Ahmad Khalil: The Story of a Palestinian Refugee and His Family
Maryam Jameelah, 1968

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Title: Ahmad Khalil: The Story of a Palestinian Refugee and His Family
Author: Maryam Jameelah
Published in: Mohammad Yusuf Khan
First published: 1968
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CONTENTS
  Foreword
  AHMAD KHALIL
  In memory of the late Mufti of Jerusalem
  PREFACE
  CHARACTERS IN THIS STORY
  II
  III
  V
  VII
  IX
  X
  XI
  XIII
  XIV
  xv
  XVI It was Ramadan, the holiest month of the year, the month when the Quran was first revealed to the Holy Prophet Muhammad, the month of fasting from dawn until sunset, the recitations from the Quran and the lengthy night prayers in the mosque. In previous years, Ramadan had also meant to the children of Iraq al-Manshiya, the brightly-coloured lanterns which illuminated the entire village, the processions in the streets, the trained monkeys, parrots and dancing bears brought by their trainers from village to village to amuse and delight them, the magicians, the story-tellers and wandering minstrels with drums and crude one-stringed instruments, relating the heroic deeds of the great Sultan Salah-ud-din Ayubi and Sultan Baybars who drove out the Christian crusaders and saved Palestine for Islam. It was the earliest morning hours when Ahmad Khalil remembered how he and Abdul Aziz used to accompany their fathers while they made their rounds from door to door to awaken the villagers for their pre-dawn meal, beating on drums and chanting:
  XVII
  XVIII
  XVIII
  . . . . . .
  . . . . . . . .
  XIX
  XX
  XXV
  XXVII
  XXX
  The Night of Majesty is better than a thousand months. The angels and the Holy Spirit descend therein by permission of their Lord with all decrees. That night is peace until the rising of the dawn ........................... " At that moment they were all startled by a knock at the door. Rashid jumped up to open it and there stood Ismail wearing a new smartly
  THE AUTHOR

****************************************


1

THE STORY OF A PALESTINIAN
==========================

REFUGEE AND HIS FAMILY
======================

2

3


AHMAD KHALIL
============

The Story of a Palestinian Refugee and his Family
=================================================

by MARYAM JAMEELAH (formerly Margaret Marcus)

Published by

Mohammad Yusuf Khan & Sons
==========================

Sunnat Nagar, LAHORE-Pakistan 4 All Rights Reserved

Copyright by Mohammad Yusuf Khan

Revised Edition, December 1979 - 2000 Price: Rs. Printed by: El-Matbaat-ul-Arabia, 30-Lake Road, Old Anarkali, Lahore, Pakistan


In memory of the late Mufti of Jerusalem
========================================

5

In memory of the late Mufti of Jerusalem : Haj Amin al Hussaini
===============================================================

(1895-1974)

6 *Ibn Umar reported that Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah said: “Verily there is a key for everything and the key of Paradise is love for the poor.”

Anas reported that Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah said: “Oh Allah! Let me live a poor man, die a poor man and resurrect me in the company of the poor.”

(Hadith)*

(v)


PREFACE
=======

Maryam Jameelah (formerly Margaret Marcus) was born in New York in 1934, a fourth-generation American of German-Jewish origin. She grew up when the furor of the Palestine debate was at its height and the Partition of Palestine by the United Nations on November 29, 1947 and the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948 was creating greatest excitement in New York. Emotionally torn by the injustice of Zionism, she was driven to begin writing this novel, her first and only attempt at fiction, when she was just a school-girl of fourteen in order to refute Zionist propaganda and demonstrate to her family and friends, who were Zionists, that so-called “backwardness” of the Palestinian fellaheen at that time provided no justification for the Zionists to deprive an entire people of their homeland and their human rights. The latter portion of the book, written during her early twenties while a student at New York University, clearly reveals her growing sympathy for Islam, its culture and ideals.

The concluding chapters were added several months before her formal conversion to Islam in Brooklyn, New York on May 24, 1961. Although since her migration to Lahore, Pakistan in 1962, she has made corrections, objectionable portions omitted, and many details added, the theme of the story and its characters remain unchanged. Since this book was written before she embraced Islam, had never been outside her native America, had no firsthand acquaintance with Palestinian Arabs and lived in a prosperous Westchester County suburb, surrounded by all the comforts and luxuries enjoyed by other American youth, and she had never encountered any personal experience with the poverty, hardships and injustice depicted on the following pages, factual errors and literary flaws were inevitable. She only hopes that they are not serious enough to mar the book as (vi) It is no exaggeration that due to the long years of pre-occupation with Ahmad Khalil, Maryam Jameelah was converted to Islam. She began to write this story in 1948 as an atheist; by 1961 so intense was her emotional identification with Ahmad Khalil and his family that she had become a fervent Muslim in all but name.

Ahmad Khalil is the last of the older generation of Palestinians who clings tenaciously all his life to the traditional peasant ways of his rural village. The authoress depicts a lifestyle which is no more for today’s cosmopolitan, urbanized Arabs and middle-class sophisticated, educated, and for the most part, religiously indifferent Palestinians have nothing in common with the Ahmad Khalil, Khalifa and Rashid portrayed in this story. She also expresses in her indignation against “Progress” and the crass materialism it has brought in its wake, nostalgia over the loss by the Arabs of irreplaceable spiritual values and ideals.

UMAR FAROUQ Ramadan ul-Mubarak 1, 1399 (July 25, 1979)


CHARACTERS IN THIS STORY
========================

vii CHARACTERS IN THIS STORY

AHMAD KHALIL ………………………. The principal character of this story KHALIFA ………………………………… brother of Ahmad Khalil RASHID …………………………………… paternal first-cousin of Ahmad Khalil MALAK WAHAB ……………………….. father of Ahmad Khalil KHADIJAH ………………………………… mother of Ahmad Khalil ASMA ……………………………………… maternal first-cousin of Ahmad Khalil and his wife ABDUL AZIZ ……………………………. brother of Asma, maternal first-cousin of Ahmad Khalil YUSUF MALIK ………………………….. father of Abdul Aziz and Asma, maternal uncle of Ahmad Khalil and successor to his father as Chieftain of his tribe. SHAIKH ISHA’AQ IBN IBRAHIM … maternal grandfather of Ahmad Khalil, the Chief of his tribe and the headman of his village. MUSTAFA EFFENDI …………………. grand-uncle of Ahmad Khalil, the landowner of his village.

viii MANSUR …………………………………. brother of Malak Wahab, father of Rashid, paternal uncle of Ahmad Khalil HALIMAH ………………………………… wife of Mansur, aunt of Ahmad Khalil ISMAIL ……………………………………… son of Ahmad Khalil ABD AR-RAZIQ …………………………. adopted son of Ahmad Khalil SAFIYA …………………………………… wife of Khalifa RAFIQ ……………………………………. son of Khalifa MAYMUNA ………………………………. wife of Rashid ABD AR-RAHMAN …………………….. Pakistani friend of Ahmad Khalil INAMULLAH ………………………….. Indonesian friend of Ahmad Khalil KARIM ……………………………………. son of Inamullah and friend of Abd ar-Raziq

1

I
===

Ahmad Khalil strained his eyes on the distant horizon illuminated by the rays of the setting sun. As far as he could see, there was row upon row of grain ripe for the harvest. Each day while he spent hours watching over the fields as if they were still in his possession, he remembered the sacred words of the Quran:

“……. And thou (O Muhammad) seest the earth barren and lifeless, but when we pour down rain, it swells with every lovely kind of growth …….”

Every year Allah performed this miracle of resurrection before his eyes.

After the winter rains, he saw the desolate earth sprout with tender green shoots which grew with such amazing rapidity until the fields were transformed into waves of shimmering gold. It was a sight far more precious than gold for it meant life itself. In previous years, under cover of darkness, he had crawled under the high barbed-wire fence and sneaked across the border with his younger brother, his cousin and other fellaheen to reap the grain until one night they were discovered by the soldiers who surrounded 2 them with machine-gun bullets and exploding grenades.

What did they want with this small patch of land upon which generation after generation of his tribe had depended for their very existence? How could it possibly mean to a foreigner what it meant to him?

Although it was growing too dark to see, Ahmad Khalil remained rooted to the spot, trying to think back as far as he could remember. In the brief span of his seventeen years, his tribe had been decimated from more than three hundred until he, his brother, his father, his father’s brother, his aunt and his younger cousins, Rashid and Asma were the only survivors left. In the distant desert mirage he could dimly see the flat-roofed huts cramped together for protection so much like his village that had been destroyed. So perfectly did it harmonize with the rocky arid landscape that from afar, it was scarcely visible.

Beyond the green fields, stretched the bleak wastes of the Negeb, its desolation of jagged rock and coarse sand unrelieved under the merciless sun in summer by a single tree or a blade of grass in contrast to the far more temperate and fertile north. To the south of the Negeb lay the vast wilderness of the Nejud, the original homeland of his people where they had migrated from the depths of Arabia to Palestine during the great Islamic conquests more than thirteen centuries before, converted to Islam most of the Christian Levantines they found there, and later many of the European crusaders who chose to 3 remain in the country after their defeat and finally merged with them into a single people.

Although his tribe had been settled as fellaheen, rooted here for centuries, scorned both by the desert and town dweller because they roughened their hands with the cultivation of the soil, in appearance, dress, manners, in their dignity of bearing and fierce independent spirit they were almost indistinguishable from their bedu origins. Since neither the rule of the British mandate nor the Turks before them, policed the area, they ruled themselves and had to master the art of warfare to defend themselves, their crops and their flocks of sheep, goats and camels against frequent raids and attack.

Still Ahmad Khalil could see nothing but the matchless beauty of the fields, the growing crops of wheat and barley, and much smaller patches of lentils, onions and cucumbers, where in the midst of her work, his mother squatted down and with help of his aunt, gave birth to him. He tried to remember his mother but he could no longer recall the sight of her face nor the tone of her voice. He could only remember her quiet dignity and her grace when she carried heavy burdens on her head and then think of that other Khadijah, the first and most beloved wife of the Holy Prophet Muhammad and feel the great pride sweep through him that his mother had been named after her.

When he thought back to his earliest years, it seemed as if his mother had always been with him.

d She carried him with her wherever she went, first in a cloth hammock, slung over her back supported by her forehead and later sitting astride her shoulders.

Even when she was weaving her exquisite cloth on her handloom to be bartered for such essentials as matches, salt, raw Egyptian cotton, sewing needles and bullets for his father’s rifle in the town of Gaza, she never let him out of her sight.

Whenever he cried, she would instantly stop whatever she was doing, take him in her arms, hold him close against her warm breasts filled with milk and then rock him gently back and forth chanting the Kalimah to him until he fell asleep. When he was not in his mother’s arms, then his father or his grandparents, his uncles or his aunts would take turns holding him.

But then abruptly after he reached his second year, there was no more milk for him, except occasionally when he cried too loudly in the fields and Khadijah was nowhere in sight, any passing nursing mother would pick him up off the ground and give him her breast.

Otherwise the pangs of hunger never left him.

At first he screamed in frustration when his mother refused to suckle him but he soon learned he had to be content to nibble on stale crusts of bread dipped in oil, a boiled onion or a big green cucumber.

Often when Khadijah gathered with her friends, she would try to force him to stand and walk but the spindly little legs would buckle as soon as she let go of him.

The other women exchanged I glances, shook their heads and regarded Khadijah’s child with pity. Khadijah lifted the steep-sided basket with her little son curled up asleep inside and placed it on her head. Together they walked home in silence.

As soon as Malak Wahab appeared in the doorway, Ahmad Khalil somehow found the strength to sit upright.

The child’s enormous black eyes danced as he cried out joyfully: “Father! Father!” He gazed up at his father, never seeing the ugliness of his fleshy black face with its flat heavy features redeemed only by his perfect white teeth and the penetrating intelligence of his eyes. He could only stare, overawed by the beauty of this magnificent body towering above him.

Even during the times of the most acute scarcity, he never lost his sturdy and robust health. In all the world, surely nobody except Allah possessed greater strength than he.

Feebly stretching out bony brown arms and hands like little claws, Ahmad Khalil begged his father to pick him up and Malak Wahab in anguish clasped him tightly against the warmth of his chest under his robes and caressed his unkempt coarse black hair as if he doubted he really loved this child but only pitied him.


II
===

Although nobody in his family thought he would long survive, Ahmad Khalil lived. He could not 6 know as the others knew that his three brothers and a sister who were born before him and still another brother and sister after him, had not, for all of Khadijah’s children had been weak and sickly and none of them had been able to survive beyond infancy.

He still could not walk but he had grown strong enough to crawl about the crowded little room which he and his parents shared with his grandfather, his uncle, and his aunt who was expecting a baby. He had long been able to talk and liked to amuse himself for many hours at a time with incessant chatter, trying to repeat long passages of poetry he had so often heard his grandfather and his mother recite and the sheer delight in the rhythm and rich throaty sounds of the Arabic language.

Harassed by overwork, his mother had much less time for him now than before and since he was too small to help in the fields and was regarded as a nuisance underfoot, he was often abandoned alone all day in the house where would cry in hunger and thirst until he was exhausted with nobody to hear.

At first glance, the room appeared bare and devoid of interest but little Ahmad Khalil found plenty to investigate.

On hands and knees he crawled over the rough reed matting covering the hard-packed earthen floor upon which the members of his family sat during the day and slept at night. Other times he would play hide-and-seek behind the giant-sized pottery jars that lined the wall in which his mother and aunt stored water and grain.

7 Nearby stood his mother’s loom where he could watch her weave for market the most beautiful cloth he had ever seen. In the centre of the room on the fireplace was set the great copper cooking pot charred black with age and constant use which had been in the possession of his mother’s family for generations. Close beside it was the flat iron plate upon which he loved to watch his mother and aunts cook unleavened cakes of bread. His mother had taught him never to waste or throw away even a morsel of food or else Shaitan would eat it and Allah punish him. If ever Khadijah saw a piece of bread the child had carelessly dropped on the ground, she would scold him and order him to kiss it before placing it into a crevice of the wall where a cat, dog or bird could find it.

In the darkest corner of the room, the crude village-made farm tools were kept, the plough, hoe, shovel, pick, sickle and digging sticks along with the threshing equipment. He did not know of the long drought some months before his birth which had left the entire tribe impoverished and destitute. During the drought, the harvest failed and most of their animals died. Under cover of darkness, twelve famished tribesmen broke into Negba, the neighbouring Jewish settlement, killed three guardsmen and fled away with sheep, chickens and as many sacks of grain as they could carry. This resulted in savage reprisals.

When Malak Wahab could not persuade a 8 friend from a neighbouring village to lend him his camel for ploughing in exchange for a sack of grain, Khadijah had to pull the plough herself. Those who lacked the strength to pull their own ploughs resorted to planting the grain-seeds with digging sticks of the simplest manufacture, this being possible because the tracts of land left to them had shrunken so small.

Next to the tools were the weapons and whenever Ahmad Khalil saw the rifles leaning against the wall, he felt safe and secure, certain that his father, his grandfather and his uncles would protect him from all harm.

The house was built of stones tightly fitted together and strong enough to last for generations. Its thick walls provided excellent protection against the fierce heat; it was dark inside and pleasantly cool in summer but dreadfully cold during the winter rains.

This year the harvest was not so meagre as usual and there was milk to drink and sometimes even meat. Malak Wahab would carefully save all the bits of meat in the stew Khadijah had intended for him and when she was not looking, hastily feed them to Ahmad Khalil. He would hold the child on his lap at night and in the darkness tenderly coax him into drinking one more swallow of milk and to munch another orange that had been stolen 9 from Negba. As soon as his father returned home at night, little Ahmad Khalil would rush to him and feel the bulging pockets concealed under his robes, crying: “What did you bring me? What do you bring”? And there was another orange and as a special treat, three boiled eggs!

One morning just after his father had fed him another secret meal, Ahmad Khalil astonished his parents by slowly climbing to his feet, his brown face radiant, his great black eyes bright with mischief as if he knew he had attained some great accomplishment. Excitingly Malak Wahab called out to Khadijah who saw him standing alone unsupported for the first time. Malak Wahab held out both arms and urged him forward.

The child took a few faltering steps in his direction, then fell down before he again struggled to his feet and finally made his way on unsteady legs across the room. Khadijah could not believe it. Her Ahmad Khalil had never been able to walk; he had scarcely the strength to sit upright. She feared he might always be a cripple because although he was four years old, she still had to carry him about like an infant.

No longer did Malak Wahab have to feed him in secret after Khadijah discovered him in the act for to his pleasant surprise, she was not angry, but very much pleased.

After that, she vied with Malak Wahab to forage, scavenge or steal 10 from Negba as much as she could find and take turns with him stuffing the extra food into the child’s mouth with her greasy fingers, the parents laughing and playfully teasing each other all the while.

As the stalks of grain grew tall and ripened in the green fields under the bright hot sun, the child improved steadily in health and strength.

As soon as the sun began to sink and the men returned home from the fields, Khadijah would stand just behind the doorway calling out to little Ahmad Khalil who raced the entire length down the street into her outstretched arms. For a long moment she would hold her child close against her, overwhelmed with happiness as she fondled and caressed him—a son at last of her very own! Of all the six children she had borne only to lose, this one, the sole survivor Allah had left to her.

To express her joy, Khadijah persuaded her elder brother, Yusuf Malik to make a feast.

For the occasion he slaughtered ten sheep in the name of Allah and for two days afterwards, Khadijah stirred great pots of rice and meat over the out-door fires. Word spread quickly that a feast was to be held. All the small ones whose parents had been left landless and destitute by the encroaching settlers, were invited. Starving children, most of them nearly naked in the freezing cold of the winter, came in scores from the surrounding villages and nearby beduin encampments.

More 11 than a hundred children sat in rows on the ground, impatiently waiting for the food to be distributed to them. Then a fight broke out between three older boys belonging to rival hostile tribes over the meat and only then did Yusuf Malik intervene to separate them and give each a more ample portion. Drawn to the scene by irresistible curiosity, a seven-year-old boy from Negba looked on timidly with wide blue eyes. Yusuf Malik gently took him by the hand and by signs indicated for him a place to sit on the dusty ground between Ahmad Khalil and a tiny bedu girl who were both too busy stuffing rice and marrow into their mouths by the handful to notice the alien. Yusuf Malik gave him an enormous bone. The blonde boy tried to lift it to his mouth but since it was too big for him alone, all three children gnawed eagerly at the succulent meat at once, the grease from the fat dripping over them. Famished dogs, cats and birds waited expectantly for more bones and extra morsels. They were not disappointed.

There was plenty for all. A wild jackal howled in the distance before venturing closer.

Khadijah cried out and cringed in terror, begging her brother to drive it away but Yusuf Malik only replied, calmly: “This one too is our guest. We cannot leave him hungry” and reaching for the last bone, dripping with fat and shreds of meat, threw it in its direction as far as he could reach and the animal fled away with it in its mouth into the barren hills beyond.

22 Ahmad Khalil awoke with a start. With the comfort of a full stomach, he had fallen asleep on the ground, covered by his uncle’s warm woollen robe.

The sun had set. He was alone. It was nearly dark. All was quiet.

The children had gone home.

“Why are you still here?” scolded his uncle. “Your mother will worry”.

And without saying more, Yusuf Malik wiped the dust and dirt off the child’s body with his hands as best he could, picked him up in his arms and carried him to the hut.

His mother and father were lying together on their straw mat ready for sleep and when his uncle brought him to them, Khadijah’s sleepy arm reached for him and drew him close against her. The desert night air was bitterly cold but little Ahmad Khalil, squeezed safely between his mother and father under his grandmother’s heavy black goat’s hair blanket, was snug and warm.

Now that Ahmad Khalil was strong enough to run about, he spent most of the time playing with his two small cousins, Abdul Aziz and his younger sister, Asma. No sooner did they open their eyes at dawn when they would rush up the narrow stairs to the roof and since the one-roomed huts on their street adjoined each other, they would gleefully jump from one rooftop to the next, shouting with joy until neighbours complained to their parents because of the noise. Like all other Iraq al-Manshiya children, Ahmad Khalil, Abdul 13 Aziz and Asma were docile, obedient and respectful to the elders of the tribe. They dared not misbehave, for they could do nothing without others watching them and they knew if they did mischief, not only could they receive a severe scolding and beating from father, but Grandfather, uncles, elder brothers and even cousins had equal right to discipline an unruly child.

At night Malak Wahab would take his little son in his arms and chant the Quran over him until he fell asleep.

Above all else, Ahmad Khalil loved to hear the Quran being recited and nothing gave his parents greater happiness than to listen to him trying to imitate them. In Iraq al-Manshiya, even children as young as he could clearly understand the meaning of the original Text for the speech of his tribe was the same as the beduin of Arabia—not the corrupt dialects of the citified Levantines—and had changed little since the days of the Prophet.

Often Malak Wahab would relate to him many stories about when he was a slave in the palatial villa of the great Turkish landowner, Mustafa Effendi, whose great-grandfather had been granted a fief by the Ottoman Sultan for his loyal service to the Empire.

But most of all, his father wanted to tell him about the city. He seldom spoke of Gaza; it was too backward; hardly more than a trading post for the beduin. His Paradise was the modern streets of the new Cairo and wide-eyed with astonished 14 wonder, Ahmad Khalil listened to his father 1s vivid descriptions of the giant high-rise buildings, hundreds of feet tall, the electric lights more dazzling than the sun at mid-day, and the wide concrete paved streets filled with thousands of motor-cars, trucks and buses, the new post-office, factories, the finest of modern hospitals and schools, the railway station with all incoming and departing trains and that most breath-taking sight, of the airport with airplanes taking off and landing from every part of the earth.

“Would you like to fly high in an airplane far swifter than any bird?”

“Oh yes! Yes!” shouted the child, clapping his hands and jumping up and down in his eagerness. “I want to fly with you on one of those flying machines! When are you going to take me? Can we go now?”

Malak Wahab smiled happily; his black face shining; his teeth gleaming white. “Inshallah sooner than you think! You don’t want to spend the rest of your life here,” he spoke in a quieter, somewhat plaintive voice as if he were talking to himself rather than to his son.

“Surely Iraq al-Manshiya must be the poorest, the most wretched, the most backward and primitive village in all of Palestine! Yes, my son, I pray to Allah in every Salat, that you be educated in a modern school and perhaps even have the good fortune to graduate from Cairo University so you may escape 25 all this poor, limited, dreary life and become a teacher, a social worker, a lawyer or a doctor and never again be compelled to roughen your hands with the lowly menial toil of the fellah.”

Five-year-old Ahmad Khalil listened uncomprehending but soothed by the richness of his father’s deep voice. He was growing very sleepy. He curled up on his mat.

“It was in Cairo on the route to Mecca to perform Haj, I met Sayyid Rashid Rida and all the other disciples of the great reformer, Shaikh Muhammad Abduh. They changed my life when they convinced me that we can only rise to greatness again after we accept the knowledge and wisdom of Europe and understand that this not only is not in conflict with our faith but indispensable to it!”

Ahmad Khalil was startled awake when his father raised his voice almost loud enough for the neighbours to hear.

But his gaze was fixed not on his father but on his mother. She was squatting in the dim corner on the opposite side of the room, grinding the grain on the handstone mill. Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead and her long sleeves were rolled up to expose lean sinewy arms with their muscles developed from hard labour almost as much as a man’s. She stared at her husband with a sullen face and hostile suspicious eyes as if at that moment he were her enemy.

But Malak Wahab remained determined. Ahmad Khalil watched his father cross the room, open a locked trunk with a big key, take out his 16 foreign clothes and contemptuously throwing his keffiyeh and robes at his feet, put on one by one the strange garments — first the underwear, then the shirt, tie, jacket and trousers and finally the socks and shoes on his feet.

He was about to put the English hat on his head when Khadijah lunged forward, her black eyes blazing with fury, and knocked it off. The hat fell on the floor and she trampled on it with toughened dirt-stained bare feet.

Malak Wahab angrily pushed her away. He put the hat back on his head and turned to his son.

“I only want to show you what a civilized man wears.

I always wore this dress before I came here.

And this is how you will dress someday when Progress transforms the village.

How do you like it?”

The child began to cry. “I don’t know you

anymore! It is ugly!” He ran to his mother and clung to her for protection against the unknown.
======================================================================

“Take them off!” commanded Khadijah in a voice as hard as steel. “No! Never!”

“I tell you to take them off at once, throw them away and never stand before me like this again!”

Her black eyes blazed fire, her sharp nose and strong cheek-bones jutted out from her thin face with authority. Ahmad Khalil no longer recognized 17 her. She had always seemed so gentle, meek and submissive.

His father refused to move.

Khadijah grabbed his loaded rifle and pointed it at him.

In terror, Malak Wahab cringed. “No! No!” he shrieked. “You are mad!” “Are you one of us or one of them? Take those off or else I denounce you before the entire tribe as an infidel, a renegade and a British spy! I will tell my father and as the Chief, he will deal with you!”

His father’s powerful shoulders sagged in defeat. Khadijah stood over him in silence like a rock, his rifle still grasped firmly in her hands until he had removed all the foreign garments, put back on the robes which she picked up off the floor and handed to him, replaced the hated hat with his kaffiyeh and quietly locked everything away from sight inside the mysterious tin trunk.


III
===

When the struggle between the colonists in Negba and the villagers of Iraq al-Manshiya grew more and more ferocious during the Arab rebellion led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Hussaini, 18 his mother’s father, Shaikh Isha’aq bin Ibrahim, became the most important person in his life. Indeed, Ahmad Khalil now spent much more time with his grandfather than with his parents.

Shaikh Isha’aq bin Ibrahim was the village chief with the power of life or death over the entire tribe. Although his real status as a serf was no higher than any of the other fellaheen, he behaved like an absolute monarch, expecting everyone without exception to assume that he was born to command and others to obey.

When the old chieftain died, Isha’aq bin Ibrahim took over the leadership of the tribe, not by any hereditary right but by the sheer strength of his personality. Soon afterwards in his dealings with the beduin, he met some Wahabi tribesmen from Arabia who had fought with King Ibn Saud to help him establish his kingdom and this soon transformed him from a mere nominal Muslim who practised a few rituals only because of habit, custom and tradition into a zealous crusader determined to wage a religious revival in the village.

The formerly careless and apathetic fellaheen who were so ignorant, they could not perform their Salat without mistakes, rallied enthusiastically behind him. He even tried to establish a village school to instruct both children and adults but to his dismay, the teachers he found in Gaza and other towns and cities, inflamed by the heretical nationalists, had nothing but contempt for Islam and its traditions. They scorned the fellaheen as if they were not as human 19 as themselves and refused to endure without tangible rewards, the isolation and hardships of village life. Through his vigorous preaching in the mosque, the Shaikh was able to rid his people of many superstitions, put an end to the practice of saint-worship, grave-worship, music, singing, dancing, smoking, loud lamentations for the dead, enforce the Hanbali school of the Shar’iah and inspire his people to the most devout strict observance of the prayers and fasts, but they remained as illiterate as before.

Now he was seventy years old but despite his age, his back was erect with pride. A heavy brown wool robe, patched in many places and torn at others, hung from his thin shoulders over a ragged white gown.

His head was wrapped in a kaffiyeh drawn across his gray beard and long hawk-like nose so that only two piercing dark eyes could be seen. But none who encountered him ever noticed the rags or the bare feet. Although very lean and below average in height, the frailty of his body was deceptive.

His strenuous unrelenting activities would exhaust a young man.

Khadijah never told her father about the quarrel or carried out her threat to denounce her husband in front of him. Because Malak Wahab was the only man in the village who was educated and had mastered the skills of reading and writing, he soon became of indispensable help as his secretary and interpreter.

30 Ahmad Khalil watched his grandfather pull out from his carved wooden chest, paper, envelopes, postage stamps, a reed pen and a bottle of fine black India ink.

He ordered Malak Wahab to sit at his feet while he paced to and fro across the room, his hands clasped behind his back, dictating letters to King Ibn Saud in Riyadh, Shaikh Hassan al-Banna in Cairo and Haj Amin al-Hussaini in Jerusalem, pleading for their help before the rest of the land belonging to Iraq al-Manshiya had been sold to the colonists by Mustafa Effendi and it was too late. After the letters had been posted by Malak Wahab, the Shaikh waited anxiously. There was no response from King Ibn Saud but Hussaini’s irregulars from the North and volunteer members of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun from the south streamed into the village where he somehow provided them all with food and shelter.

Enthusiasm and morale rose so high that even the most docile and down-trodden fellaheen from the neighbouring villages clambered to fight under him.

After a furious battle, twenty youths belonging to the Haganah, the Zionist irregular army, trapped inside the village, finding escape impossible, surrendered their weapons and allowed themselves to be taken prisoner. Yusuf Malik wanted to kill them all immediately but the Shaikh decided to spare their lives. They were kept chained together in a secluded corner of the village square under 31 the vigilant guard of the Ikhwan, not only to prevent escape but also to protect them from any harm the enraged villagers might be tempted to inflict upon them.

Another fierce struggle followed and the colonists of Negba begged for peace.

Shaikh Isha’aq bin Ibrahim agreed to conclude a truce. Then both sides exchanged their prisoners, their wounded and their dead.

Among the corpses, Shaikh Isha’aq bin Ibrahim found the body of a young Jewish girl, her clothes ripped off, her eyes gouged out, and her nose and ears amputated.

At once he began intense investigations and questioning.

Towards sunset the culprit was dragged to the village square, ordered to kneel and then the Shaikh raised his sword and struck off his head with a single blow. Six-year-old Ahmad Khalil who stood among the crowd cried out terrified as the blood spurted into the air and the body collapsed. Pointing to the corpse, the Shaikh addressed the people in his clear, resonant voice:

“We are not with the pagan nationalists who glorify any act of cruelty that achieves their end. We fight Jihad in the cause of Allah and Allah forbids those who wage Jihad to kill women and children. The law of Jihad forbids us to mutilate the corpses of the fallen enemy. Allah has cursed all warfare for selfish reasons.

32 The rule of the Shar’iah means absolute justice for Christians and Jews as well as for Muslims.”

Now Shaikh Isha’aq bin Ibrahim could concentrate his energy in organizing a great confederation of the tribes and villages surrounding Gaza to prepare for a combined attack on all the infant Jewish colonies in the area. His plan was to methodically isolate them, cut off their water supplies and grip them in a state of siege to force them to surrender.

Simultaneously no more Arab land would be allowed to pass into Jewish hands, but those colonists who submitted to Muslim rule and paid the stipulated tribute would be allowed to stay.

If they rebelled after their surrender, the men would be killed, the women enslaved and the children adopted into the tribe and raised as Muslims to fight for his people’s survival. Of course he knew that the mandate authorities would do all in their power to stop him. “I cannot control my fate”, he would say. “I can only try my best. The results of my efforts, whether I succeed or fail is according to the will of Allah”. But the fellaheen and the neighbouring beduin tribesmen believed in him and were eager to fight and die under his command. The rising hope that he might succeed in driving away the intruders gave him more influence than ever before. Constantly at his side was his son, Yusuf Malik and his two small grandsons, six-year-old Ahmad Khalil and eight-year-old Abdul Aziz, both of whom he prized like jewels.

23 Despite the severe training and deprivations they had endured, the scoldings and beatings for the slightest mischief-making or disrespect to their elders, how exceptionally sweet-tempered they were and so bright and affectionate that whenever his gaze met those two pairs of soft, wistful dark eyes, the Shaikh could not resist the temptation to take them with him wherever he went. Whenever little Ahmad Khalil grew too tired to continue on his journeys, the Shaikh would carry him astride his shoulders or on his back, still leading Abdul Aziz by the hand.

His travels on foot took him to neighbouring villages, to the black goats-hair tents of the beduin desert camps, to Negba and other Jewish colonies, to the headquarters of the district Haganah and even to the most dreaded Zionist terrorists—the secret underground offices of the Irgun. To deal with the British and the Jews, he learned broken phrases of Hebrew and English. Much of his time was spent with British officials who repeatedly threatened his arrest and imprisonment if he persisted in causing them more trouble and disturbing the peace.

When the district British Governor of Gaza first saw them in front of the door of his spacious residence, he looked at their bare feet, their rags covered with dust, the two naked children and shouted angrily: “No beggars are allowed here!”

34 “We are not beggars!” explained the Shaikh. “You wished to see me and I have come here on appointment”.

The Governor’s eye then fell on the richly inlaid dagger thrust into his belt, saw his proud, dignified bearing as regal as a king and then was convinced that this native was an important personality.

I am the Shaikh of Iraq al Manshiya…
====================================

The Governor’s manner changed completely. “Oh yes, of course, I have been waiting for you! Come right inside with me into the drawing room and take a seat here”. He pointed to the sofa.

Ahmad Khalil looked about him bewildered. He had never been inside a European home before. He squatted on the thick grey carpet, next to Abdul Aziz, his back against the sofa, his knees drawn up to his chin and his arms clasped around his legs. His grandfather looked stiff and very uncomfortable sitting on the chair.

Malak Wahab sat crosslegged at his feet as interpreter for he could speak and understand English fluently.

The Shaikh demanded and received the same treatment from the Governor as a high-ranking diplomat according to the rigidly strict etiquette of protocol.

A large framed portrait of Sir Winston Churchill with a pipe in his mouth hung above him on the wall.

25 Other British officials entered and joined the Governor while Shaikh Isba’aq bin Ibrahim argued with them in the most polite manner and modulated voice the entire afternoon why it would be expedient for them to enforce the White Paper forbidding further Jewish immigration and sale of land to the Jews without Arab consent and that it would be in their best interest not to interfere in his work. Malak Wahab interpreted dutifully.

But Ahmad Khalil was not listening to the conversation.

He was staring at the wife of the Governor. He had never before seen a white woman so close. He stared at her short drab brown hair streaked with strands of grey set into a stiff permanent wave, at her new beige tweed suit, her nylon stockings which exposed her thick white legs to the knee, and her high-heeled shoes. He stared at her bulky body, her ample bosom, the flabby flesh of her pasty white freckled face.

A servant wearing a white tunic and a tall red tarboush brought in a large tray of refreshments for the guests and placed them on the polished mahogany coffee table in front of the sofa.

When the Shaikh declined to take any of the forbidden liquors, he was offered coffee. But he only set the porcelain coffee cup quietly back on the tray and helped himself to the bread, cheeses and cakes. Since he had had almost nothing else to eat for two days, he had to exert all his will and 28 self restraint to chew them slowly, delicately and daintily.

The trappings of the white woman no longer interested Ahmad Khalil. He turned his eyes from her face and fixed his gaze steadily on the plate of food in her lap. He waited expectantly but nothing was offered to him. Impatiently he waited for her to finish.

Finally she set the china plate filled with crumbs of half-eaten cakes and pastries back on the table and called the servant to throw them away into the garbage. Unable to control himself any longer, he grabbed the plate off the tray and devoured the left-overs as fast as he could.

The English woman was visibly mortified. Her mouth, reddened with lipstick, turned down into a hard line. With pale blue eyes as cold as ice, she looked at him as though he were some loathesome insect fit only to be trampled upon. The child burst into hysterical tears and cries.

“I think I have taken more than my share of your valuable time”, pleaded the Shaikh.

“Now I may have your permission to go”?

The Shaikh picked up his small grandson and carried him in his arms, crying and sobbing the entire way home.

“But Father, why did she have to look at me like that?” he sobbed.

“You should not have taken anything unless it 27 was offered to you first”, reprimanded Malak Wahab. “It was not for you.

“This was your punishment for your bad manners!”

One night several months later, a special guest came to his door—a poorly-clad youth who introduced himself to the Shaikh as a farmer from a distant village in the north.

“When I heard everybody praising you for your courage and bravery, I wished only to fight the enemy under your command. I belong to the same clan as Haj Amin al Hussaini. But I have no arms to contribute. Tell me what I should do?”

“Do not worry”, replied the Shaikh. “We will provide you with everything you need.”

“But I would not come to you with empty hands.” He held out a sack of flour.

“Take this as a token of my admiration for you. Now I beg your permission to go. Inshallah, I will return in the morning.”

“Oh no! You must stay and eat with us and spend the night here!”

He turned to Khadijah and ordered her to prepare the bread quickly.

The strange youth went to little Ahmad Khalil and Abdul Aziz who were squatting together naked on the bare floor, quietly playing with piles of empty cartridges.

“Are those your boys?”

28 “My grandsons”, replied the Shaikh proudly. The strange man picked up Ahmad Khalil and sat him on his lap.

He felt the sharp bones, the swollen belly, and saw festering sores all over his unwashed body.

“How long has it been since this child has eaten?

Now that your daughter has already prepared the bread, delicious, hot and fresh, give it to him……”

“No! Wait until I taste it first!” The Shaikh’s mouth watered; several drops of saliva dripped to the floor. He looked to Ahmad Khalil as if he were about to faint as he tore off a huge chunk and bit into it eagerly.

“That was the finest flour I could buy in the market……”

The Shaikh collapsed, writhing in agony on the floor and holding his stomach.

“This food is poisoned!” he gasped.

Ahmad Khalil watched terrified. It seemed to
============================================

him as if everything had turned into a black unreal horror as his mother shrieked, Yusuf Malik caught hold of the assassin and Malak Wahab rushed to him, a knife in hand. Moments later the room was packed with neighbours, relatives, scores of fierce tribesmen, friends and enemies of the Shaikh.

Yusuf Malik wanted to kill the assassin on the 39 spot but Malak Wahab took him, chained and handcuffed under heavy guard to the Gaza police station.

Since the family was frozen into immobility by the shock, the Ikhwan conducted the burial, as the Shaikh would have wished—the women were not permitted any loud wails or lamentations, no tearing out hair, slapping the cheeks, renting of clothes or beatings on chests.

Ahmad Khalil stood beside his mother at the door holding on to her hand while the procession of several hundred tribesmen silently passed down the street. The Ikhwan bore the bier on their shoulders to the village burial grounds and a grave of the most austere simplicity, marked only by a mound of earth.

Later the family learned during the course of the police investigations that the assassin had been identified as a cousin of Mustafa Effendi who owned the village and was also involved in the conspiracy. Among his papers was found a neatly typed letter from the Jewish Agency in Tel-Aviv, offering him a reward of five hundred pounds, English sterling, if he would put an end to “the Terror of the Desert”. The method was left to his discretion.

After ten days of confinement, the British Governor of Gaza ordered the police to release him. The assassin fled north to the city of Haifa and was never seen by the villagers again.

30

IV
===

“And did we shoot all the Jews?” questioned Ahmad Khalil, his eyes wide.

“Yes, my son,” responded Khadijah.

“We drove them away again and again and we killed many of them too and captured their weapons. For fifteen years they tried to build their settlement here, steal our land, deprive us of water and our animals and crops and drive us out but my father and my seven elder brothers united the fiercest tribes of the desert behind us and we chased them out every time. When I was a young girl, life was good.

My father kept our platters filled with roasted meat, great mounds of rice with melted butter and dates and milk for the constant streams of guests who sought our hospitality. The floor of our house was piled high with the bright rugs that my mother had woven herself; we had cushions against the wall, stuffed mattresses to sleep on and heavy quilts to keep us warm on cold nights. My brothers always kept the house in good repair, cleaned and freshly white-washed.

My mother would cover my dresses with colourful embroidery and my brothers had fine striped robes to wear. We were blessed by Allah with health and strength. Sickness in our tribe was rare then and our numbers were growing fast but now each year we are fewer and fewer……”

31 Afflicted with inconsolable grief after her father’s death, Khadijah found solace only with her small son with whom she would spend many long hours telling him all she could remember about him when she was a little girl and seeing his mother comforted, Ahmad Khalil also found comfort in listening to her tales which made him appear alive again.

