Earth Weeps, Saturn Laughs

by Abdulaziz Al Farsi

  Jam‘an replied, “I’d been intending to do that, but Zahir has other plans. He’s decided to bring an imam from Bangladesh, as though we didn’t have any religion here, or imams, and were in desperate need of someone to lead us in religious matters!”

  “Be quiet,” said Zahir. “I hear you sound two and a half calls to prayer every day, and I’m about to go out of my mind. It makes me wish I didn’t have to pray, and I think, ‘God forgive me!’ So what would I do if you led all the prayers that are recited aloud? I’ll bet three-fourths of the village would turn apostate because of you! Besides, have you memorized anything but the Fatiha and ‘Say, God is one . . .’? As I recall, you used to get the verses in suras 113 and 114 mixed up.”

  Everybody laughed except Mihyan, who looked dejected. Suddenly, Imam Rashid emerged from the mosque and greeted people.

  “Thank God you’re here!” I said to him. “Jam‘an was getting ready to offer the prayer in your place!”

  Imam Rashid laughed. “I know he would if he had it memorized.”

  The group moved in the direction of Hamid Dahana’s house, where Hamid had spread mats outside. He had set out a number of trays piled high with rice, atop which pieces of cooked meat had been carefully arranged. The guests seated themselves around the various trays.

  Addressing the group, Hamid Dahana said, “In the name of God, everyone.” They began eating hurriedly. Side conversations could be heard around the various trays. Zahir, Walad Sulaymi, and Mihyan were seated around the same tray, while Walad Shamshum, Sa‘id Dhab‘a, and I sat around another. Suddenly Abu Ayda appeared and we invited him to join our respective circles. Ubayd al-Dik was eating with some young men who had come from the other side of the ravine. I winked at Abu Ayda, indicating that he should look over in the direction of Zahir and Mihyan. After he’d seen them, I whispered to him, “Didn’t I tell you?” He remained engrossed in the food. A short while later, he said, “I don’t think you’ll be able to convince Walad al-Sulaymi of anything.”

  “We’ll talk to him after the Fatiha is over,” whispered Sa‘id Dhab‘a.

  As usual, Imam Rashid had a tray of his own. He was the one who determined when the prayer would begin, since he would eat until he was full, then announce that the mealtime had ended. Hamdan Tajrib was recounting his adventures to Jam‘an, who was eating as though there were no tomorrow. Khadim was carrying a serving tray that held glasses of cold water, which he passed around to whoever requested it.

  As usual, Khalid Bakhit was the only one who had decided to boycott the Fatiha. Before going to the university, he had attended all the village events. But since the sudden shift he had gone through during his high school days, after which he’d decided to get religious, he had abandoned all our customs. At first, after his beard had grown a little longer and his robe a few inches shorter, he started absenting himself from the group supplication sessions that followed the ritual prayer. When Imam Rashid greeted him, he would ignore us, then get up and sit at the far end of the mosque. He would repeat the traditional phrases of praise to God using his fingers alone rather than one of the rosaries scattered about the mosque. He would raise his hands and offer supplications alone, then leave.

  Some of the men once asked him, “Why don’t you offer supplications with us the way you used to?”

  He said, “What you do is a heretical innovation.”

  “So supplication has come to be a heretical innovation?” Imam Rashid shouted in his face.

  “The supplications you offer are a heretical innovation.”

  “And the ones you offer are in emulation of the Prophet’s example, I take it?”

  “Yes, they are. I practice the religion the way it was handed down from the Messenger of God, blessings and peace be upon him. As for you, you’ve added all sorts of new things to it.”

  “So what have we added, Shaykh Khalid?”

  “Supplications weren’t communal in the beginning. Everyone would offer supplications on his own, and do it silently. The praises they uttered weren’t communal either. And they didn’t use rosaries.”

