Because the society [of Umm al-qura] is concerned only with the religious renaissance, it has found it necessary to pin its hopes on the Arabian Peninsula and its dependencies, and on its people and their neighbors, and to lay before the eyes of the Muslim nation the characteristics of the peninsula, of its people and of the Arabs in general, in order to eliminate political and racial fanaticism as well as to explain why the society has shown preference for the Arabs. We therefore say:
The peninsula is the place from which the light of Islam originated.
It contains the exalted Kaaba.
In it is found the Prophet’s Mosque and the holy ground of his house, pulpit, and grave.
The peninsula is the most suitable center for religious policy, since it lies halfway between the Far East of Asia and the Far West of Africa.
Of all countries it is the most free of racial, religious, or sectarian inter-mixture.
It is the most removed of all Muslim countries from the vicinage of foreigners.
The peninsula is most worthy to be a land of free men, owing to its remoteness and natural poverty which preserve it from the greedy and the ambitious.
The Arabs of the peninsula have Islamic unity because religion appeared among them.
The habit of religion has become ingrained in them because religion is more compatible with their social customs than with those of others.
Of all Muslims they are the most knowledgeable in the principles of Islam as they are the oldest to practice it; many hadiths give witness to the strength of their faith.
The Arabs of the peninsula are the most zealous of all Muslims in preserving religion, in supporting it, and in glorying in it, especially as that zeal for the Prophet’s cause is still alive among them in the Hijaz, in the Yemen, in Aman, in Hadramaut, in Iraq, and in Africa.
The religion of the peninsula Arabs is still governed by the right example of the ancients, free of excess and confusion.
Of all other Muslims, the peninsula Arabs possess the strongest esprit de corps and are the most proud because of the Bedouin characteristics which they possess.
The princes of the peninsula Arabs descend from noble fathers and mothers and are married to noble consorts of good birth; their honor remains untainted.
The peninsula Arabs are the most ancient of nations in having a polished civilization, as is shown by the proliferation and the excellence of their wisdom and their literature.
Of all Muslims, the peninsula Arabs are the best able to bear hardships in order to attain their aims, and to undertake travel and residence abroad, because they have not succumbed to the servile habits of luxury.
The peninsula Arabs preserve better than all other peoples their race and customs, for though they mingle with others they do not mix with them.
The peninsula Arabs are, of all the Muslim nations, the most jealous of their freedom and independence and those who most reject oppression.
Of the Arabs in general, their language, of all the languages of the Muslims, takes greatest care of knowledge; it is preserved from extinction by the noble Qur’an.
The language of the Arabs is the language common to all the Muslims, who number 300 million souls.
The language of the Arabs is the native language of 100 million people, Muslim and non-Muslim.
The Arabs are the oldest of nations in following the principles of equality in rights and in eschewing great disparities in society.
The Arabs are the oldest peoples to practice the principle of consultation in public matters.
The Arabs know best, of all people, the principles of socialist living.
The Arabs are amongst the most noble of people in respecting treaties, and the most human in keeping faith, and the most chivalrous in respecting the rights of vicinage, and the most generous in doing of good deeds.
The Arabs are of all nations the most suitable to be an authority in religion and an example to the Muslims; the other nations have followed their guidance at the start and will not refuse to follow them now.
Translated by Sylvia G. Haim1
Qays: |
How still the night! It stirs within me yearning |
Munazil: |
What is this wraith approaching through the darkness? |
Qays: |
Well met Munazil! |
Munazil: |
Do I see Qays come to the shadow of tents? |
Qays: |
Whence comest thou, Munazil? |
Munazil: |
From being with her, |
Qays: |
Com’st thou from Layla with thy dragging skirts? |
Munazil: |
Nay, I do speak truly. |
Qays: |
A shame upon thee! When didst thou speak truth? |
Munazil: |
As men wont: |
|
(Qays springs at him) |
Ziyad: |
Munazil! Qays! Get thee back, Qays! Leave me |
Munazil: |
Wouldst thou school me, Ziyad, |
Ziyad: |
Who ever said thou art a match for Qays? |
|
(Exeunt fighting) |
Qays: |
Layla! |
|
(al-Mahdi comes out of the tent) |
al-Mahdi: |
Who calls? Is’t Qays? Why tarriest thou, |
Qays: |
I was at home, until |
al-Mahdi: |
Layla! Wait, Qays. Layla! |
Layla: |
What ails my father? |
(from the tent) |
|
al-Mahdi: |
Thy cousin’s here: they have no fire at home. |
|
(Layla appears at the tent door) |
Layla: |
My cousin Qays! We bid thee welcome, Qays! |
Qays: |
God give the life and all thy heart’s desires! |
Layla: |
‘Afra! |
‘Afra: |
My mistress? |
Layla: |
Hither! We have dues |
|
(Exeunt) |
Qays: |
Layla has granted me this casual need: |
|
(Layla enters) |
Layla: |
Qays! |
Qays: |
If only Layla |
Layla: |
Well are we met, and this fair hour that joins us |
Qays: |
Meanest thou this? |
Layla: |
My heart’s not stone or iron. Thou hast a heart: |
Qays: |
My mind is all distraught: how shall I speak, |
Layla: |
Nay, tell me this: why lovest thou the desert? |
Qays: |
Art jealous, Layla, |
|
(Layla see the flame of the torch almost at his sleeve) |
Layla: |
What do I see? |
Qays: |
Layla? |
Layla: |
Have a care! |
Qays: |
How many a dawn breeze |
Layla: |
Peril assails thee. Fling away the coal: |
|
(Qays flings away the brand; then, angrily) |
Qays: |
And many a wolf, |
Layla: |
O Qays, thou didst not know thy hand was burning. |
Qays: |
Thou kindles in my heart a fire of passion |
|
(He reels, and is about to faint) |
Layla: |
What ails thee. Qays? O, speak: say what assails thee! |
Layla: |
Help, father, help! Qays has been burnt, he lies |
|
(Her father comes from the tent) |
|
Father, thou hast come: |
al-Mahdi: |
We are watched, Layla. |
Layla: |
Think not of watchers: they see naught but us, |
al-Mahdi: |
Now God preserve thee, |
|
(Qays tries to stand, and is supported by Layla) |
Qays: |
Yes, uncle? |
al-Mahdi: |
Enough: |
Layla: |
My father, do not wrong him! |
al-Mahdi: |
Shall I not wrong him, seeing he wronged his own? |
Layla: |
Seest thou not, father, he is like a branch |
al-Mahdi: |
Child, leave us: do not fan my kindled wrath |
Qays: |
Layla, enough: |
Layla: |
How did Qays sin? |
al-Mahdi: |
Hast thou forgot men’s tales? |
Qays: |
Uncle, they lie. |
al-Mahdi: |
The thicket—was ’t at night |
Qays: |
Not alone |
al-Mahdi: |
Get thee gone, Qays. Begone! |
Qays: |
Uncle, be merciful to Qays and Layla: |
al-Mahdi: |
Get thee gone. |
|
(Exit Qays) |
Translated by A. J. Arberry2
Every day another reception and garlands of rhetoric over a tomb. This man taught the nation nothing, planted no deserts with pylons. We remnants are enriched, but his friends and family were impoverished Slander arrested him in kennels of aphrodisiac and hashish
But beams make tears of what they play on. He filled ears and throat With the turmoil of his presence first, then with his stiff quiet. Unthought stresses of voice and instrument replaneted his firmament Beyond the mason on the site he built for duration Set for perpetuity more than the seedsman, explored properties Rare in the luckiest tendril or the talented stone.
The sands were dry and ready for the fall.
An Alexandrian nightingale with sky-nest
Lighted on the shore from a dark flowering hill
He chose where only the kites circled in a cleft
An hour when the food-gatherers were away busy
He chose to struggle with the two horizons
And alert as a parrot he intercepted.
The surprise of the world’s shouts and whispers.
A frenzy in the sands was fretting
For his harangues and elegiac speech.
For soliloquies on the reed
And sighs which through gaping notches
Achieve the slopes and parapets
In continents of the pure dead.
The house of earth was opened, down its corridors of art
Consolation was blown from the cool belts. And do not lament
For art. There is always nourishment streaming in the crevices of air,
The calendar’s quickening restores the corpses, and the meteors
In the shafts of Karnak make bonfires among the pillars
And what washes through Egypt is tired and brilliant as wax.
The master, relaxed: the end of his blaze was disaster.
He quitted his disquiet, even the random and epilectic
Revelations, by which be committed more monuments to us
Than legions have left banners in this sand.
Still in the lay kingdom chants a boy,
Frail as bamboo, pink with tossing
The ball of twine that cradles space
He clings to the suburbs, restless, locking his hands
—And the premise of art is an alabaster blush.
Translated by Herbert Howarth and Ibrahim Shakrullah3
To God all religions belong—whomever
He wills, He guides,
Calling each single soul through the voice
Of Faith to His side,
The many Faiths that exist, no hostile
Feeling or strife
Ever must quicken to birth in those to
Whom he has given life.
All creeds and holy books, all messengers
From God’s hand,
Are treasures beyond price to those who
Understand.
The essence of all true Faiths, are God’s
Love and His fear,
The rock beneath His laws to all who serve
Him here.
In what those laws decree all goodness is
Enshrined,
Their interdicts ward off all evil for
Mankind.
Among their virtues, tolerance shines forth
With brightest gleam,
In holiness sublime, it crowns them all
Supreme.
Translated by Suheil Bushrui4
O bird crying on the acacia tree, alike are our sorrows
Should I grieve for your troubles or lament my own?
What tale have you to tell me?—only that the self-same hand
That laid my heart has pinioned your wing.
Exile has cast us both, fellow strangers,
In a grove not our own, where our kind never meet
Parting has struck us—you with a knife, me with a barbed arrow.
Roused by long, neither of us can move,
Our broken wings too weak to answer our will.
Child of the valley, nature has set us apart,
And yet affliction has brought us together.
You have not forsaken your drink for unquenched longing,
Sad memory, or countless similar sorrows,
Dragging your feet on the boughs, and your tail behind you,
You go in search of one who might heal you.
There are many to heal the body if we but seek them,
But where, O where the skillful healer of the soul?
Translated by M. Mustafa Badawi and John Heath-Stubbs5
Oh martyr of high purpose,
That voice of yours is sounding
Unchanged, today just as it
Was yesterday resounding.
It shouts out, saying “This is
A building I erected:
Consign not to destruction
This same thing I erected.”
It cries “Let not the people
Feel I am gone for ever,
And that those who survive me
Are quit of all endeavour.”
It orders us: “In God’s name,
Be ye not disunited:
Behave like men, and make not
Your enemies delighted.
My spirit, from this high place,
Looks down on you, surveying
Your actions for me, though I
Am here below decaying.
Sadden it not: my fear is,
Through promises forsaken,
By manifold misfortunes
You may be overtaken.”
Yes! You who for our welfare
The path of good presented,
Our whole life long, we’re ready;
So you may sleep contented.
Your building still is standing,
Your spirit still beside us;
Your voice we still are hearing,
Though distance may divide us.
We never saw you weeping,
You hated it when others
In neighbouring lands were weeping,
Among our suffering brothers.
Allow us one day’s weeping!
Then you will find us ready,
At dawn, as you would have us,
Like mountains, firm and steady.
Oh River Nile! If you should
Not flow, after his going,
Blood-red, I swear you will not,
Oh Nile, be truly flowing.
Oh grave! This guest you welcome
Gave hopes to a whole nation.
So praise God, and receive him,
Respectful, in prostration.
Our honour ’tis Mustafa
To see within you shaded,
A martyr to high purpose,
In manhood’s flower fast faded.
If we had lost him only,
Were he the sole departed,
Then could we find some solace
From sorrow brokenhearted.
We lost not but him only;
We lost all else beside him!
Oh would that fate could send him
A second life provide him!
Oh you who ask where honour
And manliness appear now?
Where wisdom, and sound judgement?
Alas! You see them here now.
How lucky for the English!
No more let them be frightened
Of any shouter, now that
The loudest shout is quietened!
Now he is dead—that man who
Revived in men their feeling;
Leading them on to glory,
Their shattered spirits healing.
I praised you in your life-time,
How weak my eulogizing!
Now you are dead, how strongly
I speak in elegizing!
For you we sorrow—therefore,
In sorrow unifying,
For you we weep—or wherefore
Is this whole nation crying?
Curer of human minds, he
Himself could not recover
From human ills within him
No cure could he discover.
You were alive and watchful,
While we were soundly sleeping:
You, when grief dulled our senses,
Were still your vigil keeping.
Egypt, if you his mem’ry
Fail to keep fresh within you
Until the Day of Judgement,
Your weakness will continue.
Egyptians, if you know not
The man we are regretting,
Know that the Star of Fortune
Has sunk unto its setting.
Thirty odd years your life-span,
Like thirty pearls all gleaming,
Strung on night’s necklace, brightly
Across the heavens streaming.
Their story will report you
Were no mere stripling, lacking
Companions to support you,
But a whole host, attacking!
Translated by John A. Haywood6
O noble company of Arabs! ye
My pride and boast, o’er every company,
Long have I hid your carelessness and sloth,
Yet not as one that might despise, or loathe,
But candidly, as if to wake a friend
Unconscious of vast perils that impend.
Long nights of intercession, and of pleas,
Your slumber kept me wakeful with unease,
Till I would cry, “Had ever nation kept
Its bed such centuries, as ye have slept?
Do ye not know, ’tis loss for those that drowse
Till noon, the spoils to them who early rouse?
Already ye outsleep, in countryside
As in built town, all men that ever died!
Ye are a folk whose chronicles abound
With noble deeds, since valour was renowned,
Yea, from when Qahtan found a hero’s grave
Even to Shaiban’s Qais, and Antar brave,
To that Quraishite orphan, who was lord
Of wisdom marvellous, and mighty sword,
Vessel of God’s revealing, battling down
Kisra, and spoiling Caesar of his crown;
And then that hero of the Arab host,
His wisdom mightiest his experience most,
And next the incomparable ruler, he
Who spread the bounds in peerless equity;
And Affan’s glorious son, who as he read
The scriptures, o’er the script his blood was shed;
And Ali, his bright sword to battle bared,
His voice from pulpit rapturously heard;
Those flashing stars innumerable that be,
Great generals, and dauntless soldiery;
Wise governors, that with accomplished skill
Revolved the world’s affairs upon their will;
Scholars profound, who shed true learning’s light
On human hearts, to guide mankind aright.”
