Layla and Majnun (10 page)

I
t so happened at this time that a hunter from the tribe of Amir was out stalking desert deer in the wastes of Najd when he came across Majnun. Now Majnun was not his prey, but the hunter’s tongue was sharper than any knife. He shouted, ‘So this is where you hide yourself. Is Layla the only person in your life who means anything to you? Have you no thoughts for the mother who gave birth to you, who raised you, nurtured you and watched over you with the tender solicitude that exists only in a mother’s heart? Is this how you repay her kindess, by forsaking her?

‘And what about your father? True, he was alive when you saw him last, but now the burden of grief has taken him to the grave. Tell me this: do you enjoy your life, knowing that his is finished? Do you think of him at all? In your selfishness you bury yourself alive in this
wilderness when you should be kneeling at his grave, asking his forgiveness. But it is clear that you are too wrapped up in your own emotions even to think of paying your last respects to him. What a pathetic creature you are! A son like you would be better dead than alive; then at least the mourning of those who love you would have meaning.’

The hunter’s impassioned diatribe cut into Majnun’s heart like a red-hot blade. The sinews in his body were suddenly like harp strings in the hands of some crazed musician: his head lolled to one side, his arms thrashed the air and his legs buckled beneath him. With a terrible moan of grief he fell on to his face, banging his head repeatedly on the stony earth until the blood ran into his eyes and mingled with his tears.

The journey to his father’s tomb was a difficult one, lasting several days and nights and entailing much hardship, but Majnun did not care. At the sight of his father’s headstone he was overcome once more by grief and fell into a sobbing heap at the foot of the grave. The old man had been unable to rescue him, but at least he had shared his son’s suffering. Majnun’s pain had been his pain and their tears had become a single river. But now Majnun’s tears must fall alone.

Wracked by grief, Majnun clawed at the earth and begged his father for some response, some sign. He cried out in a sorrowful voice, ‘O Father! Where are you now? For so many years you cared for me, nurtured and sustained me, and now it has all come to this! You were my rock, and now you are dust; you were my staff, and now you are ashes. To whom can I turn, now that you
have turned from life and entered the realm of death? You were always there for me, even though all I gave you was pain and heartache. How I wish that I had made you happy by being the kind of son you always dreamed of having; instead I tortured you and sent you to an early grave. And now I am tortured by this separation, by the indescribable loneliness I feel now that you are gone. Without you I am nothing: why did I let you go alone? Do not chastise me, Father, because I know better than anyone how much I have let you down. And if I blacken my face with the earth from your grave, it is not only because I wish to be near you: it is also because I wish to hide my shame.

‘I know that you wanted what was best for me, but I rejected you and pushed away your helping hand. When you were gentle and solicitous, I was hard and callous; when you offered me warmth, I responded with nothing but coldness. A thousand times you suffered, but not once did I come to you. You made up a room for me, prepared a bed where I could rest, but I refused. You offered me a table filled with food, but all I did was turn my back on it and close my eyes to your kindness. You placed the world at my feet, but all I could do was kick it. All of this I know, dear Father, and I cannot begin to tell you how much it pains me. That is all I have left: pain without relief, regret without end, sorrow without consolation. You created a niche for me in a corner of your heart: now that Fate has sealed up that niche, here I am trying to reach it! How could this have happened? One day we were together and now you are gone — but I am still here! How can this be? O Lord,
how great is my sin! How deep my guilt! O Lord, the blame is all mine and the grief is all mine!’

And so he lamented, clawing wildly at his breast as though trying to break the skin and grasp his heart in his hand. Night fell and the darkness covered him in his despair, black upon black. Only with the coming of the dawn, when the new sun rose into a lavender sky and scattered gold dust on the mountain peaks, did Majnun leave his father’s tomb. Humbled and forlorn, he made his way back once more to the caves and ravines of Najd.

A
fter the death of his father, Majnun felt an even greater need to cling to the wilderness and his life of isolation. Like a mountain lion, he would climb the steep rocks and explore gorges and wild ravines where no human being had ever set foot. Restlessly he moved from place to place, as though searching for some hidden treasure, his eyes darting this way and that, his heart beating like a drum.  

The true object of his search, of course, was Layla. He sought her everywhere, in the hope of finding her somewhere.

