Ishmael

Naib Ishmael was the Zensunni who forged the Free Men of Arrakis from both escaped slave refugees of Poritrin and the desert outlaws left behind by Selim Wormrider, becoming their first Naib. Captured into slavery as a child and carried across the worlds, he eventually led his people deep into the desert in defence of the old ways, and the population he gathered helped shape the people who would in time be known as the Fremen.

Slavery on Poritrin#

When he was about ten years old, Ishmael witnessed Tlulaxa slavers assault his village on Harmonthep. He and his cousin Taina were captured and taken to Poritrin, where he first labored in the slimy mudflats of Isana, scooping clam seedlings. He was later moved to the mansion of the scientist Tio Holtzman and joined his team of solvers, befriending the unruly Zenshiite Aliid. At Aliid's urging he once tried the prank of entering wrong mathematical formulas, but Holtzman detected the errors and punished the solvers.

Transferred to a team building a giant mosaic in a canyon wall of the Isana river, Ishmael and Aliid destroyed their own work during the rebellion of Bel Moulay and were whipped for it, then watched Bel Moulay's cruel execution. In later years Ishmael had a wife, Ozza, and two daughters, Chamal and Falina. He grew into a docile faith, recalling the sutras and stories of his grandfather and reciting them to his fellow slaves to give them courage, though the defiant Aliid scorned his meekness. After working on the decoy fleet, an idea of Vorian Atreides that saved Poritrin from the machines, Ishmael was moved by Aliid and others to seek recognition for their labor; for daring to address Lord Niko Bludd directly he was separated from his family and sent to work for Norma Cenva with 130 other slaves. Among a later batch he recognized his daughter Chamal and her husband Rafel.

Escape to Arrakis#

Ishmael learned of Aliid's plot to revolt on the twenty-eighth anniversary of the Poritrin rebellion. A pacifist who preached non-violence and patience, he nonetheless seized the moment of Aliid's uprising: with the help of Rafel and others, he forced the slaver Tuk Keedair to fly his band of slaves to freedom. Keedair warned that he was no pilot and remembered only the coordinates of Arrakis, and so, using the space-folding technology, they arrived over the desert world and crashed onto the sand.

The slaves found a hostile world of scarce moisture, no vegetation, and a punishing sun. Several scouting attempts ended in tragedy, and after five months a third of them had died. Then Jafar, hearing Keedair's claims of lost slaves, came and found them, accepting them into the band of Wormrider outlaws left after the death of Selim Wormrider. The Poritrin refugees joined that population, and Ishmael met Selim's widow, Marha, who had kept alive the ideals of her husband.

Naib of the Free Men#

Ishmael took in Marha's son El'hiim and once saved the boy's life from scorpions in the desert. He and Marha came to feel a mutual attraction and married, and around that time Ishmael became the Naib of the Wormriders' village. After Marha's death, which followed El'hiim's failed wish to bring offworld scientists to treat her, Ishmael, having adopted Selim's ideals, distrusted outsiders all the more; Marha had made him swear to shelter and advise her son.

When El'hiim came of age and became Naib, he proved radically different from his stepfather, trusting offworlders and insisting the people trade spice for goods. Ishmael often scorned this view but respected El'hiim's position. After the village was raided by slavers, the two undertook a pilgrimage into the Tanzerouft on a sandworm to remind El'hiim of the wild desert life, only to return and find the village devastated and young men and women carried off. Ishmael organized a counter-raid against the slavers' camp, and in the fray he caught the unrepentant Tlulaxa Wariff and, recalling Aliid's old words, commanded his men to take payment in blood and return it to the desert as water.

Schism and exile#

The raid deepened the rift between Ishmael and El'hiim, who argued over the draining of their enemies' water and over contact with offworlders. Unable to reconcile, Ishmael challenged his adopted son to a duel and disowned him, slapping him twice in the custom of deepest insult. When El'hiim would not fight, Ishmael demanded a sandworm duel. The two charged their worms at each other, but Ishmael lost control of his mount and El'hiim drove it off, winning the contest and the leadership of the clan. Defeated, Ishmael led several Zensunni supporters out of El'hiim's village into the dangerous Tanzerouft, where they vowed to build their own isolated settlements and shun all contact with outsiders.