The Fall of the Imam

by Nawal El Saadawi

  Then came the Imam. It was he that took me away from my misery. I saw him seated on his throne and fell in love with him immediately. He carried me away in his arms and from that moment I could look proudly up into the sky. I discovered Paradise on earth and learnt to have faith in Allah and His Prophet, for now I had gardens and parks, palaces and banquet halls, servants and courtiers, rivers flowing with wine and honey, things without end from which I could choose at will. When I raised my head to look around all heads were lowered to the ground. All faces smiled at me, but I did not have to smile. I walked with a serene step in front of Ministers of State amidst flashing lights to inaugurate charity bazaars and hospitals and homes. My name was now etched into the marble stones of history, was flashed on to a million screens, broadcast on the waves of sound. I was the wife of the Imam, no one was my equal, no one could occupy my place. No woman had my beauty, or my brains, or my fame.

  ‘God is with you.’ The acclamations continued to echo in her ears. She looked at him as he stood on the platform looking the other way. Cannons kept firing salvoes to victory, and each time she heard them thunder out her heartbeat. She watched the rocket-carriers parading close in front of him and the elongated cone-shaped heads pointed to the sky above him, yet his head, the head of the one and only Imam, leader of the faithful, was covered only in a knitted skull-cap, and his chest was exposed under his fine robe without protection, without the bullet-proof vest he should have worn. There he was up there on the platform, exposed with nothing to protect him except Allah and His Prophet.

  O Mary Mother of God take care of him and shield him from all evil. Remembering, she quickly swallowed the words and just as quickly murmured a prayer asking for forgiveness, her tongue repeating Allah’s name and that of His Prophet, while her heart continued to remember the Christ. Protect him from his enemies O God. Protect him from the envy of men and women, from those that blow on the embers of Occult Magic. First amongst them is his first wife, who is hiding in the crowd right at the back. Around her neck is a folded amulet hanging from a leather thong, and her lips pray to God that he be transformed into a monkey and dragged around on a chain. Protect him O God from the scheming of women, for their capacity to do evil is without limit. Then O God do not forget that illegitimate daughter of his. Ever since she was born she has thought of nothing else except how to revenge herself on him. There she goes bending low behind the backs of the people in the crowd, trying to hide herself as she approaches. In her right hand she carries something very long and pointed like an instrument of death.

  With every new burst of acclamations, the beats of her heart vibrate in her ears. She strains herself to hear the sudden sound. What is it? Bullets fired from a gun? Her eyes, blue as the sea, open wide in amazement as his face drops from its place high up in the sky down to the ground. She sees other faces disappear just as suddenly from around him, and the particles of dust floating up in the air to form a fine cloud. She rubs her eyes as though awakening from deep sleep, only to find that she has been awake all the time. No, she was not asleep. But now she is no longer seated. She no longer feels the throne underneath her, holding her body up. Where is the throne? It has disappeared. It lies face downwards with its four legs upright in the air. She quickly draws the sign of the cross in front of her breast. What has happened, O Virgin Mother Mary? The image of her mother’s face is round and radiant like the sun. The Mother, the Son and the Holy Ghost, then quickly remembering, O God have mercy on me, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

  Allah is on the Side of the Imam

  I heard the sound of gunshots ringing in my ears. My eyes were looking upwards to the kingdom of heaven and for not more than a second I lost sight of the kingdom of earth, but it was enough. He took advantage of this short moment of inattention on my part and pulled the trigger. I did not see his face and could not tell with any certainty who he was. Perhaps one of those members of Hizb al-Shaitan whose faces I know one by one. I know their leader very well. Nobody had heard of him until I brought him out of the dark into the light, gave him a name and made him exist. Before that he was nothing. I ordered him to become the Leader of the Official Opposition. I said to him, ‘You can oppose all orders except mine, criticize all decrees except those issued personally by me. I alone rule this land and there is no one else beside me to decide. You shall be given a palace in Liberty Square, a monthly allowance, a daily newspaper and a seat in the Advisory Council and in Parliament.’