All this I whispered in my people’s ear,
Softly persuasive, or cried loud and clear;
And all the while reverted, with the grief
Of one who would, but cannot, bring relief,
Unslumbering, yet through the nighttime drear
My faith and hope still gave my spirit cheer,
Like the pole-star immovable, a light
That lit my thoughts, and shone upon my sight.
In vain I hid; until the terror struck,
A ghost of malice, dusty locks that shook
Upon the wind, in armour helmeted
And terribly arrayed, with treacherous tread,
Able to soar in air, to march, to ride,
To see in murk, to traverse ocean wide.
“Now is the hour of peril come!” I said,
“That shall awake them! O my soul, be glad!
Danger’s the thing to stir a frozen soul,
A people’s screwed-up virtue to unroll!”
Translated by A. J. Arberry7
Thou charmedst angels, ere that man was made,
The sun desired thee, while the moon yet slept,
Ere sight descried, the ear in thee was glad,
The poem sang thee, ere the strings were swept:
Maiden so lovely, and so nobly staid!
The soul of love flutters to view thy face,
The argent moon yearns to behold thee rise
To rise like thee with more majestic grace.
The breeze of dawn watches with wondering eyes
To breathe as softly as thy whispering pace.
The wine of coquetry (O sweet delight!)
Swayeth thee lissom in thy symmetry;
Beauty in thee ascends the throne of might,
And orders with imperious majesty
Our minds, that in his chains are fettered tight.
Whene’er thy beauty is to eye displayed.
love seeketh quarter, and in reverence bows;
Before this light the lights of heaven fade,
Proud Time surrenders to thy gleaming brows,
Yea, Fate itself submits to thee, fair maid!
Translated by A. J. Arberry8
Dear companion! But for thee
Never flowed my melody;
Whensoe’er I sang, apart,
Thou wast dwelling in my heart.
Gardens put on brave array
To be gathered in, one day;
Let thy spirit’s ear attend
To my spirit’s echoes, friend;
Keep what beauty soundeth there,
And reject what is not fair—
Art may be in listening,
As it taketh art to sing—
And thou’lt prove a fecund field,
Seeded little, much to yield.
Quickened by the wind’s caress,
Clouds o’erbrim with fruitfulness;
So through thee such wealth I won
Is to greater riches grown.
What denotes the uttered word,
If by ear it not be heard?
Dawn hath brighter radiancy
When thou watchest it with me;
If thou walkest in my vine,
Greater yield, and peace, are mine.
Lo, I pour thee all the cup;
Drink it freely, drink it up,
And let others quaff thereof—
Fear not to offend my love;
As thou emptiest my bowl,
Sooner is it freshly whole;
To survive is more to give,
As, withheld, it cannot live.
God willed that we should lovers be
When loveliness created He;
The love He fashioned in thy heart
This same to mine He did impart.
Such was His will, as we confess:
His will cannot be purposeless;
What sin is then to disapprove,
If thou or I should chance to love?
Let the censorious have his say,
The spiteful lie, as lie he may:
What, shall the rivulet flow free,
The flower bloom in fragrancy,
Shall birds be ardent for the Spring
And April’s feast of blossoming,
And is the heart forbidden yet
To love, and to be passionate?
Come hither, then! Love’s diety
Invites thee to the wood, and me,
That he may pour us, soul to soul,
Like wine and spices in a bowl.
There in the wood the light divine
Shall be thy raiment, love, and mine:
What, wilt thou hearken what men say,
And men’s Creator disobey?
Love wills, that we with laughter gay
Should greet the laughing dawn of day;
Come, let us laugh, and lightly leap
With leaping brook, and river deep;
Come, let us sing, as biddeth love,
With nightingale and turtle-dove;
Who knoweth, when this day is o’er,
What dark adventures lie before?
Come hither, ere the blackbirds hush
Their golden song in golden bush,
Ere myrtle and narcissus fade,
And willow be in ruin laid,
Come, love, before the storms descend
And all my dreams are at an end,
No dawn to greet, no wine to take,
No bowl to pass, when we awake.
Translated by A. J. Arberry9
I am not the first one infatuated with the glorious maiden, for she is the Dream of all mankind.
I searched for her in the folds of dawn and darkness, I stretched my Hands out even to the stars.
I was told, “Be pious, for she evades all but the pious ascetic.”
So I buried my joys, divorced my desires, and silenced all signs of passion In my heart.
I smashed my flask before I was quenched, and refrained from eating When I was still hungry.
I thought I was approaching her speedily, but found that I had Approached only my ruin.
Like a garden denying itself its wealth of flora
To feel the sunlight in its soil and meet the breeze unmasked,
Only to find autumn creeping on it like night pitching a tent over a waste-Land;
I was like a bird that stripped itself of its shiny plumage
To become lighter, only to fall to the ground and be attacked by ants.
I lay me down to sleep hoping she was the daughter of dreams; but I Woke up mocking those who slept
For the world of slumber was not all joy, fearful things abounded in it.
When I dreamt of her I dreamt of a flower that could not be plucked, and A star that did not rise
On waking I saw nothing around me but my error, my bed, and my Room,
For he who drinks of the rivers of his fancy travels life with an insatiable Thirst.
Spring passed and she was not in the singing river or the fertile garden.
Winter came and she was not in its weeping clouds or crying thunder.
I glimpsed the flash of lightning and thought she was in it, but she was Not there.
Empty-handed, led astray by youth and conniving,
I felt my hopes to find her were dashed, my sturdy moorings cut off.
Sorrow pressed upon my soul, and it tearfully flowed. It was then that I Caught a glimpse of her and perceived her in my tears.
I learned, when learning was late, that she whom I had lost was always Here with me.
Translated by Issa Boullata and Naomi Shihab Nyei10
A link between this world and the next; a sweet fountain from which all thirsty souls drink; a tree planted on the river bank of beauty covered with ripened fruits desired by hungry hearts; a nightingale flitting among branches of words and singing melodies that fill the heart with gentleness and peace; a white cloud appearing in the twilight and rising and growing and filling the face of heaven and then pouring rain upon the flowers in the field of life; an angel sent by the gods to teach men divine knowledge; a bright lamp that no darkness can overcome, nor any bushel hide, filled with oil by Astarte, the goddess of love, and lit by Apollo, the god of music.
Clad in simplicity and fed upon gentility, he sits alone in nature’s lap to learn the miracle of creation and remains awake in the stillness of the night awaiting the descent of the spirit. He is the husbandman sowing the seeds of his heart in the fields of [feelings] so that mankind may feed upon the plentiful yield. This is the poet whom men ignore in this life and only recognize when he forsakes this world for his sublime abode. It is he who asks naught of men but a mere smile and whose breath rises and fills the horizon with beautiful living images; yet he is refused both bread and refuge by his fellow-men.
How long, O man, how long, O universe, will you erect mansions in honour of those who cover the face of the earth with blood, and ignore those who give you peace and joy and the beauty of themselves? How long will you glorify murderers and tyrants who have bent necks with the yoke of slavery, and forget the men who spend the light of their eyes in the darkness of the night to teach you the glory of daylight, those that spend their life a prey to misery so that no pleasure may pass you by? And you, O poets, who are the very essence of life, you have conquered the ages despite the cruelty of the ages; and you have won the laurels of glory plucked out from the thorns of vanity; you have built your kingdom in the hearts, and your kingdom has no end.
Translated by S. B. Bushrui11
From the depths of these depths
We call you, O Liberty—hear us!
From the corners of this darkness
We raise our hands in supplication—turn your gaze towards us!
On the expanse of these snows
We lay ourselves prostrate before you, have compassion upon us!
We stand now before your terrible throne
Wearing the blood-smeared garments of our fathers;
Covering our heads with the dust of the tombs mingled with their remains;
Drawing the swords which have been sheathed in their entrails;
Raising the spears that have pierced their breasts;
Dragging the chains that have withered their feet;
Crying aloud cries that have wounded their throats,
And lamentations that have filled the darkness of their prisons;
Praying prayers that have sprung out of the pain of their hearts—
Listen, O Liberty, and hear us!
From the sources of the Nile to the estuary of the Euphrates
The wailing of souls surging with the scream of the abyss rises;
From the frontiers of the peninsula to the mountains of Lebanon
Hands are outstretched to you, trembling in the agony of death;
From the coast of the gulf to the ends of the desert
Eyes are uplifted to you with pining hearts
Turn, O Liberty, and look upon us.
In the corners of huts standing in the shadow of poverty and humiliation,
Breasts are being beaten before you;
In the emptiness of houses erected in the darkness of ignorance and folly,
Hearts are cast before you;
And in the corners of houses buried in the clouds of oppression and tyranny, Spirits are longing for you—
Look upon us, O Liberty, and have compassion.
In schools and offices
Despairing youth calls upon you;
In the churches and mosques
The forsaken book invites you;
In the councils and courts
The neglected law implores you—
Have pity, O Liberty, and save us.
In our narrow streets
The merchant barters his days only to pay the thieves from the West,
And none is there to advise him!
In our barren fields
The peasant ploughs the earth with his finger-nails,
And sows the seeds of his heart and waters them with his tears,
And nothing does he harvest save thorns and thistles,
And none is there to teach him!
In our empty plains
The Bedouin walks bare-foot, naked and hungry
And none is there to have mercy upon him—
Speak, O Liberty, and teach us…
From the very beginning the darkness of the night has descended upon our souls How long until the dawn?
From prison to prison our bodies move, and the mocking ages pass us by—
How long are we to bear the mockery of the ages?
From yoke to heavier yoke our necks do pass
And the nations of the earth look at us and laugh—
How long shall we endure the mockery of nations?
From fetters to fetters our path leads us
And neither do the fetters disappear nor do we perish—
How long shall we remain alive?...
From the grasp of Pharaoh
To the claws of Nebuchadnezzar;
To the nails of Alexander;
To the swords of Herod;
To the claws of Nero;
To the fangs of the devil;
Whose yoke is going to enslave us now?
And when shall we fall within the grasp of death to find comfort away from the silence of nonexistence?
With the strength of our arms they erected the pillars of their temples and shrines to glorify their gods;
On our backs they brought clay and stones to build castles to strengthen their strongholds;
And with the power of our bodies they built pyramids to render their names immortal;
How long are we to build castles and palaces
And live but in huts and caves?
How long are we to fill granaries and stores
And eat nothing but garlic and clover?
How long are we to weave silk and wool
And be clad in tattered cloth?
Through their cunning and treachery they have set clan against clan;
Have separated group from group;
Have sown the seeds of hate twixt tribe and tribe—
How long are we then to wither like ashes before this cruel hurricane,
And fight like hungry young lions near this stinking carcass?
In order to secure their power and to rest at heart’s ease they have armed the Durzi to fight the Arab;
Have instigated the Shi’i against the Sunni;
Have incited the Kurd to slaughter the Bedouin;
Have encouraged the Mohammadan to fight the Christian—
How long is a brother to fight his brother on the breast of the mother?
How long is a neighbour to threaten his neighbour near the tomb of the beloved?
How long are the Cross and the Crescent to remain apart before the eyes of God?
Listen, O Liberty, and harken unto us
Turn your gaze towards us, O mother of the earth’s inhabitants,
For we are not the offspring of your rival;
Speak with the tongue of any one of us
For from one spark the dry straw catches fire;
Awaken with the sound of your wings the spirit of one of our men
For from one cloud one lightning flash illuminates valley-lanes and mountaintops.
Disperse with your resolve these dark clouds;
Descend as a thunderbolt,
Destroy like a catapult
The props of those thrones erected on bones and skulls,
Plated with the gold of taxes and bribery
And soaked in blood and tears.
Listen to us, O liberty
Have compassion on us, O Daughter of Athens,
Rescue us, O Sister of Rome,
Save us, O Companion of Moses,
Come to our aid, O beloved of Mohammad,
Teach us, O bride of Jesus,
Strengthen our hearts that we may live;
Or strengthen the arms of our enemies against us
That we may wither, perish and find peace.
Translated by S. B. Bushrui12
Light! Light! Let it shine in our hearts, however dark the world may be.
Let it flow forth from our hearts, however sombre the horizons may be.
Though I have only a hut in the valley, lit in the night by a meagre candle,
my eye reflects in the hut all the light it beholds in the world.
And should the storm blow and uproot my hut as it uproots the trees,
carrying it to the river’s mouth,
there is a cave there among the rocks impregnable to the storm, and there
is the light of the sun and the stars.
And should the heavens darken and the planets and stars be eclipsed,
still in this human heart is light eternal.
Let light shine in our hearts, however sombre the horizons may be.
Translated by Mounah A. Khouri and Hamid Algar13
O Immortal Majesty! Bestow upon me a portion of Thy glory!
O Eternal Light! Assist me with a shaft of Thy refulgence!
O Illimitable Potency! Imbue me with a measure of Thy might!
I am the Source of immortal Life,
The Fountain-head of Love and Power;
I am alive in thee, attentive unto thy supplications.
Thou art the whole of life,
Both in the beginning and in the end,
And I, truly, find my life in Thee.
I am the Source of human understanding,
And I shall increase thine understanding
That thou art a part of Me.
O God! Assist me to devote my powers,
Whether spiritual, intellectual or physical,
In the pathway of Truth, of Love, and of Wisdom.
O son of man! I, in truth, do hearken unto thee,
Accord thee freedom in thine actions,
And bestow upon thee My grace.
O Eternal Fountain,
From whence well forth the lights of love,
From whence gush forth the streams of life and well-being!
I open unto Thee my heart and my mind,
And lay bare my soul before Thee.
Deny me not, then, Thine overflowing bounties,
Nor remove me from Thy copious fountains.
My fountains are amidst the stars,
And in that which binds them one unto another,
And in the strength and health that grow therefrom,
And in the flowers that blow therein,
And in the scent they breathe of love and beauty
—All these are before thine eyes and beneath thy grasp,
The grasp of the discerning mind and of the immortal soul.