She told of his love for his camels, his most prized possessions and then she remembered when she was very small, to her supreme delight, he had several times perched her alone high on top of the camel’s hump and promised to teach her how to ride.

“What a sight,” she exclaimed, “was my father and my brothers as they raced across the desert on camel-back, their long robes whipped behind them in the breeze, their weapons gleaming in the sun! They could ride, shoot and fight as well as any of the beduin, so much so that he was known to the Jewish colonists and the British not by his real name but only as ‘the Terror of the Desert’.”

“And my father captured from the enemy all kinds of weapons……”

And as Khadijah related vivid tales of her past, Ahmad Khalil could imagine how she had spent so much of her childhood among these implements of war, squatting on the floor, busy cleaning, oiling and polishing his collection of captured rifles, revolvers and pistols. Under the 32 watchful supervision of her brothers, she would sharpen her father’s swords, daggers and knives, “And when he had no bullets, he could use his spear and shoot deadly poisoned arrows.

And how often I would help my brothers making more weapons of our own at home until one by one they were slain ……”

“Our landowner, Mustafa Effendi, is wicked and evil. He cares nothing what happens to us as long as he gets his profit. He is so greedy for gold, he will sell our village land for whatever price the Jews will pay.

Do you know that the new sale took from us nearly half our fields and that is not the end. They will never be satisfied until we are no more.”

“But why do the foreigners come here?” asked Ahmad Khalil. “Why do they want to take our land?”

“They say they have no country. They say that they were forced to leave their homes and that they were persecuted and driven out. They tell us they must possess this country as their own because once it belonged to their forefathers ……”

“But why do they come here? Why don’t they go to some other place?”

“They say that other countries don’t want them, that they have nowhere else to go.

This is in our Holy Quran—the entire story of the Bani Israil and how Allah punished them for their sins and condemned them to suffer persecution, homelessness and exile”.

33 “But are the Bani Israil the same people as the Jews today?” questioned the child, his curiosity to know more about them growing keen.

“Don’t you listen to your father when he recites the Quran? Allah tells us in the Quran that the most important of the Prophets before Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) were all from the Bani Israil. They are the People of the Book, the Ahl al-Kitab—their origin is the same as ours. We revere the Prophets of the Bani Israil as much as the Jews do, nay, much more than they:

“…… Say (O Muhammad): We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed unto Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes and that which was revealed unto Moses and Jesus … from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them and unto Him have we surrendered . . . .”.

“When my father had his horse and his camels, he was able to travel. When he was a young man, he travelled everywhere in Palestine. He told me of his journey to Jerusalem to the sacred Bait-ul-Muqaddas to visit the magnificent Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock where our Prophet ascended to Paradise, to the cemetery behind it where many of our Patriarchs and saints lie buried, to the mosque of Abraham al-Khalil in Hebron and the tombs of his wife Sarah, and his daughters and grand-daughters-in-law, Rebecca, Rachel and 34 Leah. He had been to Sinai where Allah revealed the Torah to Moses and then again to the North where the village and town people enjoy their gardens with trees, grass, flowers and abundant pasture for their flocks, fruit orchards and rich olive groves . . . .

“Long, long ago when the Torah was revealed to Moses, the Bani Israil were very much like us. They looked like us, dressed like us and farmed the land and herded their flocks very much as we do.

Allah favoured them above every other people. They were the People of the Scriptures. They gave birth to most of the Prophets about whom the Quran tells us. But then they changed. They rebelled against Allah, the sacred laws and commandments.

They grew more and more corrupt and sinful until Allah cursed them with exile and expelled them from this land. They migrated to distant countries where they mingled with foreigners and adopted their ways until they lost all resemblance to us. Now there is nothing to choose between them and the British.

I cannot see how the Jews of Negba differ from the British at all. They are just as arrogant, cruel and godless. They have no respect for any religion, not even

their own ……
============

“Why?” asked the boy.

“Only Allah knows. My father and my brother told me what happened to them when they went 85 to Negba to negotiate a truce. This happened not only once but many times. When the time for prayer came, they performed their Salat. Immediately they were surrounded by crowds of children who ridiculed and insulted them, threw handfuls of dust on their heads when they prostrated themselves on the ground, jeering, “But there is no God ! We don’t believe in God here” !

The pangs of loss and grief stabbed Ahmad Khalil more painfully than the beating his father had dealt him for misbehaviour the previous day. He did not have any desire to play with his cousins. He only squatted against the wall, listless and apathetic, wondering why Allah did not punish them. Not until the following morning did he find comfort from his father’s recitation from the Quran:

“ …. And thou (0 Muhammad) will see each nation crouching, each nation summoned to its record. And it will be said unto them, this Day a.re ye requited for what ye used to do . . .. “.


V
===

Ahmad Khalil was now seven years old and he wondered if he would always be his mother’s and father’s only child ? He wondered if Allah would ever send him a brother or sister for a companion and playmate ?

36 Two years before he had delighted in the birth of another cousin - Rashid - who was the only surviving son of his father’s brother, Mansur. Although little Rashid replaced him as the centre of attention in the extended family, this only made him feel grown up and important for he adored the baby, always begging his aunt, Halimah, to let him carry him about and play with him. Rashid was sturdy and healthy, very black in colour with thick fuzzy hair and bright eyes. Happy and untroublesome as he was, everyone in the house took pleasure in his arrival. Except when he was hungry, wet, cold or sleepy, he was always laughing and smiling.

Rashid had just learned to walk when the family decided that Ahmad Khalil and Abdul Aziz were ready to be circumcised.

For the occasion, Khadijah made them each long white cotton gowns that reached their ankles. At first Ahmad Khalil stubbornly resisted wearing clothes and whenever he was alone in the fields, he would take them off and leave them. His father grew very stern, demanding that he keep himself covered at all times until he finally understood that he was too old to run about naked.

Now that Ahmad Khalil was seven years old, he was responsible for saying his Salat five times every day. He did not even have to be taught the ritual for he had watched his mother and father and the other family members at Salat, imitating 37 them since infancy only from now on, it would no longer be play. He was so proud when his father began to take him to the mosque for the congregational prayers among more than a hundred men.

Except for the low minaret, the mosque itself was almost indistinguishable from the ordinary dwellings of the village.

Inside, it consisted of only one large room with no furniture except the pulpit and reed mats covering the brick floor and no adornment except some inscriptions from the Quran his father had painted in black on the white-washed walls. But the mosque was unique in that it was always kept clean and repaired. Amid the turmoil in the over-crowded huts, the dirt and the squalor, it was not only valued as a sanctuary for worship but also as a haven of cleanliness, order, peace and quiet.

One night after the Isha prayers when Malak Wahab had returned home from the mosque, Ahmad Khalil overheard his mother tell him when pretending to be asleep, that before long, she would bear him another child. For years he had longed for a brother or a sister and now Allah had granted his prayers at last! The weeks passed and then the months.

Ahmad Khalil watched his mother closely. He looked at her; she gazed back at him knowingly and then, although not a word was exchanged between them- he knew for certain.

38 Under the crowded conditions in the one-roomed huts, seclusion and privacy were impossible. Iraq al-Manshiya children saw everything, knew everything at a very early age. It was impossible to conceal from them any of the facts of life. Yet they were not permitted to talk about it or ask any questions. Sex, as a subject of conversation was absolutely taboo under almost all circumstances, even between husband and wife.

The time for the birth grew near. When morning came, Ahmad Khalil heard his mother tell his father:

“Last night I had such a beautiful dream! In the midst of the darkness, I heard a voice calling out to me. It was a man’s voice, deep and virile. I asked him who he was and what he wanted? He told me that Allah would soon give me another son, that this boy would be very special, most unusual and unlike any other child. Again I begged him to tell me who he was but he remained silent. Then I saw him come towards me. He was moderately tall, strongly built, and surrounded by a halo of light, dressed in a long robe very white and pure. He carried the child, swaddled in clean white linens. His kaffiyeh was wrapped around his head so that I could not see his face.

He placed the infant in my arms and said to me: “Khadijah, guard him with care for this is a child of God …….. “. Then I awoke. What does this mean?”

39 “How can I know?” replied Malak Wahab. “I know nothing about the interpreting of dreams. It was only a dream.”

Excited, Yusuf Malik intervened. “You saw the Holy Prophet! I am almost certain he was the Prophet! When we see the Prophet in visions or dreams, his face is always veiled.”

Khadijah did not go to work in the fields that day. Malak Wahab ordered her to stay home. He even managed to borrow a mattress and a pillow so that she might have rest and comfort. He ordered Ahmad Khalil out of the house and told him to work in the fields or play anywhere he pleased as long as he would go away but the boy, knowing what was about to happen, refused to leave.

His aunts, Halimah and Zainab watched over her. Malak Wahab boiled water in the copper pot over the fireplace and then demanded that both the women wash their hands and arms up to the elbows with strong soap. Meekly they obeyed his orders, uncomprehending.

Several hours later at mid-day, Khadijah gave birth.

“Allah be praised!” cried out his aunt in triumph. “It’s a boy!”

“Let me see my brother!” pleaded Ahmad Khalil.

50 “You can wait!” rebuked his aunt sharply. “You should not be here now!”

“Let him look at the baby,” Khadijah remonstrated. “He is almost eight years old. He has waited long enough.”

Tenderly Khadijah put the baby into his arms and Ahmad Khalil looked upon his brother for the first time. He was rather small but healthy and well-formed with soft smooth skin the colour of rich copper and a head of stiff black hair as kinky as Rashid’s. Then he remembered his mother’s dream and wondered what could be out of the ordinary?

He gazed into the baby’s face. Although fully awake, he did not yell lustily like the usual newly-born. He lay absolutely quiet and limp. The eyes had an appearance of extraordinary brightness, gentleness and innocence.

Word spread quickly and soon the entire clan gathered at the house, eager to see the new baby. Its head was shaved, kohl applied around the eyes to beautify them and improve the sight and then Malak Wahab whispered the Adhan into its ears like every other Muslim new-born.

Khadijah insisted that no ordinary name was good enough for such a special child as this so he was given the name of “Khalifa”—the representative of God on earth.

Khalifa changed Ahmad Khalil’s entire life. No longer was he free to play with his cousins when 41 his work in the fields was done for Khadijah was so harassed with chores in the house as well as in the fields, she had little time for the baby.

Since there was nobody to look after him, Ahmad Khalil carried his baby brother about in his arms everywhere he went, bringing him to his mother for suckling only when he cried for his milk but often, bitterly resenting the burden, he would just drop Khalifa on the ground and run off to play with Rashid or Abdul Aziz. When Khadijah found the baby crying unattended, she would scold and beat Ahmad Khalil for neglecting him.

The winter rains failed and the harvest was poor. Malak Wahab spent almost all his time searching, foraging and stealing from Negba as much food as he could find.

He gave it to Khadijah, insisting that she must eat and feed Khalifa, lest the flow of her milk stop and the child perish from starvation - the fate of so many Iraq al-Manshiya babies.

There was little for Ahmad Khalil - no more regular meals - only occasional scraps and leavings and he was left on his own to scavenge what he could.

Too weak to play with his cousins or work in the fields, Ahmad Khalil would squat by the hour in the dark corner of the room, intently watching his mother weave cloth on her loom.

The brilliant colours, beautiful designs and exquisite texture of the cloth she wove to be bartered for necessities in Gaza, contrasted sharply with her long coarse 52 black dress and veil with which she covered her face outdoors whenever a stranger passed near and the loose plain white gowns and kaffiyehs of the men. All was peaceful and the quiet was undisturbed except for the buzzing of swarms of flies outside in the sun. He felt comfort from the nearness of his mother and the warmth of her presence. While Khadijah expertly spun, wove, stitched by hand, mended and patched all the garments worn by the family, the baby Khalifa lay on a pile of torn reed mats and rags, kicking and gurgling beside her, contentedly playing with his tiny fingers and toes.

VI
===

Again it was a fine winter day. The sun shone bright and warm but not too hot. The morning desert air was deliciously cool, crisp and invigorating.

This year the rains had been sufficient to insure a good harvest but today the sky was cloudless and clear and when the weather was fair during the cooler season, it was pleasant indeed.

Khadijah sat on her mat near the open door, her legs stretched out straight in front of her, enjoying the sun. Eight-year-old Ahmad Khalil squatted behind her, arranging her waist-long glossy black hair and industriously delousing it with a fine-toothed wooden comb, carefully removing one by one the offensive little creatures. When the boy at last 43 declared that he had found them all and she felt relief from the intense itch, the mother again combed her hair thoroughly with another comb, anointed it with olive oil and then braided her tresses into two thick plaits.

Malak Wahab was sitting against the wall outside, reading aloud from a newspaper to Yusuf Malik, his brother, Mansur and several other men who squatted around him, eager to discuss the current affairs of the day. The newspaper was more than a month old; but seldom was a newspaper of any kind seen in Iraq al-Manshiya and Khadijah wondered how he got hold of such things. Ahmad Khalil overheard him discussing the war which was raging in the cold lands to the North across the sea but to him it all seemed unreal and very remote. He went to his father and peered at the paper from behind his shoulder. He recognized a picture of Sir Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England below which was an Arabic translation of the text of his speech delivered while London was under German bombardment.

Haj Amin al-Hussaini was in Germany and Ahmad Khalil stared long at the photo of the Mufti seated on a sofa beside Adolf Hitler.

“Hitler is our friend”, asserted Malak Wahab.

If the Germans win the war, the Jews will be destroyed, the mandate of the British finished and then Palestine can become an independent Arab state.
======================================================================

54 “Would you exchange one tyranny for another which is even worse?” shouted Yusuf Malik, making sweeping gestures with his hands, now that the debate had grown heated. “Haven’t you heard what he has done? Hitler is very cruel.

Wherever he rules there is nothing but killings, torture, oppression and terror. Not even infants and little children are spared. The Jews are not the only victims.

All the people suffer. Don’t you know about the bombings and the concentration camps? I heard about this over the radio while I was in Gaza.

No, I think you are wrong. Hitler is our enemy. The flood of Jewish immigrants is only because of him. If he left the Jews unmolested and treated with justice, they might be content to stay in their homelands where they belong and not come here to persecute us….”.

“Do you think the war will spread to Palestine?” asked Mansur, his black face strained and anxious. “I have heard stories that already there is fighting in Egypt and sometimes we can see warplanes marked with the black German Swastika flying overhead. Do you think there will be a German invasion soon?”

Yusuf Malik sighed with resignation.

“Only Allah knows”.

Just then from within the hut, they heard a piercing baby’s scream.

Khalifa, who was crawling, rolling and playing on the dirt floor, had been 55 bitten on his arm by a rat. Khadijah rushed to him and picked up the baby in her arms but he only screamed louder from the pain of the bite. Malak Wahab dropped the newspaper and it fell down into the street unheeded. The crowd of men around him dispersed and he went in to his wife.

“There it is!” cried Khadijah hysterically. “Chase it out!”

Ahmad Khalil ran inside.

A big grey rat stood in the middle of the room, still as death, staring at him with evil yellow eyes.

He took his father’s heavy leather sandal and threw it at him furiously.

The rat scurried away and disappeared into a hole in the wall.

“I will catch it and kill it”, promised Malak Wahab. “I will set for him a poisoned trap”.

“They are everywhere”, replied Khadijah hopelessly.

“They are very difficult to catch. When we set for them poisoned traps, they always know, they are so clever and quick. And look how big, sleek and fat they are! When there is no food for us, they never fail to find plenty to fill their stomachs. Perhaps because they are smarter than we……”.

Now it was mid-day. The sun had risen high in the sky and a group of several women from a neighbouring house on the next street went inside to visit Khadijah.

56 “There is much sickness about”, one of them told her. “Many children are sick, more every day. Don’t you know about the fever? It is very terrible. Many die.

Tell me what you think I should do?

On our street it is spreading like fire from house to house.

I fear for my children. I do not know how to protect them”……

But Khadijah was not alarmed. Sickness and child-deaths were so common-place here, there was nothing to do but accept it with resignation. She felt the danger remote and did not believe it could happen to them.

Meanwhile Ahmad Khalil, feeling extremely tired, had fallen asleep on his mat.

“Why do you sleep? It is day - not night! Your father has already gone to work in the fields! You are needed there to help him now!”

She shook him but still could not rouse him. She shook him again and he turned, raised his hand to his forehead and moaned, “My head!

My head! I have such a bad pain in my head!”

Khadijah felt his forehead. “Why you are burning hot! You stay here! Lie down and rest”.

When she sponged his hot forehead with cold wet rags, he shivered with chills. Khadijah rose, crossed the room quickly, returning with a pile of large burlap flour sacks that her brother had stolen from Negba on a raid several weeks before as loot, to cover him.

47 He could hear the Adhan, calling from the mosque for the late afternoon prayer. The melodious chant soothed and comforted him.

He saw his mother gracefully kneel on the floor, and perform her ablutions with dust. She felt her own head aching and her limbs painful with the fever. Trembling she turned towards Mecca and Ahmad Khalil watched her stand, bow, kneel and prostrate herself on her mat the prescribed number of times as she never failed to do after hearing the Adhan. Then she raised her hands, the prayer her father had taught her so long ago automatically springing to her lips:

“…… O Allah! I ask of Thee a pure life and a pure death and a returning unto Thee that shall not call for reprehension or disgrace……”

Night fell. Malak Wahab lit the small stone oil lamp and placed it in a niche in the wall above his head where it gave off a feeble yellow light. He sat still and quiet, watching over him.

The fever climbed higher and higher. Ahmad Khalil could not sleep. The room was on fire but he could not escape. The flames leaped high into the air, searing his helplessly paralyzed body. He screamed for water……

Instantly he felt a firm arm supporting him. Through the stifling mist, he recognized his mother.

“Drink this,” she pressed a clay pitcher filled with water to his lips.

48 Hour after hour Khadijah sat beside him, his head in her arms.

Even through the delirium, Ahmad Khalil felt the delicious comfort as his mother caressed his hair with the palms of her rough and calloused hands, gazing down upon him as though she would never see him again.


VII
===

“Where is Khadijah?” demanded Malak Wahab. He crouched on hands and knees before Ahmad Khalil who slumped half-conscious against the cold stone wall. Malak Wahab shook him fiercely. “Where is Khadijah?

Khadijah?” he cried out, “Where are you?”

Ahmad Khalil saw his uncle, Mansur, put a heavy hand on his father’s shoulder.

“She was buried more than two weeks ago.

You and Ahmad Khalil were so ill, were it not for the devoted care Halimah gave both day and night, you would not be here now. You were beyond all understanding. But at least we managed to give her a decent burial and lay her to rest in peace as she would have wished beside the graves of her father and her brothers……”

For a long moment Malak Wahab was too stunned to speak.

“No, Mansur! No!

I do not believe you! This can’t be!”

His voice rose to 49 an hysterical pitch.

“She could not die. She was no more than twenty-six! That is too young to

die! If I call her loud enough, she will surely
===============================================

answer!”

Mansur lay a restraining hand upon him. “My brother, you cannot bring her back to life.

We belong to Allah and to Him we must return. You must accept the will of Allah!”

“No!

No!” cried out Malak Wahab. “This

did not have to happen. If we were not so ignorant, if we had education, if we were part of
======================================================================

modern life, it would never happen!

Would the colonists in Negba ever permit this to happen to them? It is the lice - yes, the lice which infests our hair, our bodies and our clothes - the rats are everywhere, the flies and the filth - not the will of Allah. There is scarcely enough water to drink and for cooking - rarely any for washing or bathing. It is impossible to keep clean in this wretched place. I hate it!” he shouted. “I hate it!” He threw himself on his mat and pounded the floor with his fists.

“My brother!” exclaimed Mansur.

“You cannot fight against the inevitable. You have been very sick. You must lie down now and rest.”

“Rest?” shouted Malak Wahab. “How can I rest? I am caught in a trap. I must get out of here and take my children with me before it is too 50 late. Come, Ahmad Khalil, I am taking you and Khalifa with me to the city.”

“My brother,” cried out Mansur. “Have you lost your reason? How can you go to the city without money?”

“I could make a decent living,” insisted Malak Wahab. “I can speak, read and write perfect English and Turkish besides my native Arabic. I completed my secondary studies and passed the required examinations with honours.” He went to his tin trunk and opened it with his key.

Triumphantly he took out a roll of parchment, unrolling it lovingly with both hands and holding it up for his brother to admire. “Look! Here is my diploma! I am qualified to work in Government service or else I could teach school. I will no longer work like a beast. I cannot bear to watch my children growing up like barbarians.”

“Yet,” reminded Mansur, “you have stayed here with me for thirteen years.”

“Only because I was compelled to - this was never my choice. Had Khadijah’s father allowed me to take her with me to the city, she and all seven of my children would be alive, well and favoured with good fortune today. But Khadijah was too submissive.

She would never defy her father. Whenever I tried to persuade her, she would only answer:

“This land is my life! I will 51 never leave it’! What a contrast she was to her rebellious older sister who was said to be even more beautiful than she.”

Ahmad Khalil was startled from apathy to alertness.

He perked his ears and strained to listen to his father talk. He never knew his mother ever had a sister. Nobody had ever spoken about her to him before. Who was this woman?

His father continued to talk to his uncle as if he were not present.

“Do you not remember those rumors that she had been carrying on a secret affair and seduced by a soldier from Negba? Their women are so rough and tough, brazen and bold with their hair chopped off short like a man and wearing men’s drab khaki shirts, pants or shorts, that to some of them, our women must seem far more attractive… The Shaikh took no action until he knew for certain if the scandal were true. How can I ever forget the night she disappeared, Yusuf Malik and his two elder brothers surprised her in the fields, locked in his embrace and then pounced upon them both with their knives and daggers! The Shaikh disowned the daughter who had betrayed him and refused to recite the funeral prayers over her, insisting that she be buried in Negba instead. After the settlers had seen the two corpses, they never dared go anywhere near our women again.” Ahmad Khalil was astonished and surprised. He never knew anything 52 about this. His mother had never told him anything or mentioned this sister of hers.

This must have happened long before he was born…

Ignoring Ahmad Khalil, his father continued, as if he were talking to himself as these events were well known and vividly remembered by his uncle, Mansur.

“Since she was the youngest of his children, Khadijah had always been the Shaikh’s favourite and his great fear was that nobody would ever marry her because of this disgrace.

When I told the Shaikh that I would never consider Khadijah’s reputation ruined because of her sister’s misdeeds, he was so happy to find a husband for her, it did not matter to him that I was black and had been a slave. But because of my slave origins, her own position humbled before the village by what her sister had done, and the bitter poverty which made the struggle for survival so desperate, our marriage was extremely simple. There was only a brief ceremony of prayers conducted by the Shaikh with you and Yusuf Malik for our witnesses. There was no feasting and no festivities.

When the Shaikh gave her to me, I was already a mature man of thirty years but she, only a simple girl of thirteen. Her faithfulness was never questioned by anyone but I had wanted for my wife, a modern educated woman of the city. I could never understand Khadijah’s rural world and her fierce resistance to change, her fanatical hatred of all progress - nor 63 could she understand me. An unbridgeable gulf of centuries, of two opposing civilizations which permit no communication, no appreciation, no understanding or respect between them - separated us. I do not even know why I loved her so deeply except that her natural beauty was irresistible. So I took her as my wife and stayed here. That was the greatest mistake of my life”……

Night fell and the room was plunged into darkness. He could hear the Adhan from the mosque but this time it did not comfort him for there could be no comfort for him without his mother as there was no more protection or security for him without his grandfather. He loved his mother. He had always felt closeness and warmth with her. He did not love his father who now more than ever before seemed so cold, alien and remote. He did not believe his father really loved him. If he did, it was not for himself as he was but only to fulfill his own ambitions as he could take pride in a son who would accomplish what he himself could never do. He knew his father never loved him as he was and that he could never please him for he did not like or admire the kind of person his father wanted him to be.

The boy wept long and bitterly in the night with no one to hear or comfort him. All he loved had been taken from him and he felt completely alone in an unfeeling and hostile world.

64

VIII
====

For several months the typhus epidemic ravaged Iraq al Manshiya with more devasting destructiveness than any raids either from Negba or from the bedouin.

Negba was unaffected since the colonists immediately took the necessary hygienic and medical precautions. The Governor of Gaza, under orders of the mandatory authorities, immediately placed the village under the strictest quarantine to prevent the pestilence from spreading to other parts of the country. Two doctors from Negba and four nurses who had been German refugees, went unarmed and unguarded into Iraq al Manshiya to offer medical aid. But mothers hid their children and nobody came forward to be treated. They thought the injections and medicines were poison. Undaunted, the doctors persisted and were trying to persuade two tribesmen to bring their sick children for treatment only to become involved in an angry argument; four more tribesmen turned upon the doctors and shot them to death. Harassed by frequent raids, constant thefts and random killings almost every day, the colonists, now enraged by the doctors’ deaths, swore to exterminate the tribe to the last woman and child. Rather than waste valuable ammunition at the risk of their lives and limbs, how much easier and more efficient it was just to wait and permit the deadly microbes to do their work!

55 More and more illegal immigrants from many European countries were pouring into Negba and other settlements now, encircling Iraq al Manshiya more tightly than ever in their incessant demands for more and more land.

Miraculously the baby, Khalifa had been spared. He alone of the children in the family had never caught the disease.

His aunt, Halimah, now cared for him, sharing her breast milk between him and her own infant until it died and then she continued to suckle him exclusively.

Sometimes the baby would frighten her with a hostile, suspicious stare as if he knew that she was not his mother. When he was not crying for more milk, Khalifa was content to cling to her back while she was working in the fields or about the house, his thin, sad little face peering over her shoulder.

When she was at rest, she would squat against the wall while he lay quietly in her arms, biting on his thumb.

As the months passed, Ahmad Khalil began to wonder about his two-year-old brother who did not seem even to recognize him and had begun to act so strange, his father said he ought to be taken to a doctor. He was too apathetic to laugh, cry and play like other children. All day he would sit in the same corner of the room, unresponsive to everything around him.

His father was very much worried that he might be backward but Ahmad Khalil did not know of any backward children here 66 for if ever an idiot was born in Iraq al Manshiya, it never survived. But his father still worried about his backwardness for he refused to be weaned and neither walked nor talked except a strange unintelligible babble to amuse himself.

Ahmad Khalil looked deep into his brother’s face.

He could not believe that Khalifa was backward. There was no trace of coarseness or stupidity.

His face was too sensitive, too thoughtful. He only looked so sad and miserable.

But something was very much wrong with him and he could not be left untreated. Ahmad Khalil listened to his father and his uncles talk about it endlessly.

Finally Yusuf Malik promised Malak Wahab to search for a cure. “We have no money to pay for a doctor and I doubt if any doctor can help him. I will get for him some Quranic medicine.”

“I know nothing of charms or amulets,” retorted
===============================================

Malak Wahab angrily. “All that is only superstition.”

“If it be the will of Allah, Quranic medicine can cure every ill,” insisted his uncle, “and it costs us nothing while all the doctors charge for their treatments such high fees even when they know people are sick and cannot pay them.”

“Then do as you like,” sighed Malak Wahab. “I suppose we have nothing to lose.”

67 In the morning Yusuf Malik took little Khalifa on his donkey to Gaza. Ahmad Khalil, who had begged his uncle to let him come with him, walked behind. In the Imam’s shabby office behind the mosque,

Yusuf Malik told him about his small nephew and his behaviour. The Imam caressed the child’s head in an affectionate gesture and then called in some of his own children to show him their toys. Khalifa remained absolutely quiet. Then the Imam wrote some verses from the Quran on a wooden board, washed off the black ink into a large bottle and instructed Yusuf Malik to give his small nephew this water every day as medicine to drink.

Early each morning he gave some to little Khalifa in a bowl and he drank down every drop of the precious liquid thirstily.

Malak Wahab was surprised to see that with this treatment, little Khalifa did indeed improve and make much progress. He learned to talk normally and not long afterwards, began to walk. He seemed more alert and interested in things going on. But still he refused to be weaned and squatted forlorn against the wall, always alone for none of the village children would play with him. He never smiled or laughed.

As soon as the children had sufficiently convalesced, Yusuf Malik gave Ahmad Khalil and his cousins the responsibility of caring for the flocks of sheep and goats in the hope they would fully recover their health.

Ahmad Khalil liked this work 58 very much for he had plenty of time to play in the open, pure fresh air, and could run and shout carefree with his cousins from morning to night and drink as much milk as he wanted. The pasture was the boundary between Iraq al Manshiya and Negba.

“Now Asma,” demanded Ahmad Khalil, “Stay behind me. I am going to shoot the Jews like they shoot at us. Look!” he exclaimed. “They are all dead! Now we must find more to shoot!” Shrieking war-cries in pursuit of the enemy, the four children raced to the top of the hill.

“There they are!” shouted little Rashid. He raised his small black arm to point at them, “Look!”

They stared and gaped while a hiking troupe of bright-eyed and happy Jewish children with knapsacks on their backs, all dressed alike in blue shorts and white shirts, exposing their sturdy arms and legs, filed past them. Ahmad Khalil looked to see if they were armed or wore the insignia of the Gadna, the dreaded para-military Zionist organization for children, but these boys and girls were obviously not old enough to join. The younger ones were munching fruit and chocolate bars out of paper bags as they walked.

Some of the smallest of them, their mouths smeared with chocolate, their rosy faces bright with the innocence of little children who had not yet learned to hate, greeted them with cheerful shouts and friendly waving. The Arab children did not smile back. Sullenly they listened 59 to their laughter and unintelligible chatter until Ahmad Khalil picked up a rock and threw it at them. And as he, Abdul Aziz, Asma and Rashid chased after them hurling stones, they longed for deadlier weapons.

Sheer curiosity combined with the lure of a place where something to eat could always be found, made Negba an irresistible attraction where Ahmad Khalil would wander alone for hours at a stretch. Here the Jews so accustomed to the sight of Arabs, they regarded him as unworthy of any notice. Their colourless eyes looked through him without seeing in the same way that the wife of the English Governor of Gaza had stared at him so long ago. It was as if they were lofty beings examining miserable vermin. This look, reminding him of who he was and never permitting him to forget his place in the society outside Iraq al Manshiya, this contemptuous stare to degrade him to the level of the subhuman, had become a familiar experience to Ahmad Khalil but no matter how many times it happened, he never grew any less sensitive to the pain.

He passed pretty white houses with slanting red-tile roofs surrounded by shady trees, cool grass and bright flowers.

Finding one of the doors open, he wandered through rooms tastefully furnished with beds, tables, chairs and well-filled bookcases. He had never before seen such a profusion of books. Before he knew where he was going, he found himself in the nursery.

The plump babies were enjoying their sunbath in their cribs and playpens. Some 60 of the infants were cuddled in the nurse’s arms, being fed with oatmeal, milk, orange-juice, soft-boiled eggs and cod-liver oil. In the children’s dormitory, he could only gape at the framed portraits of the esteemed founders of Zionism—Theodor Herzl and Chaim Weizmann looking down on him from the walls and pull on the flowered print curtains at the windows, leaving grimy smudges behind. The children took no notice of him.

They were laughing and shouting and jumping up and down all over the beds, throwing pillows at each other and making a deafening noise. Everything was in turmoil and disorder but no elder reprimanded them, restrained them or punished them for their insolence, disobedience and shockingly rude manners. Such unruliness, lack of discipline and ill-bred ways would never for a moment be tolerated in his family where it was unheard of for a child to talk back to a parent. He was shocked to see that the young had no respect for the old or for Tradition or authority of any kind. What queer ways! To protect themselves against both heat and cold, all the adults he knew were sensible enough to wrap themselves up in layers of clothing as much as possible, leaving only their feet bare. In Iraq al Manshiya, nakedness was only for babies and tiny children but here in Negba, grown-up boys and girls with uncovered heads and naked arms and legs freely mixed in the fields under the hottest sun without any shame. They seemed to consider play more important than work and there was much organized entertainment and recreation for adults as well as 61 for children. With unlimited energy and vitality, they engaged in many sports and games, spent hours of their leisure listening to lectures and opera over the radio, choral singing, group dancing, amateur painting and theatre groups.

The Jews had a great passion for music and when their work was done, amateur symphonic concerts were often held out-of-doors and Ahmad Khalil would linger timidly, curious to hear the weird sounds of Beethoven.

Once he grabbed a violin off an empty seat. The outraged musician chased after the boy but he was too quick and escaped.

When Ahmad Khalil brought the violin home to ask his father what it was, Malak Wahab only replied with a severe beating. Both his uncles gave him more beatings and after they had dealt him his punishment, they ordered him to return the violin at once straight back where he took it lest the soldiers pursue him and shoot them all.

His favourite place was the fruit orchard where he could satisfy his hunger by eating the rotten and over-ripe oranges that had been thrown away as unfit for market.

Twice he stealthily broke into the chicken-house and stole six eggs, devouring them raw one after the other. Sometimes a loaf of bread would fall into the middle of the street from an overloaded truck and at once Ahmad Khalil would snatch it up from the dusty pavement and run home to share the delicacy with his cousins, carefully dividing it into even portions for each of them. Huddled together, squatting against the wall, 62 oblivious to all else, the four children would devour it down as fast as their jaws could chew.

Then twelve-year-old Abdul Aziz looked up eagerly. “What is it like in Negba?” he asked Ahmad Khalil. “My father has forbidden me to go there”.

“It looks very pretty on the top until you see all the ugliness underneath……”

Several months later, the carefree days on the pasture among the flocks of sheep and goats came to an abrupt end. Abdul Aziz now hardly ever left the house but squatted silently beside his sister, Asma, helping her to weave baskets, plait new reed mats, spin thread on the distaff and patch the family’s ragged clothing. He was ill and feverish and could no longer work in the fields so Ahmad Khalil found himself needed there more than ever. His aunts had taught him how to wash and mend his clothes and cook his own food when they were too busy with other tasks to do this for him. Although he was barely ten years old, he could do a full day’s work.

As soon as the sun set, and he finished his Salat, he ran to his uncle’s home where disconsolate Abdul Aziz squatted in the shadowy corner of the dim room, wrapped in his father’s voluminous heavy woollen robe. Although the heat was intense, he was shivering with fever.

From time to time he coughed rackingly into his sleeve. At the sight of his younger cousin, a faint smile lit up his wan face.

63 “Let’s go up to the roof”, urged Ahmad Khalil. Painfully Abdul Aziz rose to his feet and rolled up his sleeping mat.

He had recently grown with abnormal speed and at twelve, he was already as tall as an adult. Single-file they climbed the narrow stairs. Quickly Ahmad Khalil raced to the top and patiently waited for his cousin to catch up to him. Abdul Aziz unrolled his sleeping mat and then the two boys lay down close together side by side gazing up at the clear black sky, lit with thousands of bright stars, and enjoying the pure fresh air, cooled by a light breeze slightly laden with sand which had begun to blow from the desert. All was still and quiet.

“Yesterday Rashid and I saw some Jewish boys from Negba. They jeered at us, cursed us and then spat at us.

I was afraid of them because they were much bigger and older than us and might have belonged to the Gadna. But we threw stones back at them until they ran away yelling and shouting and making fun of us”.

“You throw stones at them now”, replied Abdul Aziz, “but when you are a man, you will shoot bullets. Soon there will be war. I know it.

I can feel it….”.


IX
===

Ahmad Khalil lay awake on his mat beside 74 Abdul Aziz listening to the first sounds of winter at dawn.

Against the bitter cold, he drew his father’s robe more securely around him.

How good it felt to be so warmly wrapped while listening to the wind howl outside!

He turned and gazed at little Rashid sound asleep nearby. His little arm was outstretched and Ahmad Khalil kissed his tiny black hand. Then he saw his father stir. He wished his father would not awaken so early. It was still dark.

“Today there is no work, Ahmad Khalil”, said Malak Wahab gently, “so you can do whatever you like…..”.

After the children had finished their Salat, they spent another day huddled close together against the bitter cold around the smoky fire, busy mending and patching their ragged gowns while Halimah suckled little Khalifa who would still drink only her milk and refused all other food. Yusuf Malik invited friends from the neighbouring villages of Faluja and Majdal and for the occasion, his aunt Zainab had prepared an especially delicious meal for the guests of sheep roasted whole with rice and melted butter poured over it, washed down with large wooden bowls of cool sour milk. They squatted around the common dish, picking out the choice morsels with the first three fingers of their right hands which, as even the smallest child knew, was the only proper way to eat. Ahmad Khalil was happy to see how much better Abdul Aziz 65 was feeling. This was one of his good days. He had almost no fever and did not cough so much. Perhaps Allah had granted his prayer for his cousin’s recovery, would take the sickness away and soon restore him to health. Most of the time Abdul Aziz had little appetite and would eat practically nothing but today he thoroughly enjoyed the good food and was preoccupied with pushing the biggest chunks of meat towards Ahmad Khalil. When he did not eat them fast enough to suit him, Abdul Aziz would pick up one piece of meat after another with greasy fingers and put it right inside his younger cousin’s open mouth while both the boys joked and laughed until Yusuf Malik ordered them to be quiet. Little Rashid was repeatedly told that he must not be selfish or greedy, eat only from his side of the dish and let the others have their share. And the warm intimacy filled Ahmad Khalil with an indescribable happiness as they squatted together against the wall with full stomachs, warmed by the fire against the winter cold and silently listening to the gale of wind outside.


X
===

Day after day as the storm blew the sand, Ahmad Khalil squatted against the cold damp stone wall, his face half-buried in his arms, impassively watching the clouds of dust from the street blow through the crack under the door.

66 Allah had disappointed him. His prayer had not been granted for Abdul Aziz had suddenly become much worse. Prolonged high fever had weakened him so badly that he could not stand or walk unassisted. Only with difficulty could he sit upright. He suffered from violent bouts of coughing and often he spit up blood. Ahmad Khalil did not believe that anyone - even a doctor - could help him now. He sagged against the wall, listless, sad and depressed.

Meanwhile his aunt, Halimah was busy cooking a pot full of lentils and rice. Rashid and Khalifa huddled close together near the fire, coarse burlap flour sacks stamped with Hebrew letters drawn tightly around their bare shoulders for warmth. They rubbed their numbed fingers together and then held both hands, blue with cold, over the flames.

Rashid kept begging his mother for titbits and when she demanded that he be patient because the meal was not yet ready, he began to cry.

But Halimah was glad to see that four-year-old Khalifa was weaned at last. She had very little milk now, never enough to satisfy him and he constantly moaned and cried from hunger.

Gently her son, Rashid with infinite patience for a child only six, coaxed him near and held out the fingers of his right hand, greasy with lentils, until Khalifa eagerly licked them clean. Khalifa stared at his plate with big hungry eyes.

Rashid scooped up 67 more lentils in a piece of bread and put it into his mouth. The food tasted good and satisfying. He chewed it and swallowed it. Then he begged his cousin for more. He never asked Halimah for her breast again.

Khalifa had rarely done anything but sit in the same place every day from morning to night. The other village children did not tease or torment him. They merely ignored him and ran past him on the street as if he were not there.

Only Rashid liked to keep him company and for the first time, he taught him how to play.

Ahmad Khalil was startled out of his apathy when he heard Abdul Aziz calling out to him in a faint voice scarcely louder than a whisper. He was stabbed with a sharp pain, seeing him lying helplessly on his mat too weak to rise, a bluish-black pallor on his sallow face. Each day his eyes seemed to grow larger in their hollow sockets and there was a glitter in their soft dark-brown as if all that remained of his active life was concentrated there. Trembling, Ahmad Khalil went to him. Abdul Aziz reached for his knife which he always kept with him even now that he was bedridden. He held it up in the light for his cousin to admire. The razor-sharp steel blade gleamed in the semi-darkness. The black ivory handle and the richly inlaid scabbard was covered with beautifully hand-carved Quranic inscriptions. This knife his father had brought him from Gaza as a special present for the end of Ramadan, was all he owned 68 and the envy of every boy in the village.

