by Tariq Ali
It was already too late for young Yazid, who had fallen asleep leaning on the floor-cushion. Ama, who had suspected this, walked into the room, put her finger on her lips to stress the need for silence and signalled to the rest that Yazid was fast asleep. Alas, she was too old to pick him up any longer. The thought saddened her. Umar realized instinctively what was passing through his old wet-nurse’s head. He recalled his own childhood, when she barely let his feet touch the ground and his mother became worried that he might never learn to walk. Umar rose, and gently lifting his son, he carried him to his bed-chamber, followed by Ama wearing a triumphant smile. It was she who undressed the boy and put him to bed, making sure that the bed-covers were firmly in place.
Umar was in a thoughtful frame of mind when he joined his wife and daughters to partake of a few slices of sugar-cane. Strange how that memory of Ama picking him up and putting him to bed all those years ago had made him reflect yet again on the terminal character of the year that had just begun. Terminal, that is, for the Banu Hudayl and their way of life. Terminal if the truth be told, for Islam in al-Andalus.
Zubayda, sensing his change of mood, attempted to penetrate his mind.
‘My lord, answer me one question.’
Distracted by the voice he looked at her and smiled vacantly.
‘In times such as these, what is the most important consideration? To survive here as best we can, or to rethink the last five hundred years of our existence and plan our future accordingly?’
‘I am not yet sure of the reply.’
‘I am,’ declared Hind.
‘Of that I am sure,’ replied her father, ‘but the hour is late and we can continue our discussion another day.’
‘Time is against us, Father.’
‘Of that too I am sure, my child.’
‘Peace be upon you, Father.’
‘Bless you my daughters. Sleep well.’
‘Will you be long?’ asked Zubayda.
‘Just a few minutes. I need to breathe some fresh air.’
For some, minutes after they had left, Umar remained seated, engrossed in his meditations, staring at the empty table. Then he rose and, wrapping a blanket round his shoulders, walked out into the courtyard. The fresh air made him shiver slightly even though there was no chill and he clutched the blanket tightly as he began to walk up and down.
The torches were being extinguished inside, and he was left to measure his paces in starlight. The only noise was that of the stream which entered the courtyard at one corner, fed the fountain in its centre and then flowed out at the other end of the house. In happier days he would have collected the scent-laden flowers from the jasmine bushes, placed them tenderly in a muslin handkerchief, sprinkled them with water to keep them fresh and placed them at the side of Zubayda’s pillow. In the morning they would still be fresh and aromatic. Tonight such thoughts were very remote from his mind.
Umar bin Abdallah was thinking, and the recurring images were so powerful that they made his whole body tremble momentarily. He imagined the wall of fire. Memories of that cold night flooded back. Uncontrollable tears watered his face and were trapped by his beard. The fall of Gharnata eight years ago had completed the Reconquest. It had always been on the cards and neither Umar nor his friends had been particularly surprised. But the surrender terms had promised the Believers, who comprised a majority of the citizenry, cultural and religious freedom once they recognized the suzerainty of the Castilian rulers. It was stated on paper and in the presence of witnesses that Gharnata’s Muslims would not be persecuted or prevented from practising their religion, speaking and teaching Arabic or celebrating their festivals. Yes, Umar thought, that is what Isabella’s prelates had pledged in order to avoid a civil war. And we believed them. How blind we were. Our brains must have been poisoned by alcohol. How could we have believed their fine words and promises?
As a leading noble of the Kingdom, Umar had been present when the treaty was signed. He would never forget the last farewell of the last Sultan, Abu Abdullah, the one the Castilians called Boabdil, to the al-Pujarras where a palace awaited him. The Sultan had turned and looked for the last time towards the city, smiled at the al-Hamra and sighed. That was all. Nothing was said. What was there to say? They had reached the terminus of their history in al-Andalus. They had spoken to each other with their eyes. Umar and his fellow nobles were prepared to accept this defeat. After all, as Zubayda never ceased to remind him, was not Islamic history replete with the rise and fall of kingdoms? Had not Baghdad itself fallen to an army of Tatar illiterates? The curse of the desert. Nomadic destinies. The cruelty of fate. The words of the prophet. Islam is either universal or it is nothing.
