He went to the bare white room of Father Eusebius, where for some hours he prayed before the crucifix, a tortured man who had not been allowed to be a Jew and who was not accepted as a Christian; and at the end of his vigil he understood that it was his destiny to seek out the solitary ones who served God in the deserts of Syria.
At the edge of the town he had loved so much Rabbi Asher ha-Garsi mounted his white mule and led his Jews into exile. On the first night the rabble slept by the roadside, on the second in Sephet, and on the following morning the old rabbi did a remarkable thing: during all the time that the ruins of Tverya were visible from the road leading out of Sephet he refused to look at them. Hababli the dyer walked beside the white mule and said, “I can see no houses in Tverya, Rabbi,” but the old man stared ahead. If the lovely city was in ruins, he would not honor the destruction by looking, and by mid-afternoon the lake and the glory were gone, and he had not said farewell; but in the evening, when the exiles were lost in low valleys from which Tverya could no longer be seen, the old man went apart from the others and turned his face toward where the city of the Herods had once stood—that glorious site by the hot baths and the lake, where the expositors had argued under a grape arbor—and he knelt in prayer, directing his thoughts neither to God nor to his memory of Tverya, but rather to that cave which lay in the hills above the town: Rabbi Akiba, in the years ahead let me have the courage you had. In Babylonia let me have the insight into God’s love that you had. And in the morning the little old man led his Jews out of Palestine and into the long Diaspora that would extend itself through nearly sixteen hundred years.
Thus Makor, for the fourth time in its history, was for the moment stripped of Jews. Sennacherib had destroyed them. Nebuchadrezzar had led them into captivity and Vespasian into slavery, but each time stragglers had returned to rebuild petty settlements. Now the Byzantine expulsion threatened permanent results, for it had involved religious motivations, and these were apt to be longer-lasting.
When the final Jew was gone, when Mark had disappeared into the Syrian desert from which he would emerge years later a theologian of great power, John the stonecutter took charge of leveling the synagogue to make way for the church, and with each rock he shifted, an ache moved in his heart. The little animals he had carved with such love had been smashed by the rioters; the decorated lintels were knocked down; the marching swastikas were gone; the pillars were upended; and his poetic floor had been gouged out. The only sensible thing to do was to erase all memory of the place, setting aside such stones and pillars as might be used again. Accordingly, the hulking stonecutter directed his workmen to salvage the unbroken pillars and to make bands of iron to restore those that had been fractured. He organized teams of women to gather in baskets the mosaic cubes and to clean them for reuse, but when the new basilica was completed, usurping the site of the synagogue, and when the time came for designing the mosaic floor, John found that even though he had at his disposal the same colored stones as before, he was unable to re-create those joyous memories of his youth.
LEVEL
VI
A Day in the Life of a Desert Rider
Ornamental work carved in white limestone to decorate the Chapel of Omar set aside for Muslim worshipers in the Basilica of St. Mary Magdalene at Makor. Installed October 18, 644 C.E. (A.H. 22). Defaced with a panel of crosses by Crusaders from Germany, May 24, 1099 C.E. Deposited on the afternoon of March 26, 1291, during the siege of the town.
Jews had been living in Makor for two thousand, eight hundred and thirty-seven years before the first Arabs settled there, but the soldier who brought the Muslims to this town was a singular person and his arrival was an affair of moment.