  The issue got bigger, and war broke out between Khalid and the young men who had rallied around him, and those of us who only practiced the religion this way, the way we had learned from our parents and grandparents. Khalid declared Fatiha ceremonies to be forbidden. According to him, the reward for the food we ate on these occasions would do nothing to benefit the soul of the deceased. Rather, he said, making all that food did nothing but run up a bill that his son had to pay. The supposed reward for these banquets wouldn’t go to the father—since they were neither charity, good works, nor the supplications of an upright son. Nor would it go to the son, since his intention in serving the food was for the reward to go to his father, not to himself. After all, he said, intentions are the foundations of our actions.

  They asked him, “Do you mean that the reward is suspended in mid-air, and that it goes neither here nor there?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” he replied. This was the fatwa he had issued, and on this basis he had started boycotting all the Fatiha ceremonies.

  Then he took things a step farther, saying that the statements we dictated to deceased people after burial were also a heretical innovation, since the practice hadn’t been passed down on the authority of the Messenger of God, blessings and peace be upon him.

  “So how is it supposed to be done, Khalid?” we asked him.

  “It’s only supposed to be done before the person dies,” he answered.

  He showed us books whose pages were white and said, “Read the authentic records of what the Prophet did and said.”

  “Is it because the pages in Imam Rashid’s books are yellowed that the things they teach us are heretical innovations?” we wanted to know.

  In short, Khalid had become a tyrant and ruined our village. That’s why God turned him back as a punishment for his tyrannical ways and the lies he had spread, causing him to abandon religion altogether. In fact, it’s said that he became an atheist during his university days. God causes every willful wrongdoer to turn away from His signs. So here he is, about to lose his mind. It serves him right. And the punishment of the afterlife will be even worse.

  “The Fatiha!” Imam Rashid’s voice went up, the plate before him now devoid of the slightest sign of the food he had eaten. Hands put down the food they held. Then everyone rose and began a silent recitation of the Fatiha, the Throne Verse, and suras 112, 113, and 114 of the Qur’an, the latter two of which are customarily recited to ward off evil. I looked over at Jam‘an to see if what Zahir had said was true. I had finished reciting the Fatiha and sura 112 and begun reciting the Throne Verse, but Jam‘an had stopped moving his lips entirely and was staring at his fingers. I nearly burst out laughing. A few minutes later, Imam Rashid’s voice rose in supplication:

  “In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds. May our praise be commensurate with Thy blessings and their increase, and may it ward off Thy chastisement. May blessings and peace be upon our master Muhammad and upon his family and companions one and all. O God, may the reward, blessing, and light produced by our recitation of Thy timeless speech and the recompense due on account of the food of which we have partaken reach the spirit of our master Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) and the spirits of his ancestors, his descendants, his fellow prophets and messengers, their families, and all other righteous people. And may it reach the spirit of the person on whose behalf we have recited these words and for whose sake we have come here tonight. Thou dost know him better than we ourselves do, and dost know his name: Fadhil, son of God’s handmaiden Aysha.”

  “Amen!” our collective voice went up. Imam Rashid continued:

  “O God, forgive him, have mercy upon him, grant him wellbeing and pardon him. Honor his abode and cause his grave to have a broad entryway. O God, remove his sins as far from him as the east is removed from the west. Purge him of sin as a white robe is purged of impurities, an
d cleanse him of unrighteousness as a garment is cleansed with water, snow, and hail. O God, recompense his good deeds with goodness, and his bad deeds with pardon and forgiveness. O God, bring him out of the constriction of the grave into spacious abodes and palaces among Lote-trees without thorns, flowering acacias, unending shade, flowing streams, and fruit abundant, never failing and never out of reach. Seat him upon a throne raised high together with the prophets, the martyrs, and all the righteous upon whom Thou has bestowed Thy grace. And what blessed companions they are!”

  “Amen!”

  “O God, illumine his place of rest, fill his tomb with a fragrance sweet, cause his bed to be pleasant, comfort him in his loneliness, have compassion upon him in his place of exile, and relieve his distress. O God, open the doors of heaven to his soul!”