All the tribesmen were eager to see it. They told Yusuf Malik that the knife must have been fashioned by a master-craftsman centuries ago when all things were made by hand.

They said it must have originally come from Damascus which had long been famous for its steel weapons. It was indeed a thing of value for since machine-produced factory articles had invaded the bazaar, things of such beauty were no longer made and now rarely to be found.

With this knife, his father had ordered him to go to Negba with a group of other tribesmen to avenge the slaying of his six uncles but to his despair, Abdul Aziz was far too sick to show any enthusiasm for battle. All day he lay on his mat, nursed by his mother and trying to avoid his father’s fierce, forbidding eyes. He was the only surviving son and he knew how bitterly he had disappointed him.

He turned to Ahmad Khalil and put the weapon in his hand. ‘’Take my knife. It is yours now. It will never be of any use to me. Promise me to guard it carefully and never go anywhere without it. Inshallah it will be your protection against all your enemies. Promise to keep it with you for the remainder of your life so that you might remember me after I am gone. . . . . ‘’.

Ahmad Khalil clasped his feeble bony hand, held it against his face and kissed it. “I promise”

69


XI
===

During the long slow weeks of the winter season while the rain poured down, the streets were a sea of mud and little work was possible in the fields, Malak Wahab was determined to teach his son to read and write. He had gone to Gaza, borrowed from the Imam of the mosque his copy of Quran, where the print was large and clear, with all the vowel points essential for a beginner, a big wooden board where the completed leasons could easily be washed off and reused again and again, pen and ink.

Several times Malak Wahab called Ahmad Khalil to him but the eleven-year-old boy was too morose to respond. Then once more he called out to his son and demanded that he do as he ordered.

Ahmad Khalil stared at his father’s strong and determined face in bewilderment. What could he want from him?

“How would you like to learn to read and write? Now there is no other work to be done I have the time to teach you . . . .”.

Ahmad Khalil only stared back at his father in sullen silence, a trace of suspicion and even hostility in the gaze. He always knew his father 70 was ashamed of him to grow up to work with his hands on the land, that he dreamed of him to become a prosperous professional man in the city. And to do that, he would have to attend a modern school.

“I have always dreamed of sending you to school, not to the conventional traditional kind where the boys merely memorize Quran, mechanically repeating it like parrots without the least understanding of its meaning but a modern school where the best of teachers would introduce you to the treasures of all that is fine and beautiful. Only then could you escape from the dreary routine of drudgery and toil on this soil which is so barren even with the hardest labours, it requires a miracle to coax any crops to grow and you would come to know that life can be rich and full and not just a desperate struggle for bare subsistence. The latest scientific knowledge would be yours you would then understand as I have always known that the Quran and the teaching of our Holy Prophet is always in harmony with Truth wherever it is to be found. Oh, I wanted so much to find a school like this for you, Khalifa, Rashid and Asma.

No, I would not forget Asma, for education is the birthright for girls as well as for boys. How pretty she would look going to her classes in her brand-new shoes, starched white uniform, blue tie, with her hair combed and neatly tied with bright ribbons! Nothing but the best school for you in the city would satisfy 71 me. I could not be content with anything less than the very best. Oh, I wanted so much to find a school like this for you, Khalifa, Rashid and Asma.

Ahmad Khalil steadily gazed at the father in silence. He had no desire to fulfil his father’s ambitions. He did not want to leave the land to which he felt as intensely bound as did his mother and her people before her. He was not ashamed to dirty his hands with the cultivation of the soil, no matter how much contempt others may regard lowly menial labour for here on the land, carefully tending the green growing plants upon which his existence depended - he found the meaning of his life and the supreme satisfaction which his mother knew so well but his father could never appreciate of closeness to the very source of all life, to nature and to God.

But his father had education while he knew he was entirely ignorant and illiterate. Awakened by his father to the disadvantage of these deficiencies, he realized there were indeed many things he yearned to know and which his father was now ready to teach him. He wanted to be able to read the Quran for himself and achieve much deeper understanding of it on his own. He wanted to learn much more about his faith especially the teachings of the Prophet in the Hadith. He wanted to learn in detail about the Sahabah, the Companions of the Prophet, and why they were the best of all the Muslims.

He wanted to read about the wonderful and inspiring lives of all the great 72 Muslims in history, past and present. He wanted to know the history of his people. His father had even awakened in him a keen curiosity to learn about the Jews and the British. He wanted to be able to read the newspapers for himself to be informed about the important events happening now which he knew would directly affect his life and his future.

And to satisfy this thirst for knowledge, he must learn reading and writing.

The hostile and auspicious stare vanished, now that he was ready, willing and eager to learn what his father wanted to teach him. Malak Wahab urged him to come to him and for the first time since Abdul Aziz’s death, the boy’s face lit up with a radiant smile and he sat down crosslegged on the mat beside him while his father traced out on the wooden board the beautiful letters of the Arabic alphabet which he then showed him to combine into words and finally sentences. This required infinite patience for Ahmad Khalil was slow to learn and his father had to repeat his instructions and explanations several times over before he understood and although Malak Wahab was a gifted teacher who tried his best to make his lessons clear, progress was slow and tedious.

Little Khalifa, his great black eyes unnaturally bright, took an eager interest and watched everything, carefully tracing the letters of the alphabet under his father’s watchful eye on the wooden board after his brother had finished his work for the day.

73 Malak Wahab was astonished to see how quick and bright Khalifa was at his lessons; although he was scarcely older than a baby of four, his handwriting was so much better than his brother’s! Malak Wahab had wanted to teach Rashid too, only to find this child hopelessly uncooperative, unruly and stubborn.

Hour after hour as his father read to him from the Quran, the strange black characters gradually became familiar.

At last came the day when the inert signs suddenly sprang to life!

Then Malak Wahab turned to the back of the Quran to a Surah he was certain his son did not know. He pointed to the place. “Go ahead, Ahmad Khalil”, he urged. I think you can do it now without mistakes. READ”!

And his black face glowed with pride and joy when he heard the verses read aloud slowly and haltingly but without any errors …….

“When the sun is overthrown, And when the stars fall And when the hills are moved, And when the camels big with young are abandoned. When the wild beasts are herded together; When the seas rise; And souls are reunited; And that girl-child who was buried alive is asked for what sin she was slain - And when the sky is torn away; When Hell is lighted and the Garden is brought nigh - Then every soul shall know its fate ………… “.

74

XII
===

“Allahu Akbar”!!

The melodious Adhan from the mosque awoke Ahmad Khalil. He stretched his arms and sat upright.

Then he peered down at his little brother and cousin who were still sleeping soundly beside him.

When he threw aside his father’s woolen robe that covered them, the cold desert air awoke them immediately. Needing no reminders from their parents, the three children obediently performed their ablutions with a mixture of sand and dust and after they finished their Salat, they squatted against the wall, three pairs of expectant dark eyes intently watching Halimah stir the pot of lentils on the fireplace.

At last she took the pot off the fire and set it on the floor before them. “Bismillah”, they murmured and then hungrily scooped up handfuls of dried beans with pieces of stale unleavened barley bread, scraping the pot and licking their fingers until not a trace of food remained. “Al-hamdulillah”! exclaimed Mansur. “Praise be unto Allah who has given us to eat and to drink and has made us Muslims”! Halimah then extinguished the little fire and shoved the empty cooking pot into a corner.

Suddenly turning to his elder son, Malak Wahab ordered: Before you go to the fields, you must 75 fetch water from the well.

Halimah is too busy with other work to go today. Here is the jug. And take Khalifa.

I have too much work to do so I cannot watch him. And he is too small to look

after himself ….. “.
====================

Ahmad Khalil glared at his little brother angrily and with bitter resentment as if he meant to say that he wished Khalifa had never been born. When he had prayed to Allah to send him a brother or sister, he wanted a playmate, companion and friend.

Instead he received only this annoying burden. The responsibility of his care since he had been weaned fell heavily upon him.

More than seven years separated them. Ahmad Khalil was now a rapidly growing boy of eleven, almost twelve, as tall as his aunt Halimah. Khalifa seemed to him hardly more than a baby who looked and acted even younger than he was. The little boy stared back at his brother, impassively, almost indifferent. He did not seem to mind his brother’s hostile glance as at this time, they appeared to have little feeling for each other.

Khalifa went to his corner of the room, squatted down on his heels and took out from a box his playthings. Khalifa was the only child in the village who owned any toys and all the toys he had he made for himself. From the scraps of clay his aunt gave him, he would cleverly model sheep, goats, donkeys, horses, camels and airplanes like those he often saw flying overhead before setting the crude little figures to dry in the sun. Then his 76 aunt would bake them hard and durable in the mud oven along with her pottery. Still shunned by the other village children, Khalifa was a solemn, withdrawn boy who always played alone.

Khalifa stubbornly refused to go with his brother to the well and at last Malak Wahab had to let him have his way and stay alone inside the house.

When the crowd of village women at the well saw Ahmad Khalil coming towards them with the heavy pottery jar balanced carefully on his head, they burst into derisive laughter, jokes and ridicule at the incongruous sight.

Drawing water from the well was women’s work but Ahmad Khalil felt angry at them for humiliating him and teasing him when they saw him in place of his mother.

The well was heavily guarded day and night by more than a dozen fierce-looking tribesmen, their rifles always in hand, their kaffiyehs wrapped around their heads so only their piercing black eyes could be seen. They stood silent with their backs to the women, peering across the desert horizon in the direction of Negba for any sign of danger.

Ahmad Khalil stood apart from the women, trying to ignore their jibes while they pulled at the ropes with all their strength until the huge bucket of water rose to the top. Then he shouted and struggled among them until he managed to receive his share.

77 He had just set the heavy jar against the wall and was about to call Halimah when he found an emaciated dog blocking the doorway, panting with his dry cracked tongue out in an agony of thirst. Quickly Ahmad Khalil filled a cracked discarded bowl of water for it to drink. Then he searched the room until he found some scraps of stale bread and a few bones flung on the floor the previous night and threw them to it. The dog clung to the food with its paws and stared up at the boy with wet sad eyes before he grabbed the heavy shovel against the wall and ran outside towards the fields. Khalifa ran after him.

Down upon hands and knees, Ahmad Khalil and Rashid loosened the hard cracked earth around each plant, fertilized it with dried manure and then uprooted the numerous weeds. The sky was a clear blue without any trace of clouds. The sun shone upon them bright and very hot. Now and then the two cousins paused to wipe dry the perspiration that streamed down their dark faces.

Halimah brought them both skins of water and they drank it down thirstily. Then Ahmad Khalil looked down with pride and happiness at his handiwork. The plants he was tending every day were growing straight and tall, their green leaves crisp, bright and thriving with health and vigour. Inshallah, the harvest would be good this year. He stooped low and scooped up a handful of earth and slowly let it crumble between his fingers. It was moist beneath the surface, black with fertility and rich with 78 worms, ants and other creeping creatures. Iraq al Manshiya was on the very edge of the desert beyond which stretched as far as the eye could see, the most arid desolate land, yet the fellaheen knew how to coax their crops to grow where the stranger would not believe that anything could live, for any soil that could yield even the most meagre sustenance, was guarded by them with the most meticulous care. To his father, the work on the land meant only dreary drudgery, dirt and back-breaking toil in addition to being scorned with contempt by all society outside the village.

Malak Wahab could never understand why Ahmad Khalil preferred the work in the fields above anything else.

Suddenly the roar of a motor car startled them. At the sight of the automobile, Khalifa ran screaming in terror to his aunt and clung to her skirts. Open-mouthed, Ahmad Khalil stared as the old and battered car stopped at the edge of the fields and a short, fat man in a rumpled English suit and a red fez, approached his father.

Malak Wahab at first did not notice. He was too absorbed in digging a ditch. Not until Mustafa Effendi called out to him with the loud, demanding voice of a man accustomed to giving orders and receiving instant obedience, did he look up from his work, his face filled with a mixture of embarrassment, hostility and shame.

Malak Wahab climbed out of the ditch, his torn gown covered with dirt, his hands and feet caked with mud.

79 “I understand, Effendi, that you never wanted to see me again, that you forced me to live here and work for you in this wretched place because you no longer were willing to maintain me as your slave. Well now, are you pleased with what you have done to me? What more trouble have you come here to inflict on us. Are you not satisfied?”

“You could at least be civil, Malak Wahab, but then it seems to be your nature to be rude even to your blood relations.”

I have been informed that you have two sons.

He pointed to Ahmad Khalil with a pudgy finger. “That must be the elder one,” he said contemptuously. “Not much to look at, I admit, but he seems healthy enough….”

Moments of strained silence followed.

Ahmad Khalil stared at the Effendi, and at first sight hated him instantly and thoroughly. He stared at the yellow-pock-marked face, the jaundiced, blood-shot eyes filled with guile, greed and cunning, the hooked nose, the fleshy sensual mouth, the double-chin. Never before had he seen a man so ugly—an ugliness both repulsive and fascinating. He continued to stare as though hypnotized.

The Effendi stared back—his gaze both hard and cruel.

He stared at the boy as if he deserved no better treatment or consideration than vermin.

“What do you want with my children?” demanded Malak Wahab fiercely.

“I need another servant, a servant to clean the 80 house, scrub the floors—he looks strong enough for the work…

“Then you must look for one elsewhere! I will not permit you to enslave my son! You forget that the Turks have gone and the Mandate has outlawed slavery! You dare touch him and I send word to the police in Gaza and you will be thrown into prison!”

Mustafa Effendi smiled complacently. “The British officials in Gaza are my personal friends. As for the police, I can always bribe them to silence. This village, this land and all the fellaheen on it are my property, with whom I can do what I please. You forget that your mother was one of my father’s slave-concubines. You make him do as I say or I double the taxes of grain that must be paid to me from here and nobody but you will be to blame!”

“No!” shouted Malak defiantly. “I won’t let you do this! I will kill you first!”

Terrified, Ahmad Khalil tensed, poised to flee for his life, but before he could run away, another pair of hands gripped him by the shoulders, hands obviously unaccustomed to physical labour but nevertheless powerful and tenacious.

Then he saw the two other men who had emerged from the car, huge and muscular.

“Arif! Auni!” called Mustafa Effendi. “Put him inside the car!”

The boy tried to struggle. “None of that!” a strange gruff voice threatened. “You stop that or we’ll tie you up!”

“Father! Father!” screamed Ahmad Khalil.

81 A big hairy hand covered his mouth and then he was roughly shoved under the seat.

The car drove away…


XIII
====

Loneliness crept upon Ahmad Khalil until the isolation grew more acute than he could bear. From the first day he was brought here forcibly, he yearned for a chance to run away, but Mustafa Effendi kept him under constant surveillance. He was not permitted any contact with his family. Despite desperate pleas, his father was not allowed to see him or send him any food or clothes. He knew nothing of news from his village or what went on there. He was alone among hostile strangers, confined to the house and compelled to scrub the floors, sweep the rugs, polish the furniture, and weed the garden. There was no other servant to help him and the stuffy rooms, crammed with dark antique furnishings of the worst possible taste, not having been cleaned in years, were caked with dirt, dust and cobwebs. If he slackened his pace of work even for a moment, he was beaten mercilessly. Once during the night he tried to escape but Mustafa Effendi’s fierce watch-dog sprang upon him and barked. Ahmad Khalil was badly bitten and had the landowner not come that moment to his rescue and driven the animal away, he would have been torn to pieces. When the Effendi threatened to put chains on him at night, the eleven-year-old boy was terrified into submission.

82 The magnificence of the villa his father had known as a child had fallen into decay. Plaster peeled off the walls, the furniture was broken and covered with scratches and the splendid Persian carpets his father had described to him with so much enthusiasm were now faded and worn. The fountain in the courtyard was dry and the garden over-run with weeds.

Ahmad Khalil eagerly looked forward to his daily chore of preparing food for the dog. The Effendi gave the dog meat, eggs and milk, so fine a diet that Ahmad Khalil never missed the opportunity to devour as much as he could of the dog’s meals without being suspected.

Ahmad Khalil also liked the occasions when Mustafa Effendi invited British officials to the house. With envious eyes he watched the men help themselves to the fruit, cheese, olives, hardboiled stuffed eggs, roast chicken, rice and slices of broiled lamb, heaped high on trays for the guests, impatiently waiting for them to finish. If they left anything, he would eat well.

He was looked upon both by the Effendi, his family and the British officials who so frequently came to the house with undisguised contempt—as if he were mere scum—of less worth than a beast of burden but by now he had become hardened to this and no longer cared what they thought of him, his only concern being to scavenge behind their backs when they were not looking, as much left-overs, scraps and leavings from their meals as he could.

83 Whenever somewhat relieved from the pangs of hunger, Ahmad Khalil tried to overhear the conversation in the drawing-room between the Effendi and his British friends who held out an Arabic newspaper with such large bold head lines, he could easily read it over their shoulders.

Germany had surrendered and Hitler had committed suicide. The second Great European War had come to an end but although Ahmad Khalil knew this was a very important event, he felt no excitement or joy for it all seemed very remote to him and did not affect him or change his life in any way.

In the drawing room he overheard much discussion and arguments over the eventual fate of the mandate. The terrorists were creating more violence and atrocities every day and the Government was powerless to restrain them. Neither were they able to find a solution which satisfied either the Arabs or the Jews. He heard hushed whispers that if the situation deteriorated further, England would end the mandate, withdraw her troops and leave Palestine’s Arab and Jewish inhabitants to fight it out for themselves. Ahmad Khalil wondered what would happen. Night fell. His work was finished for the day. The Effendi, his wives, his son and unmarried daughters had climbed the stairs to their rooms on the upper floors. Nobody was watching him now. What a relief it was to be alone ! Again thoughts of escape crossed his mind. But where to go ? Even if he somehow managed to reach his village, the Effendi would immediately be informed, 84 he would be seized, brought back and dealt drastic punishment.

In the darkness Ahmad Khalil felt safe only when he felt for his knife which he kept hidden under his clothes. If the Effendi dared molest him again, he knew how to defend himself. Then he rubbed his hand against the remnants of his blue and white striped gown that Abdul Aziz had left to him. The other three he wore beneath it had also belonged to his cousin before his death and suddenly he felt his solemn presence hovering over him. He thought of Rashid and then of his little brother. He promised Allah that if he could only be released and allowed to return home, he would never tease Khalifa or say mean things to him again. Through the mist of his imagination, he could see the fields. It was time to plough the land. Soon tender green shoots would sprout from the warm moist earth.

When he was scarcely old enough to walk, his mother had taken him to the fields pointing to every kind of plant, telling him their names and making him identify them over and over again until she was certain he would not forget.

Fighting to keep back the tears, he crept quietly into the empty kitchen. He turned on the tap and carefully washed his face, hands, arms and feet. And after he finished his Salat, he knew that he was not alone. He might forget Allah but Allah never forgot him. At last when drowsiness overwhelmed him, he went into the long dark corridor and curled up against the wall on one of the rugs to sleep.

95


XIV
===

One morning Mustafa Effendi surprised Ahmad Khalil by calling him to him and telling him he would not work in the house today. The boy trembled with excitement.

Could this mean the day he had waited for so long—his release and permission to return home ? Perhaps as his father always hoped, one of the more soft-hearted British officials had found out and would possibly intervene on his behalf?

“Listen boy” ! demanded the Effendi. “Today you will run an errand for me in Gaza. This afternoon there will be many guests and you must fetch me sweets and tobacco. Now listen carefully while I tell you exactly where to go and how to get there…

… And don’t be tempted to try any tricks. If you try to run away, remember that I will immediately be informed about your whereabouts”…

Once Ahmad Khalil had reached the main street of the town, he had no trouble finding his way for in earlier years, he had been here many times before with his uncle. Gaza was not like Cairo. It was not the kind of city which his father never wearied of glorifying and embellishing in his ecstatic revelries of the modern life he wanted him to lead. The Gaza he found was little more than an overgrown village with the addition of the shops in the bazaar, and the market-place—small, poor, filled with dust and squalor. There were few trucks or 86 automobiles to be seen.

Most of the traffic on the narrow unpaved roads were underfed but sturdy little donkeys overburdened with gasoline tins and often carrying riders three times their weight. But after the oppressive confinement indoors for nearly a year, it was a great treat to be out under the open sky in the fresh air away from the torture of constant surveillance and the threat of beatings and he revelled in the freedom of the bustling streets.

Finally he stopped and timidly peered inside a tiny shop. In the dark corner sat the merchant, Issa Barakat, bareheaded and in shirt-sleeves on a low stool, contentedly puffing his waterpipe and listening to the shrill music from Cairo which blared from his little radio. Suddenly he glanced up at Ahmad Khalil with heavy watery eyes.

“I want Turkish tobacco for the waterpipe and fifty small cakes with honey and raisins”.

Laboriously the boy untied the knotted rag and placed the silver and copper coins into the brown palm of the merchant’s hand.

“Too little,” growled the merchant.

“And how much tobacco do you want?”

“Enough for six waterpipes all afternoon,” responded Ahmad Khalil. He tried to bargain as he had seen his uncle do but he was not clever at it. Finally, in despair he cried out, “But this is all the money I have!”

Issa Barakat fell silent and he turned off his radio. Contemplatingly he raised one stubby hand 87 to his bald head and lowered the other to twist the ends of his greasy black moustache.

“Here, take the sweet cakes and tobacco,” he said gently. “But don’t go yet. You have come a long way.” He pulled out another stool. “Sit down,” he entreated, “and rest for a while.” Lifting an elaborate coffee pot with a long spout, he poured Ahmad Khalil a cup of the potent hot drink. When he sat down, the rickety stool creaked beneath the weight of his corpulent body. “Now tell me, my child, who are you?”

“I am the son of Malak Wahab.”

“Malak Wahab?” exclaimed the merchant. “Your father and I were such good friends we felt almost as close to each other as brothers. At that time my house was next-door to Mustafa Effendi’s. We used to play together as children.

How can I ever forget the long hours Malak Wahab would sit here with me bargaining with the customers and reciting poetry aloud to me after which I would compose extemporaneous verses of my own for I always loved to compose poetry. When the Christmas season arrived, he would go with me through the bazaar while I bought gifts for my brothers, sisters and cousins.

I would have so much liked to take him with me to Bethlehem. We make the pilgrimage every year.”

“Are you a Haji?” asked Ahmad Khalil curiously. “Have you ever been to Mecca or Medina?”

88 “No, my child. I can never go to Mecca or Medina because only Muslims are allowed there. You see, I am a Christian but your father recited some of the Quran to me and I know that you, too, revere Jesus Christ and his mother. I have travelled all over Palestine and visited all the holy places in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Ramallah, Hebron al Khalil and Nablus with their worn reddish stone houses warmed by the sun among the fruit orchards and olive groves, the grapes and the pomegranates—everything so quiet and peaceful. I love my religion and I love every part of this country because Jesus, the Prophets and Patriarchs lived here and made it a sacred and holy land. You can feel this even today and that is why I never would want to live anywhere else.”

“Have you never seen my village?” asked Ahmad Khalil. “It is not far from here.”

“Here in the South it is different because most of the Holy Places and the beauty of the land is in the North. But this part of the country is no less holy.

Many years ago I had a dream so vivid that I can still remember every detail. I was on my way to Iraq al Manshiya to search for your father. While I was walking, I saw a trail of footprints in the sand. Far ahead of me I saw a man. At first I thought he was an ordinary bedu. He stopped and waited for me. Although his stature was no taller than average, his dignity and majesty overpowered me. His kaffiyeh was wrapped around his head so that I could not see his face. I saw only 89 dazzling bright light there. I asked him who he was and what he wanted from me?

There was silence for a long moment before he told me that he was the Prophet Abraham. He told me that the prints in the sand were his and to always follow those footsteps and walk in them if I were to succeed.

“When I went to Iraq al Manshiya, I indeed found those very same footprints in the sand along the way but I never found your father.”

“Why not?” asked the boy. “He must have been there all the time.”

“Only God knows. But now I will tell you what happened before that. Mustafa and your father were both tutored privately and received a fine education. Mustafa’s father, Fu’ad Effendi intended to send both boys to England for advanced studies but was compelled to keep putting this off because of the First Great European War. At last after the war was over, they took a rigorous examination but before they could know the results, the father, Fu’ad Effendi, fell sick during the terrible epidemic of influenza. Just after he died, Malak Wahab was accepted as a student by Oxford University but Mustafa’s application was rejected. Mustafa hated your father so bitterly after that humiliation that he could no longer endure the sight of him, sent him and his brother away and made them work for him among the fellaheen of Iraq al Manshiya.

I always knew that he was a servant in the family but I never even suspected 90 that he was a slave. I was so shocked, I did not know what to do. If only I could have spared him the suffering he has had to endure, I would have gladly taken his place… Here, my child, let me pour you another cup of coffee. It will do you good…”

Then Ahmad Khalil stood up. “I must go now”, he insisted. “It is getting late…”

“Then may God be with you”, called out Issa Barakat, “and do not forget to remember me to your father…”

Clutching the package tightly under his arm and darting through the crowds, Ahmad Khalil ran as fast as he could down the street for he knew if he were late, Mustafa Effendi would be furious and beat him severely. Later, extremely tired, he stopped and leaned against the stone wall to catch his breath.

A tall strong woman from the village passed him, in the prime of her youth, carrying on her proud erect head a basket full of ripe cucumbers. She walked barefoot with a stately innate grace. She walked so much as his mother had walked, for a moment Ahmad Khalil was convinced that his mother had returned to life. Behind her, he saw yet another woman, frail, emaciated, bent with age, clad in rags insufficient to cover her, struggling to carry to market a load of onions in a burlap sack. The burden was too heavy for her. She stumbled and fell, unnoticed and ignored by the crowds of 91 passersby. He went to her, helped her to her feet and led her to the quiet courtyard of the nearest mosque so that she might rest and recover. He reached for the last of the copper coins Mustafa Effendi had given him, stopped a sherbet vendor and let her take her fill of the cool, refreshing drink. Hastily he untied his package and dropped in her withered hands three of the honey-cakes and then hurried away.

Suddenly panic struck. Where was he? The wide enclosure teemed with huge British army trucks and jeeps with helmeted soldiers rushing about and shouting in a strange language he could not understand. Prosperous city-Arabs in European clothing thronged about him. It was already late afternoon and he was still far from the landowner’s villa on the outskirts of the town. He grew very hungry and nibbled at the remaining cakes until he had eaten them all one by one. He was afraid to go back now. He reached for his knife but feared the consequences of daring to defend himself almost more than the beating.


xv
===

As time passed, life at Mustafa Effendi’s house became easier for Ahmad Khalil.

No longer was he kept under such strict watch. No longer was he beaten for trifles and less than trifles. Once, provoked by this harassment beyond the 91 breaking point, Ahmad Khalil threatened to kill Mustafa Effendi with his knife. The Effendi only backed away when Ahmad Khalil trapped him in a corner, trembling with terror from head to foot. He did not even attempt to seize the knife, for the boy’s strength already far surpassed his own. After the incident, he treated Ahmad Khalil with respect, giving him two regular hot meals each day, no longer forcing him to work beyond his capacity and leaving him a great deal of time to do as he pleased.

Ahmad Khalil had passed his thirteenth year. His childhood was fast slipping behind him forever and as he experienced the rapid growth and development of his mind and body, he felt an exhilarating pride in his approaching manhood.

While busy cleaning the rooms, he found a few old books and torn magazines scattered about. When he could spare some leisure moments, he looked through them and tried to read them but reading was still slow and painfully difficult for him and what little he could understand seemed dull and uninteresting.

He could not find any reading matter here which contained what he most keenly wanted to know.

Everyday when his work in the house was done, he would walk to Gaza where he would wander in the bazaars for hours at a stretch, alone and unsupervised, looking at the fascinating variety of wares in the shops and mingling among the crowds 91 of beduin who came to offer their sheep, goats and camels for sale in the market. The season for Hajj was approaching, and Ahmad Khalil stood gazing with wonder at the pictures of Mecca and the Prophet’s mosque at Medina plastered all over the walls of the town, only now no more photographs could satisfy him. He had to go there himself. He walked and walked until he found himself at the railway depot and all afternoon, he sat on the platform, watching the incoming and departing trains. Suddenly he was startled by an airplane passing overhead. Oh if Abdul Aziz were still alive, he and his cousin would board an airplane and fly to Mecca before they set out to explore the rest of the world. New sights! New faces! New thrilling adventures! Jerusalem today! Damascus tomorrow! Then hand in hand they would investigate the magnificent streets of the recently-built districts of Cairo.

Ahmad Khalil spent more and more time roaming the streets of Gaza. Then Mustafa Effendi began sending him to the nearest public bath-house.

“How on earth do you get yourself so filthy?” he scolded. “Anybody would think you were a beggar. Phew! You stink like a garbage can! Here is some money and don’t let me see you again until you have bathed and cleaned yourself. Aren’t you ashamed?”

And the pang of embarrassment and shame did sting the boy. But what could he do? Mustafa Effendi had given him nothing new to wear since 94 he came almost two years before. Now the rags barely covered him. But then the waves of pain and hurt subsided and he looked forward to what to him was sure to be a rare and very pleasant treat.

The streets were filled with soldiers and people piling their belongings and baggage onto huge buses and trucks. He wondered why the bath-house which was usually so crowded at this time in the morning was almost deserted. The bath-attendant was seated alone at a side table listening to the radio. But instead of the usual shrill music from Cairo, he heard a deep solemn voice tainted with a foreign accent, announce:

“This is the Arabic service of Kol Yisroel, the Voice of Israel. I have just been handed a document announcing the end of the British mandate and the establishment of the state of Israel—The Israeli Declaration of Independence—which reads as follows….”

“The land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people.

Impelled by this historic association, Jews strove through the centuries to return to the land of their forefathers and reclaim their statehood.

In recent decades, they returned in large numbers. They reclaimed the wilderness, revived their language, built cities and flourishing farms and industries and established a modern, progressive community with its own economic, social and cultural life.

They sought peace, yet were prepared to defend themselves.

They brought the blessings of prosperity and enlightenment to all inhabitants.

Our rights were acknowledged by the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, and reaffirmed by the British Mandate delegated by the League of Nations 105 which gave it explicit international recognition. The Nazi holocaust which slaughtered millions of Jews in Europe, proved anew the need. During World War II, the Jewish people in Palestine made their full contribution to the allies. On November 29, 1947

The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution requiring the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

“The right of the Jewish people to establish their independent state is unassailable. It is the natural right of the Jewish people to lead, as do all other nations, its own independent existence as a sovereign state. The State of Israel will be open to unrestricted immigration to Jews from all countries of their dispersion, will promote the economic, industrial and technological development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants, will be based on the principles of liberty, justice and peace as conceived by the Prophets and Patriarchs of Israel, will uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens without distinction of race, religion or sex; will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, education and culture, will safeguard the holy places of all religions and will loyally uphold the principles of the United Nations Charter. In the midst of wanton aggression we call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve the peace and play their part in the progress and development of the state on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its bodies and institutions. We extend our hand in peace and neighbourliness to all the neighbouring states and their peoples and invite them to cooperate with us. With trust in Almighty God, we hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called the State of Israel, in the city of Tel-Aviv, on this, the 5th of Iyar 5708, the 14th day of May 1948 ……”

Just then a deafening burst of static drowned out the voice and the bath-attendant switched the 96 radio off. Ahmad Khalil knew that something catastrophic had just happened but exactly what effect this event would have on him, he could not foresee. He was anxious and eager to talk about it with somebody but the bath-attendant only looked at him with a sullen, expressionless face.

He went into the empty tiled room, stripped off the remnants of four gowns, which he wore one on top of the other, and his kaffiyeh while the attendant, his back facing him, turned on the shower. The stream of warm water flowing over him made him cry out with delight. At home water for bathing was a rare luxury and most of the time, especially during the long, hot dry summer, ablutions had to be performed with sand or dust instead. When paid another coin, the bath-attendant gave Ahmad Khalil a bar of strong soap, a brush and an old much-used wooden comb to scrub off the layers of caked grime from his body and his wild unkempt black hair which had not been cut for years and fell below his shoulders. Finally the attendant turned off the shower and went out of the room. Dripping wet, Ahmad Khalil, stripped to his loin-cloth, walked across the tile floor to the full-length mirror tacked against the opposite wall.

He had never looked into a mirror before and for several moments he stood strangely fascinated and surprised at the reflection that stared back at him — the intense sensitivity of a very dark lean face that dominated over its heavy features — the thick features of the 107 African combined with the prominent nose of the Arab. On the upper lip, the first signs of a moustache were just beginning to grow. Last year he was only a boy. Now he looked like a fully-grown man but in contrast to his father who was so tall, straight and perfectly proportioned, although Ahmad Khalil was not deficient in height, he was shocked to find his own body little more than sinews and jutting bones and so meagre, the muscles could barely be seen even when he flexed them. He turned away from the mirror, disappointed and dried himself with a white towel he found hanging on the rack. Then he put back on the same dirty clothes as he had no others.

It was now past noon when Ahmad Khalil decided to start back.

He found the streets filled with trucks crammed beyond capacity with people of all ages and piled high with their belongings. As truck after truck roared past, he could glimpse the terror-stricken faces.

He was frightened. What had happened? Where were they all going? He did not know.

When he returned, he found Mustafa Effendi’s villa completely deserted. Every door was bolted with double locks and the windows barred. Frantically he called out but there was no answer. The ground was littered with trash. Obviously they had fled in great haste. But where? Why? He waited.

Not a sign of life anywhere.

He wondered if Mustafa Effendi would ever return. Perhaps he had even been killed! He must find 108 He wondered why he never thought to read out the newspapers. There was only one thing left to do. He must go home at once.


XVI It was Ramadan, the holiest month of the year, the month when the Quran was first revealed to the Holy Prophet Muhammad, the month of fasting from dawn until sunset, the recitations from the Quran and the lengthy night prayers in the mosque. In previous years, Ramadan had also meant to the children of Iraq al-Manshiya, the brightly-coloured lanterns which illuminated the entire village, the processions in the streets, the trained monkeys, parrots and dancing bears brought by their trainers from village to village to amuse and delight them, the magicians, the story-tellers and wandering minstrels with drums and crude one-stringed instruments, relating the heroic deeds of the great Sultan Salah-ud-din Ayubi and Sultan Baybars who drove out the Christian crusaders and saved Palestine for Islam. It was the earliest morning hours when Ahmad Khalil remembered how he and Abdul Aziz used to accompany their fathers while they made their rounds from door to door to awaken the villagers for their pre-dawn meal, beating on drums and chanting:
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Ye worshippers of Allah > Profess His unity! > Awaken ye fasters! > Remember the Eternal!

109 But to Ahmad Khalil this Ramadan had been far more cruel than holy. It was the month of aloneness, the month when he discovered that during his long absence, his father and his brother had become like strangers, the stifling month of drought and relentless hunger, the month when the farmers of Negba diverted the flow of water to their own fields and the earth in Iraq al-Manshiya lay bare and parched under the hot sun.

At first Ahmad Khalil was overjoyed to be reunited with his father but he was quickly disillusioned for now they scarcely knew each other. He tried to avoid his father as much as he could for every word seemed to provoke argument and criticism.

“Why do you not speak a word about the city?” demanded Malak Wahab harshly. “How quickly Gaza, like every other place must be changing! How many new buildings! I hear that Gaza is to have a new radio station soon. You know, I could never understand why foreign tourists from Europe and America do not seem to share my pride in the new and my contempt for the old. I always wondered why they flocked with their cameras always in hand to take photographs of the rickety ruins of the most ancient houses, the refuse-littered alleys and those repulsive blind beggars whining for alms. Oh, why didn’t they ever take photographs of the railway station or our beautiful new post office? But no, tourists only want to seek how backward we are! Ahmad Khalil! Why don’t you say something?”

110 Ahmad Khalil could only remember when some American tourists had tried to photograph him while he was reciting his Salat. Enraged, he glared at the blonde women in their wide-brimmed hats, sunglasses, white gloves, short skirts, bare arms and high heels. He snatched the expensive camera from their hands, flung it with all his strength against a stone wall and smashed it to pieces. The women screamed and he ran. Only his intimate knowledge of the twisted maze of Gaza’s narrow side streets and back alleys saved him from the wrath of the police.

Several days later, his father asked him what books and magazines he had read while he was gone. Ahmad Khalil could only give him a blank stare.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Malak Wahab angrily. “I spend months and months teaching you to read and write and then you read nothing. Haven’t you got eyes? You see, hear and experience all the marvellous wonders of the modern world that can be yours if only you will strive for them, yet you show not the slightest interest. Don’t you want a better life?” In despair, he cried out, “Oh how can I bear to watch you and Khalifa grow up as ignorant and illiterate as your mother?”

Ahmad Khalil felt the terrible desolation of loneliness he had suffered ever since his mother’s death now more acutely painful than ever, for his father was also ashamed of him and impressed upon him by his every glance and word that in his eyes, he counted for nothing.

101 No longer did Khalifa squat near the door, so happily absorbed in trying to trace in a mixture of wet sand and dust, verses from Quran with the sharp end of a stick. No longer could he delight in making for himself his crude little toys from the bits of clay his aunt would give him to play with. Instead he crouched silent against the wall, his bony legs drawn up close to his bloated belly and his enormous solemn black eyes, soft as velvet, following every move that his brother made. Ahmad Khalil stared back. His brother had the same sensitive face, only his colour was even darker and his features more delicate. Except for the remnants of a cast-off kaffiyeh wrapped around his head, he refused to wear any clothes and his elders were too much preoccupied with more urgent matters to insist.

Ahmad Khalil’s resentment, bitter disappointment and indifference towards his brother slowly changed to curiosity as they stared back and forth at each other like strangers. He wondered what had happened to Khalifa in these two years he had been away? He noticed that his father seemed even more ashamed of Khalifa than he and paid almost no attention to him at all. Whenever Ahmad Khalil encountered his brother, all self-pity vanished as never had he seen any child, even of the most destitute clan in the village, look so utterly sad, forsaken and neglected.

Although now a boy of nearly seven years, he looked and behaved almost like an infant.

102 All day he would follow his uncle and aunt about, clinging to their long skirts and whenever they sat down to rest from their work, he demanded to be held in their arms as if he were still a baby. Since the death of Abdul Aziz, their only son, they treated Khalifa as if he were their very own child, giving him their complete devotion and undivided attention and expecting nothing in return. Malak Wahab grew very angry with Yusuf Malik and insisted that he be punished like other children when he misbehaved but his uncle understood that he could not be treated like an ordinary boy so thus, Khalifa knew nothing of the severe training, the harsh discipline, the hard work, the scoldings and beatings his older brother and cousins had been compelled to endure. He was allowed to do whatever he pleased. He was never reprimanded, no matter what the offence, whether running about naked, uncontrolled toilet habits, crying, even screaming at night. When Khalifa was tormented by nightmares, his uncle would sit beside him in the dark for many hours to comfort him until morning. Whenever he cried with continual complaints of feeling tired all the time and exhaustion overcame him in the fields, Yusuf Malik would make for his nephew a soft comfortable bed of ferns and grainstalks in the shade and Khalifa would often sleep there beside them while they worked through almost all the daylight hours but his uncle would permit nobody to disturb him. Whenever he begged for food, he was fed immediately with whatever scraps or leavings

103 were at hand, regardless of the time of the day or night and whenever he cried, he was comforted and pacified.

Malak Wahab had yearned for his sons to accomplish what he could never do—to join the ranks of the intellectual elite. Years ago when he seemed to be growing better, Ahmad Khalil had once overheard his father in a conversation with some other men, express his hopes that Khalifa might someday become a doctor, a teacher or a social worker and then return to the village with the mission to transform it! But since it had become clear to him he could no longer hope for that, he cursed his fate a thousand times for having been given such a child.