Yes, Layla was the treasure that he was seeking; she was the gem of unparalleled beauty that had driven him out of his mind and forced him to take refuge in a place almost as inhospitable as Hell itself. He had been forced to leave his home by his desire to make a home with
her. Day and night, the flames of this desire burned away inside him: whenever he saw tents and camp fires he would be drawn there as though he were a moth, as though in some inexplicable way those tents and fires were manifestations of his beloved.

Now Majnun was famous among the Arabs — which man, given Majnun’s verses, would not be? — and so when one day he came across a group of people who knew him, he was not in the least surprised. They stood watching him as he hugged his sides, his eyes closed as though in prayer, a verse extolling Layla’s beauty on his lips. Suddenly a scrap of paper, borne by the wind, fell at Majnun’s feet; on it were written the words, Layla and Majnun. Someone, somewhere, had written down the lovers’ names as if to celebrate their love and their loyalty.

The crowd that now surrounded Majnun tut-tutted in awe at this wondrous sign, but soon their amazement turned to disbelief. For Majnun was tearing the paper in two! He took the half on which ‘Layla’ was written, screwed it up into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder; the part with his own name he kept for himself. Cries of astonishment went up. Surely this was no way for a lover to behave. A voice shouted, ‘What do you mean by this action? What kind of behaviour is this? For once, on paper at least, you and your beloved were united, and now you have cut yourself off from her and discarded her. Explain yourself!’

Majnun smiled. ‘Do you not realise,’ he said, ‘that one name is better than two? For one is enough for both. If only you knew the reality of love, you would
see that when you scratch a lover, you find his beloved. Do you understand?’

It was clear that they did not understand. ‘You say that one name is enough for two’, they said, ‘and that indeed may be so. But if that is the case, why did you throw away Layla’s name and not your own?’

‘The answer is simple,’ replied Majnun. ‘One is able to see the shell but not the pearl inside. Do you not understand? The name is a shell and nothing more. It is what the shell hides that counts. I am the shell and she is the pearl; I am the veil and she is the face beneath it.’

S
till speaking on the subject of his beloved, Majnun left the people and their tents and headed back whence he came. He was on fire with love, glowing like a burning coal. Every now and again the coal would burst into flame, lashing at his tongue and unleashing torrents of words that streamed from his lips, verses that he strung together like pearls on a rosary. He would lavish them on the wind, allowing them to scatter and fall in profusion — rich pickings indeed for those lovers, and lovers of poetry, who heard them and passed them on. Majnun was wildly extravagant with his art, but what did it matter? Was he not rich? Was he not free to do as he pleased?

To other men, Majnun was now little more than a savage, a wild beast to be pitied as it choked on its own isolation and degradation. But he was not alone: even a
‘madman’ has friends. Majnun’s friends were the animals; the beasts who roamed the desert wilderness were his companions, and he could not have wanted for better.

Majnun had entered the world of the desert animals as a stranger, yet they took to him immediately. For Majnun had come in peace. He had not come to hunt or trap them, to maim or kill them. He had crept into their caves and their dens not as a violent enemy but as a grateful guest. They had seen no evil from his hands and so they respected him.

Of course, it might have been that the animals thought that Majnun was one of their own kind, but this was only partly true. They knew instinctively that he was different from other men. He possessed a very special power, a power that had nothing to do with bodily strength or sharpness of teeth as in the case of the lion, the puma or the desert wolf. Majnun’s power — the source of his hold over the animals — lay in the fact that he did not kill things smaller than himself. He was not a predator, and they felt safe with him.

Yet, at first, they did not understand him. What kind of creature was he, that could so easily have killed others for food but did not? Why was he like this? Who could understand the mind of such a being? He fed on roots and berries — and then only sparingly — and he showed no signs of fear when surrounded by beasts of prey who could so easily have ripped him to pieces and feasted on his bones. Yet he was never attacked, not once. To everyone’s surprise, Majnun was never threatened or intimidated by any of the desert beasts.

The animals soon became used to this strange being from the world of men. Whenever they caught sight of him, or made out his scent on the breeze, they would all come trotting or running, crawling or flying, to gather around him. Before long, Majnun had a vast menagerie of beasts of every kind and size. In his presence the animals seemed to be under some kind of spell, for they would forget their wild natures and become tame and friendly. So attached did they become to Majnun that eventually they began to watch over him like royal guards as he slept. First a lion stood over him, like a sheepdog guarding its flock. Soon others followed — stags, wolves, lynxes, pumas, desert foxes — and before long, Majnun was not able to take five minutes’ rest without the place turning into a camp for desert animals.

