A Poet of the Invisible World

by Michael Golding

  To Sheikh al-Khammas, Nouri was a conundrum. Having been raised in a dervish order, the youth adapted swiftly to life at the mountain lodge, and his manner suggested the humility and depth of a true Sufi. Yet the fact remained that he had never been inducted into an order. After his month in bed, however—not to mention the trials that seemed to have preceded it—Sheikh al-Khammas felt the rigors of the penitential retreat would be too strenuous for him. So he assigned him the task of washing and feeding the sickly lodgers, and gave him a large stack of books to read. Many of the volumes were familiar to Nouri. The poems of Attar. The writings of al-Ghazali. The holy pages of the Qur’an. But many—like the Hindu Vedanta and the Gnostic Gospels and the Vinaya Pitaka—were new.

  “The Sufi finds truth wherever it lies,” said Sheikh al-Khammas. “In the pattern of the stars. In the temple of the Jews. It is no insult to the glory of our own Holy Book to examine the wisdom of the others.”

  So Nouri read. And read. And read.

  When he was finished with one stack of books, Sheikh al-Khammas gave him another. The teachings of Zoroaster. The philosophy of Plato. The instructions of the Egyptian papyri. It was like returning to his studies with Sheikh Bailiri when he was a child. But in the range and depth of what he gave him, Sheikh al-Khammas pushed him further. He toppled the boundaries between the faiths, and expanded the limits of Nouri’s mind.

  One morning, after a few months had passed, Sheikh al-Khammas instructed Abbas al-Kumar to bring Nouri to the garden, where he asked him a single question:

  “What is it that keeps you from God?”

  Nouri was silent. Then he raised his eyes to Sheikh al-Khammas’s. “Nothing can keep me from God if I truly desire to be with him.”

  The following day, Sheikh al-Khammas sent Omar al-Hamid to Nouri’s room with a khirqa and a sikke. Then he escorted him to the meeting hall and the Sufi master invested him with the mantle of the order.

  That was when the real teaching began, as day after day Sheikh al-Khammas brushed the cobwebs from what Nouri had learned when he was a child. Many of the concepts were the same: the need for constant remembrance, the need to place the mind within the heart. Yet it often seemed to Nouri as if he was hearing them for the very first time.

  “If knowledge puts you to sleep,” said Sheikh al-Khammas, “throw it away. It’s pointless to merely repeat what you’ve been told. You must learn how to think. You must learn how to choose. You must learn how to observe the mind—all its certainty—all its doubt—and root your sense of yourself in what observes, and not in what you observe.”

  So Nouri tried to observe the contradictions inside him. He practiced remembrance. He struggled with the veil. And as he persisted—day after day after day—the pain of all he’d been through since the attack on the lodge in Tan-Arzhan began to loosen its grip on his heart.

  * * *

  ONE EVENING, A FEW WEEKS after his twenty-first birthday, as Nouri and the others were sharing a bowl of mashed lentils, Sheikh al-Khammas announced that Brother Shadow was about to return.

  “A letter arrived this morning from Tlemcen,” he said. “He should arrive in a few days.”

  When Nouri asked why he was called “Brother Shadow,” the others smiled.

  “It’s a reminder—” said Abbas al-Kumar.

  “That we each have a dark side to our nature—” said Omar al-Hamid.

  “And of the fact—”

  “Which we must try to remember—”

  “That it can be mastered.”

  “It’s a term of affection,” said Sheikh al-Khammas. “For in spite of his manner, Brother Shadow is a man of great spiritual depth.”

  Yusuf al-Wali twisted his beard. “A true Sufi!”

  When Nouri asked how long he’d been away, Sheikh al-Khammas explained that while it was customary to make the journey to the Holy City in the month of Dhu al-Hijja, Brother Shadow preferred to go when it was less besieged. He also preferred to travel alone—following the inland route rather than making his way along the coast—so that he could ride for long periods with only the occasional nomad or a wandering camel herder to disrupt his solitude. He generally remained for an entire season, convinced that the Holy City lent strength to his daily practice. He’d therefore been away for several months, and the news of his return brought the brothers joy.

  It was during the evening meal, on the third day after Sheikh al-Khammas’s announcement, that the absent Sufi finally appeared. The brothers were eating a stew of preserved lemons and goat when Yusuf al-Wali felt compelled to share a vision he’d had that morning.

  “We were seated together in the prayer hall, each with a bowl of fresh milk placed before him. And there was a sixth bowl, which I took to be Brother Shadow’s. We reached for our bowls and drank them down, but when we lowered them to the floor we saw that the sixth bowl was now empty as well. Then slowly it began to rise, until it hovered between the ceiling and the floor. It remained there, suspended. Then it shattered into pieces. Then the vision was gone.”

  The room was still. Then Abbas al-Kumar broke the silence.

  “Perhaps Brother Shadow has come to harm—”

  “Or perhaps—” said Omar al-Hamid, “it’s an omen—”

  “About his spiritual condition!”

  “Maybe it’s a good omen,” said Nouri. “When the milk has been drunk, there’s no need for the bowl.”

  There was another silence. Then a soft voice spoke.

  “The truth is that our souls hang in the balance until our final moment. We fluctuate between grace and sin and only Allah can say what will happen when the bowl finally shatters.”

  At the sound of the voice, Nouri turned to see a slender man standing in the doorway.

  “Brother Shadow!” cried Abbas al-Kumar.

  The man took a step into the room.

  “Welcome home,” said Sheikh al-Khammas. “I trust that your journey was profitable?”

  “How could a visit to the Holy City,” said Brother Shadow, “be anything less?”

  Sheikh al-Khammas turned. “I’d like to introduce you to the new member of our order. This is Nouri.”

  Brother Shadow bowed his head. “It’s always a pleasure to meet a fellow traveler on the path.”

  Nouri bowed his head in return. But when he raised it, and looked into the dervish’s eyes, he felt an icy hand grip his heart. For though the years had aged him—and the gaunt face was now hidden behind a salt-and-pepper beard—it was perfectly clear that the piercing eyes peering into his were none other than the eyes of his childhood nemesis, Sharoud.

  Eighteen

  Over the following days, Nouri kept waiting for the moment when Sharoud would suddenly announce to the others that Nouri was a freak—a slip of the hand of Allah—and once again he’d be forced to leave what he’d just begun to call home. For though he knew that Sheikh al-Khammas was as loving as Sheikh Bailiri, who’d taken Nouri’s ears as a sign of grace, he could not take the risk that if the murshid found out what was hidden beneath his head cloth, Sheikh al-Khammas would deem him unworthy to be a Sufi. Sharoud, however, did not say a word, and Nouri could only assume that he did not connect the young man he now was with the boy he’d been when they’d last parted ways. There were countless fellows named Nouri in the world. And the mountain retreat was a great distance from the simple Sufi lodge in Tan-Arzhan. So Nouri had hope that, against all odds, his secret was still safe.

  The weeks passed and Nouri’s studies with Sheikh al-Khammas continued. They took long walks into the mountains, and though the Sufi master was nearly four times Nouri’s age, he seemed to have twice his stamina. At times he was playful. At times he was aloof. At times he brimmed with the kindness of Sheikh Bailiri and then suddenly cut deep with the directness of Ibn Arwani. The only thing that Nouri could be sure of was that whenever he thought he knew what Sheikh al-Khammas was about to say, he would say something else.

  One morning, Sheikh al-Khammas asked Nouri to place new bulbs in the pots tha
t bordered the entrance. So he fetched a spade and a small pail from the garden shed, went out to the entrance of the lodge, and began to work. It was a warm day, and as the sun beat down the sweat began to gather on his neck and brow. When he reached up to wipe away the drops with the back of his hand, he heard a voice.

  “Would you like some water?”

  Nouri paused. Then he turned around to find Sharoud standing behind him.

  “No, thank you.”

  He turned back to the pots and the bulbs and the dirt, but then Sharoud spoke again.

  “Of course, you’d be a good deal cooler if you removed your head garment.”

  Nouri froze. Then he lowered the spade to the ground and turned back to Sharoud. “How long have you known?”

  “From the moment I first saw you.”

  “But you haven’t said a word.”

  Sharoud’s eyes glinted. “What’s there to say? Our paths are obviously destined to converge.”

  Nouri stared at Sharoud. “Are you going to tell them?”

  “I don’t see the point. If you’re some sort of demon, Allah will take care of you.” He shrugged. “I have my own demons to fight.”

  Sharoud paused for a moment, his eyes fixed on Nouri’s. Then he turned and walked back into the lodge and Nouri returned to his planting.

  It was clear that Sharoud had softened over the years. That his pride had diminished. That his righteousness had dimmed. Yet Nouri was not convinced he’d developed the strength not to reveal his secret. And no matter how much the dark dervish had changed, Nouri knew that it would be a long while before Brother Shadow would win his trust.

  * * *

  WHAT, THEN, IN THE DOZEN or so years since he’d been banished from the order in Tan-Arzhan, had Sharoud been through? What path had he traveled from the time his shoes were turned out at the lodge in Tan-Arzhan to the time when he was a respected member of the mountain order? To be sure, the journey had not been easy. And while it might have been less painful than Nouri’s, it was no less marked by twists and turns.

  On that first morning, when he’d moved through the braided gates for the last time, Sharoud had been so filled with rage he’d kept walking until the city was far behind him. He slept by the side of the road, his mind teeming with schemes for revenge. All he could think of was how he’d been wronged. All he could see were those monstrous ears.

  One day, he stopped at a small village to find water. When he reached the town square, he saw a fountain, but as he approached it he came face-to-face with a young woman whose child had climbed up to take a drink. When their eyes met, he saw fear in the woman’s face. Then she scooped up her child and hurried away. And in that moment Sharoud saw how far he had strayed from Allah.

  His only choice was to head south into the desert, where he found an oasis that he proceeded to make his home. He remained there for nearly a year, trying to dissolve his rage. His skin darkened to the color of a sweet gum tree, and his body became as thin as a blade of grass. Only when he awoke one morning from a dream in which he was circling an enormous cube did he understand that the only way to cast the anger from his heart was to make his way to the Holy City.

  He knew that it would not be an easy path, for Sharoud had no money for either a mount or provisions, and the journey would take many months. So he walked until he came to a city called Shariwaz, which, despite its heat and distance from the other cities of the region, was packed with the pious, and where there was a large Sufi order to take him in. He stayed there for several months, so impressing the head of the order with his zeal that he was given a camel and a small parcel of food so that he might join the hajj caravan when it was ready to depart.

  The trek across the blazing terrain was grueling. Many turned back and many did not survive the trip. But the rapture that filled Sharoud’s heart when he finally entered the Holy City made the effort required to get there seem small. The streets were scattered with pilgrims from each corner of the realm and in the intensity of their fervor Sharoud could feel a collective shout thunder up to God.

  On his first evening, Sharoud found lodging at a hospice and began to settle into his new life. He chose to remain in the white ihram he’d been given at one of the stations outside the city and—in accordance with the rules of the garment—to refrain from cutting his nails and hair. As a result, he became one of the city’s odd progeny, moving through the streets like a streak of white chalk or peering, like a holy specter, from the window of his room. He found that when the pilgrimage month had passed, the harshness of the climate grew worse. His decision to stay therefore symbolized his wish to place his worship above the comforts of his body.

  As the months passed, however, Sharoud could not avoid the fact that his heart remained filled with pride. And one morning, as he passed a wizened Sufi leading his disciples through the streets, he saw that his anger at Sheikh Bailiri had kept him from finding another master, and that he could not progress any further without one. So he fastened his ihram a bit tighter around his ever-thinning body and set out to find his next teacher.