He suddenly saw the gaunt features of his uncle’s face. His uncle! Meekal al-Malek. His uncle! The Bishop of Qurtuba. Miguel el Malek. That gaunt face on which the pain was ever present and could not be concealed either by the beard or the false smiles. Ama’s stories of Meekal as a boy always contained the phrase, ‘he had the devil in him,’ or ‘he behaved like a tap turned on and off by Satan.’ It was always said with love and affection to stress what a naughty child Meekal had been. The youngest and favourite son, not unlike Yazid. So what had gone wrong? What had Meekal experienced that forced him to run away to Qurtuba and become Miguel?
The old uncle’s mocking voice was still resounding in Umar’s head. ‘You know the trouble with your religion, Umar? It was too easy for us. The Christians had to insert themselves into the pores of the Roman Empire. It forced them to work below the ground. The catacombs of Rome were their training-ground. When they finally won, they had already built a great deal of social solidarity with their people. Us? The Prophet, peace be upon him, sent Khalid bin Walid with a sword and he conquered. Oh yes, he conquered a great deal. We destroyed two empires. Everything fell into our lap. We kept the Arab lands and Persia and parts of Byzantium. Elsewhere it was difficult, wasn’t it? Look at us. We have been in al-Andalus for seven hundred years and still we could not build something that would last. It’s not just the Christians, is it Umar? The fault is in ourselves. It is in our blood.’
Yes, yes, Uncle Meekal, I mean Miguel. The fault is also in ourselves, but how can I even think about that now? All I see is that wall of fire and behind it the gloating face of that vulture, celebrating his triumph. The curse of Ximenes! That cursed monk dispatched to our Gharnata on the express instructions of Isabella. The she-devil’s confessor sent here to exorcise her demons. She must have known him well. He undoubtedly knew what she wanted. Can’t you hear her voice? Father, she whispers in her tone of false piety, Father, I am troubled by the unbelievers in Gharnata. I sometimes get the urge to crucify them into submission so that they can take the path of righteousness. Why did she send her Ximenes to Gharnata? If they were so confident of the superiority of their beliefs why not trust in the ultimate judgement of the believers?
Have you forgotten why they sent Ximenes de Cisneros to Gharnata? Because they did not think that Archbishop Talavera was going about things the right way. Talavera wanted to win us over by argument. He learnt Arabic to read our books of learning. He told his clergy to do the same. He translated their Bible and catechisms into Arabic. Some of our brethren were won over in this fashion, but not many. That’s why they sent Ximenes. I described it to you only last year my Bishop Uncle, but you have forgotten already. What would you have done if they had been really clever and appointed you Archbishop of Gharnata? How far would you have gone, Meekal? How far, Miguel?
I was present at the gathering when Ximenes tried to win over our qadis and learned men in theological dispute. You should have been there. One part of you would have been proud of our scholars. Ximenes is clever. He is intelligent, but he did not succeed that day.
When Zegri bin Musa replied point by point and was applauded even by some of Ximenes’ clergymen, the prelate lost his temper. He claimed that Zegri had insulted the Virgin Mary when all that our friend had done was to ask how she could have remained a virgin af
ter the birth of Isa. Surely you can see that the question followed a certain logic, or does your theology prevent you from acknowledging all known facts?
Our Zegri was taken to the torture-chamber and treated so brutally that he agreed to convert. At that stage we left, but not before I had seen that glint in Ximenes’ eyes, as if he realized at that instant that his was the only way to convert the population.
The next day the entire population was ordered out on to the streets. Ximenes de Cisneros, may Allah punish him, declared war on our culture and our way of life. That day alone they emptied all our libraries and built a massive wall of books in the Bab al-Ramla. They set our culture on fire. They burnt two million manuscripts. The record of eight centuries was annihilated in a single day. They did not burn everything. They were not, after all, barbarians, but the carriers of a different culture which they wanted to plant in al-Andalus. Their own doctors pleaded with them to spare three hundred manuscripts, mainly concerned with medicine. To this Ximenes agreed, because even he knew that our knowledge of medicine was much more advanced than everything they knew in Christendom.