Thou art my Lord and there is no God besides Thee.
I am the pulse of life within thee,
The spirit of love within thee,
The light of wisdom within thee.
Be thou faithful thereunto,
For they are the reality of Divinity, whether sought as Truth or as Religion.
Translated by S. B. Bushrui14
The village of Yarboub is famous for many things. Anyone who knows that verse of King David in praise of “wine that maketh glad the heart of man” will tell you how excellent is its wine and arak. Any silk mill-owner in Lebanon will tell you of the fine quality of the silkworm cocoons bred there. A farmer who wished to buy a really good milch cow or a sturdy bull would unhesitatingly head first for Yurboub, confident he would find there just what he sought. And likewise a lad who, having passed a certain age and realised that life does not open her girt-bag and shower her bounties upon bachelors in this world, decided to hitch the remainder of his life to that of one of the daughters of his forebear Eve, would rise with the dawn, before his neighbours and fellow-villages were astir, and follow the morning star to this selfsame village. After spending a night and a day there he would seldom, if ever, return without having given his heart to his bride-to-be.
But wine, arak, silkworms, cattle and nubile maids were not the only things that gained for Yarboub such an exalted reputation in the eyes of her neighbours. There was another factor that raised it above its peers. This was, its sheikh, Butrus al-Naqous, or as the villagers, their neighbours and the local officials called him Abu Nasif.
Abu Nasif had inherited his Sheikhdom from his father and grandfather before him. Other sheikhs who had known his father as the feudal lord affirmed unanimously that he was superior to the late sheikh in several respects. For a start, Abu Nasir could read and write, whereas his father’s only claim to literacy had been to dip his little finger in the inkwell, smear it over the end of his signet ring, then slowly and deliberately press it onto the paper; and there in elegant Persian script would appear the words: “Elias Butrus al-Naqous, Sheikh of the village of Yarboub.” Many people wondered how the engraver could possibly have included all those names on an ordinary, small-size signet ring, but this was one of those little things that reassured the late Sheikh that he was greater and more important then anyone else around him.
Secondly, the late Sheikh had lived his whole life sleeping on the floor and eating from a straw tray with a wooden spoon or with his hands. But Abu Nasif had acquired a bed and a mosquito net, a dining table, chairs and so on. When an important visitor called on him, more often than not he would bring out of his chests a collection of knives, forks and spoons, even though—according to those in the know—he preferred to follow in his father’s footsteps and would often leave aside knife and fork and fall back on his fingers, even before guests. Similarly, he preferred to sleep on the floor.
Thirdly, the old Sheikh had worn throughout his life an old-fashioned tarboosh with a blue turban wrapped round it, baggy trousers of dyed calico and a belt that he always tucked under his pillow when he resigned himself to the arms of Morpheus (some there are who say that this belt was under his pillow when he died). Abu Nasif, however, was never seen walking abroad in anything but a stylish, turbanless tarboosh, a long robe and a silken sash, and fashionable boots. On high holidays, or when entertaining dignitaries such as an Ottoman government official or the Archbishop, it was by no means unusual to see him in a European suit and a dress shirt, with his tarboosh pushed forward at a rakish angle (I was told by someone who knows the Sheikh well that once when he appeared to welcome the qaimmaqam—the local governor—he had a gold watch dangling at his chest, but when His Excellency asked him the time he blushed and stammered that his watch had stopped; and thereafter he was never seen wearing the gold watch-and-chain again).
There were many ways in which Abu Nasif was an improvement on his late father, as anyone you asked in Yarboub and its environs would tell you. You would learn, for instance, that unlike his father Abu Nasif inspired awe and respect in any assembly and his word was law in the courtroom, and that whenever the people of the village got into some difficulty or predicament, Abu Nasif was there to help, and in no time at all differences would be smoothed out and problems solved.
Yet another advantage Abu Nasif had over his villagers was that when they counted off all the households from which someone had emigrated to America, they would get to the Sheikh’s house and stop; for this was the only house in Yarboub that had not yet paid its tithe to Columbus.
Children, youths and old men all respected and revered Abu Nasif. There were just a few gossiping women who, out of envy or malice, would pass on to one another in their secret sessions some unsavoury tales about the Sheikh: how they sometimes heard screams from the Sheikh’s house, and often saw the Sheikha with her face swollen and bruised and tearstained. There was one called Barbara, who would sometimes whisper to her cronies how once, when she took a pail of milk for the Sheikh, she found him gripping the Sheikha’s throat with venom in his eyes, his moustache quivering, as she lay sprawled on the floor with her hair spread over her face. This same Barbara had many tales to tell about the Sheikh. Such as finding the Sheikha one day locked in the stable with the cows and horses, starving to death, and fetching her a loaf of bread. And how the Sheikh had “sentenced” his wife to death; and so on. Hardly surprising, for women have tremendous capacity for inventing news.
But one truth that could not be hidden from anyone in the village was that the Sheikh had seven daughters; and that he did not like anyone to mention his daughters in front of him, and would change the subject whenever someone asked him about the Sheikha. Moreover, he would bow his head in silence whenever he came across a woman carrying a male child in her arms, and would swallow hard whenever anyone gave him the glad news he was the father of a son. He had dedicated half his vineyards to Saint Elias if he would give him a son. And now the Sheikha was pregnant and expected to give birth very shortly.
In this year 1908 as in 1907 before it, the village of Yarboub has succumbed to howling winds and roaring torrents. Now the storm mourns above what is left of it, darkness shrouds it and the heavens are spreading a white blanket over its tombstone to welcome in the year 1909.
In the village, a few lights are still gleaming through windows and chinks in doors. One or two boys and youths gather together to try their luck at games of chance—variously for walnuts, almonds or small change—and from time to time can be heard their loud bursts of laughter, which are promptly snatched up by the wind and buried in the valley bottom.
Night comes on and the lamps begin to go out one by one as if the spirit of the old year declined to withdraw before the face of the new under the slightest shred of illumination and refused to transmit its last testament concerning the village of Yarboub in the hearing of anyone of its inhabitants. And even before the old year has breathed its last and the new year emerged from the cocoon of eternity, the whole village—old, young, children and dogs—has sunk into a deep sleep. Goodnight, dear Yarboub, goodnight!
But a solitary, faint light still shines from one of the houses as if struggling against extinction—flares up, then flickers low. Is that the howling of the gale, pounding at the windows of yonder house, to turn back as a long-drawn, agonized moan? Or is it a human voice rising from a breast racked with pain?
The storm howls and the sky weeps, and from time to time through this tumult can be heard fragments of screams issuing from the windows of the house with the light. They are indeed cries from a human breast, cries for help: “Oh, Jesus! Virgin! Saint Elias!”
This is the house of Abu Nasif, and it is his wife the Sheikha crying for help, as she lies in labour with a boy or a girl. There is no-one with her but the midwife, an old woman of nearly seventy who is apparently a past-mistress of her profession and familiar with all the acts and scenes that make up this kind of drama. The passage of time has not marked her handsome face, except for a few lines that alternately wrinkle up and relax, revealing her state of mind. There is no doubt that she is at present greatly agitated, for the lines are wrinkled rather than relaxed. She realizes that the New Year has begun and that if this time she delivers a boy for the Sheikh, she might not leave the house with less than a gold sovereign and a frock; she might even get a pair of new slippers… She has been awaiting this chance for some time, and perhaps she has been praying for it to Saint Elias and Saint George more than the Sheikh and the Sheikha both. She would rather die than have to tell Abu Nasif for the eighth time that he is the father of a girl rather than a boy, to see him scowl and fume and stamp and give her only a few piastres. Yet, she would sooner die.
Meanwhile Abu Nasif is pacing up and down in the next room, his head bowed under the pressure of thoughts that condense before his eyes into living persons, filling up the room so as to leave him no space to move. Voices ring in his ears, shapes pass before his eyes. A furnace in his head, a tempest in his sod. And this mad hurricane that shrieks and howls and dances around the house, making the windows and doors dance with it—what does it want from him, and what news does it bring him: a boy or a girl?
The phantoms wheel about with him and circle round him like dancers at a wedding or mourners at a funeral. All roads are barred to him, his feet shackled to the spot, and he stands bolt upright in the middle of the room like an idol with thousands of worshippers massed around him, closing their ranks like the waves of a sea lashed by the eruptions of submarine volcanoes. And these waves are rushing at him from every side. Now they sweep over him up to his chest and he feels as if the whole of Mount Sannin is crushing him; now they cling round his neck and bear down on him with full force: “A girl...?”
His breathing grows laboured his head heavy, his eves dim. He is drowning.
—“Jesus!”
Abu Nasif falls to his knees, raising his hands and eyes to a crucifix on the wall. The waves subside, Sannin returns to its place and the dancer-mourners cease. The storm dies and the phantom shapes vanish. Abu Nasif is alone in the room, staring at the crucified Christ and the robbers on either side. The robbers disappear from view and he sees only the crucified man in the middle, the blood flowing from his side and from his hands and feet nailed to the cross. The colours and lines merge before his eves and he no longer sees the head bowed beneath the crown of thorns, or the hands and feet, or the cross; just the drop of blood oozing from His side. The whole picture is transformed in his eyes into a pool of blood. Suddenly the surface of the pool is ruffled and from the blood emerges a small, downy head, followed by hands, body and legs. The figure twitches restlessly. The image is no longer that of three crucified men, but of a male child. The child stretches out his little arms towards Abu Nasif. He descends from the wall and steps towards him; he is no longer a child, but a youth in the first bloom of life. Abu Nasif opens his arms and clasps him to his breast and kisses him more fervently than anyone has ever kissed anyone before. Yes, this is his son Nasif. This is the Alpha and the Omega of his hopes. This is the dream of his life, the prop of his old age, the heir to his fortune and the refurbisher of the honour of his line. The seal of the Sheikhdom will not now fall into the hands of strangers. When the Archbishop visits the village of Yarboub he will not lodge elsewhere but at the house of Naqous, And his neighbour Elias Hundaqouq will never again lord it over him with his five sons.
And his wife Umm Nasif! Ah, he will kiss her feet every morning and night and beg her forgiveness a thousand times every day for his past sins against her, and will swear by Nasif’s life never again to touch a hair of her head in anger or malice. He will shed tears of blood for her sake, he will make her the belle of the town.
Today is New Year’s Eve, and tomorrow the news will spread of the birth of a son to the Sheikh. The village will come, old and young, to share in his joy. And right welcome they will be! For Abu Nasif will cause the wine to flow in rivers and the roasts to rum for weeks.
But supposing it were a girl…?
This thought settles over the room like a black cloud; Abu Nasif trembles in every limb and is momentarily blinded.
“Saint…Elias…!”
Light floods back into Abu Nasif’s heart and the clouds clear from his eyes, and Nasif appears once again in his father’s presence. No, no, Saint Elias will answer a broken heart just this once. Saint Elias whom Abu Nasif reveres above all saints, by whose name alone he swears, in whose church alone he prays and who never sees a Sunday or a holiday go by without Abu Nasif’s dropping a ten-para piece into his offertory tray. Saint Elias, to whom Abu Nasif has presented a silver candlestick and a gilded icon, Yes, Saint Elias knows that the Sheikh deserves a male child more than any one in the village and moreover Abu Nasif is ready to endow him with half his vineyards if he grants his wish. Saint Elias will not refuse him this favour.
“Holy…Virgin…!”
Again the trembling in Abu Nasif’s body, again the emptiness in his heart and the darkness before his eyes. Nasif disappears and is replaced by a diabolical image—that of a baby girl tossing and turning in her cradle. The picture lunging on the wall that shows a woman holding a child in her arms begins to move, to shudder, and then mother and child fall to the floor. The woman gazes at him tenderly, comes towards him, her lips moving as if she is trying to speak to him. The child in her arms is not a boy, but a girl. What does this woman want of him and what does she wish to tell him? Abu Nasif explodes with rage and his hand goes up to strike her. But she smiles, opens her mouth, and this smile inflames Abu Nasif’s fury. He summons up the last of his strength to restrain himself from hitting her. “Speak to me! Speak to me!”
“A girl! A girl! A girl!”
The room is suddenly filled with these words. Abu Nasif feels them as fangs that stay fixed in his flesh however he twists and turns, “A girl! A girl! A girl”
“Get out, you traitress! It’s a boy, a boy, a boy!”
Abu Nasif resumes his pacing more furiously than before, his head heavier than Mount Sannin and the storm resumes its funeral procession around the house, seeming to Abu Nasif as if it is burying his hopes, repeating: “A girl! A girl! A gi-i-irl!”
“Wa-a-aah!”
Abu Nasif’s heart skips a beat and he freezes to the spot as if paralyzed. He wants to take a step, but his legs will not obey him; he wants to cross himself, but his hand betrays him.
A boy or a girl? Shall he wait until the midwife comes to announce the birth of Nasif, or shall he go himself to welcome his son and heir and the light of his life?
And if it should be a girl? “Strangle her!”
An infernal gleam lights Abu Nasif’s eyes and a demonic power drives him from the spot towards the room where mother and midwife wait.
“What…?” His tongue will not consent to say more.
The mother stops her sobbing and the midwife holds her breath, and the child, too, seems to share in their suspense, uttering only a single “waah!”
“What?” The Sheikh repeats his question after a moment that seems to him an age. A silence deeper than the silence of the grave reigns once more in the room, while the Sheikh writhes inwardly with fury.
“A girl?” The word falls from his lips like a thunderclap in that dead silence. The midwife’s bowels shudder in her terror. She moves her lips in an effort to speak, but her lips fail her and can stammer only a single sound before relapsing into silence.
Abu Nasif’s eyes again gleam with the same infernal fire, and in a flash he has pounced upon the midwife like an eagle on a lure, snatched the child from her arms, run to the door and out to the stable, where he seizes a spade and heads straight towards the pines behind the church.
The winds are howling, the snow is falling, the trees are swaying and Abu Nasif is digging…
Dawn breaks and the villagers begin wishing each other a Happy New Year. In the graveyard behind the church the trees are mourning, the storm wailing and the sky weeping icy tears as the church bell peals out: “Happy New Year!”
