by Tariq Ali
‘And you, habibi? Where will you stay?’
‘I want to see the boys grow and Elinore return to happiness. I will finish my book on the estate. And before you remark on how long the book will take, let me inform you, Lady Balkis, another three months and it will be done. I will return tomorrow. When will you come?’
‘With you, tomorrow.’
‘And the children?’
‘Yes. You see, Ibn Muhammad, my husband is a kind and ...’
He put his hand on her mouth.
‘Mayya’s death has made things worse for us. Not seeing you each day is now much more difficult.’
She stroked his hand.
They left early to avoid the boys being subjected to the midday sun. Balkis and Idrisi rode while their sons, Eudoxia and another maid were transported by cart. The party from Siracusa was welcomed with genuine warmth. Elinore clung to her aunt as both women wept. Simeon showed the now completed church to them proudly, Eudoxia falling to her knees the minute she entered to offer a prayer. Simeon watched her dispassionately.
‘If the events predicted by the Trusted One come to pass, this little building could be the saving of this estate.’
Elinore was now the accepted lady of the household and the estate. She had assigned rooms for them and Balkis was taken aback to discover that she was to share Idrisi’s chamber.
‘Is this wise?’ she whispered to her niece. ‘Might not Uthman find this distasteful?’
‘He is a true pagan, aunt. He would find it odd if you had separate rooms since he knows that Hamdis is our brother.’
‘Have you created a world without any secrets at all?’
‘Nobody knows I’m pregnant.’
Balkis hugged and kissed her niece. ‘I’m so pleased for you.’
‘I hope it’s a girl, aunt. I want to call her Mayya.’
‘Sometimes what one hopes, one gets.’
‘Not according to Abi. His medical knowledge teaches him otherwise.’
‘How is his book?’
‘Almost finished he says, but Uthman, who uses the library more than the rest of us, is not so convinced. He says there is another six months’ work. And that’s another secret. He would be reprimanded if it was discovered he was reading the manuscript whenever Abi went for a walk.’
Balkis expressed surprise at Uthman’s capabilities.
‘He’s normal most of the time. He likes living in an enclosed world. Once I asked if he would visit Siracusa and he ran out of the room and went to his tree. I have discovered the things that upset him and if we avoid mention of them he behaves like anyone else. He says odd thing at times. Once he told me that if there had been no library in the house, he would have died. And he meant every word of it.’
‘It seems he knows himself better than most of you know him?’
‘That’s too simple, aunt, but I can’t explain why.’
Balkis felt already at ease. She had no household responsibilities apart from feeding the children and while Idrisi worked she persuaded Uthman to show her the estate, listening attentively as he described each tree and plant. Then she met the animals.
Later that night after she had fed the infants, she returned to her room to find Idrisi having a bad coughing fit. As she approached, he looked up at her with pleading eyes.
‘In Allah’s name woman, can’t you see I need some milk.’
Then she realised. ‘Both my breasts are empty. Your sons are as greedy as their father.’
‘When will they fill up again?’
‘In a few hours.’
She cradled him. ‘I don’t want to leave you, Muhammad, but I must return tomorrow. There is a feast in honour of Aziz.’
‘Why is there never a feast in honour of me?’
‘Because he is the Amir of Siracusa, and you, my loved one, are only the Amir of the Book. The rich men of the city enjoy honouring each other. Tomorrow’s host is a Jewish merchant, which means that few Nazarenes will attend. Aziz has asked all our notables and, what is unusual, their wives to be present as well. Most of them are placid, pampered, spoiled creatures and will complain bitterly at being forced to.’
‘Strange how for the last five hundred years the fate of the Jews has so often been tied to our own future. Where we suffer, they suffer. Where we prosper, they prosper. Where they are present and we are not, they fail to defend themselves and are slaughtered like sheep. It’s the same story here, in al-Andalus and in al-Quds, Baghdad, Cairo and Damascus.’
‘I’ll repeat these wise words to my husband. Perhaps he will find use for them at the feast.’
‘And if you permit me, I would like to find use for you tonight.’
And Balkis became pregnant for the second time.
Idrisi would look back on these eight months on the estate as the happiest of his life. Uthman surprised him each day. His bad moments became fewer and fewer and his health improved considerably. His limp vanished altogether and the marks of deprivation on his skin disappeared. Elinore confided to her father that although he still loved sheep, she felt he was ready for marriage with a woman and perhaps her aunt could help. Possibly, her father replied, Balkis can find someone who is intelligent but who also resembled a sheep.
Idrisi had realised that Uthman was secretly reading his book, but far from being angry he was thrilled. Once it was acknowledged, the two would discuss various sections and he would ask Uthman to compare al-Kindi with Hippokrates on a specific cure. Uthman knew every book in the library. Without the three hundred new additions, he had counted three thousand, four hundred and twenty-one volumes.