Once when he came upon his brother-in-law squatting against the wall, holding Khalifa in his arms and stuffing every available scrap of stale bread into his mouth, he asked him bitterly, “How can you possibly love him? He is no better than a wild animal. Don’t you understand, he will never be normal….”

Yusuf Malik turned on Malak Wahab savagely. “If you neglect him like this, who else will look after him?”

Ahmad Khalil was shocked. He had never thought of his brother this way and now from the tone of his father’s voice, the hushed and astonished exclamations of the neighbours as they stared and pointed at him, the jeers and taunts of other children, he knew he could only suspect the worst.

104 His father was ashamed to let strangers know that he was his son. Did that mean that he as his brother should also feel ashamed? What was this invisible but terrible and sinister malady which had no fever and bore no outward mark yet crippled its victims far worse than a maimed arm or leg? Whenever he said his Salat in the fields, in the house or at the mosque, Khalifa’s face haunted him.

In the late afternoon, Ahmad Khalil would crouch alone against the wall, his eyes on the slowly sinking sun, waiting for the blast of gunfire to announce the close of the fast for that day. Rashid joined him, but squatted a short distance apart as if he feared to come too close. His face, once so cheerful, bright and friendly, had been transformed into a hard, fixed, sullen, suspicious stare as if he could no longer trust anyone.

Still too young to keep fast, he seemed to live only for what scraps of food he could scavenge, beg or steal. Ahmad Khalil now felt uneasy in his presence, thinking only how much less there would be. They sat there in silence, impatiently waiting for the darkness to intensify until at last after what seemed like an eternity, Halimah would set the pot of lentils and cakes of unleavened barley before the men and then, completely forgetting the sanctity of this, the most sacred month of the year, the two cousins fought savagely like ferocious predatory beasts over their share until their fathers forcibly pulled them apart.

Two more days passed. The sun had just spent 100 its force when Ahmad Khalil was startled by the screaming of frantic women and terrified children. A giant covered truck was parked in front of the door. A dozen soldiers clad in khaki uniforms and armed with machine-guns tumbled out. He gaped at the buxom young women in their shorts and naked bulging thighs. They looked even more brutal than the men. Before he was aware of what happened next, burly soldiers of towering height lunged forward without warning to seize him, his brother, his cousin, his father and his uncles, herding them inside the closed vehicle together with some thirty other men from the village. In less than ten minutes, the truck halted, the soldiers ordered them out and locked them all inside a barred cell-like room which served Negba as their jail. At gun-point, the tribesmen were lined up against the wall with arms raised above their heads to be searched for weapons.

“Bring their chieftain here to me!” a domineering voice ordered.

Yusuf Malik was summoned to a scarred wooden desk at the front of the room where a florid-faced leader of the Haganah sat who was obviously a man of authority. Thrusting forward a large white sheet of heavy white paper that was printed in Hebrew to look like a legal document, he ordered Yusuf Malik to dip his thumb into the ink-pot and stamp his finger-print at the bottom. Yusuf Malik only averted his eyes and did not move. Next to 186 the Haganah commander, he looked very small and frail, his thin shoulders hunched forward and his back stooped like an old man.

“Are you so foolish as your father was to resist us now? If you will only agree to recognize our official rights to this land which has been sold long ago by the Effendi to us and which we have already paid for dearly, not only with our money but also watered with our blood, surrender your weapons, stop providing sanctuary to the Ikhwans and gangs of irregulars, live in peace and cooperate with us, we can bring you and your family what your own people would not do for you in a thousand years. We will provide for you new homes, teach you how to farm with tractors and the latest machinery, bring you piped water, sanitation, and electric light, pave your streets, teach your children in our modern schools how to live decently, open dispensaries and send you our doctors, nurses and medicines so that three out of four of your babies no longer die from your ignorance, superstition and neglect before the age of six…..”

In a fit of fury, Yusuf Malik snatched the document from the table, ripped it to shreds, and flung the pieces of paper on the floor. “You will never rule over us!” he shouted defiantly.

“Nothing here belongs to you! This land is ours! Return to us our fields, our spring of pure water, our stolen horses, camels, our flocks and give us just compensation for all the property taken from us by the illegal immigrants against our consent and then 107 you can go back to your homeland across the sea in peace. . . . . . “.

The Haganah commander again lunged forward threateningly.

“We know that the Ikhwan have established a base in your village to attack us, that you feed them, hide them, shelter them and encourage them. Now either you stop doing business with them or we shoot you.”

He raised his pistol poised to shoot. Then he shrank back, frightened for a moment by the blazing black eyes, the hawk nose, the bushy beard and the grim mouth half-covered with his kaffiyeh. “Take him away,” I ordered the commander to his subordinate officer.

“These desert rats don’t appreciate what’s good for them. Bring in the Irgun to teach them a lesson they will not soon forget!”

In trooped two dozen of the toughest members of the dreaded terrorist underground, mostly survivors from the Nazi concentration camps of Buchenwald, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, some of them women.

They looked even more terrifying because of the black masks that hid their faces to avoid any possibility of identification.

Thirteen-year-old Ahmad Khalil, nine-year-old Rashid and six-year-old Khalifa cowered miraculously unharmed in a corner, desperately clinging to each other despite several attempts to separate them.

Ahmad Khalil blindfolded his cousin and his brother with 108 their kaffiyehs so they would not see what was happening but he could not shield them from the anguished screams and shrieks. Finally at dawn they were released and set free.

Seven were dead as a result of the ordeal. The living carried the dead and those unable to walk back to the village. All Ahmad Khalil could think of was the great relief that he was not searched, that they never found his knife which was still hidden safely under his clothes. He felt for it and was comforted somewhat.

The Ikhwan volunteers stood ready to receive them.

With what meagre supplies they had with them, the two Ikhwan doctors, both graduates of the Cairo University’s medical school, did what they could to care for the severely wounded and relieve their sufferings. They brought a stretcher for Yusuf Malik who had not only been shot in the stomach but also tortured with bayonets and lighted matches on his private parts.

Immediately they gave him an injection of morphine to ease the agonizing pain and then began to bind up the wounds with sterilized gauze and dressings. Although his condition was critical, he was fully conscious. They insisted that he be rushed to the hospital in Gaza to be operated on at once and administered the life-saving blood-plasma but Yusuf Malik was convinced it was too late and to be taken out of his hiding-place where the Haganah would discover his whereabouts also meant certain death.

109 The horror of that night left Ahmad Khalil benumbed. Only the incessant squabble with Rashid over the nightly dole of boiled lentils could rouse him from his torpor and several times Ahmad Khalil fought Khalifa almost to the death over a scrap of bread. His father was right; he was no better than a clever wild animal always scheming how to take from him his last bite of food. Insane with rage, he snatched the stolen bread away from his brother and was about to strangle him and break the scrawny neck with a sharp twist of his powerful claw-like fingers when Khalifa grabbed one of his hands and bit it savagely.

Five more days passed. Eight of the severely wounded tribesmen had since succumbed to their injuries but Yusuf Malik lingered on in the same precarious condition, weak from loss of blood and burning with fever from the internal infection that had set in but spared from immediate death by massive doses of Sulfa drugs and penicillin.

So many refugees had Ahmad Khalil seen fleeing across the border, he wondered if there could be any more Arabs in Palestine left. For the terrified hordes who sought the shelter of Iraq al Manshiya, giant pottery jars filled with water were set out for the thirsty to drink. To feed them, his uncles slaughtered one sheep after another until few remained alive.

His aunts did what they could to care for the less-seriously sick and wounded. At night their exhausted bodies jammed his 120 house, overflowing into the street while his father watched over them until dawn, his rifle across his knees so that they could sleep guarded from any possible harm.

The end of Ramadan was approaching and it was the evening of the twenty-seventh day-the most sacred night of the year. Inside the bare white-washed mosque, dimly lit by kerosene lanterns, all was quiet as the long rows of white-robed men, their gaunt bearded faces framed by their flowing kaffiyehs, grave and solemn they stood in orderly lines like soldiers and fervently knelt and prostrated themselves on the matted floor.

Only the chanting of the cadences of the Quran broke the absolute silence.

After the lengthy Tarawih prayers which lasted almost half the night, Yusuf Malik rose, and with the support of the husky young Ikhwan on either side of him, slowly and painfully ascended the Mimbar to address the congregation. They were stunned by the sickly pallor of his face, the dry brown skin stretched taut over the bones, his eyes glittering with fever. A thin trickle of bright red blood flowed from his mouth. Yet his voice was strong and clear.

“We are not like other Palestinians. We are not deceived by the nationalists who are as godless and unscrupulous as our enemy and struggle with the same cruelty and ruthlessness only for this bit 111 of land and nothing more.

Our fight is Jihad to attain salvation from Allah and peace in the world to come…”

Yusuf Malik was interrupted by an adolescent boy in front of Ahmad Khalil whose wasted body shook with a spasm of coughing. When he wiped his mouth with a dirty rag, it was covered with blood-streaked sputum.

“… We fight not only for our homes and country against foreign rule but much more for what we know is the sacred and eternal Truth to combat the evil ways they seek to impose upon us against our will. No matter what happens, no matter what they do, we will not run away as so many of our people in other villages, towns and cities have done without any attempt to resist. Even if the Irgun tries to repeat the massacre of Dair Yasin here, we will not flee like frightened sheep or dumb cattle. We will stay on and fight!”

Khalifa ran to his uncle and clung to him. Too weak to stand any longer, Yusuf Malik sat down on the top step of the Mimbar and held his small nephew on his lap. Khalifa’s quiet face was so thoughtful, he appeared almost able to understand…

“… We will meet our End with dignity for humiliation and degradation are far worse than death. Does not Allah promise us in the sacred Quran:

“… And what if ye die or are slain? Surely pardon, mercy and forgiveness from Allah are better than all they amass…”

112


XVII
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The month of fasting had at last come to an end but not the drought which stretched on and on until the fields could hardly be distinguished from the desert beyond. Again the winter rains had failed and every trace of vegetation had dried up and withered. The lizards had long since disappeared deep enough into their holes to reach moist soil. The few birds, except for the vultures who constantly circled high overhead and the rare flocks of gazelles, had migrated to the more fertile lands of the North.

And Ahmad Khalil squatted beside his brother and his cousin, their kaffiyehs tightly wrapped across their faces for protection against the intense heat and blowing sand. Hour after hour they squatted in silence, the three pairs of black eyes in a far-sighted squint, vainly searching the horizon for a sign of approaching rain. All strife between them was exhausted.

Nothing remained but a vast emptiness, infinite as the harsh blue sky and vacant as the wasteland.

“… As for those who disbelieve, their deeds are as a mirage in the desert.

The thirsty one supposes it to be water till he cometh unto it and findeth it naught, and findeth in the place thereof—ALLAH—who payeth him his due.

Lo! Allah is swift at reckoning”!!…

… Verily We have created man in affliction…

113 And guideth him to the parting of the mountain ways.

But he hath not attempted the Ascent. Ah, what will convey unto thee (O Muhammad) what the Ascent is!

It is to free a slave;

And to feed on the day of hunger an orphan near of kin, or some poor wretch in misery;

And to be of those who believe and exhort one another to endurance and compassion…

… Lo! We have shown him the way whether he be grateful or disbelieving!…

… Lo! We have prepared for disbelievers mancles and carcans and a raging Fire…

… Lo! The righteous shall drink of a spring wherefrom the slaves of Allah drink, making it gush forth abundantly,

Because they fear a Day whereof the dread is wide-spreading 1

During the days that followed, Malak Wahab and his brother, Mansur, laboured at fever-pitch with the few surviving other tribesmen and the Ikhwan to fortify the village against attack. Ahmad Khalil squatted against the wall, too weak from hunger to be of any help. Dimly he could

Therefore Allah hath warded off from them the terror of that Day

And hath made them find brightness and joy…”

114 see his father and uncle helping the roughly-clad volunteer Ikhwan warriors surround the village dwellings with deep trenches and his aunts heaping the stone walls with sandbags. Proud beduin tribesmen, mounted on camels, paraded up and down the narrow street.

Shrieking war-cries, they flung their rifles into the air as if the siege of Negba inflicted by the invading Egyptian army and bombardment from the air had already forced the Jewish colonists to surrender and their triumph was effortlessly assured.

But although aboveground, the devastation of Negba was almost total, and though reduced to almost the same starvation rations as the fellakeen of Iraq al Manshiya, the settlers found refuge in underground shelters and doggedly continued to resist.

As soon as fresh reinforcements for the Haganah arrived, the siege of Negba was lifted and the tide of the battle quickly turned. Now the survivors of Iraq al Manshiya awaited and prepared for a full-scale attack. But Ahmad Khalil heard nothing but Quran echoing as if in a dream again and again:

“……… Think not those slain in the path of Allah as ‘dead’. Nay, they are living, rejoicing in the sustenance of their Lord …… And slay them wherever ye find them and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out for persecution is worse than slaughter …… Relent not in pursuit of the enemy. If ye are suffering, lo they suffer even as ye suffer and ye hope from Allah that for which they cannot hope. Allah is ever-Knower, Wise …… Warfare is ordained for you though it may be hateful unto you but it may happen that ye hate a thing 125 which is good for you or love a thing which is bad for you. Allah knows; ye know not …… “.

The clamour in the street grew distant, replaced by a ringing in the ears. His vision blurred. The ground reeled. He collapsed to the knees and crawled gropingly to his mat. Then everything

went black…..
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When he opened his eyes, he found nothing but darkness. Dazed, he sat up on his mat. Slowly his vision cleared. He could make out the dim forms of his father, his uncle, his brother and his cousin huddled around the fire. The flames cast strange shadows on the stone walls, illuminating the huge pottery jars, his mother’s hand-loom now used by his aunt, his father’s big tin trunk in which he locked up all his treasures, the cooking-pot, the tools and the weapons lying near-by. The sight of these loved and familiar objects began to reassure and comfort him. He gazed around the bare little room eagerly—the only home he had ever known—as if he were seeing it all for the first and last time.

They squatted close together around the dying fire.

Malak Wahab and Mansur were absorbed in cleaning and oiling their rifles while Rashid watched them intently.

Only the crackling of the smoking embers broke the silence. In a sudden impulse of affection, Ahmad Khalil stretched out his hand to caress his brother’s wild kinky hair. Khalifa cringed as if he were expecting a blow. 116 “Khalifa, do not be afraid of me. I will not hurt you now……”

“No!” came Khalifa’s sharp child-voice menacingly through the darkness. “I will not come near you. I will never trust you. You might be a spy for the enemy!”

“I am your brother! I promised Allah in my Salat that I would not fight you any more. I will never say another harsh word. Whatever I have, I will always share it with you. I will never strike you again—never!”

He held out both arms, pleading for him to come towards him but Khalifa only glared at him fearfully and drew back against the opposite wall.

“Go away!” he cried.

Khalifa stared at Ahmad Khalil suspiciously as though he hardly recognized him.

“I am your brother!” cried out Ahmad Khalil in desperation, “and I will never be happy again until you forgive me!”

Ahmad Khalil lay awake alone on his mat for a long time, staring into the darkness and unable to sleep because of the cold before he felt the warmth of a small bony body beside him. Slowly he put his arm around him and drew him closer against him to protect him against the bitter cold but now the child did not cringe. He was relaxed and at peace. Ahmad Khalil could listen and feel the beating of 117 his heart and the comforting warmth of his breath against his face.

Gently he covered Khalifa with the remnants of his father’s cast-off robe and the reassuring quiet of his calm, regular breathing soon lulled him to sleep…..


XVIII
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During the long months of his slow convalescence from his wounds, Ahmad Khalil squatted at the entrance of the tent he shared with the surviving remnants of his family, shivering while the hot sun beat down upon his bony arms.

On a straw mat, Khalifa lay at his feet, too dazed and stuporous to move, his eyes glazed over with an unnatural dullness which seemed not to see.

Ahmad Khalil reached inside his clothes for the knife Abdul Aziz had left to him so long ago which was now stained with the blood of five Israeli soldiers from Negba he had slain in hand-to-hand combat during the fighting that had driven him from his home. Although he was weak and emaciated and unskilled in fighting, blind hatred and sheer desperation in the struggle for his life had enabled him with the help of his father to overpower them. He had tried to defend the house but there were too many of them and they were too strong for him. In the massacre that followed with the machine-guns, only he and a very few others escaped.

Below he could see the entire refugee camp spread out before him.

118 It was a jungle of dilapidated canvas tents, encircled by a high barbed-wire fence, imprisoning dense crowds of ragged and hungry people.

At last Khalifa ventured outside to play but not a child in the camp would have anything to do with him. Whenever he tried to join their games, they jeered at him and often they threw rocks to drive him away. He played only with Rashid who would wrestle with him, tickle him and make him laugh.

Shortly after their arrival in the camp on the outskirts of Gaza, each refugee was issued an individual ration-card, assuring him of his eligibility to receive the foreign dole upon which their subsistence depended. The ration-card was the most jealously guarded possession of the refugee but to Ahmad Khalil it was the worst humiliation he had ever endured. It meant hours of waiting in long lines like beggars for the monthly pittance of flour, lentils, rice, sugar and cooking-fat and occasionally a bar of soap, worn-out blankets and cast-off clothing. At first Ahmad Khalil refused to eat, for to eat meant degradation and renouncing all claims to self-respect. There was no alternative but to submit or starve. After three days of starvation, Ahmad Khalil ate but the food stuck in his throat. At each meal he felt as if he were being contaminated.

Ahmad Khalil hardly recognized his father after he had shaved off his beard and taken to 119 wearing a shirt, trousers and shoes, as most of the men and boys now did, in his efforts to make himself look as much like the foreigners as possible. He had become very careless and irregular in saying his Salat and excused himself from the fast of Ramadan on the pretext of a trivial illness. Although Ahmad Khalil had long suspected, it was now too painful for him to admit this proof of his father’s indifference to orthodoxy and his undisguised contempt for the orthodox, in his efforts to emulate the “progressives”. He felt even more dismayed when the thought suddenly occurred to him that his father had previously appeared devout and strict in his observance only because he feared the disapproval in the village if he did not do as the others did but here in the refugee camp where these pressures to conform were lacking, he could do what he pleased. Ahmad Khalil was shocked but he said nothing. How could he criticize his father?

However, his father could criticize him and it pained him that he never showed any reluctance or hesitation to do so whenever the opportunity arose. In the camp and outside of it, the refugees were of all classes, occupations and stations of life. Many of these had fled from the cities or larger towns, had been educated in British schools under the mandate or even obtained scholarships to study at colleges and universities abroad, been trained as businessmen, teachers, doctors, journalists, lawyers or engineers 122 he curled up on his mat engrossed in the life of the Holy Prophet and the wonderful and inspiring deeds of his Companions where he could know for certain what he had before sensed only vaguely by observation and experience, what things in life were important and what was not:

Musab bin Umar had been brought up with great love and affection by his prosperous parents. It was known that he was the best-dressed youth of Mecca. His fond parents would not hesitate to buy a dress worth two hundred dirhams for him. Before embracing Islam, he lived in comfort and luxury.

After the Holy Prophet began to receive revelation from Allah, he was one of the first converts to the faith without the knowledge or consent of his parents. When they came to know of it, they locked their son in the house and prohibited him to go out. As soon as he managed to escape, he emigrated with the persecuted Muslim refugees to Abyssinia and then to Medina. Once the Holy Prophet was sitting in an assembly when Musab passed in front of him. He had only a loin-cloth to cover his body mended with patches over and over again. When he fell a martyr at the battle of Uhud, he had only one sheet to cover his body which was too short for his size. When it was drawn to cover the head, the feet would be exposed and when it was drawn to cover the feet, the head became uncovered. The Holy Prophet said: ‘Cover his head with the sheet and his feet with leaves 131 While the Holy Prophet was fighting in the battle of Tabuk, Abdullah Zulbajadin died and the Prophet buried him with full honours, himself placing bricks on his grave and praying for him. The youth had accepted Islam at a very early age but kept this secret, fearing the cruelty of his uncle. At last when the Holy Prophet returned after the victory of Mecca, he could no longer suppress his enthusiasm and pleaded with him to permit him to go and join the ranks of the Muslims. The uncle not only threatened to deprive him of his inheritance and all his possessions but even of the clothes he was wearing.

His mother secretly gave him a blanket to cover his naked body and he followed the Muslim army in the campaign of Tabuk, and soon died of fever.

The burial took place in the darkness of the night with Bilal holding the lamp and the Prophet himself performing the burial. Watching this take place, Ibn M’asud cried out enviously: “I wish I were buried in this grave”!

Ummu Ammara said: At the battle of Uhud, we were very poorly equipped. The enemy had a very strong cavalry while we fought only on foot. When an enemy soldier riding on horseback was about to attack me, I took his sword on my shield, and when he turned, I attacked his horse from the rear and cut its leg. The horse and its rider fell to the ground. As soon as this happened, I shouted to my son to run to my help and we both killed the man. The Prophet was watching us. He said: “O Ummu Ammara, who can have a heart like yours” 1

I replied: “O Messenger of Allah, pray for my company with you eternally in Paradise”! He favoured me with this prayer and after that, I cared little for what happened to the in this life.

When Ahmad Khalil read these stories of the Companions of the Prophet aloud to the others who shared his tent, they refused to believe they could be true, for today people like that were not to be found. His father chided him for idle dreaming about a lost past instead of mastering practical subjects to help him face reality, live in the present and prepare for the future. All the other boys of his age scorned these books and laughed at him and 132 ridiculed him. Only Khalifa was interested and begged him to tell him more.

As Ahmad Khalil continued his readings in the weeks and months that followed, he found he could dispense with the dictionary the teachers had loaned to him to help enlarge his limited vocabulary. The effort required to understand the books gradually became less difficult and the reading much quicker and easier. He read all he could of the history of his people when they ruled most of the known world and were superior above all others in learning, in the arts and sciences, and he could only wish he had been born a thousand years earlier in the great days of Islam when he could take pride in who he was, where he came from and what he believed which had led his ancestors to such great achievements and triumph instead of the humiliation, degradation, defeat after defeat and acutely painful feelings of inferiority which his father and most others he met thought could be brought to an end only by imitating the foreigners and adopting their ways.

But Ahmad Khalil had found his escape from the wretched aimless and futile life of the camp. Khalifa’s teachers helped him by lending him more of their books and he would read and read by the light of a borrowed kerosene lamp for half the night after everyone else was asleep and it was quiet for the concentration he required. He was most attracted to the books about the lives of the great Muslims of the remote and recent past, of Imam 125 Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ibn Taimiya, Shaikh Muhammad bin Abdul Wahab and the leaders of the Sanusai movement and no less interested in the struggle to revive Islam today in the great movement of al Ikhwan al Muslimun which was fast spreading to many young Arabs in the schools, colleges and universities. And he read over and over again the autobiography, speeches and writings of Shaikh Hassan al Banna.

Although Khalifa was a diligent pupil, so bright in his studies that he was promoted to the fourth grade in less than two years of schooling, he disappointed his father and his teachers by refusing to do any work on his English lessons. His classmates worked on their English assignments with special zeal since knowledge of English was known to be the only route of escape from the camp and advancement in a career. But Khalifa would only study his lessons on the Quran, Hadith, Arabic and the stories of the great Muslims which Ahmad Khalil had already read aloud to him. His handwriting and his drawings not only far surpassed those of all his classmates but were even better than any of his teachers could do. Among themselves, they frequently discussed this strange boy and his amazing works of art which they were proud to display to all visitors who came to inspect the school. But Khalifa knew nothing - cared nothing about this. He was always alone, always apart from the other boys who would not be seen anywhere near him. In contrast to them, he was innocent of ambition or 126 any plans for his future. He never talked about what he would like to be or do when he grew up. For the other refugee children, education was an indispensable tool in their battle for survival but the teachers felt an irresistible attraction and fondness for this one child who valued the acquisition of knowledge solely for its own sake.

Apart from the other small boys, Khalifa squatted on the ground, swaying back and forth to the rhythm of the Quran. Hot winds swirled up clouds of dust into the air and through the flaps of the canvas tents, hurling sharp grains of desert sand against their faces but still the children continued their chanting uninterrupted, their voices rising triumphantly :

“Praise be unto Allah ; Creator and Sustainer of the Worlds ;

Most merciful, most compassionate :

Master of the Day of Judgment.

Thee alone do we worship

And of Thee we beg for help.

Show us the Straight Way

The Path of those to whom Thou hast been gracious

Those whose portion is not wrath

And who go not astray” ……… …… .. .

Led by their teachers, they recited in high-pitched voices poems about the beauty of Palestine and the holy city of Jerusalem where they would one day victoriously return. And the children would flock eagerly about Malak Wahab, giving him their rapt attention while he related the dramatic history of their people. After the lessons were 127 over, the smallest ones would gather round him while he gently patted their heads and let them cling to his hands.

Although Khalifa was almost eight years old, he would clamour to sit on his favourite teacher’s lap, ignoring the other children who ridiculed him.

Malak Wahab spent all his waking hours at the school which gave him a dignity he had never experienced before. The accommodations were wretched; the classes were held inside the canvas tents and the children sat on the ground. For remuneration, he received only a pittance but he cared nothing about that.

Here he had found fulfilment at last. Never in all the fifty years of his life had he been so happy. He could not read enough or learn enough to satisfy the boundless curiosity of his thirsty mind nor the eager inquisitiveness of his students.

Although the school was controlled by Unesco most of the teachers were members of Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun. The United Nations officials were opposed to the Ikhwan and the Principal of the school wanted to replace these teachers with others as soon as possible, but he continued to tolerate them, much as he disliked them, because they were the most capable, dedicated and the best qualified. Malak Wahab preferred to teach here rather than elsewhere because he liked the curriculum and thought that Khalifa would receive the best education - an ideal combination of both Islamic and modern knowledge.

128 Then early one morning when Malak Wahab arrived at the school before it was time for classes to begin, he found Khalifa’s teachers clustered together reading from the newspaper.

When they saw him, they pointed to the black-bordered headlines and then broke down and wept.

“Shaikh Hassan al-Banna was shot dead on a street in Cairo by an unknown assassin! Our leader is gone and there is none who can replace him!”

That night Ahmad Khalil went to his father and asked in bewilderment: “Why don’t you like them? I think they are very good people. If I had knowledge and learning like you, I should like to work for them as long as I live”……

“Reactionaries!

Fanatics!” exclaimed Malak Wahab. “Even though they may be some of the most gifted and brilliant students and graduates of modern colleges and universities, they have never outgrown their dogmaticism and narrow-mindedness. They want only certainty in an uncertain and rapidly changing world. They have no faith in man and his capacity for progress. They are fighting for a theocratic state and refuse to compromise for anything less. They interpret our Islamic laws - the Shari’ah in the strictest and most literal way and seek to impose this upon all of us as the Supreme Law of the land. They will not recognize the fact that the present is different from the past and that those old, rigid laws cannot be applied anymore.

They do not tolerate progress 129 progressive ideas. But still I admire them and respect them, however much I may differ with them, for their courage and bravery while the other Arabs are all cowards. The Arab invasion of Palestine was a farce which only turned into a disgraceful shambles. The leaders of the Arab armies were incompetent, disunited, corrupt, dishonest, greedy hypocrites. Otherwise we should not have lost the war. Only the volunteer warriors of Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun fought with skill, courage and valour. Now that Shaikh Hassan al-Banna is dead, I do not know who else can save Palestine”.

Malak Wahab fell silent and all was quiet. One by one the people in the dark tents lay down

to sleep……..
============

A month passed and again it was late at night. Malak Wahab was asleep but Ahmad Khalil was still awake, a pile of pamphlets published by the Ikhwan at his side which Khalifa’s teachers had given him to read. He was engrossed in the first chapter of Sayyid Qutb’s commentary on the Quran. Although this was of keen interest to him, the reading was slow and difficult and he had to consult the dictionary many times in his efforts to understand it.

Suddenly the quiet was shattered by a tall boy shrieking and crying. He ran into the tent and

shook Malak Wahab awake.
========================

130 “My father has just been stricken with a heart attack and he is calling for you!” He pulled at Malak Wahab’s arm.

“You must come to him at once!”

Malak Wahab and Ahmad Khalil followed the boy to a tiny hut not far from their tent made of reeds and plastered with mud. Inside, lit only with a small oil lamp, Mustafa Effendi lay on a pile of rags on the dirt floor, his yellow pocked-marked face so twisted with pain, they scarcely recognized him. He motioned for them both to come near, but Malak Wahab only stood at the far end of the room, staring at his hated half-brother bitterly with stone-cold eyes. Mustafa Effendi tore open his shirt, reached for his thick ring of keys and threw them to Malak Wahab. “As soon as we return”, he gasped in a hoarse whisper. “You and your sons must take charge of my house. My own sons and daughters must go elsewhere. I leave the care of all my abandoned lands and properties in your hands. If it is possible, if it has not been destroyed during the war, I want to leave to you and to Ahmad Khalil everything that I possess. Although I am tormented day and night by the terrible wrong I have done to you, may I have in return, your forgiveness?”

Malak Wahab remained silent.

He did not move but only fixed his ice-cold stare on the man he had all his life hated more than anyone else in the world. Here was the man who had enslaved 131 him, done all in his power to humiliate, belittle, degrade and impoverish him, who had forced him to waste the prime years of his life in a wretched village among semi-barbarians, who had been responsible for a whole lifetime of suffering and anguish, and then had enslaved his son, beaten, starved and abused him in every way he could devise, and whose insatiable greed for gold led to the destruction of Iraq al-Manshiya and the final massacre of its inhabitants. And now Malak Wahab could only feel a peculiar satisfaction in the poetic justice of his fate.

Throughout the remainder of the night, Ahmad Khalil sat beside Mustafa Effendi and held his hand to the end. Neither spoke a word. In the morning, he quietly summoned the Janaza, washed his body, shrouded it in his robe and then helped dig his grave after the last prayers had been said, snapping out orders as if he were a man of authority instead of a mere boy of fifteen.

Two years passed and Ahmad Khalil wondered how much longer he could stand this place.

There was nothing to do here but sit and brood in the sun.

The mere reading of books no longer satisfied him.

He had long since exhausted the limited supply the school had to offer and no more of interest could be found. The escape provided by reading was only temporary and no substitute for the experiences of real life. He was no scholar. He was only a peasant and would remain a peasant in the depths of his being to the end of his days.

132 He yearned to be on hands and knees, tending green growing plants, to feel that he and the land were inseparable. In the mirage of his imagination, in the distance as far as he could see, stretched the fields of grain. It was less than an hour’s walk away but even though the fighting had stopped, to cross the border meant being hunted down and shot like a criminal.

But Rashid was absolutely fearless and together with scores of other boys and young men in the camp, had joined the fedayeen. He was barely fourteen years old but he was already six feet tall and could easily be mistaken for a youth of eighteen. He was endowed with the robust physique which Ahmad Khalil and Khalifa lacked; he was lean but very strong and never suffered from illness of any kind. A lifetime of hardship and deprivation had not stunted his growth or sapped his vigour; his abundance of energy and capacity for endurance seemed unlimited. Soon he became the terror of all the border settlements.

Among the Jewish colonists, his reputation quickly spread as a notoriously dangerous killer. None of them knew him by name; they only referred to him in hushed tones as “the black beast” because of his conspicuously very black colour.

Rashid persuaded Ahmad Khalil to go with him and as soon as night fell, they would crawl under the barbed-wire and sneak across the border to Nabal Midbar to steal food, set fires, and cut the 133 pipe-Jines supplying the surrounding Jewish settlements with water.

Stealthily they would creep, hidden from view, to the tool-sheds and wreck ail the machinery they could lay their hands on, ripping out the vital parts and then throwing them away. Rashid became an expert in putting the tractors ont of order. Every random killing, every act of sabotage was attributed to them.

Once while hiding alone in the trenches near Nahal Midbar, waiting for cover of darkness to strike again, Ahmad Khalil found a baby creeping on all fours who had somehow wandered away. He wondered how the baby could have become lost in this remote spot when he knew how carefully these children were tended and watched. As soon as · the baby saw him, as young as it was, it immediately recognized him as an Arab, and screamed with terror. Ahmad Khalil picked it up in his arms and soothed it until it grew quiet, giving him bits of sweet dates to suck on to pacify him. Ahmad Khalil wanted to carry the baby back to the camp for his aunt, Halimah or his younger cousin, Asma, to look after when suddenly he changed his mind. He stayed with the infant in the trench until late that night and then, not knowing where to find its mother, took it direct to the children’s house. He went through dimly-lit dormitories where all tho ohilclren were slee_E; ~ lg soundly in their beds until he found the nursery fJrnished with two rows of cribs. One of the cribs was empty. He put the baby in it.

On the table he found a bottle of 134 milk which was still warm. He put the rubber nipple into its mouth and after the baby had finished its bottle and he had cleaned it, changed its diaper and washed the empty bottle, he covered it gently with a blanket and walked out, his bare feet making no sound.

After a thorough search of the area by armed patrols and a long chase, he was surrounded, trapped and caught by the guardsmen who locked him inside a small barren room where a group of soldiers accused hjm of the rape and murder of a young J ewish gid of N ahal Mid bar whose mutilated corpse had been found en route from school and subjected him to the most relentless interrogation. They gathered in a circle around him, pushing him about very roughly, pulling at his long matted hair, joking uproariously when one of them yanked up the skirt of his gown to find no pants underneath and jeering at his ragged, dirty appearance, for he looked very wild indeed. They seized him and stripped him naked and took turns beating him with sticks, clubs, and the butt-ends of their rifles until the blood flowed. When he insisted that he knew nothing about the rape and refused to confess, salt was poured on the wounds and the beatings resumed afresh. He screamed for water and they poured a bucket of urine over him and smeared his face with feces.

Then the soldiers forced him on the :floor of a jeep, accompanied by more kicks and curses. They drove to the outskirts of the camp at the border and dumped him on the 135 sand as a warning to the refugees that any other marauders would meet the same fate.

He felt no pain from the wounds on his body ; he was only conscious of the agony or thirst where they had thrown him on the sand with no shelter from the blazing hot sun. He felt as if he were on fire ; his throat swollen, his mouth dry, his tongue parched. He thought in the distance he could see the dim outline of a shadowy figure but was unable to call out and too weak to rise. High above him in the shimmering heat against the harsh cloudless sky, he saw a. vulture gliding, slowly circling around and around in search of its

prey . . … .
============

Rashid found him lying thero unconscious. At first he feared he was dead until he felt the beating of his heart and saw that he was still breathing. He took a rag he had with him, drenched it with water from his canteen and gently wiped the filth from his face until it was cleaned. Then he took another rag, dipped it in more water, pried his teeth apart and let the drops of the precious liquid slide down his throat . .Ahmad Khalil revived. He felt something like burning cold and wet like a combination of ice and fire on his forehead and trickHng down his throat. He opened his eyes to :find a solemn black faco bent over him, his hand pressing the moist rag against his mouth and now it tasted good.

Finally Rashid opened his goatskin bag, filled with water, pressed 136 It to his lips, supported his head with his other arm and let him drink his fill.

Then everything again went black and he fell into oblivion…

When he regained consciousness the following day, he found himself in the hospital lying in one of the beds among the long rows of patients on the ward. Nearby, directly across from his bed, Rashid lay on a high steel table, much too short for his size, his bare feet stretched out in front of him, a long hollow needle and a rubber tube connecting his arm to the sterilized bottle which hung above him, the blood from his veins dripping slowly into it—for when the doctors had asked him to donate his blood for transfusions to save his cousin’s life—since their blood was both of the same type and the hospital had no supplies of its own—Rashid immediately consented to do so. And Ahmad Khalil was aware of nothing but Rashid’s steady, intent and unwavering gaze.

When he again opened his eyes, he found Khalifa squatting beside his bed, staring anxiously at his head and body swathed in bandages and so happy was he to see his brother again that he forgot all the pain and the horror.

During his entire hospitalization, Khalifa clung to him, refusing to leave him except for the short periods he attended school. He brought Ahmad Khalil water and his food. At night he slept next to him in his bed or on the floor, sharing his blanket.

While recovering in the hospital, Ahmad Khalil was suddenly seized with an overpowering desire 137 to see for himself what had happened to his home, his village and his family belongings they had not been able to take with them into exile.

His fellow patients on the ward warned him repeatedly that it was futile for him to try to find his village; that it must have been destroyed in the fighting—but Ahmad Khalil hoped that some houses and the mosque might still be left standing, empty but intact, waiting for their owners’ return. If he could only find his home, he and what was left of his family could then go back, till the fields and start life over again. Of course he would not like to live under Jewish rule but perhaps, if only they would leave him alone, it would be no worse than the British. He yearned to offer his Salat with Rashid in the village mosque and then once more to visit the burial grounds where generations of his ancestors lay at rest and pray at the graves of his grandfather, his mother, his uncle, Yusuf Malik and his cousin, Abdul Aziz.

Immediately after his discharge from the hospital, he and Rashid began to make secret preparations for the journey. They decided to wear the uniforms and carry the captured weapons they had stripped from the bodies of the Israeli soldiers they had slain at Nahal Midbar for to trespass so deep into enemy territory in their Arab dress would be far too dangerous.

Disguised as Oriental Jews, Ahmad Khalil and Rashid treked mile after mile north on foot for 138 three days, stealing what food they could from the settlements they passed during the night and sleeping fitfully by day in the open wherever they could find a shaded place to lie down without being seen. Five times daily, they recited their Salat in hiding.

At last they reached Negba. Rashid stopped a ragged Yemenite labourer who was sweeping up refuse from the street with a primitive broom and asked him for directions to Iraq al-Manshiya.

“But there is no more Iraq al-Manshiya,” he replied in Arabic matter-of-factly. “It was blown up with dynamite soon after the war.” He pointed to some buildings in the distance. “It is now the town of Yad-Mordecai. Go and see for yourself…”

Dazed with shock and exhausted with despair, the two cousins passed through country they could no longer recognize.

Electric towers, cables, telephone poles and wires criss-crossed overhead. The path to the well where their mothers had once fetched water had now become a paved highway, crowded with speeding cars, buses, jeeps and trucks. Hordes and hordes of Jews—more soldiers in khaki uniforms, heavy boots, caps and knapsacks identical to theirs, obese women in knee-skirted print cotton dresses, exposing bare arms and bare legs, bright-eyed energetic children with sturdy limbs tanned by the sun and many orientals—Moroccans, Iraqis, and Yemenites who were almost as dark-skinned as they—but not a single Arab.

189 Where was the mosque? Where was their home? If it were still standing, it would be full of Jews. And how could he make them understand that they were living on stolen property? How could he convince them, persuade them even if he could speak Hebrew, even if he were the most eloquent orator who ever lived that this house was his? And that they had no right to be here?

They walked further on; the sweat pouring from their bodies in a mixture of excitement, furious hatred and resentment against these arrogant intruders and their utter helplessness to do anything about it, their hands tightly clasped in fear until they reached a vacant lot. A giant bulldozer was flattening a heap of ruins. Near-by, newly-arrived immigrant labourers in dirt-stained trousers and bare backs dripping with perspiration were busily constructing on the site a complex of five-storied flats in ultra-modern style. Some of the flats were already occupied and buxom housewives, gossiping together in Hebrew, were hanging their laundry on the washlines outside to dry in the hot sun. The bulldozers had done their work, efficiently erasing the last traces of evidence that Arabs had ever lived and died here.

What to do now? He felt exhausted, drained and utterly emotionally spent. All he possessed had been taken from him and there seemed no hope of ever reclaiming it back. So long as the intruders were there, they would be determined never to 140 permit his people to return. Indeed, they had enforced every measure to make this impossible. Was his only future the living-death of the camp?

