They walked down the vast thoroughfares of the city escorted by liveried horsemen and footmen in dogari uniform, courtiers the emir had sent to the city gates to bid his guests welcome. All around them, they could hear fragments of idle banter, and snatches of earnest wrangling, and snippets of intense conversation in Hausa, Yorùbá, Nufi and Filani, the chief languages of the mixed inhabitants of the flourishing metropolis. Word of their arrival had spread through the city on the wings of hearsay and by the time they reached the palace a large crowd trailed behind them as far as the eye could see. As they were led into the inner courtyard to meet the emir, greetings in Hausa and Yorùbá rang out from every corner.
‘Barka da zuwa!’
‘Ẹ káàbọ̀!’
‘Barka da sauka!’
‘Ẹ kú ewù ọ̀nà!’
King Aliyu was attired in long, billowing trousers of the latest Turkish style: fashionably scarlet, gathered at the ankles; over this, he wore a richly embroidered silk damask gown, the neckline sparkling with gold lace, and a glittering, purple-red cloak. The musky fragrance and floral aroma exuding from His Majesty were the hallmark of a brand of perfume that had travelled over the Blue Nile and along the White Nile, beyond the Sahara and across the Niger to reach the emir’s palace in the city of Ìlọrin from the souks of Khartoum.
It fell to the old man to do the honours, to present his caravan of Babel to the emir, since he was the group’s sarkin harshuna, its language king, fluent as he was in Yorùbá, English, Hausa, Ibo, German, Greek, Latin, Krio, Temne, and with more than a smattering of Arabic, Portuguese, Aramaic, Nufi and a few other tongues under his command.
‘Ran sarki ya dade,’ he said in Hausa, Long May His Majesty Live, when finally it was his turn to present himself. ‘My name is Shammil. In Turanci, they call me Samuel. I am a messenger of Jesus Christ the Son of God and the Saviour of the World.’
Everyone sensed the old man had dropped a bombshell in his introduction, but no one quite knew what the bombshell was, or why it was a bombshell, and if it wasn’t a bombshell, why in the name of the Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, they thought it was.
A hush descended on the courtyard.
Finally the king said, ‘What exactly does that mean, Mallam Shammil?’
‘I am a limami,’ the old man hastened to explain in language that would be clear, and not lead to head-scratching. ‘A Christian limami. I teach the addini of Christianity.’
This time everyone understood him. A Christian imam was certainly a person they’d heard of, although they couldn’t think of a single reason why they would require the services of such a man – a man whose calling was to go around teaching the religion of Christianity – but they were glad to make his acquaintance.
Now he’d explained himself, they followed the king’s example and beamed at the old man.
‘Limami Shammil,’ said the king. ‘We have heard all manner of things about Christianity. But there’s still a great deal we do not know. Who do you hold fast in your addini, the Prophet Muhammad or Annabi Isa?’
‘Annabi Isa,’ the old man replied.
‘So we gather,’ said the king. ‘So we gather. You must tell us more about your addini. You must enlighten us. But tonight I won’t detain you any further; you’ve had a long journey. Tomorrow is another day.’
But as they turned to take leave of the emir, a voice announced in Yorùbá, ‘We hold the Prophet fast.’ The voice was quiet, but the tone was unmistakably pugnacious. It was the voice of the emir’s limami. The old man turned to face him. ‘What does your Book say of the Prophet?’ the limami asked him. It was clear from his belligerent tone that he knew the answer to his question. ‘We understand that Moses, Noah, Solomon, Joseph, David, Gabriel, Jonah, even Lot’s wife appear in your Book, but not the Prophet Muhammad. What have you got to say about that?’
‘Nothing,’ the old man replied. ‘Nothing except to say that it’s true our Bible is silent about the Prophet Muhammad, but the Bible does have a sound reason for being silent about the Prophet Muhammad: the Prophet did not establish his doctrine until six hundred and twenty-two years after the death of Christ.’
Dandeson watched the limami soak in this information. He could feel the jitters running through the audience. Clearly, the limami was a powerful man, a man whose opinion carried weight. Even the emir appeared to deem it prudent not to pre-empt his verdict on the old man’s answer. Finally, he bestowed his seal of approval on it with the appearance of a thin smile on the edge of his lips; the old man’s answer had passed muster. A murmur of relief swept through the courtyard: the limami was mollified.
The limami was mollified, but far from won over: he quickly reached for a dare dressed up as a harmless question and aimed it squarely between the old man’s eyes.
‘Limami,’ he said, ‘which is the fuller: your Book or the Holy Koran?’
The courtyard was now packed. Every single adviser of the king was there, every person of eminence was in attendance; every personality normally to be found in the corridors of power was present; and they were all keenly aware that the palace limami’s question wasn’t nearly as innocent as it sounded or quite as throwaway as it seemed. It was a bait; a trap calculated to ensnare the Christian limami into committing haram, into an utterance that might be deemed sacrilegious. They all waited, keenly, for the old man to respond.
He did so by reaching into his bag. ‘I’m glad you asked,’ he said.
He brought out several books, placing them side by side as he pulled each out of the bag. He brought out two copies of the Bible: one in English, the King James Version; the other, Bibeli Mimọ, the Yorùbá translation, a work-in-progress. He brought out the Book of Common Prayer and a selection of translations from it, Ìwé Àdúà Yorùbá; and finally, he brought out Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language and the Reverend Samuel Crowther’s A Vocabulary of the Yorùbá Language.
‘Bibeli Mimọ,’ he pointed at Bibeli Mimọ, ‘is the Yorùbá translation of the scriptures, of this,’ he pointed at the KJV. ‘When I read a passage from the English Bible, which is also known as the King James Version, I can interpret what I’ve read into Yorùbá by reading the same passage here, in Bibeli Mimọ.’
The gathering listened in rapt, if slightly bemused, attention. They watched as he now picked up the KJV. ‘Our Bible is very full,’ he said to the limami. ‘It contains many books from which certain subjects were picked out or touched upon in the Koran when it was composed.’ He looked at the limami and paused. ‘Even as we speak,’ he continued when the limami did not respond, ‘there are now in Stamboul, and in Mizra, and Smyrna, Christian missionaries spreading the truths of the Gospel, which are being examined and embraced by many members of your faith in those countries. Here, too, at Lagos, Abẹ́òkuta, Ibadan, Bonny, Brass, Nun, Onitsha and Lokoja, we have established schools to carry out Christ’s exhortation in the Gospel of Matthew: Matthew chapter twenty-eight, verse nineteen.’ He rustled through the leatherbound volume: ‘“Go ye therefore and teach all nations.”’ He picked up Bibeli Mimọ and read out the same passage.
Next, he read out the same passages, in English and Yorùbá, from the prayer book. As he was reading from Ìwé Àdúà Yorùbá, he read out a word which seemed to draw blank looks from his audience. He immediately paused and reached for the Yorùbá dictionary. He found the word and read out the definition.
A look of stupefied incredulity immediately gripped the limami’s face. Without so much as a salaam alaikum, he plucked the Yorùbá prayer book from the old man’s hands and proceeded to lift it up to the heavens, then he brought it back down to earth, lowering it so much he had to hunch down after it; he held it close to his nose, then away from it. He even shook it, as if by doing so he might dislodge the amulet he knew to be concealed within its pages; it would reveal itself by dropping out. When his detailed inspection failed to reveal a hidden charm, he finally deigned to leaf through the book and study it. He was a theological scholar, but his purview was Arabic; the Latin alphabet now staring back at him was an undecipherable mystery, but not the principle behind it. He understood the principle and now, finally, allowed himself to be overwhelmed with a combination of unabashed awe and a feeling of exhilaration that felt very much like panic, because it was panic.
‘Limami Shammil,’ he addressed the old man, talking to him as if they hadn’t just met, as if they’d known each other all their lives. ‘You mean to tell me, Limami Shammil, that you can just open this book and it will tell you the meaning of a word?’
‘Not all words,’ the old man replied, ‘but that’s the general idea. That’s what a dictionary does.’
‘Your Majesty, what a clever idea,’ the limami gasped, turning to the king. ‘What an utterly clever idea! Who composed this litaffi?’
‘Well . . .’ said the old man.
Dandeson pointed to the old man. ‘He did. See that on the cover? That’s the writer’s name. Reverend Samuel Crowther. This is he. This is Samuel Crowther. He’s no longer a reverend, though. He’s now a bishop. He’s been promoted. The translation you’ve heard from the Bible is also his work. My father began this work of translation a year before I was born. That’s how long it’s taken him, and there’s still a few more Books to go.’
‘How old are you?’ someone asked.
‘I’m thirty-six years old.’
‘He’s applied himself to this one task for thirty-seven years!’
‘Allahu Akbar.’
‘And the Book of Prayer?’ enquired the limami. ‘Limami Shammil, is that your handiwork as well?’
Dandeson was beginning to warm towards the fellow.
‘I wasn’t going to mention that,’ Dandeson said. ‘But since you did, limami. You’re quite right. The translator of Ìwé Àdúà Yorùbá does indeed stand in our midst: Samuel Adjai Crowther.’
‘Did he say Adjai?’ someone muttered.
‘He did.’
‘He’s speaking through his nose. That’s how you say Àjàyí when you speak yenyenyen.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Through your nose.’
‘With a name like Àjàyí, he must be one of us.’
‘Is he really? I thought he was one of those kiri yó people from Saliyo.’
The old man turned to the courtiers and said, ‘I am one of you and I am from Sierra Leone.’
‘See?’ the courtier said. ‘I told you he’s from Saliyo.’
‘Now we want to know more about you, Limami Shammil,’ said the limami.
‘Where are you from?’ the king asked. ‘How did you become so knowledgeable? You must tell us!’
With some reluctance, the old man agreed to tell them the story of his life, a story that began with the abduction of a young boy nearly sixty years earlier in a town called Òṣogùn.