It is this wall of fire that I see all the time now, Uncle. It fills my heart with fear for our future. The fire which burnt our books will one day destroy everything we have created in al-Andalus, including this little village built by our forefathers, where you and I both played as little boys. What has all this got to do with the easy victories of our Prophet and the rapid spread of our religion? That was eight hundred years ago, Bishop. The wall of books was only set on fire last year.
Satisfied that he had won the argument, Umar bin Abdallah returned to the house and entered his wife’s bed-chamber. Zubayda had not yet gone to sleep.
‘The wall of fire, Umar?’
He sat down on the bed and nodded. She felt his shoulders and recoiled. ‘The tenseness in your body hurts me. Here, lie down and I will knead it out of you.’
Umar did as she asked and her hands, expert in the art, found the points in his body. They were as hard as little pebbles and her fingers worked round them till they began to melt and she felt the tense zones beginning to relax once again.
‘When will you reply to Miguel on the question of Hind?’
‘What does the girl say?’
‘She would rather be wed to a horse.’
Umar’s mood registered a sharp change. He roared with laughter. ‘She always did have good taste. Well there you have your answer.’
‘But what will you tell His Bishopness?’
‘I will tell Uncle Miguel that the only way Juan can be sure of finding a bed-partner is for him to become a priest and utilize the confessional!’
Zubayda giggled in relief. Umar had recovered his spirits. Soon he would be back to normal. She was wrong. The wall of books was still on fire.
‘I am not sure that they will let us live in al-Andalus without converting to Christianity. Hind marrying Juan is a joke, but the future of the Banu Hudayl, of those who have lived with us, worked for us for centuries. That is what worries me deeply.’
‘Nobody knows better than you that I am not a religious person. That superstitious old wet-nurse of yours knows this only too well. She tells our Yazid that his mother is a blasphemer, even though I keep up a pretence. I fast during Ramadan. I ...’
‘But we all know that you fast and pray to preserve your figure. Surely this is not a secret.’
‘Make fun of me, but what matters the most is the happiness of our children. And yet ...’
Umar had become serious again. ‘Yes?’
‘And yet something in me rebels against the act of conversion. I begin to feel agitated, even violent, when I think about it. I would rather die than cross myself and pretend that I am eating human flesh and drinking human blood. The cannibalism in their ritual repels me. It goes very deep. Remember the shock of the Saracens when the Crusaders began to roast prisoners alive and eat their flesh. It makes me ill to even think of it, but it flows from their faith.’
‘What a contradictory woman you are, Zubayda bint Quddus. In one breath you say that what matters most to you is the well-being of our children, and in the same breath you exclude the only act which might guarantee them a future in their own ancestral home.’
‘What has that got to do with happiness? All your children, including little Yazid, are ready to take up arms against Isabella’s knights. Even if you allow your own sceptical mind to be crushed by Miguel, how will you convince your own children? For them your conversion would be as big a blow as the wall of fire.’
‘It is a political and not a spiritual matter. I will communicate with the Maker just as I have always done. It is simply a question of appearances.’
‘And when Christian nobles come on feast-days will you eat pork with them?’
‘Perhaps, but never with my right hand.’
Zubayda laughed, but she was also shocked. She felt that he was close to a decision. The wall of fire had affected his brain. Very soon he would follow in Miguel’s footsteps. Once again he surprised her.
‘Did I ever tell you what several hundred of us found ourselves chanting that night while they were destroying our inheritance?’
‘No. Have you forgotten that you were silent for a whole week after you returned from Gharnata? Not a word did you speak to anyone, not even Yazid. I pleaded, but you could not bring yourself to speak of it.’
‘No matter. We wept like children that night, Zubayda. If our tears had been properly channelled they would have extinguished the flames. But suddenly I found myself singing something I had learnt as a youth. Then I heard a roar and I realized I was not the only one who knew the words of the poet. That feeling of solidarity filled me with a strength which has never left me. I’m telling you this so that you understand once and forever that I will never convert voluntarily.’