In this court of beasts, Majnun was King, a veritable Solomon who ruled with wisdom and compassion. He was a King of goodness and love; a King who never tyrannised his subjects, nor squeezed them for taxes, nor forced them to sacrifice their lives or spill the blood of others for the sake of some pointless war.

Guided by their master’s example, the animals gradually lost their lust for blood and their urge to kill. The wolf no longer tormented the lamb, the puma befriended the gazelle, the lioness suckled the orphaned fawn, and the fox concluded a treaty of peace with the hare. The army of beasts that accompanied Majnun wherever he went was a peaceful army, an army fuelled by love, compassion and brotherhood.

The selfless love of an animal for its master often surpasses in intensity the love of one human being for another. Majnun’s animal companions were shining examples of such selfless love. For example, whenever Majnun wished to sleep, the desert fox would sweep a place clean and free of thorns for him with its tail, while the wild onager would offer its neck as a pillow. Then, while Majnun lay sleeping, the lion would keep watch over him, ready to ward off any enemies, while the wolf and the puma would scout the camp for unwelcome visitors or intruders. Each beast did its duty, watching over and protecting Majnun with a sincerity of intention that touched his heart.

Yet the more he became used to his animal companions, the less he saw of other human beings. Those who had visited him in his desert hide-out were afraid of the company he kept and were loathe to visit him again. And when Majnun appeared at some camp or oasis with his animals in tow, people would run away. Whenever a stranger approached Majnun to talk with him, the animals would bare their teeth and begin to snarl and growl until their master quietened them and allayed their suspicions. Only then would the stranger remain unharmed. Those who came merely to mock Majnun, or to harm him in any way, were often forced to make a speedy getaway lest sharp teeth and claws and fangs tear them to pieces.

Has history ever known a master like Majnun? Has there ever been such a shepherd and such a flock? When the story of Majnun and his new companions reached the people, they found it difficult to believe.
Was this not merely the re-working of some old fairy story, some legend from times gone by? Many would not believe it until they saw with their own eyes, and so they traversed the desert wastes to see for themselves. When they found Majnun with his retinue of loyal desert beasts, they were more often than not lost for words, not knowing what to think or say. In many cases, their astonishment was mixed with pity; knowing that love had reduced him to such an existence, they would bring him food and drink, trying in the only way they knew to ease his distress. While Majnun accepted their gifts, he would eat nothing himself, preferring to pass it on to his animal friends. And since he was goodness itself, they, too, became good.

D
o animals not reflect man? Are the attributes present in the beasts of the earth not merely an echo of human nature? Ponder this point while we digress awhile …

There was once a King, the ruler of Marv, who owned a number of guard-dogs. They were not ordinary, run-of-the-mill guard dogs, however; let us say that they were demons on leashes, veritable hounds from hell.

Each possessed the strength of a puma, while their jaws were strong enough to sever a camel’s head with one bite. Why did the King keep such beasts?

The reason was simple. Whenever someone fell out of favour with the King, or incurred his wrath in some way, the King would have the offender thrown to these dogs, who would then rip the poor wretch to
pieces and devour his flesh.

Now, among the King’s courtiers there was a young man of considerable wisdom and intelligence, a master of the arts of diplomacy and courtly etiquette. He was aware, of course, of the existence of these satanic beasts and the purpose that they served.

He was also aware, as were his peers, that the King was a wildly irritable man with a mercurial temperament.

Those whom the King favoured one day would suddenly find themselves out of favour the next, usually for no apparent reason. The King’s mood was as unpredictable as the spring sky; what has happened to others, the young man reasoned, may so easily happen to me, too.

And so he lay awake at night, pondering the grim fate that might be in store for him. What on earth was he to do?

Finally, the young man hit upon a plan. Whenever the opportunity arose, he would pass by the kennels where these canine demons were chained up. There he would converse awhile with their keepers, bringing them small gifts in order to win their confidence and gain their trust.

Thus began the second part of his plan. His growing friendship with the keepers of the dogs opened up a path to friendship with the dogs themselves.

Every few days he would bring pieces of meat for them; sometimes, when he had had more access than usual to the royal kitchens, he would bring a whole
sheep or goat.

Gradually, he won the trust and confidence of the dogs; before long, they had become so used to his visits that they would leap up and howl with pleasure whenever they saw him approaching.

He, for his part, had overcome his fear. He would stroke them and play with them as though they were kittens. This, of course, had been his aim from the outset.

