Three years ago, I published my first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game (second edition). Now, I say this not as a case of shameless self-promotion—well, not just that—but to give a reason why the name of the female half of the San Bernardino Terrorist duo bothered me, why I kept pursuing it, and what I discovered.

The hero of my novel is one Malik Shabazz Hayes. My Malik isn’t a Muslim, but the name has some background other than being the nom de guerre of the yammering idiot who used to be the chairman of the latest iteration of the Black Panther Party.

After Malcolm X made his first and only Hajj and repudiated the ideology of the Nation of Islam, he changed his name to el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz. Since then, countless black Americans who idolized Malcolm—mostly for his NOI-based exhortation of self-reliance—have named their sons Malik, whether they adhered to Islam or not.

During his NOI stint, Malcolm had been based at NOI’s Temple #1 in Detroit and my creation,  Malik Hayes, was from Detroit, and so it made sense to name my character thusly.

And here’s a bit of dialog from the novel.

Malik also means ‘king.’ Therefore, when the name of the female terrorist was revealed as Tashfeen Malik, it seemed wrong.

I searched around for her background and the names of her parents. Those were found, but the parents’ names were different from her’s and the implicit question in my mind remained: would a Pakistani girl raised in Saudi Arabia be named Malik?

I raised this question to my Facebook friends and one of them came through with a link from Palestinian ex-terrorist, ex-Muslim Walid Shoebat. Tashfeen Malik is a man’s name. Oh and not just any man.

Tashfeen Malik (King) is a nom de guerre for a Muslim Jihadist from the annals of Muslim history. As he is known to Muslims “تاشفين ملك الموحدين” Tashfeen Malik Al-Muahideen, in English: Tafhseen King of the Unitarians (Muslims) and the conquerer of the west. The history stems from when Yusuf ibn Tashfin led the Muslim forces in the Battle of Zallaqa/Sagrajas. He came to Andalusia from Morocco to help the Muslims fight against Alfonso VI, eventually achieving victory and allowing the Muslims to remain in Spain for centuries. The battle has been symbolic for Muslim victory against the Christians.

(Note: the link was posted before the true(?) photo of “Tashfeen Malik” was presented to mainstream news agencies and Mr. Shoebat posts photos mistakenly identifying a relative of Syed Farook as Malik.)

To recap, a terrorist using a fake name and a fictitious address came into this country on a K-1 fiancé visa. And she was “vetted” by our government.

Does President Obama intend to flood the zone with terrorists by allowing many more like her into the country under the guise of being poor, tired, hungry, cold refugees?

Forget I asked.

Juliette A. Ochieng blogs here as baldilocks. You can get an autographed copy of her novel here or a non-autographed copy at Amazon.

UPDATE: (Juliette) Hot Air commenter Walter L. Newton provides us with this link from TMZ, in which a living girl named Tashfeen Malik claims to be receiving all manner of abuse via Twitter.

A woman who shares a name with San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik says she’s getting slammed with anti-Islam threats — and that’s AFTER she made it clear to all … she’s not a terrorist.

(…)

She stands firm, saying she won’t change her Twitter name or privacy settings.

There is no mention of her Twitter name, but I found it and will do her the courtesy of not posting it here. She is Indian.

All other searches of the name ‘Tashfeen Malik’ produce male subjects—other than the terrorist, of course.

I haven’t changed my mind.