New Waw, Saharan Oasis (Modern Middle East Literature in Translation)

by Ibrahim Al-Koni

  In the first periods, thirst was conquered, and the soil swallowed the water and stored some in pools the way it usually did in seasons of transient rains. As the water continued to flow, however, it finally succeeded in transforming the earth’s behavior. Then the retem trees at the bottom of the valley grew greener, and their flowers perfumed all the surrounding desert. Dense undergrowth sprouted between these trees, and the valley was dominated by groves and a forest that extended for a long way. The plateau lying between the mouth of the well and the lip of the valley was also transformed. In the early years, amazing wild plants grew there, coloring all the expanses of land with beautiful carpets. The colors of the flowers that rose from the grass divided these green carpets into sections colored by the flowers. At first it was grazing land frequented by young herders, but herbalists quickly discovered the qualities of the plants and began to pick herbs to use in their mysterious potions.

  Later, the sages realized the necessity of utilizing the deluge that was being lost in the open countryside. So they planted wheat and barley and imported from the Southern oases palm seedlings to plant. Their delight was enormous when the plants started bearing fruit the first year. The boughs of the young palms sank under the weight of the most delicious types of dates, and before the end of that season they had eaten genuine ripe, fresh dates—just like inhabitants of the oases.

  During subsequent years, the palms rose high, and the pomegranate and fig trees matured. They planted vegetables too and harvested cereal crops, acquiring a surplus that they exchanged with the caravan merchants at exorbitant prices.

  The desolate, dead, bare tract of land was transformed into a garden that voyagers could see from great distances. Despite this bounty, the new oasis did not experience prosperity and did not enjoy its golden age until commercial caravans discovered it and changed their former routes. Then the oasis was transformed in a short time into a commercial hub, where caravans coming from all directions met.

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  In the early days they gathered stones to build widely separated houses, constructing the walls deliberately, skeptically, and hesitantly, but their souls’ doubts, which at the outset had stifled any excitement, quickly evolved into a spirit of competition. Then they went to great pains to build at a faster pace. So the plateaus and the string of low-lying areas to the north were dotted with buildings, and these subsequently spread to the plain of the central depression. They also extended west until they overlooked clay-covered earth that was bare of any gravel or boulders and that rain flooded in the winter. Southern breezes generously blew top soil from the badlands over these areas so tender shoots of plants grew plentifully in the spring and the plains turned green. Then the girls went out to harvest the abundant truffles, although herdsmen commented that there were fewer truffles in the fields at the borders of the encampments compared to their plentiful numbers in western sites at greater distances from the dwellings.

  In the beginning, anarchy was a hallmark of the construction and placement of houses; random spacing, crowding, and separation were blatantly obvious. This did not escape the notice of anyone who saw them—not even visitors. With the passage of time, however, the city plan became more orderly. Houses were packed together, walls abutted each other as the buildings clung together, and external walls united with each other. Then roads and lanes were established between the dwellings, and blocks of buildings were separated by streets, alleys, and paths. The streets led to plazas and open spaces in the midst of the crush of buildings. Artisans, blacksmiths, farmers, and camel herders arrived and turned empty areas into markets for buying, selling, and bartering. The alleyways were narrow and winding, but the sages of the oasis understood that the winding streets and narrow alleys were a legacy of the chaotic construction boom of the first years.

  The use of gray tones—borrowed from the darkness of the neighboring landscape and adopted by the house walls—dated back to that era. In due time, however, the tribe acquired the strategies of civil strife and learned the arts of embellishment and decoration, because rock continued to be a stubborn medium. Then the tribe discovered white lime powder and covered walls with this blinding white color. Then smooth walls gleamed in the morning sun, and in that grim, gray countryside the oasis appeared to the eye of the passing traveler to be an amazing city of the jinn or a unique oasis belonging to the group of lost oases celebrated in the legends of the ancients and said to appear only to travelers who are not looking for them, since they disappear from view when approached by people who have left home in search of them.

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  To the east of the hill where the tomb stood, a short street led to a plaza surrounded by rows of tall buildings. The bottom floors of these were open spaces that smiths had adopted as workshops for hammering metals and forging blades, knives, swords, spears, arrows, and utilitarian items for daily use. On the other side of the temple, skilled craftsmen and artisans were grouped. They prepared their infernal kilns and began to fire pottery, providing the tribesmen with earthenware jugs, pots for cooking, and other containers suitable for a sedentary population—instead of their old-fashioned wooden vessels.

  The market for general merchandise occupied the center of the oasis on the south. This open area, which lay parallel to the well on the west, was now threatened by urban sprawl and the aggressive building boom. Earlier it had been a pasture for their herds and a savannah covered with acacia trees.

