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The City
The city was long ago, let alone nowadays, life's nightmare
and not its pleasure as is thought. If ithad been a pleasure,
it would have been so planned. But the city has never been
established for luxury, pleasure, or joy. Rather, the city is
a scavenging multitude in which people find themselves by
necessity, as no one ever comes to live in the city for
pleasure. so much as for a living, greed, toil, want ...and
employment, which forces him to live in the city.
The city is a cemetery for social ties : whoever sets foot in
it has to swim over its waves from one street to another, from
one quarter to another, from one job to another, and from one
associate to another, And by the nature of city life, one's
purpose becomes self-interest and opportunism, and one's norm
of behaviour becomes hypocrisy. The Koran says " And among the
Medina ( i.e city ) folk there are ones obstinate in hypocrisy
". Thus everything needs its own material price, which city
life requires. The more the city extends and develops, the
more complicated it becomes and the more it moves away from
friendly spirit and mutual social ties to the extent that
dwellers of the same block of flats do not know one another,
especially when the block of flats grows and entity becomes a
mere number: The dweller is no more referred to by his name or
the tribe he belongs to, but by the number of his flat. City
folks do not address one another by their social or even human
entities but by numbers .. you, who live in such and such flat
number on such and such floor number.. owner of such and such
telephone number.. and car bearing such and such registration
number .. etc. Inhabitants of the same street do not know one
another, because they had no chance to choose their
neighbours. They just found themselves living in a certain
street, lane, or block of flats haphazardly with no connecting
relationship. On the contrary, the city scatters relatives by
the force of necessity and causes fathers to separate from
their sons, mothers from their children, and sometimes
husbands from their wives. It gathers opposites as well as
outsiders togethers in the same manner that it scatters
relatives and makes rivals come together.
The city constitutes a mere worm-like ( biological ) living
where man lives and dies meaninglessly ... with no clear
vision or insight. He lives and dies inside a tomb in both
cases. There is no freedom in the city ... nor is there rest
or peace of mind .. walls plus walls in the houses, outside,
in the blocks of flats, in the street and the place of work.
You cannot sit the way you wish or walk in the direction you
want or even stop when you like. If it so happens that you
stop to shake hands with a friend or a relative whom you meet
by accident, you are pushed along by pedestrians away from
them; or they may hinder physical contact when your extended
hand is brushed away by a heedless pedestrian who does not
appreciate the situation or is unaware of it. It is not so
easy to cross the street as you may lose a limb, or even your
life, for the mere crossing of the street, unless you pay
appropriate attention, and take proper precaution. You look
left and right several times; you may find yourself stuck in
the middle of the street, where you have to stay put among the
dangerous waves of the city .. with cars, vehicles, trains,
cleaning trucks .. etc around you.
Social chats, whether amusing or friendly, among the throngs
of the city seem to be a kind of wishful thinking; and if they
ever take place, they tend to be boring at times and
self-hypocrisy at other times. In the city streets, men and
cats are equal... in the flow of traffic and pedestrian
crossings and sidewalks. When you hear the squalling brakes of
cars, you break up suddenly and say spontaneously, " Is it a
man or an animal ?" because this is what happens when one of
them crosses the road in front of you. So you brake up in the
same manner in order not to run over either of them.
Even the traffic policemen will warn you, verbally or in
writing, of accidents caused by a man or a cat crossing the
street in the city.
This is what the city is like. There is no " after you " but
push on...push along with shoulders...push ahead with
hands...push money out of you pocket...push any social
consideration out... The city is " push on " and not " after
you ". In the city you are more likely to get support from the
walls than from the people: you may lean against a wall for
rest. The wall will also guide you to your destination when it
has signs, instructions, directions and advertisements on it -
such information being extremely difficult for a townsman or a
stranger in the city to give to those who need it. If you ask
somebody about such things, he is sure to say, " Sorry, I have
no time ... sorry, I'm in a hurry ... Sorry, I don't want to
miss my train ... my bus ... my car at the parking meter
...etc. He may add, Have a look at the wall !" In the city
only the wall is stationary, people cannot stand still as the
wall does. The city would generate fumes ... garbage and
humidity even if it were in a desert; you would get dirty if
you have a white collar job, you would get your clothes stains
even if you were not a painter, a white washer or a repairman.
As a toll to living in the city, you have to accept dirt and
expose your collar to the smoke and dust... you have to
perspire even when you are not working, dripping cold sweat
... you also find that you have acquired some word,
expressions and flimsy gestures which become necessary to have
in order to communicate with the people and to manage in the
city. In addition, you acquire readymade replies which you
carelessly give out as answers to expected questions : no
problem ... no problem ... an act of god ... hard luck...no,
Uncle...no, Brother...so they said...that was so long
ago...please, keep walking .... make way...keep off. But if
somebody asked what you said a moment ago, or you asked
yourself the same question, you would not be able to answer,
nor would you remember what phrase you uttered, because that
is what things are in the city - utterances are produced
casually to prove the insensitivity of life which lacks
content in the city: what is it that is " no problem...and
what is it that was not so?...and who is your " Uncle !?...and
who is your "Brother!"?...and what is "so they said "? and who
said it?...what time...and what is it "That was so long ago"?
and which way is yours in the city? "If you encountered such
inquiries, you would be bewildered, unable to give any
comprehensible responses. That is city gibberish...just
managing to get along... a sort of pastime. City life is
really a mere waste of time until another time comes to
pass...time for work... time for sleep... time for
sleeplessness.
The city is a pretentious style..., a cry...an attraction...,
a silly fashion, deplorableconsumption...demands with nothing
to give in return .. a meaningless existence...what is worse
is the individual's inability to resist in the city
...townsmen are unable to resist new fashions even if they do
not appeal to them ...their inability to curtail wastage...and
their inability to resist greedy, devastating consumption, If
you were a recent emigrant in the city and not one of its
aboriginal people, who got used to its life-style, you would
always be the town's laughing- stock. If you clung to your
non-urban manners and values, you would become an odd man out,
hardly finding any one to associate with. But when you try to
change, you become boring. In the city the son can be
unintentionally the cause of his father's death or vice-versa,
when driving a truck, a car, or riding a bike at high speed.
That is speed in the city.. the crowded streets of the
city...the selfish spirit of the city. The son may shout at
his father unawares in the city when he hustles him off in the
street, or when he blurs his father's eyes with his strong car
lights. More-over, it often happens, as a result of
overcrowding, that individuals, religiously prohibited to
unite in wedlock, mix up in the city. No sooner do they get
together than they separate with the least of concern.
Townsmen should never be blamed for such behaviour, people are
the same in the city or in the village; they are the same in
almost everything: in values...in morality...especially those
who belong to one race or religion. It is the nature of the
city itself that is to blame for the gradual modification in
people's behaviour until, in time, it becomes an accepted
norm. People need to construct the city by necessity; but it
gradually becomes an unavoidable nightmare for those who have
constructed it and lived in it... everything in the city has
its price ...and every item of luxury becomes a
necessity...and every price has its own material or moral
claim...and that is how the dilemma of living in the city
begins. The nature of the city is incompatible with that of
agriculture. It is built on arable land where fruitful trees
are cut down...country folks are encouraged to quit farming
and turn to the city, lazing away on its sidewalks, unemployed
beggars; yet the city at the same time consumes all the
agricultural product and asks for more. But this agricultural
product, required by the townsmen, needs arable land and
farmers. The city is against production, because production
requires patience and effort, but the nature of city life is
against patience, seriousness and effort. The nature of the
city is such that it takes but does not give and consumes but
does not produce. It extends in all directions with no limit
to its extension. It becomes a parasite to everything around
it and spreads its tentacles to scatter its poisons and
pollute the fresh air, converting oxygen to arbon dioxide,
which in turn is converted to carbon monoxide, thus marring
the natural scenery and blurring the clear mirror of nature.
It emits smoke, fumes and gases which stifle breathing and
pollute everything and blot out the stars, the moon and even
the sun. It coos...it shouts...it clamours..and it growls to
the extent that it deafens the ears, causes headaches and
tenses up nerves.
It extends to devour arable land and neighbouring villages to
envelop them under its dirty, breath-stifling wing. It presses
its teeth in the form of roads, buildings, utilities as
shoulders and finger-nails, presses them into those quiet,
peaceful, small, far-away villages to become a suburb, then a
branch and finally an integral part of it. Thus they are
leveled down by the heavy weight of the city to change from
peaceful, productive, beneficial, quiet, coherent, healthy and
blooming villages to dark, gloomy and unhealthy cells...a part
of a burdensome
whole...sick...exhausting...unproductive...tiresome...jobless...living
for nothing...existence with no purpose.
The city kills social sensitivity and human feelings, thus
creating insensitivity and heedlessness, because townsmen have
become used to repeated displays of behaviour and incidents
which attract attention in the villages, oases, hamlets, and
the countryside. In the city you do not ask nor are you asked
about a quick commotion or crowding, or a slow commotion or
dispersion...that is because you are used to seeing such
things, and so you ask no questions as they arouse your
curiosity no more...scenes such as a fight, a man crying or
lying flat in the street, ...a house on fire, provided it is
not near your home, or walking past miserable groups, sleeping
on pavements, or idly standing on street corners, or leaning
against walls or tree trunks in the city, even if they
accosted you and extended their hands to you in anticipation
of help or sympathy ...such scenes are often seen in the city
and so eventually one becomes insensitive towards them. They
become part of the overall picture of the city. They become by
constant repetition, too familiar to attract your attention;
even though at the beginning they might have attracted your
attention, appealed for a solution or ontribution towards one.
But life in the city does not allow such philanthropy: He who
concerns himself with such matters, cannot manage to live in
the city; because of the frequent repetition of such things.
If he involved himself every time they happened, he would be
very busy indeed. Due to the ever-increasing number of people
in the city of different groups with different social and
cultural backgrounds; and as social ties and relations tend to
disintegrate under the living conditions in the city, where
the neighbour hardly knows his neighbour, because they are
busy and change houses and have no choice to choose one
another... therefore, this fellow in the city with whom you
may sympathise, or share in his happiness and sorrow, or you
are interested in his welfare... such fellow is but one of
many, who do not care for you; so why should you care for
them? It is for this very reason that responsible city boards
are set up to tackle such matters. Fire is none of your
business; it is the firebrigade's. This is enough
justification for townsmen not to concern themselves with
fires blazing away here or there. It is the job of the
firebrigade...I am not a fireman...I am busy. Also street
beggars are the responsibility of charity organizations. If I
gave every beggar I met in the street, I would spend all I
have on beggars who are there in every street. Therefore, pay
them no attention.
On the other hand, who knows if the beggar is really poor or
needy. He could very well turn out to be a sluggard or a
rogue. So do not let appearances deceive you, as the city is
but a deceiving appearance, showing a different picture to the
one it hides. Street fighting is the responsibility of the
police, I am a policeman to keep the peace and separate
brawlers. Townsmen do not seem to care at all even when honour
is flouted in front of their eyes. That is the job of the
preacher, or the job of the public morality police squad or
that of anti-wrong doing societies. If you stopped at the
fire, the street fight, the beggar, the one who is crying,
complaining or suffering and other reoccurring daily scenes in
every part of the city, would you then, be able to get where
you want to be? Or would you have the time and ability to look
into such matters and go back to your home? That is how,
little by little, insensitivity grows in the city towards such
matters leading to the conviction that it is none of your
business....On the contrary, it would even seem so silly to
behave otherwise, absurd as may be, in any other city in the
world. Any employee, leaving his place of work to give first
aid to somebody run over in a street accident in the city,
would run the risk of losing his job: he could be accused of
leaving his place of work without permission or interfering in
the responsibilities of others such as the police and the
ambulance-men. All such city departments would show little
gratitude, if you did their work for them as helper or
volunteer, on the contrary, they would feel jealous and take
exception to your well-intentioned help, because you would
seem to be competing with them in the sphere which justifies
their bread-winning job in the city.
This is the city: a crushing mill to its dwellers, a nightmare
to its constructors; it makes you change your appearance and
alter your values so as to take on an urban character, which
has no colour, taste, smell or meaning ...a worm-like life (
biological ), which compels you to inhale other people's
breath without caring for them, though. If you sought their
protection, they would not protect you, nor would you protect
them. The city compels you to hear other people's voices even
when you are not addressing them and inhale their breath
without asking them for it. You hear the noise of engines,
motors and hammers in full swing even though you have nothing
to do with it.
As for the children, they are more dejected than the adults.
They move from darkness to darkness; from the three dark
stages ( mentioned in the Koran ) to the fourth one... the
houses in the city are not homes, rather, they are holes and
caves enveloped in intermingling draughts raised by the heavy
traffic on the streets and lanes of the city. People in the
city are quite the same as snails in their shells, which
protect them against the waves and the pressure of the sea.
The city, too, is a sea with currents, waves, scraps, dirt,
foam, and snails. The snails are the people and their
miserable children, who are oppressed by everything in the
city, their parents press them inwards...inside the shell for
fear of the street current, which is useless to cross, as
there are other snails, caves and petrified shells on the
other side of the street. So where are you going, innocent
children? Those are other people's houses...you do not know
them... The people, who were there, have left. Those are new
people. On the other hand, the street is not only for you. It
is for pedestrians and wayfarers as well. The street, my
children, is not for play !.
The street, too oppresses children. Yesterday a young boy was
run over in that street as he tried to play there, and last
year some fast moving wheels ran over a little girl as she was
crossing the street, and crushed her body into pieces, which
were bundled up in her mother's cloak, another one was
kidnapped by professional kidnappers. They kept her for
sometime and then released her outside her house with one of
her kidneys missing. And yet another young boy was bundled up
into a carton by other street children only to be crushed down
by a motorist, who had no idea that there was a poor boy in
it. Go back inside...to the darkness...to the filthy, hot dark
rooms... May Allah help us ! The city is so filthy...so don't
play on either side of the streets....they are full of dirt
and rubbish.
When all ways and means come to a dead end before the
children...usually in a frightful way...from being crushed to
death...to being torn to pieces...or to being kidnapped and
having their limbs amputated...in this case the easier course
of prohibition is dirt and rubbish....It is much less
depressing than boredom in confinement to dark houses. But the
outcome is one and the same - It is death by a different
means. In fact, the sea of the city, like any other sea, has
pitfalls, whirlpools and dangerous creatures...so how can
children live in it ? But they are there. What can one do,
then? The only way out is to put pressure on the children,
punish them, compel them not to come out of their shells,
dejected, spiritless...nip their natural growth in the
bud....deprive them of light and fresh air. This is what life
is like in the city....a queue....an 'open-close' car...none
of the people outside your doorstep is a friend of yours....