If you saw Barbara from the village of Yarboub, she would tell you that the village is still famous for its excellent wine, arak and cattle. That young men back from America still make pilgrimages there before anywhere else. That the seal of the sheikhdom is still in the hands of Abu Nasif and that everyone pities poor Abu Nasif, because a son was born to him dead and he gave him a solitary burial with his own hands. But she, Barbara, will tell you a secret told to her by the midwife, who has revealed it to no-one else: that the child was a girl, and that Abu Nasif gave the midwife two gold sovereigns to spread the word that it had been a stillborn boy. That the Sheikh had gone on beating his wife until she went out of her mind and he will not now let her out of the house. That from that time forth, he—the Sheikh—has never set foot in the grounds of Saint Elias’ church, and some say he might even have changed his faith and left Yarboub for good.
Yes, the village of Yarboub is famous for many things.
Kana ma kana
Translated by J. R. Perry15
Comrade, the warrior in the west
Returning boasts what he achieved,
And hallows the heroic best
Whereof his country is bereaved.
Praise not the victors, nor revile
Rejoicing the defeated foe;
Kneel silently with me awhile
And let your heart be bowed in woe
And bleed,
As we lament our dead.
Comrade, the soldier from the wars
Comes to his fatherland again
To find him healing for his scars,
And friends to ease him of pain.
Look not to find, if you shall come
Homeward, old comrades waiting here;
Hunger has left us with loving cheer
Beside
The ghosts of those who died.
Comrade, the farmer to his field
Returns to plough and sow once more,
After long exile to rebuild
The cottage shattered by the war.
Our hearth is wrecked by misery,
Our water-wheels are choked with sand,
The malice of our enemy
Has left no seedling in our land,
No thing
Save our dead, mouldering.
Comrade, this had not come to pass
Except we wished it so to be;
Ruin is over all, because
Ourselves willed this catastrophe.
Then shed no tears, my comrade; save
Your tale of sorrow none will hear,
But follow me, and dig a grave
With pick and shovel, and inter
With me
Our dead, where none may see.
Comrade, what men are we? No land
Is ours, no neighbors, kindred none,
And let us sleep, or let us stand,
Shame is our covering alone.
Whether we dead or living be,
The world is noisome with our stench;
Come, bring a spade, and follow me,
And let us dig another trench
To lay
Our living in the clay
Translated by A. J. Arberry16
He was from the outset of an inquisitive nature, regardless of what he encountered in the finding out of what he did not know, and that cost him much discomfort and trouble. But one incident in particular curbed his curiosity, and filled his heart with a shyness which lingers even yet.
He was sitting down to supper with his father and brothers, and his mother, as was her custom, was superintending the meal and directing the servant and her daughters, who were assisting the servant, in bringing the dishes required for the meal. And he was eating just as the others were eating, when a strange thought occurred to him! What would happen if he took hold of a morsel of food with both hands instead of one as was customary? And what was there to prevent him from making this experiment? Nothing. Lo! he took a morsel in both hands. Then he raised it to his mouth.
At once his brothers burst out laughing. His mother was on the point of tears. His father said in a soft and sorrowful tone, “That is not the way to eat your food, my son!” And he himself passed a troubled night.
From that time his movements were fettered with infinite caution, fear and shyness. And thenceforth he realised that he had a strong will and also abstained from many kinds of food which he only allowed himself when he was over twenty-five years old. He gave up soup and rice, and all dishes which had to be eaten with spoons because he knew that he could not wield a spoon nicely, and so he didn’t want his brothers to laugh at him, his mother to weep or his father to reproach him, albeit softly and sadly.
This incident helped him to understand correctly a traditional story about Abu-l-’Alā [al-Ma’arri].
They say that one day he was eating treacle, some of which, unbeknown to him, fell down the front of his garment. When he went out therefore to lecture to his students, one of them said to him, “Sir, you have been eating treacle.” Abu-l-’Alā quickly put his hand on his chest and said, “Yes! God save us from gluttony!” Thereafter he gave up eating treacle for the rest of his life.
This incident also led him to appreciate more fully other actions of Abul-’Alā. For example he understood the reason why he used to eat unseen by anybody, not even his servant, and that he used to eat in a tunnel under the ground, ordering his servant to lay his meals there and then go away, so that he was left alone with his food and could eat it as he liked.
They also say that one day his students were talking about the melons of Aleppo and saying how excellent they were. Abu-l-’Alā took the trouble to send someone to Aleppo to buy some for them.
When the students ate, the servant kept a piece of melon for his master and put it in the tunnel. But it seems that he did not put it in the place where he usually put the old man’s food, and the latter not liking to ask for his share of the melon, it remained in that place until it went bad and he never tasted it at all.
Our friend understood completely these features of the life of Abu-l-’Alā, because therein he saw himself. How often as a child he used to long to be able to eat by himself, but he never dared communicate this desire to his people. However, he was left alone with portions of the food frequently in the month of Ramadan and at the great festivals of the year, when his family used to partake of various kinds of sweet dishes, such as must be eaten with spoons. Then he used to refuse his portion of them at the table, and his mother, not liking this abstinence of his, would set aside for him a special dish and leave him alone with it in a special room in which he could shut himself up so that nobody was able to see him while he ate.
When at length he reached years of discretion, he made this his general rule. He pursued this course of seclusion when he travelled to Europe for the first time, feigning fatigue and refusing to go to the dining-saloon on board ship, so that food was brought to him in his cabin. Then when he got to France, it was his rule on arrival at a hotel, or when staying with a family, that his food should be brought to him in his room without his bothering to go to the common dining-room. Nor did he abandon this habit until he got married, when his wife broke him of many habits he had grown into.
This incident, again, caused him many kinds of hardship. It made him a byword among his family and those who knew him before he passed from family life into society.
He was a small eater, not because he had no great appetite, but because he had a horror of being called a glutton or of his brothers winking at one another on account of him. At first this caused him much pain, but it was not long before he got accustomed to it, so that he found it difficult to eat as others ate.
He used to take exceedingly small helpings of food. Now there was an uncle of his who was much vexed with him about it, whenever he saw it, and used to get enraged and rebuke him, urging him to take larger helpings; so that his brothers laughed. This caused him to hate his uncle with a deadly hatred.
He was ashamed to drink at table, fearing that the glass might upset in his hand or that he would take hold of it clumsily when it was handed to him. Therefore he always ate his food dry at the table until such time as he got up and went to wash his hands at the tap, drinking there to his heart’s content. Now the water was not always clean, nor was this way of quenching his thirst beneficial to the health. So things went on until he got stomach trouble and no one was able to tell the reason of it.
Moreover, he abstained from all kinds of sports and games, except those which did not give him much trouble, and such as exposed him neither to ridicule nor to sympathy. His favourite was to collect a number of iron rods, take them to a quiet corner of the house, and then put them together, separate them and knock one against the other. Thus he would while away hours until he wearied of it. Then he would fall back on his brothers and friends, who were playing a game in which he would join with his mind but not with his hand. Like that he knew numerous games without ever taking part in them.
Now this abstention of his from play led him to become fond of one kind of diversion, and that was listening to stories and legends. His great delight was to listen to the songs of the bard or the conversation of his father with other men or of his mother with other women, and so he acquired the art of listening. His father and some of his friends were very fond of story-telling. As soon as ever they had finished their afternoon prayers they all collected round one of them, who would recite to them tales of raids and conquests, and of the adventures of Antarah and Zahir Baibars, and narratives about prophets, ascetics and pious folk; and he would read them books of sermons and the religious law.
Our friend would sit at a respectful distance from them, and although they were oblivious of his presence, he was in no way unmindful of what he heard or even of the impression these stories made upon the audience. So it was that when the sun set, people went to their food, but as soon as they had said their evening prayers they assembled again and conversed for a great part of the night. Then came the bard and began to recite the deeds of the Hilalies and Zanaties to him, and our friend would sit listening during the early part of the night just as he did toward the close of the day.
The women in the villages of Egypt do not like silence, nor have they any talent for it, so that if one of them is by herself and cannot find anyone to talk she will divert herself with various kinds of speech; if glad, she will sing, and if she is sad by reason of bereavement she will lament the deceased; for every woman in Egypt can mourn when she wishes. Best of all when they are by themselves do the village women like to recall their troubles and eulogise those who have departed this life and very often this eulogising causes them to shed real tears.
Our friend was the happiest of mortals when he was listening to his sisters singing or his mother lamenting. However, the song of his sisters used to annoy him and left no impression on him because he found it inane and pointless, without rhyme or reason, whereas the lamentations of his mother used to move him very much and often reduced him to tears. Somewhat after this fashion our friend learnt by heart many songs, many lamentations and many tales both serious and amusing. He learnt something else which had no connection at all with this, to wit passages of the Qur’an which his old blind grandfather used to recite morning and evening.
This grandfather of his was to him an unattractive and odious person, who used to spend every winter at the house. He became pious and ascetic when life drove him to it, and so he used to pray the regular five times a day and the mention of God was incessantly on his tongue. He would get up toward the end of the night in order to recite the collect for the dawn and would sleep at a belated hour after the evening prayer and recite all manner of collects and prayers.
Now our friend slept in a room adjoining that of the old man and thus could hear him intoning and learn by heart what he intoned, so that he memorised a great number of these collects and prayers.
Moreover, the people of the village were very fond of Sufism and used to perform the zikr. Our friend liked this propensity of theirs because he enjoyed the zikr and the incantations of the chanters during it.
So it was that before he was nine years old he had accumulated a very fair collection of songs, lamentations, stories, poems about the Hilalies and Zanaties, collects, prayers and dervish incantations, and learnt them by heart, and in addition to all that he had learnt the Qur’an,
* * *
Strange to relate, he does not know how he memorised the Qur’an, nor how he began it, nor how he went over it a second time, although of his life in the village school he remembers numerous episodes, many of which make him laugh even now, while others sadden him.
He recalls the time when he used to go to school carried on the shoulder of one of his brothers because the school was a long way away and he was too weak to go such a distance on foot.
He cannot remember, either, when he began to go to the village school. He sees himself in the early part of the day sitting on the ground in front of “Our Master”, surrounded by a collection of shoes, with some of which he was playing, and he remembers how patched they were. Now “Our Master” sat on a small, wooden dais that was neither particularly high nor particularly low; it stood on the right of the door as you came in, so that everyone who entered passed “Our Master”. As soon as “Our Master” entered the school, it was his custom to take off his cloak, or more accurately his overcoat, and having rolled it up into the shape of a cushion he put it on his right side. Then he would take off his shoes and, sitting cross-legged on his dais, light a cigarette and begin to call the roll.
Now “Our Master” never discarded his shoes until it was absolutely necessary. He used to patch them on the right side and on the left and on the top and the bottom. Whenever one of his shoes needed patching he would call one of the boys of the school, and taking the shoe in his hand say to him, “You will go to the cobbler who lives near by and say to him, ‘Our Master says that this shoe needs a patch on the right side. Look, do you see? Here where I put my finger.’ The cobbler will reply, ‘Yes I will patch it.’ Then you will say to him, ‘Our Master says that you must choose a strong, coarse, new piece of leather and that you must put it on neatly so that it is invisible or nearly so.’ He will reply, ‘Yes I will do that.’ Then you will say to him, ‘Our Master says that he is an old customer of yours, so please take that into account,’ and whatever he says to you don’t agree to pay more than a piastre. Now go and come back again in the twinkling of an eye.”
So the boy would depart and “Our Master” would forget all about him. By the time that he did return, “Our Master” would have twinkled his eye times without number.
Nevertheless, although this man opened and shut his eye, he could not see anything, or at any rate very little, for he was completely blind except for the faintest glimmer of sight in one eye, so that he could discern shapes without being able to distinguish between them. Not but what he was very pleased with this dim sight of his, and deceived himself into imagining that he could see as well as other people. However, this did not prevent him from relying on two of his pupils to guide him on his way to and from the school, putting an arm on the shoulder of each.
Thus they would proceed three abreast along the street, which they occupied to the detriment of other pedestrians, who had to make way for them: Strange indeed was the sight of “Our Master” on his way to the school or his house in the morning and evening. He was a bulky, corpulent man and his overcoat increased his bulk. As we mentioned above he put his arms over the shoulders of his two companions, and as the three of them marched along, the earth resounded beneath their tread.
Now “Our Master” used to choose the most intelligent of his pupils, and those with the best voices, for this important task. This was because he was fond of singing and liked to give singing lessons to his pupils. He would deliver his lesson to them all along the street. Thus he would sing, and at times his companions would begin to accompany him (in song) or merely listen to him at others; or one of them he would charge to sing, and “Our Master” and his other companion would accompany him.
“Our Master” did not sing with his voice and tongue alone, but with his head and body also. He used to nod his head up and down and waggle it from side to side. Moreover he sang with his hands also, beating time upon the chests of his two companions with his fingers. Sometimes when the song was particularly agreeable to him, and he found that walking did not suit him, he would stop till it was finished. The best of it was that “Our Master” thought he had a very beautiful voice, though our friend does not think that God ever created an uglier voice than his.
Whenever he read the verse: “Verily the most unpleasant sound is the braying of asses”: he invariably thought of “Our Master” while he was beating time to the verses of the al-Burda on his way to the mosque to pray at noon or on his way home to the house from the school.
Our friend pictures himself, as described above, sitting on the ground playing with the shoes around him, while “Our Master” hears him recite Surat-ar-Rahman, but he cannot remember whether he was reciting it for the first time or the second.
Indeed on another occasion he sees himself sitting not on the floor among the shoes, but on the right of “Our Master” on another long dais, and the latter is hearing him recite: “Do ye enjoin good works on others and yourselves forget to do them? Do ye read the book and then do not understand?” To the best of his belief he had finished reciting the Qur’an through once and was beginning to do it a second time.
It is not to be wondered at that our friend forgets how he learnt the Qur’an, since at the time of its completion he was not nine years old. He remembers very clearly the day on which he concluded his study of the Qur’an, and “Our Master” telling him some days before, how pleased his father would be with him and how he would make his stipulations for it and demand his past dues. For had he not taught four of our friend’s brothers before him, of whom one had gone to al-Azhar and the others to various schools? So that our friend was the fifth.… Did “Our Master” not have many claims upon the family?