One day, for no apparent reason, the King became angry with the young man, just as the young man had feared he might.

Summoning his guards, the King ordered the young man to be thrown to the dogs. Binding the hapless youth’s hands and feet, the guards dragged him to the kennels and pushed him through the gate, locking it behind him.

Then they stood and waited for the vicious beasts to attack.

But of course, nothing happened. Human beings may not always repay kindness with kindness, but dogs — however vicious — most certainly do. As soon as they recognised the young man as the one who had brought them gifts and lavished attention on them, they ran to him and began to lick his hands and face in a tender show of affection.

Then they sat bolt upright at his side, ready to protect him from danger. Not even the juiciest bones and chunks of meat thrown by their keepers could tempt them away from their friend.

The King’s guards looked on in astonishment.
They had come to feast their eyes on a bloodbath; instead they were witness to a touching display of affection between man and beast.

Unable to believe what they were seeing, the guards shouted at the dogs, urging them to attack, but their cries went unheeded.

As the sun set behind the mountains, covering the snow-tipped peaks with a mantle of red and gold, the King sat in his chamber, his anger now diminished considerably.

In fact, he was beginning to feel pangs of remorse for having acted so recklessly, for destroying the life of a young man for almost no reason.

Of course, he was unaware of what had happened earlier that day in the kennels, and none of his courtiers had dared to tell him.  

As the evening wore on, he became more and more distraught. ‘Why?’ he cried, his voice aflame; ‘Why did I order that innocent young man to be thrown to the dogs? Why did I act so hastily? Go now, go and bring me news. Go and see what has happened to the poor wretch.’  

The courtiers hastened to the kennels and returned with one of the guards, ordering him to report everything to the King.  

Naturally, the guard was afraid to tell exactly what he had seen that day; how could he confess that the condemned youth had escaped almost certain death by showing affection to the hounds from hell and winning them over with gifts?  

And so he approached the King, bowed, and with a
trembling voice said, ‘Your Majesty! This young man cannot be human; indeed, I declare that he must be some kind of jinn or angel for whom God in His compassion has worked a miracle.

‘Come, your Majesty, and see for yourself! He is sitting in the middle of the cage, surrounded by your dogs. And what do they do? Instead of tearing him limb from limb they rub against him affectionately and lick his face!

‘Is that not a miracle? Is that not a sign from God? These are no ordinary beasts — they are more like demons than dogs — yet in that young man’s presence they are like playful kittens.’

The King jumped up from his throne and rushed out of the chamber and through the palace grounds to the kennels.

Seeing the miracle with his own eyes, he began to weep. And when the guards had brought the young man out of the cage, the King, still sobbing violently, embraced him and begged his forgiveness.

Several days later, the King asked for the young man to be brought to his chamber, so that they might speak awhile in private.

Not believing in miracles as such, the King was anxious to know what had really happened in the cage, and why the young man had not been ripped to pieces like so many others before him. ‘Tell me, young man,’ he said, ‘why did my dogs not kill you? What is your secret?’

As the young man told his story, the King’s eyes widened and he shook his head with disbelief. The
young man answered him:

‘It is true that your dogs became my friends and spared me my life on account of a few bones and some scraps of meat. I showed them a little kindness and they repaid me by saving my life.

‘But what about you, your Majesty? I have served you loyally for ten years — for most of my life, and you know this quite well. Yet, you were ready to have me torn apart by your dogs on account of some trivial misdemeanour on my part that happened to displease you.

‘Because I annoyed you for a few moments, you gave orders to have me killed! Tell me who, then, is a better friend: you or your hounds from hell? Who deserves my respect: your Majesty or your Majesty’s canine demons?’

The young man spoke with considerable daring and courage, but the King was not angered. On the contrary, the King was humbled.

It was clear that the whole experience was a test from God for all concerned, and that from it there was a lesson that had to be learned. The King decided never again to act on a whim and throw innocent people to his hounds; instead, he would try to tame the beast in his own soul.

But we have digressed too far. What of Majnun? Well, he was kind to the animals not because he was afraid of them, but because kindness was part of his being; he could not help but treat them with respect and compassion.

Consequently, the beasts who gathered around
him came to love him as much as he loved them. Their loyalty to him was unswerving and, as we have yet to see, they stayed with him right to the very end.

Is the significance of this anecdote easy to grasp? Do you understand what it means, dear reader? It means that if you, too, follow the example of Majnun, you will not have to suffer the torments and miseries of this transient world.