When Abd el-Kader’s efforts were no longer critically needed to help restore sanity in his adopted city, he withdrew from society. He needed time to cleanse his soul of the violence and madness in which he had been forced to immerse himself. For two months he lived at the Great Mosque of Damascus, praying, meditating, and healing. Someone from his house brought him one meal a day, his only contact with the outside world.
The Great Mosque was especially appropriate for Abd el-Kader’s retreat. Built on the foundation of an early Christian church, which rested on much earlier pagan temples, it was completed in 715 C.E. by the earliest Muslim rulers of Damascus. On the walls were beautiful images of trees, gardens, rivers, and fountains, created in gold and brightly colored mosaics by Christian artisans from the Byzantine Empire. Water and lush greenery have traditionally been a powerful symbol of paradise for Muslims, but these images suggest something more: the possibilities of Christians and Muslims creating beauty and religious harmony together, a prospect dear to Abd el-Kader’s heart.
Later in 1860, Abd el-Kader continued his spiritual revival by going on a short pilgrimage to an Islamic shrine in the Syrian city of Homs. On his return, he stopped at the famous Roman site in Baalbek, in what is now Lebanon. The temples and columns are still among the most enormous in the world, and it would be interesting to know what he thought as he marveled at the sheer size of those monuments to pagan gods. Could he see a connection between those religious ideas and his own?
While Abd el-Kader was trying to retreat from worldly concerns, the world was eager to shower him with honors. Napoleon III promptly sent him a medal for the highest honor that France could bestow, the Legion of Honor. Other countries followed suit, and medals came from Russia, Prussia, Greece, the Pope, and even the Ottoman sultan. In several of his photographs, Abd el-Kader displays all these large medals on a sash across his body. The American government sent him a pair of custom-made, gold-inlaid Colt pistols—a gesture that appears ironic at a time when the Emir was trying to put violence behind him.
Meanwhile, not content with medals, some people in France wished to honor the Emir by putting him back to work. In the fall of 1860, an anonymous pamphlet appeared in Paris, entitled “Abd el-Kader: Emperor of Arabia.” The writer argued that the Ottoman Empire, on its last legs, should be replaced by an Arab empire made up of Syria, Mount Lebanon, Palestine, and part of what is now Iraq. Abd el-Kader would be the perfect head of state, the pamphlet stated, because of all his outstanding qualities and accomplishments. The proposal created quite a stir at first, but international rivalries soon put an end to it. If the French liked the prospect of Abd el-Kader ruling Syria, the British would inevitably block it—even though that meant continuing to prop up the Ottoman Empire.
How did Abd el-Kader feel about the idea? No one, it seems, thought of asking him until a few months later. Then he made his wishes plain. “My career in politics is over. I have no ambition for worldly glory. From now on, I want only the sweet pleasures of family, prayer, and peace.”1
In 1865, however, along came another job offer, this time from Napoleon III. He proposed that with the ever-increasing European settlement of Algeria, the country should be divided, one part for the Europeans, the other an Arab kingdom. And who for king better than Abd el-Kader? This idea never got off the ground. The European settlers were horrified, and Abd el-Kader was equally negative. Not only had he promised never to set foot on Algerian soil again, he said, but the Algerian people would not accept him. By now he was too progressive in outlook, too closely associated with aspects of modern thinking and western ways. The people of Algeria, impoverished and dispossessed, clung more fiercely than ever to traditional ways and would reject a leader who was now, in some respects, so different from them. Besides, he really meant it: he had no interest whatsoever in worldly power.
One trip, sacred in a way because especially dear to Abd el-Kader’s heart, was very short. Every morning he carried his beloved mother Lalla Zohra up to the roof of his house, so she could sit in the sun. In 1861, at the end of a long life of both hardship and honor, deprivation and generosity, Lalla Zohra died. The loss struck deep in Abd el-Kader and contributed to his decision to undertake a third pilgrimage.