The kindergarten is queuing, formalities, undertakings, and so
is the school, the market, the hospital...they all ask you to
open...push...close....stand in the queue...make haste. The
child in the city grows up biologically, but he is the
receptacle of all these restrains, repressions, and factors of
rebuke and reproof. He is the model of man with psychic
disorders, inferiority complexes, depression, and regression.
This is the reason for deterioration of human values, social
ties, indifference to others, lack of friendliness, cordiality
and jealousy.
As for the village and the countryside, that is another world,
different in shape and substance. There is no need there for
repression, reproof or opposing pressures. There is
encouragement and appreciation for blossoming and enjoyment of
light. There you may imitate the birds and the flowers in
freedom and opening up. There are no streets, no rubbish.. and
no unfamiliar faces. People in the village, the hamlet and
countryside are united in the bonds of neighbourliness, in all
material as well as spiritual matters. There are free children
of nature...of merriment and night talk... children of the sun
and moon...children of the breeze and strong wind. There is no
fear of enjoying freedom...there are no currents...there is
nothing to open, nothing to close....everything is open by
nature, much as there is no need to close anything either,
because in the environment in which children as well as plants
grow, there are no restrains...and no people with psychic
disorders.
O, wise people...kind-hearted people...humanitarians, have
mercy on children...do not deceive them by making them live in
the city...do not turn your children into mice, flitting from
hole to hole...from pavement to pavement. People in the city
practise hypocrisy on themselves and on their children as well
when they show love to them,.... because at the same time they
set up breath-stifling barriers and cages to keep off their
children's lovely voices and keep them away from them, and
consequently separate the children from their parents - This
is because the parents' living conditions, being fashioned by
the city, compel them to get their dear ones out of their way
and play tricks on them. In order to withstand the nightmare
of life in the city, parents look for, create and even spend
on occupations which 'neither nourish nor satisfy hunger' ...
insincere occasions...affected evening parties, faithless
friendships. This is where children hold their parents back
from practising such activities, while they try hard to get
used to, overcome, and come to terms with the hellish living
conditions, which the city imposes on its suffering
inhabitants. Take nursery schools, childcare centres, swings
and slides, children's parks, kindergartens and even schools
for example, they are just a trick to get rid of these
innocent creatures, a modern means of burying children alive.
How hard the city is ! And how insipid it should be to its
helpless inhabitants, whom it compels to accept unreasonable
things, to forcibly swallow them, and to digest them as if
they were natural and reasonable.
There is no better proof of that than the insignificant
interests, which the city imposes on the inhabitants. One may
see crowds of people watching a cock fight; let alone,
sometimes, millions of other people watching twenty-two
individuals, no more, running after a small melon-like sack
full of air in meaningless movements. In similar absurd city
manner, almost the same crowd come to listen to just one
person, repeating before them in a parrot-like fashion twisted
and sometimes inaudible utterances accompanied by a noisy
instrument, which most of the audience do not comprehend.
Someone, who happens to be drunk or insane, may clap and the
audience, unable to comprehend, follow suit to show that they
are enjoying the performance, which is, of course,
untrue...unnatural modern hypocrisy, which people in the city
have to practice. On the other hand, hundreds of people may
sometimes watch a fierce fight between two seemingly fully
grown-up sensible men, but they never exert themselves to
separate them in order to stop the bestial fight, which they
could do. But the city life does not allow that because such
unreasonable fierce blood-letting fights are sought for their
own sake in this barbaric way to complement the living
conditions in the city. For instance, the abuse of animals in
exhausting races, and exploiting their blind animal instinct
to fight ....also the torture of people, hurting them, using
them as a source of merriment, and betting on them.... all
these things are ways of false entertainment in the city.
Fighting as practised by wrestlers and boxers can in no way be
justified. Investigations show that there is no enmity among
them; but this is what is wanted and relished in modern city
life.
The Village
Run away, leave the City quickly. Get away from smoke... From
stifling carbon dioxide... From poisonous carbon
monoxide... From sticky humidity... And from poisonous gas,
which encouraged inactivity and indolence. keep away from the
atmosphere of laziness, boredom, weariness and yawning. Keep
away from the nightmare of the City, pull yourselves quickly
out from under its crushing weight... Liberate yourselves from
walls, catacombs and being locked behind doors. Save your ears
from noise, clamour, hubbub, shouting, the hissing noise of
wires, the ringing of the bells and the rattle and clatter of
the engines. Abandon the disturbing atmosphere, the annoying
places and that trapping enclosure where eye-sight is limited
and one's energy is spent in vain. Abandon the life and holes
of mice. Abandon the life of worms. Abandon the city. Come to
the village, where you can see the moon for the first time in
your life-time, after you have changed from insignificant
greedy worms and mice, void of social ties, to real human
beings here, in the village, in the oasis, in the countryside.
Get out of the catacombs for a living people and come to
Allah's dominion, which is wide, gay and delightful, where you
can see the natural chandelier and come to loathe the
artificial one, which is made of sand, sold in markets,
fragile, likely to be destroyed at any time, and rendered
dirty by the flies and the spiders in the city dens, called
houses and flats.
Behold God's lanterns in the countryside, hung in the sky, and
not in the ceiling of a dirty grave in the city.
The village is peaceful, clean and coherent. The people there
know one another, and are allied in time of prosperity and
adversity. There are no thefts in the village and the
countryside as the people know one another.
The individual there attaches great importance to the
reputation of his family, his tribe and his all good name.
Any act of misdemeanour in the village does not come to an end
on the day it is committed, as it does in the City, where the
offence is usually registered against unknown person, because
of the great number of different people living in the city -
it does not even end by the death of the culprit. On the
contrary, it remains a sort of stigma for his family, his clan
and his tribe in the eyes of other clans and tribes, and
constitutes a permanent insult to kith and kin. This
restraining social factor is stronger than the power of penal
codes or the police force. Furthermore, solidarity and
association in the village and the countryside help the needy,
and save them from having to beg or steal. On the other hand,
the simple, humble and unpretentious lifestyle in the village
and the countryside stays far enough away from pleasures and
luxuries. The People in the village and countryside do not
crave for such absurd desires as townsmen do. The village know
little about fashion, style and ' Vanity FIR'. The taste of
the people there is quiet, clear, stable and not easily
influenced by changes in fashion. Countrymen do not suffer
from complexity, tension and pursuit of excitement. That is
why they they have a happy quiet life, which is free from
harmful desires. Of course, desires as such are pleasurable.
But when they are sought for their own sake, what comes before
and after them is agony, pain, distress and misery; it is the
agony of desiring unnecessary things, which is sought because
it is scarce. Necessary activities, such as ploughing and
harvesting to earn one's bread, or planting trees and picking
their fruit to use as food, are necessary. The amount of
labour spent on such activities is not boring or, at least, it
is not self-defeating. It is enjoyable labour because it is
lawful and necessary. No feelings of remorse comes before or
after it. On the contrary, it is associated with the pleasure
of hoping to see its results and with the satisfaction of gain
afterwards.
Life in the City is a quest for pleasure and unnecessary
luxuries that cannot be avoided. When we see social diseases
spread in the city, and hear sermons about them and make laws
to keep them under control, we are neither astonished , nor do
we think that we are going to succeed in uprooting them,
because the nature of life in the city is unavoidably related
to these diseases. As a matter of fact, the city is nausea
..., giddiness ..., catacombs ..., nonsense ..., wastage ...,
madness and fear of madness ..., fear of confronting life and
its urban problems and hence how to escape from it ... how to
ignore it ... how to make up for the social and moral vacuum
... and than inability to satisfy urban desires. Diversion is
sought to forget about real-life; and drinking, madness and
suicide become the only possible cures for the diseases of
urban life. At times, for some people, or rather for a good
number of townsmen, city life with all its wastage, unreality,
superficiality and irresponsibility is considered as cure in
its own right.
Will you, leave the earthly Hell, and go quickly and happily
to the village and the countryside? There the physical effort
one makes has meaning, necessity, benefit and pleasure. Only
here, in the village can one enjoy social and human life.
There are strong house holds, united families and great
solidarity among the tribes in the countryside. Stability,
faith and serenity flourish there. Country people like one
another, each working on his farm, or attending his sheep and
chickens, or in the service of the village. There is no room
for delinquency there, because, unlike townsmen, country
people know one another.
In the City delinquents feel quite sure that hardly anyone
cares who they are. So he who tells lies can do so and fears
no social repercussions, his family on this tribe. As
townsman, he has no name, no surname and no pedigree. His flat
number is his name... His telephone number is his surname, and
his pedigree is the street and his place of work. These things
he may change from time to time. Therefore, what he is at the
moment is bound to be different afterwards.
How beautiful the village is!... and the countryside, where
the air is fresh... the endless horizon... the pillar - less
firmanental ceiling... the heavenly lanterns... and
conscience! Morals are the source of moral obligation and
self-discipline and not the fear of the police, the law,
penalties or prison. There, one is liberated from the forced
fetters of city life and the loathsome but necessary
directions. There are no traffic police whistles hissing in
the concerned ears as well as unconcerned ones... there are no
compulsory traffic signs... no shouldering others aside... no
queuing... no waiting... and no need to consult ones watch. In
the village and the countryside, where there is extensive
space , joyous expansion, a delightful world, an easy and
quiet life. There is none of the narrowness and crowding of
the city. There, the moon has a meaning... the sky is
delightful... And the horizon excites one's vision... the
sunrise... The sunset... the twilight ... and dusk are no less
beautiful. Contemplate the superb picture of the village and
the countryside, which the Koran depicts " So I do call to
witness the ruddy glow of sunset; The night and it's homing;
And the Moon on her fullness".
The city has no moon... no sun... No twilight... and no dusk.
There, day and night intermingle with no separating signs. We
hardly see anything of nature there. We only see
contradictions and deceptive colours. We get annoyed and
harassed we put up with nonsense and sleaziness. We look down
at our feet. We have to read posters and observe traffic signs
and find ourselves by necessity caught up in a world of the
trivial things, otherwise, we run the risk of getting killed.
Any act of deep thought other than observing these minute
things would certainly get you out side the fence of the flow
of city life and could cost you your life or your urban
freedom.
The Koran says, "By the Sun and his glorious splendour; by the
Moon as she follows him; by the Day as it shows off the Sun's
glory; by the Night as it conceals it; by the Fermanent and
its wide expanse" That is a wonderful picture of the world in
the village and the countryside. The Koran also says, "by the
glorious Morning light, and by the Night when it is still"
When the Koran swears by Dawn, we know that Daybreak is seen
only in the village and countryside. What daybreak is there in
any city floodlit day and night? Who sees the fermanent with
the zodiac signs!? "And in the Earth are signs for those of
assured faith" What earth is there in the city?... Crowded
pavements... congested streets... blind alleys... Narrow
lanes... Bottlenecks... Friction... And limited vision... What
natural signs can assure open-minded people in the streets of
the city!? What contemplation can there be among the throngs
of the city!? There is hardly any time worth mentioning in the
city, nor is there a day or night; let alone sunset; dusk;
dawn, or twilight!!
The Earth
You can afford to give up and do without anything except the
planet Earth ... Earth is the only thing you cannot afford to
give up. If you destroyed any other thing you might not lose
much. But be careful not to destroy the earth,
because you would then lose everything. Biological life,
including Man's life, or rather, in which Man's life
dominates, depends on food ... food in all its forms, solid,
liquid, gaseous, Earth is the container of this food. So do
not crush the only container there is of its kind. If you, for
instance, ruined arable land, it would be the same as you
wanting to cook after having smashed all your pots and pans.
If you ruined arable land, it would be the same as you wanting
to drink from your only drinking vessel, which you had broken.
The Earth is like your lungs. If you ruined it, you would have
no lungs to breathe with. It would not be much good to you if
it rained heavily, where you had no arable land.
The sky is not very important to us without the earth. If it
so happened that there was oxygen somewhere in outer space, it
would be useless unless there was earth. Land was the cause of
all historic conflicts, which Man waged against Man or against
Nature. Land has always been a bone of contention. Even outer
space is being explored for the sake of the land.
The Earth is your real Mother, out of whose matter you have
been fashioned. It embraces you ... nourishes you ... and
provides water for you, so do not abuse your Mother ... do not
pull your Mother's hair ... do not rip up her fingers, or cut
her body, or tear up her flesh. Only gently clip her
finger-nails ... cleanse her, and remove the dirt and filth
from her body, cure her of all the diseases you have caused
her. Do not press her bosom by heavy constructions, or heap
clay and stone over her ribs, show mercy to your Mother, whom
if you misused, you would not find another one like her. Sweep
her back clear of the heaps of steel, bricks and stone.
Relieve her ageing shoulders of what the recusants have heaved
on them. Do not not look down on the cradle in which you grew
up, and the bosom which cuddled you, when you were young. Do
not smash your only abode and ultimate resort, otherwise, you
shall certainly be regretful losers.
The Earth is worthy of its name only if you take particular
precaution that it goes on giving, because productive earth is
useful earth. Therefore, look after this Earth, the surface of
which would be as good as dead once it became built-up areas,
stone, asphalt, or concrete. Such earth could not be
productive or useful, as it would then be areas of asphalt,
tar, tiles, marble and concrete. These materials give nothing,
as no grass or plant would grow there, nor would water spring
from it. In this way it becomes useless to both men and
animals; it becomes waste land. When you kill the Earth, you
commit suicide indeed, because life is food and water; and the
Earth, the surface of which has been turned into built-up
areas, gives neither food nor water. Therefore, there can be
no life on waste land. What sort of people are those who cause
slow death to the earth by gradually burying it alive until it
is finally dead?! What other earth could they rely on for
living? Where would they live? And how would they manage for
food and water? The Earth is unique. There is no substitute
for it, nor is there anything to compensate you for losing it.
So, where would you go?!
Paradise was a garden of trees and plants and not a network of
roads, pavements, plazas and buildings. Abuse of the Earth is
the unforgivable misuse of it by changing its nature into
something unfit for producing food and water. Therefore, the
people who change good earth into waste land are recklessly
unaware of what may happen!
