The Theocrat: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) (11 page)

The shoeless Sufi responded: “The Prophet of God—peace and blessings be upon him!—once said, ‘Beware of the councils of tyrants.’ He was asked, ‘And who are tyrants, O most judicious of God’s created people?’ ‘Those who govern by their own order,’ the Prophet replied, ‘who contravene God’s laws by tyrannous deeds and self-deification, and who kill the soul that God has declared sacred. In the next world they are fuel for hellfire, and it is a dire resort indeed. O God, in Your kindness.…”‘

Al-Hakim was furious. “That’s a fraudulent hadith,” he yelled. “It is unauthenticated and false. Your words are sheer nonsense; they trivialize the truth. They represent a lie and a travesty of our moral and religious practice.”

The Sufi tried again. “There can be no word of truth but that the Prophet of God is its utterer. Included in that is what he has transmitted to believers following his occultation by way of dreams and visions. That is still the case today. I myself have seen him—on him be peace!—and he followed up on his previous hadith with this pronouncement (may he be exalted!):
O people, a simile is being invoked here, so pay attention.
The people to whom you pray in place of God could never create so much as a fly even though they all combined their efforts. If that fly were to rob them of something, they could never retrieve it; seeker and sought are simply too weak. They have not given God his true value; indeed God is powerful and mighty
. In my dream I heard his voice—on him be peace!—counseling me, ‘Saint of God, make sure you don’t adjust your words to the world of tyrants. If you do so, your words will immediately dwindle, beset by collapse on all sides. Instead, allow your imagination to confront tyranny with patience, defiance, and creativity.”‘

“How sorry I feel,” said al-Hakim, “for all those people who die otherwise than by my sword. Shoeless one, how much I regret the power I have to kill you. If your fondness for life were not weaker than a spider’s thread, I would have no compunction about consigning you to your grave.”

“How true, my lord,” replied the shoeless Sufi. “If people were like me in disdaining their life here on earth and aspiring to what is more ideal and worthy in their hearts, you would have no authority over them. Your oppression and terror would have no effect.”

“Leave my covering where it is,” interrupted al-Hakim. “Raise it no further! Instead, since you stand here before me, reveal to us the pages of your enlightened ideas. What do you have to say about peace and love?”

“Peace is the pact whereby we all live with each other. If someone else inclines to it, then I follow in my turn, offer him my greetings, present roses and doves to him, and pray for his safety. Then I go on my way feeling secure and at ease. When I feel possessed by love, I declare it to my beloved in beautiful words marked by their grace and charm. I try to fill his heart with sweetness and to become like a tree with fruit always available. For me he is goal and helper, someone to stand by as I proceed on my way. However, if my beloved dies in my arms while I am still alive and cognizant, then I will inevitably weep sad tears, fully aware of the essence of death and that in both beginning and end there is violence and cruelty. Thus I rebel and almost recant.”

Al-Hakim was clearly much affected by this. “What happens when you’re hungry,” he asked, “or when you feel lonely and go crazy?”

“When I’m hungry,” the shoeless Sufi replied, “I intone a verse of the Qur’an and use that as food. If the verse gives forth, then I am filled; if it does not, then I hunt birds and pilfer food from ants. If I feel lonely, either I go out into the desert and yell till the wild beasts ask me how I feel, or I go out among the people and offer radical advice, or else I go and roam outside the city. When I feel crazy, my inner vision is sharpened and empowered. I turn into an eye that sees, a thousand lips that intone transcendent thoughts as I recite what I see. And, because I disclose the truth and counsel rebellion, I am forever being taken off to prison or the mental asylum.”

By now al-Hakim was trembling. “And what about when you’re ill and close to death?”

“In that case,” replied the shoeless Sufi, “I will donate what I have earned to simpletons, read the Fatiha of existence, embrace my dear friends, and say farewell. Then I’ll write on the walls of markets and alleys, on tree stumps and rivers, on gravestones and flowers in cemeteries, I’ll write the instructions of water and daylight. Then I shall surrender my spirit to the elements.”

