The Last of the Angels

by Fadhil al-Azzawi

  Seven

  The mausoleum the government erected for Qara Qul had a big impact on the life of the Chuqor community and indeed on the whole city of Kirkuk because people began to flock there from every direction, eager to visit the mausoleum of the man who had ascended to heaven in a cloud of light, mounted on Buraq. At first, news about him spread to the villages surrounding Kirkuk. Then it was quickly transmitted to Alton Kopri, Chamchamal, Qara-Teppa, Sulaymaniya, Erbil, and Mosul. Next it reached Baghdad by means of traveling merchants and soldiers. From there, the news went out not merely to the other cities of Iraq but to Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and even to the Arabs who remained in Israel, where it was carried by livestock smugglers. Istanbul, Ankara, Adana, and Iskenderun learned about Qara Qul’s ascension to heaven from Turkmen travelers, who frequented Turkish cities more often than Baghdad itself. Shi‘i pilgrims from Persia and India on visits to Karbala, al-Najaf, and al-Kazimiya carried varying reports about the miracles of Qara Qul to Tehran, Qum, Khurasan, Islamabad, and Kashmir.

  The fact of the matter is that these reports stirred up many disagreements among Muslim religious scholars, mujtahids, and jurisprudents, both Sunni and Shi‘i, especially in Turkey and Iran. If at first the Shi‘a refused to recognize the miracles of Qara Qul, that was because they did not believe God would bestow such a huge honor on a Sunni who was not a descendant of the Prophet’s family. This egotistical approach was refuted by Sunni religious scholars who affirmed that Islam had made all people equal and that there is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, since only piety counts. The way Turkish ulema looked at the matter revealed a certain taste for revenge, since they never failed to point out that Qara Qul’s grandfather had worked in the service of the Ottoman governors, who had rescued him from the treachery of Arabs wanting to seize this African in order to sell him to the shaykhs in al-Ahsa’ in the Arabian peninsula. This allegation was naturally denied by the Arabs, who pointed out that the man would not have been able to commit the miracles that had been witnessed had it not been for Islam, which descended on the Arabs before anyone else.

  These religious disputes soon ended, however. The Shi‘a began to spread the word that the man had been Shi‘i, even if he had not made that public—for fear of Sunni reprisal, since these Sunnis believed that a Shi‘i had on his bottom a short tail, which was knotted into a kind of braid into which beads were woven. The Shi‘i change of heart occurred after Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran presented to the mausoleum a door made of pure gold. This door was studded with gems and inscribed with verses by Sa‘di of Shiraz and by Umar Khayyam. Some people in the Chuqor community and Kirkuk whose lives revolved around the mausoleum spread a rumor that Qara Qul was both a Sunni and a Shi‘i at the same time. The goal of this strange claim was clearly to attract the greatest number of people possible to visit Qara Qul’s mausoleum.

  The caravansaries and the hotels filled with the visitors flocking into Kirkuk and new ones were built. Among these were the Beasts of Burden Inn, which was located by the entrance to the Chay community, the Stars Inn on the road to the railway station, and al-Alamein Hotel, which overlooked the Khasa Su River and was managed by Saqi Baqi, a tall, athletic young man from the Chuqor community. He had taken part in the battles of Gawirbaghi and the cemetery and was wounded in his right leg during both of them, so that he limped for quite a while. Restaurants selling kebab flourished and raised their prices. Students of Islamic jurisprudence from the colleges of the universities lined their pockets as they began to spend most of their time among the tombs, reciting the sura “The Cow” from the Holy Qur’an. Frequently they would do an abbreviated version in exchange for ten fils, which they received from people visiting the spirit of saintly Qara Qul. Battles flared between these students and seminary pupils who came to the cemetery bearing copies of the Qur’an and who vied with them in their pursuit of customers.

