The Halqa-e Zikr continued. The rise and fall of the concerted waves of voice and body. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar . . . I watched from my place. At one point it felt as though the prayer room was flying through space. Just like the birds in the compositions of Fariduddin Attar of Nishapur, who flew behind the hoopoe, the bird of knowledge, towards Mount Qaf. What I heard was not human utterance but the sound of wings. I flew along with them. Someone said from afar, ‘Come back to earth, Shaikh. You must travel on foot, flight is not for you. You have to walk to all the places you want to visit, see all you want to see. The birth of man, his death, his becoming god and the devil. You must walk and you must observe, Shaikh, this form of devotion is not for you.’
— Why not?
— You are here to write of the itinerant life, Shaikh. No one can write once they have accomplished their mission.
— Why not?
— These letters, and then words, and then sentences, that are written on your manuscript are all answers to questions. Writing is nothing but a long journey of confronting questions. Accomplishment will bring you peace, but will not make a writer of you. This peace and union together is fana, the annihilation of self. Which do you want, Shaikh? Fana, or to write?
— To write.
— Why do you want it?
— Writing is magical. It remains, and it vanishes. I want both of these.
Every night I fell asleep during the Halqa, only to be woken up by Ibn Kalam.
— Why do you fall asleep every night, Shaikh? Qazi asked me.
— This Zikr transports me somewhere, I don’t know where . . .
— Why don’t you join us? The Zikr unburdens both the mind and the body.
Smiling, I told him, ‘This is not my path, Qazi sahib.’
— Why not?
— I have a long way to go. I shall not go back home till I have seen much, much more.
— But you will have to go back home one day, Shaikh.
— When?
— No one but Allah knows . . .
Qazi Ibn Kalam set out with me that night.
— Where are we going?
— To hear the flute. In Meram.
— At this hour of the night?
— We’ll get a carriage. Don’t worry. It’s Friday. A mystic visits Meram on Friday nights to play the flute.
— Whom does he play for?
— For Maulana.
We heard the strains of the flute as soon as we reached Meram. Like a torrent of teardrops rending the sky apart. I felt as though we were not on earth but floating in space, flailing about in a cosmic current of incessant weeping. When we reached the river I shouted, ‘Tell him to stop, Qazi sahib, I cannot bear such sadness.’
The dervish stopped playing the flute and burst out laughing. Coughing between gusts of laughter, he said, ‘You are a flute too, my son. Do you remember the forest of reeds from which you were sliced off?’
— No, Maulana.
— There is only one Maulana. We are all his disciples. Can you hear the weeping within yourself? Do you know why the flute weeps?
Without waiting for an answer, the dervish began to play his flute again. When I woke up in the morning, Meram was deserted. Neither Qazi nor the mystic was present. The waters of the stream were flowing over my feet.
When I returned to the Dervish Inn, Qazi Ibn Kalam embraced me.
— Where were you all night, Shaikh?
— Why, don’t you know where I was?
— I looked for you all night.
— But you . . .
— I what?
— You took me to Meram to listen to the dervish playing the flute.
— Me?
— Don’t you remember?
Smiling, Qazi said, ‘Go to bed now, Shaikh. Sleep through the day.’
— Why?
— You listened to the flute all night. Do you know why the flute weeps?
— It wants to return to the wood of reeds from which it was taken.
Qazi embraced me again. — I will take you to a calligraphist tomorrow.
— Will it be you or someone else? I asked, smiling.
— That’s true, I have no idea who took you there last night. But tomorrow it will be me. You will leave soon. If the book can be completed before you go . . .
— What book?
— The novel about Maulana that Yaqut al-Mustasimi is writing. You can take the manuscript with you.
THREE
Several lanes had to be crossed to reach Yaqut al-Mustasimi’s workshop. Everyone called it Al-Mustasimi’s adabistan, home of books, abode of literature. A dark staircase led to an enormous hall on the first floor, with innumerable doors and windows. Just outside lay fields of grain, with the hills beyond them. Mustasimi’s adabistan was on the edge of Konya. I believe his book-making workshop was at the heart of the city once upon a time. But as Mustasimi grew older, he began to look for a location near fields and mountains. A merchant who came to know of this donated this house to Mustasimi. Walking through the lanes leading to the workshop, I could not have imagined the wondrous luminescence that awaited me. Before entering the hall, I stood in the balcony to admire the exquisite design of nature, the green fields and the grim mountains, while clouds clustered in the sky. Someone whispered in my ear, look at this, Shaikh, look at this incomparably beautiful dance, which has never begun, which will never end. Dance, dance in your blood, Maulana had written in one of his poems.
With his shoulder-length white hair and white beard, Al-Mustasimi resembled an angel. His robe was a patchwork of different colours. He stooped with age, and his vision was blurred. Qazi Ibn Kalam had told me that he had personally written more than a thousand copies of the Quran. Al-Mustasimi ran his adabistan with about forty students. Some of them wrote, some illustrated, and many of them were involved in book-binding.
