The Islam Quintet

by Tariq Ali

  ‘I will remember the taste of the water from the mountain springs which flow through our house, the deep yellow of the wild flowers which crown the gorse, the heady mountain air filtered through the pines and the majesty of the palms as they dance to the breezes from heaven, the spicy breath of thyme, the fragrance of the wood fires in winter. And how on a clear summer’s day the blue sky is suddenly overpowered by darkness and little Yazid, clutching a piece of glass which belonged to our great-grandfather, waits patiently on the terrace outside the old tower for the stars to become visible once again. There he stands observing the universe till our mother or Ama drags him downstairs to bed.

  ‘All this,’ Zuhayr told himself, ‘will always be the passionate heart of my life.’

  He pulled on the reins and, turning his back on al-Hudayl, gently pressed his heels on the horse’s belly, causing the animal to gallop towards the road which led to the gates of Gharnata.

  Zuhayr had been brought up on a thousand and one tales of chivalry and knighthood. The example of Ibn Farid, whose sword he was carrying, weighed heavily on his young shoulders. He knew those days were over, but the romance of a last battle, of riding out into the unknown, taking the enemy by surprise and, who knows, perhaps even winning a victory, was deeply embedded in his psyche. It was this which had inspired his impulsive behaviour.

  But, as he often told himself and his friends, his actions were not exclusively inspired by fantasies associated with the past or dreams of glory for the future. Zuhayr may not have been the most astute of Umar and Zubayda’s children, but he was, undoubtedly, the most sentimental.

  When he had been half Yazid’s age news had come to the village of the destruction and capture of al-Hama by the Christians. Al-Hama, the city of baths, where he used to be taken to see his cousins once every six months. For them the baths and the hot-water springs were part of everyday life. For Zuhayr a visit to the famous springs, where the Sultan of Gharnata himself used to bathe, was a very special treat. They had all died. All the men, women and children had been massacred, and their bodies thrown to the dogs outside the city gates.

  The Castilians had waded in blood and, if their own chroniclers were to be believed, they relished the experience. The entire kingdom of Gharnata, including many Christian monks, had been mortified by the scale of the massacre. A loud wail had been heard rising from the village as the citizens had rushed to the mosque to offer prayers for the dead and swear vengeance. All Zuhayr could think of that day was the cousins with whom he had played so often. The thought of two boys his own age and their three older sisters being killed without mercy had filled him with pain and hatred. His father’s sombre face as he announced the news: ‘They have destroyed our beautiful al-Hama. Ferdinand and Isabella now hold the key to Gharnata. It won’t be long before they take our city.’

  Zuhayr had entered the deepest recesses of his memory and had begun to hear the old voices. Ibn Hasd was describing the reaction in Gharnata as news of the carnage in al-Hama reached the palace. Zuhayr pictured the old Sultan Abul Hassan. He had only seen him once, when he was two or three, but he could never forget that weather-beaten, scarred face and the trim white beard. It was this old man whose courageous but crazed attack and capture of the frontier town of Zahara had provoked the Christian response against al-Hama. He had rushed with his soldiers to save the town, but it was too late. The Christian knights had forced him to retreat. The Sultan had sent town-criers all over Gharnata, preceded by drummers and players of tambourines, whose loud but sombre music had alerted the citizens that a statement from the palace was on its way. People had crowded the streets, but the town-crier had uttered only one sentence:

  ‘Ay de mi al-Hama. Woe is me, Al-Hama.’

  The memory of those atrocities raised Zuhayr’s temperature, and he began to sing a popular ballad which had been composed to mark the carnage.

  ‘The Moorish Sultan was riding

  through the city of Gharnata,

  from the Bab al-Ilbira

  to the Bab al-Ramla.

  Dispatches were brought him:

  Al-Hama had been taken

  Ay de mi al-Hama!

  He threw the letters in the fire,

  and killed the messenger;

  he ran his hands through his hair

  pulled at his beard in a rage.