Suicide of The Astronaut
Having travelled far and wide in giddy outer space, and since
budgets can no more support the great expense of
outer space programmes, and now that man has landed on the
moon but found nothing much except that the two astronauts
have exposed the wild guesses and vain hypotheses of
scientists that there were seas and oceans on the moon, which
led to the competition to own them and designate names for
them by the insolent great powers, who nearly went to war on
the earth for the sake of dividing the Moon's natural
resources, especially the marine ones; and having roamed
around the planetary system, taking pictures of all the
planets; and after giving up hope of finding intelligent life,
or any suitable place for living there, Man returned to the
Earth frustrated and suffering from giddiness, vomiting and
fear of perdition. He has now realized the fact that the Earth
is unique and incomparable as a source of life, which, in
simple words, means food and water; and that the one and only
planet to provide them is the Earth. For Man, bread, dates,
milk, meat and water are vital. Air, which is indispensable to
life, is secured by the atmosphere of the Earth ... etc. Thus
Man had to return to the Earth from his outer space escapade.
Back on the Earth, the astronaut took off his spacesuit and
put on his familiar one, which is suitable for walking and
living on the Earth. Now that his mission with the space
corporation had come to an end, he began to look for an
earthly job. He applied for one at a carpentry workshop, but
he failed the test, because he lacked the essential know-how
of what he thought was a simple trade. Also he had a go at a
lathe workshop, a blacksmith's forge, building and plumbing.
He even tried painting and white washing .. He had not studied
fine art or music or weaving, as they had nothing to do with
his scientific specialisation. So he had to leave the city, a
frustrated failure, and set off for the countryside, where he
looked for work as a farmhand in order to support himself and
his family. One of the farmers asked if he was attracted to
the earth by which he simply wanted to know if the astronaut
liked farming. But the astronaut answered, " The attraction of
the Earth decreases as we go up, and our weight also decreases
gradually until we get to the point of weightlessness. Then
and there we get free of the Earth's attraction or gravity as
we call it. But soon afterwards we get attracted by another
planet, and our weight begins to increase gradually ... and so
on. I hope I have answered your question ".
The farmer showed signs of someone who did not comprehend and
looked as if he wanted more explanation; and the astronaut,
hoping to impress the simple farmer in order that he would
take him on as a farmhand, went on parading his space
knowledge: The volume of the Earth is about 1320 times less
than that of Jupiter's, and that 12 years on the Earth equal
one year on Jupiter, and that the Jupiter spot is big enough
to hold the Earth in its centre. You may also be interested to
know that Saturn is 744 times bigger than the Earth, yet it is
only about 95 times heavier than the Earth. The diameter of
the Earth is about 50 times bigger than that of the Moon's and
its volume is about 80 times bigger than that of the Moon's.
The pull of the Earth's gravity is six times greater than that
of the Moon's. The Earth is about 150 million kilometres away
from the Sun, whose light takes eight minutes to reach the
Earth at the speed of 300 thousand kilometres per second. The
volume of the Earth is about 1303800 times smaller than that
of the Sun's; and the mass of the Earth is also 332958 times
smaller than the mass of the Sun whose density is 30 times
bigger than that of the Earth's. The Earth comes third in
distance from the Sun. Mercury is the nearest planet to the
Sun, Venus comes next, then the Earth ... etc. Venus is about
42 million kilometres away from the Earth which is about 400
thousand kilometres away from the Moon.
If you had a car that ran at 100 kilometres per hour, it would
take you 146 days to get to the Moon. But if you had no car
and decided to walk to the Moon, it would take you eight years
and a hundred days to get there. I think I have answered the
question fully now. As you see, I am well informed in matters
concerning the Earth. As soon as he heard the last repetition
of the word " Earth ", the farmer became aware of himself and
closed his mouth, which had been wide open during the whole
story of the astronaut's journey from one planet to another,
from the time he left the Earth until he returned home. The
farmer did not comprehend much, but he too felt dizzy because
he fell under the spell and felt that he also was coming home
from a space journey with no tangible gains concerning his
farm. What mattered to him was the distance between one tree
and the other and not the distance between the Earth and
Jupiter. He was also interested in the volume of the yield of
his farm and not in the volume of Mercury. He felt very sorry
for the begging pathetic astronaut and had the desire to give
him some alms, but he was unable to take him on as a
farm-hand.
And so, having lost all hope of finding any bread winning job
on the Earth, the astronaut decided to commit suicide.
The Escape to Hell
How cruel people can be when they flare up together! What a
crushing flood that has no mercy for anyone in its way! It
does not heed one's cry or lend one a hand when one is in dire
need of help. On the contrary, it flings one about heedlessly.
The individual's tyranny is the easiest kind of tyranny. He is
only one among many, who can get rid of him when they wish. He
could even be liquidated somehow by somebody unimportant. But
the tyranny of the masses is the cruellest kind of tyranny.
Who can stand against the crushing current and the blind
engulfing power?!. How I love the liberated masses on the
march! They are unfettered, with no master, singing and merry
after their terrible ordeals! On the other hand how I fear and
apprehend them ! I love the masses as much as I love my
father. Similarly, I fear them no less than I fear him. In a
Bedouin society, where no government system exists, who can
deter a father from persecuting any of his children? Yes. How
much they love him, and how much they fear him at the same
time! That is how I love and fear the masses. Exactly as I
love and fear my father. How loving the masses can be when
they are happily excited! They carry their favourite sons high
on their shoulders.
They carried Hannibal, Barclay, Savonarola, Danton,
Ropespierre, Mussolini and Nixon! But how cruel they can be
when they are angrily excited! They plotted against Hannibal
by poisoning him. They burnt Savonarola at the stake; they
brought their hero, Danton, to the guillotine; they smashed
the jaws of Robespierre, the beloved fiance, they dragged
Mussolini's carcass along the streets of Milan, and they spat
at Nixon's face as he was forced to leave the White House,
where they had ushered him in ceremoniously before.
What terror! Who can talk the unfeeling entity into
consciousness?! Who can argue with a mass mind not embodied in
one individual? Who can hold the hand of the millions?! Who
can comprehend a million words pouring out of million mouths
at the same time ?! Who can talk sensibly to whom in this
terrifying excitement ?! Who blames whom ?!. With this social
flame burning your back, and a society that loves you but has
no mercy for you, and people who know what they want from this
individual but pay no attention to what the individual wants,
they assert their rights but overlook their duties towards
you; with the same masses who poisoned Hannibal, burnt
Savonarola, smashed Robespierre; who adored you but failed to
reserve a seat for you at a cinema house, a table in a
coffee-shop ... they love you, but they do not show their love
to you in any tangible way, such as a seat or a table at a
coffee-house. This is what the masses have done to such
individuals. So, what can I hope for, a poor Bedouin, lost in
a mad modern city, whose people bombard me with their demands
whenever they get hold of me? have a house built for us better
than this one ... Get us better telephone service !... Have a
road built for us in the sea! ... Make public parks for us!
... Catch enough fish for us! ... Write out amulets for us ...
Make wedding contracts for us! ... Get that stray dog out of
our way! Buy a cat for us !!! They ask that much of a confused
poor Bedouin, who hasn't got even a birth certificate ... who
carries his walking stick on his shoulder, who does not stop
at the red light, nor does he flinch when he gets into an
argument with a policeman. He does not clean his hands when he
eats. He would kick off anything that hampered his movements
even if it landed on a shop window, hit a hag on the face, or
broke the window panes of a smart white house. He has never
tasted alcohol or even Pepsi Cola or Soda water ...You see him
looking for a camel in the Martyrs Square, a horse in the
Green Square, or driving his sheep through the Tree Square.
These masses, who have no mercy even for their saviours, seem
to follow me everywhere, burning me ... even when they
applaud, they seem to prick me ... I, being an illiterate
Bedouin, do not know about house painting or the meaning of
sewage disposal.
I use my hands to drink rain water and well water, and use my
cloak to filter out the tadpoles. I do not know how to swim,
neither breaststroke nor backstroke. I do not understand the
concept of money, yet people ask me for it. As a matter of
fact, I do not possess it; I only snatched it from the hands
of thieves, from the mouths of mice and from the fangs of dogs
and gave it out to the townsmen under the name of a benefactor
from the desert and in my capacity as a liberator from bondage
and fetters.
What has been stolen and misused by guilty hands (one of them
being a comrade of the cave dwellers and the rates) needs a
long time and the effort of many a man to put right, but the
inhabitants of the mad modern city ask me for it right away. I
felt I was the only one who had nothing, and so, unlike them,
I did not ask for the service of a plumber, builder, painter,
barber ...etc. And since I had not requested anything because
I had nothing, I became well known, or rather an odd man out.
That is what bothered me and still does almost every hour. But
I must admit that I am to blame as well. I did myself a great
wrong when I stole Moses staff with which I struck the desert
where a spring gushed forth, because, as I have already
mentioned, I do not know sewerage, plumbing or narrow water
mains, and hoped that this spring would relieve me of all such
demands, and the root cause of them. Even my defiance of the
policeman caused such sensation in all quarters of the city,
where my name became popular: some applauded me, and others
called me bad names. The police wanted to get rid of me. The
mother of the policeman with whom I had a row, rejuvenated,
took a fancy to me. When I refused her advances, she tried to
get me into trouble. The police would even set their silly
dogs at me ... and yet I encouraged them to go in for seafood
by learning how to fish, so that they might leave me with my
sheep alone in peace.
I am a simple poor man, I have no degree and I do not like
physicians simply because they are called doctors. That is why
I have not been inoculated against sensitivity. So I grew up
to be very sensitive unlike townsmen, who have been regularly
immunized for a long time at historic intervals beginning with
the Romans, then the Turks and finally the Amelicans. Much to
your amusement as you read this, you see I do not pronounce
the word " Americans " with an (R) as you do, I use (L)
instead because I do not know the meaning of " America". As
far as I know, it was discovered by an Arab prince and not
Columbus. But then, it has great power, it has agents; it has
bases in places under its influence, and it has the right of
veto, which it willingly uses for the benefit of Israel. It
has recently acquired a house at the head of the Delta, where
the River Nile splits into the Rosetta branch and the Damietta
branch. There is a buffalo farm surrounding the house. It
practises imperialist policies; therefore it is AMELICA. This
is what my cousin, Hajji Mejahid said. He is the son of my
aunt Azza, daughter of my grandmother Ghanima, who is the
sister of Countess Maria.
On the whole, I did myself a disservice when I came to the
city out of my free will; there is no need to say why, the
thing is: it was a time of challenge, no more. Therefore,
please let me tend to my sheep, which I have left in the wadi
bed under the care of my mother, who has died recently, and so
has my sister. I was told that I had brothers and sisters
killed by mosquitoes. So leave me alone with my own anxieties!
Why do you follow me and point me out to your children? They,
too, harass me now.
They run after me, shouting, " I swear it is him!" Why don't
you let me have some rest or, at least, stroll undisturbed in
your streets? I am a human being like you, I like apples, so
why don't you let me walk about at the market? And by the way,
why can't I have a passport? But then, what good is that to
me?! I am not allowed to go abroad on holiday or for medical
treatment, I can go abroad only when I am on official
business. That is why I have decided to hurry away to Hell !.
I shall now tell you the story of my escape to Hell, and
describe the way leading to it and then describe Hell itself
to you and how I came back from there along the same road.
Indeed it was an adventure, a very strange factual story,
which, I swear, has nothing to do with fiction. As a matter of
fact, I have twice escaped to Hell just to get away from you,
hoping only to save myself.
Your breath annoys me, invades my privacy, violates my inner
life and viciously craves to squeeze me in order to thirstily
drink up my essence, lick my sweat and inhale my breath. Then
it pauses ... it stops molesting me only to attack again as
vigorously as before. Your breath chases me like a rabid dog
... dripping saliva in the streets of your mad modern city.
They chase me wherever I go through cobwebs and esparto paper.
So I have decided to hurry away to Hell to save myself. The
way to Hell is not what you may expect, or as described to you
by the sick imagination of some equivocators. I, having twice
walked through it, shall describe it to you. I had some
peaceful sleep and rest in the heart of Hell. I have
experienced Hell, I tell you; and the two happiest nights of
all my life were those two nights I spent in the heart of
Hell. That was a thousand times better than living among you.
You harass me and deprive me of my right to peace and quiet,
and so I had to escape to Hell.
The road along which I merrily walked to Hell is covered with
the natural carpet all through the horizon. When the natural
carpet gradually came to an end, I found the road carpeted
with fine sand. I saw flocks of wild birds of the kinds you
know and even found some domestic animals grazing and
grooming. But I was astonished to see slopes and areas of
lowland before me which made me halt hesitantly and look in
the distance. And there was Hell showing up against the
horizon. It was not red like fire nor glowing like embers. I
stopped not out of fear of approaching it. On the contrary, I
adore it and love to be in physical contact with it, because
it is my only sanctuary when you harass me in your
three-cornered city ... when it appeared to me in the horizon,
I nearly went wild with joy. I stopped to contemplate the
short cuts to it, and chose the nearest one to its heart, and
listened to find out if it had any raging sighs.
To my delight I found out that Hell was very quiet, quite
peaceful and steadfast like the hills surrounding it. A
strange kind of silence fills it with a solemn awe-inspiring
atmosphere covering it. I saw no flames in it, only clouds of
smoke rising above it. I slid along the slopes towards it
joyfully in a hurry to reach it before sunset, hoping to
secure a warm bed in its heart before I got hemmed in by the
guards of your hell, who were pursuing me crazily, using
up-to-date means of detection and pursuit. At last I came
within range of Hell and was able to see it quite clearly. And
now I can describe it to you exactly as I have seen it, and
answer any queries concerning Hell, which I came so close to.
Firstly - Hell has craggy, tortuous, dark, mist-capped hills
whose stone has been burnt black since time immemorial. I was
struck with astonishment to see wild animals on their way to
Hell before me. Apparently, they too were deserting you: their
life is in Hell; their death among you. Everything around me
had melted away except my own self-existence, which I felt
stronger than at any other time or place before: The hills
broke up and dwarfed away; the trees dried up; and the animals
shied off and plunged into the jungles of Hell, seeking
sanctuary away from Man. Even the sun seemed to peter out when
it was shut off from me by Hell. There was nothing else
prominent except Hell, whose heart was the most interesting
part of it. So I went headlong towards it without much
difficulty. I melted into myself, which in turn melted into me
to protect and cuddle each other until we became one new
entity for the first time. Not because myself had ever been
absent from me, but because your hell gave me no chance to be
with it, to contemplate it and to talk lovingly to it. I had
always felt that we - I mean myself and I - were like two
dangerous criminals in your city, whom you subjected to
constant surveillance and interrogation. Even when we were
proved innocent and our identity was known, you kept us in
prison under special surveillance. Your purpose being to keep
me away from myself at any cost so that you might live in
peace and quiet. Oh, how sweet hell is ... much sweeter than
your city! Why did you drag me back once more ?! I want to
return to it ... and wish to live there.
