Bensalem Himmich - A Muslim Suicide

Just as he was about to ask my permission to leave so he could continue with his duties, the bath attendant came over.

"God bless you and your famous fatwa, my fine master!" he yelled in a gruff tone. "Let the lunatics enter the bath one by one,' you said. You seem to have forgotten that a single madman is still utterly confused. How come you didn't think about that, 0 learned sage?"

"Shut your mouth, you rogue," said the warden in a harsh rebuke. "Do you know who you're talking to?"

"I'm talking to the person who's made a bad situation even worse, who apparently can't even see straight…"

"Keep your mouth shut, or else I'm going to complain to your boss!"

"He's the one who's annulled the fatwa by refusing to allow lunatics to enter the baths, even if it means using fists and canes."

That said, he went off guffawing. I then told `Abd al-Barr the whole story about the baths and the lunatics.

"Many, 0 how many, are the weird and amazing things I've witnessed on this mountain," he said, rubbing his hands together. "If I told you even one of the least complicated tales, it would soon make you forget all about this particular problem. 0 God, I ask for your forgiveness and protection!"

Saying farewell, he promised to return soon. With that he departed.

When the time for the engagement and wedding finally arrived, almost everything went according to plan, just as I had imagined it. There were only a few changes and refinements as demanded by the actual situation. The most significant differences were that her representative was her own uncle on her mother's side, Hajj Hamza al-Sarraj, a wealthy merchant from Tangier; the two witnesses were `Abd al-Barr al-Baradi'i, my friend the warden, and `Ukasha al-Khalti, the supervisor of the lunatics! The guest of honor at the wedding banquet was the governor of Sabta, Al-Husayn ibn Khalas, but the person who really got the party swinging was Al-Ghulam Ghazlan; neither of them had featured in my imaginings. The governor offered me his congratulations and gave me his warmest good wishes, so I exchanged compliments and affectionate greetings with him. As for the second, his mellifluous voice could be heard singing in the women's quarters and sometimes in the men's as well. He was egged on in his performance by the accompaniment provided by a group of Sudanese musicians. As he danced, he would say, "OK, you men, warm up the ambiance for me! Here we are at the wedding of Lalla Fayha' and Master `Abd al-Haqq. So sing along with me:

This risque young man only interrupted his song when he wanted the troupe to join with him, as they accompanied him in a muwashshah poem (by Abu alHasan al-Shushtari,* I think):

SO NOW HERE I AM living with my bride under a single roof, like butter and honey. We have been spending many wonderful hours in each other's company, chatting and sharing the sweet delights of married life. As a way of adjusting to life in my new home with all its facilities, I take the trouble to talk to the house staff. I often go up to a room on the roof where on one side I can look out at the sea and on the other at the mountain with its meadows and forests. I have also been taking a look at the archive of my late father-in-law, its shelves loaded with works on accounting, commentary, and law. The roof room and the archive are connected by a staircase that leads to the prayer-cell that my beloved promised to provide for me. The whole thing was built in short order, and, in spite of its small size (as I had requested), it nevertheless provides its occupant with an ideal space for seclusion and profound cogitation, the very acme of serenity and peace: no more furniture than necessary, windows open to the sky, and luxuriant gardens from which, night and day, it receives just enough light.

In leisure moments I took to searching the archive's library for useful works that I had not read before and organizing in my mind sections of a new book whose purposes and contents I had been carrying around in my head ever since my period in Spain had come to an end. I decided to put it into written form and polish it, all under a title that meant a great deal to me: Escape of the Gnostic. For me the word escape [budd] implies a number of notions: a line of poetry, the fulcrum of a millstone, a firm principle, or you might even say that it and its synonyms all blend together to produce a single meaning, namely the loftiest ideal, with no equal, the first and last, the perceived and hidden; the only path toward it involves uncovering its signs and secrets in the persona of an ever-striving humanity. Whoever knows himself knows his Lord, as the prophetic hadith puts it. The "gnostic" of my title is one who realizes that adjuncts and additions are mere coincidentals, or rather fantasies. Time consists of periods and moments; place mere sectors and partialities; and all of them collapse into something inferior to both unity and genuine cognizance. The gnostic person is someone who realizes all this and has experienced it, as a consequence of which he has demolished the normal icons of habit and instead adopted a posture whereby he strives for the essence of essences, the quality of qualities, and the perfection of perfections. That is all made possible by virtue of a lofty and cogent motivational force that such a gnostic can foster and strengthen by dint of his own efforts and abilities. By my own life, here resides the true significance of the struggle, one aimed at achieving a conception of divine abundance, an experience of the ever-present opaque eternity, a conjunction of the possible and Necessary Existent, one that results in a transcendent state through a permanent residence beneath its glory and beauty. Is it not God Himself who has said, "To Him shall you be gathered"; "Verily to your Lord is the return"; "Verily with your Lord is the final resort." If you are able to comprehend this clear divine discourse, then my commentary will be of help to you; if I become too complex, then it will make things easier.

0 God, within the welcoming folds of my beloved's house, let me focus my mind on You, and with all willingness and delight!

0 God, aid me and my beloved so that I can turn my self, my nature, and my situation entirely toward You!

0 God, give me a glimpse of the heavenly light of Your face in the beauty of my wife, she who is the means of my elevation and proximity to Your presence and Your kingdom. Amen!

As the second month of my marriage began, I asked my wife's permission to go up the mountain to the zawiya to collect my books and bring them back to my new prayer-cell. Thus it was that Bilal al-Sikkit accompanied me on the trip along with two mules. Putting the boxes of my library on their backs, he secured them with an unrivaled skill. When I went to greet the warden, I decided to leave him my clothes and some money to dispose of as he saw fit. It was very hard for `Abd al-Barr to say farewell, even though I promised to come and visit him whenever the occasion allowed. I felt a genuine nostalgia for the period I had spent residing on the mountain. Amid all the emotions at parting, he told me that, just before my marriage ceremony, he had learned some disturbing news from a passing traveler whom he trusted. However, he had decided not to tell me about it for fear of spoiling my happiness. When I pressed him, he told me that one of my students, 'Amr from Cordoba, had been killed in the suburbs of Granada after an armed engagement with a column of Castilian troops. The news came as a shock to me, and I could feel my expression pale in sorrow. Even so, I made do with a request for mercy on his soul and prayers to God. I asked the warden to direct any of my Spanish friends who asked after me to my new address, then told my companion to go on ahead of me since I wanted to ride on my own for a while as a way of lessening the overwhelming anxiety I was feeling.