Layla and Majnun

by Nizami

  The old man brushed a tear from his son’s cheek and continued: ‘All sorrows must cease eventually; bring your sorrows to an end now. Come home with me. Are you a ghoul, a demon? Or are you a man? If you are a man, then you must live like one.

  ‘O, my son! Come, be my companion once more for the short time that is left of my life. My day is over; for me, night is approaching. If you do not come with me today, tomorrow you will not find me. I have to depart, and you have to don my mantle and carry on in my place. Soon my sufferings will be over and I will be at peace, God willing.

  ‘My sun is sinking fast, clouded by the dust of a long, long day. The darkness beckons, the night breeze is waiting to carry my soul away. Come, my son, while we still have a little time to share. Come and take my place, for it belongs to no one but you.’

  Chapter 31

  At first, Majnun complied with his father’s wishes: for several days he rested, he ate and drank, he dressed in proper clothes like ordinary people, he abandoned his odes and his sonnets, and he listened attentively whenever his father spoke of their imminent return to civilization.

  Yet it was a deceit from start to finish. Majnun wanted so badly to please his father that he would have agreed to anything. But in the end, the shame of lying overwhelmed him. He turned to his father and said, ‘You are the breath that gave life to my soul, and that gives life to me still. I am your servant, ready to obey your every command. But there is one thing, dear Father, that I cannot do. I cannot change what Fate has decreed.

  ‘Dear Father! Yours is a currency minted in wisdom; mine is a currency minted in love! Yours is the sober language of reason; mine is the wild gibberish of a man made mad by desire! This is how it is; it cannot be changed.

  ‘Can you not see that I have forgotten my past? The pages of my memory are all blank, the words have been washed away. I am not the man I used to be. If you ask me to tell you what has happened, I cannot say because I do not remember. I know that you are my father and I am your son, but that is all. I do not even remember your name …’

  His words trailed away and for a moment he was lost in thought. Now, for the first time, he understood perfectly what Fate had decreed for him. He continued, ‘True, dear Father, you are a stranger to me, but do not be grieved or surprised by this fact. For I too am a stranger: I am a stranger to myself: I no longer know who I am. I keep asking myself, “Who are you? What is your name? Are you in love, and if so, with whom? Are you loved, and if so, by whom?” A fire burns in my soul, a fire so fierce that it has consumed my very being and reduced it to ashes. And now I am lost in a wilderness of my own making.

  ‘Do you not see that I have become as wild as my surroundings, as savage as the beasts that you see here? How, then, can I return to the world of men? I am alien to them, and their world is alien to me. Do not try to make me go back, Father, because it will not work. It would never work. I would be a burden to you and a danger to others. My place is here, where I can do least harm.

  ‘If only you could forget that I ever existed! If only you could erase me from memory and forget that you ever had a son! If only you could bury me here and think to yourself: “There lies some poor fool, some drunkard possessed, who reaped what he had sown and got what he deserved.”

  ‘Dear Father! You say that your sun is setting and you must depart, and that this is why you came to bring me back. But my sun is setting too, for I am drawn inexorably towards death; you could even say that death is within me, consuming me from the inside. If it is too late, it is too late for both of us. Who knows, maybe my departure will precede yours. I have died inside already, and I have all but killed you with grief. So let the dead not mourn the dead.’

  Chapter 32

  From these words the old Sayyid understood clearly that Majnun was his no longer. The poor demented fool was a prisoner in love’s dark citadel, a stronghold from which no-one could free him.

  The old man took Majnun in his arms and said, ‘My dear son! You consume yourself in your sorrow, feasting on your own blood. What shall I do with you? You are my pain — but you are also my pride. It is clear that there is nothing more that I can do to persuade you to come with me. And so I shall leave; I shall leave you for my home town, and then I shall leave my home town and depart this world for ever.