  He got off his mule

  and rode on a horse;

  along up Zacatin

  climbed to the al-Hamra;

  he ordered his trumpets top blast,

  and his silver bugles,

  so the Moors would hear

  as they ploughed the fields.

  Ay de mi al-Hama!

  Four by four, five by five,

  a large company assembled.

  An old sage spoke up

  from the depths of his thick grey beard:

  “Why do you call us, Sultan?

  What do your trumpets announce?”

  “So you can hear, my friends,

  of the great loss of al-Hama.

  Ay de mi al-Hama.”

  “It serves you right, good Sultan,

  good king, you well deserved it;

  you killed the princes

  who were the flower of Gharnata;

  you took the turncoats

  from Qurtuba the renowned.

  And so, king, you deserve

  very great punishment,

  your own and your kingdom’s ruin

  and soon the end of our Gharnata.

  Ay de mi al-Hama!”’

  The ballad reminded him of his dead cousins. Their laughter rang in his ears, but the joyful recollections did not stay long. He saw them now as dismembered bodies and felt a chill. In turn he became frenzied, disdainful and bitter as he spurred his steed on faster and faster. Suddenly he found himself removing Ibn Farid’s sword from the scabbard. He held it above his head and imagined that he was at the head of the Moorish cavalry, riding out to relieve al-Hama.

  ‘There is only one God and Mohammed is his Prophet!’ shouted Zuhayr at the top of his voice. To his astonishment there was a resounding echo, but in dozens of voices. He reined in his horse. Both beast and master stood still. The sword was gently sheathed. Zuhayr could hear the noise of hoofs and then he saw the dust. Who could they be? For a moment he thought they were Christian knights who had responded to his cry in order to entrap him. He knew that no other horse in the kingdom could outpace his steed, but it would be cowardly, against the rules of chivalry, to run away. He waited till the horsemen neared the road and then rode out to meet them. To his great relief all fourteen wore turbans, and on each of these there was planted the familiar crescent. There was something unusual about their attire, but before Zuhayr could determine where the strangeness lay, he found himself being addressed by the stranger who appeared to be the commander of this small group by virtue of his age.

  ‘Peace be upon you brother! Who are you and where are you headed?’

  ‘I am Zuhayr bin Umar. I come from the village of al-Hudayl and I am on my way to Gharnata. Wa Allah! You are all followers of the Prophet. I was frightened when I first saw the dust raised by your horses. But pray who are you and in which direction do you travel?’

  ‘So!’ replied the stranger. ‘You are the great-grandson of Ibn Farid. Al-Zindiq has told us a great deal about you, Zuhayr al-Fahl!’

  At this the stranger roared with laughter and his followers joined him. Zuhayr smiled politely and studied each in turn. Now he saw what had first struck him as eccentric. On the left ear of every single one of them there hung a silver ear-ring in the shape of a crescent. Zuhayr’s heart froze, though he tried hard to control his fear. The men were bandits, and if they realized he was carrying gold coins in his purse they would deprive him of the burden, but they might also steal his life. He would much rather die in battle against the Christians. He repeated his question.

  ‘You say you know my teacher, al-Zindiq. This makes me happy, but I still do not know who you are or what your b
usiness is.’

  ‘We ride through this land far and wide,’ came the jovial reply. ‘We have flung away our pride and have no cares or troubles. We can slow down the speeding torrent, tame a troublesome steed. We can drink a flask of wine without pausing for breath, consume a lamb while it still roasts on the spit, pull the beard of a preacher and sing to our hearts’ content. We live unconstrained by the need to protect and preserve our reputation, for we have none. We all bear one name in common. The name of al-Ma’ari, the blind poet who lived between Aleppo and Dimashk some four hundred years ago. Come and share our bread and wine and you shall learn some more. Come now, Zuhayr al-Fahl. We shall not detain you long.’

  Zuhayr was startled by the nature of this response, but it calmed his fears. They were far too eccentric to be cold-blooded killers. He nodded his agreement to the offer and as they wheeled their horses he rode alongside them. After a few miles they reached the boulders. These were carefully removed and they turned off the track through the concealed entrance. After a ten-minute ride he found himself in an armed encampment. It was a village of tents, strategically placed near a tiny stream. A dozen women and half that number of young children were seated outside one of the tents. The women were grinding corn. The children were playing an intricate game with stones.