The Emir set out for Mecca on January of 1863. He wanted to make a double pilgrimage, requiring that he stay and take part in the pilgrimage of the following year. But while in Mecca, Abd el-Kader found himself so much in demand by Islamic scholars and other visitors that he had to retreat to his small room and live like a hermit. For months he studied and prayed, eating and sleeping so little that his health suffered. Recovering in time for the second pilgrimage, he returned to Damascus in June of 1864.
In the following year, Abd el-Kader undertook another trip, but of a very different sort: to Paris. This voyage, although one of his “secular” journeys, gave him a chance to demonstrate a spiritual value: his belief in reconciliation, even with wrong-doers. Stopping in Constantinople, he spoke directly with the sultan and asked for the release of the high-rank individuals from Damascus who, in the trials after the massacres, had been found guilty and exiled or imprisoned. Abd el-Kader was hardly a favorite in Constantinople, but his international renown and reputation for religious piety gave his arguments weight. The sultan listened and granted his request.
In France, enthusiastically welcomed by the Parisians, Abd el-Kader thanked Napoleon III in person for the honors he had received. He visited old friends, including his former interpreters Daumas and Boissonnet, went to the opera again, and attended a concert that demonstrated new musical instruments such as the saxophone.
Two years later, in 1867, back to Paris he went, officially invited to see the second Universal Exposition of science and technology. On this occasion Abd el-Kader also crossed the English Channel for the first time, to visit the country where he had aroused so much interest first as a resistance fighter, then as a “caged hawk,” and finally as a protector of Christians. His four days in England, aside from an audience with Queen Victoria, passed simply enough. He enjoyed seeing the sights of London like any other visitor—Westminster Abbey, the British Museum, the Houses of Parliament—and especially the famous Crystal Palace, at that time the largest building ever made of plate glass. The latest achievements in technology were always high on the Emir’s “must see” list.
The most important trip during this time in his life took Abd el-Kader to Port Said on the coast of Egypt, in the fall of 1869. The occasion was the opening of the Suez Canal, which linked the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. The celebration, which included the first performance at the elegant Cairo Opera House, built expressly for the occasion, was possibly the most splendid event of the century in the Mediterranean world. This was no casual visit for the Emir, or even a courtesy invitation to sit with dignitaries from all over Europe. He was particularly honored, because among all his other activities and interests, Abd el-Kader had played a key role in the construction of the canal.
Years earlier, while the Emir was still a prisoner in France, one of the prominent men who had visited him was the diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps. Later, de Lesseps became the principal promoter for the canal project. Finding the ruler of Egypt reluctant to go along with the plan, in 1861 he visited Abd el-Kader in Damascus to ask for help. The Emir was delighted to become involved. He got busy writing letters, helped win the Egyptian ruler’s approval, and the digging proceeded.
The whole Suez Canal project had a much more profound meaning for Abd el-Kader than just a triumph of modern engineering. This long-dreamed-of achievement now made it possible for ships to go from Europe to India and other points east without having to voyage all the way around Africa. Thus it was both a passageway and a bridge. It brought places closer together by connecting the great oceans and seas of the world; it linked East and West, along with the peoples and cultures of those worlds. Whether speaking to groups of engineers or the Canal Company’s shareholders, Abd el-Kader always discussed the Suez Canal in spiritual terms, calling it “inspired by God.” So important was the project to him in this sense, that on his return from his double pilgrimage to Mecca he made a point of stopping in Egypt at the construction site.
Connections and bridge-building, bringing different peoples in touch both physically and spiritually: that was what inspired Abd el-Kader most at this time in his life.