  ‘Hold me tight, dear son! See how our tears flow and become one river? These tears will cleanse me so that I may start out on the road refreshed. Hold me tight, dearest heart! These last few minutes with you must, I fear, suffice as sustenance for my journey. I have packed my things and am ready to move on. Moving, moving — man is forever moving! And so it must be.

  ‘Goodbye, my son! Never again in this world will I set eyes on you. Goodbye! The boat that awaits me is ready to sail, never to return. It is strange: already I feel that my soul is breaking free! Goodbye, my darling boy! Never again shall we meet in this world.’

  Majnun watched as the old Sayyid and his two travelling companions moved off across the sands. He knew that his father had spoken the truth, and that they would never meet again — at least not in this world. Indeed, just two days after the old man arrived back at his home, he passed away, his soul and spirit free at last.

  Each soul is but a flash of light, born to shine for a brief moment before fading for ever. In this realm, everything is destined to perish; nothing is made to last. But if you ‘die’ before you die, turning away from the world and its Janus face, you will achieve the supreme salvation of life eternal. It is up to you: you are your own fate, and whatever is, or will be, lies within you. And in the end, good will be united with good, and evil with evil. Your secret is shouted from the mountain-tops: when the echo returns, you recognise the voice as your own …

  Chapter 33

  It so happened at this time that a hunter from the tribe of Amir was out stalking desert deer in the wastes of Najd when he came across Majnun. Now Majnun was not his prey, but the hunter’s tongue was sharper than any knife. He shouted, ‘So this is where you hide yourself. Is Layla the only person in your life who means anything to you? Have you no thoughts for the mother who gave birth to you, who raised you, nurtured you and watched over you with the tender solicitude that exists only in a mother’s heart? Is this how you repay her kindess, by forsaking her?

  ‘And what about your father? True, he was alive when you saw him last, but now the burden of grief has taken him to the grave. Tell me this: do you enjoy your life, knowing that his is finished? Do you think of him at all? In your selfishness you bury yourself alive in this wilderness when you should be kneeling at his grave, asking his forgiveness. But it is clear that you are too wrapped up in your own emotions even to think of paying your last respects to him. What a pathetic creature you are! A son like you would be better dead than alive; then at least the mourning of those who love you would have meaning.’

  The hunter’s impassioned diatribe cut into Majnun’s heart like a red-hot blade. The sinews in his body were suddenly like harp strings in the hands of some crazed musician: his head lolled to one side, his arms thrashed the air and his legs buckled beneath him. With a terrible moan of grief he fell on to his face, banging his head repeatedly on the stony earth until the blood ran into his eyes and mingled with his tears.

  The journey to his father’s tomb was a difficult one, lasting several days and nights and entailing much hardship, but Majnun did not care. At the sight of his father’s headstone he was overcome once more by grief and fell into a sobbing heap at the foot of the grave. The old man had been unable to rescue him, but at least he had shared his son’s suffering. Majnun’s pain had been his pain and their tears had become a single river. But now Majnun’s tears must fall alone.

  Wracked by grief, Majnun clawed at the earth and begged his father for some response, some sign. He cried out in a sorrowful voice, ‘O Father! Where are you now? For so many years you cared for me, nurtured and sustained me, and now it has all come to this! You were my rock, and now you are dust; you were my staff, and now
you are ashes. To whom can I turn, now that you have turned from life and entered the realm of death? You were always there for me, even though all I gave you was pain and heartache. How I wish that I had made you happy by being the kind of son you always dreamed of having; instead I tortured you and sent you to an early grave. And now I am tortured by this separation, by the indescribable loneliness I feel now that you are gone. Without you I am nothing: why did I let you go alone? Do not chastise me, Father, because I know better than anyone how much I have let you down. And if I blacken my face with the earth from your grave, it is not only because I wish to be near you: it is also because I wish to hide my shame.