I do not need a passport to go to Hell ... all I need is
myself ... myself, which I discovered, you have mercilessly
maimed in an attempt to spoil its innocent nature !. You tried
to separate me from myself, but by escaping to Hell I have
retrieved it from you. I wish for nothing from you, ... I
leave you with rubbish and dustbins ... I have also left you
my gold helmet in Cairo ... that authoritative helmet which I
grabbed from its guardian after I had heard and read so much
about it ... and learnt that magic rings (desire-satisfying
rings) are made of its gold parts ... and that whoever put it
on would become sultan immediately ... and would conspicuously
sit on the throne ... and that kings, presidents and princes
would have to disappear before him. He would be able to bring
the little girl Meitigah to life. He would be able to bring
back to life all the martyrs, even Omar Al-Moktar, Saadon,
Abdul Salam Abu-Meniar, Al-Jalat and others who died
honourably as unknown soldiers ... And that whoever put it on
would have about four thousand million Dinars in cash, which
he could spend as he wished. On the whole, he would possess
the ( Shobeik Lobeik ) ring which would satisfy all desires:
Ask for any kind of weaponry from an ordinary gun to a
sophisticated missile, and you have it ... call forth even a
mirage and it is there at your service, let alone a Mig
fighter or whatever you wish ... and you could lock up any
Englishman and have Mrs Thatcher suffer a snub. At the same
time if you put on this magic helmet you could go to sleep
lazily even if you saw with wide open eyes a wolf about to
attack your sheep.
So there you are, you could slumber away among the heaps of
litter and rubbish of which creative hobby you seem to be
deprived as I hear from the Voice of the Arabs. I have also
read and heard that this steel ... sorry, I mean magic
authoritative helmet was once claimed by Iblis who, bore
number 0+1. He laid a claim to it on the pretence that he was
an angel, and that Churchill and Truman bore witness to his
claim. You were taken in by that lie and fooled by the trick
with perdition as the resultant end of your naive conduct
until I felt with you in your sorry state of affairs and heard
the Friday preacher in your mosques say this prayer, " O,
Allah, our sorry state cannot be hidden from you, nor can our
helplessness be unclear to you. There is no shelter for us but
with you. To you we return. Labbayek! Labbayek!".
The
Blessed Herb and the Cursed Tree
Good news for the emotionally disturbed of both sexes. A herb
has been discovered in the Benghazi plain, and it is now sold
at Hajji Hassan's shop. In a television interview watched by
no less than three million people, Hajji Hassan stated that
the herb was an effective cure for the emotionally disturb.
He said nothing about those who are not emotionally disturbed
yet. But, naturally, should they develop such symptoms, the
blessed herb is there, an effective balsam and medicine for
them ... so much then about the blessed herb for the
emotionally disturbed! For other diseases and ailments, there
is also enough other medicine at Hajji Hassan's shop besides
the blessed herb. There are other herbs: There is one for all
kinds of sterility, (as he himself affirmed) infertility, lack
of productivity and perhaps even intellectual barrenness.
There is also medicine for headaches. If you got a headache or
felt dizzy for any reason, even if that was when you were
looking for a shirt for your son that cost one dinar at the
state-owned markets, but had found it now for twenty dinars at
a private shop, which made you hurry back to the state-owned
market only to find that it had gone.
So you had to go back to the private shop, but only to find
that the price had gone up to twenty-five dinars during your
absence for five minutes - Hajji Hassan confirms that he has
got a medicine herb for such giddiness, which he had extracted
from the grass and numerous plants on the village common ...
Not only this medicine but also another effective medicine of
a particular strain of cactus has been discovered by the same
Hajji Hassan growing in profusion in graveyards. People,
taking this medicine, gain patience similar to that of the
dead, and become immune to any local exploitation and
international weakness, which is the secret of its growing in
graveyards. There is also at this shop a long list of other
herbs, which, as Uncle Hassan has explained, help you to
resist diseases and dispense with treatment, which entails the
problematic frequenting of private and public clinics and
hospitals. If only we had godlike common sense to make a
beeline for this shop and queue for hours and days or even
months to procure these medicines, we would be well-rewarded
... much better than anything else. Why can't we be patient
enough to stand in the queue and wait for our turn to buy this
medicament? We have cut down the trees on our farms to change
them into built-up areas ... We have slaughtered most of our
animals and, no doubt, we shall kill the rest on the feast day
of sacrifice. Our children go to free-of-charge public
schools, and we receive free radio and television programmes,
which we can listen to, watch and criticize as we wish.
In order to oblige us, they purchase cartoon programmes to
keep the attention of children away from us, no matter if
these cartoons are harmful, or western or who has made them
and what their subject matter is ... what is most important is
that we needn't undergo any hard labour, fatigue, or worry
because of our children since everything is being looked after
by the state. And he who does not work, does not produce, yet
he still consumes. Defence, too, does not seem to be any of
our business, which clearly shows that we had lied to
ourselves when we proclaimed that defence was the
responsibility of every citizen. It is obvious that we are
doing our best to shun this sacred duty. We stand for peace
and love.
Our motto being, "Peace, mercy and the blessing of God be upon
you." So from us may there be peace, mercy and the blessing of
God upon the Israelis, the "Amelicans", NATO, and the Pact of
David, who we expect, should wish us the same, or better.
Every day we wait for the Israelis and their allies to say,
"May there be peace upon Rabta, Tajura, Ras Lanoof, Jerusalem
and Baghdad ".
Anyway, what use are the medicine factories at Rabta and Ras
Lanoof for us so long as Hajji Hassan has gathered for us
enough herbs, which cure all diseases even those of the brain,
the heart and eyesight ... and ... dysentery or ... dignity
... one or the other ... because reception was poor at the
moment when Hajji Hassan was explaining the magical effect of
a particular herb ... if I heard him right, he said it was an
effective cure against dysentery or dignity, perhaps even old
age, as I think I heard him say that it also cured senility or
self-respect or something like that which seemed to have some
connection with senility.
Therefore, we are really lucky .. we have got ourselves free
of everything ... Poor are the people who, unlike us, have to
sacrifice themselves and shed blood in defence of their homes.
They also sweat blood to enhance production and dig up the
earth with their finger-nails ... in order to plant it with
trees and cucumber and garlic .. poor are the Israelis who
spend their lives with their forefingers on the trigger in
order to keep Palestine occupied ... Poor are Noriega and
Orthega ... Poor are the " Amelicans " too, who spend billions
on space armament to protect America.
Death
Is Death male or female? God knows ... But the ancient
pre-Islamic poet, Tarafah Ibn Al-Abd considered it male when
he said : Death, I notice, hovers over generous people to
choose The best of what the strictest of them has hoarded up.
But the contemporary poet Nizar Al-Qabani, who is pre-Islamic
in his own way, says that death is female, because it has
snatched his son, Tawfiq. But then why ask the question? What
purpose does it serve to know if death is male or female?
Death, whether male or female, is death. By all means, it is
most important, or rather one is morally bound to specify the
sex of death and decide whether it is male or female.
Because if it were male, one ought to challenge it to the
bitter end. But should it be female, one had to give in to it
to the last breath.
Anyway, the word death (Decease) appears in a lot of books,
sometimes as male and sometimes as female.
I, judging from my own experience and troubles with death,
know this for a fact: Death is a male who is on the offensive
all the time. He has never been on the defensive even when he
is beaten. He is brave, fierce, cunning and sometimes
cowardly. Death attacks but gets beaten off badly at times.
He does not emerge victorious in every attack as some people
seem to think. Many a duel was there in which death lost
courage and had to retreat blood-stained and defeated. But
despite the cuts, stabs, blows, smashes and kicks which he
receives, when his opponent is a relentless fighter, he never
gives in, or is ever imprisoned; nor has he ever been finished
off.
This is his dangerous secret; and this is his incomparably
destructive superiority to all life supporting factors against
death. Death is really a unique combatant who has a deep, long
breath and endless patience. His confidence in himself is
limitless no matter how strong, relentless or winning his
opponent seems to be. No matter what fights he loses, wounds
he receives, or rounds in which he is defeated, he is never
adversely affected by the resounding noises of celebration,
held by his unimaginative, short-sighted, winning opponents.
Such displays of rejoicing do not make him despair of
attacking again. One can't help admiring such an overbearing
adversary who never needs to alter his clear-cut decisions!
The might of death does not lie in his decisive blows, nor in
his fatal stabs or in his successful attacks, because he hits
and misses, wins and loses, attacks and suffers defeat. Not
all his blows are exceptionally well-aimed, nor are all his
fights successful. His real might lies in his hellish ability
to receive, bear and neutralize all the arrows and spears
directed at him, and in his inhuman appetite to lick the blood
and pus of his wounds, and in his capability of transforming
all this into fiery ferocious fighting energy which eventually
overwhelms his opponent. Death's entitlement to victory lies
in the fact that he is impartial and that he seeks help from
nobody. To do that would indicate a fault in character when
death is faultless; and it might imply that he could be a
stooge. Death manoeuvres and changes his colour to suit his
own purpose, but he can never be someone else's stooge. Were
he to depend on anybody; he would have to give hostages to
fortune and become a doll to be thrown away in the dustbin
after play. If death were a stooge, a lackey, a hostage or a
doll, his ultimate victory would arouse considerable
suspicion. On the other hand, death, as I have already said,
is not a mythical hero with high moral ideas, social and
tribal manners or a noble family background which make the
possessor of such ideals morally bound to behave properly in
order not to blemish inherited values. On the contrary, death
is a dodger, chameleon-like, moody and capable of taking on
different personalities with different roles. He may appear on
a tall white horse, brandishing his weapon at his opponent
face to face, and he may stab in the back as does a woman
untrained to use weapons; he may come at you fearlessly on
foot; and he may turn up crawling or prone under the cover of
earth or any other means of deception and camouflage. Many a
victim had he claimed when they were peacefully and quietly
unaware of him! And many others had he snatched away when they
were having happy dreams in sound sleep. And many more had he
grabbed when they were merrily laughing and oblivious of him!
So, do not expect any mercy or pity from death. He will not
exchange intimacies with you or consider your circumstances or
respect your lives.
He may tear off a suckling from its mother's breast to butcher
it before her; he may even get it out of her womb dead after a
long wait for it to be born. He may steal either one of a
newly-wed couple on their wedding night. He may assault the
parents and leave the children alone or vice-versa. In other
words, he is, as yellow books depict him, the terminator of
pleasure and the orphan-maker of boys and girls.
Therefore, do not show mercy to death, nor expect any mercy
from him.
There is no love lost between him and us. He is our deadly
enemy; there can be no peace with him or hope in him. So, as
just tit for tat, show no mercy to him and no lack of unity,
because he will show you little mercy no matter how disunited
you are or what concession you make. He accepts no compromise
at all and peaceful coexistence is foreign to his nature.
He cut off my brothers and sisters in their prime, and starved
my family until they had to surrender to his will, and allured
my brothers and sisters to play with him in the quagmire,
where he poisoned them; four boys and two girls.
Then he had several hot duels with my brave father. He came to
Gordabia under the banner of Miani's campaign, disguising
himself in the clothes of Italian and Eritrean soldiers in
order to kill my father, who fought him openly since he had
killed my brothers and sisters. My father had vowed to have
his revenge on death for what he did; and that was why he had
killed a good number of col. Miani's soldiers in whose clothes
death disguised himself so perfectly that everyone of them
seemed to be death himself ... and how bewildered my father
was to see the endless falling of martyrs, death's victims, on
his right and left, when, at every shot he triggered, he
thought he had done away with death till he ran short of
ammunition.
He cried out, "Can I have some more ammunition to relieve you
of death?" A young man, lying prone in a nearby trench,
answered him that he had enough to spare. My father spirited,
hurried towards him, but death was faster. When my father
crept into the trench, he found the young man dead!.
Therefore, death can hear and see, but my father, like death,
was a fierce fighter. He took the young man's ammunition and
continued the duel until he felt weak with thirst.
He asked his uncle Khamis for a drink of water to go on
fighting. His uncle who had no water himself, leapt at one of
the enemy's water-carrying mules to get some water. But death,
as usual, was faster. He directed his fatal shot at Khamis
just above the right eye-brow where it pierced its way through
to the brain, which oozed out all over his body as he fell a
martyr to the ground. This infuriated my father, who sprang
out of the trench to fight standing up. He challenged death
face to face when he shouted at him. "We're the children of
Moussa.
If you are a real male, come out and look me in the face, you,
cowardly death!" But death did not answer this challenge or
even put up a hand to show where he was or reveal a brave
face. It was not death, but a group of brave young men who
answered my father, saying, " We are the children of Al-Haj
... children of Al-Haj " They sprang up on their feet to face
death fearlessly. My father hurried to join them, but death
was always faster. He had gunned them dead before my father
reached them.
When the struggle between death and my father became so
intense, his fellow fighters asked him not to draw nearer to
them so that death might not ambush them as he did to Khamis,
the Al-Hajji's sons, Al-Atrash, Assohbi, Mohamed Ben Faraj ...
and many others. My father continued his persistent struggle
all day long. At sunset death's strength began to wane and
consequently his will to continue the duel abated! So he
decided to withdraw in order to gather strength for another
round. But this time he succeeded in firing nine bullets at my
father, which hit him and tore his clothes but luckily they
were not fatal.
As I told you, death is defeated and withdraws but never feels
ashamed or loses hope, because his self-confidence is much
stronger than despair itself, his belief in ultimate victory
is greater than temporary defeat or passing adversities; and
the secret lies in his self-sufficiency that needs no help or
support from any quarters, not even from America. Hardly had
three years passed when death attacked again, hoping to have
done with my father this time. He engaged him in a ferocious
duel that was much worse than the one at Gorabia.
He, being a deceiver as usual, appeared in this battle
disguised, both in entity and attire, as one of the Senussi
soldiers, who were pro-Italian in Sirte and Ejdabia.
He was exceptionally defiant this time, self-complacent at
being superior in men and weapons, and confident of victory.
