Travels with a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah

by Mackintosh-Smith, Tim

  The goldsmith frowned. ‘Of course, all this is nonsense. And it’s forbidden, particularly for us Christians.’ He drew back his sleeve to show me a small blue cross tattooed on his forearm.

  I felt that I should defend the occultists of Yemen, and related several strange phenomena that I had witnessed there or heard about. The Copt remained unimpressed. ‘And’, I went on, ‘there are people who can see thieves and stolen goods in bowls of water – as if they’re watching a security video.’

  Suddenly, the goldsmith lit up. Recently, he explained, there had been a theft from his shop. ‘Three gold chains, worth $1,000 each. I went around all the Muslim seers in Luxor – of course, there aren’t any Christian ones – and they all said, independently mind you, that the thief was young, and not a customer!’

  It was hardly a dramatic revelation. Now, if they had said unanimously that the thief was an albino with a venerean strabismus …

  ‘But the priest got to hear about what I was doing and put a stop to it.’ He leaned forward and went on in a low voice, ‘Can I ask you a favour? I’ve heard that the Arabians are the best seers in the world. Now, if you could ask them for me …’

  I smiled. ‘It’s a long way from Luxor to Yemen. They’d need a satellite link.’

  ‘Someone in Cairo identified a thief in Luxor, and that’s a long way.’

  I said I’d try. ‘But I’m not promising anything. And wouldn’t you have to be there too?’

  The goldsmith thought for a moment. ‘I’ll give you something from the shop … What about a business card?’

  ‘That’, I said ‘will do nicely.’

  *

  MI6, the KGB and Egyptian Military Intelligence, during a brief period of détente unrecorded in the annals of espionage, once got together for manoeuvres in the Eastern Desert. The mission: to stalk and capture a gazelle in the fastest time possible. The MI6 men were back with their quarry within three hours; the Russians, experienced in tracking escaped dissidents across the Siberian tundra, were slightly quicker. But the sun set, the morrow dawned, and the Egyptians didn’t return. Anxious for their fellow agents’ safety, the foreigners formed a search party. After a morning spent combing the desert, they finally spotted them. The search party approached, but the Egyptians were oblivious. They were totally absorbed in what they were doing, which was alternately bawling at, then flogging, a prostrate donkey. The donkey appeared to be dead.

  ‘What are they saying?’ the Russian spymaster asked M, a noted orientalist.

  ‘What d’you expect, old boy? “Confess to being a gazelle!”’

  I remembered the story as I approached the gates of Military Intelligence (Aswan Sector), and wondered what lay inside.

  The day had got off to an inauspicious start when I was ejected from a Luxor-Edfu minibus. ‘You must go with your fawj,’ the driver told me.

  I replied that I was a fawj – a group, or herd – of one.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the driver, ‘but it’s government orders. No tourists to travel by minibus.’

  I prickled. ‘I’m not a tourist, I’m a …’

  ‘It’s for your safety.’

  ‘Go on the ordinary bus,’ whispered one of the passengers. ‘It’s cheaper.’

  My face was saved; but something was going on, and it was annoying not to know what it was.

  Two hours later, the ordinary bus driver took my fare without hesitation. I wasn’t sorry to leave Luxor. IB’s ‘pretty little place’ had disappeared beneath hotels and papyrus showrooms. An enormous XVIII Dynasty temple had appeared. Even the Nile, pre-Socratically, was not the same river IB had seen. Only Abu ’l-Hajjaj’s tomb remained as a fragment withdrawn from the traveller’s time.

  I soon forgot the incident of the minibus and was back in the Travels. Esna was a town of wide streets with busy markets and fine orchards, just as IB had described it. South of Esna, the bus followed the divide between cultivation and desert, a precise pinstripe of road between a thick band of green and an endless block of tawny yellow. It was a minimal, almost abstract landscape, like an enlarged Rothko.

  At Edfu, I walked over the bridge to the right bank of the Nile. There were no bedouins or dromedaries; neither was there any other form of transport. The only activity was the slow ingestion of tea and shishah smoke in a roadside café. There, after some discussion, it was agreed that I had missed the only eastbound bus of the day.

  Looking back, I know what I should have done: ordered a tea and a shishah and gone into suspended animation. Instead, something – a desire for movement, an ancestral respect for the constabulary, or perhaps some masochistic streak – took me to the police station to ask if I needed a permit to visit al-Shadhili. It was like walking into an undergraduate philosophy seminar and saying, ‘Discuss: “Is this a question?”’

