March 2000.
A telephone tower was being erected in Dera Ghazi Khan.
Not by the government. Not by an American contractor. Not even by Telenor itself.
But on land registered under Al-Riyaz Foundation for Rural Spiritual Development—a name no one questioned, because they owed too much to it. The team from Telenor had paid up front for ten years, both in rent and in the form of "charity grants" that conveniently mirrored bribes. They didn't know, of course, that Arslan already owned a quiet, compounding share of their parent companies, acquired through proxy stakeholders, foreign friends of Riyaz, and investment firms that only existed on paper.
From 1990 to now, he had slowly used prize bonds, lotteries, gold arbitrage, and fake divine dreams to build a small but growing influence in the telecom space.
No one knew what a SIM card was.
But Arslan already knew what 5G would look like.
He didn't need to wait for the future.
He had already lived in it.
---
The rest of Pakistan was still boiling water for tea on firewood.
Phones were ornaments of the ultra-elite: the new ministers, the sons of generals, the very top 1%. And only in cities. In villages, a rotary landline at the Al-Riyaz branch was the only phone in a 30-kilometer radius. If you needed to call Karachi, you visited a madrasa.
You filled a slip.
You paid in cash.
You thanked the Lord.
And the call went through.
Fax machines hummed day and night in over 400 towns. Children knew how to staple Al-Riyaz slips before they knew how to write Urdu. Mothers brought money wrapped in dupattas to send to their sons in Lahore. Fathers borrowed gold for their daughters' dowry. Everyone returned. No one defaulted.
---
Al-Riyaz Petrol was a revolution. Not just fuel.
Every existing roadside chai hotel, every ancient tea and tyre stall, every abandoned tractor depot, was evaluated by Riyaz's managers. If the land was promising, it was bought. If the road had promise, a team of retired army engineers renovated it.
Old CNG stops turned into Al-Riyaz Service Centres.
Wrecked bus stands turned into Al-Riyaz Washrooms and Wudu Corners.
Unmarked plots turned into gardens—a term used generously to mean land holding zones waiting to be flipped.
And in every petrol station:
A tuck shop selling Al-Riyaz snacks.
A mural of a praying child with the sun behind him.
And a public donation box, locked but glowing.
Arslan had created an empire built on prayer, but engineered with the ruthlessness of ExxonMobil and the vision of the Rothschilds.
---
Every Friday, across Pakistan, something was gifted.
In Bhakkar, it was 20 goats to widows.
In Nawabshah, it was five sewing machines.
In Sargodha, water pumps and plumbing kits.
In Layyah, a cart full of dairy rations for new mothers.
In Sukkur, bags of rice and flour labeled as sadaqa.
In Rawalpindi, free sugar tests and cough syrups.
In Multan, baby chicks handed to children with instructions for care.
None of it was charity.
It was calculated loyalty infrastructure.
---
Each Al-Riyaz Madrasa was now five institutions in one:
A school, teaching math, Urdu, Quran, science, and obedience.
A mosque, offering Juma prayers with loud, humble sermons.
A tuck shop, selling addictive snacks, toys, and collectible cards.
A remittance center, sending and receiving local money.
A donation base, with Friday banners listing the week's blessings.
And beside every major madrasa:
A garden, used for both weddings and funerals.
A workshop, for orphan girls and widows.
A training center, where boys learned bicycle repair, bricklaying, or shoe stitching.
Arslan's empire was self-sufficient.
They produced their own dairy.
They harvested their own crops.
They raised their own cattle.
They milled their own wheat.
They produced their own packaging paper and printing ink.
Every month, Arslan rotated team heads to avoid corruption and grow loyalty.
No one stayed in power long enough to become king.
---
And yet, in all this, Arslan himself remained a shadow inside a shrine.
He never gave a speech.
Never called a meeting.
Never made a show of himself.
He was seen once every six weeks, during the grand Friday event in some major city. A carefully orchestrated performance. Banners in every street. Children dressed in white. Women waving from balconies. Elders wiping tears. Rich men delivering bags of rice with camera-ready grins.