  Another trade gained popularity in the Chuqor community, and the boy Burhan Abdallah monopolized it, for his skill in drafting letters became widely known. He had actually acquired this reputation even before Qara Qul’s miracle because of the love letters he composed for the illiterate women of the Chuqor community. Young women who maintained emotional ties with young men living in other cities and who hoped these young men would come forward to ask for their hands would visit the boy, sit facing him on the ground, and open to him hearts torn by passion and desire. He would then transform all of that into flaming words of love and romantic confessions. Lovers in Kirkuk may not have exchanged anything like this before. He had learned about this from Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti’s book about the amorous poet Cyrano de Bergerac. He read the book time and again without ever tiring of it. These single girls, who were not embarrassed about spilling their emotions, were content to hand him ten or twenty fils. Married women who had secret lovers and feared a scandal would shower him with gifts to guarantee his silence. Now women came to him, not to write love letters because most of them were elderly women or married women who were neglecting themselves, but to draft letters of complaint addressed to the saint, Qara Qul. In these, they would complain of the injustice of the age and of its outrages against them, requesting him to take revenge on husbands who had left them or on their co-wives and neighbors. Then there were other women who sought the saint’s mediation to obtain posts for their sons in the Iraq Petroleum Company or to secure monetary compensation for their long military service. The women would take these letters to the mausoleum of Qara Qul, weeping and lamenting before him. Then they would throw the letters through the grille of the shrine’s window into the domed space containing the tomb, which was covered with a green cloth embroidered with silk thread and on top of which letters and money accumulated. They would also inspect the gold wheelchair parked beside the tomb, facing the window.

  King Ibn Sa‘ud had presented this vehicle to the shrine so that the Shah of Iran would not appear more supportive of Islam than he, even though the Wahhabi doctrine he advocated prohibited displays like these. The truth was that the Wahhabi Ibn Sa‘ud, who had commissioned this gold wheelchair using his private wealth accruing to him from oil wells he owned in the Arabian peninsula, had not considered the end toward which this custom-made wheelchair of gold was heading. There was no rational purpose for it at the mausoleum, although no one had considered that. The fact of the matter is that the idea of commissioning this gold wheelchair had occurred to Ibn Sa‘ud years before the demise of Qara Qul; on February 14, 1945, to be precise, when the king had met Roosevelt on board the cruiser USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake in Egypt, during his first trip outside his country since his visit thirty years before to Basra. The king told the American president, who was crippled and sat in a motorized wheelchair, “I feel that you are my twin brother.” Roosevelt had responded, “But you are very, very lucky, because you still have the use of your two legs, which carry you wherever you want.” Ibn Sa‘ud, who felt embarrassed, had saved the situation by observing, “You are the lucky one, Mr. President, because my legs will grow heavier year after year, whereas you can rely on your wheelchair.” Roosevelt had then answered, “I have two of these wheelchairs. They are twins as well. I wonder whether you would accept one as my gift?” All that Ibn Sa‘ud could think to say was, “With pleasure. I will use it every day to remind me of the person who gave it to me: my wonderful friend.”

  At the conclusion of this cordial meeting, the king ordered his finance minister, Abdallah ibn Sulayman, to commission a gold wheelchair as a return present for the American president. Roosevelt died, however, before the wheelchair was completed, and then the king did not know what to do with it. So it was left out in a garden of his palace, and the children, servants, and slaves played with it for many long years, until the king heard the news of the gold door that the Shah of Iran had presented to the mausoleum of Qara Qul. Then he got the idea of presenting it to the shrine. The important thing, after all, was that the wheelchair contained more gold than the shah had put in the mausoleum door. He was
hopeful that this noble deed would win him the affection of the Iraqi people and shield him against the evil of the Hashemites, who were governing Iraq. So he ordered one of his black servants to fetch the wheelchair, which was covered with mud, dust, and babies’ fecal matter, and proceeded to wash it himself at the edge of the garden with a rubber hose connected to a spigot. The gold wheelchair regained so much of its former splendor and glitter that he toured the wings of his women’s quarters with it, provoking the laughter of the younger children, who chased after him and sprang on his back. Then a delegation of important figures from the kingdom’s political and religious establishments undertook to deliver the king’s golden gift to the mausoleum of Qara Qul. It was a gift for which King Faisal II personally thanked him.