In the city of Tabariyyah, on the cold rainy morning of November 22, 635, two different squadrons of Arab raiders saddled their camels in the pre-dawn light that sifted down upon a crowded caravanserai standing beside the lake. They were about to participate in a meaningful experiment whose results would go far to determine the nature of Islam in Palestine and Africa. The men of the first squadron, reflecting from their white robes the lights of a campfire, were agitated and noisy, moving this way and that with curved swords gleaming as they prepared to embark upon a dangerous mission. They were led by a small, wiry Arab of marked energy, the captain Abu Zeid, whose fiery commands, whispered like the utterances of a serpent, bespoke the violence with which he had led his desert troops in their conquest of rich Byzantine cities. As he strode among his men, testing their saddles and their swords, his face was sometimes illumined by red flames from the fire and he seemed an avenging demon hovering at the edge of Tabariyyah, ready to strike with great fury. Finally he could control his impatience no longer, and without awaiting official orders from the silent headquarters building, sprang into the saddle of his gray mare, kicked her flanks vigorously and led his troops through the gates and into the darkness, crying, “To Safat! Allah will lead us!” Stragglers lounging by the camp cheered as the troops rode forth, while warriors who watched them go said with practiced judgment, “By nightfall Safat will be Arab.” There might be no residents surviving in the city, and houses might be roofless, but they would be Arab.
When that first violent squadron was gone another became gradually visible in the dark shadows encompassing the caravanserai: these men were not mounted, nor were they nervous. They moved with quiet determination among their camels, tying down burdens and tightening saddle straps as if they were about to depart on a trading expedition where all things were known except the price of cloth. They were Arabs, all of them, and like the first group had proved themselves in the capture of Damascus and the occupation of Tabariyyah. They constituted one of the finest segments of the Arab army, and whereas the riotous troops of Abu Zeid had been thrown against Safat to kill and burn, this second contingent had been held in reserve for the more significant part of the test.
Their leader stood by a pillar of the caravanserai, a tall, slim man wearing a gray headdress that reached to his waist and a multicolored robe composed of many strips of cloth sewn together. He wore heavy sandals and a wide belt of woven goat’s hair which supported a leather loop from which hung a medium-sized sword. He was a man of dark countenance, in his mid-thirties, and he said little. Keeping to the shadows he observed his men as they checked their battle equipment, then directed one to find out whether all animals had been watered. He studied with approval the forty-odd horses that stood easily in the midst of the caravanserai, excellent beasts which had proved their mettle at Damascus. They wore no saddles, but three large camels stood nearby loaded with their equipment, including spare saddles, and the tall man in the many-colored robe moved slowly, like a merchant on an ordinary day, to inspect these camels, assuring himself that his own red-studded saddle was included in the luggage. He then returned to his pillar, from which he studied the eastern sky, where above the Sea of Tabariyyah the stars were fading and the light of sunrise was beginning to show.
He was Abd Umar, and his first name signified that he had been born a slave: his father had been some unknown desert warrior, his mother a black Abyssinian slave captured on some raid to the south, but he had never known either of his parents. He had grown up in the Arabian city of Yathrib and had spent his early years leading camel caravans from that trading center over the seven hundred miles to Damascus and back. He spoke Arabic and Greek, and when the Arabs burst out of the desert with a new message for the world he had found a place among the armies and a position of responsibility among the chiefs of the tribes. In what other nation could a half-Negro slave win a post of such honor? For the Prophet had said that when God created men he lifted dust from all parts of the earth, and some was black and some red and some white, but all men were made of that dust and all were therefore brothers.
It was this slave who had been picked for the day’s important mission. The Arabs hoped that while Abu Zeid and his ruffians were subduing Safat in the hills, the disciplined troops of Abd Umar might succeed in capturing Makor
without much killing, for if that town could be occupied peacefully, the crucial seaport of Ptolemais, which the Arabs knew by the ancient name of Akka, might surrender without a siege, and retention of this port was necessary if places like Tyre, Cyprus and mighty Egypt were to be invaded. It was with knowledge of these strategies that the slave now walked among his men, whispering, “It’s almost dawn.”