But my father, who was as defiant, though less self-complacent
and less-hopeful, was obstinately rash and more reckless. He
laughed at death when he saw the Senussi soldiers crawling
like locusts to occupy the high and low lands surrounding the
Klaiah wide pit near the salt-mine.
They changed the colour of the golden sand into black and
white after the colour of their formal costumes. The whole
area was filled with men conscripted in favour of death. And
there was my father among a much smaller number of lion-like
men ... in fact, a very humble number! It was an ill-fated day
of distressful agony from sunrise to sunset; death in full
preparation; my father in full bravery, death heading the
hosts of the pro-Italian Senussi soldiers; my father among a
band of brave honourable men. Since the situation was so
critical and survival was so hopeless and the battle so
un-balanced; my father decided to fight it out with the least
of precaution, openly showing his contempt of death, by
rushing at his army ... He dug no trench, nor did he fire from
a reclining position, he preferred to fight sitting or
standing. Bravery and despair seemed to intermingle.
What an awesome sight that was! And how hard it had been to
survive! But exactly as it had happened at Gordabia. Death's
bullets hit my father's companions only: There was Abu-Osbaa,
hit at the heart ... next to him lay Gheddaf Addam, giving up
the ghost ... and now the sun was falling headlong towards the
earth as if hit by a stray bullet! It was getting dark now and
death's lost chance seemed to slip away.
This made turbulent death swell up with anger at my father,
who had been challenging him all day long. He aimed his
Mosin-Nagant rifle, supplied to him by the Tsar of Russia, at
my father's heart but missed and hit him at the shoulder
instead . The bullet, passing through the shoulder from the
front to the back, had left a dangerous deep cut at his left
side. I have already told you that not all death's shots are
well-directed, nor are all his stabs fatal.
He hits and misses, succeeds and fails. True, he rendered my
father unable to continue the fight this time and partially
paralized him for life, but he could not manage to finish him
off. I have already told you that death is not always brave or
a challenger. On the contrary, he is sometimes a coward,
stabbing in the back, stinging in the foot and sinking into
the ground. Death, as I have already explained, does not
despair and never leaves his opponent alone, no matter how
beaten he may be. So despite growing pale with fatigue after
engaging many intrepid heroes in hot duels, such as at Al-Malh
and Gordabia, where he failed to defeat my father.
Death appeared this time disguised as a striped snake hiding
in the dead thorny trunk of a desert bush in a cut off wadi
that had neither water nor trees, to bite my father's heel in
an abominable, treacherous, and cowardly way under the dark
cover of night. This is frightening death! He rides a black
horse when he is most furious and rides a white horse when he
challenges openly and defiantly. Here is death, who has
brandished his sword at great leaders, skulking away to come
from behind, not face to face, from beneath, not from above
... he comes to bite not to fight, he shrinks into himself
rather than show himself, and he cuts heels rather than necks.
This is how mighty death, whose terror, reaches far and wide,
had transformed himself this time into a treacherous snake
that stung my father's strong rough foot, which had stamped on
it. Death thought that that was the fatal trick and the
cunning plan. Having failed in face to face duels, death
resorts to cunning and deception; and after confrontation in
day light, he lurks under a camouflaged screen.
No doubt, a desert snake stinging a lonely man in a distant
wadi, where no one could hear his call for help, was
definitely quite enough to kill him. The arrangements and
expectations of proud death, who was cocksure of ultimate
victory, were such that he overlooked the fact that the will
to live could upset his arrangements and frustrate his
expectations; and that will to live was able to neutralize his
fatal poison with the simple means of a strong brew of
ordinary black tea without sugar.
Several doses of this strong sugarless black tea made my
father throw up a few times. No sooner had the vomiting spasm
stopped than he sprang up on his feet again to overcome death,
which seemed victorious only a few minutes earlier. Jeering at
death and gloating at his misfortune, my father crushed the
head of the venomous snake, in the form of which death had
disguised himself in that distant desert place. Death, as we
know from this story, neither dies nor despairs however badly
hurt or beaten he may be. My father killed the snake with his
foot, which had always been strong and unshaken in the battle
field or on the head of other serpents. Hardly had my father's
foot fallen on the head of the snake when death left it for
another one, which happened to meet my father on his way home
one day. He was gathering some dead branches from a desert
bush to make a fire, when the second snake attacked him,
injecting a stream of fatal poison into his hand.
As my father had no tea this time, and the place was neither
distant nor desolate, death thought these were factors of
weakness on the part of my father, who would not be so
challenging as he was when the place was distant with no one
to help him, where his demise could have been a catastrophe.
The situation then made my father put up a strong resistance,
mobilizing all his inner strength to frustrate death's wanton
intention. But this time with people nearby, and the idea of
depending on others for help bound to soften my father's
spirit for defiance and resistance, death thought that he had
trapped his intrepid opponent at last.
However, death apparently forgot that his treacherous plan was
really stupid, because by frequent snake bites he had
immunized my father against their poison. Thus this second
bite, painful though it was, did not finish him off either.
The longer my father lived, the more enterprising death
became. My father kept up his stubborn courage, and death
never gave up hope of catching him. Having followed the
incidents of this dramatic story so far, we can say that death
is really a male in the former situations and a female in the
latter ones.
Thus the whole thing is so confusing, because even when death
changed into a female snake, she had to be fought back as
though she were a male. A poisonous female snake is a
contentious enemy, hence categorized as male, and had to be
fought just like any Eritrean or Italian soldier at the
Gordabia battle. But since we are dealing with the subject of
deciding death's sex, male or female; and as we said when we
started this story, "If it were male, one ought to defy it to
the bitter end. But should it be female, one had to give in to
it to the last breath." So far in this story, my father had
kept up the resistance and never thought of surrender, which
makes it reasonable to think that death is a male. But I have
recently come to the conclusion that death is a female,
because on the eighth of May 1985, my father gave in to death,
moving no limb to resist her.
For the first time in my life I saw him give up resistance,
and at times, even refused any outside inference between him
and death, whose cause he seemed to defend as well. This made
it clear that death was a female of the classical type of whom
the Koran says " brought up among trinkets, and unable to give
a clear account in a dispute," So now, there was my father,
defending death against any outside intervention when he was
quite able to put up a strong resistance. On the contrary, he
gave in to death quietly and whole heartedly as though death
had never been a bit frightful or had ever been that
fully-armed fighter, whose appearance infused any brave man
like my father with defiance.
Death's drums, which got louder, as they drew nearer, sounded
just like one of Om Kalthooms's hypnotizing songs. The nearer
death's procession, drew with the increasing and annoying
noise of its drums, the more my father seemed to relax on his
bed, smiling like a newly-born baby in a way that was
incomprehensible to us. He became quieter and more placid to
the extent that made us think that the noise of death's
procession which frightened people in good health, was to the
sick like a hypnotizing song by one of the popular Egyptian
songs. It made me think that perhaps there was no need for any
chemicals to anaesthetize the sick as a long Egyptian song was
quite capable of having the same result. But the doctor
objected to this method, and expressed his displeasure at my
meddling in his sphere of speciality. He assured me that all
my conclusions were erroneous and had not a shred of truth in
them; and as such, they could not be taken seriously. I was
embarrassed talking about anaesthesia of which I knew very
little and saved the doctor the embarrassment of telling me
that by saying myself what he should have told me, but he
preferred to keep silent: So I added, on his behalf of course,
that I was completely ignorant of even the simplest facts of
anaesthesia and its applications and that I had mixed up
anaesthetizing the sick and hypnotizing the ones who were not
ill, and that, perhaps I had exaggerated the effect of
Egyptian songs when I thought they affected the sick. In fact,
they affected only healthy people. They have been well-known
to be so effective and so influential since 1948. They gave
exciting results when they were experimented upon more than
one million Arabs; but unfortunately, contrary to what I was
expecting, it was necessary to use chemicals to knock out sick
people needing surgery and other medical treatment as the
songs were proved to have no effect on them. On the contrary,
doctors advise, that sick people should not listen to these
songs, for fear that they could cause complications, such as
nausea.
But people in good health and their like, such as the
emotionally disturbed and mentally sick are advised to listen
to these songs if they want to get into an artificial state of
lethargy or a non-chemical anaesthesia. Doctors affirm that
these songs have no complications for these people. Of course,
if they had any non-chemical complications, the effect would
be on these people's productivity and welfare; but as far as
their bodies are concerned, there is nothing much to worry
about. When I hinted that they might affect the spirit or the
mind, the doctor replied in a casual manner, " Spirit ... mind
...mood ... etc ... abstract things ... as a surgeon ... they
mean little to me ". On the whole, the weaker my father
became, the more nervously tense we got ... agony stricken and
worried about him. Our tears flowed and now and again we wept,
while he smiled and relaxed as he went deeper into the coma of
death. Who knows?! Was it the death he fought in the battles
of Gordabia, Talla and Al-Malh? Was it the snake which
ambushed him in a forlorn desert and on other occasions?! Was
it death, the proud, bold, defiant and treacherous enemy whose
self-confidence and arrogance infused a fresh sense of
provocation and recklessness into his opponent? I do not think
it was him. If it had been him, there should have been no one
to rival him in the art of cunning and camouflage; because my
father had hardly put up any resistance as he used to do all
his life when he always defeated and beat him off despite the
numerous fatal chances and occasions death had. Therefore,
death is a female; and as such one ought to give in to her up
to one's last breath, and that is what my father now did. The
conclusion is that death often fails in battle when he comes
under a clamorous cloud of dust with black banners fluttering
in the heart of the storm. In this case death thinks he is
riding the favourite horse in the race, when, in actual fact,
he is riding the horse of his own vanity, because in this way
he drives his opponent to the extremes ... to defiance and
recklessness, which eventually result in his defeat. Death in
this manner, appears as a very brave fighter, who ought to be
resisted to the bitter end; and resistance often leads to
victory. But the fatal cases in which death wins easily are
those in which death appears as a female. As we have affirmed
in the beginning of this story, one ought to give in to a
female up to the last breath. Surrender never leads to
victory.
When death changes his tactics by appearing as a female he
expects his opponent to surrender in order to beat him with
the least of resistance. Thus death is sure to achieve his
purpose in the end, however long the struggle lasts, and will
show no mercy to his opponent no matter how submissive,
cowardly, feeble or weak-kneed he may be; even if he were a
Sadat kind of person! Therefore, if you wish to live long, you
have to contend against death as did my father, who never gave
in to him even for a single day and fearlessly fought him till
his centennial birthday, despite the fact that death tried to
humiliate him at the age of thirty, but was thwarted in his
plans and had to suffer a snub. So, the right decision to take
is confrontation, because fleeing one's country does not save
one from death. The Koran says " Wherever you are, death will
find you out, even if you are in towers built up strong and
high, " But if death himself weakened and transformed himself
into a non-Jamaheriate or a non-Latin woman and came forward
peacefully unarmed, entered quietly and walked calmly in slow
and voluptuous movements until she invaded every inch of our
bodies, and made us ecstatic with charm and delight and began
to tickle us to mirth in the rapture of her love ... in such
case, it would be unmanly to resist her, much less to defy her
... and the proper course of action to take, then, would be to
surrender to her pleasure completely till one's last breath of
life ... and that is what happened.
The Cursed Family of Jacob and the Blessed Caravan
Which of us hasn't heard of Jacob's family? Or rather, who
doesn't hold it in high esteem? Any why not when its
off-spring world-wide take great pride in being descendants of
Jacob, peace be upon his soul, and his son Joseph, prophet of
God and the secretary of the store houses of the land in
ancient Egypt?! How could anyone in his right mind ignore
Joseph or be ignorant of him or his accurate divination?! We
all know this, and the whole world knows him. He was
tomorrow's predictor, interpreter of visions and dreams,
truthful and trustworthy and chosen by his Lord who taught him
how to interpret stories and events.
His attractive appearance was well-known and so desirable that
the wife of the Aziz of Egypt in her passionate desire, tried
to seduce him and tore his shirt at the back which proved that
she was a liar. He was extolled by the city Ladies who, in
their amazement, cut their hands with the knives they happened
to be holding and said, "God preserve us! This can't be
mortal! This is none other than a noble angel!" He nearly felt
inclined towards them.
In addition, he foretold how the fortunes of Egypt would fare,
its dreadful years after its prosperous ones and the period of
arid countryside after the period of green meadows.
Therefore, Jacob's offspring have every right to be proud and
feel honoured. They are descendants of a great and blessed
family whose father was melancholic, Jacob and her
distinguished son Joseph. So don't they deserve to be honoured
and revered? And aren't they entitled to be treated as
celebrities at airports, at weddings and other several
occasions ... even at conferences, if so it happened, and to
be pointed out as Joseph's brothers with admiration?! What a
great honour conferred by God as a favour upon this family!
This much we know about Jacob's family, which makes it worthy
to win our respect and be held in higher esteem ...! But we
should also know that this family is cursed and is neither
noble nor blessed. This aura of holiness in which it is vested
has been faked; and it does not deserve the veneration
accorded to it. May the family of Jacob be cursed even though
Joseph had been their son and Issac their grandfather. It is
one of the basest families and the worst in unbelief and
hypocrisy, and as such, they deserve disgrace and contempt.
Didn't they lie about protecting Joseph from the wolves,
pretend to be his sincere wishers and falsely promise to take
every care of him? Didn't their father say to them, "I fear
lest the wolf should devour him while ye attend not to him ".
They said, "If the wolf were to devour him while we are (so
large) a party, then should we indeed (first) have perished
ourselves!" May the family of Jacob be cursed! They contrived
a vicious plan inspired by their guilty souls. They engaged in
intrigue against Joseph, God's prophet. They said, "Slay ye
Joseph or cast him out to some (unknown) land." They argued
among themselves, squabbled and had different views on how to
intrigue against Joseph and be unfaithful to their father,
Jacob, may peace be upon his soul.
One of them said, "Slay not Joseph, but if ye must do
something, throw him down to the bottom of the well " But
Joseph knew about this affair while they (Knew him not) "They
stained his shirt with false blood" The cursed family of Jacob
are traitorous, treacherous and liars. They (I mean its sons)
stripped Joseph off his shirt which they stained with false
blood and took Joseph away from the attention of people and
threw him to the bottom of the well. They did all this while
Joseph saw and heard all that was going on around him but he
did not shout at them or said, "You, filthy traitors ...!