  People from everywhere, men and women, headed for the mausoleum to toss their letters through the window into the domed area along with coins or currency. They would go hungry so they could save something to donate to Saint Qara Qul. Those who were unable to come to Kirkuk to visit the mausoleum of Qara Qul would post their letters, which the letter carriers, who rode bicycles, would deliver to the mausoleum and empty through the window’s grill. These letters were written in many languages: Arabic, Turkish, Farsi, and Urdu, but there were also Hebrew letters mailed by Jews who had emigrated from Kirkuk. There were even letters in Russian, English, German, and French. These were written by Christians who had been guided to Islam and had embraced it.

  In reality this mausoleum turned into a shrine that caused as much harm as good, for the people of the Chuqor community and Kirkuk became crazy about acquiring money, and this caused many arguments and disputes among them. Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri, who was finagling to be appointed as the shrine’s director, quarreled with Khidir Musa, accusing him of not putting sufficient effort into lobbying the authorities to appoint him to this post, which he believed he deserved more than anyone else, but this accusation was unfair. When Khidir Musa had proposed his name to the governor, he was convinced of the success of his effort. There was a glitch, though. The governor forwarded the matter to the ministers of the interior and of religious endowments, expecting that a decision about the appointment would be forthcoming, but it was delayed for a long time because the minister of the interior, who transmitted requests in a routine fashion to the public safety administration, had discovered that there was a dossier on Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri, who had been accused of Communism. Khidir Musa had concealed this matter from the mullah to avoid arousing his anxiety. The mullah only learned the truth when the police summoned him to conduct an investigation of his character. They then wrote a report that cleared his name of the charge of Communism and established his loyalty to the monarchy and to King Faisal II.

  Mullah al-Qadiri still felt frustrated and could scarcely sleep on account of the nightmares that oppressed his heart. His zest for life did not return until Khidir Musa sought him out two weeks later in the coffeehouse and told him, “I wanted to be the first to congratulate you, Mr. Director General, to appease your anger at me.” All the distraught mullah could find to say was, “Has an appointment order been issued for me?” At that, Khidir Musa handed him the text of the appointment, observing, “You can read it yourself and then you must invite us to have tea.” The mullah cast a quick glance over the document. Then he rose and kissed Khidir Musa on the forehead. He apologized for his conduct, which he said made him feel ashamed. Khidir Musa, however, gently stopped him: “That’s enough, man. Even friends quarrel.” The mullah directed the proprietor of the coffeehouse to bring a tray with baklava and to serve tea to all the patrons, who on learning about the matter came forward to congratulate him on his new position.

  The next day, Director General Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri sought out the governor, who congratulated him on obtaining the post and offered him a temporary office in the Palace of Government, along with two clerks from Import/Export, until a private office could be obtained for him and the employees he needed could be appointed. The mullah, however, rejected this idea, asserting that the last thing on his mind was ostentation and pomp. If he had wanted to oversee the direction of the affairs of the mausoleum, his reason had been to stay close to it, not in order to imprison himself in a room in the Palace of Government like any other government employee. The governor responded, “The matter is left to you. Make the decision you think best.”

  Afterwards the mullah headed to the cemetery, where three soldiers emerged from a long room they had converted into a guardhouse near the tomb. They saluted him, since the news of his appointment as director general had reached them that very day. Two of them accompanied him on a tour, during which he inspected the mausoleum and the tombs near it before returning once more to the guardhouse, where he took a seat on a chair out in the open by the door to the long room, in which four cots had been placed. He watched the visitors who streamed in from everywhere in order to obtain the miraculous blessings of Qara Qul.