  Caravans converged here from every direction. Those from the South brought loads of dates and palm products like palm-fiber rope, sacks woven from this fiber, platters made of palm fronds, and logs of palm trunks to be used in building roofs. Caravans from the Southern forests brought back cargoes of gold dust, ostrich feathers, elephant tusks, and the hides of wild animals. From the North came caravans bringing grains, oils, textiles, and some items made of metal. In the oasis market, goods were exchanged and barters concluded. Commerce’s feverish infection spread to the inhabitants, who avidly initiated heated negotiations. Then merchants formed alliances or revived old friendships that had been sacrificed to the pursuit of gold dust. So they convened around tables laden with food and concluded with fellow merchants deals that their renewed pursuit of wealth would soon infect with the plague called forgetfulness. All the same, they would never tire of striking new deals when they chanced to meet in the markets.

  Caravans stocked up on water and supplies in the oasis. Frequently pack animals were relieved of their loads of merchandise or at least their burdens were lightened. Other caravans meanwhile sought to increase their loads with other goods. During its years of prosperity, caravans made their way to the oasis from the North, South, and West to buy goods from its markets, which were richly stocked with the most precious items. They took advantage of its proximity, plentiful water, low tax rates, and its markets’ ample supply of even the rarest merchandise. Older merchants would frequently observe with amazement to one another, “We passed by this spot repeatedly and found it a harsh, deadly wasteland. After seeing it now, how could we dare claim that heaven has grown stingy with its miracles? Doesn’t this mean that when the Spirit World looks favorably on a lineage, it creates wealth from nothing?”

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  These commercial caravans had brought many people to the oasis since its first years. Some came to seek their fortune, and others arrived en route to other destinations but were tempted by the land and bonded with the newly born oasis because of the alluring opportunities provided by its development. So they deemed it a promising location and settled there. A third group consisted of world travelers and adventurers who roved the deserts from wanderlust, fleeing from rumors about them and attempting to lose themselves in foreign realms. They hoped that luck would smile on them and that one day they would discover their true potential.

  Artisans, merchants, women entertainers, and tramps settled in the oasis. At first they resided in its only guesthouse. Then they leased houses in the more frequented alleys. Over time some immigrants started to adopt a
lien ways and formed gangs and cliques that through their conduct and character soon provoked the original inhabitants. Then disputes broke out, rivalries were spawned, and the wick of civil disturbance was lit. Citizens complained and brought the matter to the Council. Its nobles met in the one building erected on the hill to the west of the mausoleum. They consulted with each other, debated with each other, and disagreed with each other. The first faction alleged that the foreigners had introduced weird heresies to the land and that the tribe would eventually realize the danger, because these violated the Law and threatened to pollute the inhabitants, whose souls’ purity would be destroyed in the near future. This faction advocated cleansing the oasis of the contamination by expelling these intruders at the earliest opportunity. The second faction considered the droves of immigrants to be an asset for the tribe and a benefit that no burgeoning oasis could dispense with. They observed that most of the new arrivals were craftsmen, skilled workmen, and artisans. Therefore markets in the oasis would benefit greatly from their influx, which would certainly spur the development of crafts, create jobs, and invigorate life in the oasis.

  When the consultative assembly did not reach a consensus, the sages recommended recourse to the mausoleum. There they raised with the female diviner the issue of the fate of the foreign migrants. The Virgin rested her head on the stones all night long; in the morning she sent the leaders the following dictum: “There is no good in a land that the feet of foreigners have not trod.” The nobles repeated this inspired dictum with all the solemnity due a prophecy. They recited this talisman to themselves before seeking out representatives of the immigrants to share this good news with them.

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  The immigrants acquired the right to stay in the oasis in exchange for payment of a regular poll tax. Laws were drafted to formalize their relations with the original inhabitants. These imposed on immigrants respect for the customary laws of the oasis and deference to the dictates of the Law. Immigrants were forbidden from interfering with classified matters that related only to the original inhabitants. The most common infraction, however, and one that always led to the expulsion of the alien from the oasis, was a violation of the ancient prohibition against transactions conducted in gold and the possession of gold coins. In a matter of days, civil guards were seen leading a foreigner outside the walls of the oasis after he was charged with possession of the ill-omened metal, even though the laws stipulated that a verdict of exile against such individuals could not be executed until solemn testimony from sound-minded eyewitnesses was obtained.

  It was said that trade with this sinister metal constituted the one ban that most weakened the immigrant community. The tribesmen mocked them and derided their fondness for a metal that differed from others solely by its spurious luster. The foreigners rebutted this charge, arguing that the sages of the oasis had imposed on them a debilitating condition that human beings could not endure, because they belonged to nations that had no known criterion for prosperity or engine for life besides gold. They themselves had migrated, sacrificed their former lives in their homelands, and rushed off to spread around the world expressly in a quest for gold. How could jurists require them to renounce a goal that was their sole reason for leaving their homes? Or were the nobles stipulating this to undercut the prophecy and to take back from immigrants with their left hand what the leader had granted them with his right one?