  ‘I know that you wanted what was best for me, but I rejected you and pushed away your helping hand. When you were gentle and solicitous, I was hard and callous; when you offered me warmth, I responded with nothing but coldness. A thousand times you suffered, but not once did I come to you. You made up a room for me, prepared a bed where I could rest, but I refused. You offered me a table filled with food, but all I did was turn my back on it and close my eyes to your kindness. You placed the world at my feet, but all I could do was kick it. All of this I know, dear Father, and I cannot begin to tell you how much it pains me. That is all I have left: pain without relief, regret without end, sorrow without consolation. You created a niche for me in a corner of your heart: now that Fate has sealed up that niche, here I am trying to reach it! How could this have happened? One day we were together and now you are gone — but I am still here! How can this be? O Lord, how great is my sin! How deep my guilt! O Lord, the blame is all mine and the grief is all mine!’

  And so he lamented, clawing wildly at his breast as though trying to break the skin and grasp his heart in his hand. Night fell and the darkness covered him in his despair, black upon black. Only with the coming of the dawn, when the new sun rose into a lavender sky and scattered gold dust on the mountain peaks, did Majnun leave his father’s tomb. Humbled and forlorn, he made his way back once more to the caves and ravines of Najd.

  Chapter 34

  After the death of his father, Majnun felt an even greater need to cling to the wilderness and his life of isolation. Like a mountain lion, he would climb the steep rocks and explore gorges and wild ravines where no human being had ever set foot. Restlessly he moved from place to place, as though searching for some hidden treasure, his eyes darting this way and that, his heart beating like a drum.

  The true object of his search, of course, was Layla. He sought her everywhere, in the hope of finding her somewhere.

  Yes, Layla was the treasure that he was seeking; she was the gem of unparalleled beauty that had driven him out of his mind and forced him to take refuge in a place almost as inhospitable as Hell itself. He had been forced to leave his home by his desire to make a home with her. Day and night, the flames of this desire burned away inside him: whenever he saw tents and camp fires he would be drawn there as though he were a moth, as though in some inexplicable way those tents and fires were manifestations of his beloved.

  Now Majnun was famous among the Arabs — which man, given Majnun’s verses, would not be? — and so when one day he came across a group of people who knew him, he was not in the least surprised. They stood watching him as he hugged his sides, his eyes closed as though in prayer, a verse extolling Layla’s beauty on his lips. Suddenly a scrap of paper, borne by the wind, fell at Majnun’s feet; on it were written the words, Layla and Majnun. Someone, somewhere, had written down the lovers’ names as if to celebrate their love and their loyalty.

  The crowd that now surrounded Majnun tut-tutted in awe at this wondrous sign, but soon their amazement turned to disbelief. For Majnun was tearing the paper in two! He took the half on which ‘Layla’ was written, screwed it up into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder; the part with his own name he kept for himself. Cries of astonishment went up. Surely this was no way for a lover to behave. A voice shouted, ‘What do you mean by this action? What kind of behaviour is this? For once, on paper at least, you and your beloved were united, and now you have cut yourself off from her and discarded her. Explain yourself!’

  Majnun smiled. ‘Do you not realise,’ he said, ‘that one name is better than two? For one is enough for both. If only you knew the reality of love, you would see that when you scratch a lover, you find his beloved. Do you understand?’

  It was clear that they did not understand. ‘You say that one name is enough for two’, they said, ‘and that indeed may be so. But if that is the case, why did you throw away Layla’s name and not your own?’

  ‘The answer is simple,’ replied Majnun. ‘One is able to see the shell but not the pearl inside. Do you not understand? The name is a shell and nothing more. It is what the shell hides that counts. I am the shell and she is the pearl; I am the veil and she is the face beneath it.’

  Chapter 35

  Still speaking on the subject of his beloved, Majnun left the people and their tents and headed back whence he came. He was on fire with love, glowing like a burning coal. Every now and again the coal would burst into flame, lashing at his tongue and unleashing torrents of words that streamed from his lips, verses that he strung together like pearls on a rosary. He would lavish them on the wind, allowing them to scatter and fall in profusion — rich pickings indeed for those lovers, and lovers of poetry, who heard them and passed them on. Majnun was wildly extravagant with his art, but what did it matter? Was he not rich? Was he not free to do as he pleased?