Like his spiritual master, the medieval Sufi mystic Ibn Arabi, Abd el-Kader wrote abundantly. He started putting together his spiritual writings, many of which reflected the influence of Ibn Arabi, during his first years in Damascus. By conveying his spiritual and philosophical insights in writing, he carried forward the heritage he had received from studying the Sufi master in his youth. This vital connection is increasingly relevant today, as interest in Ibn Arabi is growing among scholars and in the Muslim world. The city of Ibn Arabi’s birth in Spain, Murcia, holds a major international film festival in his honor each year, especially for films that emphasize conciliation, understanding, and respect for diverse beliefs.
The Emir’s spiritual writings, based in Sufi mysticism, are difficult for most people to grasp; but for the purposes of this story of his life, one idea stands out clearly. Abd el-Kader firmly believed that God is a universal presence, the one enduring reality, and that all religions really worship the same God. Not just the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), but all others as well. He states: “. . . God addresses all those who have been reached by the Koranic revelation or earlier revelations—Jews, Christians, Mazdeans, idolaters, Manicheans and other groups professing varied opinions and beliefs with respect to Him—to teach them that their God is one. . . . All the beliefs which are professed about Him are for Him just different names.”2
To further explain, he says: “Allah [the Arabic word for God] is not limited by what comes to your mind—that is to say, your creed—or enclosed in the doctrine you profess. . . . If you think and believe that He is what all the schools of Islam profess and believe—He is that, and He is other than that! If you think that He is what the diverse communities believe, He is that, and He is other than that! . . . Each of His creatures worships him and knows Him in a certain respect and is ignorant of Him in another respect.”3 In other words, says Abd el-Kader, no one religion or individual can know everything about God. Part of every understanding of God is true—but there’s always more. God cannot be completely understood.
Abd el-Kader reminds his readers that the holy book of Islam, the Koran, explicitly states that differences are good, that God purposely created people to be different. Diversity of human communities, with differing cultures and religious ideas, is one of God’s many blessings on humankind.
With these beliefs, Abd el-Kader could talk for hours with people who followed different religions—or no recognized religion at all. He could learn from them and share his own convictions, without having to insist that such-and-such a belief about God, or what God wanted, was absolutely right, or that a particular doctrine was wrong. The objective of dialogue was not to oppose or to win over, but to reveal the truths common to all religions.
Indeed, Abd el-Kader believed that his ability to accept “divisions” in understanding confirmed that he had a special role in bridging differences: Islam and Christianity, East and West. If both Muslims and Christians would listen to him, he said, it would prevent a lot of trouble.
A few years earlier, during his residence in Turkey, Abd el-Kader had set down his thoughts in quite a different way. A French scholar had asked him to write his autobiography, but the Emir chose to write a long philosophical essay instead. It was published in Paris in 1858 and aroused much interest. Although Abd el-Kader gave it a different title, it has been known ever since as “Letter to the French”—meaning thoughtful persons of western society in general.4 In contrast with the style of his spiritual writings, Abd el-Kader’s “Letter” sounds as though he were talking to the reader. He points out truths about relations between people, and between humans and God, and suggests appropriate behavior. The Letter is his best known literary legacy. It is important today as a statement of ideas and faith by a Muslim who was traditionally educated and devout, but also remarkably open-minded and receptive.
The first section is about knowledge, both intellectual and spiritual. The second is on moral behavior, divine law, and the role of the prophets; and the third discusses the history and importance of writing.
In Abd el-Kader’s view of the physical world, each animal and plant has a distinguishing characteristic that helps to define it. What makes humankind unique? The love of knowledge, the pursuit of truth. Desire for knowledge comes from a combination of intellectual and moral ability, which can perhaps best be referred to as reason (aql in Arabic). Abd el-Kader notes that reason differs from one person to another, both in “richness” and in quantity. Everyone has enough to acquire some knowledge, but some people have much more than others.