His chamber of pen and ink was fragrant with the scent of ittar. The Lord lived in this room, writing our lives with his pen. Sometimes his pen and ours merge. We copy this noble calligraphist when we write for ourselves. Time can never erase what the pen writes. Al-Mustasimi had told me later, ‘Remember this, Shaikh, calligraphy is divine geometry. To master this geometry the pupil must first study the teacher’s calligraphy with close attention, taking it into his eyes. We call this phase of learning the art of calligraphy nazari. Then comes the kalami, when identical copies of the calligraphy must be made with quills. It is a prolonged apprenticeship. Only then can the real calligraphist emerge, when he qualifies for the ikazet, the authorization to actually write a book.’
The scratches of pens running over paper could be heard in the adabistan. So many hues in the ink pots— black, scarlet, the sheen of gold, the calm beauty of the colour extracted from sapphires. On the other side of the hall books were being bound. I was drunk on the smell of ink, pens and glue. I felt as though I had been born of the agony of writing a single letter, in a room just like this where calligraphy was practised.
Learning who I was, Al-Mustasimi gripped my hand tightly, saying, ‘So you are out to conquer the world, Shaikh?’
— You think I am capable of such a feat? Sultans conquer the world.
— Never mind the sultans. Do you suppose the world can be conquered by killing people? Maulana had written:
I am so small, barely visible
How can I bear such deep love?
Look at your eyes. So small,
Yet how large the things they see.
It is with these eyes that you have gone out into Khuda-tallah’s world, Shaikh. I envy your fortune. And my life has passed copying manuscripts in a tiny room.
— You have seen the world through your books. You have seen the world in a grain of sand.
— I don’t know. But living amongst these pens and ink and manuscripts, I feel he lives in my adabistan.
— He is indeed here, janab.
— You believe that? Al-Mustasimi looked at me, his eyes misty.
— He invented the pen first, t
hen the ink pot.
— Tell us, Shaikh, tell us how we were born.
— Using the ink from the ink pot he wrote about us.
— And we were born. Trembling, Al-Mustasimi rose to his feet. — We came into being from his pen, every single book.
Some of Al-Mustasimi’s students surrounded him.
— Calm down, huzoor.
— Give me a pen, let me write Bismillah’s name.
The quill seemed to fly like a bird as Al-Mustasimi started writing on a sheet of white paper.
When he had finished he handed it to me. — Keep this with you all the time as you travel the world, Shaikh. He, the stork, will take you back home again. This life of ours is actually a tale of homecoming.
— I wonder when I’ll return . . .
— I’m not talking of your birthplace. That’s not your home. The question is, when will you return to Khuda’s pen, to the ink pot . . . Ha ha ha . . .
Suddenly Qazi Ibn Kalam asked, ‘How far are you from finishing your own book?’
— My own book?
— The Masnavi you’re writing about Maulana.
Laughing, Al-Mustasimi said, ‘Really, Qazi sahib, do you think there’s anything like one’s own book? All this time that I’ve spent writing the Quran—is it not my own book? I have tried to write each and every Quran as beautifully as I can. If you ever examined the books, Qazi sahib, you’d see that I have tried to discover the Lord afresh in every Quran I have written.’
— How did you try to find him anew? Qazi Ibn Kalam frowned.
— I shan’t argue, Qazi sahib. Al-Mustasimi stopped smiling.
— Just asking. Qazi smiled.
— You will know for yourself one day. Let me tell you what you wanted to know. It’ll take some more time to complete the Masnavi about Maulana. As you realize, I can barely see. But what use will it be to you?
— I was thinking, if the Shaikh were to take it around the world . . .
— Then I’ll have to make a copy.
— I’m sure one of your students here can do it quickly.
— That’s true. Al-Mustasimi trained his dull eyes on me again. — Do you really want to take it with you, Shaikh?
— I do.
After a pause, Al-Mustasimi said, ‘Then you’ll have to spend a few days in my adabistan. And while you’re here I shall tell you incredible stories.’
— I’m ready, I told him excitedly.
— You’ll stay in my guest chamber. You’ll be very comfortable. Kimia knows how to take care of guests.
— Who’s Kimia?
— My daughter. Khuda had left her on the road for me. Nothing but a virgin sheet of paper. She’s turning into a book now. A real book of the heart. Dilkitab.
Al-Mustasimi’s guest chamber was a small room on the second-floor terrace. I moved from the Caliph Dervish Inn to his well-appointed little room. Standing on the terrace made me want to fly over the fields of grain towards the mountains. A song floated in from somewhere in a language from the future of a faraway land I did not understand: ‘Why was the sky trembling, why was the ground dancing.’
Al-Mustasimi told me, ‘I will come to your ibadat khanah after the evening namaz every day.’
— You have given me this house of worship yourself, janab.
— Who am I to give anything, Shaikh? I’d been looking for a place like this for years. It was the Lord who made sure I got it. You cannot sit in the middle of the town and write books. You must see the greenery now and then, the mountains from time to time. You become one with the grains in the field, and you put your arms around the mountains so that you can disappear in the distance. How can you get your pen strokes right without this? That’s why I was seeking such a place like a mad dog. As they say, your worship will fail if you fritter away your time. You will see the fields of grain by day of course, Shaikh, but you must stay awake one night to feel the mountains. Oh the wind that blows on the mountain peak—it will make you feel as though a storm is battering the doors of your heart.