  And so – a debate, a wait, a bus-ride and a long walk later – I found myself in the waiting-room at Military Intelligence, Aswan. IB hadn’t been to Aswan; and he had never, not in twenty-nine years on the road, asked if he needed a travel permit. I thought of him, and of those intrepid travel writers of today who slip nonchalantly, visaless, from Afghanistan into China, and cursed myself.

  The room resembled the lobby of a very seedy hotel. There was a large and battered reception desk; the walls were stencilled in bilious colours with a repeating spermatozoic pattern and lined with collapsing horsehair sofas. A dishevelled underling appeared. He cracked his knuckles and straightened his hair. I explained why I had come.

  ‘This is a matter for the Colonel,’ said the underling. ‘I’m afraid he’s busy at the moment.’

  An image flashed across my mind – the Colonel, sleeves rolled up, bearing down on a small and cowering donkey.

  ‘Are you an orientalist?’ asked the underling.

  I winced inwardly. It was a word with undertones, dark ones: an orientalist went round in native dress, carried a pocket theodolite and worked for the ultimate and total dominance of the West. ‘I just have a general interest in walis.’

  ‘Then’, he said, brightening, ‘you must certainly visit al-Shadhili. You know that in the desert he often met up with al-Khadir?’

  I was more than slightly surprised – not that the saint should have encountered al-Khadir, the Green Man, the immortal prototype of travelling mystics; but that I was hearing about it in Military Intelligence, Aswan.

  The man introduced himself as Nashwat. For the next hour we talked of nothing but saints – al-Shadhili, al-Mursi and Yaqut of Alexandria, Abu ’l-Hajjaj of Luxor. When he mentioned Abdulrahim al-Qinawi, I pulled out the Travels and showed him IB’s reference to ‘the pious sharif … author of many marvellous proofs of sanctity and celebrated miracles’.

  ‘Sidi Abdulrahim is still performing miracles,’ Nashwat told me. ‘Not long ago, he got a friend of mine off military service. He prayed at the tomb and asked the saint to intercede, and when he came up before the selection board, they said, “We’ve changed our minds. We don’t want you.”’

  Suddenly, Nashwat glanced at his watch. ‘Ya Salam! I didn’t know it was that time. You must excuse me. Come back later – perhaps the Colonel will be free.’

  I left Military Intelligence thinking that, of all the people I might have expected to encounter there, the last would be an amateur hagiographer.

  That evening, I returned to find Nashwat behind the reception desk and apologetic. ‘The Colonel’s gone,’ he said. Perhaps, I thought, nobody speaks to the Colonel. ‘But don’t worry. I’ll try the Major.’ Five minutes later he was back. His expression wasn’t promising. ‘The Major says you need to go to Cairo and get a tasdiq, a letter of approval.’

  I rolled my eyes. The round-trip to Cairo was a thousand miles.

  Nashwat leaned across the desk and patted my shoulder. ‘Just go,’ he whispered. ‘If al-Shadhili wants you to visit him, you’ll visit him.’

  Next morning, I caught the 6.30 bus from Aswan. Its dogleg route took it north towards Edfu then east, past a checkpoint and on to
the desert road, and finally down the coast to the point where the disputed territory began. (I hadn’t broached the subject of Aydhab, IB’s Red Sea port, with Military Intelligence; I had already stirred up a can of worms and didn’t want to graduate to a nest of vipers.) The problem was the checkpoint. Nothing worse was going to happen there, I glibly assumed, than an ignominious ejection from the bus and a long wait for transport back. All the same, apprehensions began to wriggle in my stomach as the bus turned east.

  As we left the cultivated strip, I noticed a large roadside hoarding for al-Ahliyyah Insurance. Presumably the idea was that nervous motorists would do a U-turn, race back into Edfu and insure themselves before crossing the desert. But two things intrigued me about the sign: the firm’s slogan, ‘In the care of God’ – which begged the question of why insurance was necessary – and its logo, a pharaonic deity. The message seemed to be that a consortium of al-Ahliyyah, Allah and Anubis would cover all eventualities.

  My musings came to an abrupt end. The bus was slowing down. I could see the checkpoint approaching. I silently, syncretically asked for al-Shadhili’s intercession.