Silently, as if they too appreciated the gravity of the day, his men mounted their camels, keeping the forty riderless horses under control: those handsome brown-flanked beasts would be used by a picked group for the final assault on Makor and must be kept rested during the initial part of the expedition. Now the warriors atop the camels became visible in the gray light which spread over Tabariyyah, bringing the hills into relief: they were hardened fighters who had met the best mercenaries that Byzantium could throw against them. Many wore short beards but most were clean-shaven like their leader. They wore robes of every hue and dimension; when their clothes were of a dun color the men seemed to merge into the bodies of their camels, but when the robes were alternate lengths of purple, red, yellow, brown, green and blue, the Arabs were like bright birds that had flown in from the desert, seeking the valleys of Palestine. In eight years this resolute body of men had not known defeat and they were now quietly determined that this day would see both their victories and their faith extended. Waiting quietly for Abd Umar to mount and lead them forth, the Arabs relaxed on their camels as if they were sleeping centaurs, while their horses stood with equal patience.
But Abd Umar was not ready to depart. Leaving his men he walked with military grace out of the caravanserai and across to a small hut standing by the lake, where the light of an oil lamp showed a mean interior: bare mud walls, no furniture, a few cracked dishes and some clay pots. This was the headquarters selected by the general of the Arab troops when he captured Tabariyyah, and now he slept soundly on the floor, a rugged man in his fifties, with the ends of his beard trailing in the dust, his right cheek cradled on his right palm in the manner used by Muhammad when he slept.
“General,” Abd Umar whispered. There was no response from the sleeping warrior, so the former slave remained kneeling beside his superior, not certain what he should do next. Like Abd Umar the general had invaded Byzantium not to gain wealth or comfort for himself; a hovel with a dirt floor was sufficient, for he rode only to extend the spiritual dominion of the Prophet.
“General, we go,” Abd Umar whispered, still reluctant to touch the sleeping man. In seven major battles the general had led his troops to spectacular victories, but now he refused to rise when his subordinates were setting forth on important engagements. He had instructed them well and he trusted both the wild-headed Abu Zeid and the sagacious slave Abd Umar. There was nothing he could tell them now and he needed sleep, for if Abd Umar succeeded in capturing Makor, all the Arabs would rush westward to besiege Akka, and the coming days might be exhausting.
Finally Abd Umar shook the general. “Tomorrow you may ride to Akka,” he told him. “By nightfall Makor will be yours.”
Grudgingly the sleeper raised himself on one elbow, intending to berate the slave, but when he saw Abd Umar’s intense, dark face he realized how eagerly the young captain had wanted to speak before marching westward. “You have your instructions,” he growled. “No killing.”
“I shall obey,” Abd Umar said, and he rose to go, but the general caught his sleeve.
“You wanted to talk about the battle?”
“Yes,” the former slave replied.
“I can repeat only what the Prophet told me when we approached Mecca that first time. ‘Be merciful … if you can. Spare the aged, the women, the children … if you can. Give every man an honest chance to join you, and if he submits, accept him as he is. But even if the enemy resists, kill no sheep, no camel, no ox—unless you intend to eat it. And let no man harm a palm tree or an olive.’ ”
“I have my instructions,” Abd Umar said.
The general dropped back to the ground and returned to sleep.
Thus Abd Umar, the servant of Muhammad, received his commission to explore the possibilities of compassion and conciliation as weapons of empire, and as he walked thoughtfully toward the caravanserai he thought of that morning when he had stood at the gates of Yathrib, watching as the Prophet, accompanied by a few devotees from Mecca, came seeking refuge in the northern city. It was an ugly day, Abd Umar remembered, with enemies eager to jeer the bearded, thick-set man with lustrous eyes and black hair reaching to his shoulders who claimed to have heard God speaking to him, and at that time Abd Umar had not appreciated the significance of Muhammad’s arrival either in Yathrib or among the Arabs. For some years he had known vaguely of the man’s existence, and after the arrival he had heard that Muhammad was adding to the revealed writings which he had brought with him from Mecca, but for Abd Umar the actuality of the Prophet had not been great.
