The Theocrat: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) (13 page)

One day in the month of Muharram in
A.H
. 395 a strange-looking man in Sufi garb appeared at the Banu Qurra oasis. I le was grasping a thick stick and carried a coffeepot on his back that he used to wash himself before praying. He used to pray, go into seclusion, and meditate a great deal. People described him as a man in his thirties, tall and thin, with olive-brown complexion, a flowing beard, and prominent eyebrows. His expression suggested vigor, seriousness, and piety. During the first days of his stay in the tribe’s guesthouse he was much honored and respected, but he only spoke in gestures and signs. When he did compose sentences, it was only to curse all tyrants, beg for mercy on his forebears, and ask for God’s forgiveness. For a long time the tribe remained puzzled by their guest’s identity, origin, and purpose, but then their shaykh, named Abu al-Mahasin, chose a quiet, moonlit night to sit down with his guest and join him in his ruminations and protestations. It took a great deal of patience and much effort, but eventually the shaykh managed to get his guest to talk and give him some information. As morning was almost breaking, he emerged with praises and thanksgiving and spoke to his tribesmen as follows.

“Good news, fellow tribesmen! This man is a gift to us from God. His nickname is Abu Rakwa, but his real name is al-Walid. He is a descendant of Hisham ibn ‘Abd al-Malik ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Nasir, scion of the Umawi family. He was exiled from Spain when the tyrant courtier, al-Mansur ibn Abi ‘Amir, placed the young heir-apparent, al-Mu‘ayyad
Hisham, under guardianship and married the boy’s mother, Subh. He then set about killing the other members of the ruling dynasty in Cordoba. Many of them were murdered, but others managed to escape. One of them was our honored guest, Abu Rakwa, who at the time was twenty years old. Since then he has spent an entire decade of his life travelling to Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and holy Mecca, seeking knowledge and teaching the young the word of God and His Prophet—peace be upon him! It is indeed good news that he has joined our company after being ejected from Kinana territory by their governor.”

No sooner had the shaykh finished speaking than Abu Rakwa appeared at his side. Kissing Abu al-Mahasin on the forehead, he proceeded to address the awe-struck tribesmen in a quavering, emotional tone: “Hail to you, proud Arabs of the Banu Qurra! What your revered shaykh has divulged to you about me is the truth. Furthermore, since you are all keen to know every detail about me, I will not conceal from you the secret particulars of my situation. Before I depart at sunset today, you shall know everything …”

With that Abu Rakwa paused for a moment, as though to recoup his energy. Abu al-Mahasin and all the tribesmen present sat down. Then Abu Rakwa started an eloquent address in a gentle, lilting voice:

    Tyranny and treason expelled me from Spain.

    I have become an ascetic, O people! Today I have no wives to impregnate.

    My only possessions are my coffee-pot, my cloak, and my stick; I use them to protect my honor and the last shred of my persona! protection.

    As an ascetic I roam God’s earth, passing my time in prayer and teaching children.

    I have presented the other life to the peoples of Egypt and Syria,

    My heart being open to them like a blossom.

    Have I not advised them to be patient and forbearing?

    
“Patience, patience!” I told them. “Even though your skin be flayed and the outrages of the tyrant al-Hakim spread abroad,

    have I not proclaimed sweetness in word and deed?!

    I have glorified love, and before the people

    I have been extolling the exchange of flower petals and concealing rocks.

    …

    Thus I have occulted the life of power

    And fraternized the exultations of seasons and dew.

    I have welcomed glad tidings and expressed my joy;

    I have climbed rocks,

    I have pledged allegiance to the sea,

    I have told people: You beloved who remain,

    There is nothing so sweet as to intensify my great longing for you all.

    …

    I have said what I have said; I have made claims.

    Time has passed, and another time has come

    Bringing with it a cursed era of one who rules by tyranny, with chains and wires on feet and neck,

    introducing things inconceivable to eye and ear: tiny coffins, destruction, women in prison, men whose souls gush out on sword blades,

    terrified faces, wordless inquisitions,

    the River Nile overflowing with the blood of victims and the heads of the innocent.