  We kept on saying “Amen!” every time Imam Rashid paused between one part of the prayer and the next. He concluded with the words:

  “O God, if he was a doer of good, increase his virtue, and if he was a doer of evil, overlook his transgressions. O God, cause his grave to be a garden of Paradise, not a pit of hellfire. O Thou whose nature it is to bestow Thy blessings in abundance, O Thou whose nature it is to be generous and benevolent, O God, deprive us not of the reward due him, nor put us to the test now that he has departed. Forgive us, forgive him, and forgive all Muslims, and cause Thy blessing to rest upon our master Muhammad, his family, and his companions one and all. Glory to thy Lord, the Lord of honor and power. Exalted is He above all that they ascribe to Him! Peace be upon God’s messengers. And lastly, praise be to God, Lord of the worlds.”

  Those gathered for the occasion got up and headed for the place where the water was. As they finished washing their hands, they left for home, thanking Hamid Dahana for his hospitality and expressing their hope that God would have mercy on his father, whose appearance has faded entirely from my memory after all these years. Sa‘id Dhab‘a, Walad Shamshum, Abu Ayda, and I got up to wash our hands. We were followed by Hamdan Tajrib. After washing our hands, we went after Walad Sulaymi, who had left before us and disappeared into the darkness.

  WALAD SULAYMI

  Dreams Are Canvases That Capture Many a Ravine

  “Wait!”

  I recognized the voice as belonging to Suhayl al-Jamra al-Khabitha. It was such a distinctively roguish voice that no ear could have mistaken it. There were many footsteps, and they were coming my way. Then the reality behind the steps appeared to me: Suhayl, Walad Shamshum, Sa‘id Dhab‘a, Hamdan Tajrib, and Abu Ayda. It’s my belief that on the Day of Resurrection, these five men will pass directly into the hellfire without any reckoning. The angels who have been given charge over them are tired of recording. No doubt they’ve got something wicked up their sleeves.

  I told them, “My stomach’s full of rice, and there’s no room in there for whatever mischief you’ve brought.”

  Walad Shamshum said, “Where’s your goodwill, Walad Sulaymi? Just hear us out first.”

  I’d been planning, as I do after every Fatiha ceremony, to walk to the ravine, then go back to the mosque for the final evening prayer. I moved on ahead of them, saying, “Let’s walk to the ravine.”

  They were panting after me. Suhayl al-Jamra al-Khabitha came up and said, “It’s a long story, and we won’t have enough time. I’ll start now and tell you the details. I suspect you’re upset about what’s happening in the village. We feel just as upset.”

  I cut him off. “And who are you?”

  The panting got louder. Sa‘id Dhab‘a’s voice came, saying, “It’s us. Us. Who do you think we are?”

  I started walking faster. “I don’t see you. And neither does anybody else. You enjoy walking in the dark, and you don’t speak clearly. You’re always whispering in people’s ears.”

  They hadn’t changed a bit. Anything, no matter how good it was, was bad in their eyes unless they had a hand in it. They rejected any sort of progress, but they didn’t like backwardness. They hated talk, and silence. Nothing pleased them. All the village’s problems were on account of these five hooligans. If I could set them on fire I’d do it without hesitation. And I think God would forgive me if I did. “Lord, they were destined for the Fire sooner or later.” That’s the case I’d make for myself.

  I reached the edge of the ravine, which is a huge canvas. I love it because it reminds me of the canvas I’ve always dreamed of: soft and rough, quiet and disquieting. It blends all the colors together, and the resulting color is constantly changing. Isn’t that enchanting?

  Walad Shamshum called out to me, “All right. Listen to us now, since time is running out, and we want to go on with the conversation.”

  I squatted down and they sat facing me.

  I said, “Have we actually begun a conversation? Fine, then. But let me tell you something important. I’ve had a headache since yesterday, and the voice of any one of you alone is enough to give a headache to the whole village. So could you help me out and appoint just one of you to talk, without the rest of you putting in their two cents’ worth, too? I can’t stand to listen to you all. So, hurry up and appoint a spokesman.”

  I’ve learned how to foil their attempts. I provoke a disagreement among them by asking them to appoint a spokesman and make the rest keep their mouths shut. Then I go off alone with whoever had the misfortune of being chosen as the spokesman. Walad Shamshum, whose silhouette was the only thing I could make out by this time, moved his head toward Suhayl, while Hamdan Tajrib moved his head toward Sa‘id Dhab‘a. Abu Ayda looked down. All right. So here you are having a disagreement even before you’ve begun. Let’s see what you have to say. I’ll choose the spokesman myself.