  The captain of this band, who now introduced himself formally as Abu Zaid al-Ma’ari, invited Zuhayr into his tent. The interior was austere, apart from a rug on which lay a few ragged cushions. As they sat a young woman entered with a flask of wine, two tiny loaves of brown bread and a selection of cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes and onions. She put these in front of the two men and hurried out, only to return with a bowl full of olive oil. It was at this point that Abu Zaid introduced her to Zuhayr.

  ‘My daughter, Fatima.’

  ‘Peace be upon you,’ muttered Zuhayr, charmed by the young woman’s carefree demeanour. ‘Will you not break bread with us?’

  ‘I will join you later with the others after we have eaten,’ replied Fatima, flashing her eyes at Abu Zaid. ‘I think my father wishes to speak to you alone.’

  ‘Now my young friend,’ began Abu Zaid al-Ma’ari as his daughter left them alone, ‘it is not fate that has brought us together, but al-Zindiq. As you can see we are men who live by what we can steal from the rich. In line with the teachings of the great al-Ma’ari, we do not distinguish between Muslim, Christian or Jew. Wealth is not the preserve of one religion. Please do not be afraid. I noticed the alarm in your eyes when you first caught sight of the silver crescent which pierces our left ear. You wondered, did you not, whether your gold was safe?’

  ‘To be frank,’ confided Zuhayr, dipping the bread in the olive oil, ‘I was more worried for my life.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ continued Abu Zaid, ‘and you were right to be so worried, but as I had begun to tell you it was that old man in the mountain cave who told me that you had embarked on a wild venture to Gharnata. He pleaded with me to try and stop you; to persuade you either to return to your ancestral home or to join our little band. We are thinking of leaving this region and moving to the al-Pujarras, where there are many others like us. There we will wait for the right moment. Then we shall seize the time and join the battle.’

  ‘In these times,’ confessed Zuhayr as he sipped the fermented juice of dates, ‘it is much harder to make new friends than to keep old enemies. I will think carefully before I decide whether or not to accept your kind proposal.’

  The bandit leader chuckled, and was about to respond when his daughter, carrying an earthenware jug full of coffee, and followed by three of her five brothers, interrupted his thoughts. The aroma of the brew, which had been freshly boiled with cardamoms, filled the tent and reminded Zuhayr of the home which he had left only an hour ago. The new entrants settled down cross-legged on the rug as Fatima poured out the coffee.

  ‘I do not think,’ Abu Zaid informed the assembled company, ‘that our young friend will join our ranks. He is a caballero, a knight who believes in the rules of chivalry. Am I not correct?’

  Zuhayr was embarrassed at being discovered so quickly.

  ‘How can you talk like that, Abu Zaid al-Ma’ari? Have I not just told you that I will think before I make up my mind?’

  ‘My father is a good judge of people,’ Fatima broke in. ‘His instinct can tell him in a flash whether you are the sort of person who plays chess with an extra piece. It is obvious even to me that you are not such a man.’

  ‘Should I be?’ Zuhayr asked her plaintively.

  ‘What is good for the liver is often bad for the spleen,’ she replied.

  Her brother, who could not have been more than eighteen years of age, felt that Fatima had been far too diplomatic.

  ‘My father has always taught us that people are like metal. Gold, silver or copper.’

  ‘Yes, that is true,’ roared Abu Zaid, ‘but a knight might think, and with good reason from his own point of view, that he is the gold, while a bandit is the copper. Since we are discussing the relative values of metals, let me put another point to our young guest from al-Hudayl. Would he agree with us that nothing cuts iron, but iron?’

  ‘Why of course!’ said Zuhayr, pleased that the discussion had taken a new course. ‘How could it be otherwise?’

