Bensalem Himmich - A Muslim Suicide

His colleagues indicated their agreement with what he was saying.

I told them to sit down under a blood-orange tree somewhat apart from the people who were swimming in the lake.

"`Amr," I said, anxious to clarify the obscure and simplify the complex, "it's perfectly fine for those young men to have some fun if it serves to prepare them to adopt a serious and committed attitude to life. As I've told you before, the human soul begins to feel overwhelmed when worries turn into a constant and recurring nightmare. The resolution of such feelings comes with initiative and enthusiasm.

"You talk about Spain, where at this point only a few unstable petty dynasties remain on the southern fringes of the Peninsula. However, I can tell you that, whenever you see me falling silent, it's precisely because that country is constantly on my mind. As far as I can see and surmise, the only way out of this crisis-and I've said this before-requires first and foremost that we ourselves bolster our spiritual armament and psychological stamina; in other words, we need to make sure that there's no weakening of our resolve or slackening of our personal pulse and resolution. We should also be relying on the political power of the Hafsids once they have established their control over the Maghrib territories, they being the heirs of the first generation of Almohads. Ah, hope, hope! Our Prophet Muhammad-peace be upon him! — said, `Hope is a mercy from God to my community. Without hope, no mother would ever nurse a child, and no one would ever plant trees.' Hope and action, they are the means of escape for those in the know: action and hope.

"Have I made things clear enough? I'll say it again: I am neither imam nor missionary. Peruse the texts I've recommended to you, then you can bring me your questions and problems. By then the essence will have matured and the parameters will be visible. At that point we'll be able to study them all by means of effective insight and constructive dialogue. Convey this message of mine to your friends, those who have come with you and the others who have not. Don't come back unless you have taken my words to heart and carried them out to the full. So, `Abd al why haven't you taken a swim?"

"In my pocket I'm carrying a piece of paper," he replied, "that I've kept with me all the way. It's a contract for the sale of your two houses in Murcia and Raquta. The offer comes from a Jew who claims he knows you. His name is Abu Zakariyya ibn Ezra."

"Yes, I do indeed know him. A while ago he sold me some rare books very cheap. But what about the indigents and vagrants who are living there? Where are they supposed to go?"

"All kinds of thieves and rogues have joined their number. They threw the poor folk out and turned the two houses into dens of vice. Ibn Ezra has promised in front of witnesses to take good care of the two houses, including the best interests of the people to whom you were committed, both Jews and Muslims."

"Fine then, bring over the contract for me to sign. Distribute the revenue from the sale among the poor and needy. Come on now, let's catch up with our friends; they seem to have had enough of the water too soon."

Now that the exercise and swimming had made them all feel hungry, a few of them approached me joyfully and asked my permission to eat some of the fruit off the trees. No sooner had I told them to go ahead and eat to their hearts' content than everyone started picking fruit, each one according to his own needs. When they had finished, I signaled to them all to sit down so they could rest for a while and contemplate their own souls.

Silence reigned, only broken by the swishing of the grass, the discourse of birds, and the rustle of leaves in the trees. After about an hour, I stood up and invited them all to think about what they had lived through and witnessed that day, in the hope that they might learn things from its particular lessons and indicators. Once I had said that, I bade them all farewell one by one, then went on my way to continue my stroll by myself.

Alone I walked up hill and down dale. According to doctors and sages, walking brings with it tremendous benefits and helps stave off stiffness and bodily shrinkage. So, my soul, put on your shoes and join me in exploring the world's different spaces! Travel with me and adopt a positive attitude!

It now felt as though all the elements, whether in succession or fragments, were not merely accompanying me, but also addressing themselves to my walking gait. Ideas-good heavens! — so, so many ideas kept coming to me, separately or all crowded together. Concentrating my attention on the most plausible and using them to guide my path, I proceeded to challenge myself on various issues and to act as my own interlocutor. I was considering contradictions and opposites, wresting from them whatever could be reckoned both constant and attribute. I was proclaiming the concord of their substantiality through the very extent of my own expansiveness and passion. When I was so engaged, I saw myself turning my back on all that was foolish and base. My longing, my desire for the truth, stretched forth like the coursing of blood through the veins, illuminating things for me through the atom and the very universe…

So were these the lights of transcendent knowledge passing through me? Was this then the grindstone of the one existence that was making itself known to me?

By all that is true, I am not some buffoon trekking through the wilderness nor have I lost my mind….

I had not brought a compass with me, so I was afraid that, if I kept on walking like this, I would get lost. I decided to go back the way I had come before it got dark and I would not be able to make out the way back to my residence. While I was walking through the mountain forest, I spotted an ascetic rolling in the mud and dust; it may have been the same one I had seen earlier with the group. I hurried over to him, but no sooner did I get close than he rushed off. I chased after him and watched as he shinned up a tall tree and lodged himself at the very top. I tried to climb up, but in vain. I only managed to get a grip on the huge trunk by making a pile of refuse and rocks, but the thick clusters of wet branches blocked my ascent. The effort wore me out, and I resorted to shouting out to him that he should come down and tell me who he was. When I shouted again, I heard a voice coming back to me like a whistling breeze:

"I am the one you espied craving to embrace the truth. By the very truth of that truth, you will never manage to comprehend me until you dispel all the encumbrances around you and lighten your load."

And with that, he simply vanished, almost as though he had borrowed some aerial pathways and transcended the treetops in leaps and bounds.

I continued on my way, pondering everything I had seen and heard. I do not know how it happened, but I managed to end up at the base of the mountain and then the port itself. It was only then that I became aware of an image, the quest for which had been guiding my way. I now decided it was better to go back to my residence rather than linger in a place where there was no commerce, whether buying or selling. When I reached the zawiya, all was quiet. Entering my room, I washed myself, did the ritual ablutions, then said my prayers. That done, I made straight for bed without eating anything or even reading a section from alMuhasibi's* Book of Contemplation, which lay open in front of me. What I really wanted was to go to sleep, a calm and gentle slumber.

NEXT MORNING I was eating breakfast and arranging papers and pens with a view to working on some pages of my letters when I heard a gentle tap on the door. The warden told me that he was sorry to disturb me but it was something important. I opened the door and welcomed him.

"Forgive me, Sir," he said, looking unusually flustered. "`Isa al-Aftasi has packed up and gone back to his family in Granada. He did not dare wake you up, but he made me promise to convey his thanks to you and his enormous gratitude for the way you managed to cure him of his illness. He has now made peace with the image in the mirror and confirmed that man is indeed more capable and noble than the ape. He no longer addresses such creatures with `hail to myself.' Things have reached such a point that he has now adopted a monkey and keeps telling it that he is himself, and the monkey is itself too. Cordiality and play are the only two things that bring both of them together."