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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
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