Bensalem Himmich - A Muslim Suicide

I took a sum of money out of my purse and gave it to her, mouthing some appropriately comforting words. She was amazed and delighted at my generosity. Imagine my surprise therefore when, just as the boat was anchoring, I saw my neighbor who had been snoring so loudly leap up and yell at the woman, "That lewd woman, my Lord, keeps going back and forth across the straits. With every voyage she manages to arouse people's sympathy by exposing her breast and her baby and cooking up a whole load of stories. By God, they're all a pack of lies!"

I took the man aside. "Abdallah," I said, trying to calm him down.

"How do you know my name?" he asked in amazement.

"We're all Abdallahs, God's servants," I replied.

"True enough. Just two weeks ago that woman told me a story too, and I gave her some money just as you have. Then last week she told me another one that made me forget the first! This time, the story was that her husband was laid up in bed because of a wound he'd suffered at the hands of the Castilians. He'd given her the task of collecting enough funds so that the two of them could escape with their baby as Muslims and cross over to Sabta. But this time I had no choice but to expose this trickster woman in full sight and hearing of all the passengers."

By now the woman herself had vanished into thin air and was not to be found among the disembarking passengers.

"You did wrong, my good man!" I said, turning back to him. "If you'd told me about this beggar woman when she was still with us, I would have given her even more. When this woman is forced to expose herself in public, it's poverty that's showing us the one weapon she possesses, her imagination. That is her only recourse, her means of livelihood, just as is the case with writers who compose poetry, stories, and books of magamat* and zajal* poetry. She only told me one story. Had she told me many more, I would have given her yet more money. I am not bothered as to whether or not they are true. Our Lord is generous in both His rewards and forgiveness."

"Servant of God," the man replied, concealing his annoyance and amazement, "I don't think you can be either a merchant or a politician. And you can't be planning to stay in Sabta."

"You're correct on the first point, my brother," I replied, "but only circumstance and fate can tell whether you'll be right about the second."

He paused for a moment. "The people in Sabta," he said before saying farewell, "are either merchants like me or else merchants in politics. Among the rest of the elite you'll find legal specialists who play fast and loose with the Maliki school of law. Haven't you heard that Sharif Idrisi and even Judge Ayyad have both had to flee from this city of theirs? If you are of the Sufi persuasion, then your stay in this city-provided things work out well-will not be a long one. Just consider the case of God's saint, Abu al from Sabta.* He was forced to flee from Marrakesh. Once you've done that, you should bear the consequences in mind…"

After checking on my baggage, I mounted my horse and scanned the scene. Looking back, I could make out the woman with all the stories in the distance getting back on the ferryboat in preparation for the return trip to Algeciras. I made for an empty space close by and sat down on a tree stump in order to think about my situation and the next phase in my journey. However I was soon overcome by a powerful need for sleep and started having a very vivid dream. In it the ferryboat was being tossed around by a savage thunderstorm; the woman with all the stories was recounting the terrors of the sea, while the men on board kept trying in vain to shut her up. I watched as the merchant from Sabta picked up both her and her child and threw them overboard into the raging seas. Only a few moments later the winds snatched at the boat's sails, dragged it down, and rolled it completely over. Everyone, myself included, was tossed into the waters and began screaming for help in a total panic. At first I tried to help others, but then I was swimming for my own life. It was useless, and there I was staring death in the face. I handed things over to God Almighty and started sinking, sinking, sinking…

"sABTA, WITH ITS SEVEN HILLS, will become the base from which I will be operating, my line of defense, and my refuge. It is there that I intend to investigate the state of affairs and appropriate spiritual postures and to engage with the foundations of measures." That is what I had told my students on the day I left Murcia, and I expounded on it whenever they came to me, either as individuals or as groups from Granada and its environs where most of them had been forced to seek refuge.

By now almost two years have passed since my arrival in Sabta.

News kept on arriving about the way the cities of Spain were being swallowed up. More personal bits of information concerned the way my elder brother was involving himself in corrupt politics. I also kept hearing about people dying: men I had known, my servant Salman, and some of my students who had been killed. More recently, my sister, Zaynab, had died too. Shortly before her own death she had sent me news of Maymuna's passing.

"You'll remember, dearest of brothers," she had written to me, "the day when I told you that, when you had come back from your excursion together, she had slept better than ever before. You asked me how that could be, and I told you that she was just like a nursing baby that had got everything that it could want or desire. It was only one hour after your departure that I realized that she had closed her eyes forever. I didn't tell you about it at the time because I didn't want to add another source of pain to all your worries."

I learned that my two houses in Murcia and Raquta were now being used as refuges for crowds of indigents, sick people, and beggars. May God come to the aid of all of them!

I spent two years living in retreats and guest-houses, frequenting the shoreline, markets, the port, and other places such as baths and mosques. All the while I was meeting Sufis and other students, and convened a few learning circles as the occasion demanded. When I finally felt the need to spend time studying on my own, I moved to a zawiya* on the east side of Sabta by Jabal Musa. The sultan's chamberlain, Muhammad ibn Abi `Amir, had built a city on this spot with a view to moving the people of Sabta to it, but death had prevented him from doing so. Some two centuries or more later, all that was left of it were some walls and a few ruined buildings inside.

Near the zawiya was a wonderful, blessed spring that provided guests and passers-by with water for drinking and washing. Looking north from the mountain it was possible to gaze out over the straits, while to the south lay the restive Mediterranean and the port providing a refuge from the stormy winds. Wherever you looked, there were other small mountains, covered from top to bottom with various kinds of trees and plentiful plant life.