  I saw his face light up with a radiant smile. When we were young we went to the same school. He used to close his eyes and dream of seeing his picture on the front page of the newspaper. And every day he kept repeating this same dream. I also used to dream of seeing my picture on the front pages, but the front pages of the newspapers only showed pictures of the heads of state, or leaders of parties, or killers of both sexes, or famous whores. At school he sat next to me. His trousers were made of expensive wool, whereas my trousers always had a hole over the seat and I had to keep my hand behind my back to hide it. My father was a poor peasant and hoped I would grow up to be one of the guards in the palace of the Imam. But his father was rich, had travelled overseas to complete his education, had learnt to speak foreign languages and wore the clothes of city people. He married a woman who believed in Christ and could not converse in Arabic. She had fair hair and the skin of her legs was so white and so transparent that without touching her one could almost feel the warmth of the flesh under it. She was like one of those beautiful maidens reserved for the believers in Paradise. My eyes used to follow her with the hunger of someone who had never known what it was like to be with a woman. There had been many women in my life, but poverty had continued to stick to me like my skin, and this woman was so different from the others I had met. To this day I have never been able to rid myself of my fear of poverty and hunger. No matter how much I ate there was always this hunger gnawing at me deep inside. And no matter what I did in order to feel secure, my mind was never at rest. Each day I saw my picture in the newspapers or hanging up, everywhere, flooded with light. Each day I closed my eyes and dreamt the old dream where I saw myself seated on two thrones, the throne of earth and the throne of heaven.

  Ever since my childhood, whenever I slept Allah visited me in my dreams. His face was my father’s face, the features covered in a web of wrinkles, the skin pitted by smallpox. Over His right pupil was a small white scar, the remains of an early inflammation, of pus in His eyes. He wore the long peasant robe and a woollen skull-cap frayed thin at the edges by daily use. In the dream He called out to me in my father’s loud voice, addressing me as thou, Imam.

  I answered meekly, ‘I am at Thy beck and call, Allah.’

  He said, ‘I shall bestow upon thee what thou desirest and it shall be without limits, whether on earth or in the heavens, but on one condition.’

  ‘And what could that be, my Lord?’ said I.

  He stretched out His arm towards me, and I could see that in His hand He held something. It was a rosary of yellow beads dangling down between His fingers and the skin over His fingers were brown and coarse and cracked, just like the fingers of my father. ‘This rosary has thirty-three beads,’ said He. ‘If thou make it to circle through thy fingers three times it will give the number of ninety-nine, and with each bead thou art to repeat one of my ninety-nine names. That is my will to thee, and if anybody dares to disobey thee, use this.’ And He pulled out a long shining sword from its sheath, and brought its point up to my chest so close that it almost went through my ribs. I took a quick step backwards, and woke up, my eyes wide open with fear.

  My mother noticed that I was deeply shaken by something and that my face had gone very pale all of a sudden. She said, ‘What is wrong, my son? Your face is no longer your face.’

  ‘I have seen God,’ said I.

  ‘But God is good and beautiful, so why are you shaking like that?’

  ‘He carried a sword with Him and pointed it at my chest so closely that it almost went thr
ough my ribs.’

  She spat into the neck of her long black robe and said, ‘That is not God. It must have been the Devil whom you saw. Go, do your ablutions and pray to God that He have mercy on you.’

  My mother used to pray at dawn before she went to the field and then again at night when she came back. But I never saw my father kneel in prayer even once. During the fasting months of Ramadan he would eat and drink and smoke his water tobacco-pipe and divide his nights between his four wives unequally, spending three nights with his most recent wife to every night he spent with my mother. He would say, ‘God forgives all sins no matter how great, except the sin of believing in another God besides Him. For there is only one ruler on the earth and that is the Imam.’

