by Ibrahim Essa
There were murmured greetings from the ring of seats, in compliance with signals from the assistant director.
“Very well, that makes me ask what could be better than saying, ‘Peace be upon you and the mercy and blessings of God.’ The instruction is that we should respond with something better, or at least with the same greeting. Is there anything better than ‘Peace be upon you’? God says, Their greeting will be “Peace.” See how beautiful that is. So what’s better? What’s better might be in the manner of the greeting and not in the words, the warmth and sincerity and enthusiasm of your response. In the countryside you find that after ‘Peace be upon you’ the man replies ‘Please’ and the other man then says ‘God preserve you,’ and the first man insists with another ‘Please’ and the other man then says ‘God bless you.’ Being insistent when greeting others goes with the beauty and the enthusiasm of the greeting. And after the greetings we have to remind ourselves that we’re in a forum on religious knowledge so don’t be misled by the lighting and the cameras, the sets, and this nice spacious studio. You all look like you’re going out for dinner after the filming anyway.”
Some of them laughed, angrily or cheerfully. Hatem sneaked a smile at Hassan, who was sitting at the end of the upper tier of seats. Hatem was moving around among them, trying to breathe some warmth into them. In a mosque the congregation looks unnatural. They’re clearly making a show of being respectful and devout, as if that’s what required by the etiquette of sitting in a mosque, while a mosque is also called ‘a gathering place.’ In other words the sense of people gathering there is important. Warmth, presence, sharing, and listening, not silence but movement, internal movement that shows in people’s eyes when they are listening attentively and with interest. Friday sermons are a golden opportunity for people to doze off, out of boredom, so it’s important for the preacher to keep people awake. But that doesn’t mean shouting and screaming, because that makes people tense and tension doesn’t make people listen or wake up. It just makes people annoyed. All the successful sheikhs, regardless of what Hatem thought of their learning, were the ones who succeeded in moving the crowd, in stimulating the listeners by engaging them in the sermon or the lesson interactively, by smiling or crying. He hated that acting that the audiences in television programs went in for, and the worst kind of acting was pretending to be interested. Several times he had tried to persuade the producers of his programs to let him take on a random audience that hadn’t been selected so that he could get rid of the artificiality, but they were too worried about who they would get or they rejected the proposal on the grounds that the production process would be too chaotic.
“Muslims must never stop asking questions,” Hatem continued. “To be truly religious you have to question things, because questions lead to knowledge and knowledge leads to faith. That’s why you find God commanding us to ask questions. Ask those who possess the Message, it says in the Quran, defining both the person asking and the people asked. You’ll find eminent sheikhs persistently warning against debate, while the truth is that we have been ordered to debate things. God says, And argue with them in ways that are best. Of course what our eminent and learned scholars are criticizing is debate that serves no purpose. Remind me to speak to you some time about learning that serves no purpose and ignorance that does no harm, but now for your questions.”
A young man came forward, clearly a school prefect that the production people or the assistant director had chosen. He came down the steps and headed for the microphone set up in front of a camera that transmitted a picture of the questioner to a screen behind Hatem.
“Peace be upon you,” he began.
“And the mercy and blessings of God.”
“Mister Hatem . . .”
They had agreed that on this program he would be ‘mister’ and not ‘Your Grace’ or ‘Mawlana.’ The supposedly youthful nature of the program, the fact that Hatem was wearing his suit rather than his gown and turban, and Kaaki’s orders—all these were reasons for giving the audience strict instructions to address Hatem as ‘mister’ rather than ‘sheikh.’
“What’s your interpretation of the Quranic verse in which God Almighty says, ‘We offered the trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to accept it and were afraid of it. And man assumed it. He has been unjust and ignorant.’ Do the heavens and earth and the mountains hear and understand? Are they conscious and can they choose to refuse or accept anything? Then it says God gave the trust to mankind. Does it mean He gave it to Adam?”
Hatem was impressed by the production person who had helped the young man memorize the question. The face of the questioner, as he appeared on the big screen that Hatem was watching with an expert eye, looked so casual and theatrical that Hatem assumed he was as a young actor practicing on the program.
The camera turned and followed Hatem as he moved from one corner to another. “The question is excellent,” he said. “It goes straight to the heart of the matter. It’s a question about basic principles, but what’s missing from the question is more important than what’s in it. What is this trust? God offered something to the heavens and the earth and the mountains. How and why and where? Okay, but the ‘what’ is more important here. What is this thing, this trust?”