Arslan would walk in, small, polite, in grey or navy blue, carrying a Tasbeeh, head bowed, standing behind Riyaz, speaking only when spoken to.
And when he did:
> "May Allah bless us with the strength to serve." "My dreams only guide what others bring to life." "We are nothing but servants of the Ummah."
He left the microphone before applause could form.
He was always gone before the cameras turned off.
---
By October 2000, Al-Riyaz had:
25,000 employees
70 sector departments
Over 90 factories
450 land plots classified as agricultural, spiritual, or educational
7,000 known field agents (some disguised as artists, vendors, poets, teachers)
A watchlist of 15,000 families across Pakistan quietly assisted or absorbed
In every district, there was a "Sarkari Liaison Officer", unofficial, unlisted, but fully known. Their job: make sure Al-Riyaz was never blocked. Not by permits. Not by protests. Not by problems.
Even the ISI had decided to monitor, not interfere.
> "They do our job for us," said one colonel. "Let the boy dream. He's dreaming a stronger Pakistan than we ever could."
---
In Lahore, a secret weekly paper printed on rice-paper had started circulating among students in elite universities. It was called:
"Tafsir-e-Tamaddun" – The Exegesis of Civilization.
No author name.
Only a pen name: "Akhir-ul-Zaman" – End of Times.
It questioned nothing.
It only taught.
"How to plant seeds in acidic soil."
"How to recognize signs of land value growth."
"How to build self-sustaining mosques."
"Why sugar addiction can be faith-shaped."
"How to write children's books that sound like dreams."
No one knew it was Arslan.
---
February 2001.
The sun crawled over Bahawalpur's old skyline like a blessing too tired to bless. In the garden of the haveli, dew clung to mango leaves, quiet and reverent, while the world ran on Arslan's breath.
Inside, in a room with shuttered windows and maps from every province pinned to the wall, a 16-year-old boy sat barefoot, cross-legged, sorting through sheets of paper like a merchant of fate. Everything was handwritten. Nothing digital. Power cuts still ruled the land, and Arslan had no faith in blinking screens. His fingers moved like they remembered something his eyes hadn't seen yet.
"Total sugar purchases last quarter?" he asked.
A junior clerk replied from across the room, eyes fixed on a leather-bound register. "Eighty-six thousand maunds. Fifty-two percent from Faisalabad. Twenty from Dadu. The rest—imported."
Arslan nodded. "Ration it. Prices will spike in April. Stockpile it in Layyah. Use godowns thirty-seven and thirty-nine. Divert all trucks on routes near Multan to avoid toll inspection this week. And make sure the signage is in Urdu, not English. No suspicion."
"Yes, sir."
Malik Riyaz entered behind him, wearing his dark grey shalwar kameez and army boots, expression unreadable. He had come straight from a Friday charity distribution in Uch Sharif—goats and cash envelopes for widows. Every speech he gave now was reprinted in three magazines and echoed on two radio stations.
Arslan didn't look up. "How was the sermon?"
"Emotional," Riyaz said, removing his boots slowly. "The molvi cried."
"Good." Arslan slid another paper toward the assistant beside him. "Make sure he receives three sacks of wheat and one generator."
"Generator?" Riyaz raised an eyebrow.
"We want him alive next winter," Arslan said.
Outside, a delivery truck rumbled past the haveli's gate. Its side bore the Al-Riyaz emblem—an olive tree half-wrapped in Qur'anic calligraphy, half in technicolor branding. The slogan underneath read, "Barakah in Every Bite."
But it wasn't just bites anymore.
Every madarsa now had a school wing—chalk, slates, a small library of religious and practical texts. Girls were enrolled discreetly through female-only extensions. Each compound served as remittance center, wedding hall, legal aid desk, and now, education reform hub.