It was little better than a jail where the refugees were treated very much like prisoners, being officially prohibited to leave the confinement except for limited periods each day and locked up by night and not allowed to live elsewhere except in some special rare cases. And all this had been allowed, nay encouraged by the combined conspiracy of the foreigners so that there could be no compensation, no redress, no appeal, not even the slightest sense of guilt, remorse or shame for the wrong done so that all pleas for justice fell on deaf ears.

But he had to eat and since the rations he was entitled to receive were not enough to live on, Ahmad Khalil spent most of his waking hours in Gaza searching for work to relieve the intolerable boredom and frustration of this inhuman living-death. He yearned to marry Asma and promised to take her away from the camp as soon as he was able to support himself. But too many refugees had the same idea. Gaza was now severely overpopulated, unemployment prevailed so whenever he stood before a half-completed building asking what he could do, the workmen would only drive him away.

He knew that his cousin had also tried to find work on the roads to supplement starvation rations only to discover that nobody would hire him as he was, still crippled from unhealed wounds.

141 So Rashid spent his time ransacking the garbage cans of the city and begging from passersby.

“Oh my son!” exclaimed Malak Wahab. “You must escape from this prison of poverty and hopeless misery! Why do you not try for admittance into the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s vocational training school here? Or why not beg the authorities for permission to go to Kuwait where such great opportunities await you? The discovery of oil is transforming the face of the land . . . .”

“But Father! I know nothing of that kind of work!”

“You are intelligent enough to learn quickly. In Kuwait there is a rich life for anyone who seeks it. So many of our best young men from Palestine have already gone there.”

“Yes, Father, I know that. But I don’t like those people, I don’t want them for my friends.”

“Why not?”

“If I worked for them, I would have to become like them. They would force me to do everything that is hateful to me. They would never accept me as I am now.”

“Islam is a progressive religion. You must understand that Islam, as rightly understood, is incompatible with the backward life you are leading. If there are no teachings in our faith which conflict with the legitimate pleasures of this world, then why deny yourself a bright future?”

150 Ahmad Khalil lowered his eyes. “I would go to Kuwait only to please you as my father,” he replied in a soft voice before he walked away.

Bitterly he thought he had tasted enough, had seen his fill of the foreign ways in Gaza, so much so that he did not wish to see any more. Ever since his infancy, he had never ceased to hear his father extol the virtues of the “modern” way of life, the advantages of “Progress” and “Development,” the bright promise for the future that “Change” offered which was supposed to be inevitable and irreversible but as soon as he discovered what this meant, these became the four most hateful words in his vocabulary.

But now it was everywhere, saturating the very air he breathed. Not only the British and the foreign Jews but also the Arabs were aping it as rapidly as they could. It was their new god; it had become the universal religion of the new generation. Even in the refugee camp, the young boys and those girls who were attending school in growing numbers were adopting it with the support and encouragement of the camp authorities.

When the school for girls first opened in the camp, Asma had attended briefly until the other girls in her class began to ridicule her long dress and veil, tease her because she refused to wear the short skirts and go bare-legged and bare-headed like them and taunt her so relentlessly for being “old-fashioned” and “narrow-minded” that she 143 could not concentrate on her studies and failed the examinations. Her teachers and classmates then conspired against her to make her feel so miserable that she had to quit school before she had even been able to learn to read or write.

It was cruel, ugly, hideous, monstrous. When Asma told Ahmad Khalil about her experience, he vowed to dedicate his life to resist and fight this evil. But how to make the Law of the Quran supreme? That was the goal of the Ikhwan and what they promised but although he liked to attend their meetings, read their literature and was more than once invited to become a member, the contrast between their city backgrounds, their brilliance, and sophisticated learning with his ignorance and simple-mindedness convinced him that he would not be of any value to them.

Once while aimlessly roaming the crowded noisy streets of Gaza in their futile search for work, Ahmad Khalil and Rashid, attracted by the lurid posters outside a cinema house and curious to see what a foreign film was like, sneaked past the long lines of other young people waiting to purchase their tickets inside the entrance without paying. Rashid was so disgusted with what he saw on the screen, particularly the uninhibited love-making and the painted women in their half-naked dresses, that he walked out in the middle of the picture, overwhelmed with shame.

Ahmad Khalil, spellbound, fascinated in viewing life in a modern 144 American city for the first time, could not tear himself away and stayed on alone to the end. The Egyptian-made film which followed the American in this double-feature filled with belly-dancers in cabarets - was no better.

He left hours later, depressed and determined never to go back there again. He felt even more dejected when he heard the sunset Adhan and suddenly remembered that he had missed both the early and late afternoon prayers, the only time in his life he had ever neglected Salat.

One Friday he wandered from the new to the older streets of the city until he found himself before a small white-washed mosque surrounded by a low stone wall.

As he quietly entered the gate which was never closed to anyone, a great peace fell upon him.

He stepped quietly into the courtyard where he found himself in a luxuriant garden of palm trees and flowers. He went to the row of water-taps set low in the wall for ablution and carefully washed his face, hands, arms and feet. For a moment, he stood gazing with reverence at the bare white-washed walls within. Then he walked into the cool, serene quiet.

Taking his place among the rows of men, he knelt on the soft matting and prostrated himself with the other worshippers:

“… 0mankind! We have created you male and female and have made you nations and tribes that you may know and care for each other. Lo! The noblest of you in the sight of Allah is the best in conduct. Lo! Allah is Knower, Aware….”

145 When he rose to his feet at the end of the Juma Salat, he no longer felt lost and alone for here he was among friends. He talked with the Imam and quickly won the old man’s sympathy and respect. Soon he was kept busy working at all kinds of menial tasks.

Down upon hands and knees he would help scrub the floors clean. Other times he would join the labourers coating the walls with fresh plaster.

What he liked best was to be allowed to tend the flowers and palm trees outside. Whenever he grew hungry, the Imam gave him permission to climb the trees and eat all the dates he wanted. Triumphantly he ripped his ration-card to bits and vowed to Allah that he would rather starve than ever accept the foreign dole again and the confidence that he could earn his bread, cleansed him from all past degradation and filled him with pride and strength.

When he told the Imam of his desire to marry Asma and take her away from the camp, he gave them permission to stay in an empty room beneath the ground floor of the mosque until they could find a better place to live. Ahmad Khalil spent all his time cleaning it thoroughly. And when the Imam gave him some discarded mats and an old rug, it truly looked like home. Then he took Asma to the Imam’s house where they were married with his father and Rashid as his witnesses.

Exactly as his parents before him, he was married in absolute austerity. Because Asma was an orphan with no property, and because there was no money, there 146 were no festivities but these were not missed because neither Ahmad Khalil nor Asma wanted any.

Now Asma spent her whole time in the dim room allotted to them, waiting for Ahmad Khalil to bring her supplies of food and water. Immediately after their marriage, Ahmad Khalil had returned to Asma, her brother’s knife. Without uttering a word and showing no trace of emotion on seeing the blood-stains on the blade of five more Israeli soldiers he had slain during fedayeen raids against Nahal Midbar, Asma proceeded to clean it with soap and then throw it into a pot of boiling water before using it to cut up vegetables for their meals.

Eagerly she would await the approach of darkness when he would return and they could spend the entire night together alone, enjoying for the first time in their lives, the luxury of complete privacy. They would play with each other and frolic like carefree children without a serious thought in their heads, experiencing joy unique for them. Asma would forget the war that had made her orphaned and homeless and she would be filled with gaiety and tenderness because he was always so gentle and affectionate towards her. They did as they knew their parents had done before them but only in total darkness, fully clad in their long robes for they never looked at each other uncovered. Their greatest pleasure was to lie on their mat close together and talk in whispers for half the night.

147 While Ahmad Khalil was out at work, only the visits of the Imam’s elderly wife and her female relatives and friends relieved her solitude. Although he kept her in strict seclusion and did not allow her to go out on the streets unless accompanied by him — he walking ahead and she following close behind, heavily veiled from head to foot, she never complained.

When Asma was not busy with her chores of cooking, cleaning and mending, she would think of her father, her mother and her brother and admire the intricate Quranic inscriptions skillfully carved on the black ivory handle of the knife. She would spend much time looking at it and pass light fingers lovingly and reverently over the graceful curve of the long steel blade in wonder over its faultless workmanship for it was indeed a thing of beauty. She told Ahmad Khalil that its sacred inscriptions promised its owner protection, strength and good fortune; how happy she was that he had at last fulfilled her father’s wish and avenged at Negba and Nahal Midbar the death of their uncles which Abdul Aziz had not been able to do.

For some days as Ahmad Khalil went about his work, he had the uneasy feeling that he was being watched and followed.

He went to the marketplace and had just made his purchase of two loaves of bread to take back to Asma when he found himself face to face with two armed men with sinister faces made even more fearful by their black uniforms who ordered him to go with them to the 148 police-station. Before Ahmad Khalil could protest, his hands were shackled. After a short walk, they led him inside the police-station to the Superintendent of Police who was seated at a large desk. He was a stout man with a bald head and a hard face. Ahmad Khalil stared at the row of ribbons and medals on his chest.

“We know for certain now that you have left the camp and are living here in Gaza without proper permit. You know perfectly well that refugees are prohibited from living outside the confines of the camp without my special written permission!”

Ahmad Khalil stood very straight and glared at him defiantly. “How can you treat us like this? We are not criminals in jail!”

The Superintendent’s face grew red with rage. “I am only interested to see that orders are carried out and the order from the Governor of Gaza was for your arrest and imprisonment unless you pay the stipulated fine and return to the camp immediately!”

“You have no right to do that! I have done nothing wrong!”

The Superintendent ignored him and ordered the guards to take him away and lock him in a cell. This cell was brightly lit with powerful lights. They forced him to sit so that the light blinded his eyes.

149 “Now I want you to tell us about the operations of the Ikhwan al-Muslimun in the camp! Give us the names of all the teachers in the school where your father works who belong to the Ikhwan!”

“They are my friends! I will not betray them!”

“Take him to the torture chamber!” commanded one of the guards. “When he sees that, he will surely change his mind!”

They pushed him out of the cell and led him down a long dark corridor.

“Now go inside and look!”

He saw a small barren room without windows and one powerful light bulb swinging from the centre of the ceiling. The torturers, bare to the waist, stood among the tools of their trade with folded arms.

“First we strip a man naked and then we strap him to this table under the light and give him electric shocks on his testicles with this little machine you see here. The “little machine” is most effective and never fails to give us the desired results.

I learned the latest, most up-to-date methods from President Gamal Abdul Nasser’s Chief of Police in Cairo where I was sent to take a course in questioning prisoners from him.

He is a brilliant man who has devoted his life to this sort of thing. In his hands, torture is raised to a fine art and so here we use all the most modern scientific techniques. If you refuse to give us the information 150 we want now, rest assured we have many ways of making our prisoners talk!” The guard raised a menacing fist.

“You understand?”

Although he was threatened with torture many times, the threats were never carried out. Instead he was placed in still another cell beneath the ground floor which was totally dark and kept there for a month in solitary confinement. At night he trembled at the shrieks and screams of captured Ikhwan being tortured to death, expecting his turn at any moment. Then all was quiet……..

From the near-by mosque, he could hear the Adhan summoning the people for the night prayer, first one call, then another with a more melodious voice, then still another with the sweetest tone of all in the far distance. He listened eagerly from a dozen different Adhans mingling call after call with each other which he could clearly and distinctly hear from all the mosques of the city.

And as if he had taken some miraculous medicine, the terror and all fear vanished. In the darkness and the silence, he felt strangely calm.

But the terror came surging back when he felt a grip on his shoulder. Had they come to take him now?

Fearfully he looked behind and hovering over him were two turbaned men with radiant faces and long flowing white beards, such as those he had read of years before in the books Khalifa’s teachers had given him on the lives of the great.

161 “Do you know us?” asked the elder of the two, gently, yet persistently.

“You lived long ago,” replied Ahmad Khalil, “for such holy men as you are not to be found today.”

“We are Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Ibn Taimiya!”

“You both were in prison and both of you died in prison?”

“Yes.”

“You suffered and gave your lives for the cause of Allah?”

The elder of the two then gazed directly into his eyes and asked in a stern voice, “Then why are you afraid to follow us?”

He awoke, startled by a clanging against the bars of his cell.

He opened his eyes. It was the guard who had entered to empty the latrine bucket and give him his daily ration of bread and water.

He did not know if it were day or night when suddenly the Superintendent of Police unlocked the door of his cell and announced: “The fine has been paid and you are being released.” The guards led him to the front room of the police-station where he found his father sitting on a bench against the wall under a life-sized portrait of President Gamal Abdul Nasser, waiting for him. The Superintendent turned to Ahmad Khalil with his grim face. “We had decided to be lenient with you because you were a first-offender. But you watch your step, 152 young man. The police are watching you and the consequences will be far worse next time.”

So Ahmad Khalil returned to the camp. He had no work. He had no ration-card and he could not get another.

Fortunately Asma still had her ration-card and his father and Rashid shared additional food with him.

Meanwhile Khalifa had fallen into grave trouble at school. He had formerly been among the best students of his class but now he was failing in all subjects. Since entering the fifth grade, he had been suffering from frequent fits of unconsciousness during class and once when he threw himself down on the ground, ripped off all his clothes and wildly attacked any child who came near with his fingernails, the class-room became uncontrollable bedlam. The Principal of the school then summoned Ahmad Khalil to his office, staring at him with hard accusing eyes as if he were responsible and at fault.

“Your brother is an incorrigible trouble-maker. I cannot be expected to tolerate his behaviour any longer. What he has just done is inexcusable. He is creating more disturbance everyday and disrupting the other boys in his class who behave themselves and are eager to learn. But your brother is no better than a wild animal! Just imagine, now that UNESCO can supply our school with proper desks, he will not sit at his desk but still wants to squat on the floor.

When I tried to discipline him, he screamed and screamed and then gave me 153 a nasty bite on my arm. Look! You can still see the marks of his teeth right here above my wrist. Even his father cannot control him. If his father cannot manage him, then what can I do? His teachers plead with me to be lenient with him: that he is sick and not bad. But I am a disciplinarian—not a psychiatrist and this is a school—not a mental hospital and if he is as sick as his teachers say he is, then he certainly doesn’t belong here. He is a little savage who will not be tamed. The school is already so overcrowded, we must run a double-shift schedule so we have no time to waste on him. We have room only for the deserving and promising pupils. Therefore I have no choice but to expel him from the school. As long as I am the Principal here, I will not permit him on the premises again!”

Ahmad Khalil was numb. He had nothing to say. He only wanted to keep his father from knowing about this for as long as possible. He dreaded what his father might do when he found out.

He turned to the Principal and asked quietly: “Where is my brother now? I only want to take him back to the camp with me…”

The Principal rose from his chair and pointed under his desk.

“There he is! Come out, you little rascal!” he shouted, “and don’t ever let me see you here again!”

Khalifa did not move. Ahmad Khalil found 154 him lying naked in a puddle of urine and dust under the desk. He was unconscious. There were bruises and welts all over his body from many beatings and dried tears stained his dirty face. Gently Ahmad Khalil took him in his arms, carried him to the public water-tap to clean him and revive him and then back to the tent.

Khalifa spent his days squatting in the darkest corner of the tent, his bony knees drawn up to his chin and his arms clasped around his legs, staring straight ahead into nothingness.

Since he was quiet, the others in the tent were too preoccupied with their own troubles to notice him. In this way, Khalifa passed his tenth year.

One morning Ahmad Khalil found his brother so weak that he was unable to rise from his mat. When he asked him how long it had been since he had last eaten, Khalifa whispered that he could not remember, but he thought, perhaps three or four days. That noon, Ahmad Khalil brought him some hot, thick lentil soup that Halimah had just cooked on the open fire. Firmly supported by his brother’s arm, Khalifa slowly, then quickly drank down four bowls, one after the other. Then he fell asleep, his head on Ahmad Khalil’s lap.

Two or three times a week his teachers and other members of the Ikhwan, defying the Principal’s orders, would visit him and feed him with whatever they could spare, severely reprimanding the 155 other children in his class, who, seeing him incontinent and nearly naked, teased him without mercy. Sometimes almost half an hour would pass before he clearly recognized them and with a vacant face and faint, expressionless voice, beg them for his school books. And they would gently reply that he must not try to study them now; that he must rest. Before they rose to leave, one of the teachers wrapped around his shoulders a warm blanket he had brought for him, insisting that he cover himself well because the evening was growing cold.

. . . . . . . .
===============

Anxiously Ahmad Khalil watched over him, nursed him as best he could, all the while praying in desperation for his recovery before his father would deal him the final blow and then it would be too late. More time passed but Khalifa grew neither better nor worse. Ahmad Khalil shuddered every time his father looked at him, wondering what he would do now.

Finally the long dreaded morning came when his father summoned him and ordered him to have Khalifa committed to the camp asylum. There was an ominous sternness in his father’s voice that made him too fearful to disobey. He led his brother reluctantly but firmly by the hand, hoping that the reality would not be so terrible as his imaginings.

As he approached the place, which was one of the few permanent buildings in the camp, he trembled 156 with terror at the sight of the high barred windows, doors, the anguished screaming, shrieks and wild weeping from within. An attendant holding a thick ring of keys stopped him before he could enter, asking him if he wished to see the doctor in charge.

Ahmad Khalil nodded and the attendant led him to the doctor’s office.

“Ah yes3,” sighed the head psychiatrist, ruefully. “I know all about your brother. Your father was just here yesterday.

He spent almost an hour here with me and told me everything. But even before that I had known because there has been so much talk about him. If you want a diagnosis, if you must label it, what else could this be but catatonic schizophrenia? Ordinarily, we don’t admit boys or girls here under the age of sixteen but if we find that he is truly schizophrenic, then he must stay for we have no separate institution for the care and treatment of psychotic children… Now bring the boy here to me and let me examine him to be certain…”

Ahmad Khalil only backed away.

Khalifa clung to him and buried his face in the folds of his robes.

“I did not come here for his examination,” declared Ahmad Khalil. “I only want to see…”

“Sorry, no outsiders are allowed to enter the disturbed ward. You must not disturb our patients…”

167

But I must see before I can decide …..
======================================

Ahmad Khalil brusquely lunged past the doctor to the heavy steel door; the attendant tried to stop him but Ahmad Khalil hit his hand, grabbed the keys, managed to force open the lock and went

inside ….
=========

The stench of sweat, urine and feces was overpowering. A naked man in seclusion pounded on the bars of his cell with his fists shouting: “Let me out of here!” He tripped over another man, also naked, lying motionless face down on the floor who moaned and groaned.

He bent over him and gently asked him what was troubling him and he explained that the voices had told him on account of his sins, he deserved to be condemned to death. He rose to his feet only to find himself face to face with still another, frozen into immobility against the wall with upraised arms “reaching for my nerves”. Against the opposite wall squatted at least fifty more—a long row of men—some young, others old, but all afflicted with the same malady—filthy, unshaven and barefoot, clad only in coarse sacking who peered at him with hollow blank stares as if he had arrived from another world.

Ahmad Khalil stared back at them, clutched Khalifa closer than ever against him, and gazed deep into the sadness and sensitivity of his thin, thoughtful, intelligent face. He told himself that the doctor must be wrong—that Khalifa could not be like these !

But when he looked again from 158 the long row of blank stares into the same unnaturally glazed eyes of his brother, with a flash of insight which came to him like an instinct, he knew what he had so long suspected but had been too terrible to accept as a fact: that Khalifa was one of them! But never before had he witnessed the horrible scene of so many of them herded together.

Just then he felt a tug on his sleeve. He looked up. A tall, dark, strikingly handsome youth with an exceptionally alert, intelligent face, immediately sensing that Ahmad Khalil was not an inmate, begged to be allowed to speak. He was the only patient on the ward not clad in sacking but clean and neat and decently dressed in ordinary clothes. He was so lonely; he had nobody to talk to. He insisted on following Ahmad Khalil everywhere about, talking rapidly and disconnectedly with sweeping hand gestures all the while. He explained that he had been a third-year medical student until a conspiracy of Zionist spies had led to his expulsion from the university. They had hidden a recording-machine under his bed to spy on him and all night, night after night, poured forth a flood of abuse and threats in order to force him to quit. He belonged to one of the oldest and most aristocratic families in Jerusalem where he had lived all his life until the War with his large family in their spacious stone house that had a beautiful garden filled with all kinds of fruit

trees and lovely flowers …..
============================

159 “Was your house destroyed during the War?” asked Ahmad Khalil.

“No. It is still there. Soon after the fighting
===============================================

stopped, I managed to cross the border illegally and see for myself. But it has been confiscated. It has decayed into a tenement with a family of new immigrants from North Africa crowded into every room. My family owned much wealth and property

but we lost everything …..”
===========================

The conversation stopped as soon as they heard the Adhan from a distant mosque, faintly but distinctly, summoning the early afternoon prayer.

“Will you recite your Salat with me?” asked the youth. Ahmad Khalil followed him to a tiny bare cubicle that contained only a hard narrow bed and a stand. “Here is my room”, he explained. “I always keep a jug of fresh water for my ablutions. We were always very strict about Salat. My mother and father and all my brothers and sisters never miss their Salat five times each day and they recite the Quran early each morning. But this place is so filthy, it is very difficult to find

even a corner to pray in that is not polluted …..
=================================================

Will you be the leader, the Imam because you must know more of the religion than I do. You look like a Shaikh although you must be even younger

than I am ….”
=============

Ahmad Khalil was astonished.

He had never before met anyone from this class who treated him 160 with so much respect, and regarded him as an equal, if not his superior. Never before had he met anybody from this class who was a real Muslim, and who like this youth was ready to acknowledge the kinship between them of a common faith.

No sooner had they finished their Salat when he made a peculiar sign with his hand and announced in a loud, unnatural voice: “Don’t you recognize me? God has informed me that I am the Imam al-Mahdi, and that because I am the Imam al-Mahdi, I am omnipotent and that my mission is to save the world.

I will speak to Christ when he descends to earth. The voices have told me so.

“…. But you promise to speak to the doctor!”
============================================

he implored. “Here are my college text-books. Perhaps you can persuade them to allow me to go back to the university and continue my studies”.

“But what of the treatments”? Ahmad Khalil asked him. “Do they give you any medicines”?

“Oh no, sir”! he replied. “I know all about the new drugs. I read all about them in my text-books at medical-school, but the doctors do not give us anything. They just let the patients suffer. The medicines are too scarce and costly and none of us or our families have the money to pay for them. We are locked up in here. This place is not fit even for animals”.

161 An old man clad in sacking went to him, stretched out his thin arms and implored: “You come from the outside so you must have influence here. Tell me, when will they give me my clothes and let me go home”?

“We’ll see”, replied the doctor, “as soon as you are well enough . . . . . “

The next thing Ahmad Khalil knew, he was again in the office, face to face with the doctor.

“Now tell me more details about your brother. Tell me everything you know,” he asked softly and intently, “so I can record his case history . . . . . “

Khalifa stood before him absolutely quiet, his face pale and expressionless.

Ahmad Khalil felt nothing but the cold sweat of fear as he tried desperately to control himself.

“I have nothing to tell you. As you can see for yourself, my brother is perfectly normal. He does not belong here”.

“But your father says he must be hospitalized . . . . . “

Ahmad Khalil felt his heart pounding but outwardly he managed to keep calm. “He cannot do that so long as I take the responsibility for him.”

The doctor’s voice hardened. “But when he has periods of violence, what will you do then ?”

162 In blind panic, Ahmad Khalil jumped up from his seat and ran out as fast as he could, dragging Khalifa after him.

When he reached his tent at last, he collapsed exhausted on his mat, in the dim corner, still clutching Khalifa tightly in his arms. He wept long and bitterly.

The boy looked up at his brother, wide-eyed, all innocence and trust. “Then it is true—that there are special places—just for children like me? Must I go there if Father says so”?

“No! No! Never! I am here. I am right here beside you. I will take care of you always!”.

Ahmad Khalil hated Gaza now more than ever. Since President Gamal Abdel Nasser had captured power, the tyranny had grown much more severe than under King Farouq and was steadily worsening. And there was more and more talk against Khalifa. Those who shared his tent complained to Malak Wahab that his crying and screaming kept them awake nights. Malak Wahab insisted that he could no longer be allowed to remain at large. Ahmad Khalil argued that there was no reason to lock him up; that Khalifa was quiet and gentle and would never harm anyone. Finally there was nothing between father and son but never-ending quarrels. Ahmad Khalil knew he could not stay here. But where to go?

During the days that followed, the Imam helped him to fill out a long and detailed application to the

1 The text has a typo “j [^1]1mped” which is clearly “jumped”.

 163 Egyptian authorities in Gaza for permission to leave the country. Ahmad Khalil waited. A month passed, then another and then still another but no reply.

“If they refuse you permission, then you must perform your duty of *Haj* without their permission. I will try to petition the officials of the Saudi Arabian government so that you can stay…”

“Oh yes!” exclaimed Ahmad Khalil. “I want to stay. I never want to come back here! If I never live to have another chance to fight for the liberation of Palestine, then I want only to die in Mecca or Medina……”

“But it is a good place to live too”, the *Imam* assured him. “I know for I have been there. I just returned several years ago before we first met. Mecca is a fearfully hot and sterile desert but the climate of Medina is cooler and much more temperate and fertile with many gardens and groves of date-palms. Perhaps there you can find work and companionship among the refugees from many lands who sought asylum from persecution—although *I* never saw any refugees there from Palestine—and peace, tranquillity and comfort near the Great Mosque of the Holy Prophet and the *Jannat al-Baqi* where many of the Companions of the holy Prophet lie at rest…”

“But what of the foreigners? Do the foreign 164 ways prevail there as they do elsewhere in every city?”

“Have you not studied the *Mishkat ul-Masabih,* the famous collection of *Hadith* where it is written, my son, that the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said in the last days just before the end of the world and Judgment, when the multitudes of Muslims will abandon the practices of the Faith to follow like dumb sheep the fashion of imitating the Jews and Christians, the tyrants rule and the light of Islam has everywhere been almost extinguished, it will still shine bright in Medina!”

“You mean, Medina is still uncorrupted by the foreign ways?”

“Not so entirely, my son”, replied the *Imam.* “I do not mean, it is perfect for nothing here on earth is perfect. There is complete happiness and perfection only in Paradise. But in Medina the foreign influence as yet still trickles in very slowly while elsewhere it has come like a flood.

I only mean to say, I think you will find more of Islam there than any other place today. You can feel its sanctity in the atmosphere, even in the very air you breathe.”

“Then so long as I cannot return to Palestine, I want to make Medina my permanent home. I will take my family with me… But how do we escape across the border without permission?

What if we are caught by the police? And if we take the 165 train across the border, what about the police who guard the Gaza railway station?”

“Four of them are members of my congregation. They know you and sympathize with you.

I have told them everything. Rest assured that they will not permit any harm to come to you……”

Before the *Imam* left, he put into Ahmad Khalil’s hand a thick bundle of small currency notes.

“What is this?” he asked in surprise.

“Here is some money you will need for the journey. After the *Juma Salat,* I took up a collection for you from the congregation.

Each man contributed what he could afford. Do not feel ashamed to accept this from your friends.

We only want to give you this chance for a normal life as a free man……”

That night he and Asma lay on their mat side by side.

“You are not afraid, Asma, are you?”

“Not so long as we can be together. I always wanted to find an escape from this camp. Here it is no better than a prison. I do fear the unknown but if we go now, at least there is hope. If we wait any longer, then it may be too late. But what about your father? Is he coming with us?”

“No, Asma.

He does not want to live with us.

166 He has already performed *Hajj* when he was a young man, many many years ago and now at the school he has found his happiness. But he gave me his permission to go only if we agree to take Khalifa with us. I promised Father to take him and care for him as best I can. Rashid will help me look after Khalifa since I cannot manage him alone. He is going too.

“But already five years have passed since the War. How can we ever return to Palestine and rebuild our homes there again as long as we are so weak and helpless and they are the ones with all the power? You are brave, yet no matter how many raids with the fedayeen you make against Nahal Midbar, no matter how many of the Israeli soldiers you slay with the knife, that does not make it possible for us to return and rebuild our homes and tend our flocks and our fields in peace nor can all the fedayeen together restore my father, my mother and my brother to life . . . . .”

Ahmad Khalil gazed deep into her grave dark eyes. There he found not the anxiety and hopelessness of her words but an unyielding determination. In the darkness he reached for her hand and she clasped his firmly.

“I do not know how we can ever go back to Palestine now, nor do I think our people will be able to return during our lifetimes. I do not think I will ever see Palestine again. We can only pray to Allah to help us search for a way . . . . “

167


XVIII
=====

Ahmad Khalil squatted on the cement floor of the crowded railroad station so overwhelmed with excitement, he feared he might awaken at any moment to find it an impossible dream. This was the first time he had ever made any long journey on his own and his excitement was heightened by the fact this was no ordinary journey undertaken for ordinary reasons but for only the most sacred goal and to what an exalted destination!

He fixed a gentle gaze upon Asma who had now been his wife for nearly two years. Swathed in black from head to foot, Asma had the face of a child as she closely guarded their provisions-three inflated goatskins of water, two new aluminum cooking pots, a small kerosene stove and sacks of dried lentils, dates and flour which she hoped would last the journey. Again he glanced with tenderness upon his wife and it seemed to him as if she had never looked so beautiful. Briefly she set her eyes on him and then cast her gaze down on the floor. They were first-cousins and Ahmad Khalil could see in her a strong resemblance to his mother.

Clad in only a worn-out man’s shirt fastened with a safety-pin which hung below his knees and a cast-off kaffiyeh wrapped around his head, Khalifa squatted apart from them, impassively gazing down at his bare feet and apparently noticing nothing.

168 Stoically, Rashid took some old rags he had with him and proceeded to wipe up the filth while Ahmad Khalil went to the men’s washroom to fetch a mop and a bucket of water from the janitor. Rashid, acutely self-conscious of the cold stares of the people nearby, glared back at them and drew closer to Khalifa to protect him.

In the entire waiting-room of the Gaza train station, they alone were Hajis. Both the Hajj authorities and the Egyptian government had declared all four of them ineligible and refused them permission to go.

By the law of the land, they were ineligible on all counts-they were refugees and Palestinian refugees were not allowed to make Hajj under these abnormal conditions-indeed, few of them tried or even thought of doing so; they were reminded that they were destitute and had not sufficient money or provisions; Asma’s pregnancy was far advanced and pregnant women were barred from going in any case; Khalifa was underage and children were not allowed.

A kind and sympathetic official had tried to comfort Ahmad Khalil by gently but firmly reminding him that because of these reasons, the Hajj was not incumbent upon him or any of the members of his family. They patiently explained to him that the Hajj was obligatory only once in a life-time for those endowed with full health and strength to withstand the rigours along the way and possessed sufficient money to finance the journey and resources to sustain the 169 dependents they left behind.

But Ahmad Khalil had recklessly thrown all reason and sober counsel to the wind—for him, the Hajj was not a duty, it was an obsession. It seemed to him as if all eighteen years of his life had been merely a prelude to these precious moments. He was determined to make Hajj because he wanted to—not because he had to—now it was virtually his sole reason for living. The obsession was intensified by the fact that this was not an ordinary Hajj in which, after the rituals of the ceremonies had been duly performed in Mecca and its environs, he would return after a few months’ absence to his home and family to resume his normal life, for being a refugee, he had no home to return to.

Only a concentration camp, the imprisonment of the barbed wire fence and more endless living death there awaited him. Since he had not found secure asylum in Gaza, he hoped to make in Mecca a new and permanent home.

To him, this Hajj was also a Hijra—a migration to seek refuge from the growing evils of the foreign ways, of persecution, tyranny and oppression and seek sanctuary in the most sacred soil of the entire world. He could not wait another year as the terrible grip of President Nasser’s heavy-handed despotism tightened on the land and its people like a vise and would soon make escape impossible.

Thus was Ahmad Khalil fanatically determined to allow nothing, not even the most insurmountable obstacles to stand in his way.

170 The hissing of the engine of the train startled Ahmad Khalil out of his thoughts. Clutching their tickets tightly in hand, they silently filed into the third-class compartment and took their seats, squatting side by side on a long, hard wooden bench. When the train jerked to start, Ahmad Khalil tensed with fright. He had never been on a train before and its terrific speed almost took his breath away.

Khalifa screamed. Everyone in the car turned and all eyes were fixed upon him.

Instinctively Rashid reached for his cousin to quiet him when the boy eluded his restraining hand, leaped up and tearing his only garment from his body, frantically ran naked down the aisle, shrieking, “Let me out! Let me out!”

Just then the car jolted and he tripped and fell. Some of the passengers laughed. Rashid ran to him, hastily put his shirt back on, picked him up in his strong black arms and carried him back to his seat.

All the other passengers craned their necks while the children, their eyes wide with curiosity, climbed up on the benches to get a better view. The Egyptian sitting opposite them hastily pulled his belongings from under his seat and hurried away. In a few seconds they had half the car to themselves.

Rashid cast a defiant glance at the few remaining 171 passengers, clutched Khalifa closer than before against him and caressed his wild, kinky hair. Then he noticed several mischievous young girls seated across the way, still staring, pointing and giggling. Quickly Rashid pulled the frayed ends of Khalifa’s shirt down over his legs to cover the shameful parts. Gradually Khalifa relaxed and leaning against Rashid’s powerful broad shoulder, he slept the rest of the way…

It was almost noon before the train from Gaza reached Kantara, the Egyptian port on the Red Sea. No sooner had they left the station platform when a policeman stopped them.

“Show me your papers!” he demanded harshly. He took one glance at the papers and then flung them back into Ahmad Khalil’s face. “What is this?” he shouted. “Where are your passports, your visas, your identity photographs, your health certificates? You are not even Egyptian citizens! I should throw you all into jail for crossing the border illegally”…

Rashid snatched the policeman’s heavy club and with a single blow, knocked him down senseless. Before more policemen could catch them, they had lost themselves in the crowds.

The harbour was jammed with pilgrim ships. There were several fine modern steamers, but the fares were far too costly for them—even for deck172 class or steerage—and they had made no reservation anywhere. Searching for the cheapest possible way to reach the port of Jeddah, they went from ship to ship, from boat to boat until they found an old majestic sailing vessel, one of the last of its kind, from Kuwait, jammed far beyond its capacity with wild beduin tribesmen from Sinai, Egyptian Jellaheen and tall black men of magnificent physique from the depths of Africa.

All were Hajis bound for Mecca.

As soon as the Captain caught sight of them, he waved his arms violently, shouting; “No more room! No room, you understand? This ship is already so overloaded it will sink if you come aboard! Now away with you”!

They paid no heed. Frantically they fought their way into the midst of the mob. They shouted and struggled until the crew was glad to accept the pittance Ahmad Khalil offered to pay them for their fares if they would be allowed to stay aboard, and finally they found the ship in the middle of the water.

At first they were content merely to squat and stare, fascinated by the foamy waves lapping against the side of the ancient blackened wooden planks of the ship for this was the first time they had ever been to sea.

On either side, the rocky barren terrain bordering the Red Sea stretched to the horizon and it reassured them that the ship never lost sight of land.

As the fierce blazing sun 173 beat unmercifully down upon them hour after hour, they began to envy the fortunate few who had managed to secure a place in the shade under the graceful lateen sails.

The Captain ordered Ahmad Khalil to force Asma into the women’s quarters where she found twenty other docile bundles wrapped in black, crowded into the cabin beneath deck where they would stay for the next three or four weeks with their babies and baggage but Ahmad Khalil found it a frightful place, unlit and unventilated; he feared Asma would suffocate from lack of light and air down there and he refused to put her to this torture. Finally the Captain agreed, when he paid him another coin, to allow Asma to stay on deck, provided he kept her apart from the men and veiled from head to foot.

Asma set her cooking pot on her kerosene stove, relieved that Ahmad Khalil had brought their food with them for none was provided by the ship.

When their water-supply ran low, Ahmad Khalil took his goat-skin and fought his way to the tank where the precious liquid was doled out. There was violent pushing and shoving.

Everyone was determined to be first because there was not always enough to go around. Back and forth they struggled with jars, skins, bottles and battered kerosene cans, each step a torture among the packed mob.

Fascinated by this strange new life aboard ship, Ahmad Khalil liked to watch the activities of the 174 crew. Most of them had been slaves or sons of slaves; each clad in only a loose white cotton gown, underneath his money-belt bound tightly around his body; their only protection against the fierce sun, their dark, heavily pigmented skins. They were experienced sailors, having been to sea since earliest childhood and spent their entire lives on these ships, subsisting on a diet of watery boiled rice, dates and whatever fish they could catch. He watched them while they offered up their Salat five times daily, steered with the aid of the Captain’s compass, and hoisted up the sails, climbing the rafters barefooted, so agile and nimble that accidents among them were very rare.

More dhows glided gracefully past him, their great white canvas sails blowing majestically in the breeze. It was a scene which could have taken place a thousand years before when Ahmad Khalil’s people controlled the seas and the oceans to the East and ships exactly like these plied the waters as far as India, China, Malaysia and Java, carrying on large-scale international trade.

Night fell and all was quiet. The ship dropped anchor and navigation ceased. Each man cooked his evening meal on deck, and the members of the crew contented themselves with the usual hard unleavened bread flavoured with the ashes from the fire and a taste of fish.

The ship was jammed with nearly two hundred passengers and Ahmad Khalil wondered where they 175 would sleep when one by one, the members of the crew, followed by the passengers, took to their hard heels, on the coiled-up ropes used to hoist the sails, on the cargo of burlap bags of Iraqi dates bound to be sold in Zanzibar, on the bare planks of the deck, wherever any place to lie down could be found. Some of the African tribesmen slept in a squatting position.

Ahmad Khalil and Rashid would have been happy here had it not been for Khalifa who each day seemed to grow worse and worse. All day he squatted motionless and silent, his skinny arms clasped around his bony legs soiling himself, refusing to eat or drink and unable to sleep. When they tried to feed him, he kicked them, fought and struggled, screaming: “You poison me! You poison me!” and Ahmad Khalil and Rashid had to hold him down with all their strength and force mashed lentils and water down his throat.

Whenever Ahmad Khalil begged and pleaded with him to eat, Khalifa said he was sure the “Enemy” had come to poison his food and water because it all had such a peculiarly bitter taste. He constantly complained of headache. Rashid thought it was from the heat and cleaned him and bathed him with seawater to cool him so that he might rest. But the malady would give him no rest.

For hours at a time he wept, cried twisted and turned with exhaustion but no sleep would come. Even at midnight he was lying rigid and tense, wide-awake, staring into the dark. Ahmad Khalil and Rashid 184 were terrified when he no longer seemed to recognize them. Day was turned into night and night into nightmares.

Life had become an endless nightmare from which he could not awaken…


. . . . . .
===========

One middle-aged farmer from a village on the upper Nile had with him a worn copy of the Quran. He liked to sit cross-legged on the deck and recite from it with a resonant voice. Soon he attracted a crowd around him. It was passed from hand to hand to any man or boy who could read or recite from memory a few verses. Then they would discuss it endlessly almost the whole day, each man offering his own opinions and interpretations. When they came to an especially interesting point, all voices would rise in excitement.

Khalifa had been crouching in the far corner of the deck for many days, refusing to move even to take food or answer the calls of nature, permitting only Rashid to feed him and clean him. Then slowly, little by little, he raised his eyes to watch what was going on. At last he rose to his feet and walked over to the group of men. When he asked for the Book, one of the men instead gave him a large round pot with a long spout filled with seawater. “You must perform the ablution first and wash yourself as clean as you can”. Immediately Khalifa did as he was told. When he took the Quran and opened it, they were astonished to hear how fluently he could read.

“How beautifully he chants the Holy Book!”