In the gap between thinking about the answer and coming out with it Hatem relied on standard phrases that he knew by heart, giving himself a moment to choose how to proceed. Should he answer the question in a way that would be appropriate for the audience of adolescents that surrounded him, or for the much broader television audience? The broader audience would have limited knowledge, it would only understand ideas superficially and wouldn’t have the ability or the desire or the patience to delve any deeper. Or should he address those rival sheikhs who were waiting to pounce on him? Crouched over the keyboards of their computers, they had closed their minds against anything they didn’t understand, if they understood anything at all, that is. Hatem didn’t ask whether he should reply to satisfy his conscience or to remain true to his scholarly profession because he didn’t intend to lie. Instead he would say only the part of the truth that was fit for television consumption. He was a businessman addressing his customers, and his answer—both the content and the way he delivered it—was responsible for bringing in advertising revenue, not charitable donations, to keep the producer and the program sponsor happy. As for keeping God happy, well, God would judge him by his intentions. He hated himself at those moments—the moments between when he started speaking and when he decided what he actually wanted to say. It’s true that he wasn’t going to lie or mislead people, and he came out of the tunnel so quickly that no one noticed that his eyes were roaming and the camera didn’t catch the seconds of hesitation.
“Do the heavens and the earth and the mountains understand? Can they hear and speak? This is a question and the answer is: very possibly, but not in the way humans, for example, speak and understand. So God asked them and offered them the trust, and most of the early Muslims, when they were explaining this verse, said that it’s ‘When God asked the heavens and the earth and the mountains if they could accept this trust, with everything that implied,’ they said, ‘and what does it imply?’ and God said, ‘If you do good, you will be rewarded, and if you disobey, you will be punished.’ Okay, so they understand like humans. We have to remember that all inanimate objects are subject to God Almighty. They obey and prostrate themselves to Him, as God says in the Quran when he addresses the heavens and the earth: ‘Come ye together, willingly or unwillingly, and they said: We come, obedient,’ or when He spoke about rocks, saying ‘And indeed there are rocks which fall down for the fear of God,’ or when He says, ‘Haven’t you seen that those who are in the heavens and on earth bow down to God, and also the sun and the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees, and the beasts.’ So they worship differently from human beings, and so their speaking, hearing, understanding, and feelings are different from what we are familiar with as humans, but there are
some scholars who say that God, very temporarily and to a very limited extent, equipped them with reason and understanding when he offered them the trust, so the heavens and the earth and the mountains understood and came up with their decision to turn the offer down.”
Hatem went up to a girl sitting in the stands. When she realized she was on the screen, with everyone looking at her, she started to play up to the camera.
“Understand anything?” Hatem asked her. He laughed and the audience laughed and the girl was flustered.
“You watch cartoons, don’t you?” Hatem continued.
The question took her by surprise. “Yes, when I was young,” she replied.
“But not now that you’re old!” Hatem said, walking in front of her, heading to the other side of the set and looking at another section of the audience. “Anyway, when you see animals and trees speaking in cartoons, for example, or in science fiction films you might find mountains talking, all these ideas are derived from the stories that are found in all religions.”
Unconsciously he glanced over at Hassan, who was captivated by the scene.
“If we go back to the Quran, we find God saying ‘And ask the town where we were.’ Does it mean ‘ask the town in the sense of its hills, the sun, the shade, the ground,’ or does it mean ‘ask the people in the town’? So when He offered the trust to the heavens, the earth, and the mountains, was He offering it to the people who were there, and who were they? They were the angels. So it was the angels, and they were afraid of the trust, because the angels can hear, yes, and they can understand, yes, and they can speak, yes, but they turned down the assignment. In other words the mountains, the earth, the sky don’t understand. They’re not conscious, they can’t hear, and they don’t speak. What’s meant is the angels. God created two kinds of beings: mankind and angels, and an offshoot of the angels is the devils, of course, the descendants of Satan and his helpers. He offered the trust to one group and they turned it down. So he offered it to another group and they agreed to take it on, and what does God say about mankind? ‘He has been unjust and ignorant.’ Unjust to himself and ignorant about God’s ways and the trust he was taking on.”
Hatem went up close to a young man in the audience.
“But didn’t God offer you this trust?” he asked.
With a smile Hatem answered his own question to the surprised young man.
“No, He offered it to Adam, and it was Adam, may God reward him, who accepted it and landed us with this horrible job.”
Hatem was in full control of his audience, both those in the studio and the people in front of their televisions at home, but he decided to send Kaaki a message to show that he hadn’t thrown his three million pounds down the drain.
“Okay, but what is the trust that was offered?” he said. “The books that try to explain the Quran say it was the duty to perform prayers, to give alms, to fast in Ramadan, to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, to tell the truth, to pay debts, and to be honest with weights and measures. But note that God offered the trust to humanity and not to Muslims, so we shouldn’t take it for granted that it means the detailed obligations of Muslims, because the question at the time was ‘okay, and what about non-Muslims?’
“You know the explanation of the trust I’m most partial to? That the trust that God offered to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, and that they refused to accept and that humanity did accept, was in fact the reproductive organs.”
There was a deafening silence as everyone fell speechless in shock. Through his earpiece Hatem heard the producer’s reaction: “Oh God!” Hatem couldn’t help smiling, almost laughing, as he continued.
“Yes, the genitalia, according to the explanation of Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As. Now there’s no need to get embarrassed. I know you didn’t attend the lesson on the reproductive system in biology class when you were in year three of middle school, but if you think about it you’ll find that the tiresome trust, this ordeal, is the genitals or the reproductive organs of human beings.”