The work of writing and illustrating books began early in the morning at Al-Mustasimi’s adabistan. The next morning I told him, ‘I want to learn the art of writing books while I’m here, janab.’
— What use is it for you? You’ll never write a book.
— No harm learning.
Al-Mustasimi smiled. — Don’t try to master every art, Shaikh. Observe, listen. But make your wish to your mentor only for the path that is yours. You’d better go with Kimia instead.
— Go where?
— To the mountain. Kimia takes the sheep out to graze every day. Walk around with them, Shaikh. Kimia plays the flute very well, too.
I had seen Kimia already the previous night. She had brought my dinner to my room. I don’t know how to describe her. I have heard many dervishes speak of the full moon on a moonless night. A dark-skinned girl—I was sure the foundling Kimia had Moorish blood, for her eyes were like an arrow strung up in a bow; she had a generous forehead, a prominent nose, thick lips, and long arms. She moved as swiftly as a deer in the wild. Most of all I liked it when she laughed, for she often turned into a waterfall of laughter.
I would go out with Kimia every morning. She would drive the sheep along a path cutting through the heart of the fields towards the mountain, and I would follow, running when I fell out of rhythm with her. Grazing on the grass and foliage, the sheep would wander high up the hillside, white dots and stars from a distance. Once the sheep had been let loose Kimia and I would sit by a waterfall. Kimia would bring food for both of us. She talked incessantly. I felt that her unending conversation was not with me but with herself. She played the flute whenever the fancy took her. I remained sitting, looking at the moon on a moonless night.
My days passed with Kimia on the mountain and listening to the nearly blind Al-Mustasimi tell stories in the evening. In the isolation of the mountain, amidst the sounds of the waterfall coursing down, touching the rocks, I did not even realize when Kimia and I discovered each other’s bodies. One day Kimia asked me, ‘Will you take me with you?’
— Take you where?
— Wherever you go.
For a long time I couldn’t answer. Then I said, ‘I will, Kimia. I will.’
FOUR
Welcome, Shaikh. Our stories start this evening. Pray to the Lord to keep us safe while we tell this story, may it cover us like a shroud in our graves too. Remember, there are many tales in these verses. The stories and poems move about in the earth and sky and wind and space like pollen grains. I will tell you the story of a dervish’s life. Some people say the title of this story is Bagh-o Bahar. The Garden and Spring. How will you reach Maulana’s life without crossing the garden and the spring, Shaikh? The spring is nothing but the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who gives new life to dead trees. Listen to what Maulana is saying, everyone has eaten their dinner and gone to bed. The house is absolutely empty. Come, let us go into the garden, so that the apples can consort with the peaches. We will bear messages between the roses and the magnolias. Christ is spring, he removes the shroud covering dead plants to awaken them. In gratitude their lips part, they want kisses. Do you know why the rose and the tulip are burning? There’s a flame within them.
As we weave the tale of the dervish it is this flame in whose search our journey begins, Shaikh. Now for the story. Azad Bakht was the Sultan of Turkistan at the time. Don’t ask which year it was. Time in a story is an endless flow, with neither a beginning nor an ending. The Sultan’s capital was Constantinople. There was unlimited wealth in the treasury, and everyone was happy with the Sultan’s administration. There was no theft, no robbery; the doors of houses and shops weren’t even locked at night.
Sultan Azad Bakht was a god-fearing man. There was both happiness and peace in the kingdom, but his only regret was not having a son. After offering the namaz five times a day, he would constantly pray to Allah for a male child. As you can imagine, Shaikh, the palace appeared dark to him without a son. Who would preserve
his lineage after his death, who would occupy the throne? He was a ruler by nature, after all—despite being god-fearing he never lost his sense of entitlement. But then, it was also true that the Lord had made him the Sultan, and it was he who had given him his rights. Nothing is possible unless Allah wills it. Who are we to judge?
The Sultan had just passed forty. Walking around in the shishmahal one day, he stopped abruptly on seeing himself in a mirror. Do you know what he saw? A single white hair in his beard, glittering like silver. A sigh emerged. Looking at his own reflection, he muttered, ‘What have I achieved in this life, my Lord? What will I do with this huge Sultanate and all this gold and jewels? The Day of Judgement is not far. A male heir is not in my destiny. There’s no one to leave all this to.’
The Sultan decided to forsake his realm and spend his remaining days praying to Khuda. He told his prime minister and other ministers to look after the kingdom now and not disturb him anymore. His days passed in fasting and praying. There was no one who dared request him to return from his self-imposed exile.
As soon as the news of the Sultan’s abdication spread, trouble began to brew. Scoundrels became active, and revolts and riots erupted across the kingdom. You could say that a peaceful state was swallowed by anarchy. But who was willing to inform the Sultan of all this and ask him to return to the task of administration? After consultations, the ministers appeared at the door of the oldest prime minister, Khiradmand.
A Mirrored Life Page 3