    …

    By the light of what the eye has witnessed:

    The seed of all peace is but a false promise;

    The windmill of waiting no longer draws any wind,

    resolve is flagging, and suffering is all that remains.

    By the light of what the eye has witnessed, we must confess:

    Faced with such misery, in the most forceful sense of—that word.

    The schemes of the hermit are mere folly and deceit.

    We must confess:

    All my words about strategy in the face of such miseries are crippled,

    My ideas about abstinence in the face of power have failed,

    And my head has become utterly useless.

    My eye still bears the dusty tears of the eternal

    As I contemplate the foaming blood that bursts from the history of inquisitions and wounds without number.

When Abu Rakwa had finished, he fell to the ground exhausted. His audience was thunderstruck. It felt as if they had just heard something they had been anticipating for a long time; or as if a set of pearls had long been hidden away within their innermost feelings, in the recesses of their memories and very beings; all that was needed was for someone to open them up and array them neatly in the realm of their current consciousness. As they sat there feeling such sensations, a young man named Shihab al-Din ibn Mundhir, fully armed and renowned among his tribe for his courage and eloquence, stood up and said, “Peerless counselor, our life here is not as we would like it to be! Seasons of lack and burning hot days have brought us low. We have gone into exile, with rocks for our beds; in years of drought we have wandered aimlessly. We have headed for streams and valleys, saying, ‘Maybe there is salvation in water.’ Down poured the water and destroyed our crops. Some folk said, ‘Maybe there is salvation in sun and sand.’ yet we became parched and exhausted. We fell into despair. At the very edge of disaster we found an escape in raids on other tribes. Some battles we won, others we lost. Yes indeed, O peerless counselor, our life is not as we would wish it! With every death, every famine, we are enveloped in silence. If we so much as raise our heads, the army of al-Hakim takes us prisoner and burns everything. As you can
see, only despair remains, just like an axe digging ditches and hollows throughout our terrain.

“We beseech you by God, you who are descended from nobility and like us realize full well the hard yoke of oppression and tyranny, do not forsake us when the sun goes down today or in future days, do not forsake us when you have come to purge our minds and eradicate all memory of our mourning. Do not forsake us now that you have shown us the way to transform our despair and trauma into a great boon.”

Many voices were raised to echo Shihab al-Din’s thoughts, as one word or another was repeated. The import of them all was the expressed desire that Abu Rakwa stay with the tribe and discuss its present and future situation with the chiefs. At this point the shaykh of the Banu Qurra stood up, silenced the crowd, and addressed them all in a forthright tone, “By God, men of our tribe, if you want Abu Rakwa to stay with us and adjudicate our dispute with the Zanata tribes, then I’m with you But if you expect him to bring you all victory against your closest enemies, then let him be! Leave him out of your obsessions and strategies and let him go on his way.”

Expressions of disappointment and opposition greeted this speech; some men even looked angry. As soon as Abu Rakwa noticed their reaction, he quickly interceded. “The revered shaykh is absolutely right. By Him who created the heavens and changes circumstances, I have no intention of remaining among you if it is only some sinister purpose that draws your hearts toward me. I will not join you in any project to bring you victory over your imagined foes, those fellow inhabitants of these desert wastes who share with you a life full of hardships. I am firmly convinced that you and they are partners in misery and deprivation; the only reason why you fight each other is because you are so alike, each one of you trying to erase his own weakness by erasing that of people who find themselves in the very same plight or worse. You attack each other, totally forgetting the one who is the cause of all the misery and making much of his tyrannical power. I want you all to realize that there flows within the veins of your tribe, of your enemies—the Zanata tribe, and of others
as well, a single kind of blood. There is no question of similarity or difference; that blood is the blood of piety and faith. Your only enemy is the person who has burned you and sucked you all dry, then tossed you into the desert wastes where food and drink are so scarce.”