Every child's backpack held Al-Riyaz pens. Their notebooks featured stories written by a mysterious author under the pseudonym Safi ul-Zaman, whose tales mirrored Arslan's ideologies in sweet parables about ants and lions and tyrants who fell to shadows. They sold in millions. Even illiterate mothers bought them for the colors.
And tucked between each story—scratch cards. Prize codes. Limited-edition stickers. Candy shaped like the story characters. First it was a monkey who fasted during Ramadan. Then a lizard who built a masjid from pebbles. Then a squirrel who delivered zakat faster than postmen. Children wept if they didn't get the rare ones.
Behind it all, Arslan's face floated like mythology—silent, saintly, soft.
By now, nearly 50 million people consumed an Al-Riyaz product daily. Not by force. By trust. Their salt. Their flour. Their soap and matches. Their shoes and notebooks. Their toothpaste. Their snacks. Their shampoo. Their water pumps. Their parks. Their prayers.
A paper came through the fax machine beside him. Confirmation of fertilizer deliveries to Thatta and Jacobabad. The memo was stamped urgent. Arslan looked at it once and smiled.
"Approved," he said.
There were now 500 direct assistants reporting to Malik Riyaz. Fifty of them handled public operations. Twelve were long-trusted munshi who signed on land and rental deeds. Five were retired army men—old, clean, and loyal—controlling the pulse of law enforcement.
The 25,000 permanent staff managed all else: shops, godowns, parks, canteens, printing presses, even puppet theaters in markets. A hundred and twenty of them played storytellers in public, secretly reporting back with coded phrases to the intelligence desk.
Arslan never spoke at public events unless absolutely necessary. When he did, it was in short, soft Arabic phrases. "May your homes have light." "May Allah protect your work." "This is not our doing, but His."
But behind the curtain, he now commanded a structure greater than any ministry.
He knew where Pakistan was going. He had walked through the ruins of 2025 in his first life. He had seen governments fall, floods rise, banks collapse, currency crash. He knew where roads would be laid. Which villages would become districts. Which men would rise and which would rot. He didn't even need to guess.
So he didn't take profits.
He took positions.
In every company that would matter—telecom, textiles, sugar, grains—he quietly acquired land beneath their towers, roads beside their routes, and shops where their products would be sold. Some CEOs didn't even know they rented from him.
In every mosque district, he appointed Al-Riyaz trained molvis. All on temporary rotating contracts. All easily replaceable. All kept loyal through constant gifts—motorcycles, marriages, land, honor.
By now, even the government cooperated. A quiet "joint campaign" in education reform had begun between Al-Riyaz and the federal ministry. Officially, it was framed as charity. In reality, the state outsourced most rural literacy efforts to Arslan's machine.
And no one knew.
Not even Riyaz.
"Am I doing enough?" the old man asked that evening, seated in his prayer room.
"You're doing His work," Arslan replied, eyes downcast, tracing circles on a tasbeeh bead.
"Sometimes it feels too much."
"Then remember," Arslan whispered, "even the Prophet climbed Hira again and again before revelation came."
In Lahore, a new printing press was being installed. It would produce 20,000 books a day. In Sanghar, a candy factory expanded its output to include toys. In Rahim Yar Khan, a public garden was being built on land that would become a hospital in 2012.
Arslan already had the blueprint.
The gold loan system alone had over three tons of gold in circulation. Borrowers pledged in gold. Returned in gold. And since gold only rose in value, Arslan earned silently—without lifting a finger. No interest. No riba. Only barakah. Only loyalty.
By March 2001, Malik Riyaz had become a household name. Politicians walked in his shadow. Journalists quoted him like a saint. And when he visited Islamabad for Eid, the president requested his presence at a private meal. Cameras rolled. Arslan sat beside him, quiet, smiling, never speaking unless spoken to.
The caption read: "The Saint and the Boy Blessed by Dreams."
In the archives of the state, he didn't exist beyond a few birth records and school entries. But in the bloodstream of Pakistan—he was the sugar. The grain. The salt.
And he wasn't done.
Because this was only the beginning of the next phase.
And every next phase required a new form of silence.
.