by Elif Shafak
“I didn’t come to you because of the wind,” Shams had said.
And then he had told me a story.
Once there was a Sufi master who was so knowledgeable that he had been given the breath of Jesus. He had only one student, and he was quite happy with what he was given. But his disciple was of a different mind. In his desire to see everyone else marvel at the powers of his master, he kept begging him to take on more followers.
“All right,” the master finally agreed. “If it will make you happy, I’ll do as you say.”
They went to the market that day. In one of the stalls, there were bird-shaped candies. As soon as the master blew upon them, the birds came alive and flew away with the wind. Speechless, the townspeople immediately gathered around him with admiration. From that day on, everyone in town was singing the master’s praises. Soon there were so many followers and admirers around him that his old disciple couldn’t see him much anymore.
“Oh, Master, I was wrong. It was much better in the old days,” the disciple moaned forlornly. “Do something. Make them all go away, please.”
“All right. If it will make you happy, I’ll shoo them away.”
The next day while he was preaching, the master broke wind. His followers were appalled. One by one, they turned and walked away from him. Only his old disciple remained.
“Why didn’t you leave with the others?” the master asked.
And the disciple answered, “I didn’t come to you because of the first wind, nor would I leave you because of the last.”
Everything Shams did, he did for my perfection. This is what the townspeople could never understand. Shams deliberately fanned the flames of gossip, touched raw nerves, and spoke words that sounded like blasphemy to ordinary ears, shocking and provoking people, even those who loved him. He threw my books into water, forcing me to unlearn all that I knew. Though everyone had heard that he was critical of sheikhs and scholars, very few people knew how capable of tafsir he was. Shams had deep knowledge in alchemy, astrology, astronomy, theology, philosophy, and logic, but he kept his knowledge hidden from ignorant eyes. Though he was a faqih, he acted as if he were a faqir.
He opened our doors to a prostitute and made us share our food with her. He sent me to the tavern and encouraged me to talk to drunks. Once he made me beg across from the mosque where I used to preach, forcing me to put myself in the shoes of a leper beggar. He cut me off first from my admirers, then from the ruling elite, bringing me in touch with the common people. Thanks to him I came to know persons I would have otherwise never met. In his belief that all idols that stood between the individual and God had to be demolished, including fame, wealth, rank, and even religion, Shams cut loose all the moorings that tied me to life as I knew it. Wherever he saw any kind of mental boundary, a prejudice or a taboo, he took the bull by the horns and confronted it.
For him I went through trial and tests, states and stages, each of which made me look more deranged in the eyes of even my most loyal followers. Before, I had plenty of admirers; now I have gotten rid of the need for an audience. Blow after blow, Shams managed to ruin my reputation. Because of him I learned the value of madness and have come to know the taste of loneliness, helplessness, slander, seclusion, and, finally, heartbreak.
Whatever you see as profitable, flee from it!
Drink poison and pour away the water of life!
Abandon security and stay in frightful places!
Throw away reputation, become disgraced and shameless!
At the end of the day, aren’t we are all put on trial? Every day, every passing minute, God asks us, Do you remember the covenant we made before you were sent to this world? Do you understand your role in revealing My treasure?
Most of the time, we are not ready to answer these questions. They are too frightening. But God is patient. He asks again and again.
And if this heartache, too, is part of a trial, my only wish is to find Shams at the end of it. My books, sermons, family, wealth, or name—I am ready to give up anything and everything, just to see his face one more time.
The other day Kerra said I was turning into a poet, almost despite myself. Though I have never thought highly of poets, I wasn’t surprised to hear that. At any other time, I might have objected to what she said, but not anymore.
My mouth is spewing out lines of poetry, constantly and involuntarily, and, listening to them, one might conclude that I am becoming a poet indeed. The Sultan of Language! But the truth, insofar as I am able to tell, is that the poems do not belong to me. I am only a vehicle for letters that are placed in my mouth. Like a pen that writes down the words it is ordered to inscribe or a flute that plays the notes blown into it, I, too, am simply doing my part.
Marvelous sun of Tabriz! Where are you?
Shams
DAMASCUS, APRIL 1247
By the time spring was in full swing in Damascus, and ten months had passed since my departure from Konya, Sultan Walad found me. Under a clear blue sky, I was playing chess with a Christian hermit named Francis. He was a man whose inner equilibrium did not tilt easily, a man who knew the meaning of submission. And since Islam means the inner peace that comes from submission, to me Francis was more Muslim than many who claim to be so. For it is one of the forty rules: Submission does not mean being weak or passive. It leads to neither fatalism nor capitulation. Just the opposite. True power resides in submission—a power that comes from within. Those who submit to the divine essence of life will live in unperturbed tranquillity and peace even when the whole wide world goes through turbulence after turbulence.
I moved my vizier in order to force Francis’s king to shift position. With a quick and brave decision, he moved his rook. I had begun to suspect I was going to lose this game when I lifted my head and came eye to eye with Sultan Walad.
