When God wanted to make the people of the thirteenth century [19th C CE] blissful…he caused the manifestation of al-Mahdi [The Rightly Guided One] in spirit and in body. God singled out the people of Sudan for this manifestation so as to strengthen its people…the people of perfection.
-The Life of the Mahdi, Ismail Abd al-Qader, written in 1888, 3 years after the deaths of both the Sudanese Mahdi and General Gordon
I am the Chosen One [Al-Mustapha]…The call was perfect [ihsan, in the theological sense], the letter was perfect, the China ban was perfect, the coronavirus tests were perfect, the transcript was perfect, control of Lafayette Park was perfect…
-Trump
A man walks down the street/He asks “Why am I soft in the middle now?”/…I need a photo opportunity/ I want a shot at redemption./Don’t want to end up a cartoon/…He says, “Why am I short of attention?”/ Got a short little span of attention/And whoa, my nights are so long/ Where’s my wife and family?/What if I die here?/…when you call me, you can call me Al/Call me Al.
-Paul Simon
As his nom de voyage, Steve called himself just plain Mustapha, Chosen One, in tribute to the Prophet Muhammad, who was al-Mustapha, The Chosen One, chosen by God to be his last and most perfect messenger. Enter Trump, America’s “I Alone” President, who emphatically puts the Arabic definite article, Al-, before his every first person reference. You can call him “Al-”, in scare quotes.