  The mullah grew accustomed to sitting in this chair every day during the period while masons erected the building for the headquarters of his agency. This building, which was constructed of stone and plaster and which was located behind the police guardhouse, faced the domed mausoleum. Over its entrance flew the white, red, black, and green Iraqi flag with its twin stars representing the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. On either side of the entrance were facing rooms furnished with Persian carpets, which Iranian pilgrims had presented to the shrine, and embroidered cushions that al-Hajj Ahmad al-Sabunji had donated. The entry vestibule opened onto a courtyard containing in the center a marble basin with a fountain, from which water flowed constantly. It ended with a spacious open porch, which was also paved with marble. Placed in it was a coffin that the mullah had brought from his mosque in the Chuqor community. He used it as his desk, from which he directed the affairs of his agency. He received his visitors and contacts while sitting inside it. Indeed, he would occasionally sleep in it too while enjoying the noon siesta he found indispensable, especially when the courtyard was sprinkled with cold water. This strange custom aroused the disapproval of many people, who accused Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri at times of feeblemindedness and at others of exhibitionism and self-promotion. Although the governor considered this conduct inconsistent with the status of a high-ranking state official, the mullah insisted on his position, affirming that a person ought never to forget for a moment death, which—no matter how high time may lift him—lies in wait for him at the end.

  The mullah said in a sermon, which he delivered one Friday in his mosque and which became famous as “The Coffin Sermon,” that what destroys a man’s heart is not the temptation of life but a forgetfulness of death. Every living being has a right to enjoy his time, but this enjoyment wins goals that seem imaginary when he realizes that death lies in wait for him. Once people remember this reality, no ruler will tyrannize his subjects, no notable will take pride in his glory, and no rich man will be stingy with his wealth. Mullah al-Qadiri also said, “True wisdom is revealed twice in this lifetime: first when a person is born and next when he dies. Each of us is condemned to be born; each of us is condemned to die. Anything over and beyond that is foam left by the wave on the shore.” Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri was so touched by these realities, which were revealed to him all at once without his ever having thought about them, that tears poured from his eyes as he said, “Now that I have become a director general, I must not forget this truth. There has never been a prophet or a saint who did not carry his coffin on his shoulders. Why should I not also have a coffin, for my part?”

  This influential sermon, which dumfounded the rumormongers and silenced them, in point of fact raised the standing of Mullah Zayn al-Abidin al-Qadiri, who had displayed extraordinary brilliance in the acquisition of metaphysical wisdom. Even the governor himself, some days after this sermon, the text of which was published in the newspaper Kirkuk, was forced to pay a courtesy call to his office, where the mullah received him in his customary way: reclining in
the coffin, which he had outfitted with a pad and feather pillows. The governor sat in the open porch, which the mullah had furnished with carpets and cushions, in the style of Arab divans. He drank two cups of bitter coffee, which a man served to him from a pot with a curved spout. The fellow, obviously a servant working for the agency, held the pot in his hand. The governor started the conversation with a jest: “I didn’t know you had such a restful office. At least you won’t suffer the way I do from back pain.” The mullah, who had reared back a bit, raising his head to look up, responded: “I tried it for two days without a pad, and my back was almost destroyed from the pain. It was truly unbearable. May God be merciful to the dead, who are placed in it naked, with only a shroud to cover their body.”

  The conduct of Mullah Zayn al-Abidin was an innovation that no one before him had practiced. It demonstrated to the residents of the Chuqor community, however, that the wellspring of light they had heard about for generations had not run dry, despite the corruption that the flood of Iranian, Indian, and Turkish pilgrims introduced to the city. Men neglected their employments, and teenagers fled from their schools in order to hover around the shrine and pursue the foreign women visitors who had come to seek the intercession of Qara Qul. Some of them devised novel ways of attracting women’s attention and tempting them—wearing a cloak and a turban, for example, along with a fake beard. Some of them also claimed to possess a gift for magic and the ability to slay the jinn that trouble women’s bodies and prevent them from bearing children. On dark nights they would entice these women to the deserted area of al-Musalla, at the far edge of the cemetery and stage what they termed “A Night of the Jinn.”

  Whether these desperate women visitors followed these young men in the belief that their destiny awaited them there or from a desire to contact the world of spirits, they all were convinced that a world existed where the boundaries between possible and impossible disappeared and where everything could turn into its opposite, so that the world was in effect turned upside down. They wished to reach this world, which would perhaps provide deliverance to them.