In discussing different kinds of knowledge, Abd el-Kader rather surprisingly puts politics at the most basic level—yet considers it the most important subject of knowledge. By “politics” he means simply the art of living together. Humans are social creatures and must cooperate in order to survive. Friction and quarrels are inevitable—between husband and wife, parents and children, shepherds and landowners, between all human individuals and groupings. Therefore, people need the kind of knowledge that guides behavior in a just and righteous way, based on generosity and caring rather than love of power. Religious leaders should not seek power, he says, but they should oppose injustice and have the courage to confront the worldly rulers when those rulers are not wise or just.
Abd el-Kader greatly admired many things about France and especially the accomplishments of scholars and engineers. In his Letter he observes that it was the huge difference between modern knowledge and the stagnant traditional thinking of Algerian society that enabled France to conquer. He calls on the Islamic world to stop opposing progress under the guise of “preserving values and principles”; it should “liberate” knowledge, join modernity, and open itself to European knowledge—but control its own future.
Yet the Emir fears that modern society is too secular. French scholars are lacking in the spiritual realm, he believes, and should acknowledge God’s role in their accomplishments. Without this recognition, people are not only ungrateful and cut off from divine wisdom, but headed for a fall.
Abd el-Kader’s thoughts are clear on the persisting debate over science and intellectual knowledge versus faith. He sees no contradiction between them. Although faith is above reason, both are gifts from God. But using religion to deny science, and using science to deny religion, are both wrong.
Turning to moral improvement, Abd el-Kader says that along with reason, there are three other essential qualities. Courage, meaning moral courage, is the ability to do what is right with firmness, generosity, and compassion. Behavior based on justice, free from anger, greed, and envy, is the second quality. Self-control holds back destructive impulses. But reason is the most important quality, because it enables humans to tell truth from error, to have good judgment, and to approach divine wisdom.
The role of prophets has been to teach divine wisdom, or divine law. Abd el-Kader describes the prophets as “doctors of the spirit.” Just as a good patient obeys the medical doctor, people should respond to the teachings of the prophets with faith and obedience.
But what if those teachings are hard to understand? Abd el-Kader tackles the difficult question of wealth in this context. It might be logical, he notes, to argue that a person should be allowed to keep all his wealth and use it only as he wishes. Reason, however, says something else. God created gold and silver, which have little use in themselves, to be utilized in exchange for things that are needed in life—food, shelter, clothing. Every person, the Emir says, needs and has a right to these basic things. Therefore, riches must be shared.
Generosity and neighborliness not only hold communities together but are at the core of all religions. Abd el-Kader reminds the reader that all the prophets of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam brought the same basic message: glorify God, and show compassion for all God’s creatures.
An important point that Abd el-Kader makes with clarity: religious law is not fixed and permanent. Sticking blindly to “established opinion,” he says, does not lead either to truth or to religious vitality. Just as a medical doctor may need to revise a prescription, religious law must change over time to meet changes in people’s conditions and needs. After all, change—like all creation—comes from God.
In the third chapter of his Letter, Abd el-Kader discusses how the remarkable human accomplishment of writing developed through the achievements of the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, Persians, Romans, and Greeks. He traces the path by which the works of the ancient philosophers—in Greek, Latin, Hebrew—were translated into Arabic by Muslim scholars during the height of Islamic civilization and later translated into European languages. Thus they were saved for world civilization. As he wrote this chapter, his thoughts must have returned to the loss of his own collection of precious manuscripts when his “floating capital,” the smala, was destroyed.
These are some of the highlights of Abd el-Kader’s ideas that he hoped would resonate with the educated people of the west.5 “Letter to the French” is still of much interest today.
Whenever Abd el-Kader was at home in Damascus, steady streams of people came to see him—and he was rarely “too busy.” For many a European traveler, a tour of the Middle East would have been incomplete without a visit to the Emir Abd el-Kader. He had gotten used to graciously receiving visitors during his days of imprisonment and as a free man in Paris; now he was able to keep up an even more welcoming style of hospitality. Although by this time he had learned some French, he preferred to speak in his own language, Arabic, with an interpreter at his side. It doesn’t seem to have slowed down the conversation.