What was foremost in their minds was the memory of the accursed fire that al-Hakim the Fatimid had unleashed against them all. With that thought burning inside, none of them had any trouble at all appreciating what Abu Rakwa was referring to. Their expressions showed clearly enough that they both understood and accepted what he was saying. Abu Rakwa seized the opportunity to add, “Noble Arabs! Are you happy to see al-Hakim dispatching his devotees into Egypt and Syria to disseminate slanderous and demeaning images of you to people far and wide? They claim that you are all tyrants and rapists, the very dregs of the Arabs, people who earn a living by raiding caravans on the pilgrimage route to Mecca; that you shed the blood of women and children; and that no sooner do you settle anywhere than you destroy everything, greenery and shrubs, and start spreading apostasy and destruction. They keep repeating these calumnies and worse. How much longer are you going to allow yourselves to be despised like this and to go on living in this terrible environment with such a reputation? How much longer are you going to waste your time fighting stupid and unjust wars against people who are just as weak as you are? Do you really want to let this desert keep on piling its life of poverty and suffering on top of your heads? By Him who has the power and the authority, I shall return to my own haunts if you do not change your ways and seek to achieve in this world the justice, glory, and divine unity that God has promised.”

Abu Rakwa’s words struck at the very souls of his listeners; his import hit its target cold and clear. Words of admiration and blessing filled the air. In an atmosphere charged with awe and outbursts of hope and promise, the shaykh of the Banu Qurra quickly gave his support to what Abu Rakwa had said, anxious as he was to make him feel part of the community, saying, “Tribesmen, what our distinguished guest has just told us is absolutely true! It is a sign of sheer cowardice and malice
for weak people to keep attacking others who are just as weak as they are; any victory gained by one weak tribe over another is vain stupidity. From today there will be no more wars against our indigent peer tribes; instead we’ll concentrate our attention on what really matters. Most important of all is for us to demonstrate to mankind that we are Arabs with pride and dignity. It is no part of our nature to commit obscenities, be they overt or covert, nor to condone illegalities such as highway robbery on pilgrims to God’s house or shedding the blood of minors and innocents. No! Our most important task now is to join with our peers in cutting off all types of tyranny and injustice and to carry the fight to the core of Fatimid rule. Then we will pull out evil by its roots, and, in so doing, earn the bounty of this world and the reward of the next. Praise be to God who has sent the sage guide and imam. Abu Rakwa, to us at this particular moment.”

Barely had Shaykh Abu al-Mahasin finished speaking before the young man, Shihab al-Din ibn Mundhir stood up again and spoke, “Abu Rakwa, for us it will be the greatest of good fortune to support you and march behind you. Today you are our only guide, while we are your only source of power. However, before we make a pact with you and give you our pledges as imam, answer us this question in God’s name. Don’t you think you are rushing things and moving ahead too quickly? For the peace you advocate, you are relying on our hands alone, without consulting the views of those who have been our foes.”

Abu Rakwa responded to this sound objection in a calm, confident voice, “God honor you! Don’t you realize that before I came to stay with you, I spent some time with the Zanata tribe? While I was there, I taught their children and listened to their complaints about the rule of those renegade Fatimids. I could see for myself how much they have suffered under the fierce tyranny of al-Hakim. On more than one occasion their leaders and sages spoke to me about their feelings toward you. I was thus able to confirm their view that the ongoing wars against you were a futile waste of time and effort, something they only did with the utmost reluctance and with hearts full of sorrow and bitterness. So, may God
support you with His light, you should all know for sure that, if you were to opt for peace at a mere stroll, they would join you at the run; if you asked for a limited truce, they would seek a permanent one. So don’t be so certain that your very determination is fruitless, nor so supercilious that your gain comes too easily. You Arabs of the Banu Qurra, if you really want an irrevocable peace with the Zanata tribe and others who share with you an adherence to the true religion of Islam, then as of tomorrow I am prepared to serve as a messenger to lay the groundwork for a truce and to work out specific terms and objectives. If on the other hand you are scared of possible outcomes, then you will have to let me sally forth deep into the desert where I can let the sands pile high above me.”