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  No sooner had the decision been made to construct walls around the community than a new dispute flared up in the Council of Nobles. The sages would not have countenanced criticism of the benefits of walls if the person lodging the protest had not been the venerable elder. He was reported to have declared that the walls of oases in which brave men live should not be composed of blocks of stones and lumps of clay; they should instead consist of the blades of swords and points of spears. Many agreed with him that walls provide no protection for cowardly, servile, and feeble people, even if built of iron plates, and that the only reliable safeguard for nations and rebuff for aggressors is the vigilance of their mounted warriors. The majority, however, spoke about the need for walls and for block-and-mortar construction of an all-encompassing oasis wall. They affirmed that these physical constructions would not be a substitute for sword blades, because nations don’t build walls as an indictment of the bravery of their warriors but rather as an extra precaution to strengthen the people’s guardians.

  It was reported that Aggulli asked the venerable elder, “Has it escaped our master’s attention that sword blades that stay hidden in their scabbards for long periods rust? What then will happen to these blades if they are thrust into the shadows of walls for an even longer time?” The group liked this riposte and repeated it to their wives in the privacy of their homes. Then it journeyed from these women’s tongues to the markets and from there found its way beyond the walls. The tribes praised it and other tribes adopted it as an argument in favor of their animosity to sedentary life and to settling down on the earth.

  But this report also stated that Emmamma did not yield that day. Instead he stretched out his thin fingers, which resembled twigs, to pull the edge of his blue veil down over his small eyes, which were concealed by veils of blindness, and swayed back and forth before releasing a moan, which emanated from the land of eternity, asking, “Can’t you discover a technique to protect blades against rust?” The assembled men released murmurs of approval and also swayed back and forth ecstatically, whether from despair, desire for glorious past travels, or a hope for release from the bondage of the lowlands.

  Then Aggulli replied with a cryptic phrase that channeled the calamity of the past and the calamities of times to come: “Far from it, Master. How preposterous!”

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  The wall extended from the northern heights, ran straight east where the earth dipped to make a hollow for the waters of Retem Valley, and wound toward the southern depressions to enclose groves of nab‘ trees and date palms as well as the fields of crops. The Oases Gate was erected in this area, and through it entered caravans arriving from the forestlands and the Southern oases. The wall subsequently circled round to include the open space of the market and proceeded west to claim ancient plains where in earlier times truffles had grown in profusion. It finally reached the Western Hammada Gate, through which the salt caravans from Majazzen entered. The oasis also greeted caravans from the North there. Next the awe-inspiring wall continued its course northward to take in the masses of houses built on the heights, before terminating its severe, circular course at the place where the circular temple stood. Discriminating people discerned in this correspondence a coded sign. They said that the great wall’s circle was inspired by the circular shape of the noble mausoleum and that the men who had built the new structure had been inspired, perhaps unconsciously, by the plan created by the Lover of Stones.

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  Throughout this whole period, people did not simply treat Emmamma with the veneration they customarily showed toward elders and he did not merely inspire in their souls the secret dread that the sight of any person who has achieved a great age does. They viewed him, moreover, with the admiration due someone who had long struggled with time and defeated time for a long period.

  In later years, when the tribe settled on the land and grew comfortable with sleeping inside walls, they noticed changes in their bodies and their souls. Then they realized that their venerable elder had already undergone these same changes. For the first time in his heroic struggle with time, he seemed to fall apart. He grew even thinner, his skin dried to his bones, and his limbs became extremely emaciated. He began to fade and fritter away. Nothing was left of his body except his enveloping veil and flowing thawb.

  All that remained of his speech were his sorrowful moan and the sighs of lethal longing known only to one who has spent a long time alone in the wasteland or has lived as a stranger among people, because long ago he had voyaged off, entered the eternal, unknown lands, and had continued to speak to people from there. From thes
e mysterious realms he addressed the people on the day they assembled to debate the right name for the oasis. He also wailed when he heard that they intended to call the new oasis “New Waw.” He chanted his lament lugubriously and finally raised his index finger to ask them critically, “Do you want to dangle the sword of extinction over the head of your new homeland? Don’t you know that those three letters have never been used to name a place on the earth without it incurring the Spirit World’s curse and without the ghoul of extinction striking it?” Some people retorted that extinction was the destiny of every existing thing and that venturing out into the wasteland was an invitation to fall prey to the belly of the wasteland. By yielding to this principle they should not hope that their Waw would become immortal, because its condition would be no more privileged than all the other Waws ever founded in the desert.

  Finally Aggulli asked the venerable elder, “How can we hope to preserve anything that we, who are an evanescent people, have brought into existence? How can vanishing offspring knead something transitory with their hands and shape it into immortal dough? All existing things, Master, fade away, and everyone who is born dies.”

  But the venerable elder, who was in immortality’s homeland, did not hear. He swayed back and forth again and sought inspiration for a name for the oasis from the Unknown. “The leader caused its birth. The leader is the father of the oasis. The leader is the master of the oasis. The leader is the name of the oasis: Tan Amghar.12 Name the oasis Tan Amghar. What a noble name! What a beautiful name!” He recited this for a long time and swayed back and forth for a long time, singing with a long moan. The noble elders did not conceal their delight with the name, but it was a name that lingered only on their lips, because the merchants with their caravans and the nomads had long since carried the name “New Waw” to the farthest nations.