  “Come on, Sa‘id, you tell me. What is it that brings five devils together after a Fatiha gathering that’s been conducted on behalf of a man we consider to have been an upright soul, and after a prayer offered by an imam that we also consider to be upright? Should I doubt the integrity of the imam, or of the deceased?”

  I’ve started doubting everything. My father once said to me, “I’ve lost faith in everyone. I’ve lost faith in my own clothes!” I thought he was senile at the time, but now I find myself experiencing the same uncertainty. Is it that the older we get, the less faith we have in everything on this earth? My God . . . anything but my clothes! I don’t want to feel naked.

  Visibly agitated, Sa‘id Dhab‘a said, “We’re tired of this village of yours. You think we’re exaggerating, but the truth should be obvious to you. Why do you refuse to see it? Do you like what’s happening?”

  I said to him, “I don’t know exactly what it is that you’re asking me whether I like or not. Do you mean the Fatiha gathering that Hamid Dahana hosts every six months, or the matter of Alam al-Din’s arrival, or what, exactly? Don’t get all riled up or you might choke. I want straight talk.”

  You cursed ones on earth and in heaven, the flood is going to come and sweep you away!

  Sa‘id Dhab‘a said, “The village is a flock that’s gone astray.”

  “Make it quick, Sa‘id. It’s almost time for the final evening prayer. I know what you’re up to. So just get to the point.”

  “We need a decisive leader to put things back in order again.”

  “I think you’ve got one already. Doesn’t Mihyan fill the bill?”

  “He’s gotten old.”

  “And the locks on hell’s doors have gotten too old to keep you out!” I said angrily. I stood up and shouted over their heads, “Who are you to say that Mihyan has gotten old? What do you have against him?”

  Sa‘id Dhab‘a replied, “If he isn’t a helpless old man, then why is he keeping quiet about what’s happening? Why is the village being run by Zahir Bakhit? We don’t want injustice. We want justice. We’ll be quiet when the true leader is the leader. But we won’t allow ourselves to be led by just anybody who claims to have authority.”

  I know them well. Their grandfathers did the same thing fifty years ago. They wanted to strip Mihyan’s grandfather of his
leadership position in the very same way. They invented a false pretext, insinuated themselves among the people, and started whispering in people’s ears and kicking up storms. But they paid dearly for it.

  “What do you need in order for justice to reign?”

  “For you to be our leader.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears! Be their leader? Their grandfathers wanted leadership for themselves. And now here they are demanding that I be their leader. Are they really telling the truth about our village going downhill? Then why don’t I see it? How is it that, as I see it, conflicts are this village’s bread and butter? We can’t live without them. Me, be their leader? I’ll be walking along and they’ll point to me saying, “That’s our leader, Walad Sulaymi.” They’ll listen to whatever I say. I’ll be the one to meet with government officials and speak in the village’s name. A village leader must feel quite powerful. But . . .

  “Why should I be your leader?”

  “Because you’re the best.”

  “How do you know that? Once I’ve taken the reins, I might end up being just like Mihyan.”

  “If that happens, we’ll work on replacing you.”

  “So are we leaders just puppets in your hands?”

  When I was young, my father said to me, “Steer clear of leadership. Don’t destroy your peace of mind with it.” Why should I put myself through all that misery only to be rewarded in the end with accusations and groundless lies? I go to sleep every night with my mind at rest, not worried about losing anything. Why would I want to be a leader? For whose sake? For hell’s sake?

  I said, “And if I agreed now, what would happen?”

  “You’d take over from this point on, and give us all our marching orders.”

  “All right, then, I’ll take over from this point on. And you’ll carry out my orders, right?”

  “Yes, we will.”

  At that moment we heard the voice of Ubayd al-Dik as he issued the final evening call to prayer. I stepped up to the edge of the ravine, saying, “In my capacity as your leader, I hereby order all five of you to throw yourselves to the bottom of this ravine and shut your mouths forever.”