“Ah, how alike we are!” said al-Hakim, sweat pouring from his brow. “How much I aspire to be like you! If only you could have come to me in my seclusion in the Muqattam Hills, you would have found me there pure and concealed, head bare, countenance transformed, stomach empty. My only companion there was contemplation of the unity of God; the absolute was my only goal. Now go back to your desert and direct your prayers toward forgiveness for all those who go astray and overstep their station.”

At this point al-Hakim stood up as though bringing the session to an end. There were still a man and two women inside the cage.

“You, old man,” said al-Hakim, “didn’t you hear about my interdiction of drinking, transporting, or trading in wine? Didn’t I run into you on a narrow bridge in broad daylight, scrambling away on a donkey loaded up with what I have explicitly forbidden? Where had you come from and where were you going with it?”

“I was coming from God’s own narrow earth,” the man replied boldly, “and that’s where I was going,”

“So you’re determined to make a bad thing worse, are you?” said al-Hakim angrily. “God’s earth is narrow, you say?”

“My lord,” the old man replied, “if that were not the case, then you and I would never have met on that narrow bridge.”

Al-Hakim gave a hearty laugh and let the man go. Now he turned his attention to the two women. “So what has brought you into these cages?” he asked.

“My lord,” replied the first woman, who was very beautiful, “you have twice denied me the man who was most beloved to me. Once your men surprised and killed him out of revenge because he was my companion in loneliness, my resort in times of oppression, and my protector against temptation. The second time was when you prevented me from visiting his grave and communing with his dead body. Since you had made it impossible for me to visit him, I placed my own body in a grave next to that of my beloved. By day I used a reed to provide myself with enough air, and at night I went in search of food. I stayed this way for several days until there came the morning when one of the men who harass women visiting cemeteries trod on my reed. I emerged half-dead from the grave, and they brought me to stand before you.”

Al-Hakim was astonished. “Woman,” he asked, “you would do all this for the sake of a man? Who was this beloved husband of yours?”

“He wasn’t my husband,” she replied, her eyes gleaming with defiance. “He was my brother.”

Al-Hakim was now even more astonished. “Your brother, woman! Go now to see my sister, Sitt al-Mulk, and tell her this amazing story. Perhaps my rebellious sister will take note of this tale and see the light. And you, old woman, why is your back so withered?”

“My lord,” the old woman replied, “even old women have been distressed by your regulation that forbids women from leaving the house or even looking out of balconies and windows. Even old women are crushed between two flames: one is you, my lord, and the other is
their own husbands who oppress them while being themselves oppressed by you. I was writing down my frustrations and anger on notes that I would place in the ladles of street vendors; all I’d get in exchange was some fruit and sweetmeats. When your decree was issued forbidding the uncovering of what was concealed, I got drunk, stole out of the house at night, and went down to the Nile where I stretched out and covered myself in a wrap. There I proceeded to drink some more and stole an occasional glance at the beauty of God’s creation in the water, the plants, and the greenery. When your men showed up and wanted to identify me by removing my wrap, I stopped them. “I am fully covered,” I told them in
a
threatening tone, “and you’re trying to contravene the orders of our lord the caliph by uncovering what is concealed. So they brought me here so I could tell you my story and you could decide on my fate.”

Al-Hakim was on the point of leaving. “Here I promised to pardon anyone who was able to astonish me,” he said with a laugh. “From you and all your colleagues in this session I’ve heard more heresy and deviance than I would have imagined possible. Now I feel relaxed and forgiving, so go in peace—God forgive you!”

3. A Session on Theology with the Devotees

Al-Hakim got the notion of claiming divinity. To that end he brought in a man named al-Akhram, and attached to him a group of men whom he encouraged to engage in irreligious acts …. The story of his claim to divinity spread. This way he gathered around him a group of ignoramuses. Whenever they encountered him, they would greet him with the words: Peace be upon you, O One and Only, O bringer of both life and death.

Ibn al-Sabi,

Book of History—Completion of Thabit Ibn Sinan’s Book of History

It was in the secret wing of the Dar al-Hikma that one night after a long break, al-Hakim reconvened his session on theology. This group was
made up of major missionaries, marshals, and deputies of the community, along with a coterie of the enlightened. They used to form themselves into a closed circle ready to talk or listen, but al-Hakim preferred to huddle by himself inside his dark closet. He used to sit there looking distracted, as firmly rooted as a lofty idol.