  To other men, Majnun was now little more than a savage, a wild beast to be pitied as it choked on its own isolation and degradation. But he was not alone: even a ‘madman’ has friends. Majnun’s friends were the animals; the beasts who roamed the desert wilderness were his companions, and he could not have wanted for better.

  Majnun had entered the world of the desert animals as a stranger, yet they took to him immediately. For Majnun had come in peace. He had not come to hunt or trap them, to maim or kill them. He had crept into their caves and their dens not as a violent enemy but as a grateful guest. They had seen no evil from his hands and so they respected him.

  Of course, it might have been that the animals thought that Majnun was one of their own kind, but this was only partly true. They knew instinctively that he was different from other men. He possessed a very special power, a power that had nothing to do with bodily strength or sharpness of teeth as in the case of the lion, the puma or the desert wolf. Majnun’s power — the source of his hold over the animals — lay in the fact that he did not kill things smaller than himself. He was not a predator, and they felt safe with him.

  Yet, at first, they did not understand him. What kind of creature was he, that could so easily have killed others for food but did not? Why was he like this? Who could understand the mind of such a being? He fed on roots and berries — and then only sparingly — and he showed no signs of fear when surrounded by beasts of prey who could so easily have ripped him to pieces and feasted on his bones. Yet he was never attacked, not once. To everyone’s surprise, Majnun was never threatened or intimidated by any of the desert beasts.

  The animals soon became used to this strange being from the world of men. Whenever they caught sight of him, or made out his scent on the breeze, they would all come trotting or running, crawling or flying, to gather around him. Before long, Majnun had a vast menagerie of beasts of every kind and size. In his presence the animals seemed to be under some kind of spell, for they would forget their wild natures and become tame and friendly. So attached did they become to Majnun that eventually they began to watch over him like royal guards as he slept. First a lion stood over him, like a sheepdog guarding its flock. Soon others followed — stags, wolves, lynxes, pumas, desert foxes — and before long, Majnun was not able to take five minutes’ rest without the place turning into a camp for desert animals.

  In this court of beasts, Majnun was King, a veritable Solomon who ruled with wisdom and compassion. He was a King of goodness and love; a King who never tyrannis
ed his subjects, nor squeezed them for taxes, nor forced them to sacrifice their lives or spill the blood of others for the sake of some pointless war.

  Guided by their master’s example, the animals gradually lost their lust for blood and their urge to kill. The wolf no longer tormented the lamb, the puma befriended the gazelle, the lioness suckled the orphaned fawn, and the fox concluded a treaty of peace with the hare. The army of beasts that accompanied Majnun wherever he went was a peaceful army, an army fuelled by love, compassion and brotherhood.

  The selfless love of an animal for its master often surpasses in intensity the love of one human being for another. Majnun’s animal companions were shining examples of such selfless love. For example, whenever Majnun wished to sleep, the desert fox would sweep a place clean and free of thorns for him with its tail, while the wild onager would offer its neck as a pillow. Then, while Majnun lay sleeping, the lion would keep watch over him, ready to ward off any enemies, while the wolf and the puma would scout the camp for unwelcome visitors or intruders. Each beast did its duty, watching over and protecting Majnun with a sincerity of intention that touched his heart.

  Yet the more he became used to his animal companions, the less he saw of other human beings. Those who had visited him in his desert hide-out were afraid of the company he kept and were loathe to visit him again. And when Majnun appeared at some camp or oasis with his animals in tow, people would run away. Whenever a stranger approached Majnun to talk with him, the animals would bare their teeth and begin to snarl and growl until their master quietened them and allayed their suspicions. Only then would the stranger remain unharmed. Those who came merely to mock Majnun, or to harm him in any way, were often forced to make a speedy getaway lest sharp teeth and claws and fangs tear them to pieces.