177 exclaimed one of the men. “Almost as well as accomplished Qari!” Then he turned to the boy. “Who taught you to do this?”

“Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun.”

“Do you know any verses from memory?” asked another.

The boy nodded. “I know half the Quran by heart. I learned it at school.”

“Then recite something for us—anything you want…”

Know that the life of this world is only play and idle amusement, pomp, and mutual boasting and multiplying in rivalry among yourselves riches and children as rain and the growth which it brings stirs forth delight from the tillers. Soon it withers. Thou wilt see it grow yellow; then it becomes dry and crumbles away… What is the life of this world but chattels of deception 1 Race one with another for forgiveness from your Lord and a Garden as wide as the heavens and the earth prepared for those who believe in Allah and his messengers. Such is the bounty of Allah which He bestoweth upon whom He will. Lo! Allah is of infinite bounty…

They gazed at him with open-mouthed astonishment 88 he continued in a strong clear voice to the end of the Surah without a single mistake.

“I know what it means…”

“If you do,” gasped one of the old men present, “you are wise far beyond your years. Surely you deserve a scholarship to al-Azhar!”

178 After that, the passengers regarded Khalifa with a special respect bordering on reverence.

The Egyptian fellah who owned the Quran would urge him to sit beside him and entertain him with stories about the Haj he had performed twenty years earlier and talk endlessly about his youngest son who was an honour student at al-Azhar University. The wild bedu tribesmen with their long matted hair and their rags looked up to him with awe.

They gave him dates and sugar and invited him to take his meals with them, certain that he deserved the very best they had.

That night he slept peacefully. Ahmad Khalil gazed at his thin, haggard face in the moonlight soothed and calmed by sleep as it had not been for many days or nights and gratitude to Allah overcame him for had He not heard his cries and quieted him as if it were by a miracle? Gently he pushed back the strands of unruly hair that had fallen over his forehead and then lay down beside him in the dark.

As the ship grew nearer to its destination, Ahmad Khalil spent his time eagerly studying a tattered newsprint Guide to the Haj, copies of which the Captain gave to all those who could read and they spent their time together seated in a circle, memorizing the prayers and supplications, learning of the rites, rituals and ceremonies; the rules and regulations and their meaning and significance in remembrance of the Prophet Abraham and his son 179 Ismail who built the Ka’aba and dedicated it forever to the worship and devotion of the one true God. The learned ones read it aloud to those who could not read and whenever Mecca was mentioned, all faces shone.

Darkness again fell and Ahmad Khalil squatted with his back against the hard bags of cargo in wonder at the beauty of the new crescent moon and the clear black sky, illuminated with thousands of stars. The month of Dhulhijjah, the time of the Pilgrimage had just begun — and one could immediately know the day of the month by observing the phases of the moon. Then he felt the presence of another man beside him. When he looked up, he found a tall young African with a powerful frame standing over him.

Although he was an utter stranger, yet he smiled at him, revealing his perfect even white teeth. “Please come, Come with me”, he urged. “I am all alone. I want to talk with you”. Ahmad Khalil followed him until they both found a quiet secluded place under one of the great lateen sails. The other passengers and most of the crew were sleeping soundly but they were too excited to sleep for by next day, the ship was expected to arrive in Jeddah. In broken Arabic, combined with gestures, he told Ahmad Khalil how he had repudiated the idol-worship and animism of his tribe and embraced Islam at the hands of a merchant he met from Kano; how from his tiny isolated village in tropical Nigeria, he had spent two years walking 180 and working his way clear across the continent of Africa in the hope of reaching Mecca at Haj time. When Ahmad Khalil saw the deep tribal gashes which scarred his cheeks, he put a big gentle brown hand on the hard muscular black arm. “You must be better than I am because a man who has become a Muslim is worth more to Allah than a person who has always been a Muslim…”

The creaking of the ancient rafters of the ship as the waves of the sea swayed it slightly to and fro had made them very drowsy and both men stretched themselves out on the bare planks of the deck, leaning against the cargo and sleep overcame them where they were lying side by side…

The ship did not arrive at the port of Jeddah until two days later because a lull in the breeze had delayed it for so many hours.

When the ship finally dropped anchor, the official at the harbour refused to allow the passengers off.

“The Captain of this ship is the most notorious smuggler I have ever known and now he has smuggled in this horde of human freight as he used to smuggle in slaves in former years.

None of them have any passports or visas. All of them have tried to get here without permission from the Government. They are all illegal”, he growled. “Send them back where they came from”!

Then another official superior in rank began to quarrel with him.

181 “Just who do you think you are ? Do you think you are God ? Who are you to stop them from their sacred duty and treat them like criminals? What will you answer on Judgment Day when you are asked why you treat your brothers like this”? He turned to the Captain and waved bis arms. “Let the ship land”! he commanded. “I will take all the responsibility. We will disinfect them now. They can have their shots and vaccinations here and I will make sure that they are given all the necessary papers and instructions.


. . . . . . . .
===============

Ready at last, they followed the crowd to the terminal where dozens of identical red buses were parked. Ahmad Khalil and Rashid would have preferred to walk were it not for Asma’s condition which made that impossible.

The fare for a regular seat inside the bus was too high for them to afford but they only had to pay half-fare to ride on the top with the baggage.

A lot of other Hajis had the same idea and the top of the bus was so packed with humanity, there was scarcely enough room to squat. Ahmad Khalil, Khalifa, Rashid and Asma were almost crushed between a horde of Malays from Java, Sumatra and the Philippines. Being the only Arabs on the bus, they immediately found themselves the objects of intense curiosity. One elderly turbaned Malay turned and smiled at him but Ahmad Khalil could only stare, disgusted at the sight of the red gash of his mouth stained with betel and the stumps of his black teeth filled down 182 to the gums.

The departure of the bus was delayed for more than an hour and they were forced to stay there with no protection against the blazing hot sun.

They grew very thirsty but none of the Malays, coming from a gentler climate, had prepared for that and Ahmad Khalil, seeing their plight, took out his goatskin filled with water, first took a long drink for himself before passing it to the man next to him. It passed into more than a dozen pairs of delicate brown hands, each man gratefully drinking his fill until the empty skin was returned to him.

As the bus speeded along the recently paved road, followed by a long caravan of other buses, cars and trucks, all jammed beyond capacity with thousands more Hajis, they frantically hung onto the railing but as they neared Mecca, the unintelligible chatter ceased. Only the hum of the motor broke the absolute silence. All minds focused on what lay ahead of them and on every face was set the same expression which made them all look alike.

Suddenly the bus jerked to a halt. As Ahmad Khalil joined the crowds which jammed the narrow streets of Mecca with Asma tightly clutching his arm and his brother and cousin following close behind, he felt as if he were walking in the sky, so much did it seem like a dream. He had brought all essential provisions with him ; he refused to buy 183 anything here unless absolutely necessary, for he had heard of the exorbitant prices the greedy merchants in the shops and even the vendors on the streets demanded for everything during the pilgrimage seasons. Neither had he tried to engage a guide as he had memorized all the prayers and learned what to do during the ceremonies for himself and the professional guides, who were considered indispensable for non-Arabs, had a notorious reputation for fleecing helpless pilgrims without mercy.

There was no need to ask directions to the Great Mosque. He had only to follow the throng. His heart pounded like a hammer with excitement as they stepped into the Haram ash-Sharif. They had come just in time for the sunset prayer and as the Adhan rang out loud, and clear but sweet and melodious from the tall minaret, it pierced the depths of his heart, never had he heard anything of such exquisite beauty. He wanted to weep as he heard so many voices in as many languages cry out and beg Allah’s forgiveness and pardon. He, Rashid and Khalifa stood in a row so far in the back among the multitude of tens of thousands that he could not see the Ka’aba but he could feel its presence nevertheless as if it were more real and alive than all the people around him. In the growing darkness, the electric lights were turned on, illuminating the vast square with brilliance while in the darker shadows, the multitudes stood, bowed, knelt and prostrated themselves in unison on the marble floor.

184 Since his earliest years, Ahmad Khalil had recited his Salat, always facing in the direction of the Ka’aba but never before had he ever experienced any Salat like this. Here worshipped thousands upon thousands of men and women from the ends of the earth - from Morocco in the West to the Philippines in the East and he knew that converts also stood here even from Germany, France, England and America.

He stood, prayed and supplicated to Allah among men of every nation, race and station of life, indistinguishable now, from each other, now they were uniformly clad in the two unsewn white sheets of the Ihram. Here were the black and the white, the most prosperous standing beside the most destitute, the university graduates among the illiterate, the “progressives” who had arrived here by airplane, side by side with their most “backward” brethren who had travelled here on foot, the most sophisticated and the simple-minded, the most highly civilized from the great cities and the primitive tribesmen of the desert and jungles, the healthy and the sick, the strong and the weak, husky youths in their prime supporting aged grandparents too feeble to walk. Here alone of all places on earth, all men were dignified and ennobled. The affluent and highly-placed could feel no arrogance or contempt for the misery and wretchedness of the unfortunate nor could even the most lowly be insulted, humiliated or degraded - for all were humbled in the presence of Allah among the vast universal brotherhood of 185 Believers who never questioned their faith in Him. Even the most hardened sinner could not be disgraced for all who sincerely sought repentance could hope to attain forgiveness, pardon and Divine blessings.

After the Salat of the night, the crowds thinned and for a long moment, Ahmad Khalil, Rashid Khalifa and Asma stood breathless, four pairs of eyes fixed on the cube-shaped structure draped with black brocade robes embroidered in gold. This was the same House of Allah, originally erected by Abraham and his son Ismail. The spot had been sacred since the beginning of time. It was the very centre of the world, the mere sight of it, the goal of a life-time and now the four of them stood still and silent, watching the endless streams of worshippers perform Tawaf, circling round it the prescribed seven times. They were awe-stricken by the fact that the Ka’aba was never without worshippers any time of the year or any hour of the day or night. And in the eerie semi-darkness, it seemed to Ahmad Khalil that they could resurrect the ghosts of the millions upon millions who had tread here generation after generation for more than thirteen centuries.

Finally they dared approach closer. They stepped slowly and cautiously, feeling unclean before such a holy thing. They drew very close and stood gazing up at the Ka’aba in silent reverence. Ahmad Khalil felt so weak, he thought he would faint.

He leaned on his cousin for support although Rashid 186 was so overcome himself, he could scarcely stand. Khalifa fell to his knees and fondled and kissed the black robe. Then he backed away and stood up very straight, beside Rashid, his head held high and on his face a reflection of the most serene peace.


XIX
===

As Ahmad Khalil first walked the narrow worn streets of Medina hand in hand with his brother and his cousin, his wife following close behind, and merged themselves into the multitudes of people who had come in a flood from Mecca, the rest of Arabia and every country of the Muslim world, he knew at once this was the only city in the world where he would ever choose to live and make his second home, the only place where he could experience such joy and happiness.

Inspite of the crowds and the narrowness and congestion of the streets, there was no shoving, pushing or jostling, no hurried frenzy here.

They reached the main bazaar under the shelter of the great inner wall where vendors praised their wares with cheerful chants and the shops filled with an amazing variety of goods for sale from East and West ranging from camel saddles, silken embroidered Kashmir shawls, and Persian carpets to Swiss watches, Japanese-manufactured tape-recording machines and short-wave radio receiving sets.

Many people stopped to eagerly examine them and feast their eyes but Ahmad Khalil only 187 passed on without even seeing, never looking to the right or left, as he had no interest in purchasing any of these things, even had he the money to buy nor did the busy throngs in the market-place have the slightest fascination for him. His eyes were fixed straight ahead on the five minarets of the Prophet’s Mosque which rose as slim white tapered towers into the infinity of the cloudless blue sky above the luminous green dome.

It was mid-morning when they reached their goal, the Masjid an-Nabi and they entered the heavy arched gate into the interior of greenish twilight. Long rows of thick marble columns supported the roof, delicate blue and white tiles adorned the semi-circular niches pointed towards Mecca and richly decorated carpets covered the marble floor. The grave of the Prophet itself could not be seen as it was hidden from view by heavy brocades and enclosed in an ornate bronze grill. But his presence could still be keenly felt and as Ahmad Khalil drew near to offer his salutation of “peace” he thought he saw the Prophet in all his majesty as he preached his Farewell Sermon to the assembled multitude:

……… This day are those who disbelieve in despair of ever harming your religion ; so fear them not ; fear ME ! This day have I perfected your faith and completed My favour unto you and have chosen for you AL-ISLAM ! ………

Quietly Ahmad Khalil rose from his prayer to offer the benediction of “peace” to Abu Bakr and Umar who were buried at the same place. And in 188 the empty silence, he could hear Abu Bakr’s voice echo and re-echo down the ages:

……… Now O people, I am your ruler though I am not the best among you. If I do right, support me; If I commit any wrong, then show me the Straight Path. Obey me only so long as I obey Allah and His messenger ; If I disobey them, then you must disobey me. Know that I am no more than a man from among yourselves ………… “.

Ahmad Khalil then fixed an unwavering gaze upon the tomb of Umar who had strengthened the fledgling Islamic state to its heights of glory — Umar who ruled an empire and slept on a pile of

palm leaves ……..
================

He listened to the Imam summon the worshippers to the early afternoon Salat, but although the Adhan could be distinctly heard from one end of the great hall to the other, it came soft and muffled without any echo. He took so long and slow over his Salat he had kept his head prostrated on the floor for nearly a half hour, all sense of time lost, and perhaps he could have stayed there another hour when Khalifa tugged at his arm, plaintively begging for something to eat. Ahmad Khalil untied his bundle of provisions and took out a large nylon-plastic bottle filled with water from the sacred well of Zam-Zam in Mecca which he had carefully saved for Khalifa ; for this water was noted for its medicinal value as well as its Divine blessings and if Allah willed, could cure every malady.

He handed it to his brother who drank down part of it thirstily.

189 More pilgrims filled the sanctuary from every nation on earth but Ahmad Khalil took little notice of them. He sat and prayed on the thick, soft, exquisitely hand-woven Persian carpets and then gazed long at the hundreds of gold-embroidered Names of Allah and the Prophet which adorned the walls. Khalifa went quietly to the gate and reverently caressed the intricately engraved Arabic script with his fingers.

They stayed there the entire day, joining the congregation in every Salat. They forgot all about food and drink.

Night fell and after the last Salat of the day, they put their bundles of provisions in a corner of the courtyard, each ate a handful of dates, spread out their straw mats and lay down to sleep ……..

The following day Ahmad Khalil noticed several very black men dressed in spotlessly clean long white robes and turbans. They were the servants of the mosque whose duty it was to keep it cleaned and repaired. He could think of no higher ambition than to become one of them and spend his whole time here. He tried to talk to them but they were too reserved to confide in strangers. Ahmad Khalil and Rashid were then told that the Mosque had all the servants it required and that their employment was not needed.

Bitterly disappointed, they left and searched the city for shelter until they finally found room on the ground floor of an old three-storied house 190 The room was large enough to give them all enough space. Two small barred windows below the high ceiling let in air and light and during bad weather, the shutters could be closed.

From the bazaar, Ahmad Khalil and Rashid bought more straw mats to cover the cold cement floor and since they had no bedding, they slept with their long robes wrapped tightly around them. When the cold grew more intense, they huddled together for warmth. During the summer they slept outside in the small walled courtyard and when the heat became unbearable, neighbours on the top floor would allow them to share the roof.

Since the house had no running water, Asma would go out heavily veiled several times daily to fill her jug from the public tap a short distance up the street. When the erratic supply of water failed at the tap, Ahmad Khalil and Rashid would each take a big bucket to fill with water at the nearest neighbourhood mosque, carrying it home gracefully on their heads. For the first time, they could enjoy the luxury of an out-door latrine and kitchen space all to themselves without the ordeal they had to endure in the refugee camp of being compelled to share with so many other families.

Ahmad Khalil used the last of his savings to pay rent. Soon he and Rashid managed to find work in one of the oasis gardens on the outskirts of the city, tending the date-palm trees and harvesting the vegetables.

Although the pittance they received as wages was just enough to pay the 199 owner of the house their monthly rent and buy flour and lentils, they were allowed to take home for themselves an additional bounty of fresh vegetables and delicious dates so they were content because they never lacked something to eat.

No sooner had they become settled in their new home when Asma gave birth to a son, the new baby small and rather thin but healthy and perfectly formed.

Ahmad Khalil gave it the name of “Ismail” after the son of the Prophet Abraham and as the months passed and the baby grew larger and thrived on his mother’s milk, Ahmad Khalil wondered whether or not if it be the will of Allah that his future was destined he would be of credit to his illustrious name?

The immigrant quarter where they lived was in the poorest and most dilapidated district of the city. Indeed, the refugees who had taken shelter here were known as the most destitute of all the inhabitants of Arabia.

But Ahmad Khalil was happy with his new neighbours who were kind, friendly and helpful. He spent many absorbing hours sitting with them, listening to the harrowing tales of persecution they had endured in their native lands.

He was especially drawn to the natives of Russian and Chinese Turkestan.

In the camp, there had been a great deal of talk among the youth about Communism, Socialism and Karl Marx. It was considered the height of fashion among the “progressive” younger men to 192 incline towards these trends of thought. He was told by more than one of them that the aim of Communism was to enforce the equality of all men, to end all class distinctions and take from the rich and give to the poor. Communist agents in the camp had never ceased to emphasize the warm friendship of Russia and the lands under her domination for the Arabs—that she stood ready to help the Arabs in all ways against poverty, misery and foreign exploitation, that Communism and socialism was the panacea for all social and economic evils. He had heard this propaganda repeated many times over the Arabic-language broadcasts of Radio Moscow.

One of the men in the tent he shared had owned a short-wave radio receiving set and kept it on for hours at a time beamed to Moscow. But he repudiated the whole idea as soon as he discovered the fanatical hostility of the Communists against religion, that they did not believe in God or Hereafter and persecuted all who did and then he found out that Marx had been a Jew. But he had never heard of what Communists did to Muslims until he saw right before his eyes the victims of Stalin’s reign of terror. Like the Palestinians, the natives of Turkestan had to combat the encroachment of the Slavic white intruders who were determined to settle on their lands and drive them away from their ancestral homes or make them prisoners of foreign tyranny. Under threat of death in exile, they were prohibited to practice Islam or teach it to their children who 193 were compelled to accept the indoctrination of atheism in the public schools. They were prohibited to perform Haj and the borders to adjacent lands where they might seek asylum were closed.

By the tens of thousands they attempted to escape
=================================================

and then were captured and killed in the most brutal ways. Among Ahmad Khalil’s neighbours and friends on the upper stories of his house were some of these survivors who, after losing all their property and most of their families, had sought refuge in Medina and consolation from the near-presence of the holy places.

In the company of those refugees from Soviet Russia, Communist China, India and various parts of Africa who spoke Arabic, Ahmad Khalil felt much more close kinship than with any of the rich Saudi Arabs who had reaped the benefits of the oil industry. In the entire district set aside for the immigrants, he was the only Arab. He never met a single Palestinian like himself.

The Palestinians in Arabia were nearly all from the cities or trained in the vocational schools of the United Nations agency who worked for the oil companies in Dhahran or Kuwait. Few of them cared to go to Mecca or Medina, least of all, to live there.

Each year Ahmad Khalil would plead with the Government authorities at their offices to allow him to prolong his stay in Medina indefinitely; he promised not to be of any burden or make any trouble for them, that he worked for his living and never resorted to begging. Yet he stubbornly refused to 194 adopt Saudi citizenship lest this formality deprive him of his right to return to Palestine. Although Saudi Arabia was an absolute monarchy, he found none of the tyranny and oppression so characteristic of the rule of the Egyptians. No spies, secret police or armed police anywhere in evidence. Here life and property were almost completely safe. Murders and robberies were almost unheard of and there was probably less crime than anywhere else on earth. Now he no longer needed his knife for a weapon, he carefully put it in its sheath, safe at the bottom of a locked tin trunk. Here he eagerly breathed the air of freedom like one who had just emerged from jail. There were no restrictions on his movements and his letters to his father were not censored.

After work, he would roam the quiet narrow streets of Medina with his brother and cousin hand in hand. The cool evening breeze gently caressed their faces. Although it was laden with sand and dust from the desert, they found lovely gardens of flowers and date-palm trees everywhere and the dates which grew in Medina were the very finest in all the world. Despite the vast range of peoples from every part of the world and the variety of their dress, they did not appear as any random medley of types. It seemed to him rather that all its inhabitants and even temporary visitors very soon fell into a community of mood, a sameness of behaviour and even of facial expression reflecting a common sobriety, serenity, tranquility and inward 195 peacefulness as if none could resist the unseen presence of the Prophet.

All of this Ahmad Khalil tried to express as best he could when he wrote to his father. But his father did not reply. The newspapers were filled with accounts of the Israeli invasion of Gaza and Sinai and the British and French bombardment of Port Said and the closure of the Suez Canal. When the Jews were finally forced to evacuate the occupied territories by order of President Eisenhower, several months later, Ahmad Khalil was horrified to read in the newspapers that his father was among those arrested by the Egyptian authorities and scheduled to stand trial in military court charged with having collaborated with the enemy, the penalty of which was death by firing squad.

The weeks passed and the months. Ahmad Khalil waited anxiously. Then one night when he returned late from the fields, Rashid ran to him with great excitement.

“Look, Ahmad Khalil! Look! The letter has come!”

Ahmad Khalil’s face lit up when at once he recognized his father’s handwriting on the envelope. Eagerly Rashid ripped it open. He held the letter close to the kerosene lamp and examined it closely.

“You are holding it upside down!” chided Ahmad Khalil, impatiently. “Rashid! Give it to me!”

196 “Tell me what your father says!” demanded Rashid.

And slowly and haltingly Ahmad Khalil began to read it aloud…

… It was through the mercy and compassion of Allah that during the trial I was able to prove my innocence and shortly afterwards, was released. Now that I have been given my freedom, I am teaching again and the school is my whole life…

I wish you could understand why there could be no greater satisfaction than to be part of the teaching staff of this school. Never was I so happy than on that day just before the war broke out when we were at last able to move our classes out of tents into a real school-house. The older students especially are so proud. They helped build it themselves…

I teach my class of ten-year-olds arithmetic, elementary science, Islamic-Arab history, the rudiments of Arabic grammar and literature, the English primer and the holy Quran. I do not merely wish my students to memorize and recite. I want them to understand. I try to awaken their curiosity enough to ask questions. I want to encourage them to think for themselves.

But sometimes it is so difficult I reach the point of despair. There are not enough teachers. I instruct over a hundred children; half who come in the morning and the remainder in the afternoon. Sixty boys, clad in an odd assortment of ragged cast-offs, crowd a room meant for only half that number and two at a desk intended only for one. They must share the books because there are not enough to go round. Few of the books are without missing pages. I feel so frustrated that I have too many children. I cannot possibly know all of them as I should and devote to each, 197 the attention he needs.

I must be patient when they are listless or one of my children falls asleep in class. Without enough to eat, they cannot do their best work.

They are not strong enough for their lessons.

But no teacher could ask for better pupils. They are so enthusiastic and eager to learn. To preserve discipline and order is no problem. For them, education means no less than survival and their only hope to escape from the misery of the refugee camp. I know of one refugee boy (his father an illiterate unskilled labourer) who earned one of the scholarships and is now studying engineering at the American University of Beirut. When I think of this, obstacles become challenges and I am content to work hard and watch the children progress from day to day…

“Wait, Ahmad Khalil,” interrupted Rashid, “I want to see if Khalifa is sleeping soundly.”
======================================================================

“Rashid, why aren’t you listening? Aren’t you interested? Listen, here is something about your father”:

… Just after the Jews withdrew their troops from Gaza, Halimah died in the hospital of advanced tuberculosis. She had been very ill for a long time. So Mansur has come to live with me and even though he has no work and only his ration-card, I am supporting him…

Left alone in the darkness lit only dimly by the kerosene lamp, Ahmad Khalil pondered over the closing paragraph:

… How can I adequately express to you in words my great joy when you told me about the birth of your son? I hope he is healthy and I pray to Allah that he enjoy a long and happy life. I feel so sad when I think that I may never see little Ismail or any of my other grand198 children. But that will not make them any less dear to me. Please write me everything you can about them…

A week later, Ahmad Khalil sat down to write the reply to his father. He could only write and express himself with much difficulty and even to complete a page took more than an hour. His handwriting was that of a seven-year-old child just beginning his schooling—awkward and clumsy and barely legible in crooked lines. He was so ashamed, he hoped his father would not show his letters to anyone. He told of Khalifa’s miraculous recovery during the Baj, his dramatic improvement, and how he was now working alongside of him and Rashid in the oasis garden and supporting himself. When Khalifa saw Ahmad Khalil sitting crosslegged on the floor with the pen in his hand, he begged for permission to write to his father himself. The letter was so long that Khalifa took half the afternoon to finish it. In respect for his brother’s right to privacy, Ahmad Khalil did not read it. Only once he peeped furtively over his shoulder to admire the elegance of his writing, his hand as sure and steady as one gifted in the art of calligraphy. Surely his father should feel proud of that and proud to show what his son could do to his fellow teachers at the school. Ahmad Khalil addressed and sealed the envelope and then took it to the post-office.

A month passed before his father’s reply arrived. In the midst of the usual news about the school and his students and assuring Rashid of 199 Mansur’s continued good health despite his age, Ahmad Khalil’s face grew pale with shock when he read the concluding lines:

“I received Khalifa’s letter and it filled me with unbearable pain and sadness. You could not have read it or you would never have claimed any improvement in his condition. The boy is hopelessly ill and belongs on the disturbed ward in a hospital. As Saudi Arabia is such a rich country, it should not be difficult to institutionalize him there. He is like a vegetable. He exists on a level that is hardly human. I try to think of him as dead and for me, he is. Please, I beg of you not to cause me any more torment by ever mentioning him in your letters to me again……..”.

Ahmad Khalil wrote back at once, begging his father not to worry about Khalifa; that Khalifa was to remain at home with them and assuring him that he and Rashid would care for him and assume all the responsibilities. Quietly he put the letter in a box along with all the others from his father and placed it on a high shelf which he hoped would be inaccessible.

The mid-afternoon of the following day, Ahmad Khalil came home from work to see Khalifa standing all alone in the middle of the room. When he entered the door, Khalifa did not move or give him any sign of recognition. He stood frozen to the spot, as petrified as stone, his face drained of all colour. The box had been taken down from the shelf and papers were strewn all over the floor. The letter was in his hand! How did he find it? How could he know? But he did as he had obviously 200 read it all. When Ahmad Khalil took it from him as gently as he could, he began to tremble. His body shook convulsively from head to foot.

Ahmad Khalil took him in his arms and held him close against him. “But we left Father behind and now he is far, far away. He can do nothing to you now. Only I am here and Rashid is here. We shall protect you and never let anyone hurt you.”

Ahmad Khalil tried to comfort his brother and make him forget by taking him to the library each day after their work was done.

Single-file they entered the winding alleys of the oldest district of Medina, so narrow in places that two people could barely pass one another until they found themselves before the grey stone walls of the Shaikh Mahmud Library built centuries ago by a Turkish sultan. Very quietly the two brothers stepped into a white-washed domed hall lined with glass-covered bookcases filled with thousands of hand-written books on religion, philosophy, law, science, mathematics, history, geography and literature - among them, some of the rarest manuscripts known to the Islamic world.

Rows of turbaned bearded scholars, clad in long white robes, squatted on cushions and bent over their books, resting on low mahogany benches instead of tables, taking notes and sometimes they discussed them together in hushed voices too low for their neighbours to hear.

There were no foreign books and only a few in print and they spent many happy hours alone with the two library assistants, browsing among them, fingering 201 the ancient yellowed pages with reverence.

Most of the books were far beyond the understanding or experience of a man as unlettered as he but one book which the librarian brought him attracted his special interest - a copy of the Muqaddimah by the great Tunisian historian, Ibn Khaldun who lived over six hundred years ago. The librarian explained that this book was faithfully copied over by hand in the finest calligraphy by an anonymous Turkish scholar in Istanbul just before printing came into vogue. To help him understand it better, he also gave him a short, simple biography on Ibn Khaldun:

“Abu Zaid Abdul Rahman Ibn Khaldun was born in Tunis. His family claimed to originate from the Hadramaut in south Arabia and migrated to Spain in the early days of the Islamic conquest. During the next four centuries, the Khaldun family was established in Seville; they were always among its ruling elite.

But the Christian re-conquest was driving many Arab-Muslims across the Straits of Gibraltar to Africa and just before the capture of Seville by Ferdinand III of Leon and Castille, the Khaldun family migrated to Tunisia.

The refugees from Spain were far more cultured and educated than the natives of north Africa and the historian’s grandfather soon obtained the post of the Minister and devoted himself to the study of the sacred Law, theology and letters until he fell victim to the Black Death.

After his son, Abdul Rahman, had received his education, consisting of memorizing Quran by heart, Arabic grammar, poetry and jurisprudence, he made his entry into public life at the age of twenty, becoming Secretary to the 202 Sultan of Fez in Morocco.

Some years later, Ibn Khaldun went back to Spain where he entered the service of the Sultan of Granada who sent him as his ambassador to Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile. In Seville, he was moved to tears when he saw “the monuments of the power of my ancestors”. His genius so much amazed the Christian king that he offered to restore to him all his ancestral estates if he would enter into his service. Ibn Khaldun refused, saying: “I will always be faithful to my ancestors, their traditions, my people and to Islam. I will never become a Christian nor do I want my children or my grandchildren to grow up as Christians.”

He thus returned to North Africa with his family and retired in seclusion in Tunisia for four years to write the Muqaddimah and his Universal World History, simultaneously engaging himself in study and delivering lectures at the Zaituna University mosque in Tunis.

Ibn Khaldun then decided to go to Mecca when the greatest tragedy of his life struck; the shipwreck in a storm at sea which was carrying his family from Tunis to Egypt and deprived him with one fatal blow of “riches, happiness and children”. He sought consolation in prayer and recitation of the Quran and after serving three years as the Chief Justice of the Maliki law courts in Egypt, he pursued his interrupted Hajj. Then he returned from Arabia to Egypt, intending to lead a quiet life.

But fate reserved for him one more encounter, the most dramatic of all. When Damascus was threatened by the savage Mongol invasion, Ibn Khaldun was one of the notables who were let down by long ropes over the walls of the city to negotiate terms with Tamerlane. The terrible conqueror was astonished by the historian’s appearance and most impressed when Ibn Khaldun read him passages in 203 his Universal History concerning his savage exploits, asking him to correct any mistakes he might have made in the Chronicle! He even offered Ibn Khaldun a post in his service, which the historian skillfully declined. When the Mongols sacked Damascus, he was able to save many lives.

On his return to Egypt, Ibn Khaldun was once more appointed Chief Justice of the Maliki-Shari’ah courts in Cairo, a post he still occupied when death overtook him at the age of seventy-four.

Because of the constant intrigues and jealousies that surrounded him and frequent changes of allegiance from one ruler to another, certain modern critics have accused him of an utter lack of patriotism. But the reader must be reminded that patriotism as modern Europe understands is unknown in Islam. To one Fatherland, Ibn Khaldun always remained true — Darul-Islam — or the area of Muslim civilization…

“… His agitated life had brought him encounters with King Pedro the Cruel in the West and the terrible Mongol, Tamerlane in the East. It had taken him into the huts of savages and into the palaces of kings; into the dungeons with criminals and into the highest courts of justice; into the illiterate and into the academies of scholars and the lecture-halls of universities, into the treasure-houses of the past and into the turmoil of the present, into deprivation and sorrow and into affluence and joy. It had led him into the depths where the spirit broods over the meaning of life…”

As Ahmad Khalil with the assistance of the librarian was pondering over the three volumes of the Muqaddimah trying to gain some measure of understanding it, one chapter-heading drew his keenest attention:

212

IMITATION OF THE CONQUERORS BY THE VANQUISHED
=============================================

“The vanquished always seek to imitate their victors in their dress, manner, mode of life, customs and beliefs. This is because men are always inclined to attribute perfection to those who have defeated and subjugated them. Men do this either because of the reverence they feel for their conquerors makes them see only perfection in them or because they refuse to admit their defeat could have been brought about by ordinary causes and hence they suppose that it is due to the perfection of the conquerors. Should this illusion persist long, it will change into a profound conviction and will lead to the adoption of all tenets of the victors and a close imitation of all their characteristics. This blind imitation may come about either unconsciously or because of a mistaken belief that the victory of the conquerors was due not to their superior physical might and material strength but because of the inferiority of the customs, beliefs and mode of life of the conquered. Hence arises the further delusion that such an imitation will remove the causes of defeat….

Notice how in all countries, the native population almost always adopts the dress and habits of the royal garrison stationed in their midst because the latter has imposed its rule upon them. In fact, every country which has powerful conquering neighbours tends to a large extent to imitate those neighbours as we see among the defeated Spanish Muslims today in respect to their Christian neighbours. For today in Spain, the Muslims are imitating the Christians in their dress and ornaments and indeed changing many of their customs and habits, even to the extent of having pictures and statues adorn the walls of their homes and shops. And in this, the careful observer will mark a sure proof of weakness and inferiority, 213 And here in a book written six centuries ago, he had found the answer to the question which had perplexed him all his life and which he knew was for his people and indeed for all Muslims no less than a question of life or death!

How he wished his father and his friends from the refugee camp could be here beside him now so he could read this aloud to them, shout it loud enough for everyone to hear this truth to the whole East about the West if only people would listen and take heed before all was lost forever and it would be too late!

It was not long before the librarian’s assistants, Abd-ur-Rahman and Inamullah became Ahmad Khalil’s constant companions. In order to be able to spend more time with them, he found work tending the flowers, the lawn and the date palms in the garden beside the nearest local mosque. Abd-ur-Rahman, a convert from Hinduism, had come to Medina from Delhi on Hajj with his three wives and seven children. Disowned by his father and brothers as an untouchable because he had married beneath his caste, he decided to stay permanently. Inamullah’s aged parents had journeyed from Sumatra to Medina for the privilege of dying on such holy ground and by the time the boy reached manhood, he could scarcely remember he ever had another home. Even though his wages were even less here than in the oasis garden where Rashid and Khalifa continued to work, he was happy.

Here he could work out of doors all the 206 time at his leisure in the open pure fresh air with the cool green grass beneath his feet amid the company of the bright flowers and the shade of the palm trees filled with many kinds of birds. Of course he would have preferred to serve in the great Masjid-an-Nabi but since this mosque was still within the precincts of the City of the Prophet, he had to be content with the second-best.

In the afternoons, he liked to sit in the warm winter sunshine of the courtyard absorbed in plaiting new sleeping mats for himself and Rashid to replace the old ones that had become worn out and torn while Khalifa helped him, carefully picking out the longest reeds from the pile on the floor and handing them to him one by one.

All was peaceful and quiet and in the silent companionship of his brother beside him, he felt complete happiness and contentment.

One afternoon after his work for the day at the mosque was done, Ahmad Khalil found the keeper of the library waiting for him. He was awe-struck at the dignity and reserve of the gray-bearded old scholar in his long white robes.

“I want to speak to you about your brother. I have looked carefully at the handwriting and his drawings you have given me. Already it is clear to me that he is a gifted artist. I never met a child like him before. If you give me permission to teach him calligraphy and design, I am willing to pay him while he is learning more than he would earn working in the fields…”

207 Twelve-year-old Khalifa sat cross-legged on the richly-decorated carpet in the opposite corner of the room, listening eagerly while pretending to be absorbed in a book. The keeper went to him and knelt beside him and when he put a gentle wrinkled hand on his thin shoulder, his face lit up for the first time since the War with a radiant smile.


XX
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As the months passed, Ahmad Khalil felt the serene atmosphere of this, the second-holiest of all cities, replaced by such unbearable tension and friction, he almost forgot where he was. In the evenings after his work was done, he would squat motionlessly on the floor hour after hour, his eyes down-cast while his cousin restlessly paced the room. Little Ismail began to cry. Ahmad Khalil reached for the baby and tickled its tiny brown toes until it laughed aloud. He hugged the child and kissed him until its warm little body grew limp with sleep in his arms.

“It’s not fair!” shouted his cousin. “Hush Rashid! You will awaken the child”. Rashid’s voice rose to an even higher pitch. “What right have you to everything when I have nothing”?

Ahmad Khalil gazed at him imploringly. “Rashid, why must you make us all suffer”?

208 “You have everything - a wife, and a child and soon you will have another. How would you like to be me? How would you feel if you knew that no man would consent for his daughter to become your wife. But you would not understand.”

Rashid stood glaring at his cousin, his black face hostile, almost threatening. Then suddenly he sank to the floor and hung his head between his knees. “That night when we crossed the border to Nahal Midbar to reap grain from the fields, Oh why couldn’t the soldiers have killed me when they fired on us with their machine-guns?

Why wasn’t I shot dead?”

“That was not the will of Allah. It is His will that you be patient…”

“How easy for you to talk! What do you know? How can I live when I may never have a wife or a child of my own?”

Ahmad Khalil went to him. He was about to lay a hand on his powerful shoulder when he shrank away. “Don’t you touch me!” he cried.

Rashid grew more and more morose. He seldom spoke, even to Khalifa. He only picked at his food with no appetite. For half the day he would lie motionless on his mat, his wide-open eyes fixed vacantly on the ceiling and the heavy beams of palm trunks supporting it. When Ahmad Khalil awoke the next morning, he would be gone. Sometimes 209 he disappeared for many hours at a time. This went on week after week.

Then when he disappeared for an entire day, Ahmad Khalil worried frantically.

The sun was beginning to set when he and Khalifa set out to search for him.

Hand in hand, the two brothers walked through the quietness of the deserted side-streets so narrow the jutting balconies of the ancient houses on either side almost touched. Darkness intensified until only moonlight enabled them to grope their way.

Ahmad Khalil jumped when Khalifa pulled at his arm. “I see his shadow against the gate! Look! Over there!”

“Sh-sh-sh”, hushed Ahmad Khalil. “We must be very quiet. He must not hear us.”

They crept as close as they could and then hid themselves behind the doorway. In the moonlight, they watched Rashid, his face pressed against the barred iron gate. On the other side, they saw another dim shadow. Then they heard a soft, sweet voice.

“A lady!” gasped Khalifa.

“Sh-sh”, hushed Ahmad Khalil. They stood listening to the voices intermingle until they faded. Only the girl’s sobbing shattered the quiet.

“But why is she crying?” questioned Khalifa.

210 Ahmad Khalil squeezed his brother’s hand tightly and waited until the girl had gone. Rashid turned and when he saw them, he tensed, poised to flee.

Ahmad Khalil caught hold of the skirt of his gown. “Why do you run away from us? We want to help you.”

Rashid fell limp in utter defeat. “What can you do? She is an orphan and she is all alone. She has been a servant in this house ever since her parents died.

Today when she was ill, she fell down and broke a costly plate by accident and the Master of the house became very angry, beat her and threatened to send her away. She has no other place to go…”

Ahmad Khalil stared at his cousin in disbelief. “Are you sure her story is true? The people here are always kind to their servants and slaves.”

“This man is different. Sometimes he can be very cruel.”

The days passed, then the weeks and more weeks.

Rashid mechanically went through the motions of existing. There seemed no more life left in him.

Then one Friday noon, after the Salat, Abdur-Rahman took his hand. “Come with me”, he entreated. Ahmad Khalil and Inamullah followed close behind.

They led Rashid to a secluded room connected to the mosque. In the middle of the 211 floor huddled a woman so heavily swathed in layers of black and dark-blue cloth, only her bare feet could be seen.

Gently Ahmad Khalil lifted her veil and Rashid gazed upon her in full day-light for the first time. She looked extremely young, scarcely older than a child. He saw that she was covered with bandages. The skin of her face was as black as his, her features as thick and coarse, her eyes full of pain and fear.