“Nice to see you,” I said. “So you have decided to look for me after all.”
He gave me a rueful smile, then turned somber, surprised to hear that I was aware of the internal struggle he had been through. But being the honest man that he was, he didn’t deny the truth.
“I spent some time wandering around instead of looking for you. But after a while I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t bring myself to lie to my father. I came to Damascus and started looking for you, but you weren’t easy to find.”
“You are an honest man and a good son,” I said. “One day soon you’ll be a great companion to your father.”
Sultan Walad shook his head dolefully. “You are the only companion he needs. I want you to come back to Konya with me. My father needs you.”
Many things churned in my brain upon hearing this invitation, and none of them were clear at first. My nafs reacted with fear at the idea of going back to a place where I was clearly unwelcome.
Don’t listen to him. You are done with your mission. You don’t have to return to Konya. Remember what Baba Zaman told you. It’s way too dangerous. If you go back to that town you will never come out again.
I wanted to keep traveling the world, meet new people and see new cities. I had liked Damascus, too, and could easily stay there until the next winter. Traveling to a new place often engendered a dreadful sense of loneliness and sadness in the soul of a man. But with God by my side, I was content and fulfilled in my solitude.
Yet I knew too well that my heart was in Konya. I missed Rumi so much that it was too painful even to utter his name. At the end of the day, what difference would it make which city I stayed in, as long as Rumi was not beside me? Wherever he lived, there was my qibla.
I moved my king on the chessboard. Francis’s eyes flew open as he detected the fatal position. But in chess, just as in life, there were moves that you made for the sake of winning and there were moves you made because they were the right thing to do.
“Please come with me,” implored Sultan Walad, interrupting my thoughts. “The people who gossiped about you and treated you badly are remorseful. Everything will be better this time, I promise.”
/> My boy, you can’t make such promises, I wanted to tell him. Nobody can!
But instead I nodded and said, “I would like to watch the sunset in Damascus one more time. Tomorrow we can leave for Konya.”
“Really? Thank you!” Sultan Walad beamed with relief. “You don’t know how much this will mean to my father.”
I then turned to Francis, who was patiently waiting for me to return to the game. When he had my full attention, an impish smile crept along his mouth.
“Watch out, my friend,” he said, his voice triumphant. “Checkmate.”
Kimya
KONYA, MAY 1247
Bearing a mysterious gaze in his eyes and a distance in his demeanor that he’d never had before, Shams of Tabriz came back into my life. He seems to have changed a lot. His hair long enough to fall into his eyes, his skin tanned under the Damascus sun, he looks younger and more handsome. But there is something else in him, a change I cannot quite put my finger on. As bright and reckless as ever his black eyes might be, there is now a new glimmer to them. I can’t help suspecting he has the eyes of a man who has seen it all and doesn’t want to struggle anymore.
But I think a deeper transformation has been taking place in Rumi. I had thought all his worries would diminish when Shams came back, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. On the day Shams returned, Rumi greeted him outside the city walls with flowers. But when the joy of the first days somewhat abated, Rumi became even more anxious and withdrawn than before. I think I know the reason. Having lost Shams once, he is afraid of losing him again. I can understand as no one else can, because I, too, am afraid of losing him.
The only person I share my feelings with is Gevher, Rumi’s late wife. Well, she is not technically a person, but I don’t call her a ghost either. Less dreamy and distant than most of the ghosts I have known, she has been moving like a slow flow of water around me ever since I came to this house. Although we converse about everything, lately there is only one topic between us: Shams.
“Rumi looks so distressed. I wish I could help him,” I said to Gevher today.
“Perhaps you could. There is something occupying his mind these days, but he hasn’t shared it with anyone yet,” Gevher said mysteriously.
“What is it?” I inquired.
“Rumi thinks if Shams gets married and starts a family, the townspeople would be less set against him. There would be less gossip, and Shams would not have to leave again.”
My heart skipped a beat. Shams getting married! But to whom?
Gevher gave me a sidelong look and said, “Rumi has been wondering if you would like to marry Shams.”
I was stunned. Not that this was the first time the thought of marriage had crossed my mind. Now fifteen, I knew I had reached the age to marry, but I also knew that girls who got married changed forever. A new gaze came to their eyes, and they took on a new demeanor, to such an extent that people started to treat them differently. Even little children could tell the difference between a married woman and an unmarried one.
Gevher smiled tenderly and held my hand. She had noticed that it was the getting-married part that worried me, not getting married to Shams.
The next day, in the afternoon, I went to see Rumi and found him immersed in a book titled Tahafut al-Tahafut.
“Tell me, Kimya,” he said lovingly, “what can I do for you?”
“When my father brought me to you, you had told him that a girl would not make as good a student as a boy because she would have to marry and raise her children, do you remember that?”
“Of course, I remember,” he answered, his hazel eyes filled with curiosity.