How can you be my brothers?!" Joseph was quite patient as God
put into his heart this message. "Of a surety thou shalt (one
day) tell them the truth of this, their affair" He was as
innocent as was the wolf of his blood; rather, he was smiling
at them in a joking mood while they were lowering him into the
well.
He knew all this and was sure of their failure and that was
why he did not say to them, "You're being unfaithful to your
father when you treat me like this!" Neither did he say to
them, "Do you worst but I will tell you of this affair of
yours one day when your faces will turn black with shame,
guilt and transgression and you will be the laughing stock of
the whole world!" But in an attempt to give their treason and
unsuccessful trick full force, they too were smiling back at
him while in actual fact they were intriguing against him.
"They plot and plan, and God too plans, but the best of
planners is God" May the family of Jacob be cursed! And may
the caravan be blessed! Yes, it was the caravan who got Joseph
out of the well. They came soon after his brothers had cast
him into the bottom of the well. The caravan let down their
bucket and when they hauled it up, they found Joseph in it.
The blessed caravan saved him and the city treated him kindly.
May the family of Jacob be cursed and may the caravan be
blessed! Which of us, after this scandal, will have any
respect or reverence for the family of Jacob? Who can trust
them with Joseph any more? On the other hand, Joseph's
brothers did not kill him when they could have done so,
because they were entrusted to take good care of him. It is
true that they did not kill him, perhaps because they argued
his death but failed to come to a decision about it, as is
mentioned in the Koran; or because they lacked the courage to
do it; or because being his brothers, they could not bear in
their hearts the sight of his real blood and found out that
they could endure the sight of false blood other than his; or
perhaps they preferred that he should gradually die in the
well, or perhaps being his brothers, they had not planned his
death in the first place by any means and simply wanted to
leave him to his fate with the caravan which they seemed to
know that it would come and pick him up.
One of them said, "Slay not Joseph, but if ye must do
something, throw him down to the bottom of the well: He will
be picked up by some caravan of travellers" It is most
probably that the fear of their father and others was the real
deterrent. May the family of Jacob be cursed and may the
caravan be blessed! And how deceived we were when we honoured
the family of Jacob because Joseph was their son ... and we
were so dazzled by the awesome procession of stars, the sun
and the moon kneeling to Joseph that we said, "What a great
halo surrounding Joseph's family!" And we preferred, or rather
we were made to admire the scene at a distance with open
mouths, which if we closed, we would vehemently applaud and
inwardly repeat, "I did see eleven stars and the sun and the
moon: I saw them prostrate themselves to me".
"Verily in Joseph and his brethren are signs (or symbols) for
seekers (after truth) " But what if this family was exposed
... when Joseph's brothers began to plan this abominable
treason at which hearts recoil in terror, "The skies are ready
to burst, the earth to split asunder, and the mountains to
fall down in utter ruin ", and a shudder of violent revulsion
possesses the people who hear it?
Indeed the family of Jacob "have put forth a thing most
monstrous " What if the family saved their honour and stood
distinguished among the other people, and Joseph's brothers
lived to serve him as apostles, taking good care of him,
managing his affairs and listening to what he had to say to
them?! However, Joseph implored God to forgive them in spite
of what they had done! And "he provided a home for his parents
with himself, and said, "Enter Ye Egypt (all) in safety if it
please God ", and raised his parents high on the throne (Of
dignity) and they fell down in prostration, (all) before him.
He said, 'O my father, this is the fulfillment of my vision of
old. God hath made it come true! He was indeed good to me when
he took me out of prison and brought you (all here) out of the
desert.". However, it was good the way Jacob's family had
behaved, because, but for this abominable scandal, or
scandalous abomination; or in other words, the family of Jacob
is notoriously detestable, even though we used to think of
them as a blessed and respectable family, not because they had
a glorious history in the past, abundant resources, constantly
flowing water, a much frequented fane, or a " canopy raised
high"; it is quite the contrary because, originally, it was an
unknown, detested, debased and dependent family living in the
desert - as is mentioned in the Koran - and by the nature of
their living circumstances, they were mere shepherds; and the
biggest victory Joseph's brothers could have achieved, would
have been to kill a fox or a wolf and could have never dreamt
of victory over imperialistic or retrograde regimes.
This great universal glory had never occurred to any member of
Jacob's family, who have never as much as dreamt of the glory
of Egypt and its storehouses, except Joseph who could see the
future and specialised in the interpretation of visions. But
for this shameful act what could Jacob's family be like now?
or rather, how would the whole world treat this family? People
could have carried them on their shoulders in sincere
reverence! Hadn't they begotten Joseph, who received
revelation from God, who made him prophet, secretary of the
store-houses of the land, interpreter of visions and
passionately desired by women? Thank God who showed us in the
Glorious Koran what Jacob's family were really like and
explained that they were not guardians of Joseph, rather,
"they were plotting a scheme" for him in a hellish slow way.
In other words, they were digging up a well to cast him in
when he was endeavouring to create a glorious history for
them. The sons of Jacob's family were, in fact wicked as well
as insipid: Joseph tried to erect a fane of fame and renown
for them which they sought to destroy by their own hands.
However, it is only fair to give justice to any member of
Jacob's family who deserved it - if there were any who
deserved it, of course. Yes, it seems that the eldest and
youngest - who, as the Koran mentions, was their half brother
on their father's side - of them were. The eldest brother was
the one who suggested to the rogues of the treacherous family
of Jacob not to kill Joseph but to throw him into the well
from where he would be picked up by some passing caravan.
As for the youngest brother, who was their brother on their
father's side, he was on the side of Joseph, and hence he was
unpopular with the other sons of the cursed family who tried
to make trouble for him as well and finally got rid of him as
they had done to Joseph before him when they left him as a
pledge in Egypt where they sought their measure of grain from
Joseph whom they did not recognize.
Stop
Fasting When You See the New Moon
The messenger of God, may peace be upon his soul, said "Begin
your fast when you see the new moon and break your fast when
you see the new moon again. Should it be overcast, complete
your fast for thirty days" This is the Sunnah (i.e. followed
by Muslims in this respect) .
Consequently, every year the adherence to this Mohammedan
Sunnah gets Muslims into difficulties concerning the first and
last days of the fasting month of Ramadan and the Hajj (i.e.
the annual pilgrimage to Mecca) except this year, and we shall
know how this difficulty has been avoided only this year. Of
course, the appearance of the new moon differs from one place
to another, or rather, from one continent to another where
Islam has universally spread and where local ways of spotting
the new moon were unable to cope, as the Arabian peninsula, or
perhaps Mecca and Medina were the only places meant at the
time when communication was non-existent. Therefore, it was
out of the question to expect news from Yemen about the new
moon if we were in Mecca or Medina, as it would have taken the
traveller more than a month in order to come an tell us about
the new moon.
However, nowadays that the world can communicate on a wide
scale at the speed of sound (i.e. 340 m/s), it is feasible to
announce the appearance of the new moon throughout the world.
But the difficulty has not been made easier even by this
important, scientific change in communication. On the
contrary, the difficulty has become more complicated as we now
know more about the world than we used to know. This fact has
increased the strife among Muslims: Sheiks, laymen, princes
and poor people.
The Saudis do not relish the idea of the Hajj falling on a
Friday because of the overcrowding which takes place and the
problems they have to face accordingly - and they have every
right to be wary in this respect. Of course, they have the
right to be even more concerned should it be proved that the
Hajj on a Friday usually coincides with the death of one of
the members of the Saudi royal family - God forbid! Such is
the pessimism of our brothers in Saudi Arabia about the Hajj
on a Friday ... So let it be on a Saturday, or a Sunday, but
not on a Friday when the risk of losing one of the princes
looms large.
God forbid! Some facts have been made clear to us by the
progress of modern sciences and rapid communications, which we
hope would facilitate our symbol of unity in deciding the
beginning and the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and the
Hajj. It has been made clear that Friday in Indonesia is
actually Thursday in Libya - in other words, the thirteenth of
Shabaan in Libya is, in fact, Ramadan the first in Indonesia
or in the Solomon islands, in the pacific ocean - that is to
say, if Indonesia were to telephone to announce the beginning
of the month of Ramadan, Libya would still be in the month of
Shabaan, This proves that sight of the new moon can only be
limited ... so limited that every region has to begin fasting
at the local sight of the new moon and break their fasting in
the same way. But the thorny problem is that of the Hajj. The
beginning and end of fasting is not much of a problem,
practically speaking.
The real insoluble problem is that of the Hajj. If people set
off for the Hajj from every distant corner of the world with
prearranged dates for the rituals of going round the Kaba,
standing on Mount Arafat and the casting of pebbles in
accordance with their local lunar calendar, indicating the
beginning and end of fasting, this would create the problem of
every distinct group of Muslims having their own Hajj which is
different in time to that of the other groups, and
consequently, there would be no one day for the standing on
Mount Arafat and the following day of Sacrifice ... and the
other rites of the Hajj.
This would be a serious problem both spiritually and
practically, especially for our brothers in Saudi Arabia.
However, this affair was settled only this year by General
Schwartzkopf personally, the blessing of the Lord be upon him!
He decided in advance ... from the first week of Ramadan that
Eid Al Fitre (Feast of the end of Ramadan) would be Monday the
15th of April 1991 A.D. and accordingly, he categorically
fixed the days of the Hajj in accordance with the western
calendar, no matter, as far as General Schwartzkopf was
concerned, whether seen or not -- I mean the new moon and not
General Schwartzkopf -- or whether the month of Shabaan was
thirty days or less ... or even if the month of Ramadan itself
was twenty-eight, thirty or, if need be, thirty-one days. The
whole affair was not for discussion or subject to the new moon
being seen or not; nor was it a matter of Sunnah or Fardh
(Command from God), or "So said the Prophet, and so said God "
The decree of General Schwartzkopf had to be obeyed.
The whole affair was one of security for the American forces,
its allies and the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia, God's House and the tomb of his prophet
included. The month of Ramadan this year had to end, for
security reasons at the latest on Sunday 14.04.1991 for all
Muslims who began fasting on Saturday, Sunday or Monday: the
fourteenth meant the fourteenth, no matter whether it was
overcast or people strained their eye-sight out. This
necessarily meant that the first of Shawal had to fall on
15.04.1991 even if it were a full moon or not, or even if it
were found necessary to choose another month for the Hajj,
such as Shawal itself or Dal Qeedah. On the other hand, if the
timetable of General Nor.
were to be rejected, the Muslims, enjoying full self respect,
self-sovereignty and freedom of choice in the matters of their
religion, could always, choose any other month. This did not
contradict the Koran as General Schwartzkopf himself said. The
Koran says, "For Hajj are months well known," So, it is not a
month but months! Thus, thanks to General Nor.
Schwartzkopf a practical solution was at last found to this
problem, which had always been a bone of contention in as far
as the sight of the new moon was concerned. There was no need
for Muslims to try to catch sight on the new moon of Shawal as
the whole thing had been settled. It was formally announced in
Saudi Arabia that the last day of Ramadan would be Sunday and
the following Monday would be the first of Shawal ... and to
hell with you, and your new moon, and your Islamic and
non-Islamic courts of law! Moreover, General Schwartzkopf had
decreed that all registrational formalities for the Hajj, in
all corners of the world, be completed before the end of
Ramadan; and it was for this reason that General Schwartzkopf
had to fix the end of Ramadan, because this action for the
first time was made compatible with arrangements for the Hajj.
The Hajj was of considerable concern to General Schwartzkopf
because the arrival of hundreds of thousands of people from
the Islamic world to places under his protection was a very
delicate matter. The Hajj this year was different from that of
previous years, because it came this time when Mecca and
Medina were under the protection of the American forces.
And, as every one knew, the Saudi government invited these
forces to protect them when the Iraqi forces entered Kuwait
and perhaps might have wanted to enter the sacred places in
order to annex them to Iraq. That would create a very serious
situation as these forces might invade the western oil fields,
too.
For this reason the Saudi Government, as a sovereign state,
had every right to ask for protection, and it was in the
interest of America to grant such protection; and, but for the
intervention of the American forces, Mecca and Medina might
have been annexed to Iraq despite the pros and cons of the
whole affair. Now that the protection provided by the American
forces had averted such eventuality, who would blame General
Schwartzkopf for drawing up a timetable for the end of the
months of Ramadan and Shawal and the days of standing on Mount
Arafat, the offering of sacrifice and the casting of pebbles,
and the last day of Ramadan as the closing registration date
for those who wished to undertake the duty of the Hajj?! For
this tactical reason, it was impossible to leave the end of
Ramadan to the chance sight of the new moon as that could
jeopardize the forces entrusted to protect the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia. In other words, General Schwartzkopf had no
choice but fix the fourteenth of April as the last day of
Ramadan and the fifteenth as the first day of Shawal ... and
the rest till the day of standing on Mount Arafat according to
the western calendar only ... In addition to the prohibitions
mentioned in the Koran - namely, " Let there be no obscenity,
nor wickedness, nor wrangling in the Hajj ..." General
Schwartzkopf decreed that the pilgrims to God's sacred House
this year had to observe an additional list of prohibitions
coming from the General himself and not from God.
This list forbade the pilgrim to bring any pictures other than
the one in his passport and books of all kinds, the Koran,
Hadith and Fiqh included.
He also forbade the pilgrims to say any prayers except the
ones prepared by the General himself, copies of which were
available free of charge at all guides' offices. The prayers
were to be strictly followed as any other form of prayers
under the guise of freedom of speech might lead to hostile
slogans against the American forces, or perhaps against the
General himself or his president - God forbid! Such
eventuality might bring on agitation and protest marches which
would disturb the law and order for which the American forces
were responsible as Mecca was an integral part of the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia whose protection was the sole responsibility
of General Schwartzkopf.
Who was in the wrong, then? No doubt, it was the non-committed
one, the one who deviated from the right course of action; the
one who disobeyed the orders. Why should one look up high into
the sky to see the new moon? One might as well say, "It was
overcast " by which method one would hit several birds with
one stone: In this way, which would be most desired, one would
have followed and adhered to the Sunnah since it was overcast
and so one had to observe Ramadan for thirty-two days. On the
other hand, one would have gained an excellent recompense and
reward of fasting two more days.
And who would dispute the matter or brand one as infidel when
one could answer back Koranically, "And it is better for you
that ye fast " And he would be one of those who bow down their
heads submissively in obedience of God's command. " And bow
down your heads with those who bow down (in worship) ". The
Koran is being exploited, or rather, misused by many Muslims
to gain power and to justify unfair gains, murder and illegal
practices; even prostration and openness. So long as you claim
to be a Muslim, you can exploit the Koran for any personal
gain.