These claims “Our Master” always detailed in terms of food, drink, clothes and money.
The first of all of these dues, of which he would demand payment, when our friend had finished the Qur’an, would be a rich supper; then a gown and caftan, a pair of shoes, a Maghraby tarbush, a cotton cap of the material of which turbans are made and a golden guinea—he would not be satisfied with anything less than that…if they did not pay him all this, he would disown the family and would not take anything from them. Nor would he have any more to do with them. This he swore with the most binding oaths.
It was Wednesday, and “Our Master” had announced in the morning that our friend would conclude the Qur’an that day. They set forth in the afternoon, “Our Master” leading the way supported by his two companions, and behind him our friend, led by one of the orphans in the village. At last they reached the house and “Our Master” gave the door a push and uttering the customary cry “Ya Sattar” (O Veiler), made his way to the guest-room, where was the sheikh, who had just finished his afternoon prayers and was reciting some private prayers as was his wont. He greeted them smilingly and confidently. His voice was soft and that of “Our Master” raucous. Meanwhile our friend said nothing and the orphan was smiling from ear to ear.
The sheikh signed to “Our Master” and his two companions to be seated, and placed a silver coin in the orphan’s hand. Then having called the servant and bidden him take the orphan to a place where he would find something to eat, he patted his son on the head and said, “May God open his ways to you! Go and tell your mother that ‘Our Master’ is here.”
His mother must have heard the voice of “Our Master”, for she had prepared such things as were necessary for an occasion like this: a tall and wide mug of unadulterated sugared water. It was brought to “Our Master” and he gulped it down. His two companions also drank two mugs of sugared water. Then coffee was brought and then “Our Master” urged the sheikh to examine the lad in the Qur’an, but the sheikh replied, “Leave him to play. He is yet young.” “Our Master” got up to go, whereupon the sheikh said “We will say the sunset prayer together, if God wills,” which was of course an invitation to supper.
I cannot recollect that “Our Master” received any other reward in return for our friend completing the Qur’an, for he had known the family twenty years and received presents from them regularly, and did not stand on ceremony with them. Indeed, he was confident that if he was unlucky with the family this time, he would not be so unlucky some other time.
Translated by E. H. Paxton17
For the first two or three weeks of his stay in Cairo he was lost in bewilderment. All he knew was that he had left the country behind him and settled in the capital as a student attending lectures at the Azhar. It was more by imagination than by sense that he distinguished the three phases of his day.
Both the house he lived in and the path that led to it were strange and unfamiliar. When he came back from the Azhar he turned to the right through a gateway which was open during the daytime and shut at night; after evening prayer there was only a narrow opening left in the middle of the door. Once through it, he became aware of a gentle heat playing on his right cheek, and a fine smoke teasing his nostrils; while on the left he heard an odd gurgling sound which at once puzzled and delighted him.
For several days, morning and evening, he listened curiously to this sound, but lacked the courage to inquire what it might be. Then one day he gathered from a chance remark that it came from the bubbling of a narghile smoked by tradesmen of the district. It was provided for them by the proprietor of the café from which the gentle heat and the fine smoke-cloud issued.
He walked straight on for a few steps before crossing a damp, roofed-in space in which it was impossible to stand firmly because of the slops thrown there by the café proprietor. Then he came out into an open passage-way; but this was narrow and filthy and full of strange, elusive smells, which were only moderately unpleasant early in the day and at nightfall, but as the day advanced and the heat of the sun grew stronger, became utterly intolerable.
He walked straight on through this narrow passage; but rarely did he find it smooth or easy. More often than not his friend would have to push him either this way or that so as to avoid some obstacle or other. Then he would continue in the new direction, feeling his way towards a house either to left or right, until he had passed the obstacle and taken the old direction again. He hurried along nervously at his companion’s side, breathing the nauseous smells, and half-deafened by the medley of sounds that came from all sides at once, left and right, above and below, to meet in mid-air, where they seemed to unite above the boy’s head, layer upon layer, into a single fine mist.
There was in fact a remarkable variety of sounds. Voices of women raised in dispute, of men shouting in anger or peaceably talking together; the noise of loads being set down or picked up; the song of the water-carrier crying his wares; the curse of a carter to his horse or mule or donkey; the grating sound of cart-wheels: and from time to time this confused whirl of sounds was torn by the braying of a donkey or the whinnying of a horse.
As he passed through this babel, his thoughts were far away, and he was scarcely conscious of himself or of what he was doing; but at a certain point on the road he caught the confused sound of conversation through a half-open door on the left; then he knew that a pace or two further on he must turn to the left up a staircase which would bring him to his lodging.
It was an ordinary sort of staircase, neither wide nor narrow, and its steps were of stone; but since it was used very frequently in both directions, and no one troubled to wash or sweep it, the dirt piled up thickly and stuck together in a compact mass on the steps, so that the stone was completely covered up, and whether you were going up or coming down the staircase appeared to be made of mud.
Now whenever the boy went up or down a staircase he was obliged to count the steps. But long as were the years he stayed in this place, and countless the times he negotiated this staircase, it never occurred to him to count the number of its steps, He learnt at the second or third time of climbing it that after going up a few steps he had to turn a little to the left before continuing his ascent, leaving on his right an opening through which he never penetrated, though he knew that it led to the first floor of the building in which he lived for so many years.
This floor was not inhabited by students, but by workers and tradesmen. He left the entrance to it on his right, and went on up to the second floor. There his harassed spirit found rest and relief; lungfuls of fresh air drove away the sense of suffocation with which he had been oppressed on that filthy staircase; and then too there was the parrot, whistling on without a break, as if to testify before all the world to the tyranny of her Persian master, who had imprisoned her in an abominable cage, and would sell her tomorrow or the day after to another man who would treat her in exactly the same way. And when he was rid of her and had laid hands on the cash, he would buy a successor for her who would be cooped up in the same prison pouring forth the same curses on her master, and waiting as her sister had waited to be passed on from hand to hand, and from cage to cage, while everywhere she went that plaintive cry of hers would delight the hearts of men and women.
When our friend reached the top of the staircase he breathed in the fresh air that blew on his face, and listened to the voice of the parrot calling him towards the right. He obeyed, turning through a narrow corridor, past two rooms in which two Persians lived. One of these was still a young man, while the other was already past middle age. The one was as morose and misanthropic as the other was genial and good-natured.
At last the boy was home. He entered a room like a hall, which provided for most of the practical needs of the house. This led on to another room, large but irregular in shape, which served for social and intellectual needs. It was bedroom and dining-room, reading-room and study, and a room for conversation by day or by night. Here were books and crockery and food; and here the boy had his own particular corner, as in every room he occupied or visited at all frequently.
This place of his was on the left inside the door. After advancing a pace or two he found a mat spread on the ground, and above that an old but quite serviceable carpet. Here he sat in the daytime, and here he slept at night, with a pillow for his head and a rug to cover him. On the opposite side of the room was his elder brother’s pitch, a good deal higher than his own. He had a mat spread on the ground, and a decent carpet on top of that, then a felt mattress, and above that a long, wide piece of bedding stuffed with cotton, and finally, crowning all, a coverlet. Here the young sheikh would sit with his close friends. They were not obliged to prop up their backs against the bare wall, as the boy did, having cushions to pile up on the rugs. At night this couch was transformed into a bed on which the young sheikh slept.
Translated by Hilary Wayment18
Now is Time’s good tiding come:
Raise thy hopes, so long in tomb,
To the music of the strings
And good comrades’ clamourings.
Call the wine, to flow again
Joyous in each joyful vein;
Bid it mingle with the heart,
Banishing all sorrow’s smart.
“Slain thou wast by treachery,
And so long they buried thee;
Come, renew that life to-day
In the barrel past away!
“Get thy life in us anew;
If thou livest, so we do,
Yea, and we long years shall live
In this hour that Fate may give.
“Pour upon the wounded soul
Healing draughts, to make it whole;
Eden’s vine thy parent is,
Thou art mother of all bliss.
“Lift us far from lowly earth,
Bring us nigh immortal mirth;
Thou, like us, art sprung from there,
Saplings of one soil we were.
“From this ruin make us rise
To the triumph of the skies;
Turn our grief to living glee,
Man unto Divinity.
“Teach us all the manner of
That angelic life above;
Let the ramparts of the world
To oblivion be hurled.
“Man’s endeavour is a veil,
Thou the gateway, thou the pale
Whence the body’s dust may view
Mortal ruin, mortal rue.
“Ah, what joy to dying men,
Likeness of the gods to gain:
Shall they not a while be free
From the curse of misery?”
Pass and pour the cup my friend;
Hope is barren in the end;
Life is such an ancient ill
And defeats the highest skill.
Cheer a spirit bowed by woes
Wrought alike of friends and foes;
Save in wine, where shall he find
Pleasure to console the mind?
Count it not to us for shame,
To this refuge that we came;
Lovely ladies stole away
All we look to win to-day
And if Love our wounds had healed,
Ne’er to wine-cup would we yield:
What’s the comfort, wine to sip
Banished from the maiden’s lip?
If the world had not proved less
Than our looked-for happiness,
Never had we sought to flee
Its long shadow’s company.
Ah, but whither should we roam?
Is not earth our only home,
Where the glad and grieving breast
May alone discover rest?
Drink, my comrade, drink with cheer
For the joy that thou art clear
Of this load of grief and care
Thy poor brother has to bear.
Patience; bear with me, my brave,
If awhile I seem to rave;
Thou art drunk but singly; I
Twice intoxicated lie!
They said ’twas better |
||
I should forget her |
||
And spare my weeping, |
||
Since she preferred |
||
In love not keeping |
||
Her plighted word. |
||
Alas! my trouble |
Who mourneth over |
|
In love is double |
The faithful lover, |
|
My heart’s adoring |
At least he reapeth |
|
Unmerited, |
This much relief |
|
My tears outpouring |
That she he weepeth |
|
Far best unshed. |
Deserved his grief. |
Translated by A. J. Arberry19
In the temple of human sorrows the Great Master stood to speak to the people and I heard him say:
If you are rich, rejoice! Experience of weighty matters has served you well, your good deeds are praised and generosity is expected of you. You have become powerful and no one can harm you. Prosperity has put up a shield round your domain, protecting your independence and freedom.
If you are poor, rejoice! You have been spared the spiritual stupor which overcomes the avaricious and you are safe from the jealousy and hatred attracted by the rich. Men’s hearts do not burn with envy on account of your prosperity, nor do they gaze at your possessions with jaundiced eyes.
If you are charitable, rejoice! You have filled empty hands, clothed naked bodies and endowed those who have nothing. These achievements have brought you pleasure and you have wished to share that singular pleasure with hundreds so that it might be multiplied by the number of those whom it benefits.
If you cannot extend charity, rejoice! The hour will never come when you witness ingratitude from the one you have helped, who has fashioned your kindness into a weapon to threaten you, thinking it courageous to be aggressive and clever to be fickle. You will avoid that hour which must inevitably come to the generous man, bringing tension to his nerves, provoking his rage, hardening his feelings, drying up the springs of his generosity and creating within him a hatred for men and a despair of their reform. All this he must endure before he can attain the peak of sublime forgiveness and forbearance.
If you are young, rejoice! The sap is rising in the tree of your desires. The goal of your aspirations lies far ahead. If you are worthy of your dreams, their realisation can be easy.
If you are old, rejoice! You have striven with time and men and, because of your discretion and foresight, you have been entrusted with the management of affairs. Everything you have done can bear fruit at your command. The minutes of your life are equal to years so full are they of experience, wisdom and accurate judgement. It is as if those minutes were autumn fruit: fully mature, succulent, and imbued with perfection, plenitude and passion.
If you are a man, rejoice! In the vigour of manhood lies the greater meaning of life.
If you are a woman, rejoice! Woman is the desire of man; her nobility is his support, her sweetness the source of his consolation and her smile the reward for his labours.
If you are of noble birth, rejoice! You have gained the confidence of the multitude unaided by anyone’s patronage.
If you are of low birth, rejoice! It is better to make a name for yourself than to bear a great name reluctantly and without having contributed to its fame.
If you have many friends, rejoice! You will find yourself present in every one of them. They will reflect the brilliance of your success or sweeten the bitterness of failure. To attract men’s hearts you must have qualities and abilities rarely found except in those who are truly great. Of these the most important is the capacity to break out of the restrictions of selfishness to discover the nobility, compassion and intelligence that others possess.
If you have many enemies, rejoice! Your enemies are the ladder of your ascendance and they are the surest proof of your importance. The more strongly they oppose and attack you, the more you will feel your greatness. The more various their slanderous criticisms, the more scope you will have to discern what truth there may be in their intended poison, which you can then imbibe as the greatest of tonics. The remainder of their libel you can see to be fallacious and that part you can gracefully ignore, for it is nothing more than the product of impotence and deception. Does the eagle soaring in the heights take any heed of the conspiracies hatched by the dung beetles of the ground?
If you enjoy good health, rejoice! In you the universal law has found its balance and has qualified you to deal with difficulties and overcome impediments.
If you suffer from ill-health, rejoice! In you the two great forces of the universe have found a battlefield. It is for you to choose the victor and, if you choose correctly, you can be healed.
If you are a genius, rejoice! A resplendent ray from the most sublime realm has shone upon you. The glance of the Merciful is reflected in the thought radiating from your forehead; there is mystery in your eyes and enchantment in your voice. The expressions of others that are mere sounds, mere mutterings and syllables, have become, by your touch and on your lips, a fire and a light, stinging and illuminating, burning and soothing, humbling and exalting, humiliating and stimulating, hurting and healing, rebuking and bewildering. No sooner do you inspire the birth of meaning than it exists.
If you are not a genius, rejoice! Men’s tongues are not sharp when they mention you nor are their eyes afire with carping and criticism when they turn towards you. The summit is there for you to attain if you can and, if you cannot, there is satisfaction in supporting others on their way up. For the luxurious mansion could not stand without small bricks. You will enjoy a comfort reserved only for those whose lips taste Life’s waters while their souls bathe in the floods of inspiration.
If your friend is faithful, rejoice! The world has bestowed upon you its richest treasure.