  Before he died my father paid a visit to the tomb of the Prophet in Mecca. When he came back he began to wear a cloak instead of the usual peasant attire, and I used to hear him say that the pilgrimage to the Prophet’s tomb washed all sins away, leaving no trace behind, no matter how oft they had been repeated. Thus it was that my father was able to die in peace without a sin on his conscience. So when my mother grew old I asked her why she had not thought of paying a visit to the Prophet’s tomb before she died and so make sure that in the after-life she could join my father in Paradise. But she looked at me with weeping eyes and said, ‘Your father sold the crops before he died and left nothing behind for me, so I have no money to buy a ticket to Mecca.’ And as she had no way of washing away her sins, she dried her eyes on the palm of her hand and said, ‘If Allah opens the doors of prosperity to you, my son, promise to buy me a ticket so that I can go to the Prophet’s tomb.’

  ‘I promise to do that for you, mother,’ said I.

  But the days went by, and I forgot all about what had passed between us. I even forgot what her face looked like, seeing all the things I had to attend to in my life. And this went on year after year until twenty years passed by without my going to see her where she lived in the same small house way down in the South. My eyes were always fastened on the heavens so that all I could see was Allah and Hizb Allah. I even forgot the existence of another party, of Hizb al-Shaitan.

  In fact Hizb al-Shaitan would never have existed if I had not decreed that the creation of such a party was necessary. I said to myself: if Satan does not come and go freely among my people, how are they going to know fear? And without fear, no ruler, no Imam, can remain on the throne. Hizb al-Shaitan will be there to constitute the opposition in the Advisory Council and the People’s Assembly. It will say no in front of my people and whisper yes in my ear. Then I remembered my friend, for he was just the man I needed to play this role. He had inherited land and money from his father and what he was looking for now was fame, a place in history so that people would remember his name. Besides, now he had visited the tomb of the Prophet in Mecca and acquired the respected title of Haj, he was even better prepared to play this role. I of course know that his heart is empty of faith and that his wife does not believe in one God but in three, that she makes the sign of the cross and kneels to the Trinity, to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. But she is blonde, like honey, slender like the fine branch of a tree, and she speaks seven tongues. He shows her off proudly in front of people and seats her beside him at state functions.

  I hide my wife behind a veil and make her walk behind me in the streets. She does not know how to write her name, and she cannot read the word of God. Her mind has little substance but her body is full of flesh, her buttocks are heavy and her brain lightweight. God created her out of a gnarled and twisted rib. She was destined to be poor, to be without lineage or family, a woman of low descent. When I married her, God had not opened the doors of prosperity to me and we were bound together in holy poverty, but after I had risen so high and sat on the throne she was no longer a suitable wife for me, she no longer fitted in with this new stage in my life. Besides, the Advisory Council told me that the Imam has the right to a new house, a new cloak of the best material, and a new wife, a woman blonde as honey, with eyes blue as the sea and a tongue that speaks all the languages of the earth. The members of the Council without exception said that this is the absolute right of the Imam, for he is the best and holiest of men. No one could contest my right as Imam to possess the best of wives, a woman without parallel in beauty and knowledge of the world, who will accompany me in my travels and represent me at inaugural functions when required. She will put on the official attire, join in the applause and acclamations of the crowd as she stands by my side in festivals and in celebrations of victory. In defeat she will wear the white uniform of nurses, offer sweets to the wounded and the handicapped, and join the widows of martyrs when they sing an anthem of praise to the dead, as they stand in the Great Hall, their eyes lifted in praise to the picture of the Imam hanging proudly from the monument to victory with his face looking humbly at the heavens.

  My lips mutter verses of praise to God seated on his throne in heaven, but every now and then they curl with a quick intimate smile directed at the Devil. In my ears echo the acclamations of the crowd. I raise my right hand in the air, but my lower lip hangs down over my beard with the humility proper to a holy man. There I stand tall and upright on the platform, wearing the face of the Imam. On my forehead is the mark of the faithful to God, those who believe in Him and pray for His forgiveness, and over my chest hangs the Medal of Great Victories. To my right stands my Chief of Security, and on my left is my Great Writer, followed by my Leader of the Official Opposition. Behind are row upon row of Ministers, representatives of great powers, and personalities of State.