Abdur-Rahman put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Your cousin told us about her and about you so we have brought her here. You need no longer be alone…”

They were married the next day in a simple ceremony without any festivities.

Rashid took his earnings for the week and bought her a basket of dates, a new cooking pot, a small kerosene stove and a mat to lie on. At first she was so shy and frightened, she refused to speak to anybody but little by little, Rashid won her trust. Every morning before he went to work, he dressed and bandaged her wounds and soon they healed. Her very clean habits won her the instant admiration of the household.

Asma welcomed her as a friend and companion who would share the household drudgery—for kept strictly confined and secluded, she had become very lonely. Maymuna quarreled with her only rarely, kept the room clean, neat and in order and insisted that little Ismail was thoroughly washed and bathed 212 everyday. And as Asma stirred the pot of lentils on the fire, and swept the cement floor, she would listen to Maymuna chant softly and melodiously, as she ground grain into flour in the hand-stone mill, the tribal songs from Africa her mother had taught her as a child.

XXI
===

In the years that followed, Ahmad Khalil’s and Rashid’s children were born one after the other in rapid succession. Despite occasional quarreling, their wives became devoted friends.

Ismail grew into a handsome boy and the favourite of both his fond parents. With his smooth tawny flesh, his great dark sparkling eyes with long silken lashes, the lively curls in his soft gleaming hair and his perfect little features, what a lovely child! The son was endowed with all the beauty the parents lacked; so much so that strangers could not believe that Ahmad Khalil could be his father! His good looks was often remarked on by friends and neighbours and attracted the attention of strangers as well. Ahmad Khalil was so proud of him. Often he would take him to his place of work and feed him with ripe dates he plucked in clusters from the heights of the palm trees and then threw down for him to try to catch in mid-air while he laughed and shouted. After his work for the day was done, Ahmad Khalil would carry him astride his shoulders to show his friends in the market-place.

Ahmad Khalil had no premonition what kind of boy he was 213 destined to become until he was four years old and after a tedious and painful labour, Asma gave birth to the twins—a boy and a girl. As soon as Ismail saw his mother lying weak and exhausted on her mat with the new babies beside her, he stamped his feet on the floor and shrieked: “I don’t want any brother or sister! If you loved me like you say you do, you would put them back inside of you where they came from!” Asma turned her face to the wall and wept so bitterly even Ahmad Khalil could not console her.

After the other children arrived, Ismail grew more and more stubborn, defiant and rebellious and the growing hardness of his eyes and face slowly erased his beauty.

Ahmad Khalil had never known a child like this in his family or among his people though he had seen many boys and girls behave with insolence in Negba. In his native village of Iraq al Manshiya, this sort of conduct would never be tolerated, even for a single moment; there such a boy would be beaten into insensibility. But now the support of the tribe and extended clan was gone and all the responsibility for his son’s discipline and control fell upon him. And he felt so weak and helpless to stand up to this hostile son who more and more confronted him like a stranger. He was far more frightened than enraged by the unruly boy who refused to obey, but insisted on doing whatever he pleased until he invariably had his way. Ahmad Khalil felt utterly at a loss what to do.

214 Although Ismail grew sturdy in body and enjoyed robust health, he often suffered from toothache. This ailment too was unknown to Ahmad Khalil as it had been rare in Iraq al Manshiya where he and his family, subsisting on hard, coarse and scanty fare, all had strong and perfect teeth. Once after Ahmad Khalil had taken Ismail to the local barber to have three decayed molars pulled out, he rebuked him sharply; “This is your fault. You eat too many sweets. You are eating sweets all the time. Why do you never clean your teeth with the miswaq I give you”? Ismail frowned scornfully but said nothing.

He thrived into a self-reliant boy of eight years—the cleverest and most willful child of them all. He was so much stronger than any of his small brothers, sisters or cousins that unless his mother or Rashid’s wife kept a sharp eye on him, he would grab all their food for himself.

Whenever the two and three-year-olds screamed with frustration because they were too small and weak to get their share, Ahmad Khalil, ignoring Ismail, would take them both on his lap and as he fed them bits of bread with dates, he would teach them to take their food in the name of Allah, thank Allah when their stomachs were satisfied and leave any crumbs that had fallen on the floor for the ants to eat. Often he fed the ants himself with crumbs of his bread along with drops of lentil soup and watched with fascination and delight how these hard-working, industrious tiny creatures cooperated with each other to carry the food away to store for the winter in their habitats beneath the hole in the wall.

215 Khalifa was so slow to mature that Ahmad Khalil and Rashid wondered if he were destined to remain a child forever when suddenly, just after he reached his seventeenth year, a few months transformed him from a scrawny boy into a fully-grown man though he remained very thin and frail. After five years under the old scholar’s gentle, patient guidance, but strict and rigorous training, he so highly excelled in designing calligraphy in harmonious colours—black, crimson, sky-blue, silver and gold—that no artist in Medina could surpass him. He had not only mastered the skills of illumination but knew also how to embroider on cloth without fault. He knew that this art was sacred; that the mere hand-lettering of Quranic verses and excerpts from Hadith was in itself a religious experience. He made no attempt at originality, for this art was not the expression of an individual but rather the legacy of an entire civilization and so he was content to follow with no deviation the traditional forms of his many anonymous predecessors.

It was not long before his exquisite work adorned the principal mosques in Mecca and Medina as well as many private homes. His calligraphy was admired and treasured throughout Arabia and adjacent lands beyond but since he never signed his name, nobody outside Medina could ever know who the artist was.

216 Nevertheless, a few people in Medina did come to know but as soon as they saw him and spoke with him out of curiosity, in hushed astonishment, they would exclaim to his teacher that this boy must be mad and how could the insane do such skilled art as this? The teacher tried his best to convince them that the work was indeed none but Khalifa’s own but they refused to believe him. Others who were more sympathetic, approached the boy individually when his teacher was absent, offering to pay him whatever he asked, but Khalifa refused to allow anyone to buy his work without his teacher’s permission and would not accept any money.

At the age of nineteen, he was chosen to help decorate the annual covering of the Ka’aba. For many centuries it had been woven and embroidered by master-craftsmen in Egypt after which, just before the Hajj took place each year, it was brought to Arabia with colourful ceremony.

But since relations between Saudi Arabia and Egypt had become so strained and mistrustful because of President Nasser’s ambitions, the Arabian King rejected the Egyptian-made covering for the Ka’aba and decreed that henceforth it be made in his own country. Accompanied by his teacher, Khalifa went to Mecca where for ten months he spent all his waking hours squatting on the matted floor amidst dozens of other craftsmen, helping to embroider on the black brocade in gold thread what would become the curtain that covered the door of the Ka’aba with intricate Quranic inscriptions, painstakingly making each stitch with precise care.

217 The aged scholar had been warned many times not to take him; that Khalifa did not deserve such an honour; that he was so unpredictable one never knew what he might do next and anything could happen. The old man ignored the gossip and refused to listen to them. He was too deeply attached and genuinely fond of Khalifa to consider him as demented; rather he only thought of him as a most extraordinary boy, the like he had never encountered before. All his wages were sent to Ahmad Khalil to keep in trust for his food and clothing but although Khalifa knew this, he never asked for any money.

At mid-day, after eating his fill of unleavened bread, vegetables and fat chunks of meat from the common dish washed down with water or a bowl of sour milk, he would take one of the cushions against the wall, curl up on the floor under the electric fans and go to sleep. As soon as he awoke a short while later, he would wash himself at the tap outside before resuming his concentrated task, interrupted only for Salat.

He did not speak to any of his fellow-workers and nobody spoke to him. He was so quiet, they took no notice of him and hardly knew he was there.

When darkness fell, his teacher would take him for the night Salat at the mosque and then to his brother’s house where neatly dressed in the clean white robe and new kaffiyeh they had given him which contrasted impressively with his smooth dark 218 skin, Khalifa would sit in the courtyard with the two old men during their leisurely evening meal, intently listening to them discuss the sacred law and the teachings of Quran and Hadith about the Hereafter and his keen interest in all things religious, pleased them immensely.

At last when drowsiness overcame him, he spread his straw mat beside his teacher’s bed on the roof and in the cool, light breeze, wrapped up in his blanket, he slept peacefully through the night until the Adhan at dawn awoke him to begin another day of quiet and diligent work.

He stayed in Mecca with his teacher until the Hajj was over. These were the happiest days he was ever to experience.

XXII
====

As Khalifa neared his twentieth year, he attracted the attention of a well-placed refugee from Russia who had attained a small degree of prosperity as a merchant in Medina and who eagerly sought out as much of his calligraphy as he could obtain for his prized collection of many masterpieces, and so greatly admired the beauty and skill of his art-work, he offered his eldest widowed daughter to him in marriage.

Dressed in their best clothes which they wore only for the Eid festivals, Ahmad Khalil took Khalifa by the hand to the father’s house some distance away. Ahmad Khalil was careful not to allow the family to see his house or the neighbourhood 219 where they lived. Ahmad Khalil did all the talking and Khalifa impressed the man by his silence.

He pleaded with his brother to wait, fearing what might happen to him now that henceforth he must somehow manage to fend for himself in addition to the heavy responsibility of supporting a family but when Khalifa insisted that the marriage take place at once, Ahmad Khalil could do nothing to stop him. Reluctantly he gave him his earnings and for the first time, permitted him to take charge of what money he possessed. Ahmad Khalil feared that he might be irresponsible but Khalifa was frugal and spent it carefully.

His new wife, Safiya, was thirty years old, had been widowed for a year and had no surviving children but she looked much younger. At first Asma and Maymuna felt uncomfortable in her presence because, except for her dress, she looked exactly like a white European but gradually they came to feel more at ease with her since she spoke perfect Arabic and behaved and thought as they did. Khalifa took an endless delight in her beauty and since he was willing to do anything to please her, even though she thought he was rather queer at times and was accustomed to a much more comfortable life, she appeared, at least outwardly, to be content and did not complain.

They seemed happy enough together until shortly after their child was born, Khalifa awoke one morning with a severe headache. For days on end he refused to leave the house or do any 220 work. When Safiya asked him sharply what was the matter, he complained that the pain in his head was unbearable. He spent all his time squatting against the wall indifferent to everything and everybody. At night all her attempts at intimacies met with rebuff.

She began to nag at him unmercifully. Everything he did or did not do, she found a pretext for criticism and fault-finding.

“My first husband worked hard to support me and the children even after he was ill. He never denied me anything I needed. He would never do this to me! What sort of man are you?”

Khalifa only cast his eyes down as if he were ashamed. The next morning he rose early and went out. Safiya relaxed and stopped scolding him since she now thought he had come to his senses and was working hard to support her and her new baby, but then a week passed, her supply of food ran out and he gave her nothing. At first Safiya was too proud to ask for anything but by the time Asma noticed her plight and offered to share her meals with her, she and her baby were so famished, she had no choice.

Three days later in the middle of the morning, Khalifa returned from the library with a stack of papers under his arm. Safiya approached him with caution, astonishment and surprise, as he thrust them at her. As she hesitantly took them into her hands, a peculiar smile spread across his face. “I

0 Footnote text missing or unreadable in original.

 221 have a special present for you. Guard it with care. Now look at my pictures! Are they not beautiful?”

At the sight of a bloody corpse mutilated with bayonet wounds which Asma in horror at once recognized as none else than her father, Yusuf Malik, the planes dropping bombs, the village of Iraq al Manshiya engulfed in flames, the tanks spitting fire in the background, all executed with such amazing skill the figures of the soldiers and their victims seemed to jump out of the pages, Safiya shrieked and collapsed in a faint on the floor. Asma turned deathly pale and fell against the wall for support. Each of the paintings had been signed by Khalifa, his name in bold letters.

Quickly Ahmad Khalil snatched them up and ripped them all to bits. Then he flung the shreds of paper on a heap of garbage outside.

Maymuna rushed to Safiya, pouring cold water over her face and shaking her shoulders. Safiya revived trembling, “Those pictures looked so real!”

she gasped, “How horrible! How horrible!”

Immediately Safiya sent word of what had happened to her father and elder brother who came the same night to take her back home. Fearing that her three-month old baby son, Rafiq, had inherited some dreaded taint and bitter and resentful because it looked like Khalifa and not at all like her, she refused to take it with her and since the child’s father paid him not the slightest attention or even seemed to recognize who he was, Asma 222 and Maymuna took turns suckling him along with their own infants.

Khalifa could not understand why his beautiful wife had so suddenly been torn away from him and he kept writing her frantic letters, begging her to return. Neither Ahmad Khalil nor Rashid could bear to tell him the reason why they were never answered.

All Ahmad Khalil’s fears, anxieties and apprehensions over these many months had come true and although he felt deeply depressed, nothing that had taken place was any surprise for him. In his helplessness he had only prayed and prayed to Allah during every *Salat* that somehow a miracle would permit his brother’s marriage and his awkward attempts to cope with the world outside to succeed—but Allah willed otherwise; no miracle took place and events only followed their inevitable course.

When Khalifa finally learned that the *Qadi* had granted her a divorce on grounds of insanity, impotency and non-support, he blamed her father whom he insisted had been influenced by enemy spies to turn her against him.

## XXIII

Helplessly Ahmad Khalil and Rashid watched over Khalifa as each day he grew steadily worse. Soon they realized there was nothing they could do but accept his fate with resignation.

223 Khalifa did nothing but squat listlessly against the wall or lie exhausted on the floor, so dazed that he did not seem to know who or where he was. He would remain in the same position, rigid and tense for hours on end and never move from his corner, his eyes fixed on the ray of sunlight streaming into the dim room from the small barred window just below the high ceiling.

His wild kinky hair grew long and matted, his body more and more emaciated and the dirty rags that he wore did not cover him. The nights were especially difficult for he could not sleep at all, except in occasional snatches. Ahmad Khalil and Rashid would find him in the morning, sprawled on the bare floor, his head thrown backwards, his teeth clenched as if in pain, and the saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth. Ahmad Khalil would wipe his face with a wet rag and then wring it out with cold water and apply the compress to his forehead to relieve the headache. On hot days he would complain of terrible thirst. As soon as he came home from work in the late afternoon or early evening, Rashid would fill and refill several large bowls from the jug and support his head while he avidly drank down the cool, refreshing water. Then he would take Khalifa in his arms and hold him close against him, for a long time, the sticky sweat from his body dripping over him. At last he would tenderly put him on his mat to rest and it comforted him to see that despite the affliction, the sensitivity never left his face nor did his eyes 224 lose the intelligence they knew was there, if only it had chance to be used.

Often after being mute for days or weeks, he would suddenly recognize them and call out to them by name.

At the mere sight of his father who never recognized him, little Rafiq would run and hide terrified behind the water jars but Ismail had become so bold, he could not resist the temptation of tormenting Khalifa in every way his clever mind could devise.

He was always careful to refrain from doing this when his father or Rashid were at home but as soon as they left for work, he teased and taunted him incessantly. The discovery that Khalifa did not retaliate and was utterly helpless to defend himself encouraged him all the more. Then he began to bring in other boys from the street and encourage them to join him in the sport. His impulsiveness and daring incited all the other children he met, infecting them with the same contagion. Asma and Maymuna tried to stop them but could not. Angrily they scolded the mothers of these boys, asking them how they could permit their sons to behave so disgracefully in this holy city of the Prophet?

But although Asma and Maymuna found most of the parents in the neighborhood pious, God-fearing and devout, gentle of speech and mild in manners, they all found themselves equally helpless to persuade their children, now exposed to the raw winds of “change” blowing in with ever-increasing hurricane intensity from the “outside” to tread in their footsteps.

225 Today Ismail took special delight in frightening his uncle with the most lurid descriptions about 0 hospitals for the insane he had read about in an Egyptian picture magazine printed in Cairo that some boy in his class at school had given him. He embellished the story into the most graphic details, his imagination could think of.

“You don’t belong here with us,” he concluded contemptuously. “You should be locked up in one of those places with all the crazy ones!”

He then held out the article and forced his uncle to look at the photographs.

Khalifa shrieked.

Startled, Asma looked up from her cooking and when she saw what her son was doing, she snatched the magazine away from him and threw it into the fire.

Defiantly Ismail ran out, soon returning with a swarm of mischievous urchins from the street. Before Asma or Maymuna could stop them, they had dragged Khalifa by his feet into the middle of the road. Asma screamed in terror when she saw an older boy in the gang threatening to torture him with a lighted cigarette while two more boys pinned him down on the ground and was about to rush out the door to try to rescue him when Maymuna pulled her back inside.

“Just wait until night comes,” taunted Ismail. “General *Moshe Dayan* will capture you and shoot you to bits!”

226 Ahmad Khalil finished his work early. Hearing Khalifa’s hysterical screaming mixed with jeers of the mob, he raced down the street, frantically looking in vain for some policemen on duty to put an end to this. Forcing his way through the mob of rowdy, belligerent boys, he fled to the house with his brother in his arms and slammed the door. The crowd of children chased after him and banged on the locked door until they almost broke it down. When Ahmad Khalil heard Rashid’s voice outside, shouting a warning to the mob, stern and authoritative, he wept with relief. He was about to call Rashid to get the police quick when he decided against it, fearing scandalous publicity in the newspapers. The angry shouts of the children died away as the crowd dispersed.

Rashid entered, leading Ismail by the hand. Ahmad Khalil regarded his son with tragic eyes. “Were it not for you, this never could have happened. You are old enough to know what you are doing. Are you not ashamed?”

The boy’s handsome face froze. “Nobody can hurt him. Don’t you know he is absolutely insane? He knows nothing, feels nothing!”

Furiously Ahmad Khalil gripped his son by the collar and slapped him across the jaw with such force, he was swept off his feet and fell over backwards to the floor. He cried and cringed, trying to ward off with upraised arm the next blow he felt sure was coming. Ahmad Khalil grabbed a 227 heavy stick and hit him again and again with all his strength. At that moment he wanted to beat him to death; to beat him to a bloody pulp—if only he could beat the evil out of him or just beat him until he felt relief. But then he recovered his senses, yanked the screaming boy upright and pinned him against the wall.

“My brother feels pain as much as you do! You dare touch him again and I will kill you!”

Ignoring Ismail who was crying and whimpering and begging for his mother’s comfort, Rashid examined Khalifa, gently applied olive-oil to the burns on his legs and then expertly bandaged them with strips of clean rags.

Just then they were all startled by a loud roar overhead.

“Enemy planes!

Enemy planes!”

cried Khalifa.

Rashid held his cousin close as the noise of the motor faded into the distance. “See? The plane has gone. There is nothing to fear…”

The deep soothing voice penetrated into the fog now clearing from his brain. Little by little the hollow blank stare vanished and recognition brightened his eyes as his whole face lit up.

Rashid trembled with excitement. “Khalifa!” he gasped. “Do you know me?”

Khalifa gazed intently at his cousin as if he were seeing him for the first time.

228 “Rashid?”

“Yes.”

“Rashid, may I please have something to eat?”

Overcome with joy, Rashid and Ahmad Khalil searched the room for all the dates and bits of stale bread they could find.

After Khalifa ravenously devoured every morsel of food, scraped up the left-overs in all the cooking-pots and licked his fingers, he put his arms gently around Rashid and kissed him.

Darkness fell but there was no kerosene in the house to light the lamp. Ahmad Khalil and Rashid lay down beside Khalifa who, despite his injuries, fell asleep almost immediately. Asma sat watching over her son, Ismail, whose cries from the pain of the beating slowly subsided, then stopped. All was quiet…

As soon as Khalifa awoke early the next morning, he went directly to the latrine and then asked Ahmad Khalil for some water to clean himself. He was shocked to find how unbelievably filthy he had become. As if she could read his thoughts, without another word spoken, Asma took the bucket to the public tap and filled and re-filled it three times with fresh water for him.

Then she handed him a large cake of strong laundry soap and he vigorously scrubbed off the caked dirt and grime from his body and then poured the remaining water over himself *for* rinsing.

He brushed his teeth 229 with the *miswaq* until they shone gleaming white and pared his nails with a rusty pair of scissors. Then Rashid gathered more rags for bandages and changed the dressings. He winced when he saw the ugly wounds on his cousin’s legs but was a little consoled to see that Khalifa could still stand and walk and appeared to suffer only slight pain.

A short while later Khalifa told Ahmad Khalil how ashamed he was to be naked and begged for some clothes.

Ahmad Khalil took off one of the three gowns he was wearing but it was in such ragged condition that Rashid gave him another to wear on top of that so he would be decently covered. Asma gave him a needle and thread and he sat down on the matted floor to mend and patch them as neatly as he could in even precise stitches.

Then he washed the threadbare garments clean before hanging them on the clothesline outside in the sun-filled courtyard to dry. On a shelf near the window he found a dirty plastic comb with half the teeth missing and tried to arrange his unruly hair in order before covering his head carefully with his *kaffiyeh.*

Khalifa spent his days squatting quietly against the open doorway, watching the colourful life of the street pass by. The bright winter sun shone upon his back and he was content to sit enveloped in its comforting warmth, listen to the street-vendors praise their wares with cheerful chants, to see the myriad diversity of people and their costumes 230 from every nation of the world and to know for certain that the terrible agony he had suffered was now a thing of the past. The impenetrable wall of ice which had for so long deprived him of the world of the living, had disappeared as if by a miracle. He squatted against the wall, an inseparable part of the busy street scene now, his only desire to merge himself into it. He went inside only when Asma called him to take his meals or when the setting of the sun and the approach of darkness told him it was time to sleep until morning. He slept soundly and in the morning, Asma gave him lentils, dates and bread and permitted him to eat as much as he wanted.

As the days passed, then the weeks, his wounds healed quickly without any infection until only the scars remained. Now that Ahmad Khalil and Rashid no longer felt embarrassed to invite their friends to the house, Khalifa would sit beside them silent and withdrawn but polite whenever their guests spoke to him.

As soon as the news of his recovery spread to the mosque and the adjoining library, the old scholar came early each morning to see him and order him to resume his *Salat.* He brought books from the library and liked to sit beside him by the hour, entertaining him by reading aloud. Then he brought Khalifa more books to read for himself. Often he would bring him presents of cooked rice, meat and fruit and was delighted to see how much Khalifa appreciated these delicacies.

One day he brought a new box 231 of paints, pens, ink, brushes and paper of the finest quality.

Patiently he coaxed Khalifa to copy passages from Quran and Hadith in his exquisite calligraphy and the completed pieces of work, more beautiful than ever before, assured him that nothing he taught his pupil had been forgotten.

## XXIV

Ever since Ismail was four years old, Ahmad Khalil had sent him to the mosque-school to learn to read and write and memorize Quran.

The teacher disliked him because of his impudence and refusal to do his lessons without continually annoying him by asking him the meaning of all he was being taught.

Memorization of the text by rote was considered imperative first and understanding was intended only for a much older child.

Ahmad Khalil had no ambitious plans for the future of his son.

Dispossessed of the fields of his native village, he knew he could not expect Ismail to follow his occupation and work on the land. Any honest and useful livelihood he chose, he assured Ismail, would have his approval and support. He sent his son to school only with the hope that he would come to value the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake.

But such was not to be. Although Ismail quickly learned reading and writing and the rudiments of arithmetic, he made little progress in other 232 directions. There was no order or quiet in class when he was there as even his presence was enough to incite the other children to indulge in noise, mischief-making and pranks of every kind.

No sooner had he arrived in school when he had the whole place in a turmoil. On one such occasion, his teacher slapped him hard on the face but the boy only slapped him back.

Ahmad Khalil took him out of that school and put him in another where he quieted down somewhat and seemed better behaved, but even here, his progress in his studies was far from satisfactory.

Rashid wanted him to help him in the fields but Ahmad Khalil insisted that he must not grow up illiterate and ignorant like them and argued with his cousin endlessly.

“Why do you want Ismail to stay in school when you know he will grow up like us destined for hard labour with his hands and back? Soon he will forget everything he has learned.

You must send him to work.

We need him to help us now!” But Ahmad Khalil remained determined, deriving solace from his father’s letters.

“I am so glad to hear that Ismail is still in school. I am especially glad that you are trying your best to give Rashid’s three sons the help their father cannot and will not give them for children rarely do well in school unless they receive the encouragement and intellectual stimulation they need at home. That is why despite the teacher’s best 233 efforts, and their being in school three whole years, you wrote me that Rashid’s sons are too unruly to learn, have failed to make any progress in their studies and remain illiterate.

What a tragedy for all of them and their future! No matter how difficult Rashid makes things for you, you must never permit him to change your mind. You can do nothing more important than to give your children a good education. Had you only gone to school as a boy instead of working in the fields and wasting the critical years of your youth as a servant in Mustafa Effendi’s house, think how different your life would be now…”

Ahmad Khalil had taken down from the shelf the box filled with his father’s letters over these many years and was reading them over again and again, pondering long over what was written there when suddenly the door was flung open and then slammed shut and Ismail ran into the room. Ahmad Khalil was startled and surprised:

“My son, it is still mid-morning. Dismissal time is not until late afternoon.

What brings you home so early? Why are you not in school? Aren’t you feeling well?”

Fearlessly Ismail replied: “When the teacher’s back was turned, I just ran out. Father, I will not return to the mosque-school.

I cannot stand it there anymore!”

“Ismail! What happened? *Did* the teacher beat you again? Why can’t you behave yourself?”

“Father, you have sent me to the mosque-school ever since I was four years old and now I know it has all 234 been a waste of time.”

“What do you mean?”

## “I have been taught only old myths and superstitions…”

“How can you say such things? Have you not been instructed how to recite the Holy Quran? Has not the teacher taught you the sayings of the Prophet?”

“All that is useless! Oh Father, why can’t I go to a modern school?”

“You know we cannot pay tuition.”

“But you don’t have to pay anything. Father, don’t you know that the new schools run by the Government are free? There is one just opened here only a short walk away. Why won’t you send me there?”

“They are all controlled by our enemies.”

“Oh no, Father! They are our own!”

“Ismail, they differ not in the slightest from the schools of the foreigners. At the Government schools, the students study like the foreigners, look like them, dress like them, behave like them and think like them. There is nothing to identify the graduates of those schools as Arabs or Muslims.”

“But Father, they count for everything while we are nothing! They know everything. If only I could go to school in America, England or Germany. Isn’t it a waste of time for me to go to the mosque-school 243 school when I can learn so much more just by reading the newspapers and magazines?”

“You must study the Quran first, Ismail.

The Quran is the source of all knowledge.”

“But Father, the great men fly in jet-planes hundreds of miles an hour. Just yesterday I read in the newspaper how they are going to send a man in a rocket to the moon! Where can you find that in Quran?”

“The Quran says that man is the representative of Allah on earth, is the master over all other creatures and can use His creation to improve his welfare, but what good is it for men to go to the moon if they will not fight the evils and corruption here on earth before they overwhelm us? The great men are the followers of the Holy Prophet. Wherever they go, they spread the light of Islam.

Today the enemies of Allah rule the world.

They want to destroy all that is good and beautiful……..”

“But how do you know that the Quran is true?

## Suppose Allah does not exist! If Allah created the world, then who created the Creator? You cannot prove anything!”

“Ismail! Look at me! Tell me the names of all the foreign books you have been reading? What have you been reading?”

The boy averted his eyes as if he were ashamed and fearful to reveal the truth. “Nothing,” he replied. “I think my thoughts all by myself.”

136 “Having nowhere else to turn, Ahmad Khalil wrote to his father:

‘…… Where have I failed? What have I done wrong? My son is an infidel! I am so afraid for him because he knows nothing and is too weak to resist the evil that is growing worse each day, so much so that even the sanctity of this holy city is not immune.

Oh Father, I am helpless! I know not what to do! I implore you to tell me what I should do now……’

Malak Wahab replied immediately:

‘…… Ismail is right. You must realize that it is your duty as his father to give him the best possible preparation for life in the world today as it is and will be in the future.

Only the modern school can do this. The old-fashioned *Maktab* where boys chant the Quran like parrots has no value now. They teach only memorization without understanding. They do not give the children any knowledge of our Faith according to the needs of today and tomorrow. You must send Ismail and persuade Rashid to send his sons to the modern school. They can learn Quran at the mosque afterwards and you should try to explain its meaning so they will understand it.

You must not live in the past. You must believe in Progress and have faith in the future. There is no need for you to worry. From what you write, Ismail must have tremendous potentialities for achievement. That he has the courage to question instead of blindly submitting to what he has been taught, reveals a brilliant mind for a boy so young. You must realize that the child must doubt before he can grow……’


XXV
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Scarcely a week passed after Ismail quit school 237 when Rashid persuaded his employer to hire him to help tend the vegetables in the oasis-garden, but once there, Ismail malingered and frittered his time away. When Rashid reported this to his cousin, Ahmad Khalil threatened to throw Ismail out of the house if he refused either to study in school or to work, that he would not continue to support such a worthless idler; that now he was a grown boy, he could consider himself on his own.

So Ismail searched for work and soon found a job carrying loads of produce on his back to the various shops for the merchants of the neighbourhood. When the Hajj season arrived, he easily found much better-paying work as a guide for the thousands of pilgrims who flocked to the holy places. By the time it was over, he had earned more money in two weeks than the previous six months combined, but when his father demanded every coin, he was furious.

“The money is mine! I earned it!” Ahmad Khalil’s voice rose.

“So long as you do not live alone, Ismail, you must learn to think of others before yourself. How can I trust you with money? You waste it all on foolish trinkets and sweets for yourself when we need bread!”

“Father!” cried out the boy in despair. “Just look at me!

When can I ever buy some decent clothes?

You never give me anything new to wear. I am ashamed to be seen by people outside on the street in these rags!”

238 But Ahmad Khalil refused to relent and Ismail could do nothing but submit to his father’s authority. As the day passed, he grew so hungry, the meal his mother prepared did not begin to satisfy him. His eyes roved restlessly around the room until he saw his uncle squatting stark naked against the wall in a dark corner. When he looked closer and the stench stung his nostrils, he gagged with nausea.

Ismail had come to regard Khalifa as an inanimate object as lifeless as a piece of furniture and assumed that he knew nothing, felt nothing. Yet when Ismail joked about him, ridiculed him and made fun of him boisterously with the crowd of boys he brought into the house from the street, Khalifa would sometimes stare at him in a way that left no doubt that he knew he was being talked about and had heard and perfectly understood everything that had been said. Occasionally Khalifa would startle Ismail by repeating some insulting remark he had made about him to a group of his friends some days or even weeks previously when to all outward appearances, he had seemed totally oblivious to his surroundings.

Ismail was shaken out of his thoughts when his mother crossed the room and gave him a bowl of lentils, a sticky mass of dates and a large flat cake of bread.

“Ismail, your uncle has eaten nothing all day because since it is harvest time, Rashid must work so late. Would you feed him?”

239 “Of course, Mother.”

Asma patted his shoulder affectionately. “I knew you would. You are my obedient son……”

Khalifa was so absorbed in a private world of his own that at first he did not notice his nephew’s presence.

Quietly Ismail took the dates and hastily gobbled them down.

Then he began to devour the lentils and bread. By now Khalifa had become dimly aware of what was going on but as soon as he made a feeble attempt to retrieve his meal, Ismail brutally kicked him away. Khalifa fell down on the floor but did not cry out. He only stared up at Ismail with big soft black eyes. There was no hatred or fear in his gaze—only an abysmal sadness.

Khalifa kept his eyes fixed upon him. Ismail felt acutely uncomfortable. It seemed to him as if they were accusing him. “Stop staring at me like that!” he shouted. He crossed to the other side of the room but the pair of eyes continued to follow him. Desperately he covered his head with his hands but Khalifa’s face was still there before him.

“Go away! You hear me, go away!” he shouted hysterically.

Asma looked up from her mending, a pile of dirty, ragged clothes to be patched beside her. “Son, what is the trouble?”

“Nothing,” replied Ismail.

“Go on with your work. It was nothing……”

248 Then suddenly everything went black, whirling around and around.

Ismail, in mortal terror, thought he heard from the eerie darkness a voice 0 ring out…

“………On that Day will ye be exposed; not a secret of you will be hidden……… As for him who is given his record in his left hand, he will say: Oh would that I had not been given my book

And knew not what my reckoning!

Oh would that it had been death!

My wealth hath not availed me! My power hath gone from me”!

Then it will be said: Take him and fetter him and expose him to Hell-fire!

………Lo! He used not to believe in Allah, the Tremendous.

And urged not on the feeding of the wretched………….

After Ismail awoke from his dream in the morning, he kept away from Khalifa; the mere sight of him made him shudder.

It was a bad year. Due to unfavourable weather, the harvest at the oasis-garden was meagre and Rashid’s wages more meagre still. At last, half of the property was sold to a construction firm which cut the date trees down to make way for a prosperous, thriving new residential suburb. Already construction of the modern air-conditioned homes had begun. Rashid thought of Khalifa and watched them go up with bitter hatred and resentment. In desperation, Maymuna begged Rashid to
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249 seek help from the Government, assuring him that the Government had promised to come to the aid of the poor and distressed. But Ahmad Khalil knew that due to the enormous numbers of Hajis every year, the country no longer provided asylum to persecuted refugees; Hajis were no more free to stay in Arabia as much as they wished but were now ordered to return to their own countries immediately after the ceremonies had been performed or face severe punishment. And as his status was officially an alien, Ahmad Khalil feared if the authorities ever discovered how destitute they really were, they could at any time be deported with nowhere to go.

This year Rashid was not allowed to take home his usual portion of dates and vegetables for his employer now needed all of them desperately for sale in the market. Both Rashid and Ahmad Khalil had depended on this for their subsistence, the cost of food in the market, like everything else, had become prohibitively expensive and far beyond their means. But they were too proud and reserved to show to others on their faces what anxieties troubled their minds so that neither their friends or their neighbours were aware that they were any more in need than usual.

Although Rashid continued to feed Khalifa once daily, he grew steadily weaker and weaker until he was unable to walk or even sit upright. He could do nothing but lie on his mat in a torpid daze. When Ahmad Khalil came home early one afternoon 242 and found him unconscious and blue with cold, he tenderly wrapped his heavy woolen robe around him and rubbed his hands and feet until he revived. By mistake, he had left the door to the room open; this attracted the attention of the neighbours and when they looked inside and saw how it was, one Russian refugee from Bokhara who lived on the second floor came downstairs with a mattress and a rubber sheet; another refugee from Samarkand on the third floor brought blankets and still another Chinese survivor from Sinkiang provided a pillow. Mutely Ahmad Khalil and Rashid accepted these and tried to make Khalifa as comfortable as they could.

During the days that followed, they took leave from their work in order to spend all their time caring for him. They dared not leave him alone even for a moment and instead of going to the mosque together, they took turns at Salat in the room while watching over him, holding his hand, stroking his forehead and caressing his hair. Since Khalifa could no longer eat ordinary meals and vomited whenever he tried, Rashid cooked for him every morning and evening a small bowl of gruel in milk sweetened with honey.

Although Khalifa drank this down eagerly and plaintively begged for more when they had no more to give him, he did not improve. Soon it became clear that he was sinking rapidly. Most of the day he lay sleeping and whenever he was conscious, Rashid would give him his Tasbih and tell him to count the ninety-nine 243 names of Allah. Otherwise he was quiet, too weak and exhausted to do anything but sleep.

Only once more they heard him cry out to them with his last strength. “Don’t send for the doctor! Please don’t send me to the hospital or the asylum or any of those places!” His face twisted with anguish. “I heard you talking about me to your friends. Don’t send me away!”

“No! No! Never!” exclaimed Ahmad Khalil. “Never so long as I live would I consent to have you put away. You will stay here with us always. Those treatments would not help you. They would only make you suffer more. I will not force you to submit to that!”

Ahmad Khalil and Rashid sat with him for a long time in silence. The sun set and the room was plunged into darkness as they could not afford to buy kerosene for the lamp. The hours of the night passed slowly as sleep would not come to any of them. The first light of dawn had just appeared when Khalifa turned to Ahmad Khalil. “Recite for me Ya-Sin.” “I do not have a copy of the Quran with me now but I will recite for you as much as I can remember. Listen!”

……Never came a token from their Lord to them but they did turn away from it. And when it is said unto them, spend of that wherewith Allah hath provided you, those who disbelieve say unto those who believe; Shall we feed those whom Allah if He willed would feed? Ye are in 252 > aught else than error manifest. And they say : When will the promise be fulfilled if ye are truthful? They await one Shout which will surprise them while they are disputing … And the Trumpet is blown and lo! from the graves they hie unto their Lord crying: Woe to us! Who hath raised us from our place of sleep? ……… It is but one Shout and behold them brought together before Us! This day no soul is wronged in aught nor are ye requited save what ye used to do. Lo! those who merit Paradise this day are happily employed …… theirs the fruit of their good deeds and theirs all they ask. The word from a merciful Lord is: PEACE! But woe unto ye, O guilty this day! This is Hell which ye were promised! Burn therein ……… for that ye disbelieve. This day we seal up mouths and hands speak out and feet bear witness as to what they used to earn …… Hath not man seen that We have created him from a drop of seed? Yet lo! he is an open opponent ……… He hath forgotten the fact of his creation, saying, Who will revive these bones when they have rotted away? Say 1 Muhammad:) Allah will revive them Who produced them at the first for He is knower of every creation …… Is He Who created the heavens and the earth able to create the like of them again? Aye, that he is for He is the All-Wise Creator! His command when He intendeth a thing is only that he sayeth unto it : Be! And it is! Therefore glory be to Him in Whose hand is the domination over all things! Unto Him ye will be brought back ………………. “

Ahmad Khalil took his brother in his arms and held him close against him. He felt no heavier than a bundle of palm leaves. The flesh was all gone and nothing remained but skin like polished copper tightly stretched over the bones.

“Give me a miswaq,” pleaded Khalifa. Ahmad Khalil took one of the green date sticks 253 from the nearest pile on the floor and chewed the end to make it soft for him. Khalifa put it into his mouth and began to clean his teeth.

Then Khalifa looked up at his brother anxiously. “If I go, then will you and Rashid come with me?”

“Yes.”

“But when?”

“That is for Allah to decide. Inshallah you need wait for us only for a very short time. Then we can be together and never be separated again. Sleep now and soon you will feel better ……… “

He bent down very near to his brother and for a while could feel his breath soft and lightly against his cheek. At last he turned towards him and once more opened his eyes and gazed up at him steadily, staring at him unblinking. Ahmad Khalil saw that they were sightless; already a thin milky white film had spread over them. Gently Ahmad Khalil lowered Khalifa on his mat, closed his eyes, bound his jaw, tied his legs, removed the dirty rags from his body and then covered him with his robe. Although he was past his twenty-second year, he looked scarcely as old as a boy of sixteen, his face as serene as a sleeping child. Rashid went to him, gazed intently upon him, kissed his forehead and then began to weep softly.

Abd ur-Rahman and his three wives came quickly, followed by Inamullah and the old scholar 246 from the library.

Assisted by his friends, Ahmad Khalil and his cousin gave his brother his last bath before they shrouded him in a new white sheet. On a borrowed litter, the five men, joined by a few neighbours, bore the bier on their shoulders to the courtyard outside the mosque for the Janaza. They buried Khalifa in a quiet secluded place not far from the tomb of the Prophet and Ahmad Khalil and Rashid were comforted by the certainty that he would forever be made happy in his presence.

XXVI
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Loneliness and desolation swept over Ahmad Khalil until he was submerged into the depths of sorrow and grief. Except for Rashid, he felt as if he had been left all alone in a cold, hostile world, frustrated and unfulfilled.