  A man in plain clothes boarded and asked everyone to get their papers ready. With a sinking heart, I pulled out my passport. For someone expecting a nice fresh firman from Military Intelligence, it would be singularly off-putting: stained and dog-eared, it gave off an indefinable, spicy smell compounded of tropical sweat and a brief but total immersion in a stagnant wadi; the photograph it bore was of a person who had long since ceased to be me. The official moved slowly up the aisle, checking documentation, and went past me without a glance. He was saving the foreigner, the anomaly, until last. I heard him coming back and prepared myself for the gentle hand on the shoulder, the apologetic eviction. He walked past me again, and left the bus. The driver restarted the engine and pulled away.

  The passengers, who had hardly spoken until now, began chatting. My neighbour across the aisle introduced himself as Ali Id – Ali Festival. He was dark-skinned and, like most of the other all-male passengers, wore the fine linen turban of Upper Egypt and Sudan; he also carried a sort of swagger-stick. There was an appealing reticence in his speech and gestures, and I was pleased when he said that he too was heading for Humaythira. When I told him my name he repeated it softly, several times, as if trying to solve a conundrum.

  I too was pondering a mystery: how I had got through the checkpoint unchecked. Had I been rendered temporarily invisible? I thought of asking Ali Id; but the question, on so short an acquaintance, would have been alarming. Whatever the explanation, I was glad I’d put my faith in the saint and not in the unseen Major.

  The landscape we were passing through was also all but invisible: the driver’s mate had drawn the curtains of the bus and slotted a cassette into the on-board video player. As the titles came up, Ali Id clapped his hands: ‘Fifi Abdou! You’ll like this film.’ I was sceptical; but the film, an Egyptian kung fu-belly dancing-vengeance-comedy-fantasy, was enthralling. What it lacked in plot it made up for in sheer bizarrerie, as the acrobatic heroine humiliated villain after villain. As the film approached its climax, the driver’s mate paused Miss Abdou in mid-kick and announced our arrival at Sidi Salim, the turn-off for Humaythira. Cheated of the denouement, Ali Id and I left the bus and watched it drive off.

  We were on a gravel plain scattered with low, desiccated hills like gnawed bones. It was midday. The sun bore down like a jackhammer. No other passengers had got off.

  The saint, Sidi Salim, lay behind a high wall inside a cube that turned into an octagon then a dome. Around the tomb huddled a few shacks, an unfinished first-aid post and a café that doubled as a small shop. Across the road there was a mosque of recent date; next to it a broad cement staircase rose to a grandiose block of latrines. We went over to the café, a roof on free-standing pillars, installed ourselves on a bench and ordered shishahs. All the necessities of desert life were here – shade, tobacco and cool water stored in sweating earthenware jars – and I felt suddenly and utterly contented.

  The other occupants of the café were also on their way to Humaythira. One of them was a young teacher, the other four old men, the oldest one in a turban so ancient that it might have been put together from recycled mummy wrappings. Soon after our arrival the café keeper, who doubled as muezzin, called the noon prayer in a fine unamplified voice. Everyone went to pray except Ali Id and me.

  In addition to the café keeper, Sidi Salim had one other permanent resident. Prayers were still going on in the mosque when a bulky figure emerged from the tomb compound. Ali Id nudged me. ‘That’s Hajjah Layla,’ he whispered. ‘She lives in the tomb.’ The woman waddled towards an oil-drum of water, glaring at us as she went past. She seemed to share a couturier with the oldest old man, and was cloaked in what looked like an exhumed shroud, secured above her head by three large knots. Considering her place of residence, it was appropriate. Beneath the shroud she wore a pair of pantaloons so generously cut that the crotch dragged along the ground behind her. Her feet were bound in rags, and finished off with a pair of antique carpet slippers. But even more extraordinary than her wardrobe was the little retinue that followed her. It consisted of three black sheep: a) a portly old ram, b) a medium-sized ewe and c) a silky, pubescent ram. Every few steps, c) tried unsuccessfully to mount b), while a) threw disdainful glances over his shoulder. On each of Hajjah Layla’s subsequent appearances, I noticed that the order and activities of the little procession never changed. The whole strange tableau was a ghoulish, grown-up version of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’.

  Hajjah Layla watered her sheep in a trough by the oil-drum, then turned to lead them back. She glared again, and addressed us in a gruff voice: ‘Why aren’t you two praying like the others?’ Then, at Sidi Salim’s gate, she stopped and wheeled around with surprising agility. ‘You’re nothing but a couple of kafirs,’ she screeched. ‘We don’t want your sort here!’ Oblivious of the attempted coitus at her feet, she fixed us for a full minute with a terrible, gorgon gaze, then disappeared into the tomb.

