Speak Bird Speak Again (51 page)

"What
next, O Ruler of the Age!" said the vizier. "A natural
imbecile who speaks whatever comes into his head trusting to Allah's
mercy, and what he says just happens to come out right! Just let me
give him this one test, and if he passes, I'm convinced. But what if
he doesn't pass?"

"You
can do with him whatever you like," said the king.

"Good,"
said the vizier, and he brought together a plate of prickly pear, one
of honey, another of yogurt, and a fourth of tar. Covering them all
with a platter, he said, "Send for the sheikh."

"Abu
Ali," he said when the sheikh arrived, "you must tell me
what's under this platter."

This
poor man - how could he know?

"By
Allah, Your Excellency," he said, "we've seen days blacker
than tar and more bitter than myrrh. But Allah has also blessed us
with days whiter than yogurt and sweeter than honey."

"How
about it now!" exclaimed the king. "What do you say, my
vizier?"

"Nothing,"
answered the vizier. "I'm convinced."

This
is my tale, I've told it, and in your hands I leave it.

Afterword

Relations
in these tales not only go beyond the familial and societal but
transcend the physical environment as well. Here the relationship is
between the human and the divine, as based on a human being's
acceptance of God's will as it is manifested on a day-to-day basis.
Wisdom consists precisely in this continual trust in God's ultimate
design for the universe.

The
major characters in this group exhibit simplicity of heart and lack
of guile, qualities that enable them to stay in touch with the
workings of destiny. The woman who fell into the well does not hold a
grudge against her brothers; she understands the social constraints
that force them to behave as they do, yet she does not foolishly
expose herself to their harm by remaining passive. Her actions
demonstrate a dynamic acceptance of the workings of fate. In "The
Rich Man and the Poor Man," this acceptance takes the form of
contentment with one's lot in this life. The poor man's wife has a
good relationship with her husband and does not aspire to become rich
but is rewarded nevertheless, whereas the rich man's wife has a bad
relationship with her husband, is not contented with her wealth, and
becomes possessed with an all-consuming envy that in the end destroys
her. Despite her poverty, the wife of the poor man does not envy her
sister. Her craving for food stems from a biological need, and she
tries to satisfy it within the limitations of her means. Her behavior
exhibits qualifies of generosity and innocence totally lacking in her
sister.

In
"Maruf the Shoemaker," the title character's innocence is
projected as boundless and unselfconscious generosity, which evokes
an even more generous response on the part of the unseen powers that
reward him. Because this innocence is powerless against evil, as
represented by the vizier, it needs outside support to survive -
which Maruf's second wife unfailingly provides. And in "Im Ali
and Abu Ali," the main character is a sort of divine fool who is
also a husband and a father. His major worry concerns providing his
family with enough food, yet his simple actions in earning his living
echo with deep meaning for the perceptive listener. No doubt all four
of these tales are moral, or philosophical, tales, but fortunately
they are not moralistic. They provoke thought based on simple
acceptance of fate at the level of everyday experience.

A word
of explanation is necessary at this point. One frequently finds
pejorative references to the people of the Middle East as
"fatalists," even by prominent scholars. Yet fate has a
different meaning in the Islamic and Arab worlds than in the
Christian and Western worlds. To the Westerner, the notion of fate
implies a blind force that controls everything. Belief in this force
would negate the belief in freedom of will that forms the ethical
basis for the culture of individualism prevalent in Europe and North
America. To Christians in the West, this belief would also negate
one's conviction that God was so graciously disposed toward this
world that He was incarnated to "save" it. To a Muslim, in
contrast (and to Christian Arabs), fate is not a blind force but
simply the will of God, who is the essence of mercy and compassion.
Certainly the characters in our tales are not fatalistic. They act,
and they reap rich rewards. Action is rewarded, not fatalistic
acceptance.

Fate
has a different meaning, and it functions differently, in each tale.
It is not only a system of belief about the world but also an
attitude of acceptance of that which is - even when it appears to be
incredible, as in the last tale. There are no random events or
coincidences; everything that happens is God's will. The man and the
woman in "The Woman Who Fell into the Well" both readily
accept what befalls them, exclaiming, "There is no power or
strength save in Allah!" upon falling into the well. Whether as
a humble shoemaker or the king's son-in-law, Maruf accepts his
destiny with equanimity. Like Abu Ali, he exhibits a quality of trust
in Allah that shields him from all harm. His generosity is literally
selfless: he has no self to protect. The same holds true for the poor
man's wife, whose generosity of spirit does not diminish even after
she acquires immense wealth.

In
"The Rich Man and the Poor Man" and "Im Ali and Abu
Ali," fate works like a supernatural force that brings magic
into the world; it is the creative power that shapes events,
combining the usual with the unusual - or, as in these two tales,
transforming the usual into the extraordinary. It is aided in this
process by the creative power of language, which is the silent
parruer in all literature. The creative role of language in the
folktale is made explicit in the last tale, where the pun on the name
of the character and his use of imagery at the end serve to bridge
the gap between the imaginative and the real.

By
shaping events in time, fate also shapes the plots of the tales. Only
when the events in time are understood to unfold according to a
meaningful sequence does the notion of plot make sense. This process
works most clearly in "The Woman Who Fell into the Well,"
where one action inevitably leads to another and another, until
finally the woman is reunited with her brothers. Here again, language
helps us to understand how fate works, the names of the children in
the tale (Maktub, "that which is written," and Kutbe, "the
writing") providing the necessary clues. Although these names
would be perfectly acceptable for a boy and a girl, they do not occur
in actuality. Their use here exemplifies the metaphorical
significance of writing to indicate the fixity of fate. It is said
that one's fate is "written on one's forehead," or of an
event, that it was "written," that is, it was bound to
happen. Yet even though the order of events is preordained, new
combinations - new plots - are continuously brought into being, such
as the marriage of the traveling salesman to the woman and the birth
of their children. Thus fate works both as a creative and a
determinative principle.

Acceptance
of fate is wisdom, and wisdom in these tales is ascribed to women as
well as to men. The wisdom of men tends to innocence and passivity,
whereas that of women tends to thinking and action. The king's
daughter is far more skilled in the ways of the world than is Maruf,
and it is Im Ali's drive and her practical advice that help her
husband prosper. In "The Rich Man and the Poor Man," the
women are the dominant figures, while the husbands are merely passive
spectators in their wives' evolving drama. This group of tales, then
- which were narrated by both men and women - makes an important
statement about the position of women in the society. Indeed, it is
clear upon reflection that the tales all along have acknowledged
women's centrality in the social structure and their equality (if not
superiority) to men in those fields of action in which men are
supposed to excel. The tale of the woman who fell into the well
exemplifies the whole collection in this regard. The woman in this
tale is not passive; her generosity, first in giving the man the
bread and then in attempting to pull him out of the well, commits her
to a course of action that will change her life. Rather than sitting
around, passively waiting for her brothers' vengeance, she runs away
at night. She gives the children their names and is - as the teller
makes clear from her narrative style - the very center of the family.