Occasionally Abd el-Kader must have surprised his visitors. An American traveler, who happened to be a dentist, visited the Emir and was startled when Abd el-Kader asked for a little dental work. The visitor said he would have considered it an honor, but he had not brought his instruments.
However firm his own religious and moral truths were, Abd el-Kader was always willing to embrace difference. Indeed he made sure that he would have plenty of opportunity, because his friends were certainly not all proper, or religiously upright, or even socially respectable people. He seems, in fact, to have been drawn especially to un-conventional individuals. In the years following the troubles of 1860, two of Abd el-Kader’s favorite visitors were among the most eccentric, controversial English personalities of their time.
Sir Richard Burton, the British consul in Damascus from 1869-71, was a man for whom no adventure was too risky. In disguise, he had actually visited Mecca on the pilgrimage—a feat strictly forbidden to non-Muslims. He knew twenty-five languages, had explored the source of the Nile River in Africa, and had wandered on horseback across South America. Enjoying his reputation as a “godless devil-of-a-fellow,” he horrified people at dinner parties with lurid stories from his studies and travels. He and his wife Isabel spurned living in a fashionable house in the city and chose instead the shabby village of Salihiyya, where Ibn Arabi’s tomb stood.
A thoroughgoing rebel, Burton rejected religious belief. In character, he was a man as different from Abd el-Kader as could possibly be—and the two became fast friends. With his wife Isabel—every bit his partner in exploring dangerous places, riding across the desert, shooting, and so forth—Burton spent many hours visiting with the Emir. When he was abruptly recalled from his job as consul, only two friends said goodbye as the Burtons left Damascus late at night—and one was Abd el-Kader.
The other was Jane Digby, a beautiful, intelligent, talented English woman. She and her husband—her fourth and favorite, an Arab Bedouin chief—lived six months each year in a tent in the desert. The other six months they lived in Damascus, where they frequently visited Abd el-Kader. Like Richard Burton, Jane Digby had long since rebelled against her aristocratic social class and for many years had made no secret of her constant search for love. As a mature woman, however, she was much more than just a charming eccentric. During the riots of 1860, she not only sheltered Christians but went into the smoldering Christian quarter, its streets still strewn with corpses, to take food and medications to any survivors.
Isabel Burton’s memoirs give quite a different picture of the Emir from the grave appearance in his many photographs. She describes how, when she and her husband visited, he would come forward “with outstretched hands to grasp mine, his face beaming,” and soon serve cups of tea “with a peculiar herb.”6 Years later, she recalled the idyllic evenings spent on the roof of the Burtons’ house with Abd el-Kader and Jane Digby. This unlikely foursome would smoke their narguilehs (elaborate water-pipes) and settle down to “talk and talk and talk far into the night, about things above, things on earth, and things under the earth. . . . It was all wild, romantic, and solemn.”7
Abd el-Kader seems to have found so much to value in the friendship of both the Burtons and Jane Digby that ideas of socially correct behavior were quite irrelevant to him. With the rare gift of focusing on the essential qualities of the human being, he evidently felt free to associate with whomever he pleased, regardless of his own status in society.
Among Abd el-Kader’s other close friends in Damascus was Dr. Michael Mishaqa, the American vice-consul who had so narrowly escaped death during the massacres. In his middle years, in Lebanon, he had abandoned his original Greek Catholic faith and accepted Protestantism, learned from American missionaries. He was well educated, thoughtful, and an esteemed medical doctor. In spite of his own act of religious rebellion, Mishaqa agreed with Abd el-Kader that public rebelliousness, as in the events of 1860, cannot be condoned. Deciding for oneself whether or not to obey authority, he believed, only leads to chaos.