  I heard a splutter beside me. It was Ali Id, choking on his shishah smoke. ‘They say … that in her time …’ Ali told me between splutters ‘… she was a great beauty.’

  The mosque-goers returned, and we all shared a lunch of buffalo-cheese balls and pancake bread. Hajjah Layla and her sheep made another appearance. The sun began to slide slowly down the sky. We measured out the unspooling day on shishah refills. A pick-up turned on to the Humaythira road, but the cab was full and the back contained two camels, roped in a sitting position so that only their heads were visible. It was followed later by a convoy of minibuses but they too were packed, taking families to visit al-Shadhili. Then, at sunset, an empty pick-up came. Ali Id and the teacher negotiated with the driver but came back shaking their heads. ‘We offered £E35, but he wouldn’t budge from £E50,’ Ali said as the pick-up set off to Humaythira, empty. He didn’t seem at all bothered. I thought of running after it and paying the difference; but I was enjoying the inactivity of the café. We would visit al-Shadhili in his own good time. Besides, it would be discourteous to abandon his fellow-saint, Sidi Salim. (Not that anyone approached the tomb: it would have meant running the gauntlet of Hajjah Layla.)

  As darkness fell, I brought up the subject of the checkpoint. To have passed through it unchecked seemed surprising, if not miraculous. Ali Id smiled arcanely but offered no opinion. The teacher spoke: ‘There could of course be some rational explanation. But why shouldn’t a karamah operate by rational means? After all, miracles aren’t the same as magic.’

  I asked if he thought al-Shadhili would perform a karamah for a non-Muslim.

  ‘If your intention in visiting him is good, why not?’ said the teacher. ‘Karamahs certainly take place through non-Muslims. I heard a story that happened recently in Cairo.’ The café keeper brought a lamp and placed it on a table beside us. ‘You know the Mosque of al-Husayn? Well, a poor man was sleeping there when a thief came and stole his money �
�� fifteen pounds. When the man found out, he didn’t know what to do, so he stayed where he was. In the night, he saw Sayyidna al-Husayn in a dream. Al-Husayn said to him: “Catch the number 52 bus to the Quarter of Such-and-Such, and you will meet a priest who will help you.” In the morning, the man did as he was told – he still had a couple of coins in his pocket for the bus – and found the priest in his church. The priest said to him, “Salli ala ’l-nabi. Pray for blessings on the Prophet.” So the man said, “May God give the Prophet blessings and peace.” Then the priest said the same thing again: “Salli ala ’l-nabi,” and the man responded again. This went on and on. The man didn’t know what was happening, so he said, “How many times am I meant to pray for blessings on the Prophet?” The priest said, “Well, you’ve done it fifteen times.” Then he took some money out of his robe and gave it to the man. It was fifteen pounds.’

  Ali Id’s eyes were large in the lamplight; the old men muttered approvingly in the shadows. As they sucked smoke and reflected on the story, I got the Travels out of my bag and turned to the account of al-Shadhili’s death. IB had heard it in Alexandria from Yaqut, who had been told it by his master, al-Shadhili’s disciple al-Mursi. I read aloud. Every year, IB wrote, al-Shadhili went on pilgrimage to Mecca via Upper Egypt and the desert. ‘One year … he said to his attendant, “Take with you a pickaxe, a basket, aromatics for embalming, and all that is necessary for burying the dead.” The servant said to him, “Why so, O my master?” and he replied “In Humaythira you shall see.”’ When they reached Humaythira, IB went on, the saint prayed and then dropped dead on the spot. His servant buried him where he fell.

  As soon as I finished reading, the old man in the mummy-linen turban spoke: ‘Who wrote this book of yours? He missed the most important part!’

  We all looked at him.

  ‘It was al-Mursi who was with al-Shadhili when he died. While he was digging the grave, a man turned up and gave him a hand. Al-Mursi didn’t know who this stranger was, because his face was veiled. In fact, it was the Prophet himself, may God give him blessings and peace! Al-Mursi kept thinking, “Who is this man? Who is this man?” In the end, he couldn’t stop himself and …’ the old man swept his hand in front of his face ‘… he pulled the veil away.’