And there was Balkis, whose visits to the estate became more and more frequent, the larger she grew. He had never loved a woman like this before, not even Mayya. He would see Balkis and Elinore, both heavy with child, walking together and comparing their stomachs. It pleased him to see them like this and once Uthman had wondered aloud whether his nephew or his brother would be born first. What if it was a niece and a sister, his father asked him. He had shrugged his shoulders. It did not matter to him at all. While Hamdis was left behind at the palace in the care of a wet-nurse, Afdal was growing up on the estate. Even when Balkis had to return to Siracusa, she left him in the safe hands of Eudoxia. But the grown-up Afdal adored was his uncle Uthman who spent a great deal of time with him and spoke to him as he would to a peer. The result was that the first words spoken by Afdal were beautifully expressed: friend, sheep, book, butter, goat, flute and Simeon.
The book was finished two months before the new children were due and Idrisi became irritable. It was Balkis who suggested he and Uthman go and see Walid in Venice. The mere suggestion sent Uthman scurrying to his tree and he stayed there till Balkis and Elinore arrived to comfort him and apologise for the suggestion. ‘Please don’t get rid of me,’ was all he said to them. Balkis was mortified.
Unlike his son, Idrisi was ready to travel again. He missed the sea, but he also knew that if he did not go to Walid now it might soon be too late. From there he would go to Alexandria and Cairo and renew long-forgotten friendships. He, who had been lost in his work for so long, now felt the need to be in a city where Believers ruled, but not any city. The barbarians are bad enough, he thought, but we have our own barbarians who burn books by our greatest philosophers and punish poets. If the real barbarians and ours ever got together, Allah alone would not be sufficient to help us.
His mind was made up. He asked Uthman to read the whole manuscript carefully and iron out the inconsistencies. When he came back he would prepare the final draft.
‘When will that be, Abu?’
‘A few months at most. Look after Afdal for me.’
This was the most painful farewell for they had become strongly attached to each other. After embracing his father, Uthman retreated to the tree once again. He did not like people leaving the estate.
Idrisi wished Elinore and Simeon well and asked if they had thought of a name in case it was a boy.
‘Thawdor,’ replied Eli
nore.
‘Original,’ replied her father.
Balkis had sworn to herself she would not weep and her eyes remained dry.
‘If our child is a girl and Elinore has a boy, I will call our daughter Mayya. Agreed?’
‘Agreed. And if it is a boy?’
‘Nuwas! Agreed.’
‘Agreed. And what if you both have girls?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that possibility.’
‘Let there be two Mayyas.’
‘I will. Muhammad I need to know the truth. Could you put a price on our love?’
‘How could I? It’s priceless.’
‘Then make sure you return to me. I don’t want to think of you as a beggar in a foreign land. This island is your home regardless of everything. And the elixir that cures your cough is not of the same quality elsewhere.’
He kissed her eyes and then her lips.
Two days sailing and Siracusa already seemed far away. Idrisi did not know it, but he had passed a merchant ship carrying Walid to Siqilliya. He wondered if they could ever take the island back from the Franks and get rid of the Lombards. But if we did succeed, what would we do this time that was different from the last? Would we be able to work together? Give the people something that they would die for without too much urging? The Trusted One had useful ideas, but the big problem was to break from tribal modes of thought and rise to the level of the culture we have created. But these are all golden dreams. How can one deal with hundreds of thousands of people who ignore their own interests and head proudly towards one disaster, then another?
Perhaps he would not visit Alexandria this time. He would go to the city of the caliphs and mingle with the poets and philosophers and search for new books in the House of Wisdom. He would go to Baghdad, the city that will always be ours. The city that will never fall. The city that will never fall.
LUCERA
1250–1300
EPILOGUE
IDRISI MET WALID ON his return to Siqilliya and lived on his estate till his death eleven years after that of Rujari. His Medical Formulary was published in Baghdad, but did not contain the remedy for coughs. Uthman and Walid never married. Balkis’s son Nuwas became a wandering poet, leaving Siracusa when he was eighteen and moving from one city to another in al-Andalus. None of his poems have survived. Elinore’s daughter, Mayya, and her three brothers and their children continued to live on the estate where a larger church had to be constructed to accommodate the new flock. The Trusted One, after teaching philosophy and history to Khalid and his children, died peacefully at the age of eighty-four. The village he helped to re-found still exists and venerates his memory—though he is now regarded as a Christian saint.
In the hundred years that elapsed after Idrisi’s death, members of his family fought in every single rebellion. While the Franks were fighting each other for the throne in Palermo, armed bands under the command of Khalid ibn Umar and Afdal ibn Muhammad had liberated large parts of western Siqilliya. The Franks sent expeditions to crush them, but were content to keep them confined to their strongholds. An uprising in Palermo had shaken Frankish self-confidence and severe restrictions had been imposed. The Friday khutba was forbidden and attendance of any mehfil was punished with death.
Khalid died at the age of sixty as church bells were ringing to mark twelve hundred years of the Nazarene religion. His son Muhammad joined Afdal and for many years they harassed and destroyed many legions despatched by Palermo to crush them.