If your friend is faithless, rejoice! He has not been ready to listen to the parable you have offered to teach him. None forsakes the mansion of love but to vacate it for another, worthier and better than himself.
If you are free, rejoice! In liberty strength finds its exercise; faculties are reinforced and opportunities increased.
If you are enslaved, rejoice! Slavery is the best school in which to learn the lessons of liberty and acquire the qualities to earn it.
If you live in surroundings that cherish and respond to you, rejoice! There you will find second youth and new strength; your spirit will grow to astonish you by its realm of wide oceans and towering heights.
If you live in primitive and inferior surroundings, rejoice! You are free to take wings to rise above them to a place where you can create from the shadows of yourself a world that can satisfy the hunger of your thought and quench the thirst of your soul.
If you are in love and are loved, rejoice! Life has indeed pampered you and has included you among its chosen sons. Divine Power has revealed to you its compassion contained in the exchange of hearts. Two halves wandering in the darkness of the unknown have at last become united and unto them the wonders of daybreak have been disclosed; the suns have gladdened their hearts with that which they had not yet found in their orbits among the planets. The Ether has divulged to them its very secrets and so they know the way when he who is empty of love can go astray; they are silent when he speaks, in jest when he is serious. They divine the lines of eternity where he cannot even see shadows.
If you are in love and are not loved, rejoice! He who has spurned you does, in his highest being, truly love you with a love that cannot be matched by his infatuation for the one he apparently loves. To be rejected in love is an experience full of meaning and mystery; it lowers inflated desires and purifies polluted feelings, leaving the heart transparent, glittering and resplendent as the vessel from which the gods drink of immortality. You are bound to win the one you love, if not in this remote and worldly form then in another form. Be ready for love no matter how heavy the burden of your feelings, for love is unpredictable and you know not the hour of its passage. Be great so that you may be chosen by a great love and lest your lot be a love that feeds on dust and wallows in the mud, either leaving you unchanged or lowering you to its depths instead of raising you as high as the towers that are out of human sight, whose wonders are beyond our dreams. The edifice of our desires is founded on imaginary plans invented by our longing.
Rejoice! The doors of happiness are many in number, the gates of good fortune are countless and the paths of life are renewed minute by minute.
Rejoice always! However you may find yourself, rejoice!
Translated by S. B. Bushrui20
O Clock, worn out by regularity!
Rest and repose are all forbidden thee;
Thou hurriest, since no crowd hindereth
Thy running footsteps, swift and sure as death.
Our nights and daytimes are thy properties,
And thou destroyest them, like enemies.
Sleep is a sword that cutteth our lives through,
And dost thou never slumber as we do?
If it would make thee drunk, I’d pour thee wine!
The months and years should share that draught of thine,
And, when men slumbered, ye would take repose.
The wine would sleep, yea, and the cup should doze;
Then, while ye couched, our nights and days would be
Naught but soft dreams that in your sleep ye see,
And in those dreams, your fancies would be—we!
Translated by A. J. Arberry21
Among the facts of life which go on behind the veil of secrecy are disgraceful and painful things. The story-writer whose motto is ever to describe things as they are, considers it his duty to reveal these disgraceful and painful deeds, however grim they may be.
Umm Labība went in to see her mistress, Madam Iqbāl, and told her that the cabman was at the door, demanding his fare. Madam Iqbāl frowned, and told Umm Labība to go and tell the cabman to come back that afternoon. Umm Labība went off, worried, hoping she would be successful in her attempt to persuade the cabman to defer collection of his bill till the afternoon. No sooner was she face to face with him, than he spoke first, using coarse language indicative of his contempt. She informed him, in accordance with her mistress’s command. But being put off like this aroused his wrath, and he began to curse and swear.
The cabman was angry, and he had every right to be. On six occasions he had taken the Lady out for a drive to visit her “companions in arms”. His total fare had now reached 300 piastres, of which he had received so far not one piastre. Now this cabman had a wife and children, who had difficulty in getting adequate food and clothing. It was only natural that he should shout angrily when demanding the dues of which he was being deprived, this bad debt. He had come for the sixth time, to be greeted only with procrastination and delay.
The cabman returned to his rank shrieking with anger, despairing for getting anywhere with his shouts and insults. He was determined to get what he was owed that afternoon, cost what it may. But Madam Iqbāl thought no more of the incident, as if she was long accustomed to it. She went to the mirror, tidied her hair, took out a tin of rouge, and began to paint her wrinkled face, heaving a sigh from time to time.
She was thirty-eight, and had been a model of beauty and decorum in her youth. At eighteen she had married a young reprobate, a gambler and drunkard. He stayed with her eight years, then left her tarred with his own brush. Madam Iqbāl was left a widow in her twenties. Her husband, by the time he died, had led her astray, obsessed her with wickedness and vice, poisoning her mind with obscenity and immorality. While she was still young, her husband had driven her on the “primrose path”, and deliberately led her to immorality. For it was he who had incited her, nay commanded her, to drink and take drugs. He it was who offered her to any of his friends who wanted her for a trifling “quid pro quo”. He it was who induced her to make a bit on the side by prostitution.
The young husband died, leaving his young wife to bear in her heart the ulcers of sorrow and shame, and on her body the pains of disease. At thirty-eight, she was more like fifty-eight. Her frame was thin, her face pallid, her skin yellow, and suffering had given her bags under the eyes. The modest, beautiful and chaste girl of yesterday, Madam Iqbāl, had today become a disgraceful gambler, riddled with disease, fond of all drugs and stimulants, particularly alcohol and cocaine. She had a son of seven, by an unknown father, who had grown up amidst unhappiness and misfortune, and spent his youth in an atmosphere of prostitution and vice. Madam Iqbāl had now reached a state of desperation and despair. Her beauty had faded, and men, young and old, generally shunned her. She took up the profession of “go-between”, bringing together young men and profligate women, when she realized that her original business was on the decline. And in so doing, she returned to her former condition, menaced by impending poverty and overwhelming want, which were always on the point of overpowering her. Today she lived in a house whose tattered trappings of prostitution were insufficient to lure even the mean spirited and impoverished. So she lived from day to day—no, from hour to hour, closing her eyes to what the future would bring.
The cabman returned at the prearranged time in the afternoon, and began to rant, demanding his fare. But no-one answered. He left his cab in charge of some boy or other, and dashed across the small garden, till he reached the door. He began to knock on it, shouting loudly and angrily. Madam Iqbāl was, as usual, in her bedroom, titivating herself up, wearing her transparent night-dress, a relic of the days of her affluence. Her hair was hanging down, she was barefooted, and her shrivelled breasts were showing from her exposed chest. She heard the cabman ranting, but merely smiled and ignored it. Umm Labība came in, and told her that the cabman was on the point of storming the “harem”, and was hurling embarrassing abuse without ceasing. Madam Iqbāl replied quietly:
“What do you want me to do about it? I’ve no money.”
At that point, the cabman succeeded in opening the door, and rushed into the holy harem! He entered the hall, shouting, demanding settlement of his account. Umm Labība ran to him, telling him off for his cheek and nerve, restraining him from his evil intention, telling him to be gone! The two of them kept abusing each other in stinging language for a quarter of an hour, until the maid despaired of getting the better of him, and realized that he was about to get the better of her. So she shouted for help to her mistress. At that moment, the bedroom door opened, and Madam Iqbāl appeared in the doorway, wearing the transparent night-dress, done up to the nines, her legs and wrists bare. She spoke as if she had not quite realized as yet what was happening in her own house:
“What’s the matter, Umm Labība?”
The cabman did not allow Umm Labiba to reply, but forestalled her, by shouting and asking to be paid as usual. But Madam Iqbāl spoke in a tone of assumed innocence and gentleness.
“Why all this aggressiveness, cabman? Come and take your fare.”
The cabman was astonished at the changed situation, and looked hard at her, trying to size her up, not knowing whether she was lying or telling the truth. When she saw his hesitation, she came out of the room, took him by the hand, and led him in. He, meanwhile, was amazed, not knowing what to say. She said to him:
“Come and take your fare. Why do you not want to enter the room with me? Are you a stranger?”
The cabman, whose name was Shahhata, went into the room, Madam Iqbāl holding his hand, leading him like a condemned prisoner.
Now this cabman Shahhata was a tough, brawny man of fifty-eight, who had learned nothing in his life but how to drive a cab. He had begun as a stable-lad, living in the stables, sweeping up the droppings, cleaning the harness, and washing down the coaches and horses. Then he was promoted to cabman, sitting on the high seat, wearing the coat and jacket obtained at the uniform-seller’s. The profit he made from his horses and cab was not sufficient to feed and clothe his five children, and his wife whom sickness confined to the home. He was swarthy, with an ashen beard which he only shaved when in the money. His appearance was dirty, his clothes torn, his toes peeping out of his worn-out shoes. His trousers were tied up with a dirty red scarf. On his head he wore a tarbush which had a black band, with no button. Yet despite the indications of poverty which pervaded his mind and were written all over his clothes and face, he knew of nothing but “luck”, which was the one subject of his conversation, and the one aim of his endeavours. When he was aloft on the fine driving seat, you might hear him singing popular love songs or comic ditties. When a pretty girl of his own class passed in front of him, he would tilt his black-banded tarbush, and start wiggling his tattered shoes, smiling, giving the “glad-eye”, and saying:
“Sweetheart! Sweetheart! Slow down a bit! My heart’s on fire!”
He often saw upper-class girls wearing the black transparent veil, or the light barqa’ which reveals the features of the face, even endowing it with radiant beauty, swinging in their alluring gait! He would stare at them flirtatiously, murmuring to himself:
“What wouldn’t I give for…”
If by chance his fares should be a pair of lovers or sweethearts, and he heard the sound of loving laughter, the moving music of kisses, and the movements of love-making, the heat of passion would be awakened in him. He would shout from the very depths of his heart, talking to himself, cursing his wife with a sigh, and saying:
“Oh how I pity you, Mother Ahmad!”
Then he would feel the eagerness of love, but find no means of quietening his nerves except on the thin, tired horses. So he rained lashes and curses on them!
Cabman Shahhata entered the room, not knowing whether she was serious or joking in what she was doing. He smelled the powder and perfume which permeated the atmosphere, and his frayed nerves were appeased, and his eyes lost their flashing evil look. He began to inspect, with his eyes, the body of Madam Iqbāl, while she paced the room, looking for the key of her money-box. Then she opened the box, and emptied the money from it to give him his fare. He looked at her avidly, then his mouth broadened into a smile which clearly conveyed his animal urge.
The cabman Shahhata had never before met a white woman of this class— the bogus aristocracy—in the same room. He had never met one of these girls in these circumstances and in this attire. For had he ever seen any other woman but his crippled wife, brown-skinned, bad tempered, wearing a dirty blue dress, and a torn black veil? And before today, had he ever seen in front of him such a slender figure unclothed, hidden only by a diaphanous nightdress, through which could be descried those soft, slender legs, that white skin tinted with deep red, that painted face, those alluring eyes? Indeed…Cabman Shahhata had never in his life seen such bare feet, such hair in a fringe over the forehead, such prominent white breasts!
At that moment, Cabman Shahhata did not see Madam Iqbal as she really was, with her thin body, pasty face, and hollow eyes, disguised by powder and paint and the trappings of seduction. What he saw was a girl such as he had dreamed about; a white girl who conceals her fine face under a transparent black veil or a light white barqa’…the same sort of girl whose charming laughter he had heard in his cab, whose body had swayed before him in the street, whose beautiful sweet voice, with its alluring tone, had saddened him.
Madam Iqbal approached him gracefully, affecting coyness, and said to him meekly and humbly:
“I haven’t any money today, cabman. Will you come back tomorrow?”
She gave him an imploring look, which contained something of the coquettish and the “come hither”. Shahatta’s eyes caught a glimpse of a strange gleam. Then he said to her wantonly:
“I can’t leave here, Lady. As the saying goes, ‘the pigeon doesn’t enter the same way as it leaves’.”
Madam Iqbal smiled, guessing what was in his mind. She rushed at him, forgetting his dirtiness and foul smell, giving him a kiss on the mouth which intoxicated him, and almost made him faint.
Madam Iqbal’s son, Jamāl, who was seven years old, returned home, looked through the bedroom keyhole, then burst out laughing. As he went away, he met Umm Labība, pulled her head to his, and began to tell her, in his childish language, the secret he had seen in the room…the secret of Cabman Shahhata’s remission of the debt due to him by these easy and marvelous means.
Translated by John A. Haywood22
A play in one act
Cast
Asakir, a widowed peasant woman
Mabruka, her sister-in-law
Simeida, son of Mabruka
Ilwan, son of Asakir
A peasant hut in an Upper Egyptian village. Asakir and Mabruka, both dressed in black, are sitting near the entrance, with heads bowed in silence. Close by them a calf and a kid are seen eating herbage and dried clover. The whistle of a train is heard.
Mabruka (raising her head). There’s the train.
Asakir (without moving). Do you think he has come on it?
Mabruka. Didn’t he say he would, in his letter? Sheikh Isnawi. the school-teacher, read it out for us yesterday.
Asakir. Are you sure you’ve told no one at all that he’s my son?
Mabruka. Do you think I’ve gone mad? Your son Ilwan died when he was a mere child of two. He was drowned in the sluice of the water wheel. The whole village knows that.
Asakir. But they no longer believe it.
Mabruka. Who are “they”? The Tahawis?
Asakir. Didn’t your son Simeida tell you what he heard in the market the other day?
Mabruka. No. What did he hear?
Asakir. He heard someone say to a group of people “Either the Azizes have no more men left among them or else they’re concealing a man in order to take revenge, a man closer to the victim then his nephew Simeida.” And who but a man’s own son can be any closer than his nephew?
Mabruka. Oh yes: Simeida told me about that. If it hadn’t been for this rumor he would never have been able to hold up his head in the village.
Asakir. Well, let them know now that the dead man’s son is still alive. We’ve no fear for him now that he’s a grown man. I’m not the one who is afraid now. It’s them that fear keeps awake of a night. Hurry up, train, and bring him soon. I’ve waited a long time—seventeen years, I’ve counted them hour by hour. Seventeen whole years and I’ve milked them out of Time’s udders, drop after drop, with all the hard tugging you’d need if you were milking a cow that’s far gone in her age.
Mabruka (listening to a far-off sound). There’s the train arrived in the station. He’ll find my son Simeida waiting to meet him.
Asakir (as if talking to herself). That’s right.
Mabruka (turning to her). What’s the matter with you, Asakir? You’re trembling.
Asakir (as if to herself). Simeida’s song will tell me.
Mabruka. Tell you?
Asakir. That he’s come.
Mabruka. Did you tell my son to sing as a sign that Ilwan was here?
Asakir. Yes, as soon as they set foot across the village bounds.
Mabruka. Patience, Asakir, be patient. The worst is over now.
Asakir. It’s not fear nor weakness that I’m feeling now.
Mabruka. The fearsome days have now gone. Gone forever, they are. I shan’t ever forget the day when you hid your son Ilwan—and he a mere child of two then—hid him in the flour basket and carried him under cover of darkness out of the village. Took him all the way to Cairo, and gave him into the care of that kinsman of yours, the flour merchant who kept shop in the spice dealer’s row near the mosque of our blessed Hussein.
Asakir. Bring him up as a butcher, I said to him. Let him learn to use the knife like a master.
Mabruka. But he never did as you asked him.
Asakir. He did that! Soon as he was seven years old he placed him in a butcher’s shop. But run away, he did, some time later,
Mabruka. And went into the Holy al-Azhar as a student.
Asakir. That’s it. When I visited him last year I saw him in his gown and turban looking most dignified. 1 said to him: If only your father could have seen you looking like that, he’d have been mighty proud. But they didn’t spare him to enjoy watching his son grow up.
Mabruka. Wouldn’t it have been better if he’d stayed on in the butcher’s shop?
Asakir. What makes you say that, Mabruka?
Mabruka. I don’t know. It’s only a thought that came into my head.
Asakir. I reckon I know your thought.
Mabruka. What is it, then, Asakir?
Asakir. It grieves you to see my son in gown and turban while yours goes on wearing his woolly skull cap and his smock.
Mabruka. By the memory of the dear departed, I give you my oath, nothing of the kind was in my mind.
Asakir. Why then don’t you like Ilwan to be at the Holy al-Azhar?
Mabruka. I give you my oath, it isn’t that I don’t like it, it’s just that I’m afraid.
Asakir. Afraid?
Mabruka. That he might not be such a master at wielding his knife.
Asakir. Set your mind at rest, Mabruka. When you see Ilwan now, a full-grown man, you’ll realize that he has the lean strong-thewed arm of the Aziz family.
Mabruka (listening to the train whistle). The train’s moving out of the station now.
Asakir. Let it go where it will, so long as it’s brought us Ilwan to force the murderer’s soul out of his body, and to leave him for the farm dogs in scattered gobbets of flesh.
Mabruka. What if he hasn’t come?
Asakir. Why do you say that, Mabruka?
Mabruka. I don’t know. Just a feeling I’ve got.
Asakir. What would stop him coming?
Mabruka. What would drive him to leave Cairo and the city life and the Holy al-Azhar and come to this—?
Asakir. This is where he was born, where blood is calling out to him.
Mabruka. Our village is a long, long way away from Cairo! Can blood make itself heard as far as the cities?
Asakir. Do you really think he hasn’t come?
Mabruka. I know no more about it than you do.
Asakir. And what about the letter that the schoolmaster read out to us?
Mabruka. Don’t you recall his words: “I hope to come if my circumstances allow it.” Who knows whether or not his circumstances have allowed it?
Asakir. Don’t dampen my spirits, Mabruka, Don’t dash my hope. I’ve just heard the train whistle turning into trills of joy in my heart, announcing that the end is near of this long mourning. Ilwan not come? What would become of me if that were true? And how much longer would I have to wait then?
Mabruka. The station isn’t so far from here, nor the main road. If he’d arrived, Simeida would be singing now.
Asakir. Perhaps they’re taking their time, chatting. After all they haven’t seen each other for more than three years…since your son was in Cairo last during the Fair of the blessed Hussein.
Mabruka. If he’d come, my son’s heart would have brimmed over with joy and he’d have started his singing even before he’d reached the main road.
Asakir. Perhaps he’s forgotten to sing.
Mabruka. It’s impossible: he can’t forget.
Asakir (listening). I can hear no one singing.
Mabruka (listening). Nor I neither.
Asakir (continuing to listen). There’s no one singing, not even a shepherd lad. There’s not a single creature singing, not even the owl over in the ruins. You’re right, Mabruka, he hasn’t come.
Mabruka (as if to herself). My heart tells me things.
Asakir. No, not yours—mine. Mine, that’s as secret as the grave, as hard as rock, is now beginning to tell me things.
Mabruka. What things?
Asakir. Things that will happen.
Mabruka. Do tell me.
Asakir (listening intently). Hush! Listen, listen. Can you not hear, Mabruka? Can you not hear?
Mabruka. Simeida singing.
Asakir. The heavens be thanked for that!
(They listen for a while to Simeida’s song which grows increasingly clearer)
Simeida (sings):
O my dear one,
Your bitter voice accuses:
Repentance and excuses
Were all I ever gave!
You reproached me then the more,
And out of grief
My clothes
To shreds I tore.
When they told me of your father,
It was my silent shame
Which set unmanly cheeks aflame,
Where eyes ran dry
And made a desert of my face.
Asakir. He’s come, IIwan is here! And now it’s off with the shirt of my shame and on with my garment of honor.
Mabruka. And now we can hold the true rites over the body of the dear one— and may he rest in peace.
Asakir. And sacrifice to his spirit the kid and the calf.
Mabruka. O joy! O happiness! (Makes as though to give out a loud trill)
Asakir (restrains her). Not now. Otherwise we’ll be known to the world too early.
Mabruka. Your hours are numbered, Suweilam Tahawi!
(A knock on the door. Asakir rushes to open it: Simeida appears carrying a bag)
Simeida. I have brought you Sheikh IIwan. (Puts the bag on the floor and is soon followed in by Ilwan)
Asakir (with open arms). Ilwan, my son.
Ilwan (kisses her head). Mother.
Asakir (to her son). Say your greetings to your aunt Mabruka.
Ilwan (turns to Mabruka). Are you well, Aunt Mabruka?
Mabruka. You can see for yourself, Ilwan, You are our only hope now.
Simeida. Let us go home now, mother.
Mabruka. Come. It’s close now, Asakir—the hour of relief.
(Mabruka and Simeida go out)
Asakir. You must be hungry, Ilwan. I’ve a bowl of sour milk.
Ilwan. Thank you, mother. No, I’m not hungry. I had some hard-boiled eggs and some barley-cake on the train.
Asakir. You’ll be thirsty then?
Ilwan. No, not thirsty either.
Asakir. Of course you haven’t come here for food or drink. You’ve come to eat of his flesh and drink of his blood.
Ilwan (as if in a trance). I have come here to do something truly great, mother.
Asakir. I know, I know, my son. Wait till I bring you something: something you’ve never set your eyes on before. (Rushes to an inner room where she disappears for a while)
Ilwan (casting a look around the room). My eyes can still see animals and their droppings in your houses. The dirty water jar, firewood and dried stalks of maize forming a shaky roof.
Asakir (emerges from the inner room holding a saddlebag which she lays before her son). Here. For seventeen years I have kept these things for you.
Ilwan (looks at the saddlebag without moving) What is this?
Asakir. The saddlebag that your father’s body was sent to me in, carried on his donkey. In this pouch I found his severed head, and in the other one the rest of his body, hacked to pieces. With his own knife they stabbed him to death—the knife he was carrying, then they put knife and body in the saddlebag. See, here is the knife. I left the blood on it until it’s turned to just as you can see. As for the donkey that brought me the body of your murdered father, tracing its steps back to this house by force of habit, with its head bowed down, as if it was grieving over its master—I couldn’t keep it alive for you. It couldn’t endure for all these years: it’s died.
Ilwan. Who did this?
Asakir. Suweilam Tahawi.
Ilwan. How do you know?
Asakir. The whole village knows.
Ilwan. I know you’ve told me that. You’ve told that name to me over and over again, whenever you came to visit me in Cairo. I was too young to think then or to argue. But now my reason needs to be satisfied. What’s the evidence? Did the police ever look into the crime?
Asakir. Look into the crime?
Ilwan. Yes. What did you say to the Public Prosecutor?
Asakir. Public Prosecutor? The shame of it! We say anything to the Public Prosecutor? We the Azizes do that? Did ever the Tahawis ever do that?
Ilwan. Didn’t the Public Prosecutor ask you any questions?
Asakir. Of course. But we said we knew nothing about the business, that we’d seen no corpse. Meantime we had buried your father in secret under cover of darkness.
Ilwan (as if addressing himself). So that we may exact requital with our own hands.
Asakir. With the self-same knife that stabbed your father.
Ilwan. And the murderer?
Asakir. Alive and hearty. There’s not a saint or a holy man in the neighborhood but whose shrine I visited. I held on to the railings of their sanctuary, uncovered my head and heaped dust from their ground over my hair, and I prayed to them to beseech our God for me that He might prolong the slayer’s days until you, my son, should take his life—with your own hands,
Ilwan. Are you sure, mother, that he was the murderer?
Asakir. We’ve no enemies beside the Tahawis.
Ilwan. But how do you know it was Suweilam himself who did it?
Asakir. Because he believed it was your father who’d murdered his father.
Ilwan. And is that true? Did my father kill his father?
Asakir. God alone knows.
Ilwan. But what started this family feud in the first place?
Asakir. I don’t know. Nobody knows. It’s something far gone in the past. All that we know is that there’s always been blood spilt between us.
Ilwan. The cause may well be that one of our calves happened to drink from a water-channel in a field that belonged to their ancestors!
Asakir. God alone knows. As for us mortals, all that we know is that between the Azizes and Tahawis rivers of blood have flown.
Ilwan. Rivers that water neither crop nor fruit.
Asakir. Rivers that stopped flowing only with the death of your father. And that became of your tender age. Years then went past dry as the thirsty season, and people whispered lies and false rumors, while I was writhing in the flames of my hidden anger, waiting for this hour. And now the hour has come, so get up, son, and put out my fire and slake my thirst for the blood of Suweilam Tahawi.
Ilwan. Has this Suweilam Tahawi got a son?
Asakir. Yes. Fourteen years old.
Ilwan. So I have no more than another four or five years to live.
Asakir. What is it you are saying?
Ilwan. …Only until he grows strong enough to do to me what I am supposed to do to his father.
Asakir. Do you fear for your life, Ilwan?
Ilwan. And what about you, mother? Do you fear for my life?
Asakir. The Lord be my witness, how I fear for every hair on your head.
Ilwan. You really care about my life, mother?
Asakir. Has my life any worth without yours? Or for that matter, the lives of all the Azizes. It’s your life alone has made it possible for every one of us to live through the past seventeen years.
Ilwan (bows his head). I see.
Asakir. How often we suffered shame and humiliation. But as soon as your image crossed our minds our energy would revive, our resolution would strengthen and we were united in the hope that we placed upon you.
Ilwan (his head still bowed and as if talking to himself). You certainly need my life.
Asakir. Even your father’s funeral waits for you, Ilwan. These sacrifices here are ready for the slaughter. My lamentation which I’ve been choking down in my throat all these years is waiting for you to set it free, My frock which I’ve kept myself from tearing open all that time is waiting for you, too. Everything in our existence is dead. Stagnant. Locking to you to breathe life into it.
Ilwan. Is this how life is breathed into you?
Asakir. Yes, Ilwan. Bring the appointed hour closer. Be quick.
Ilwan (in wonder). The appointed hour?
Asakir. I’ve forgotten nothing. Even the stone to whet the rusty knife I’ve
al-Nahda – Renaissance of Arabic Literature brought for you and hidden in this room.
Ilwan. But how am I to know this Suweilam? I’ve never set eyes on him in the whole of my life.
Asakir. Simeida will show you where to find him. He’ll point him out to you.
Ilwan (looks at his clothes). Am I to commit this deed while I’m dressed in this way?
Asakir. Take off those clothes. I’ve a cloak that belonged to your father. I’ve kept it for you. (She runs to go into the inner room)
Ilwan (stops her). Just a minute, mother. Why the hurry?
Asakir. Every breath Suweilam draws while you are here is a gift which you are granting to him,
Ilwan. And what harm is there in that?
Asakir. It’s taken from our breaths; it’s drawn out of our wellbeing. Against our wishes we were forced to extend his life by as much as nearly brought us to the grave. Look at your mother, Ilwan. I was a young woman when your father died. But look what all those years have done to me. It is as if they were forty years, not seventeen. The sap of my youth has dried up and my bones have grown weak. All I have left is a memory that can never forget and a heart that cannot relent.
Ilwan (as if to himself). What a price it costs to avenge one’s blood.
Asakir (uncomprehending). What did you say, Ilwan?
Ilwan. I said that God the Mighty Avenger is merciful to us. He offers to relieve us of this burden without any cost to us.
Asakir (in a suspicious tone). What do you mean?
Ilwan. Nothing, mother, nothing.
Asakir (decisively). Take off those clothes. I’ll bring you the cloak and sharpen the knife for you myself.
Ilwan. Isn’t there a mosque nearby?
Asakir. We’ve only a little chapel next to Sheikh Isnawis school-house.
Ilwan (moving). I’ll go there and say my evening prayers.
Asakir. At this hour?
Ilwan. I think the sun is about to set.
Asakir. Do you want to be seen in the mosque by everyone in the village?
Ilwan. That would be the best opportunity for my purpose.
Asakir (stares him in the face). Have you gone mad, IIwan?
Ilwan. It’s most important for me to meet the villagers, Haven’t I just told you that I have come to do something truly great?
Asakir (as if mocking him). I shouldn’t imagine you’ll want to reveal to the village the reason for your coming here?
Ilwan. It’s essential to let them all hear what I have to tell.
Asakir. Ilwan, my son! What is it that I hear you say? Are you serious? Are you in your right mind? What is it that you want to tell them?