Can you pretend to be more pious or righteous than the Muslim
Brothers, the Repentance and Migration Party, Sultan Abdul
Hamid, Abdul Majid, Sheikh Abdul Rahman, Abd Norman and Abd
McMillan ...? Therefore, the fifteenth of April 1991 AD (i.e.
western calendar) had to be the feast-day (Eid Al Fitre) and
the Eid service had to be held at the Mecca sanctuary at 06.50
and at the sanctuary of the prophet at 06.00.
The rest of the Islamic world had to observe the differences
in time undisputed.
General Schwartzkopf Air, Land and Sea Protected Mecca.
A
Prayer for the Last Friday
As next Friday will be the last Friday of the blessed month of
Ramadan regardless of the dates of the beginning and end of
the fasting, Muslims in the south of the Philippines, north of
Thailand, the Malaysian islands excepting Sarawak and
westwards to Nigeria, to one quarter of the Cameroon, three
fifths of Malawe, and one quarter and three sixteenths of
South Africa - Muslims living in these regions are required to
go to the mosque and say a prayer on the last Friday of
Ramadan - every one of them in the spirit of the Koran, which
says, "Go ye forth, (whether equipped) lightly or heavily.
The prayer, the full text of which will be given later on, and
which has recently been discovered with the discovery of the
cobalt gamma ray, helps the one who learns it, teaches it, or
says it to dispense with modern sciences, especially the
applied sciences.
How absurd we must have looked when we spread solid as well as
prefabricated schools, institutes, university colleges and
vocational training centres everywhere to the extent that
every child was able to go to school in a concerted effort to
combat ignorance, to eradicate chronic illiteracy, and to
comprehend modern sciences in order to make progress and
confront the challenges of enemies.
We were absurd because we did not exert as much effort to look
for the old books which contained the profound secrets of
cults, denominations and orders that had petered out in time,
such as Ibn Taimiyah ... and Ibn Katheer. We were also wrong
when we started the iron and steel industry and erected
chemical and petro-chemical factories on which we had spent
billions of dinars.
The great man-made river may as well be abolished. The second
phase of the huge iron and steel complex, and the second phase
of the Ras Lanoof complex, which comprises three hundred
factories for petrochemicals should also be abandoned. This
will help us to save millions of Dinars to reprint the yellow
books. No doubt, the Muslims - I mean the Arabian Muslims lost
between the Ocean and the Gulf were stricken with fear and
terror when they knew for sure that the sons of Israel had
made great progress in Modern science and with the help of
American - Arab funding they were able to utilise their
knowledge of modern science to send up a satellite capable of
taking real pictures of anything they wanted at every second.
The Israelis were greatly disappointed when the pictures of
Arab daily activities began to come regularly and
simultaneously to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem: They were
disappointed because at first the satellite took pictures of
everything in the Arab World, and so the Israelis had a pile
of pictures of camels in Mauritania, donkeys in the Sudan
together with pictures of Kings and presidents at summit
conferences. The Israelis were really annoyed at having to
sort out so many pictures in order to decide which were of no
use and which would constitute a danger to the future of
Israel. So they adjusted the satellite to concentrate on
selected target places and to stop photographing camels,
donkeys and such things as these. Consequently there appeared
pictures such as Rabta, Tajura, Tarhuna, Bu-Kamash, Gasr
Ahmed, the High Dam, the Great Man-Made River and Ras Lanoof.
Then there appeared pictures of the ten year old girl,
Mietiga, playing in front of her house, that of Sana, and that
of Okba Ibn Nafa, brown and tall with a beard, wearing a green
turban ... then that of Gordabia, sitting in the open air,
veiled up with men, women and children around her ... also
that of Nasser waiting for Egypt ... it is also certain that
the Israelis possess the nuclear bomb and long-range missiles
to deliver it ... and they are manufacturing military aircraft
which they have started to sell to a number of countries. This
is only one front of the serious challenges facing the Arab
Nation which calls for a revolutionary programme to amass all
resources in the service of science education, organized work
and confrontation in order to attain a high degree of
readiness to pay the price and shoulder the necessary
consequences to save a nation at risk and abuse.
But the religious sons of this nation who have been taught
Islamic theology by erudite teachers from Afghanistan, India
and Britain such as Al-Nabahani, Sayyid Qutb Zada, a Persian
originally from India with Egyptian nationality, Mohamed
Assad, Hawa, Weikon from Turkey, Mirza and Bahauddin from
Persia, Jack Birke and Jarody - they think highly of these
preachers and have great faith in them, especially Sayyid Qutb
Zada, Al-Nabahani and Black Dodge whose first name became
Mohamed when he embraced Islam. By the way, they have been
promised abode in Paradise as was expressed in a speech by
Zeinab, and as expressed in their own confessions entitled
"Investigations and confutations " Anyway, the sons of this
nation, who belong to the Muslim brothers, the Islamic
Liberation party, the Movement of Proclamation, Repentance and
Return to God, Jihad against the Muslims, Call and Propaganda
in Defence of America ... they have drawn young people's
attention to this momentous secret which they have discovered
after long sleepless nights spent in serious research and
concentrated study of voluminous yellow books - namely, that
the prayer on the last Friday of Ramadan is sure to cause
failure of all abominably hostile plans and render the
function of modern science and technology ineffective.
If we were to believe in what the parties of God coalition
say, there is no need for our children to go to schools,
higher technical institutes or the Bright star University of
technology ... rather, let them out in the open air on
sidewalks selling cigarettes and cakes to adults ... the only
important thing to do is to learn the prayer, the full text of
which will be given later on ... but on condition that it be
recited by all the Muslims in the regions mentioned before
save the ones excepted. As for the prayer, it is as follows :-
"May they be unable to see! May they be unable to see!" to be
recited a thousand times per minute on the last Friday of the
month of Ramadan together with the word "Amen!" This prayer
has been tried for accuracy and proved correct and right.
It can make the Israelis unable to spot Arab vital
installations including the Rabta medicine factory ... as a
matter of fact, they cannot see even the Arabs themselves.
This prayer is sure to blindfold the Israeli satellite. One of
the Muslim Brothers working at the Rabta factory secretly
informed the Americans about the nature of work at the
factory. This made America move its fleets towards Libya for
another confrontation ... but the repetition of this prayer a
thousand times per minute together with the word "Amen!"
before the investigations rendered America unable to see the
factory - let alone the Israeli satellite which circles around
Algeria, Libya and Iraq only ... and true enough, neither
America despite the great fleet gathering, nor the Israelis
have struck at the factory in Rabta up to the time of writing
this article.
The other amulet is just a mere reading of "Under the shades
of the Koran " and not the Koran itself; and according to the
explanatory interpretation of the Muslim Brothers, "The Koran
is one book but 'under the shades of the Koran' is ten books"
These books, as you may well know leave the readers hardly any
time to read any other nonsensical subject or programme such
as chemistry, mathematics, space and depths ... but on
condition that they seclude themselves in mosques or at home
when they read them in order to have the desired effect.
O, believers, May Allah enrich your general knowledge, try to
imagine how great and effective the prayer would be if all the
Muslims from Jakarta to Marrakech, except the regions
afore-said, applied themselves to it ... it would be too
powerful to defeat, remembering that prayers do not appear on
the enemy's detection screens as do aircraft, ships and
missiles. So hurry up and teach your children the books of the
Muslim Brothers and the Liberation and Repentance Front ..
Print and reprint these books and seclude yourselves at home
and in mosques to study them thoroughly till Doomsday.
The titles of these books make their content clear enough,
such as The ruling of Religion on Smoking and Growing Beards,
The Fiqh of the Sunnite Majority Concerning the Use of Henna
and Shampoo, and The Kennash Treatise on How to enter Paradise
Easily. Then there are Ibn Taimiyah's books which explain the
wisdom of eating with three fingers, eating when one is in a
reclining position, and the wisdom of having one's food served
on wooden or metal plates. Of course, you won't forget the
previous prayer which comes under the military aspect of the
fiqh of the democratic Muslim Brothers Party. This prayer is
concerned with the defensive strategy of the party.
Complementary to it, there is the prayer peculiar to the
economy, which is simple enough to recite only a hundred times
per second, it has been tested and found useful against prices
going up for no apparent reason and in resisting exploitation
with no revolutionary theory to guide one or even a
revolutionary movement. The prayer is as follows:
Gracious Allah, have mercy on workers and civil servants and
protect them from shopkeepers and protect wholesale merchants
against senior revolutionaries. Should firing break out in the
day light, the ones to blame for it would be the merchants and
the revolutionaries in which eventuality we could only implore
you, O, Allah, to pardon the ones who cause prices to go up
and exchange the Dinar for a dollar. On the other hand, those
who want the Arab Nation to unite so as to be strong and make
progress and eventually defeat its enemy, will have to repeat
after the Imam on the afore-said Friday this prayer, "Gracious
Allah, our weakness is clear enough to notice; and our welfare
is at your disposal and, as you know, we do not possess the
ring of Shobeik Lobeik (i.e. wish-granting ring) The Jews and
the Christians have gone up to you in their missiles and
satellites ... and we do not emulate them in their blasphemy
of invading the space. We humbly implore you and praise your
Holy Name!" O, believers, this is what the different allied
Islamist parties call on you for ... all of them; the Muslim
Brothers, the Liberation Part, the Movement of Repentance and
Return to God and the party of the Call and Propaganda, they
want you to know that you cannot make any progress forward, or
enter the world of technology, or get out of your present
state of backwardness or liberate Palestine ... or at least
blow up the bases of missiles guided to strike at every Arab
capital ... you can achieve none of this unless you return to
your yellow books ... and go back in history two thousand
years to find out who had murdered Caliph Othman and bring him
to justice, also find out who had murdered Al Hussein, and who
had a better claim to the Caliphate, Ali or Mu'wiyah, and also
what the credentials of Yazid and Al-Hussein were. You will
have to make sure how many people had attacked Othman and what
time exactly the terrible crime happened.
Turning your attention to the books of Ibn Taimiyah, Ibn
Katheer, Yakon, Hawah, Sayyid Qutb Zada, Allori and Al-Mawdudi
you will be able to grasp the fundamental basics which are
indispensable for advancement and for finding a solution to
your administrative and economic problems as well as the
dwindling oil prices as a result of the Christians discovering
new sources of other forms of energy ... and essential for the
defensive action according to article 51 of the U.N. charter
against star wars, nerves war, and electronic war. How can we
move forward when we do not yet know who was worthier to
succeed his father as caliph, Al-Hadi or Al-Mahdi ... Al-Amin
or Al-Mammon .. and whether the camel of Ali, May Allah save
his face, was brown or white, and last, but not least, whether
Caliph Othman's shirt was made of cotton or nylon. You find
all these basic branches of knowledge in the retrograde,
sorry, I mean, time-honoured traditional books which the
modern Islamist parties strongly suggest that you read
thoroughly, even if you have to wear glasses. Some of you
might deride this trend ... from the point of view of
blasphemy and heresy ... but can any one in his right mind,
living at the advent of the twenty-first century afford not to
worry at such critical issues?! How can we enter this new
century when we still do not comprehend why it is advisable to
use your five fingers when you eat and the wisdom of using
only three fingers, and why it is inadvisable to lick your
fingers before sucking them, and why it is advisable to
finger-lick the plate after eating, and the advisability of
picking up food fallen on the floor ... you may refer to page
297, chapter 109 of the book "Ketab Assaliheen" "Good people's
Book" by Imam Zakariya Yahya.
You have also to know whether you can die your beard with
colouring shampoo or only with henna, and whether the cloak of
a Muslim woman can be machine-sewn or only hand-made, and if
she could wear one made by an unbeliever or an Indian or a
Pole. May Gracious Allah guide the Muslims to the right path,
heighten strife among them, make them call one another
infidel, encourage them to forsake and fight one another so
that they may be allied to the people of the Book ... You are
always near and ready to answer! Please, Gracious Allah, unite
the Muslims under the banner of Washington and Tel Aviv, and
make the unbelievers together with their women, children and
goods a booty to be fairly and justly distributed among
Muslims ... with no partiality for the left or for the right
... Amen!
No
Prayer for the Last Friday
It was a pity that Muslims in all corners of the world could
not agree on the prayer for the last Friday of Ramadan.
Had they come to an agreement, their prayer could have shaken
the Zionist foundation and NATO; perhaps it might have blown
up the Israeli satellite as well. But unfortunately, they
disagreed among themselves; The Islamist Liberation Party
agreed to let his stooges participate in the last Friday
service on condition that their party leader be declared
Caliph of the Muslims with special prayers for his welfare to
be said on Mosque pulpits - namely, the following prayer
should be said at every mosque all over the world:
"May Gracious Allah aid the Caliph of the Muslims, Leader of
the Islamist Liberation Party and bless his wives and children
and enable them to succeed him" And if he ever felt unwell,
Muslims would be in duty-bound in all mosques in the Muslim
world to say a special prayer imploring God for his speedy
recovery.
You should know that what is taboo to you is permissible to
him; and you and your wives are the "legal possession of his
right hand " There is also the condition that the three
members of the political Bureau - a Palestinian and two
Jordanians of Kurd and Turkish origin - should be considered
as members of the Prophet's family; and if they were ever
mentioned you would have to say, "May Allah be pleased with
them ... May Allah save the faces of the members of the
political Bureau of the Islamist Liberation Party and promise
them abode in Heaven whatever comes to pass ". The party also
made the condition that its followers and their followers and
stooges of their second line of followers take no part in the
last Friday Prayer unless the Muslim Brothers Party was
disbanded and its relation with the German Intelligence
Service was disconnected in response to the political crisis
raging between Great Britain and 'ungreat' Germany about
modernizing nuclear missiles. Asked what the prayer on the
last Friday of Ramadan had to do with Britain and Germany,
their public relations officer told us that the nature of
conflict made that necessary, and the Islamist Liberation
Party could never act against God's religion, violate its
oaths, or "untwist its yarn"; and that it had been
historically and religiously allied to the people of the Book
"the British Intelligence Service" since the invasion of
Palestine and will remain so till Doomsday.
For its establishment, the Party is grateful to Hajj Lieut.