He could hear the rumble of voices from the control room through his earpiece and then the producer shouting, “Cut to the ads, Mawlana.”
“And at that we’ll take a break,” said Hatem.
When the red light on the camera went off, Hatem laughed.
“A break, right?” he said to the producer.
“Strong stuff, Mawlana,” said Kaaki through the speaker in the ceiling of the set. “An adults-only program.”
Hatem ignored the youth in the audience, who were unsure whether to admire him or disapprove of him, whether to take him seriously or make fun of him. He whispered into the microphone so that the studio audience couldn’t hear him, as the make-up person wiped off his sweat and powdered the shine off his forehead. The hairdresser straightened his hair and pumped bursts of spray onto it.
“So what’s the moral of the story?” said Kaaki, who was sitting in the control room to monitor the first program of the series. “When we say everyone should take care of his trust, what does it mean? It means he should take care of his dick.”
The audience could hear roars of laughter through the speaker. Then Sheikh Hatem appeared, coming back from the break.
Hatem couldn’t in the least claim that he felt at peace. On the contrary his success, his fame, and his confidence that he could trade profitably in religious learning had not made him feel less anxious or more secure. His unhealthy anxiety about Omar meant he could never claim he had peace of mind. On top of that, there were of course the potentially explosive implications of having Hassan in his life. The competition and the battle for ratings and adverts left him feeling vulnerable, but what made him feel really fragile, like a rickety car that might fall to pieces at the next big bump, was the gap between what he said and what he wanted to say. Inside himself and in his private meetings and in what he said to those closest to him there was another Hatem, different from the Hatem who sold a superficial form of learning that people loved. But he would face disaster if he challenged the popular preference for ignorance, if he said something that didn’t please those who owned the television market, if he disobeyed State Security or made the government nervous. He would be disowned by the satanic television machine that called people to paradise through religious directives. The millionaires would deny their stations and companies to him, the distributors would be wary of him, the advertisers would avoid him and the producers would run away. They were all gangsters who thought they were respectable. Their interests lay with the religion of the prince or the president, not with God’s religion. There was to be no talk about freedom, only about obedience. No appeals to reason, only to tradition. No going back to the ideas that appear in the classical books on history or legal theory, only stagnation based on the ideas found in religious pamphlets that are free or subsidized, such as summaries of the material in school curricula, offering paradise in the form of question and answer.
Hatem had been struck by a pretty girl in the audience, although he didn’t yet realize what an effect she would have on him or where it would lead. She hit him somewhere vulnerable without realizing it. Or maybe she did realize it and there was someone behind her who wanted to take advantage of his vulnerability.
The camera focused on the girl’s face when she stood up to ask her question. “Mister Hatem,” she began, with a disapproving look of skeptical defiance. His heart raced.
“You’ve said we’re not under orders to imitate the Prophet, may God bless him and pray for him, in everything he did. But that opens the door to denying the sayings and practices of the Prophet, rather than following them, whereas we all know that the Sunna is what explains the Quran and Islam in general. What Your Grace says”—hadn’t they told her to say ‘mister’ and not ‘Your Grace’?—“supports the line taken by the Mutazila, a group that many early scholars condemned as heretics, so I’d like to hear Your Grace”—again!—“explain what I heard you say.”
Hatem heard Kaaki shouting through the earpiece: “Who brou
ght this skank in here, and why isn’t she asking the question she was told to ask? Whoever let her in is fired. Tell Hatem”—no ‘mister’ or ‘Mawlana’ here—“to totally humiliate her,” he added, addressing the director. “She’s going to get us all in deep trouble.”
In the control room it hadn’t occurred to anyone that the girl’s question could be that serious. They were drinking tea, smoking, and joking around, giving and taking orders. The question seemed as ordinary as any other. It’s true it was a little over their heads but when Kaaki started screaming and shouting, getting wound up and shaking and smoking voraciously, a vague sense of apprehension morphed into an inexplicable anxiety.
By that time Hatem had recovered his poise and had started speaking. “Excellent question,” he said. “What’s your name, you clever girl?” he added languidly.
The question took her by surprise. She was still standing there, rather stiffly and nervously, and Hatem hadn’t asked her to sit down. He went up to her smiling, awaiting her answer.
“My name’s Nashwa,” she said, overlooking the condescending ‘clever girl’ comment. Her jaw quivered, suggesting she was ready for a fight.
“Spiritual nashwa, I hope,” Hatem replied, playing on the fact that her name meant ‘ecstasy.’ He felt drawn to her, bowled over. She had suddenly thawed the frost that had built up inside him.
“I’ve no idea, Nashwa, where you heard me say that about imitating the practice of the Prophet.” Before she had time to reply, he continued. “That isn’t important now, because we are short of time.”
He knew he had said it and that it was what he thought, and when he wasn’t under pressure, he would try to find out whether she really had heard him say it or how she had found out about it. He would ask Kaaki to cut out the references to the Mutazila and the denial of the Sunna from the question when they rebroadcast it, and then get rid of the tape that included those words. At that he concentrated and resumed.