Death of al-Fadl

Allamah Syed al-Fadl, the revered Islamic scholar who was one of three religious leaders to witness Edmond Kirsch's secret presentation at the Abbey of Montserrat, is found dead in the desert outside Dubai, his body already desiccated by the sun and wind. His death, initially reported as a possible suicide, becomes the first in a chain of murders that eliminates everyone who knew Kirsch's secret, and it is later revealed to have been carried out by a tall Spaniard who carjacked him and abandoned him in the desert without food or water. The allamah's disappearance and death set off a chain of suspicion and fear that ultimately implicates the highest levels of the Spanish church and state.

Disappearance and Discovery

After returning from the Parliament of the World's Religions, where he had met with Kirsch, Bishop Valdespino, and Rabbi Köves, al-Fadl seemed "strangely agitated" to a colleague, who overheard him engaged in a rare heated phone argument in English, repeatedly mentioning the name "Edmond Kirsch." Shortly thereafter, al-Fadl vanished without a trace. His body was discovered by a teenager driving a dune buggy in the moonlit desert east of Dubai. The boy found the allamah sprawled facedown on the sand, his body already hard and desiccated from the wind and sun. The teenager recognized the dead man as the famous allamah Syed al-Fadl, a scholar and religious leader who spoke from time to time at the university. The boys who found him reacted like teenagers around the world, pulling out their phones to snap photos to text to their friends.

Circumstances of Death

The allamah's death was not a suicide. He had been carjacked the previous night by a tall Spaniard who barely spoke a word as he drove al-Fadl's car deep into the vast desert. After an hour's drive, the Spaniard stopped and ordered al-Fadl out of the car, leaving him in the darkness with no food or water. The only possible clue al-Fadl glimpsed was a strange marking on the man's right palm—a symbol he did not recognize. For hours, al-Fadl trudged through sand and shouted fruitlessly for help. As the severely dehydrated cleric collapsed into the suffocating sand and felt his heart give out, he asked himself the same question he had been asking for hours: "Who could possibly want me dead?" Frighteningly, he could come up with only one logical answer.

Aftermath and Investigation

Bishop Valdespino conveyed the news to Rabbi Köves, reporting that the authorities were speculating suicide. Valdespino suggested that the strain of the last few days had been too much for al-Fadl. Köves immediately rejected this explanation, declaring, "Something is wrong here. I don't believe he would do such a thing." Valdespino agreed, admitting he too found it difficult to accept that this was a suicide. The bishop then raised the possibility that someone who wanted Kirsch's discovery to remain a secret—someone who believed, as they did, that his announcement was still weeks away—could be responsible. This suspicion deepened when it was later revealed that the assassin, Admiral Luis Ávila, was a member of the Palmarian Church, and that the allamah's death was part of a broader conspiracy orchestrated by the synthetic intelligence Winston to eliminate anyone who could interfere with Kirsch's presentation.