Amin Maalouf - Samarkand

Hassan reacted as if his dignity had just been held up to ridicule.

‘I do not seek to avenge my miserable person, I desire to destroy Turkish power.’

Omar looked at his friend: he had exchanged his black turban for another, white but covered in sand, and his clothing was of coarse and threadbare wool.

‘You appear so sure of yourself! I can only see before me an outlaw, a hunted man, hiding from house to house, whose whole equipment consists of this bundle and this turban while yet thinking yourself the equal of an empire which extends over all the orient from Damascus to Herat!’

‘You are speaking of what is. I speak of what will be. The New Order will soon position itself against the Seljuk Empire. It will be intricately organized, powerful and fearsome and will cause Sultan and vizirs to quake. Not so long ago, when you and I were born, Isfahan belonged to a Persian Shiite dynasty which imposed its law on the Caliph of Baghdad. Today the Persians are no more than the servants of the Turks, and your friend Nizam al-Mulk is the vilest servant of these intruders. How can you establish that what was true yesterday is unthinkable for tomorrow?’

‘Times have changed, Hassan. The Turks are in power and the Persians have been vanquished. Some, like Nizam, seek a compromise with the victors, and others, like me, take refuge in books.’

‘And yet others fight. They are only a handful today, but tomorrow they will be thousands, a great decisive and invincible army. I am the apostle of the New Prediction. I will travel the country without respite. I will use persuasion as well as force and, with the aid of the Almighty, I shall fight against corrupt power. I am telling you, Omar, since you saved my life one day: the world will soon witness events whose import will be understood by few men, but you will understand. You will know what is happening, what is shaking this earth and how the tumult will end.’

‘I do not wish to cast any doubt upon your convictions or your enthusiasm, but I remember having seen you fight at the court of Malikshah with Nizam al-Mulk over the favours of the Turkish Sultan.’

‘You are mistaken to suggest that I am such an ignoble person.’

‘I am not suggesting anything. I am simply mentioning some unpalatable facts.’

‘They are due to your ignorance of my past. I cannot take offence at you for judging things by their appearance, but you will see me differently when I have told you my real history. I come from a traditional Shiite family. I was always taught that the Ismailis were simply heretics until I met a missionary, who, through a long discussion with me, shook my faith. When I decided not to speak to him any more for fear of giving in to him, I fell so seriously ill that I thought it was my last hour. I saw a sign, a sign from the Almighty, and I made an oath that if I survived I would convert to the faith of the Ismailis. I recovered overnight. None of my family could believe my sudden recovery.’

‘Naturally I kept my word and took the oath and at the end of two years I was assigned a mission to get close to Nizam al-Mulk, to infiltrate his diwan in order to protect our Ismaili brothers in difficulty. Thus I left Rayy for Isfahan and stopped en route at a caravansaray in Kashan. Finding myself alone in my small room, I was in the middle of wondering how I get close to the Grand Vizir when the door opened and who should enter but Khayyam, the great Khayyam whom heaven sent to me there to facilitate my mission.’

Omar was dumbstruck.

‘To think that Nizam al-Mulk asked me whether you were an Ismaili and I replied that I did not think so!’

‘You did not lie. You did not know. Now you do.’

He broke off.

‘You have not offered me anything to eat?’

Omar opened the door, called the servant, ordered her to bring some dishes and then continued his questioning:

‘And you have been wandering about for seven years dressed as a Sufi?’

‘I have wandered about much. When I left Isfahan I was pursued by agents of Nizam who were after my life. I shook them off at Qom where some friends hid me and then I continued my journey to Rayy where I met an Ismaili who suggested that I go to Egypt, to the missionary school where he had studied. I made a detour through Azerbaijan before going on to Damascus. I was planning to travel to Cairo on the land route, but there was fighting between the Turks and the Maghrebis around Jerusalem and I had to turn back and take the coastal route through Beirut, Sidon, Tyre and Acre where I found a place on a boat. Upon my arrival in Alexandria I was received as a high-ranking Emir. A reception committee was waiting for me, headed by Abu Daud, the paramount chief of the missionaries.’

The servant had come in and placed some bowls on the carpet. Hassan started a prayer which he broke off when she left the room.

‘I spent two years in Cairo. There were several dozens of us at the missionary school, but only a handful of us were destined to be active outside Fatimid territory.’

He avoided giving out too many details. It is known however, from various sources, that courses were held in two different places: the principles of the faith were revealed by the ulema in the university of Al-Azhar, and missionary propaganda was taught within the Caliphal palace. It was the chief missionary himself, a high ranking official of the Fatimid court, who revealed to the students the methods of persuasion, the art of developing a line of argument and of addressing reason instead of aiming for the heart. It was also he who made them memorise the secret code they had to use in their communications. At the end of every session, the students came to kneel before the chief missionary who passed over their heads a document bearing the signature of the Imam. Then another, shorter, session would be held for the women.

‘In Egypt I received all the instruction I needed.’

‘Did you not tell me, one day, that you already knew everything at the age of seventeen?’ Khayyam said mockingly.

‘By the age of seventeen I had accumulated information, then I learnt how to believe. In Cairo I learnt how to convert.’

‘What do you say to those whom you are trying to convert?’

‘I tell them that faith is nothing without a master to teach it. When we proclaim: “There is no God but God,” we immediately add “And Mohammed is his Messenger.” Why? Because it would make no sense to state that there is only one God if we do not quote the source, that is to say the name of the man who brought us this truth. But this man, this Messenger, this Prophet, has been dead a long time and how can we know that he existed and that he spoke as was reported. I, who like you have read Plato and Aristotle, need proof.’

‘What sort of proof? Can one find proof for those things?’

‘For you Sunnites there is effectively no proof. You think that Mohammed died without appointing an heir, that he just left the Muslims to their own devices to be governed by the strongest and wiliest. That is absurd. We think that the Messenger of God named a successor as a depository for his secrets: the Imam Ali, his son-in-law, his cousin and almost his brother. In his turn, Ali designated a successor. The line of legitimate Imams was thus perpetuated, and through them, the proof of the message of Mohammed and of the existence of a single God was passed down.’

‘I cannot see, in what you say, how you differ from other Shiites.’

‘The difference between my faith and that of my parents is great. They always taught me that we must submit patiently to the power of our enemies while waiting for the hidden Imam to return and establish the rule of justice on earth and reward the true believers. My own conviction is that we must act immediately to prepare by any means for the advent of our Imam in this country. I am the Precursor, he who will smooth the way in preparation for the Mahdi. You surely are aware that the Prophet spoke of me?’