Bensalem Himmich - A Muslim Suicide

My powers of seduction meanwhile remained at their strongest. When it came to "plowing the fields," those powers were full of vim and vigor, although once in a while they would flag and dry up. Without a doubt I was going to be pretty close (or even closer) to the sunset of the above-mentioned phase in my life.

Since at this point I am on the threshold of the project I am proposing to initiate (or to return to), this can be considered a kind of testament, something that I may already have recorded in a more effective and acceptable way in my missing manuscript. It has a token value, in that it traverses the different phases of life and every type of behavior: "He who seeks, wins; he who wins, profits; he who profits, can be kind; he who can be kind is zealous; he who is zealous increases his quest; he who increases his quest emerges with that which he neither intended nor anticipated; and that is his ultimate perfection…"

Any quest for beginnings is not like a return to them; the process of rotation only gains vivacity and strength through various phases and conditions-namely gain, profit, kindness, and energy. They are all aspirations aimed at plowing the realm of possibility and investigating the hidden aspects of the unseen.

So what exactly is my quest today?

I have none other than women.

If it were not for them, in the face of my current crisis and what happened to me earlier, I would already have surrendered myself to the fates in defeat and allowed the chips to fall where they may.

In their company I was the one who profited, gained sociability, and felt full of energy. They were the ones to call me by names normally used by disciples: Ibn Dara, magnet, master, to which they appended two others: comforter and curer. Even so, I never made the titles they gave me a point of pride or boast; instead I used them to comfort distressed women and provide services to lonely females who were either spinsters, widows, or divorcees-and how many of them there were in the region where I was living, between Murcia and the village of Raquta.* The same applied to other parts of Muslim Spain as it was being relentlessly torn apart.

Born innately softhearted and sensitive, I was endowed with all the handsome attributes one can imagine. So how could I possibly look at a woman who, deprived of strength and discretion, was suffering or languishing without extending to her a hand of mercy, all the while turning toward her Creator with frowning visage and asking bitterly, "Why, 0 Lord, why?"

Within a context such as this, I may forget a great deal, but there is one woman whom I can never forget. She had a Muslim father and a Byzantine mother. Before she committed suicide, I spent some time as her faithful lover, all in secret. My understanding was that her absolute and impetuous optimism was not merely a phase or a jest, but rather just one aspect of the skill she had in making light of her genuinely tragic feelings about existence; in other words, an antidote for the cursed portion of blows and disruptions that fate had decreed for her.

With regard to another of these women I will say, "A pox on hashish." And yet how beautiful she was, this Christian girl! I used to watch her during her waking hours as she spent time preparing her meals, then eating them in small bites or gulps, and all as part of some strange rituals that came from heaven knows where. She used to confront her critics with a series of rationales that, at least to my taste, were distinctly vaporous: hashish, she would say, helps me survey my altruistic relationships and erase the situation in which I find myself, even if it is only an illusion.

With that in mind, a friend we had in common commented sarcastically, "If hashish distributors in Badis,* purveyors, and members of the Hadawa Brotherhood* were made aware of this motivation for using their preferred drug, I'm sure they'd be glad to guarantee her a free supply for the rest of her life or what's left of it!"

If only I could recall the situation of other women, just a few brief snippets, I would have exactly the same things to say. Senses and comments all at the ready, I would invoke my nostalgia for all those women whom I loved, whether platonically or as part of an affair.

What I do know is that gossips and would-be legal experts who preferred superficial learning and tactics of suppression would regularly circulate intentionally false rumors about me during their gatherings. One of them, named Zayd Abu al-Hamlat, called me "seducer in chief," and then attributed to me words that I never uttered. The gist of it was that on my deathbed I would address this complaint to the bed: "Woe is me, forced to leave this world in which there are still so many women. Now my conquests will never win them. My only consolation lies in the prayer that on the day of my resurrection the angels will welcome me with all their feminine charms…"

On this matter I follow the lead of the Prophet: "In this world of yours perfume and women have been made beloved to me." If that is true of desert oases, then how much more should it be the case in the regions of Spain that remain in our hands and in this eastern city where I reside, a city with its river valley flowing downward from Shaqura,* bestowing lovely melodies amidst canals that are transported to the skies by water-wheels and accompanied by the tuneful songs of birds that make fruits and flowers glisten. A moist, scented breeze wafts perfumes across gardens and courtyards and distributes them as gifts and booty to promenaders and lovers.

It is from all these lovely examples of God's bountiful gifts and many others like them that the current invasion of Castilian, Leonian, and Aragonian Crusaders is striving to expel us. Meanwhile, our own sovereigns and their cliques, hearts rent asunder, have forgotten God, just as He has them. All they can do is strut around and take both excess and fear to bed with them, while with swords drawn they proceed to finish each other off.

My grief is two- or rather threefold, and my complaint is to God Almighty: first over my missing manuscript; second for Muslim Spain that Muslims are losing bit by bit; third and last for the loss of our spiritual nourishment, one limb at a time. When it comes to confronting these various aspects of my grief, discretion is becoming increasingly limited. By now it's become reduced to mere patience and the fortification of the soul with the good things in life.

So then, pleasures are the greatest resort.

"Save your energy and look for your manuscript among your former paramours. The thief may prove to be one of them. God knows best." This shout from the beyond coincided with the counsel I received from a female astrologer who appeared to me in a dream a few days ago. At first I did not take her seriously. "Ibn Sab'in," she told me, "the thief may be one of your former paramours, whether she's a Muslim like you, Christian or Jewish, or pagan. Who knows…"

IN THE COUNTRYSIDE northwest of Murcia there's a village on the side of a valley with verdant pastures, orchards, and abundant water. As has been noted earlier, it's called Raquta. A rider can get there in a few hours. It's there that I was born in the month of Rajab, 614 AH [1217 CE]. I owned an estate there that I inherited from my father-God have mercy on his soul! I had given part of it as a gift to Maymuna, the divorced wife of my elder brother, Abu Talib, and to my widowed sister, Zaynab. Every time I appeared in their midst, summer or winter, they used to pitch a tent for me, in accordance with my wishes. They would then compete with each other to make me happy and show me respect. From time to time they would remind me that the house was mine, to which I would respond that the house belonged to God alone and He could give it as an inheritance to whomsoever He wished. The two of them, I said, happened to be the ones He wished. Their principal goal was to leave me on my own so that I could devote myself to my studies. Whenever they were with me, they rarely spoke except when matters of great importance and moment were involved or else when I myself asked for information.