It was Rujari’s grandson, Frederick, who finally destroyed the last remaining strongholds of the rebellion in Siqilliya. His love of Arabic culture and his own palaces and harems had led some Believers to hope that the golden age might return. But they had forgotten that young Frederick was also the grandson of Barbarossa. The two strains in him often led to compromises. He did not wish to massacre the Muslims, but simply to remove them and thus purify the island. In the twelve hundred and twenty-fourth year of the Christian era, those who refused to convert were asked to pack their belongings and were taken to large enclosures in all the key ports of the island. For twelve months, over fifty thousand Siqilliyans who refused to surrender spiritually were transported in ships to the mainland. Among them were Idrisi’s grandchildren, Muhammad ibn Afdal, Muhammad ibn Khalid and their families.
In the region of Apulia, near an ancient Roman town where once Caesar had battled Pompey, there was a tiny village, Lucera, virtually uninhabited. This is where they were transported. Within two years, Lucera had become one of the most prosperous towns of the south. The land surrounding the settlement was cultivated after years of lying fallow, workshops sprang up to produce arms and clothes and skilled craftsmen produced wooden inlays and ceramics that were no longer being made in Noto and Siracusa. Frederick built a castle for himself with its own harem. The settlers built a beautiful mosque with a large library, not far from the castle. The Pope excommunicated Frederick for permitting the construction of buildings where ‘cursed Muhammad is adored’. It is said that when the excommunication was read to him in his palace at Lucera, he was in his cups, surrounded by concubines and listening to music. Extremely annoyed by what the Pope had done, he responded in the time-honoured tradition of the Siqilliyan side of his family. He farted.
Within the settlement, three young men began to organise secret mehfils. They would meet each Friday night and discuss the future of their people. Slowly more and more people, young and old, men and women, began to listen. Ibn Afdal would tell them that Lucera appeared peaceful and they were not persecuted, even though too many young men had been killed fighting Frederick’s war against other Nazarenes.
‘Having forced us to leave Siqilliya, he can be kind, but this same King who permitted us to build the Great Mosque here is destroying all our mosques in Palermo and the rest of the island. We have been discussing our future for many months now. I would suggest that we prepare to leave this place. It will not be safe after Frederick dies. I am not suggesting that we leave at once. They would kill us before we travelled too far. But each month one family should leave.’
‘Where should we go, Ibn Afdal? Is there anywhere left for us?’
Fifteen men rose from the ground and stood on their feet in different parts of the mehfil.
‘Yes. If you wish to go you will speak to one of these men. Look at them carefully. If you know them try and forget their names. Go and talk with them.’
Few wanted to leave and of these most wished to remain as close as possible to Siqilliya. One day, they thought, we will go back. We were born there. We built those cities. Why should we not return? They chose to go to Ifriqiya, to the cities of Mahdia and Bone which, Allah be praised, had been taken back by our people. If these towns could be won back, why not Palermo and Atrabanashi?
When Frederick died in 1250, panic spread in the city, but it was already late. The first massacre took place some months later. By that time Ibn Afdal was dead. And Lucera, too, was about to perish. Not long after Frederick’s death, most of its people were massacred. A few thousand, mainly women, were forcibly converted. The mosque was burnt. Like the bright star that crosses the sky and is watched by all, but quickly disappears, the flourishing city vanished, the few traces buried beneath the ground. Frederick’s castle was left untouched.
On the day that Frederick died, Ibn Afdal’s son Uthman and his cousins Umar and Muhammad decided it was foolish to wait any longer. They had long prepared for this day and they took advantage of the confusion. Their horses were ready for the journey. Umar and Muhammad left Lucera in the afternoon. They were headed for the coast from where they boarded a merchant ship to Ifriqiya.
Uthman did not go with them. As a child his imagination had been fired by the stories his father had told him about the Trusted One and how they had organised different forms of resistance on the island, but the story he had liked the best was far from this world. He loved hearing of how the Franks had been defeated by Salah al-din and driven out of al-Quds and how the Great Mosque had been cl
eaned and made ready to thank Allah for the victory they had won. For many months Uthman had agonised over his destination. The more he thought, the more he realised he did not wish to die before his eyes had seen the dome on the mosque of al-Aqsa and kissed the earth where his people had triumphed over the barbarians. He took his family to Palestine.
Ragusa-Palermo-Byron Bay-San Felice dei Circe-Lahore
August 2001-August 2004
Glossary
Al-Andalus Islamic Spain
Amir Commander
Amir al-kitab Commander of the Book
Amir al-bahr Commander of the Sea and from which ‘Admiral’ is derived
Allahu Akbar God is Great
Atrabanashi Trapani
Balansiya Valencia
Djirdjent Agrigento
Gharnata Granada
Habibi my love; from which ‘hey, baby!’ is not derived
Hammam public or private baths
Ifriqiya North Africa
Ishbilia Seville
Jiddu granddad
Khutba the Friday sermon at the mosque
Lanbadusha Lampedusa
Malaka Malaga
Marsa Ali Marsala
mehfil a meeting/assembly, often by invitation; from which ‘mafia’ is not derived
qadi/kadi the Chief Law Officer of a Muslim city with extraordinary powers to preserve order
Qurlun Corleone
Qurtuba Cordoba
Shakka Sciacca
Siqilliya Sicily
Night of the Golden Butterfly
Book Five of the Islam Quintet
Tariq Ali
For Aisha,
who suggested the title twelve years ago and now thinks it unsuitable
Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR