by Tariq Ali
As we were talking, Qara Kush pointed down to the dust created by the speed of two horsemen riding in our direction. He was not expecting anyone, and was irritated by this unplanned intrusion. He frowned and instructed two of the Sultan’s guards to await the horsemen at the foot of the citadel. Salah al-Din laughed.
“Qara Kush is so nervous. Do you think our old friends from the mountains have sent someone to dispatch me?”
Qara Kush did not reply. When the horsemen arrived, he waited impatiently for the guards to question them and bring them to him. The Sultan’s light-hearted reference to previous assassination attempts had failed to distract the chamberlain. As the riders approached, we all relaxed. They were the Kadi al-Fadil’s special messengers, trained to ride like lightning and supplied with a special breed of racing horses for this purpose. They were used only in urgent circumstances, and the relief at knowing their identity was coloured by worry at the message they might be carrying.
Finally they arrived at the platform where we were standing. They carried a letter for the Sultan from the Kadi. As Salah al-Din began to read the message his face became animated, and his eye began to dart about like a fish in the Nile. He was clearly pleased. The messengers and the guards were dismissed. He showed us the letter. It read:
A Knight Templar has just arrived in Cairo and asked for refuge. He comes from Amalric’s camp and has much information regarding their movements and plans. The reason for his defection is mysterious, and he refuses to divulge his secrets to anyone in the absence of Your Highness. Judging by his demeanour I am convinced he is genuine, but the Emir Qara Kush, who is the best judge of human character and failings, needs to speak with him before you meet him. I await the Sultan’s instructions. Your humble al-Kadi al-Fadil.
Salah al-Din’s immediate response was to grab Qara Kush and myself by the arms, and to run down the mud-strewn path to the place where the horses were tethered. He was truly excited, behaving like a man possessed by demons. He mounted his horse and began to race back to the palace with his guards, who were barely able to keep up with him.
To my immense delight, the Emir Qara Kush was not an expert horseman, and he permitted me to accompany him and his entourage as we rode back. I had never spoken to him before, and his enormous knowledge of Cairo and the wealth contained in its libraries was impressive. He told me that the task I was performing would be of great benefit to historians, and I was pleased that he, unlike al-Fadil, took my work seriously.
The Sultan was waiting for us when we arrived. He wanted both Qara Kush and myself to be present when he questioned the Frank. He clearly had no desire to delay the proceedings, but the sun was already setting. He ordered us to repair immediately to the palace hammam to cleanse ourselves, and then to return to the audience chamber. Since we were both aware that Salah al-Din disliked the grandiose nature of this chamber, we smiled. It was obvious that on this day he wished the Frankish knight to be impressed by the majesty of his court.
Refreshed by the bath, I made my way slowly back, through rooms where mamluks held torches to illuminate our way, to the audience chamber. Here sat Salah al-Din, dressed unusually in his robes of state with the Sultan’s turban on his head, glistening with rare stones. I bowed and was assigned a place, just below the Sultan’s throne. He was flanked on one side by Qara Kush and on the other by al-Fadil.
Seated in a semicircle on the floor were the most distinguished scholars of the city, including, to my delight, Ibn Maymun. At a signal from Qara Kush, a mamluk left the room. A few minutes later I heard a drumbeat indicating that the foreigner was on his way. We all fell silent. The Frank, preceded by a guard carrying a scimitar, entered and walked straight to the throne. He placed his sword at the feet of the Sultan and bowed low, not raising his head till permission had been granted. Qara Kush indicated that he should sit down.
“The Sultan is pleased to receive you, Bertrand of Toulouse.”
The lips enunciating these words were familiar enough, but the soft-spoken voice had disappeared. The Kadi spoke with a firmness and authority that surprised me. This, I thought to myself, is how he must speak when he is handing down justice and awarding punishments to the guilty.
“You are in the presence of Yusuf ibn Ayyub, Sultan of Misr and the Sword of the Faithful. We are pleased that you speak our language, albeit in a primitive fashion. We are all eager to hear why you are here.”
Bertrand of Toulouse was of medium height, with an olive-coloured skin that made him a few shades darker than our Sultan. He had dark hair and brown eyes, but an ugly scar across his left cheek had left his face badly disfigured, making it temporarily awkward to concentrate on his other features. The wound, probably the mark of a sword, could not have been more than a week old.
Bertrand was about to respond, when the Sultan spoke. His voice, I was pleased to hear, was normal.
“Like the others, we too are anxious to discover the reasons for your presence. But before you proceed, I want to know if, in my absence, you were made welcome. Have you broken bread?”
Bertrand nodded, with a slight bow.
“Then we offer you some salt.”
An attendant proffered a silver plate with salt. Bertrand took a pinch and placed it on his tongue.
“Now you may speak, Bertrand of Toulouse,” said the Sultan, simultaneously signalling that the Frank should be seated.
Bertrand spoke Arabic in a harsh, guttural voice, but the smiles soon disappeared as his impressive command of our language became clear to all present.
“I am grateful to Your Majesty for receiving me so soon after my arrival, and for taking me on trust. I am indeed Bertrand of Toulouse, a member of the Order of the Knights Templar, and for the past five years I have been with my Order in Jerusalem, which you call al-Kuds. We were under the command of our King Amalric, who is as well known to the Sultan as you are to him.
“What you are all wondering is why I have twice risked my life to escape from my kingdom and to enter yours. The first time was by fleeing from my Order under cover of darkness two nights ago. I was nearly captured, and the price of freedom is this wound on my face. The sword which marked me belonged to a knight who was close to the Grand Master himself. The second risk was to be killed by your men, who might not have been patient enough to either ask questions or to wait for my response. Speaking your language, even though I do so imperfectly and with much hesitation, helped me to survive the journey and to reach your court safely.
“Let me begin my story with a confession. In the eyes of my Church, I am a heretic. If heresy is another way of expressing the struggle for the real God, then I am a heretic and proud of the fact.
“I come from a small village near Toulouse, and it was there that I came under the influence of a preacher who denounced our Church and preached a new vision of God. He used to say that churches lacked congregations, that congregations lacked priests, that priests lacked reverence and virtue and, lastly, that Christians lacked Christ. He used to say that there were two Gods, a good God and an evil God, and that there was a permanent struggle between these two powers which were both eternal and equal.
“He used to say that the Holy Trinity of the Christians was a manifestation of evil; the Holy Ghost represented the spirit of evil, the Son was the son of perdition, and the Father was none other than Satan himself. He used to say that there were two Christs. The Christ in the celestial spheres was good, but the Christ on earth was evil. He used to say that Mary Magdalene was the earthly Christ’s concubine, and that John the Baptist was a forerunner of the Anti-Christ. The Devil was Christ’s younger brother and the cross was God’s enemy, a symbol of pain and torture. As such, it was an icon that should be destroyed rather than worshipped.
“Our entire village, some three hundred souls in all, joined this preacher and helped spread the word to neighbouring villages. To their amazement, they discovered that others had been there before them. We soon learnt that the Counts of Toulouse were sympathetic to these ideas, an
d this knowledge strengthened our village’s resolve. When I was fifteen years old, almost exactly fifteen years ago to this month, we tore down every cross we could find. We either set them on fire or used the wood to fashion tools that could be of use to the village. This single act made us worse than demons and vampires, for these creatures of the dark are supposedly frightened by the cross, whereas we heretics were brazen beyond belief.
“In our sect, there are three stages of becoming a True Believer. We start off as Listeners, imbibing the new Truth and learning the dual art of debate and dissembling in relation to our Christian opponents. The next stage is that of a Believer. Now we have to prove ourselves by winning new adherents to our cause. After we have won fifty new Listeners, we become known as the Perfecti and can participate in the election of a Council of Five, which makes all the important decisions.
“I am a Perfectus. I was asked by the Council to penetrate the Order of Knights Templar, to dissemble and to win them over to our cause. Constantinople had urged the Grand Master to burn the bitter and evil falsehoods of the heretics in the fire of truth, and our Council felt we should be represented inside this Order so as to warn our followers of impending doom.
“Excessive fornication and the consumption of alcohol is not permitted by our Council. They believe that drink and carnality weakens our resolve and makes us vulnerable.
“I was betrayed by a Listener, who was in his cups and, unaware of the presence of the Master’s henchmen, was boasting wildly of our successes. I was not made aware of this till he was in prison suffering torture. Because of our method of organisation, he could only name me and two others.
“I am told the Grand Master was outraged when I was so named. He refused to believe that this could be true. Fortunately I was warned of all this by a Believer in the Grand Master’s entourage. I knew I was being observed and I broke off all contact with our people. After a few days, I was detained and subjected to five hours of continual question by the Grand Master. I denied all knowledge of the Council and expressed my full confidence in the Churches of Rome and Constantinople. I thought I had convinced them, since they released me. They appeared to stop following me and watching my every move.
“There were three other Perfecti in Jerusalem. We met one night and they advised me to leave and seek refuge in Cairo. I woke before sunrise the next morning, and was saddling my horse, when I was challenged by a knight. He had his own suspicions of me. He used a secret word which is only known to our sect. It was clear that he had obtained it by torturing the three Believers. It caught me unprepared and I responded before I could see his face in the dark. He drew his sword. I killed him, but not before he had marked my face. I rode like the wind, Your Majesty. If I had been caught, they would have killed me in the most ugly fashion.
“That is the end of my story, and I am now at the mercy of the great Sultan Salah al-Din, whose generosity is known to all the world.”
While Bertrand of Toulouse had been speaking only three faces had remained impassive. These belonged to the Sultan, Qara Kush and al-Fadil. As for the rest of the company, and here I must include myself, we had been actively exchanging glances. The description of the heresy had seen several hands going to their respective beards. These had been nervously stroked, as if to quell the agitation disturbing their owners’ heads.
“We have listened to you with great interest, Bertrand of Toulouse,” said the Sultan. “Are you prepared to be questioned by our scholars?”
“With great pleasure, Your Highness.”
It was the Kadi who asked the first question, this time in a honeyed voice.
“What the Church regards as your heresy is your opposition to the Holy Trinity and your hostility to icons. Our Prophet, too, did not favour the worship of icons or images. Have you ever studied the Koran? Do you know the message of our Prophet, peace be upon him?”
Bertrand of Toulouse did not flinch.
“One advantage you possess over all others is the impossibility for any person to doubt the existence of your Prophet. He was very real and, therefore, it is not possible to ascribe dual features to him. He lived. He married. He fathered children. He fought. He conquered. He died. His history is known. This magnificent city and all of you are one of the consequences of your Prophet’s remarkable vision.
“Of course I have studied the Koran, and there is much in it with which I agree, but, if I may speak frankly, it appears to me that your religion is too close to earthly pleasures. Because you realised that you could not live by the Book alone, you encouraged the invention of the hadith to help you govern the Empires you had gained. But is it not the case that many of these hadith contradict each other? Who decides what you believe?”
“We have scholars who work on nothing else but the hadith,” replied the Sultan quickly. He did not want his Kadi to dominate the discussion. “As a young man I studied the hadith with great joy and care. I agree with you. They are open to many interpretations. That is why we have the ulema to ascertain the degree of their accuracy. We need them, Bertrand of Toulouse, we need them. Without these traditions, our religion could not be a complete code of existence.”
“Can any religion ever become a complete code of life when, within the ranks of the Believers, there is such disparity in interpretation? The followers of the Fatimid Caliphs, to take the most recent example, do not share your beliefs or those of the Caliph in Baghdad. The same applies to our religion or that of the Jews. He who rules, makes the rules.”
“You truly are a heretic, my friend,” laughed Salah al-Din, indicating that any of those present could speak to Bertrand if they so wished.
An old man, a much-respected scholar from al-Azhar, rose. He spoke in a weak and husky voice, barely above a whisper, but so great was his authority that everyone strained to hear each word.
“With the Sultan’s gracious permission, I would like to explain one fact to our visitor. The greatest fear that haunts each human being, regardless of his religion, is the fear of death. It is a fear which oppresses us all. Every time we bathe and enshroud a corpse, we see in it our own future. In the days of Ignorance, and long before even that, this fear was so strong that many people preferred not to accept death as real, but to see it as a journey to another world. Islam has broken this fear of death. That alone could be counted as one of our great achievements, for without breaking this fear we cannot move forward. We are held back. It was our Prophet who understood the importance of this question before all else. That is why, Bertrand of Toulouse, our soldiers reached the edge of this continent and the heart of yours. That is why nothing can stop this Sultan from taking al-Kuds, your so-called Kingdom of Jerusalem.”
Then Qara Kush spoke.
“With the Sultan’s permission, I would like to ask Bertrand of Toulouse a single question. What in your opinion, O brave knight, is the single most important difference between your beliefs and those of our Prophet?”
There was not a moment’s hesitation on Bertrand’s part.
“Fornication.”
There were several gasps amongst the scholars, but Salah al-Din smiled.
“Explain yourself, Bertrand of Toulouse.”
“Only at Your Majesty’s insistence. Ever since I came to these parts and learnt your language, I have been studying the hadith and also certain commentaries on the Koran. It appears to me that fornication, and the rules under which it should or should not take place, has occupied the Prophet and his followers a great deal. In your Koran, if my memory is correct, the sura entitled ‘The Cow’ overturns the traditional Arab taboo on coitus during fasting.
“Some of the hadith record the Prophet as saying that your Allah had preordained the share of every man’s copulation, which he will do as fate requires. Each indulgence is thus predestined. The old scholar has just explained that your religion has removed the fear of death from the minds of its adherents. Is this not, at least partially, related to your conception of the Paradiso? Your heaven is the most voluptuous of all. Are no
t your knights who fall while fighting the jihad promised the most delicious pleasures in heaven? Erections which last for eternity and an unlimited number of houris to choose from, while they sip from rivers heavy with wine. Your heaven removes all earthly prohibitions. In these circumstances, only a man who had lost possession of his senses would fear death. All this flows from the self-confidence of your Prophet. He was a man of few doubts. Is it not the case that when your Prophet died, his son-in-law Ali cried out—and here Your Highness will forgive me since I only know the words in Latin—‘O propheta, O propheta, et in morte penis tuus coelum versus erectus est.’”
The Sultan frowned, till the Kadi whispered a translation in his ear.
“The Frank refers to Ali’s remark, as he gazed on the dead body of our Prophet: ‘O prophet, O prophet, even in death your penis is erect and pointing to the heavens.’”
Salah al-Din roared with laughter.
“Our Prophet was made of flesh and blood, Bertrand of Toulouse. His virility was never in doubt. Even his sword was known as al-Fehar, the one that flashes. Our prophet was a complete man. We are all proud of his activities. It was only because we held on to the stirrup of our Prophet that Allah has rewarded our people. Would that we ordinary mortals were as blessed as our Prophet so that even in death he pointed towards heaven. I think, however, that you are wrong. The driving force of our religion is not fornication, but the relation between God and the Believer. If you wish you could say that our way of looking at the world is perhaps too much influenced by merchants and traders. You look surprised. It could be argued that Allah is like a master-merchant and everything in this world is part of his reckoning. All is counted. All is measured. Life is a trade in which there are gains and losses. He who does good earns good, and he who does evil earns evil, even on earth. The Believer provides Allah with a loan; he is in other words paying in advance for a place in our Muslim paradise. At the final reckoning Allah has a book of accounts from which the deeds of men are read and carefully weighed. Each is paid what is his due. This is our religion. It shows the influence of our world. A real world. It speaks a language which is easily comprehensible and that is the reason for its success.