Then war came, with the people of Mecca trying to invade Yathrib, that they might kill the Prophet, and Abd Umar had volunteered to defend him and had engaged in many bloody encounters in which as a half-Negro slave he rode in the personal entourage of the Prophet, thus seeing at first-hand the brilliant generalship of the holy man. Once Abd Umar told his own fighters, “Three times in those days our side was surely defeated, except that Muhammad rallied us with clever moves, and each time he succeeded in throwing a superior enemy off balance and defeating him.” Any successful military tactics that Abd Umar now possessed he had gained from watching Muhammad.
It was through this military service that Abd Umar had first come to respect Muhammad, but it was not long before he began to feel the man’s spiritual force as well. Abd Umar had been too young to be termed a friend of the Prophet’s, but he had been close enough to know the impact of what Muhammad had preached—a lesson whose five steps were so simple that any human being could understand: the old gods were dead; there was only one God; He had been discovered by the Jews; He sent the great prophet Jesus Christ to reveal His views; and now He had sent the final prophet, Muhammad, to complete them. On one point Muhammad had always insisted when Abd Umar heard him speak: he had not come out of Arabia with some strange new doctrine, but only with the fulfillment of what the Jews and Christians had started before.
Thus when Abd Umar walked toward the caravanserai in the cold morning air, preparing to invest a town he had never seen, he moved with a confidence that the defenders of the town could not have; for they were either Jews whose religion had grown old and meaningless or Christians who had misinterpreted their Jesus as the final prophet. In no way did Abd Umar hate his adversaries; he felt sorry for their temporary blindness and he intended to help them find God. It was true that in the capture of both Damascus and Tabariyyah some Jews and Christians had been slow to grasp the message of the Prophet, and there had been killings, but those days were past. Starting now, with Makor, there would be no more killing of either Jew or Christian, for the three faiths must live together in tolerance; the leaders of Islam now realized that if Jews and Christians were kept alive they would not only help to make the land rich, but after a few years would acknowledge the moral superiority of Muhammad’s revelation and their conversion would be accomplished as a matter of course.
In this reflective mood Abd Umar re-entered the caravanserai and without speaking climbed aboard his camel, signaling that he was ready. There were no shouts, no clattering of swords such as had marked Abu Zeid’s departure for Safat; the troops responsible for this new type of Arab policy moved quietly out of town, avoided the established roads and sought a path that would take them quickly onto high ground, from which they would traverse the mountains and swamps separating them from Makor. It would be a punishing cross-country ride, but they would come at last upon the Damascus road, down which they could make their final dash on horseback. The first part of the journey, climbing the steep hills to the west of Tabariyyah, would be the most difficult, and Abd Umar led the way, encouraging his men until they had sc
rambled to the top of the curious camel-shaped hill called the Horns of Hattin, where he halted his troops to inspect the horses. There he delivered his last instructions.
“You are to kill no one. Set no fires. And no man may touch a palm tree or an olive.” He waited until these new orders had had time to be understood, then rode to each of his lieutenants, reminding them personally, “Tonight Makor must accept the Prophet, and its people must be our friends.” The grim-faced men agreed, and he led them westward.
As he rode into the heart of Palestine he recalled the first time he had heard of this rich land: he had for some years been leading desert caravans between Yathrib and Damascus, six weeks in the saddle each way, and he had been vaguely aware that off to the west lay a small land occupied by Greeks and Romans; but it had made no impression on him until on one trip, made before he knew Muhammad, he was returning to Arabia with a cargo of gold from Byzantium when he overtook the caravan of a trader from Mecca and with him traveled south for several days. Finally the Meccan had said, “I must turn westward toward Jerusalem,” and for the first time Abd Umar had discussed that city.
“It’s torn by strife between the Christians,” the Meccan said.
“The Christians against whom?” Abd Umar inquired.
“Themselves,” the Meccan replied, shaking his head in confusion, and he had led his camels toward the hills which protected the Jordan.
The Source: A Novel Page 73