  ‘God is with you.’ Up into the air mounts the shout launched by men and women, children in the uniforms of scouts, girls dressed as nurses, soldiers in their khaki trousers, workers in blue overalls, peasants, their bodies clothed in flowing robes and their heads covered in skull-caps, while popular dance troupes weave their way through the crowds, women dancing and cymbals clashing. A million voices raised in acclamation resound as one voice, which thunders out accompanied by the refrains of patriotic songs and anthems of praise, the beating of drums, rockets fired to the sun, filling space with noise and vivid colours. White pigeons shoot up into the sky in flocks of fluttering wings, followed by planes carrying bombs which have expired many years ago. The sound of the words, God is with you, vibrates in his ears again and again. His eyes, raised to the heavens, asked a question: if Thou art on my side, O God, why have I suffered defeat? Why dost Thou hide from me the secret of the nuclear bomb, and divulge its secrets to the enemy, to the unbelievers? Why deprive Thy humble servants and faithful followers from its benefits? Have mercy on me, O Allah, for I should not be asking Thee to explain the reasons why, or the causes of Thy actions. It is Thy will and Thy will is not to be questioned, for to question is to oppose and to oppose can only bring harm. I thought that this Satan who stands by my side would play his role of opposition within the limits prescribed by my decrees, that he would serve to bestow upon me the honourable reputation of a man of liberty and democracy. But no, he does not know his limits. He has grown arrogant and conceited, filled the newspapers with his pictures and even arranged things so that they are sometimes placed higher than mine. He smiles at me like an angel and then strikes out at me behind my back. He stands close to the representatives of the Great Powers during celebrations and keeps shooting glances at my harem.

  My new wife has studied Political Science overseas. She has a theory about the art of ruling, about the art of taming men. She said to me, ‘Hold your stick in the middle and refrain from hitting out with it all the time. Pat people over the shoulder like a mother sometimes, and at other times beat down with it hard on the head. Remember you and I will distribute roles between the two of us. If you hit hard I will arrive with an angel’s smile upon my face. But if you forgive or compromise I will raise the stick high up, or pull on the reins until the bit cuts deep into the mouth.’

  I said to her, ‘You take care of the opposition and of Hizb al-Shaitan.’


  ‘I will tame the men,’ she said. ‘A man is like a child, even if he lifts the flag of rebellion high up to the sky. But woman is the reptile. Woman is the snake, even if she wraps a veil around her face and joins the ranks of Hizb Allah.’

  ‘But my enemies are all men,’ said I. ‘Ever since we were children they have nurtured hatred for me deep in their hearts. Amongst the women I have only two enemies. An old woman whom I put aside with my old clothes and other things from bygone times, and an illegitimate daughter born out of a moment of rashness and numerous cups of wine.’

  ‘Your old wife has broken wings’, she said, ‘and is no longer able to fly, but your daughter is the real danger, for in her heart she bears an ancient grudge and has decided that sooner or later you must die.’

  ‘But a daughter would never kill her father, even if he rapes her like a wolf,’ said I. ‘She loves me. In her heart of hearts she has always been loyal to me because I am her father.’

  ‘You’, she said, ‘are the one who is in love, the one who stands under the lights, and the lights are blinding your eyes. Look carefully. There she stands, hiding at the back of the crowd, waiting for a chance to strike, to aim at you and kill you in the flicker of an eye.’

  ‘No one will try to kill me other than a member of Hizb al-Shaitan, or a mercenary hired by some secret party, or an enemy sent from a foreign land,’ said I.

  ‘Your enemies are many, Imam, and the higher God helps you to rise, the more numerous they become,’ was her reply. ‘Do not go on to the streets without your bullet-proof vest.’

  ‘God is my bullet-proof vest,’ I told her. ‘He is my only shield and guide. He is my one and only protector in this life.’