  ‘If we agree on that, Zuhayr al-Fahl, then how can you resist my argument regarding the war against the occupiers of Gharnata? Our Sultan was built of straw, whereas Ximenes de Cisneros is a man of iron! The old style of war ended on the night the Christians destroyed al-Hama. If we want to win, we must learn from them. I know that al-Zindiq thinks it is too late, but he may be wrong. Al-Andalus could have been saved a long time ago if only our wretched rulers had understood the teachings of Abu’l Ala al-Ma’ari. That could have made them self-reliant, but no, they preferred to send messages to the North Africans pleading for help.’

  ‘The North Africans did save us from the Christians more than once, did they not?’

  ‘True. The only way they could save us was to destroy the foundations of what we had built. They saved us as the lion saves the deer from the clutches of the tiger. The Islam of which they spoke was neither better nor worse than Christianity.

  ‘Our preachers are stumbling, Christians have gone astray,

  Jews are bewildered. Magians far on error’s way.

  Humanity is composed of but two schools.

  Enlightened knaves or religious fools.’

  ‘Al-Ma’ari ?’ asked Zuhayr.

  Everyone nodded.

  ‘You sound like al-Zindiq,’ commented Zuhayr. ‘You must pardon my ignorance, but I have not read his work.’

  Abu Zaid’s outrage was genuine. ‘Did not al-Zindiq educate you?’

  ‘He did, but he never once lent me an actual book of al-Ma’ari. Simply recited his poetry, which I agree is a stronger stimulant than your date wine! Are you, by any chance, descended from him?’

  ‘Before he died,’ Fatima explained, ‘he left instructions that a verse should be inscribed on his grave:

  This wrong was by my father done

  To me, but ne’er by me to one.

  ‘He was so unhappy about the state of the world that he thought procreation was unwise. The species was incapable of curing itself. So you see we decided to act as though we were his children, and live by his teachings alone.’

  Zuhayr was confused. Till this moment he had been sure that the path he had chosen was the only honourable course for a Muslim warrior, but these strange bandits and the philosopher who commanded them had succeeded in implanting a seed of doubt in his mind. He was only half-listening to Abu Zaid al-Ma’ari and his followers as they recounted the greatness of the freethinking poet and philosopher whom they had adopted as their collective father.

  Zuhayr was floundering, his mind in turmoil. He felt on the edge of an abyss and in danger of losing his balance. He was overcome by an overwhelming urge to return to al-Hudayl. Perhaps the date wine had gone to his head. Perhaps a few more cups of coffee
followed by a couple of hours in the hammam in Gharnata and everything would have become clarified once again. We shall never know, for in the midst of the intellectual haze which had overpowered him, Zuhayr heard them mock the al-koran, and this was something which he knew he could never accept. The blood rose to his head. Perhaps he had misheard the words. He asked Abu Zaid to repeat what he said a few minutes ago.

  ‘What is Religion?

  A maid kept hidden so that no eye may view her;

  The price of her wedding gifts and dowries baffles the wooer.

  Of all the goodly doctrine that from the pulpit I have heard

  My heart has never accepted so much as a single word.’

  ‘No! No!’ Zuhayr shouted in frustration. ‘Not his poetry. I’ve heard this one already. You mentioned the al-koran, did you not?’

  Fatima looked him straight in the eye.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I did. Sometimes, but not always, Abu’l Ala al-Ma’ari could not stop himself from doubting whether it really was the word of God. But he truly loved the style in which the al-koran was composed. One day he sat down and produced his own version, which he called al-Fusul wa-’l-Ghayat.’

  ‘Blasphemy!’ roared Zuhayr.

  ‘The faqihs certainly called it heresy,’ explained Abu Zaid calmly and with the tiny glimmer of a smile, ‘and it was a parody of the sacred book, but even our great teacher’s friends declared that it was inferior in every way to the al-koran.’

  ‘To which charge,’ continued Fatima, ‘our master responded by saying that unlike the al-koran, his work had not yet been polished by the tongues of reciters over four centuries.’

  This gem from the master’s treasury was greeted with applause and laughter. Abu Zaid was disturbed by the sombre expression on Zuhayr’s face and decided to reduce the temperature.