Gen. Glubb and Hajj Laurence, may God bless their souls and
consecrate their tombs in the south of England. When the
followers of the Muslim Brothers heard this condition, they
reacted by burning Nabahani's books and made it known that the
Islamist Liberation Party was in the service of the Mossad and
its members were stooges ... and that they received financial
support from the Mossad every six months through Jordan ...
and that this party had been formed by pro-British
Palestinians since the British mandate of Palestine to
forestall any Muslim plan to liberate Palestine ... and that
the sole dream and ambition of the party leader was to become
the Caliph of the Muslims for some time, even if it were only
one month long with imams to mention his praises from the top
of pulpits.
The Islamist Liberation Party counter-attacked the Muslim
Brothers and accused them of misinterpreting the Koran in the
books of Sayyid Qutb Zada, who was of Indian origin, entitled
"Under the shades of the Koran" ... and that the purpose of
this misinterpretation of the Koran was to nullify Nasser's
credentials to rule and to assert those of Hassan Al-Banna
instead, even though he was dead, because Al-Banna learnt the
Koran by heart in his childhood - and no matter if he had
forgotten it in his manhood - whereas Nasser never learnt the
Koran. The real content of interpreting the Koran is these
books called "Under the shades of the Koran" was the conflict
in the Egyptian society over authority in the forties and the
beginning of the fifties and, as such, it had nothing to do
with the Koran, religion, God or Libya ..., and that religion
was misused and the Koran misinterpreted intentionally to
establish the right of one Egyptian group to rule against
another.
The Islamist Liberation Party reacted burning up Al-Mawdudi's
books, proclaiming that they were a fiasco ... How could a
foreigner, they said, teach us, being Arabs, our religion when
it was we who had helped him to embrace Islam and by right
were his imams and teachers?
They stated that it was absurd for an Arab to be taught by a
foreigner, the religion of Prophet Mohamed in his own tongue,
pure and clear Arabic! And, on their part, they made it a
condition that the Muslim Brothers should sever their
relations with the American Intelligence service, especially,
Colonel John Palmer. They apologized for having had to
disclose such sensitive secrets, but they explained that it
was the golden rule of "tooth for tooth and eye for eye" and
the one who started it was the most to blame.
Other movements, such as the Atonement and Migration from and
to Palestine, the Jihad against the people of Ejdabia, and the
Call for the Demolition of the Industrial complex at Ras
Lanoof, took part in the argument concerning these serious
matters, which would work miracles, such as desalinizing sea
water for use in agriculture, transforming solar energy into
electric energy, and perhaps changing stone into wool. And, in
their own turn, they stigmatized the Muslim Brothers and the
Islamist Liberation Party as infidels and accused them of
being retrograde, hypocritical and immoral undercover man: and
that the followers of these two parties could not challenge
these new groups, nor could they break their beauty teeth or
walk a distance of forty kilometres carrying a bag of sand
weighing twenty-five kilogrammes every week. Neither could
they fast for forty-five days instead of thirty, or bear to
live for six months without having a bath, a shave, cleaning
their teeth, or clipping their fingernails, nor could they get
married without signing a marriage contract ... i.e. to follow
the example of Mir Zada, peace be upon him!. When the
interference of these new groups came to the attention of the
Muslim Brothers and the Islamist Liberation Party, they passed
a Fatwa (religious legislation) together and had it marked by
the right thumb of the Yemeni chief, may Allah bless his soul,
of the Islamic World Association at Holy Mecca and at the
branches of the Association Ltd. in Washington D.C. at Holy
Jerusalem, and at the old Institute of Shemlan ..., the
Fatwa's purpose being to end the sterile arguments and
disputes about religion which one should not go very deep
into; and which one should exploit only to mobilize
simple-minded followers and use as a mask before the masses.
They also threatened to expose these groups for being imported
into the Arab World from foreign countries, and that they were
meant to undermine the Arab Nation under the mask of religion,
and to destroy Arab Nationalism in order to facilitate the
emergence of an Israeli or Persian nationalism in the region,
and combat the all-out progressive social trend in favour of
an unreal Islamic trend, as agreed upon with the C.I.A. and
Mossad, which meant swapping the Islamic trend for the Islamic
Religion. They also stated that the Atonement and Migration
Movement came originally from Pakistan, and the Call and Jihad
from Afghanistan, India and Iran ... and that those regions
were the old traditional place of origin of the schools of
drug addicts, heretics and Western intelligence hostile to
Islam and the Arab Nation.
They added that these movements were an extension of
Qadianiyah, Ahmadiyah and Bahaiyah whose founders feigned to
be prophets and in the end turned their backs to Mohamed's
religion and swapped it for Bahaiyah, Ahmadiyah and the like;
and that instead of Islam, there would now be the calls of the
Atonement and Migration and the Call and Jihad and the like.
Thus we have lost the participation of these parties and their
followers and stooges in the prayer on the last Friday of
Ramadan as a result of the differences which could never be
settled until Doomsday.
Unfortunately the problem did not end at this point: The
Muslims of Pakistan said to us. "we cannot participate because
the occupied territory, as far as the Islamic state of
Pakistan is concerned, is Kashmir, and our deadly enemy is
India and not the so-called Israel". As for the Muslims in
India, they declined the invitation to participate.
because they could not agree with us about the specific nature
of the enemy and the purpose of Jihad. For Indonesia, the real
enemy was the Muslim state of Malaysia, who had violated the
borders of Indonesia, a Muslim state too, even though their
traditional enemy was Japan. On the other hand, the occupied
territory for the Muslims in the Philippines was Mindanao and
not Palestine ... Tel Aviv did not have any bad connotations
for them as did Manilla. It was far worse to find Israeli
embassies and exchange of interests between Muslims and the
Zionist enemy. It became clear to us that Israel was the enemy
of the Arab Nation only ... and that America was co-operating
with some Muslim countries for the benefit of Israel, and that
we were living in a fancy world of our own ... for Islam, as
we have discovered, does not constitute a political, economic
or military alliance ... We have found that Turkey, who in the
name of Islam, had ruled the Muslim world for six hundred
years, is a member of NATO, which is led by America, and that
its relations with Israel are quite good. We have also found
that the Muslim African countries seek help from western
countries against us, and that they have no objection to
non-Islamic basis on their Muslim soil, suffice it to say that
the Islamic Republic of the Comoras has given up one of its
islands to France as a gesture of gratitude for reinstating
Hajji Ahmed Abdullah to authority ... and that the Muslim
inhabitants of the island of Mayotte have voted to join
Christian France.
The previous painful conclusions have certified that Muslims
in all corners of the world cannot ally themselves with us in
Jihad against a common enemy, because the enemy of the Arabs
is a friend to non-Arab Muslims and vice-versa ... so there is
no much hope for a political or a military Islamic unity till
Doomsday ... and that there is no common ground among us for
mutual economic benefits at all.
For instance, Turkey has tourist and trade ties with Israel
and is associated with Germany in man-power ... and is a
partner with Europe in the European Common Market, against the
wishes of Islam, May peace be upon it! And we have found that
the Muslims of Liberia and Malawe are very pro-American. The
only people, who sympathized with us, were revolutionaries
from all corners of the world; but they were not Muslims! They
said, "We believe that the Arabs have been wronged and
humiliated by Zionism and Imperialism, and that Palestine is
an Arab country occupied in 1948" But we declined their offer
of participation, because they were not Muslims. It was then
that it became clear to us that the Muslims were not Arabs,
and that the Arabs were Muslims. Well, the last Friday of
Ramadan passed without the suggested prayer, because we had
found out that every nation had its own religion, its own
prophet, its own future, its own destiny, its own enemy and
its own interests; other than that was mere deceit, absurdity
and foolery. The Arab Nation would have to taste the
bitterness of humiliation and the agony of having its rights
encroached upon, and it would have to face extermination by
its own enemy, who was at the same time an ally and a friend
to non-Arab Muslim nations, because to settle these
differences and contradictions by compromise was wishful
thinking. However, we had to let the followers and stooges of
the parties of the Islamic Liberation, the Muslim Brothers,
the Atonement and Migration, the Call and Jihad against
innocent believers - we let them explore, as hens do in the
soil, the books of Ibn Taimiyah ... and the Fatwa Sondosiyah (
Illustrious Fatwa) in the latest edition of the C.I.A. They
said to us, "We shall take part in the Jihad as soon as we
finished reading Imam Al-Ghazali to know whether death was a
bird or a creature?! If it were a creature as Imam Al-Ghazali
asserted, it would be bigger than a young donkey and smaller
than a horse ... and whether the bunches of grapes which fell
onto Khobeib Ibn Adei, when he was imprisoned by the
unbelievers in Mecca, had come from Venus or Mercury, because
vines did not grow in Mecca, but the Ibn Taimiyah, an ancient
Sheik of Islam, insisted that grapes used to fall onto Khobeib
every day; and that Om Aiman, who was fasting while she was on
her way from Mecca to Medina, had nearly died of thirst when a
meal of parsley soup was brought before her together with a
bucket of mineral water marked "Evian" of which she drank her
fill, and never felt thirsty for the rest of her life.
He also asserted that Khaled Ibn Al-Walid once besieged a
well-defended Roman fort, and asked the garrison to surrender.
They agreed on condition that he should drink two glasses of
"cyanide" poison which he did and not an inch of his
intestines hurt him. This is what the sheik of Islam, Ibn
Taimiyah, wrote in his famous book which is considered the
constitution of the movement of the Atonement and Migration,
the Call and Jihad, the Muslim Brothers and the Islamist
Liberation. Well, here we are, waiting for the leaders of
thought of these parties to specify the nature of death, if it
is a bird or a creature ... and how the grapes found their way
to the prisoner of Mecca, where vines did not grow ... and how
the soup and Evian mineral water were brought to Om Aiman ...!
As these scientific researchers will, no doubt, shake up the
whole world: its education, its truisms, and its nonsensical
scientific fundamentals, which are based on the law of
gravity, floating, trigonometry, solid geometry, centrifugal
force and logarithm ..., so we are looking forward to the
results of these scientific researchers carried out by the
Islamist parties, which are imported and related to Magianism
and transcendentalism, and we ought to help with reprinting
the books of Ibn Taimiyah, Ibn Katheer and Al-Mawdudi, which
have eye-catching titles like:
The Advice or Religion on the Private Life of Married Couples
... The Ruling of Religion on Smoking and Growing Beards ...
More views about the Prophet and Polygamy ... and Khalid Ibn
Al-Walid's way of Eating Dried Meat. In his view it is both
useful and important for us to know how Khaled Ibn Al-Walid
used to eat dried meat and not his war tactics and how he
defeated the Romans. And then, there is his book entitled "
The Sources of Wisdom of Eating with Three Fingers ".
O, Believers in one God, don't be downcast or feel grieved,
because in the last Friday of next Ramadan, or the one after
next Ramadan, or the one after that, we may very well have
some very sensational scientific facts discovered for us,
which will clarify these knotty issues.
Mossaharaty at Midday
We all know the Mossaharaty ... and like him. The children too
used to like the fasting month of Ramadan and looked forward
to its arrival in order to see the Mossaharaty again, waking
up people before daybreak, and listening to the exciting
rhythms of his simple drum accompanying his quaint voice at
night during the blessed month of Ramadan. We used to listen
to his improvised hymns and try to hear their words.
The children would sing them out for a long time ... and we,
grown ups, would use some of his phrases on occasions and in
situations where they seemed to be applicable. For instance,
we would say, " Wake up, sleepy head!" every time we wanted to
urge someone to be wakeful and active. May Allah reward the
Mossaharaty well for his humble effort and continual singing
late on moonlit or dark nights to wake us up for the last
allowed meal (Sohor) and get ready for fasting another day,
which could be a long one. The Mossaharaty is a unique person.
It is rare to find one like him. As a matter of fact, he is by
far a sui generis with abilities rare to find in other people:
His responsibility is a moral one connected with conscience,
kindness and self-discipline: He is keen to wake up every
sleeper; he takes great pains and walks long distances around
lanes and alleys to wake up their inhabitants ... He might
stumble on more than one stone and fall flat on the ground as
a result of his nightly ritual, but he would never "turn on
his heels from his self-imposed duty" or lose his temper ...
on the contrary, he would just keep walking and singing the
praises of Allah in fixed determination to complete his rounds
so that every one could hear his cheerful voice. The most
interesting thing is that the Mossaharaty needs no one to wake
him up.
It is he, who wakes people up. In this sense, he is unlike
other people, who need a drum, a prayer and hymn singing
repeatedly to wake them up. We all wonder at the peculiar
character of the Mossaharaty! Who really wakes him up so that
he may wake us up? Doesn't he go to sleep? Of course, he does!
Like us, he is a human being. He feels tired, he gets ill and
he goes to sleep, or at least he needs some sleep and rest.
The amazing thing is that he happens to be fully awake at the
time of sleeping to perform his sacred ritual at the peak of
bedtime when one goes into a state of inactivity and repose.
He walks late at night when it is pitch-dark.
He stumbles and slips, but gets up, and slumbers on; and
perhaps, this is the reason why some of us, who do not like
the call to morning prayer, do not seem to like him either.
But we are used to hearing the call to prayer, because it is
repeated five times a day; and in this sense it has become a
familiar phenomena from morning to evening. Unlike the
Mossaharaty, the caller to prayer can nowadays make the call
to prayer from his place ... perhaps even when he is reclining
on the bed with the help of a loudspeaker. He does not disturb
those who dislike him as much as the Mossaharaty does, because
he does not move about or pass by their houses or stop at
their doorsteps to remind them as the Mossaharaty does. On the
other hand, the call to prayer consists of specific
stereotyped phrases with no chance for creativity or
innovation, whereas the Mossaharaty moves and innovates while
he is improvising ... He beats his drum and sings his
improvised hymns in praise of his Lord.
He can improvise any prayer, song or phrase that he thinks is
fit to awaken sleeping people ... and he can repeat his calls
and prayers as he deems right and sensible; but it is all done
in a delightful way which even the children like and try to
learn by heart, because they sound so sweet, even though the
meaning of the words is still beyond their comprehension.
The Mossaharaty's voice is charming like magic; and as magic,
it needs no loud speakers which can be annoyingly repulsive
and loudly deafening like the ones used by the callers to
prayer in Malta. However, one may like or dislike the
Mossaharaty, but even those who dislike him, because he
deprives them of sleep in the latter part of the night and
urges them to get ready for another day of fasting, speak well
of him on the day of fasting; not at the time when it is due;
but then, better late than ever!
This is all about the Mossaharaty after midnight. And now,
what about the Mossaharaty at Midday?!! |