Zubayda hugged her husband and kissed him gently on the eyes. ‘What were the words of the poet?’
Umar stifled a sigh and whispered by her side:
‘The paper ye may burn,
But what the paper holds ye cannot burn;
‘tis safe within my breast.
Where I remove, it goes with me;
Alights when I alight,
And in my tomb will lie.’
Zubayda remembered. Her private tutor, a born sceptic, had told her the story hundreds of times. The lines came from Ibn Hazm, born five hundred years before, just when the light of Islamic culture was beginning to illuminate some of the darkest crevices in the continent of Europe.
Ibn Hazm, the most eminent and courageous poet in the entire history of al-Andalus. A historian and biographer who had written four hundred volumes. A man who worshipped true knowledge, but was no respecter of persons. His caustic attacks on the preachers of orthodox Islam led to them excommunicating him after Friday prayers in the great mosque. The poet had spoken those words when the Muslim divines had publicly committed some of his works to the flames in Ishbiliya.
‘I learnt about him too, but he has been proved wrong, hasn’t he? The Inquisition goes one step further. Not content with burning ideas, they burn those who supply them. There is a logic. With every new century there are new advances.’
She heaved a sigh of relief, confident in the knowledge that her husband was not going to be rushed into a decision which he would regret for the rest of his life. She stroked his head as if to reassure him, but he was already asleep.
Despite her best efforts, Zubayda’s mind would not slow down and let her sleep. Her thoughts had now wandered to the fate of her eldest son, Zuhayr. Fortunately the wound had not been serious, not this time, but given his headstrong character and impetuosity, anything could happen. Gharnata was too dangerous. The best solution, thought Zubayda, would be for him to marry her favourite niece, Khadija, who lived with her family in Ishbiliya. It would be a good match. The village needed a celebration, and a big family wedding was the only way now to provide a diversion without provoking the authorities. And with these innocent
plans for tomorrow’s pleasures the lady of the house lulled herself into sleep.
Chapter 2
HOW BEWITCHING, HOW MAGNIFICENT, is a September morning in al-Hudayl. The sun has not yet risen, but its rays have lit the sky and the horizon is painted in different shades of purplish orange. Every creature wallows in this light and the accompanying silence. Soon the birds will start chattering and the muezzin in the village will summon the faithful to prayer.
The two thousand or so people who live in the village are used to these noises. Even those who are not Muslims appreciate the clockwork skills of the muezzin. As for the rest, not all respond to the call. In the master’s house, it is Ama alone who stretches her mat in the courtyard and gets down to the business of the day.
Over half the villagers work on the land, either for themselves or directly for the Banu Hudayl. The rest are weavers, who work at home or on the estate, the men cultivating the worm and the women producing the famous Hudayl silk, for which there is a demand even in the market at Samarkand. Add to these a few shopkeepers, a blacksmith, a cobbler, a tailor, a carpenter, and the village is complete. The retainers on the family estate, with the exception of the Dwarf, Ama and the tribe of gardeners, all return to their families in the village every night.
Zuhayr bin Umar woke early feeling completely refreshed, his wound forgotten, but the cause of it still burning in his head. He looked out of the window and marvelled at the colours of the sky. Half a mile from the village there was a hillock with a large cavity marking the rocks at the summit. Everybody referred to it as the old man’s cave. On that hill, set in the cave, was a tiny, whitewashed room. In that room there lived a man, a mystic, who recited verses in rhymed prose and whose company Zuhayr had begun to value greatly ever since the fall of Gharnata.
No one knew where he had come from or how old he was or when he had arrived. That is what Zuhayr believed. Umar recollected the cave, but insisted that it had been empty when he was a boy and, had, in fact, been used as a trysting place by the peasants. The old man enjoyed enhancing the mystery of his presence in the cave. Whenever Zuhayr asked him any personal questions, he would parry the thrust by bursting into poetry. Despite it all, Zuhayr felt that the old fraud was genuine.