“That day I promised myself never to get married, so that I could remain your student forever,” I said, my voice dwindling under the weight of what I was planning to say next. “But perhaps it is possible to get married and not have to leave this house. I mean, if I get married to someone who lives here …”
“Are you telling me you want to marry Aladdin?” Rumi asked.
“Aladdin?” I repeated in shock. But what made him think I wanted to marry Aladdin? He was like a brother to me.
Rumi must have detected my surprise. “Some time ago Aladdin came to me and asked for your hand,” he said.
I gasped. I knew it wasn’t proper for a girl to ask too many questions on such matters, but I was dying to learn more. “And what did you say, Master?”
“I told him I would have to ask you first,” Rumi said.
“Master …” I said, my voice trailing off. “I came here to tell you I want to marry Shams of Tabriz.”
Rumi gave me a look that bordered on disbelief. “Are you sure about this?”
“It could be good in many ways,” I said, as inside me the need to say more wrestled with the regret of having said too much. “Shams would be part of our family, and he wouldn’t ever have to leave again.”
“So is that why you want to marry him? To help him stay here?” asked Rumi.
“No,” I said. “I mean, yes, but that’s not all.… I believe Shams is my destiny.”
This was as close as I could get to confessing to anyone that I loved Shams of Tabriz.
The first to hear about the marriage was Kerra. In stunned silence she greeted the news with a broken smile, but as soon as we were alone in the house, she started to ask me questions. “Are you sure this is what you want to do? You are not doing this to help Rumi, are you?” she said. “You are so young! Don’t you think you should marry someone closer to your own age?”
“Shams says in love all boundaries are blurred,” I told her.
Kerra sighed loudly. “My child, I wish things were that simple,” she remarked, tucking a lock of gray hair into her scarf. “Shams is a wandering dervish, an unruly man. Men like him aren’t used to domestic life, and they don’t make good husbands.”
“That’s all right, he can change,” I concluded firmly. “I will give him so much love and happiness he will have to change. He will learn how to be a good husband and a good father.”
That was the end of our talk. Whatever it was that she saw on my face, Kerra had no more objections to raise.
I slept peacefully that night, feeling exultant and determined. Little did I know that I was making the most common and the most painful mistake women have made all throughout the ages: to naïvely think that with their love they can change the men they love.
Kerra
KONYA, MAY 1247
Broaching a subject as deep and delicate as love is like trying to capture a gusty wind. You can feel the harm the wind is about to cause, but there is no way to slow it down. After a while I didn’t ask Kimya any other questions, not because I was convinced by her answers but because I saw in her eyes a woman in love. I stopped questioning this marriage, accepting it as one of those odd things in life I had no control over.
The month of Ramadan went by so fast and busy, I didn’t have time to dwell on this matter again. Eid fell on Sunday. Four days later we married Kimya to Shams.
The evening before the wedding, something happened that changed my entire mood. I was alone in the kitchen, sitting in front of a floured board and a rolling pin, preparing flatbread for the guests. All of a sudden, without thinking what I was doing, I started molding a shape out of a ball of dough. I sculpted a small, soft Mother Mary. My Mother Mary. With the help of a knife, I carved her long robe and her face, calm and compassionate. So absorbed was I in this that I didn’t notice someone standing behind me.
“What is it that you are making, Kerra?”
My heart jumped inside my chest. When I turned around, I saw Shams standing by the door, watching me with inquisitive eyes. It occurred to me to hide the dough, but it was too late. Shams approached the tray and looked at the figure.
“Is that Mary?” he asked, and when I didn’t answer, he turned to me with a beaming countenance. “Why, she is beautiful. Do you miss Mary?”
“I converted long ago. I am a Muslim woman,” I answered curtly.
But Shams continued to talk as if he hadn’t heard me. “Perhaps you wonder why Islam doesn’t have a female figure like Mary. There is Aisha, for sure, and certainly Fatima, but you might think it is not the same.”
I felt uneasy, not knowing what to say.
“May I tell you a story?” Shams asked.
And this is what he told me:
Once there were four travelers, a Greek, an Arab, a Persian, and a Turk. Upon reaching a small town, they decided to get something to eat. As they had limited money they had only one choice to make. Each said he had the best food in the world in mind. When asked what that was, the Persian answered “angoor,” the Greek said “staphalion,” the Arab asked for “aneb,” and the Turk demanded “üzüm.” Unable to understand one another’s language, they began to argue.
They kept quarreling among themselves, feeling more resentful and bitter with every passing minute, until a Sufi who happened to pass by interrupted them. With the money collected the Sufi bought a bunch of grapes. He then put the grapes in a container and pressed hard. He made the travelers drink the juice and threw away the skin, because what mattered was the essence of the fruit, not its outer form.
“Christians, Jews, and Muslims are like those travelers. While they quarrel about the outer form, the Sufi is after the essence,” Shams said, giving me a smile that conveyed such excitement that it was hard not to be carried away by it.
“What I am trying to say is, there is no reason for you to miss Mother Mary, because you don’t need to abandon her in the first place. As a Muslim woman, you can still feel attached to her.”