The senior member was Hamzah ibn ‘Ali, “Guide of the Respondents,” whose hallmark was a broad forehead, something he relied on to convince his listeners and defeat his adversaries. He also had a capacious memory for both authentic and inauthentic Shi‘i hadiths. “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” he would intone, using a nod of his head as a means of breaking the august silence of this assembly, “all praise be to God who stands above all learning, transcends all decrees, and disdains all that can be imagined or comprehended; God’s prayers be upon the sovereign of His divine mercy and deep sea of his wisdom, the Prophet Muhammad who brings good news through the Torah, the Gospels, and the Psalms; and on his brother and cousin, courageous warrior on the day of battle and repository of the secret of the night of the ascension, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib, conduit between the two rivers, Euphrates the sweet and ‘Ajjaj the salty; and on his descendants, the Shi‘i imams, worthy guides of God’s people who preserve his faith and bring his words of justice and truth to fruition, the community of believers—may God keep you safe from the all-powerful terror and join you to those whom you love on the Day of Gathering!”

Hamza the senior missionary continued, “Our lord, Imam al-Sadiq Ja‘far ibn Muhammad tells us. Our community of Shi‘a is like bees. Did birds but realize what their bellies contain, they would tear them apart.’ And this: ‘Beware of revealing secrets. It will shorten your life, blind your heart, and take away your sustenance.’”

In the light of the preceding, our lord al-Hakim spoke in the ear of every missionary past or present, “Take a pledge of allegiance from every willing respondent, from every clear adherent whose loyalty and conviction you trust and whose chastity and devotion are clear. Urge them to be loyal to the pledge they have made. Do not force anyone to
become a follower or pledge themselves. Only assign things to those whom you trust to preserve them. Only sow seeds in a field that will not stint its sower; for your seedlings search for the very best nurseries, then bring them to cisterns full of the water of life. Approach them with offerings of the sincere, with transport out of the darkness of doubt and uncertainty to the light of proof and clear signs. Recite the words of wisdom that you receive during sessions with believers and respondents, men and women alike, in the caliph’s gleaming palaces and the great mosque in the al-Mu‘izz district of Cairo. Keep these words of wisdom a secret from all save those who are qualified to hear them; only divulge them to people who deserve the privilege. Above all do not divulge the secret to incompetent people who cannot bear the burden and whose minds are not capable of comprehending what they hear. Make use of your insight to collect proofs of matters legal and intellectual, and show proof of the linkage between strong and weak. Visible entities are bodies, while hidden ones are their shapes. Hidden entities are souls, with the visible as their spirits. Shapes cannot exist without spirits, and in this haven of ours spirits only exist through shapes. If they are separated, the system falls apart, and creation is condemned to collapse.”
¹³

At this point the missionary, Hasan ibn Haydarah al-Farghani, “helper of the Guide,” the one known as “al-Akhram” (because he had a snub nose with a split nostril) took over. He always managed to cover the reedy quality in his voice by resorting to a highly rhetorical style:

    “There has come to us from the furthest absence at the glimmer of dawn

    Our lord al-Hakim, heir to the secret and the line.

    Of his goodness he has bared his head, greeted and glorified his God,

    And relayed to us the word of the prophets, as musk and ambergris waft from his presence.

    He has told us of blessings, of women, and of words.

    He has said: “These are the bases of life;

    
Whoever ignores them will perish.

    He who learns them belongs to the lands of fertility and rebirth

    And will gain the supreme bliss and happiness in the hereafter.

    When he finished and disappeared.

    We shuddered. Clouds covered courtyard and mihrab

    And water in the fountain was turned into light.

    In a trance of hallelujahs we all stood,

    Prayed the prayer of love for our Lord the marker of time,

    And asked that he return in peace.”

The devotees sat there in humble silence, entranced. They asked for more. Al-Tamimi, known as ‘the emissary of destiny,’ asked, “When our lord returned from his exalted absence, what did his noble mouth have to say?”