As all the world knows, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the self-appointed and savage representative of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, was given a surprise sendoff last week. What no one seems to know is what happened when he met his Allah before the entrance to the paradise he and his fellow misrepresentatives of Islam’s best hopes long to be whisked away to.

Fortunately, we were there. How, you might ask?

When we heard that Mr. Al-Zarqawi was finally the object of his just reward, we, of course, did like most of the weary and repelled observers of his atrocities and bid him a speedy journey to his well-deserved destiny. But we also sent an email to Allah, asking if we could witness his arrival at what Mr. Zarqawi and other leading terrorists insist, all the better to influence their ill-informed stooges, is The Gate Where 27 Virgins Await.

We now present, recorded with our persistent care, the somewhat heated conversation between Allah and the rightly flabbergasted Mr. Al-Zarqawi, who approached somewhat groggy from the explosion that propelled him to eternity, but when he beheld Allah, he managed a hopeful smile.

AZ: Hi, I’m Musab al-Zarqawi.

AL: I know. Tough time to be a terrorist, isn’t it?

AZ: Then you know?

AL: Of course. I know everything.

AZ: You do? Then you must be Allah?

AL: Yes, I am.

AZ: Really? Hey, great to meet you. When I was a alive, I always told my followers, “Allah is a pal a mine.”

AL: Thanks.

AZ: Wow, I feel like I died and went to heaven. So where are my twenty-seven virgins?

AL: What virgins?

AZ: The twenty-seven I’m supposed to get for being an Islamic martyr.

AL: Excuse me. Up here we don’t have female sex slaves.

AZ: You don’t?

AL: No, we have equal rights, that is, for everybody under me.

AZ: Equal rights for men and women?

AL: Why not? I made them both, didn’t I? I tend to arrive at my rankings based on behavior.

AZ: Oh, great, because, as I said, I’m a martyr.

AL: I’m sorry. Up here, you don’t qualify.

AZ: I don’t? Why not?

AL: A martyr may do many things, but among them we don’t count murder.

AZ: Even when he murders in your name?

AL: Who does he murder in my name?

AZ: Infidels!

AL: Do you know me by any other name?

AZ: Heck, no, all my life I just thought of you as Allah.

AL: What about the name “God,” as in one of my favorite Islamic sayings, “God is Great!”?

AZ: Oh, “God.” Sure, I remember that.

AL: Good. Do you know that a lot of other people know me know me by that name who are and aren’t Islamic?

AZ: They do?

AL: Yes. It’s by far the favorite name humans call me by. In fact, people all over the world often refer to me as “the one true God.” Do you know what that means?

AZ: What?

AL: What you seem to have forgotten. I’m everybody’s pappy.

AZ: Everybody’s? Even Americans?

AL: Oh, especially Americans. I know they make mistakes, but at least they try to do the right thing. And I’m a big advocate of doing the right thing. So I have a different definition of infidels than you do.

AZ: Oh. What’s that?

AL: Anybody who forgets that, since there is only one God, namely, yours truly, then everybody believes in the same God, no matter what name they give me.

AZ: Really? Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that.

AL: Why not? Thanks to me, you have a brain, don’t you? And I expect you to use it.

AZ: But I did.

AL: Yes, but not, I’m afraid, in a way that merits admission to my Paradise.

AZ: No?

AL: No, dummy. We have another place for people who murder other human beings, whether those humans believe in me or not.

AZ: Even if they don’t believe in you?

AL: Yes, I grant freedom of thought. It’s the very foundation of being able to choose right from wrong. My more important concern is whether or not they harm or help other people. And the ones who murder them, oh, as I said, I’ve made a special place for them – and you qualify for admission.

AZ: I do? What place?

AL: The name of it, oddly enough, rhymes with infidel.

AZ: Hell?

AL: Hell, yes!

At this point, Allah raised his hand and Al-Zarqawi dropped through the cloud he was standing on. Allah walked over and looked down through the hole. Then He rubbed His hands together, as if to wash them off.

He noticed us, packing up our recording equipment, and gave us wink. Then He headed back toward Heaven.