Ilwan (as if in a dream). I’ll tell them what I have come here to say. I have often thought about my village and its people, in spite of the long time I’ve been away from it. There, at al-Azhar, when the classes were over, we—the students, that is—we’d gather together and read the newspapers. And we’d think of the places we’d come from. We were very homesick. And we often worried about when our people in the countryside would be able to live like human beings, in clean houses where they wouldn’t share their meals with animals. When the roofs of their houses would be something better than dry stalks of cotton and maize, and the walls painted with something better than mud and the droppings of their beasts. When the water pot would disappear and there would be clean running water to the house. When electric lights would replace the oil lamp. Was that too much to ask for our people? Don’t they have the same rights as others?
Asakir (as if uncomprehending). What is all this you’re saying, Ilwan?
Ilwan. This is what the people of the village ought to know. And these of us who were educated in Cairo—it’s our duty to make them see and realize their human rights. It shouldn’t be difficult for them to achieve this aim: if only they would unite, join hands and co-operate. They ought to set up a council. Elect a council, that’s it, from amongst themselves. And they could tax those who had money enough to pay. They’d form a team of able-bodied men to spend those long hours when there’s nothing doing in making dykes and bridges and other constructive things. Not wasting time in squabbles and feuds. Why, if they worked together like that, if they would only make the effort, we’d make this a model village. And it would soon be an example for all the other villages in the country to follow.
Asakir. You’re talking the language of books. You can keep that for later. For when you have your evening talk with Sheikh Muhammad Isnawi. He can understand it—I can’t. As for the present, there’s something more important that we’ve to do, Ilwan.
Ilwan (shocked). What is it that’s more important?
Asakir. No. Don’t go to the mosque to pray tonight. Else our plan might fail. Pray here tonight, if you wish to. Go and take off those clothes. I’ll fetch water from the water-pot for you to prepare for your prayers. Put on the cloak and help me sharpen the knife.
Ilwan (his head bowed, whispers). Your mercy, O God, Your favor and forgiveness!
Asakir. What are you saying, Ilwan?
Ilwan (raises his head). I am saying that I have come here only to make you see and realize what life is, to bring you life.
Asakir. And that’s exactly what we’ve been waiting for patiently for all these long nights. For seventeen years all the Azizes have been dead, waiting for your return to bring life back to them.
Ilwan (whispers with his head bowed down). God! What am I to do with these people?
Asakir. What is wrong with you, Ilwan? You keep bowing your head. Come on. Get up. Don’t waste any more time.
Ilwan (raises his head and takes courage). Mother, I will not kill.
Asakir (tries to conceal her distress). What do I hear?
Ilwan. I will not kill.
Asakir (in a rough voice). The blood of your father!
Ilwan. It’s you yourselves who left it spilt and wasted by hiding the crime from the government. It’s up to the authorities to punish.
Asakir (beside herself). The blood of your father!
Ilwan. My hand wasn’t made to destroy a human being.
Asakir (as if in a trance). The blood of your father!
Ilwan (alarmed at her condition). Mother, mother: what is the matter with you?
Asakir (as if she can see nobody in front of her). The blood of your father! Seventeen years. The blood of your father. Seventeen years…!
Ilwan. Mother, calm yourself. Of course it’s a shock to you. But you must realize that I could never be an assassin and use my knife on a man.
Asakir (whispers as if out of her mind). Seventeen years…Vengeance for your father’s murder…Seventeen years…
Ilwan (as if to himself). Mother, I know that you’ve stood it patiently for so long. If only this patience and endurance of yours were given up to a useful cause you would perform miracles! But you must understand that I—
Asakir (with a quaver in her throat). The blood of your father!
Ilwan (rushes towards her, alarmed). Mother! Mother! Mother!
Asakir (recovers awareness of her surroundings). Who are you?
Ilwan. Your son, Ilwan. Your son.
Asakir (screams). Son? My son? No, no! Never, never, never!
Ilwan (astonished). Mother!
Asakir. I’m not your mother. I don’t know you. No son has ever been born out of my womb. No son have I ever given birth to.
Ilwan (pleading). Please, mother! Try to understand that—
Asakir. Out of my house…God’s curse be upon you to the Day of Judgment. Out of my house.
Ilwan. Mother!
Asakir (screams). Out of my house…or else I’ll ask the help of our men to throw you out. We still have men. There are still men among the Azizes. But you— you’re not one of them. Out of my house with you.
Ilwan (picks up his bag). I’ll go to the station and go back to where I came from. And I’ll pray to God that your disturbed soul may find peace, and that I may see you in Cairo soon to explain my way of looking at things, in quiet, far away from here. Goodbye, mother.
(He leaves. His mother remains motionless in her place. After a while, Simeida enters, first putting his head round the door, then gently pushing it open)
Simeida. Was it you screaming, Aunt Asakir?
Asakir (with determination: she is fully recovered now). Come here, Simeida.
Simeida (looks round). Where’s Ilwan? Where’s your son?
Asakir. I have no son. I never bore a son.
Simeida. What are you saying, Aunt Asakir?
Asakir. If I had a son he’d now be avenging his father’s murder.
Simeida. Where has he gone?
Asakir. To the station. On his way back to Cairo.
Simeida. My mother was right. As soon as she saw him just now, she said, as we were leaving, “That turbaned preacher will never kill Suweilam Tahawi.”
Asakir. I wish my womb had been torn to shreds before it brought such a son into the world!
Simeida. Don’t upset yourself, aunt. There are still men among the Azizes.
Asakir. Our hope is now in you, Simeida.
Simeida. A nephew can stand in for a son.
Asakir. But in this case the son’s alive. It’s his duty before anybody else, to avenge the shedding of his father’s blood. He’s alive, Alive. He’s about amongst the living.
Simeida. Just try to tell yourself that he’s dead.
Asakir. I wish he had really died, drowned in the sluice of the water-wheel when he was a child. We would then never have had to wait all those years, writhing and roasting on the live coals of our pent-up anger, waiting to no purpose. I wish he had truly died. We would have been able to live honorably then, and not be wearing our garment of shame. But he is alive, and it has been broadcast in the market places and in the whole neighborhood that he is alive. Oh, the shame. The ignominy. The disgrace!
Simeida. Aunt, don’t be so upset.
Asakir. It’s impossible not to be upset by a disgrace like this. Carrying such a shame, life will be impossible. How can I go on living in this village now that people know that I have a son like this. How many a mouth will spit whenever his name is mentioned. From all directions the cry will be heard: “Cursed be the womb that brought him forth!” Yes, this womb (Striking her belly hard and wildly). A curse on this womb. All the women of the village will mock it: even the ugly, the dim-witted, the barren. This womb… this womb… this womb.
Simeida (tries to stop her). Aunt Asakir, don’t punish yourself so!
Asakir. Fetch the knife, Simeida, fetch the knife, and rip it open.
Simeida. Have you gone mad?
Asakir (screams). Simeida: are you a man?
Simeida (looks at her intently). What is it you want?
Asakir. Stop your cousin’s disgrace.
Simeida. Ilwan’s?
Asakir. And his mother’s, your Aunt Asakir’s. Prevent her shame.
Simeida. How?
Asakir (takes the knife from the saddle bag). Kill him with this knife.
Simeida. Kill who?
Asakir. IIwan. Dig this knife into his heart.
Simeida. I kill Ilwan? Your son?
Asakir. Yes. Kill him. Send him to join the dead.
Simeida. Pull yourself together, aunt.
Asakir. Do this, Simeida…for my sake and for his!
Simeida. For his sake!
Asakir. Yes. Better for him and better for me that it should be said he was killed, than for folk to say that he fled from his duty of avenging his father’s murder.
Simeida. My own cousin!
Asakir. If you’re a man, Simeida, you must never let him bring shame upon the Azizes. Never again will you be able to carry yourself like a man. Men will whisper and laugh behind their hands at you and point at you in the marketplace, and say: “There goes no more than a woman and one who’s given shelter to another mere woman, at that.”
Simeida (to himself). A woman!
Asakir. If the Tahawis had such a son they’d never have let him live for an hour.
Simeida (to himself). A woman—giving shelter to another woman!
Asakir. Yes, that’s so; that’ll be you if you allow him to behave as he means to.
Simeida (stretches out his hand resolutely). Give me the knife.
Asakir (hands him the knife). Here it is. But wait till I wash the dried blood and the rust off its blade.
Simeida (impatiently). Give it to me, before he slips away by the evening train.
Asakir (gives him the knife eagerly and forcefully). Take it. Let his blood wash away the blood of his father that’s dried upon the blade.
Simeida (goes off with the knife). If I manage to kill him, you’ll hear my voice raised in song at the outskirts of the village, aunt.
(Exit quickly. Asakir remains alone, fixed to the spot like a statue, gazing motionless and absently. After a while, Mabruka appears, carrying a water pitcher on her head)
Mabruka (puts down the pitcher). I’ve brought some dried fish for Sheikh IIwan.
Asakir (turns to her slowly). May your life be longer than his, Mabruka.
Mabruka. Who are you talking about?
Asakir. Ilwan.
Mabruka. Your son?
Asakir. He’s no longer mine; he belongs to the dust.
Mabruka. What are you saying, Asakir? I left him with you only a moment ago. Where is he?
Asakir. Gone to the station on his way back to where he came from. Giving his back to the duty of avenging his father’s murder.
Mabruka (her head bowed down). Just as my heart has been telling me.
Asakir. Your prophecy has come true, Mabruka.
Mabruka. If only he had never come.
Asakir. Seventeen years we’ve been waiting.
Mabruka. Every year you used to say, “He’s growing.” You measured him by the handspan as if he were a shoot of maize. But then, when he grew tall and his cob was ripe, you stripped him, only to find that there was no grain on the cob.
Asakir. It wouldn’t have been such a disaster if he were no more than a bare cob. We never expected any material gain through him. We expected him to give us back our dignity—that was all. How proud I was of him, Mabruka, how often I boasted about him to you. I thought I’d brought forth the son who’d cleanse the stain off the honor of the family. And how has he turned out now? The very son I’ve given birth to, the son I took great care to hide like a treasure in a crock of clay—he’s no more than a stain on our tree, like a blight overtaking a cotton plant. God’s mercy be on your soul, my husband: they spilt your blood and it has not been avenged. I’ve given you a son who brings comfort to your enemies and makes them gloat.
Mabruka. Oh shame. Shame on the Azizes!
Asakir. If he stays alive. But before long he’ll be buried in the earth.
Mabruka (turns round suddenly). Where’s Simeida?
(The whistling of a train is heard)
Asakir (listening intently). Hush! There’s the evening train entering the station.
Mabruka. Asakir, where’s Simeida?
Asakir (still listening intently). Be quiet. Now, at this instant, at this very instant.
Mabruka (astonished). What happens at this instant?
Asakir (as if to herself). Do you think the train has carried him off? Or has he been carried off by—
Mabruka. If he’s gone to the station, as you say, he must have got on the train. All these curses you are heaping on his head will do no good.
Asakir. Do you really think he has got on the train?
Mabruka. What could have stopped him?
Asakir (slipping out the answer). Simeida!
Mabruka. Simeida? Did he go after him to stop him leaving?
Asakir. Yes.
Mabruka. When did he go?
Asakir. A short while before you came.
Mabruka. I shouldn’t think he could have overtaken him.
Asakir (sighs in relief). Do you really think so?
Mabruka. Unless he ran very fast.
(The train whistle is heard again)
Asakir (listens intently). There, the train is leaving the station.
Mabruka (stares at her). What’s wrong with you, Asakir? Why have you gone so pale?
Asakir. What does your heart tell you, Mabruka?
Mabruka. It tells me that he has gone.
Asakir. Gone. Gone—where?
Mabruka. Where he came from.
Asakir. What do you mean?
Mabruka (watches her). Why is your breast heaving like that?
Asakir (in a whisper, her eyes wandering). Gone where he came from!
Mabruka. Do you still hope for some good from him?
Asakir. No.
Mabruka. You must think of him as if he’d never been.
Asakir (as if to herself). Yes. His death is less shameful than his life.
Mabruka. And thank God that he’s far away.
Asakir (to herself). Is he on the train now?
Mabruka. Who knows? Perhaps Simeida was able to catch him up and persuade him not to go: perhaps he’ll bring him back now.
Asakir (as if dreaming). Bring him back now?
Mabruka. Why not? If Simeida ran really fast he wouldn’t have missed the train.
Asakir (whispers)…Was able to catch him up…
Mabruka. And it may not be long before we see them coming back again together.
Asakir (to herself). No. This time Simeida will be coming alone.
Mabruka (watches her anxiously). Your face, it fills me with terror.
Asakir (listens intently). Hush! Listen! Listen! Can’t you hear anything?
Mabruka. No. What do you want me to hear?
Asakir. Singing.
Mabruka. No, I cannot hear any singing.
Asakir (with relief). Nor can I.
Mabruka. Did Simeida tell you he was going to sing?
Asakir (to herself, anxiously). Perhaps he hasn’t reached the edge of the village yet.
Mabruka. I should imagine he has, by now.
Asakir (breathing more freely). And he is not singing!
Mabruka. Now the blood has come back to your cheeks.
Asakir (whispers). He hasn’t caught him up.
Mabruka. You’d rather he didn’t come back, Asakir, wouldn’t you? You’d rather the train carried him away from this village. So would I. I’d much rather he returned to his Cairo, to his preachers and the other students. He doesn’t belong to us, nor we to him. He’s done well to leave us so soon, before the people of the village could meet him and get to know what we know about him. (Asakir listens to a distant sound) You’re not listening to me, Asakir. Don’t you think I’m right?
Asakir (in a rough, alarmed voice). No, no, I can’t hear anything!
Mabruka (listens). It is Simeida singing. (Turns, alarmed, to Asakir, whose eyes have glazed over). Asakir! Asakir! What’s wrong? You scare me!
Simeida (outside, sings).
O my dear one,
Your bitter voice accuses:
Repentance and excuses
Were all I ever gave
You reproached me then the more,
And out of grief my clothes
To shreds I tore.
When they told me of your father,
It was my silent shame
Which set unmanly cheeks aflame,
Where eyes ran dry
And made a desert of my face.
Asakir (pulls herself together, to stop herself from collapsing, but lets slip a faint choking cry like a death rattle). My son!
CURTAIN
Translated by Mustafa Badawi23