Terrorist No. Twenty Novel

The Terrorist No. Twenty Novel is a Saudi novel published in 2006 by Saudi poet and novelist Abdullah Thabit. It presents a fictional parallel to the events of September 11, 2001, in the United States.

The novel is a fictional account of a presumed participant in the September 11 attacks, Zahi al-Jabali. It portrays a journey of exploration, deep immersion into the environment from which the protagonist emerged, and radical transformation leading back to a simple, natural state free from affectation or complexity. The novel offers insight into the mind and thoughts of one of the event's participants.

Abdullah Thabit wrote the novel between 1999 and 2005, and the first edition was published in 2006. It has been translated into French. Thabit has also authored C.V. Haram (Prohibited C.V.), Mayyal... Rijal bi Bab al-Qabu (Mayyal: Men at the Basement Door), and Wajh al-Na'im (The Sleeper's Face).

Abdullah Thabit introduced his work by saying: "This is a book I made a deliberate effort not to classify. My intent was for you to get to know Zahi al-Jabali—the one who was a definite possibility to complete the group of nineteen killers in September in America, making him the twentieth terrorist. He was an even stronger candidate to complete the list of twenty-six, as he is the twenty-seventh terrorist in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I struggled greatly with how to present these two possibilities, and in the end, I decided to let the work unfold naturally, giving Zahi the space to speak for himself in his own way—one that I choose not to define! .'