the news cycle demanded it. A molvi dream here. A crying ancestor there. An obscure verse misquoted to imply rainfall. One week it was an angel in a cricket jersey whispering ODI scores from the clouds. Another week it was a green parrot speaking Sindhi, prophesying currency fluctuations.

All of it lies.

But lies wrapped in surahs, soaked in du'a, whispered in a child's voice, are indistinguishable from miracles in Pakistan.

And the winnings kept coming.

Lottery numbers. Match scores. Stock surges. Even disasters. He "predicted" a mini-flood in Rajanpur, and two weeks later the canal cracked. He claimed to have dreamt of a locust swarm near Dera Ghazi Khan, and the crops were eaten clean in five days. People wept in gratitude. Sent him wheat as gifts. One family slaughtered a goat in his name.

He accepted none of it. Not publicly.

But he logged every name. Every address. Every debt owed.

Because he wasn't building fame.

He was building a file on the nation.

And at the center of this quiet sprawl was Uch Sharif.

Not because of sentiment.

Not because of memory.

But because of geometry.

Uch Sharif lay like a forgotten artery in the heart of Punjab's southern soul. Cradled by six major cities—Alipur, Ahmedpur, Tranda, Gmani, Kotla, Bahawalpur—and surrounded by over thirty-five villages, two dozen settlements, and uncounted prayer rugs.

It was a future goldmine.

A dead town buried in living faith.

The soil was cursed by politics, too sacred to develop, too sinful to ignore. Every sect had a claim. Every pir had a shrine. Every feud had a ghost. No one trusted each other. No one gave up land unless bribed, blackmailed, or buried. Politicians fought over hospital grants while children died outside in the dirt. A Sufi mural was painted one week and defaced the next. Graveyards extended like cancer, but no school had enough chairs.

Faith had drowned it.

And that made it perfect.

Arslan bought from everyone. Shi'as, Sunnis, Sufis, even a few Christians who'd been pushed out of their ancestral homes and were too tired to fight. He paid more than market price, always in cash, always in person. He quoted Qur'an when buying, quoted the Bible when needed, and always ended the deal with a prayer that made the other party weep.

He was buying not just land.

He was buying silence.

One day, he would build something grand there. He didn't know what yet. But he didn't need to.

He had time.

More time than any of them.

The Al-Riyaz Education Network had spread like blessed fungus across Punjab. Forty-seven campuses now. Registered as religious welfare institutions. Tax-exempt, untouchable. Teachers paid in both rupees and reverence. Students taught Arabic before arithmetic. Bureaucrats called to "check documents" left with prayer beads and envelopes.

Every madrasa had a plaque.

Every plaque had Malik Riyaz's name.

And his dead daughter's.

Arslan's name was nowhere.

And yet, every stone in the foundation knew him.

He sat in Bahawalpur, in his Victorian palace with jasmine vines and copper roof tiles that turned the rain into melody, reading newspapers from Karachi and maps from Lahore. He drank sherbet from silver cups. He had one TV hidden in the pantry, powered by a generator Riyaz claimed was "for fans."

There was still no electricity in Uch Sharif.

Not a single bulb.

Not one wire.

It remained in candlelight, masjid echo, and dried sewage.

And that was perfect too.

Because electricity brings development.

And development brings journalists.

And Arslan wasn't done yet.

Not until every inch of the town was his.

Not until every school was stamped, every molvi tied to a stipend, every screaming child fed in his name.

He would build light.

But only after he bought the darkness.