There was one person whose relationship with Abd el-Kader had a special character because it had somehow withstood betrayal. That individual was Léon Roches, who had been so close to the Emir from 1837 to 1839 and finally admitted that he had never really accepted Islam. Roches, who later led a highly adventurous life as a secret agent and diplomat, kept in touch with Abd el-Kader through occasional correspondence. They exchanged sympathetic letters about the death of Abd el-Kader’s mother, and when Roches was considering whether to write his memoir, Abd el-Kader encouraged him to do so.8 Yet the two men were never to meet again face to face.
Abd el-Kader lived for many years after the events of 1860 had focused the world’s attention once more upon him. Even in his late years, however, he was not free of the political complications that had always bedeviled his life.
The Ottoman authorities viewed Abd el-Kader with intense distrust, all the more because of his loyalty to France. He had to walk a careful line between the two—the Ottoman Empire, growing weaker and therefore more harsh, and the French Empire, increasingly pushing into the Middle East and Africa. With the growing influences of Islamic revival movements and Arab nationalism, the Emir’s relations with groups known to be hostile toward the Turks, such as the Druze and the religious brotherhoods, sharpened Ottoman suspicions. Yet, strangely enough, at least three of Abd el-Kader’s close family members decided to support the Turks and became officials in Constantinople.
As for his continuing admiration and loyalty to France, it’s hard to know just what to think of that extraordinary attachment to a former enemy. To be sure, Abd el-Kader depended on financial support from France, and a very large number of people depended on him. But considering the long sweep of his story, some questions persist. For instance, how could Abd el-Kader, recognizing that France intended to suppress his people completely and replace them with Europeans, have continued to respect his captors? How could he, knowing of the atrocities inflicted on his people by the French army, have been able to forgive and apparently forget?
There are no simple answers. Perhaps he did have that much power of forgiveness. Perhaps he was unusually capable of putting things behind him, closing the door on a major part of his past life, concentrating on the here and now—and of course, the eternal. He may have felt that his spiritual and mental health, and his ability to be a wise, clear-headed teacher and example to others, required that he avoid thinking about the condemnable behavior of his former enemy.
But the most important explanation may have lain in his complete trust in God. In December of 1847, at the time when Abd el-Kader decided to stop resisting, he was convinced that God had made the ultimate decision. God, the all-knowing and all-powerful, had determined that Algeria should henceforth be governed by France. Abd el-Kader’s role, as a devout servant of God, was to accept the decision and make the best of it. Focusing only on the good qualities of the former enemy would logically be part of God’s plan for him. In the end, Abd el-Kader’s estimation of France may simply have to be accepted as part of the story of this infinitely complex, extraordinary man.
Aside from his awareness of what was going on in the world, Abd el-Kader’s late years seem to have been comfortable and serene, surrounded by his family in his huge house in Damascus and his more restful house in the nearby countryside. For all his refusal of luxury, it is touching to note that the Emir did indulge himself in a few small ways. The traditional costume he wore was simple and unadorned but always of spotless white fabric, in contrast with his hair and beard—which remained very black. On occasion he might display his collection of medals, as when he sat for painted portraits by a variety of artists, and numerous photographs. At a time when even in Europe some people were still superstitious about their likenesses being “captured,” Abd el-Kader was fascinated by photography.
It was always the other world, however, the one sought through prayer and meditation, that meant the most to Abd el-Kader. That world, close to his God, was what had always given his life its truest meaning. The end of that remarkable life came at the age of seventy-six after a short illness, on May 25, 1883.
Accompanied by respectful groups along the way, Abd el-Kader’s body was borne from his country home the short distance to Damascus, in the carriage that Napoleon III had given him. The consuls and a large crowd were waiting to do him honor in the center of the old city, believed to be the ancient foundation of Damascus. From there he was carried to the Great Mosque for prayers. Finally, he was buried outside the city, next to the tomb of his spiritual master, Shaykh Ibn Arabi. He had chosen this resting-place even though it was in the rough, rundown area called Salihiyya, where the determined doubter Richard Burton had made his home. In death as in life, Abd el-Kader brought opposites together.