Bensalem Himmich - A Muslim Suicide

A warm embrace, overpowering love, uncontrollable feelings, and copious tears. God, the Truth, alone has the power and majesty!

WHEN SITT UMAMA LEFT, I spent the entire time till the end of Sha`ban secluded in my residence, performing various rituals and devotions, looking out for early signs of danger, and surrendering to a variety of daydreams and nightmares. Some of the memories were packed full of disturbing images while others were calmer and more comforting. They would emerge from the deep recesses of my memory, gleam brightly for a moment, and then disappear again deep into an abyss. How could I possibly hang on to such memories and even record them when my hand felt almost paralyzed and my entire body was weak and out of sorts?

Since I was spending so much time in seclusion and eating very little, Yasir took it upon himself to serve me instead of Ghaylan. Every time he brought me food or information, he would ask me anxiously how I was. I would try to calm him down and eat as much as I could.

"Sir," he told me one evening somewhat diffidently, "I'm stopping your students from coming to see you and telling them that you're away. I'm doing it because you need to be safe, and I realize that you want to stay in seclusion. That's particularly the case since I've noticed some strangers among them, and I'm not too happy about their being here. I think it would be a good idea for you to move to Al-Shushtari's room where I can keep my eye on you. There's a hiding place in it that no one knows about except me. By the right of the One who has life and death in His hands, I'll never allow you to fall into the hands of any tyrant, even though he may pluck my eyes out or cut off my limbs."

I shook the man's hand and offered prayers of thanks to him. I agreed to go along with his plan and asked him to offer my apologies to the students. Before leaving, he handed me a letter that he said he had received from a traveler whose name he did not reveal. I opened it, hoping dearly that it might be from either Abu `All al-Nasir or Khalid from Tangier and his wife, 'Abla. However, I discovered that it was from the Sufi poet Najm al-din ibn Isra'il of Damascus. He had prefaced it with a wonderful poem in which he extolled me and my religious position. I did not respond to his letter because I felt exhausted; indeed I found it impossible to write anything at all. God is witness to what I am saying, He being the most merciful of all.

So on the third day of Ramadan I moved to my new quarters. Once there, I felt a new sense of security under the protection of that holy man, Al-Shushtari- may God cure him and grant him what he wishes and desires! Quite by chance, I found the small dagger that I had hidden in my trouser belt when I was hiding in the cellar in the orchards by the Solomon's Spring and once again hid it in my belt in case of unforeseen problems. In this room the hiding place consisted of another cellar, this time smaller than the other one; no one could possibly notice the entrance unless they were shown where it was. Acting on Yasir's instructions, I had to use it twice during Ramadan: that happened when there was a hue and cry by the door of the residence, and it emerged afterward, so Yasir informed me, that the noise was caused by my own students and followers. I also took to going out to the sacred enclosure at night; I did it three times in all, accompanied and protected by Ghaylan.

On the Night of Power, which, as the Qur'an says, is "better than a thousand months," I made my way alone to the Ka`ba shrine. I did the circumambulation in disguise and ran between Safa and Marwa. My prayer was that my Lord, even in this final struggle, would enable me to strive toward the best arrangement possible, my primary state, and then He would still think well of me. My other prayer was that my Lord would afford me a gentle entry to the process of eliminating all trace and memory of my existence, through my love and devotion to Him, the Necessary Existent, the Absolute. There would be no slips of the tongue, no rantings and ravings, and no cursing the fate that is, in fact, God in person, something the Prophet of Islam had specifically forbidden.

On the first day in the month of Shawal I woke up early to find myself bleeding from the nose, something that I took as a symptom of my blood being purified and cleansed. I spent several hours on my back, trying to stop the nosebleed with rags and using some of my potions to staunch the flow. But when I had managed to stop it, I started to shiver. A fever crept its way through my joints, followed by a migraine that was more painful than anything I had ever experienced before.

Just when things reached their peak, Yasir asked to come in. I did my best to welcome him with a big smile so as to conceal from him the state I was in. I asked him whether any of my followers had asked after me.

"One of Abu Numa's messengers whom I recognized came to see me," he answered hesitantly and with obvious reluctance, "and told me that his master was traveling. But, before he left, the governor had instructed him to tell the holy man, Ibn Sabin, that his son, Hamada, had been put in prison in Egypt. Unless Ibn Sabin came to Cairo very soon, his son would be killed. The governordescendant of the Prophet himself-advised Ibn Sabin to show the necessary endurance in the face of such adversity."

So here is yet another terrible blow I am facing!

Hamada, who is just twenty-five years old, is now in the tyrannical clutches of those Mamluks loyal to Baybars.

So the Mamluk sultan now summons me to Cairo. But how can I possibly go there when my entire body is weak and in great pain? Even if I could, there is no way that I could save the poor boy from a dreadful fate.

Your sympathy, 0 Lord, Your sympathy, please!

I asked Yasir to bring me some herbs and liquids that I named, and he did so. Once he had done that, I asked him to stop keeping watch and not to be alarmed if he did not find me at home. Entrusting my papers and epistles to his care, I asked him to tell people that I had decided to move to Basra on my way to India. I instructed him to spend the rest of the gold money in my purses on the needy. When I hugged him, he was in tears. I told him not to knock on my door unless I called him. He left for a moment, then with apologies poked his head around the door and told me that one of the students whom he had stopped coming in to see me yesterday had claimed to be one of my Andalusian devotees, named `Abd al Ali al-Nasir. He went on to tell me that, after he had failed to get to see me, the student had said he would be going to visit the Prophet's mosque in Medina.

Yet one more piece of news assailing me like a thunderbolt!

So my beloved student al-Nasir had been there, just a few feet away on the other side of the door. And yet fate had decided to keep him away from me and prevent me from seeing him and giving him a hug.

0 Lord, Your sympathy, please!

Galen,* Al-Razi, all the physicians of Islam, please help me!

If any of you know how to make me well, please do it with my thanks. If not, then I'll have to leave my health in the hands of fate and wait until the heavens lower a rope and open a gate to the galaxies of heavenly existence.

My potions and medicaments managed to lessen some of the pain I was feeling, but only some. At least it was enough to enable me to get some sleep-undisturbed some of the time, but restless at others. When I became conscious again, I could recall some of the visions I had seen but not others. I can vividly recall one of them: my late wife, Fayha', appeared to me, riding a splendid and richly caparisoned horse. She leaned down with outstretched hands and begged me to mount the horse behind her. But when I tried, my legs would not move. I found myself stuck in a slimy marsh with fetid water. The only way I avoided asphyxiation and drowning was by waking up in a panic.