  There were dozens of options scattered along the streets: stout sheikhs who beamed with the confidence of the righteous, gaunt sheikhs who burned with the flames of self-denial, sheiks so ancient they seemed as if they’d crossed over to the other side while still keeping residence in their crumbling bodies. They all appeared wise, and were surrounded by followers. Yet none inspired Sharoud to kneel down and abandon his will to theirs. One evening, however, as he ventured toward the well where the archangel Gabriel was said to have brought water to Abraham’s wife, he saw a man seated half-naked upon a wall, bathed in an aura of such peaceful transcendence he could not help but approach him and ask: “Do you know the way to the truth?”

  The man gazed serenely into Sharoud’s dark eyes.

  “I know nothing,” he said.

  It was not what Sharoud was expecting to hear, but it so pleased him he begged the man to allow him to be his disciple. The man merely shrugged. So Sharoud stripped half-naked, and for the next several years they traveled together across desert and mountain—begging for alms, sleeping beneath the stars, emptying their hearts of all feeling and their minds of all thought. At times, Sharoud found the journey unbearable. But eventually he felt the anger inside him lift and a wonderful lightness take its place.

  He might have continued on this way forever. But one day the half-naked saint suddenly spoke. “You’ve made progress,” he said. “Your spirit is stronger than it was. But now you need to be tested.”

  He then explained that he would take Sharoud to Cairo, where he would be placed into service as a camel attendant in the court of the Sultan. The challenge would be to remain as empty in that teeming city as he was now, on the barren road, beneath the open sky. If he could achieve this, then Allah’s dominion over his heart would be secure.

  Sharoud had no choice but to follow his master’s will. So in less than a fortnight he found himself in the sprawling metropolis along the Nile. To his purified senses, the city was a shock: like riding on the back of a wild stallion or drinking twelve cups of black koshary tea. He found, however, that he enjoyed the simple task of tending the camels. And nothing—from the bustle of the Bayn al-Qasrayn to the frenzied cries that rose up from the khans—seemed to threaten the inner quiet he’d attained.

  He was therefore unfazed when it was announced one day that the Sultan would be traveling to a foreign court and that, as he would ride no camel but his own—a proud Bactrian the color of skimmed goat’s milk that he called the Pearl of Giza—Sharoud would be required to go along. So he prepared the noble beast for the journey and they set out through the gates of the palace and over the dusty roads to an elegant barge that took them downriver to the sea, where they boarded an enormous five-masted vessel that carried them safely across the water. When they reached the far shore, they disembarked. Then they traveled on until they arrived at the foreign palace, where the two potentates sat down to tea and tried to convince one a
nother that each was wiser and wealthier and more filled with an inviolable love for Allah than the other.

  The great men conferred for three days, during which time Sharoud was able to explore the grimy city that clung, like a canker, to the palace gates. He found a mosque where he could pray, and spent most of his time either there or in the small windowless room he’d been given to share with the other attendants, who were far too distracted by the city’s charms to pay heed to their unsociable companion. On the third morning, however, he decided to venture out to the palace gardens to practice zikr. His heart was light and as he settled himself on a marble bench he could feel Allah beckon from the fountains and the stones. Before he could dissolve in remembrance, however, he heard the sound of footsteps, and when he turned he saw a boy about the age of sixteen scurrying down the path. Sharoud would not have given him another thought had he not perceived, in a blinding flash, that it was none other than Nouri Ahmad Mohammad ibn Mahsoud al-Morad. For on that morning when Nouri had crept through the palace at dawn and had imagined he’d seen Sharoud, he hadn’t imagined it at all. And though the youth shook the thought from his mind the moment he moved through the palace gates, Sharoud was consumed by the thought of Nouri from that moment on.

  In the mosque—on the street—as he moved through the glittering halls of the palace—all he could think of were the ears that lurked beneath the youth’s head cloth and the injustice of having been made to leave the order in Tan-Arzhan for bringing them to light. The thorn he’d tried for eight years to remove from his side was still deeply embedded. The poison he’d struggled to purge from his quarrelsome heart still flowed in his veins. And this was no more evident than when the three men with whom he shared the tiny room stumbled in, after an evening of carousing, and he sprang up in his bed and cried:

  “For the sake of Allah, shut your polluted mouths and be still!”