The Theocrat: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Literature) by Bensalem Himmich Page A

I feel,” said al-Hakim, “for all those people who die otherwise than by my sword. Shoeless one, how much I regret the power I have to kill you. If your fondness for life were not weaker than a spider’s thread, I would have no compunction about consigning you to your grave.”
    “How true, my lord,” replied the shoeless Sufi. “If people were like me in disdaining their life here on earth and aspiring to what is more ideal and worthy in their hearts, you would have no authority over them. Your oppression and terror would have no effect.”
    “Leave my covering where it is,” interrupted al-Hakim. “Raise it no further! Instead, since you stand here before me, reveal to us the pages of your enlightened ideas. What do you have to say about peace and love?”
    “Peace is the pact whereby we all live with each other. If someone else inclines to it, then I follow in my turn, offer him my greetings, present roses and doves to him, and pray for his safety. Then I go on my way feeling secure and at ease. When I feel possessed by love, I declare it to my beloved in beautiful words marked by their grace and charm. I try to fill his heart with sweetness and to become like a tree with fruit always available. For me he is goal and helper, someone to stand by as I proceed on my way. However, if my beloved dies in my arms while I am still alive and cognizant, then I will inevitably weep sad tears, fully aware of the essence of death and that in both beginning and end there is violence and cruelty. Thus I rebel and almost recant.”
    Al-Hakim was clearly much affected by this. “What happens when you’re hungry,” he asked, “or when you feel lonely and go crazy?”
    “When I’m hungry,” the shoeless Sufi replied, “I intone a verse of the Qur’an and use that as food. If the verse gives forth, then I am filled; if it does not, then I hunt birds and pilfer food from ants. If I feel lonely, either I go out into the desert and yell till the wild beasts ask me how I feel, or I go out among the people and offer radical advice, or else I go and roam outside the city. When I feel crazy, my inner vision is sharpened and empowered. I turn into an eye that sees, a thousand lips that intone transcendent thoughts as I recite what I see. And, because I disclose the truth and counsel rebellion, I am forever being taken off to prison or the mental asylum.”
    By now al-Hakim was trembling. “And what about when you’re ill and close to death?”
    “In that case,” replied the shoeless Sufi, “I will donate what I have earned to simpletons, read the Fatiha of existence, embrace my dear friends, and say farewell. Then I’ll write on the walls of markets and alleys, on tree stumps and rivers, on gravestones and flowers in cemeteries, I’ll write the instructions of water and daylight. Then I shall surrender my spirit to the elements.”
    “Ah, how alike we are!” said al-Hakim, sweat pouring from his brow. “How much I aspire to be like you! If only you could have come to me in my seclusion in the Muqattam Hills, you would have found me there pure and concealed, head bare, countenance transformed, stomach empty. My only companion there was contemplation of the unity of God; the absolute was my only goal. Now go back to your desert and direct your prayers toward forgiveness for all those who go astray and overstep their station.”
    At this point al-Hakim stood up as though bringing the session to an end. There were still a man and two women inside the cage.
    “You, old man,” said al-Hakim, “didn’t you hear about my interdiction of drinking, transporting, or trading in wine? Didn’t I run into you on a narrow bridge in broad daylight, scrambling away on a donkey loaded up with what I have explicitly forbidden? Where had you come from and where were you going with it?”
    “I was coming from God’s own narrow earth,” the man replied boldly, “and that’s where I was going,”
    “So you’re determined to make a