Of the eight children Asma had borne for him, seven had perished in infancy and Ismail was the lone survivor. To him, Ismail was like a stranger, more distant and remote than were he at opposite end of the earth even though they were living together in the same house. Just when had he begun to lose him and what as his father had he done wrong to make him as he was? But no matter how minutely Ahmad Khalil tried to scrutinize his past, he could not remember when or where the mistake had been made. They were so different from each other, having not a single thing to cherish in common, Ahmad Khalil could not believe that the same blood flowed through the veins. Often he wished Ismail had never been born, that no son at all would have been preferable 255 than him. Had it not been for the ties of blood that bound them, he would have despised and detested him more than any other being alive, for the mere sight of him represented everything hateful.

He was cold, remote, beyond the reach of even the most loving parent, indifferent to the plight of others, selfish, greedy, cynical with no respect for the authority of anybody or anything.

He did not even seem to care whether he was good or bad; he appeared to lack any sense of right or wrong. He just did what he pleased and took what he wanted, regardless of the consequences. He was carefree, without any worry for the future, for he lived entirely in the present. He never felt guilt, remorse or shame. No reprimands, warnings, threats, beatings or punishment of any kind deterred him, for nobody, not even his father and mother, could instill in him a desire to change his ways. He was arrogant and complacent, content and satisfied with himself as he was. If anyone else dared to complain against him, the other person must be at fault for he was sure he was always right.

Whenever Ahmad Khalil approached Asma in the total darkness and silence of the night, he prayed and prayed to Allah that she might again conceive but she did not. Their youth was gone and they were much older now.

One night as Ahmad Khalil was about to leave the mosque after the fifth and final Salat of the day, he found a small boy he had seen here many 248 times before sleeping on the bare cement paved courtyard near the pillars that supported the arched interior. As he crept nearer, the child awoke suddenly and began to cry but he grew quiet as soon as he gave him a handful of dates.

“Who are you?” he asked timidly. “I am your friend”.

“Do you know where I can find my mother and father?”

“I promise inshallah that tomorrow we will search for them but now I want you to come home with me…”

During the weeks that followed, Ahmad Khalil searched the city for the child’s parents but could never find a trace of them. Finally the old keeper summoned him:

“If only I could have talked to you before but I was visiting relatives in Mecca and just returned. Until your friends told me how you have taken Abd ar-Raziq into your home, I wondered why he disappeared so suddenly”.

“Do you know where I can find the boy’s family? I have looked all over the city”.

“Had I been here at the time you took him home with you, I could have told you his story. Abd ar-Raziq was born into a bedu tribe. After his eyes both became infected with trachoma, his tribe did not want to keep a blind child who would 257 always be a heavy burden and hamper them on their migrations from place to place in the desert so when they performed Hajj last year, they abandoned him here and then disappeared. He would have starved to death were it not for the food we gave him. We also changed his name, for the bedu rarely give their children Islamic names and his original name was like that of a pagan because of their ignorance and wild ways.

Abd ar-Raziq thinks he is lost and that his father is still looking for him. I could not bear to tell him the truth…”

When Ahmad Khalil heard this, he immediately decided to adopt the boy. Already he felt so strongly attached to him that he could never give him up now, even if by some miracle his parents were found, for he was unwanted, rejected and heartlessly abandoned by them and to return him to his place of origin could only mean cruel treatment or neglect.

As time passed, Asma and Maymuna grew to love Abd ar-Raziq as if he were their very own but Ismail made no secret that he did not welcome this new addition to the family.

He was bitterly jealous of Abd ar-Raziq because his father so obviously preferred him and had given him first place in his love and affections.

To Ismail, that was unbearable. Soon his resentment flared into violent hatred.

Seeing 0 how miserable Abd ar-Raziq was at home in the presence of Ismail, Ahmad Khalil took 258 him with him into the garden where he worked where he could delight in the feel of the plants of many kinds and the sweet scent of the flowers. To Abd ar-Raziq who had known only the desert, this was Paradise. He buried his face in a cluster of living green and ran his sensitive fingers gently across the leaves.

Some were broad and flat and soft as velvet while others were long, sleek and delicate. Soon Ahmad Khalil had taught the boy how to identify every variety of plant by smell and touch.

He spent many happy hours playing with the Imam’s cat who was thoroughly tamed and very gentle, fondling it in his arms. Whenever he was tempted to pull its tail and tease it, Ahmad Khalil grew angry and threatened to take the cat away from him unless he treated it well.

Once he found in the garden beneath the palm trees a baby pigeon that had fallen from its nest and injured its leg. Ahmad Khalil searched for a box, ordered Abd ar-Raziq to fill it with soft grass, put a tiny splint on its leg and feed and care for it until it was healed and able to fly away.

When the sacred month of Ramadan arrived, Ahmad Khalil let the boy accompany him with three other men while they made the rounds of the neighbourhood, beating on drums and kerosene tins to arouse the people to prepare and eat their pre-dawn meal.

Abd ar-Raziq had lived with them for nearly a year when Ahmad Khalil decided it was time to send 251 him to school. Every day after his work was done, he would take him to the library and read aloud to him and encourage him in his bewilderment until it vanished and soon he was entranced. Although Abd ar-Raziq did not learn to read because there were no braille books, by the end of the year, he had committed long passages of the classical poetry and much of the Quran to memory.

When Ahmad Khalil visited the school while the class of boys was still in session, he listened to Abd ar-Raziq recite by heart to his teacher his Quranic lesson for that day:

By the night enshrouding, > And the day resplendent………. > Thy Lord hath not forsaken thee nor does He hate thee. And surely the latter portion of thy life will be better for thee than the former. > And verily thy Lord will give unto thee so thou shall be content. > Did He not find thee an orphan and protect thee 1 > Did He not find thee wandering and direct thee 1 > Did He not find thee destitute and enrich thee 1 > Lo! With hardship goeth ease. > Lo! With hardship goeth ease. > Therefore the orphan oppress not. > Therefore the beggar drive not away………..

Several days later the teacher at the mosque-school summoned Ahmad Khalil.

“Abd ar-Raziq has become one of my brightest pupils. If you consent, a professor from Cairo is

252

coming here to give him an oral examination. If he does well, it will mean a scholarship to one of the primary schools connected with al-Azhar University.”
======================================================================

Ahmad Khalil could scarcely contain his joy. He turned eagerly to the teacher. “You have my permission. Allah never gave me a better son than Abd ar-Raziq. He has brought honour to all of us.”


XXVII
=====

Several months later, Abd ar-Raziq was accepted as a primary student by al-Azhar. For Ahmad Khalil, this was one of the happiest days of his life. He was almost as excited as Abd ar-Raziq. In the weeks that followed, he spent all his spare time eagerly making preparations for the journey. Abd ar-Rahman and Inamullah gave him a pile of old clothes their own children had long since outgrown and discarded and both Asma and Maymuna set to work, washing, mending and meticulously patching them for Abd ar-Raziq to take with him. He did not feel ashamed to wear such shabby clothes because most of the other boys who had been selected as scholarship pupils were just as poor as he. Inamullah’s thirteen-year-old son, Karim, who had also earned a scholarship, had promised to travel with him and assume responsibility for his care and protection.

The night before he was to go, Abd ar-Raziq 253 was far too excited to sleep.

Every few moments he tugged at Ahmad Khalil’s arm, asking: “Is it time to go now”?

Inamullah and his son arrived just after sunrise. Carrying their bundles and provisions, the two boys walked with their fathers to the bus terminal. Ahmad Khalil embraced Abd ar-Raziq and held him tight.

“Now work hard, learn all you can and inshallah you will grow up to be a great scholar”. The child only pulled away.

He was so excited, he couldn’t wait to leave. As the two boys took their seats on the bus, tightly clutching their tickets in hand, it suddenly struck Ahmad Khalil how terribly lonely he would be without Abd ar-Raziq who intended to continue his studies at al-Azhar for many years to come and could afford to return home only once a year for the month of Ramadan. With a pang of sadness mixed with joy and pride, Ahmad Khalil stood with his friend watching the bus until it disappeared down the road.

XXVIII
======

After Abd ar-Raziq had gone to Cairo, Ismail grew increasingly restless.

Ahmad Khalil tried to persuade him to join the army and devote his life to a military career. Above all else, he hoped that he could be inspired to fight beside Rashid’s sons with the guerilla bands for the liberation of 204 Palestine.

From their early childhood, Rashid had told his sons again and again the story of Palestine; all he could remember about what had happened there when he was a boy; about the village of Iraq al-Manshiya and the war which had driven them into exile.

Somehow he had secured a map of Palestine so large, it almost covered the entire wall which listed not only important cities and towns but all the Arab villages, even the smallest and most obscure, which had existed there before their destruction by the Jews. He had underlined Iraq al-Manshiya with a red pencil and even though he was illiterate, he could readily locate all the places on the map which most concerned him. None of Rashid’s three sons had been able to make any progress with their studies in school. They went only because Ahmad Khalil insisted on it. Although they had memorized long passages from Quran and Hadith, they remained almost entirely illiterate. They grew up without knowledge of any skill, trade or profession. They were interested only in fighting. Rashid had related to them in graphic detail how he had fought with the fedayeen during his youth and his exploits against the Jewish colony of Nahal Midbar. Now that the fedayeen were far stronger, more numerous and highly organized than the generation before them, Rashid’s sons all clamoured to join their ranks. But their enthusiasm to fight for the liberation of Palestine was dampened temporarily when they learned that 255 most of the fedayeen movements were tainted with the ideals of Marx, socialism and communism. However illiterate they may be, they could not be deceived by Communist slogans or propaganda. Their Turkestani neighbours who had fled from persecution in Russia and China had taught them with gruesome tales all they needed to know about Communism.

Although too illiterate to profit by the newspapers, they eagerly listened to all the news bulletins and commentaries about the Palestinians over the radio in the nearby coffeehouse.

Finally the day came when they bid their father and mother farewell and accompanied by two youths belonging to al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, left for a training camp outside Amman to join that branch of the fedayeen where Ikhwan influence prevailed.

Ahmad Khalil was deeply moved to see how intense was their attachment to Palestine after more than a generation, this country they had never seen.

He was sad because he had not been able to accomplish what Rashid had done.

“Oh Ismail! Every day the Jews rob more of our land and kill and torture more of our people! Already they have seized our holy places in Jerusalem and the mosque of Abraham al-Khalil in Hebron, want to turn them into synagogues and forbid Muslims to worship there. If you do not join Rashid’s sons to fight them, who knows that 256 tomorrow they will not send their planes from Tel-Aviv to attack Mecca and Medina?

Ismail shrugged his shoulders. “Father, will you never stop talking about that? If we Arabs would only face facts as they are instead of as you would wish them to be, we would seek our gain by coming to terms with them.”

“Then Ismail, what are you going to do?”

“I am going to Jeddah to find work. What is there to do here? This is such a gloomy and depressing place, it has only the peace of the grave.”

“Ismail, you are no longer a child. You must decide for yourself what is best.”

“Rafiq is coming with me. We shall find work together…”

Since they had joined the Ikhwan group of the Fedayeen, Rashid received letters from his sons only when their comrades had the leisure to write for them. Ahmad Khalil read the letters aloud to his cousin. These letters were of great interest to him and he insisted that Rashid not carelessly let them be lost, destroyed or thrown away but carefully keep them in another box on the shelf beside those from his father.

One day Ahmad Khalil was surprised to see their photograph on the front page of the city’s daily newspaper which told of their successful return from a raid deep inside enemy territory. When Ahmad Khalil showed his 257 cousin the picture, Rashid’s face grew radiant with pride at the sight of the three husky youths in full battle attire, squatting around a machine-gun, their kaffiyehs drawn so tightly across their dark faces that only their fierce black eyes could be seen.

Then suddenly a letter from Ismail arrived. He and Rafiq had found work in an American-owned factory bottling Coca-Cola.

Ahmad Khalil was astonished by the sum of money enclosed in the envelope. Never before had he seen so much money at once, let alone possess it. Obviously Ismail and Rafiq earned more in a month than he did in a year. With the money, he bought extra food, delighted Asma with bright new dresses and a pair of stout leather sandals for himself. The remainder he decided to send to Abd ar-Raziq so that he could buy the books he needed. Enthusiastically he wrote to his father how Ismail and Rafiq had found work in the factory and how Abd ar-Raziq was learning to read and write in braille. His father’s letters eased the pain of loneliness somewhat but most of all he counted the days until Ramadan when Abd ar-Raziq would return for the holidays, rejoicing in his happiness at the university but he could hardly bear to see him leave, knowing that it would be another year before he would see him again.

After Abd ar-Raziq had gone, Ahmad Khalil felt such acute loneliness that even the presence of his wife, his cousin and friends could not compensate.

0 Mahmud Wahab

 258 The house seemed so empty without any children. Ahmad Khalil tried to forget this by working harder than ever in the garden, finding joy in watching the flowers bloom and the date-palm trees flourish.

More time dragged past and the newspapers were filled with articles about the third and most recent Arab-Israeli war and its consequences. Ahmad Khalil, imagining the fate of his father, trapped in Gaza under enemy occupation, could not sleep at night. His worries grew more and more acute as the weeks passed and no letters from his father came.

Each day he would anxiously wait for the postman as he made his rounds of the neighbourhood and feel the pang of bitter disappointment when there was no mail for him. Ever since he had lived here in Medina for more than twenty-five years, Mahmud Wahab never neglected to write to him at least once or twice each month.

Ahmad Khalil had carefully preserved every one of his father’s letters, tying them in bundles with pieces of string and storing them in a box on a high shelf.

After four months of silence, three letters, delayed for many weeks by strict censorship, reached him. They painted a picture of Gaza, transformed into a gigantic concentration camp where the constant threat of week-long curfews, midnight searches, destruction of house after house suspected of sheltering *fedayeen* with powerful explosives, arbitrary arrests, imprisonment, torture and mass 259 shootings had become the ordinary routine of daily life. At the school, the Israeli authorities had confiscated all the books and made the texts printed in Tel-Aviv mandatory so Malak Wahab dispensed with textbooks entirely and taught only from the black-board. Forgetting and forgiving all the conflicts he had suffered with his father which had been so painful to him when he was young and driven only by the intensity of the blood-tie that bound them together and could not be erased by time, distance or any other differences between them, Ahmad Khalil frantically begged his father to escape across the border before it was too late and join him in Medina, but the reply was always a stubborn refusal. Ahmad Khalil received this with a mixture of fears and anxiety because he wanted his father’s life to be spared and relief because he knew in his heart even now, they could not live together. Malak Wahab wrote that he considered it his duty to keep the school functioning and protect his students as much as he could.

Another six months of silence followed. At last when the letter came, Ahmad Khalil was shocked that it had been sent not from Gaza but postmarked Amman and that the handwriting on the envelope was not his father’s.

With trembling fingers, he ripped it open. It was from his uncle, Mansur. As he read the letter aloud to Rashid, he felt so faint, he almost collapsed.

“… I am dictating this letter to a public scribe here on the streets of Amman because I cannot write …”

260 Since the Jewish occupation of Gaza, life has become beyond endurance. In retaliation for the revolt of the underground resistance movement, napalm bombs were dropped from airplanes upon the camps and villages. Many children in my brother’s class were killed. Others are lying in the hospital.

Repeatedly Malak Wahab was warned that unless he taught his students as he was told, the school would be closed. However, he finally managed to receive special permission to leave the refugee camp and go to the city to buy supplies he needed for the school.

As he was crossing the main street on the way back, a jeep full of soldiers drunk with wine struck him down by accident. He was killed instantly. When I complained, more soldiers came, beat me and searched my room for weapons. They found none but carried away everything I possessed. It was only through the kindness of friends and the mercy of Allah that I escaped to safety across the Jordanian border. I am too old to work and now that I am alone, I do not know what will happen to me tomorrow …”

Immediately Ahmad Khalil answered that nothing could bring Rashid greater happiness than to be reunited. Urging him to join them, Ahmad Khalil took the whole sum Ismail and Rafiq had sent him in their last letter and bought a postal foreign money-order so that his uncle could pay the fare of the long journey. After Mansur had arrived, he and Rashid were overjoyed to see each other after so many years but to Ahmad Khalil he was a pathetic sight because he had grown so frail and bent with age.

Ismail continued to send money regularly and for the first time in Ahmad Khalil’s life, there was 261 enough to eat. But Ahmad Khalil had no appetite. He tired easily and could not work nearly so hard as before. In the afternoons the fever rose and at night he was racked by long spells of coughing. One morning while he was weeding the garden, he felt too ill to continue his work. Painfully he made his way to the mosque which at this time of day was empty. Exhausted, he collapsed on the matted floor.

He did not know how long he lay there when suddenly he was aware of a firm gentle arm supporting him. He opened his eyes. It was night. Had he been lying here the whole day? In the dim light he gazed up deep into his wife’s face twisted with anxiety and concern.

“Why did you not tell me you were ill?” asked Asma. “I have been worried about you because you have been looking sick for a long time.”

He leaned heavily on her as she helped him to his feet.

“Come, you must go home and rest.”

## XXIX

In the long moment of frigid silence, Ismail stood in the doorway, his face contorted with worry and anxiety as he gazed into his father’s feverish eyes.

Awkward in the presence of his mother and Rashid, Ismail felt too much a stranger in his own home even to dare step inside. In the three years he had been away, he had found a new life for himself in Jeddah. He felt he had broadened 262 out, widened his horizons, never realizing until now, how narrow, limited and restricted his earlier life had been.

Only the most urgent emergency could have brought him back here.

“Father, I received the telegram from your friend, Abd ar Rahman, that while you were working in the mosque-garden you fainted again so I had to come at once. But before I left Jeddah, I arranged an appointment with the doctor at the clinic connected to the factory where I work for you to be examined and treated.”

Ahmad Khalil only regarded his son with utter bewilderment. He scarcely recognized Ismail as so many years before his father had seemed to him so alien and ugly in his foreign dress.

“My son, is it not enough that you work for the Americans? Must you also look like one?”

“This is what all of us wear in the factory. The robes are forbidden because they snarl in machinery. What did you do with the money I sent you?”

“I sent it to Abd ar Raziq so that he can buy the books he needs at the university.”

Ismail grew tense with silent bitter rage. More than any living being, he despised his fosterbrother. Although Abd ar Raziq came home from *al-Azhar* only for the month of Ramadan, it seemed to Ismail that his father thought of no one else.

263 “Didn’t I tell you to buy yourself a pair of shoes and some decent clothes?”

Ahmad Khalil’s voice rose angry and annoyed. “A son has no right to tell his father what to do! What use have I for shoes when I have never worn them before in all my life? The sandals I bought are very good and quite enough.”

“Now that we are no longer poor, you could at least dress decently. I am ashamed if my father is mistaken for a beggar.”

Seeing the deeply hurt expression on his father’s face, Ismail was instantly contrite. “Please forgive me, Father. I didn’t really mean that. Are you ready to go? We must leave now if we are to arrive in Jeddah in time for our appointment.”

Rashid rose and clasped his cousin’s hand. “If you go,” he promised eagerly, “I will come with you. I will take care of you.”

“That will not be necessary,” snapped Ismail. “You are neither a doctor nor a nurse.”

Asma paused in her sewing to stare at her son. To her, Ismail was as much a stranger as he was to her husband. She did not trust him. She did not like his arrogant manner or the condescending tone of his voice. Yet she remained determined. “You must not refuse this help your own son offers you. That you grow strong and well again - nothing else matters to me now.”

Ahmad Khalil tried to protest but when he 264 saw his wife’s pleading eyes bright with tears, all resistance died.

Jeddah was so much bigger and noisier than he had remembered it when he had been there more than twenty five years earlier on *Hajj.* Gone were the winding narrow streets for it had been transformed within the span of less than a decade from an Eastern to a Western city. Almost all the old buildings had been torn down.

Except for the pedestrians, many of whom still wore their traditional Arab dress, it could have almost been a part of urban Europe and America.

The straight wide avenues, lined with non-descript high-rise flats, offices and shops which looked like bleak concrete and glass boxes, were jammed with sleek American cars, buses and trucks. Not a single camel was to be seen for camels, scorned by the authorities as a symbol of shameful “backwardness,” were banned on all the main roads and thoroughfares.

“Here we are,” said Ismail at last. In the Company clinic, Ahmad Khalil had to wait several hours for his turn but this he did not mind. Then the door of the office opened and a bald, ruddy-faced man wearing a white coat appeared and motioned in his direction.

“Please come with me this way,” he urged.

A nurse stood in the room.

When the doctor wanted to examine him, he refused to strip unless she left.

The doctor ordered her to leave but Ahmad Khalil still felt acutely embarrassed to expose 265 his body before a stranger. And the instruments were frightening to him.

“What is *that*?”

“This”, explained the doctor, “is an X-ray machine. We are going to take X-rays of your chest. Now stand still. It will not hurt at all”.

At last the doctor told Ahmad Khalil he could dress, sent him out of the room and turned to Ismail. “Your father has tuberculosis. The disease is well advanced but still not by any means hopeless. These days with all the new drugs and surgical techniques we can work wonders even with the sickest of our patients. But he will require prolonged treatment…”

“I am a foreman of the factory here”, explained Ismail. “My salary ought to be enough to cover the cost of his care”.

The doctor smiled. “That won’t be necessary. Now that Saudi Arabia has become a modern welfare state, the Government provides all medical care free. Now don’t you worry. At the American hospital, your father will receive the very best there is”.

The events that followed were so bewildering to Ahmad Khalil, he thought this must be a nightmare. All of a sudden he found himself in a whitewashed room.

Jutting out from the wall was a white enamel tub into which flowed a steady stream of hot water. The rush of the water from the faucet 266 hypnotized Ahmad Khalil. He had never seen so much of it before. When the tub was half-filled, the nurse abruptly shut the faucet off.

“Now take off your clothes”, she commanded in very bad Arabic with a strong foreign accent, “and get in”.

Ahmad Khalil had never taken this kind of bath before. He wondered what sort of people were these who could be so dirty as to bathe in their own polluted water? He waited for her to leave the room but she stubbornly remained rooted to the spot, her arms akimbo.

“Well, hurry up, so I can wash you”.

Ahmad Khalil only stared with hate-filled eyes at her brassy blonde hair and the brown mole that marred her hard pink face. He would rather kill him with his bare hands or else die first before she could lay hands on him.

Just then a half dozen young girls who were nurses in training trooped into the room.

“What’s the commotion about?” asked one of them in English.

“He won’t undress and I need your help”.

The girls burst out giggling.

Enraged and burning with shame, Ahmad Khalil clenched his teeth, gleaming white and even and not one missing.

“Now take that bottle of disinfectant, and 267 wash his head. If he has lice, I wouldn’t be at all surprised”.

Ahmad Khalil was placed in a room with four beds. Three were empty and the fourth was occupied by a small child *who* could not have been more than five years old. Ahmad Khalil was too exhausted to notice him. He tried to rest but the narrow bed was so terribly uncomfortable. He constantly feared he might fall out.

Then a familiar voice startled him out of a daze.

“Father”, Ismail instructed. “Do everything they tell you to do and soon you will be well. As long as you stay here, I promise to come everyday to see you”.

Ismail had not been gone long when another nurse set a heaping tray of food before him. It looked so tempting that his mouth watered with hunger.

Eagerly he scooped up a big chunk of meat but before he had a chance to taste it, the nurse made him drop it back on the plate and shoved a fork into his hand. He looked at it dully as if he did not know what it was.

“You ought to know better than that!” she scolded. “We do not permit the patients here to eat with their fingers”.

Clumsily Ahmad Khalil grasped the fork but the piece of meat fell from it before he could raise it to his mouth and the gravy dripped all over the clean white sheets.

268 “You are worse than a child”, exclaimed the nurse fretfully. “I will have to feed you”.

Ahmad Khalil pushed the tray away and turned his face to the wall. “Go away!” he sobbed. “Go away and leave me alone!”

He took the sheet and completely covered himself with it. Whenever a nurse approached him, he also covered his face. He did not want to look at these young women and girls in their indecent half-naked uniforms and he did not wish to be seen by them.

Night fell. Hour after hour he lay sleepless in the dark. He was exhausted and desperate for some sleep but how could he sleep in this terribly uncomfortable bed?

Suddenly the little boy began to cry: “It hurts! Mother! I want my Mother!”

No nurse came and for a long time Ahmad Khalil lay awake in the dark listening to the child’s harrowing cries.

Then quietly he crept out of bed, walked over to the little boy and picked him up in his arms.

“Don’t cry”, he whispered, caressing his soft curly hair. “I will tell you a story”.

“But it hurts so much”, wailed the child. “Sh-sh-sh”, hushed Ahmad Khalil. “You must be a very brave boy. Now I will tell you the story……”

269 And while he talked to the child, he took all the blankets and sheets off the bed and wrapping them securely around himself and the child, he lay down on the floor in blissful comfort, “Tell me another story”, pleaded the child. I promise I will tomorrow, *inshallah,* but now

## you must go to sleep……”

The next thing he knew, the sun was streaming in through the windows and somebody was standing over him.

“What are you doing on the floor?” shouted the nurse.

“Now get back to bed at once and no more of your silly nonsense!”

The little boy began to cry and the nurse picked him up roughly.

A doctor went up to the nurse. “Take him to the pediatric ward. There is room for him there now where he belongs”.

“Now don’t you cry”, the nurse said. “There will be lots of toys and sweets and children for you to play with and you can eat all the ice-cream you want”.

The nurse walked out with the child screaming, “It hurts! It hurts! Mother! I want my mother!”

After the child had gone a group of white-coated doctors approached him.

On the table beside his bed, the nurse spread out an assorted array of cruel-looking stainless steel instruments.

270 They stripped him to the waist and examined him carefully and thoroughly.

Ahmad Khalil sat stoically in bed while a young intern ran his fingers across his bony ribs. “He needs more flesh on him”, he commented, addressing himself to the other doctors. Ahmad Khalil was so embarrassed and shamed. How humiliating and degrading it was to be compelled to submit one’s body into these impersonal and unfeeling hands!

“This is a very bad case”, one of them said to the others, “in fact, the worst case of tuberculosis I have ever seen! Both lungs are involved. This afternoon we must collapse the lung that is most infected.”

The doctors then walked away conversing among themselves in highly technical jargon as if he were not a human being but merely a pair of diseased lungs.

At last he was left alone. His eyes burned and felt hot and gritty from lack of sleep. He had only been able to sleep for a few hours the previous night with the child. He was so tired. He lay back on the pillow and closed his eyes but sleep would

## not come. It was no use. He could only sleep on the floor.

He strained his ears to hear the solemn mingling and pulsing of melodious voices, faint but distinct, from the mosques in the far distance, 271 summoning the people for the early afternoon *Salat.* The *Adhan* reassured and comforted him.

Avid for the sight of the slender minarets, he stared longingly out the window near his bed but all he could see were the concrete slabs of the hospital walls.

The hours passed slowly, interminably and his body grew hot with fever.

Asma’s face swelled before him several times normal size. He listened to her soothing voice but when he reached out his arms to embrace her, she was gone. After several moments, however, she reappeared with his cousin and his beloved adopted son, Abd ar-Raziq.

He was convinced that they were in the same room with him and he listened, comforted by the sound of their voices.

The phantoms disappeared when the nurse brought him his tray but he only covered himself, including his face, with the sheet and left the food untouched.

His memory wandered back into the past until he found himself walking the narrow dusty streets of Iraq al Manshiya. The waves of shimmering ripe grain, swayed by the cool gentle breeze, caressed his face. And he knew that he had only to walk behind the plow and crumble the fertile earth between his fingers and he would be healed. Now he saw *Salah-ud-din Ayyubi,* majestic in shining armour on horseback approaching Jerusalem with thousands of turbaned warriors behind him.

As 272 they passed, wave upon wave, he saw his son, Ismail, among them shouting in triumph, “The Holy Land is ours forever”!

Then he thought he saw the Holy Prophet talking with a very young man in a long white robe and a beautiful face radiant with loving kindness. As Ahmad Khalil approached him, he stretched forth his hand and at his gentle touch, at once an exhilaration of well-being swept through him.

“Who are you?” asked Ahmad Khalil. The young man looked him straight in the eye. “Don’t you recognize me? I am Jesus”.

Then he heard Muhammad say, “I am closest to Jesus, the son of Mary because our Message was the same and there was no Prophet between us”.

Ahmad Khalil was startled by grave guttural voices. There were three prophets standing over him -

Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

“You better start giving him the anesthesia now. As soon as he’s under it, we’ll wheel him into the operating room and collapse that lung.”

Ahmad Khalil jumped. He bolted upright in bed and set such fierce, penetrating black eyes upon the doctors that they shrank away.

No, Jesus was not here. His power to heal the sick had come from Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. He looked at the table of shiny cruel instruments.

No, Jesus did not belong here. Had he walked in, he would have been driven away…

273 “Put the mask over him.”

Unable to control himself any longer, Ahmad Khalil swept all the sterilized instruments off the table. As they made a great clattering noise on the tiled floor, he jumped out of bed and ran out of the room down the hall with the doctors at his heels. When they caught him, he kicked and struggled. He was so wild, he was strong. A half dozen husky male attendants had to restrain him before they finally forced him back into bed.

A nurse who was carrying a tray of food to another patient ran to the doctor and gasped, “For God’s sake! What’s happened?”

“He has a high fever and is very delirious.”

The following morning when Ismail came to visit his father, the doctors summoned him.

“We are giving you a prescription for some medicine he can take at home. It might slow the advance of the disease and these tablets I am giving you should make your father feel more comfortable if he will take them as directed…”

Ismail’s face paled. “But-but”, he stammered. “I don’t understand. My father was admitted to this hospital only several days ago and you said that he needed prolonged care.”

The doctor shook his head. “I hate to say this to you but it is best that I tell you the truth.

274 We did all we could. I’m terribly sorry but we can do nothing more for your father.

We need every bed for patients who have hope for recovery.”

Ismail’s body shook and his voice trembled. “But-but”, surely with the new drugs, the latest surgery you told me that there was a good chance

## the disease could at least be arrested ….. “

“We can do nothing for a patient who refuses to cooperate with us and your father has been impossible. And you brought him too late, when the disease had already reached the terminal stage. Without intensive treatment here, he cannot last

## longer than two or three months . …. “

When Ismail went upstairs to the wards to seek his father, Ahmad Khalil was lying on his bed with his face to the wall.

“Father!” he called.

Ahmad Khalil turned but his expression plainly showed that he was not particularly glad to see his son.

“Father, the doctors say you cannot stay here any longer. I have come to take you home”. “Nurse, will you get him dressed and ready to go”?

Ahmad Khalil’s whole face lit up with a radiant smile. Tears flowed from his eyes, he was so happy. He was as excited as a child. Asma, Rashid and Abd ar-Raziq awaited his return. He knew that 275 the mere sight of their faces would make him well again.


XXX
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Months passed before the harrowing experiences at the hospital began to fade from his memory. In the middle of the night, Ahmad Khalil would suddenly awaken stiff with terror after dreaming that he had just fallen out of the narrow bed with the nurses standing over him and shouting at him. In the darkness, he anxiously reached for Asma. She awoke briefly and caressed his cheek before she drew herself very close against him and when he felt her so near, he was reassured that it was all over and he was home again.

Although Ahmad Khalil took the medicine the doctors at the hospital had prescribed for him, his fits of coughing grew worse and the fever almost continuous.

No longer strong enough to do any work, he spent the interminable days at home, watching Asma go silently about her household tasks, the warmth of her presence, his only comfort. During the winter months, if he was feeling somewhat better, he would squat against the wall in the courtyard outside, enjoying the bright sunshine, needle and thread in hand, absorbed in mending and patching his clothes. Although Asma would do this for him, now that he had no other work, he preferred to do it for himself.

276 Then a letter from his son arrived: “…… Father, three months ago, Rafiq and I decided to quit our jobs in the Coca-Cola factory. We are now working for the American oil company in Dhahran. We found factory work intolerably monotonous with little chance for future promotion. In the oil business, I know lies a great future ahead for both of us ………… “. More letters from Ismail followed with glowing accounts of all the pleasures he had discovered in Dhahran; the joys of exuberant youth, of eating abundant and delicious food, of meeting beautiful women, of long leisurely afternoons bathing in the sea at the beach, of listening to the latest songs over his gramophone, of taking photos of his friends with his camera and the delightful entertainment on television.

Still another letter from Ismail came, describing a violent quarrel with Rafiq who had found his collection of pictures of film actresses and furiously ripped them to pieces.

Although he could ill-afford such an expensive luxury, Abd ur-Rahman had bought a television set for his children would not leave him in peace until they had one. He, along with Ahmad Khalil’s other friends and neighbours, continually complained to him that since television had come to Arabia, their children had grown uncontrollable in their zeal to imitate all the latest fads and fashions, manners, modes and habits they watched on the screen and Ahmad Khalil knew of all the mechanical weapons in the possession of the enemy, which made them feel so defenseless and helpless, this 277 was the most effective in its destructiveness, invading and intruding into the most private precincts of every home.

Change, which had previously trickled in slowly and gradually from the outside, was greatly quickened and accelerated after the introduction of television. The ruling elite was ashamed of the old and was determined to transform the country into a show-place of the new, so much so that plans were already underway to construct in Medina an elaborate sports stadium in order to encourage love for athletics and games among the youth.

They developed a passion for tearing down old buildings, even those still in fair condition, in order to widen and straighten the streets and make way for ones in conformity to the fashionable foreign styles. Foreign goods of every variety invaded the shops in the bazaars whetting the appetite of the people to enjoy more and more conveniences, comforts, amenities and luxuries.

And then came the fatal blow. In a masterplan to modernize and beautify the city, many of the older residential districts were scheduled to be razed. The first victim of this urban renewal programme was the Immigrant Quarter for the Government had long been ashamed of this most shabby and dilapidated of all the districts in the city. To them it was an eye-sore. To Ahmad Khalil this had been his second home for more than twenty-five years. Here lived all his neighbours and close friends, now soon destined to be dispersed.

278 Word reached him that the entire quarter would be torn down within the next year. All the buildings on his street were confiscated to make way in the near future for a large parking lot for cars and trucks. To Ahmad Khalil, it was a total loss for since his room was rented, compensation could only be paid to the owner of the property. He wondered what he could do and where else to go?

The month of Ramadan arrived and Ahmad Khalil almost completely forgot about Ismail when his adopted son came home for the holidays. It thrilled Ahmad Khalil to look upon him. He was twenty years old now and he had grown so tall and straight with a gentle manner and a quiet dignity. In his letters to Ahmad Khalil, his professor of theology praised him as the most hard-working student in his class. But the joy and enthusiasm he had experienced in Cairo as a boy were gone. His face was sombre and sad.

“Father, you cannot imagine the terror in Cairo under President Gamal Abdul Nasser where nobody is safe from the spies and secret police. It is growing worse and worse. I could not write you about this because all out-going letters are censored. Most of my friends belonged to al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun. Whenever we had time to spare, we used to gather all the poor children in the neighbourhood to teach them Quran and feed them what we could. My friends were so dear to me that I wanted to join them. I promised that I would be 279 happy to share all they must suffer but they pleaded with me to return home at once and never try to meet with them again. Since then, almost all of them have been arrested by the police, tortured and imprisoned for no crime.

I do not know where the others have gone.

Oh Father! Don’t force me to go back!”

But Ahmad Khalil would not yield. “You need not fear them, my son.

They dare not touch al-Azhar.

You must complete your studies there.” Not a month had passed after Abd ar-Raziq returned to the university when he wrote his father by dictating the letter to a friend:

“The new Rector of the University has passed an ordinance forbidding the students to wear their robes and turbans and ordering us all to shave off our beards. We were warned that any student who refused to wear the regulation foreign dress would be expelled. All the other students were glad to comply. Only I refused.

Now I am the object of constant ridicule. All my classmates tease me and call me a reactionary fanatic. Life has become unbearable except for my teachers who sympathize with me but are helpless against the Government decree. Al-Azhar has changed so much, I scarcely recognize it as the same university-mosque where I was admitted seven years ago. Nothing here has remained unaltered and all the changes are for the worse.

I try to keep patience but cannot stand this much longer……..”

Ahmad Khalil’s face winced with anguish as he slowly folded the letter and carefully put it aside. But now he knew there was a new Islamic university which had been recently established by the King 280 supported by some eminent scholars right here in Medina.

It had
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been highly praised and recommended. If only he could be transferred here, he no longer would have to go so far from home to study. He felt much better after he had decided to go and speak with the Rector, Shaikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz of the plight in which his adopted son now found himself, plead on his behalf and then write a letter about this to Abd ar-Raziq.

Ahmad Khalil visited the new Islamic University in Medina and was very favourably impressed. He spoke to Shaikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz who was moved by his story and promised to take special personal interest in Abd ar-Raziq once his records from al-Azhar had been received.

After he had posted the letter and looked forward to a prompt reply, his face brightened with hope.

The high point of his days was now the daily visits of his friends, Abd ur-Rahman and Inamullah. He was so happy to see them, he forgot all about his illness. He never complained about his illness to them. There was too much else of far greater interest to talk of. He spoke to them about Abd ar-Raziq, about his visit to the Islamic University of Medina, about Shaikh Abdul Aziz bin Baz who despite his blindness, was an eminent scholar and also an exceptionally kind and gentle 281 man. And not long afterwards, Inamullah brought him the daily newspaper with great black bordered headlines.

President Gamal Abdel Nasser had suddenly died of heart-attack. The tyrant, whose hands were stained with so much innocent blood, was dead at last! Perhaps the new ruler would be less harsh and there would be hope for Egypt, the Egyptians and the revival of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun!

He was heartened by more good news from the daily papers. Plans for the demolishing of the Immigrant Quarters had suddenly been shelved, for the time-being, and work on the proposed parking-lot would not begin for at least another year. Meanwhile Ahmad Khalil and his neighbours in the house were granted extended permission to stay on.

Abd ur-Rahman and Inamullah continued to visit him each day.

“I have something very special to show you”, said Abd ur-Rahman. He held out a small book beautifully bound in green leather for Ahmad Khalil to admire. “I almost forgot that you could not know Persian or Urdu, much less be able to read it, but here is some of the most inspiring poetry I have ever come across. My eldest son in Pakistan sent this book to me from Lahore as a gift. I could

not wait to share it with you … “ Abd ur-Rahman
===============================================

began to recite aloud the passages from the Asrar-i-Khudi and although Ahmad Khalil could 282 not understand a word of the Persian, the cadence of the language cast a spell over him.

Abruptly Abd ur-Rahman stopped and once more turned to his friend.

“Now I will try to translate the poem into Arabic for you. You will find some of the symbolism strange and unfamiliar to the poetic style to which you are accustomed but the message is clear. You must also forgive me because I cannot do justice to the beauty and power of the original……”

“Never mind. Please go on”, urged Ahmad Khalil eagerly.

“…… The meaning of Islam is: Renounce what shall pass away!

When Abraham escaped from the bondage of the sun, moon and stars that set, He sat unhurt in the midst of the flames………………….. Do not seek the glow of love from the knowledge of today. Do not seek the nature of Truth from this infidel’s cup! Long have I been running to and fro Learning the secrets of the New Knowledge. Its gardeners have put me to the trial And made me intimate with their roses, Roses! Tulips! Rather that warn one not to smell them! Like paper roses, a mirage of perfume. Since this garden ceased to enthrall me I have nested on the Paradisal tree.

Modern knowledge is the greatest blind…… It is ever engaged in joyless search……….. Its nights are not loud with passionate prayer……….. Idol-worshipping, idol-selling, idol-making, Shackled in the prison of phenomena, 283 It has not overleaped the limits of the sensible, It has fallen down in crossing the bridge of life, It has laid the knife to its own throat.

Oh Muslims! Thou hast misjudged thine own cypress And deemed true the cypresses of others! Thou hast emptied thyself of Self And given thine heart to the music of others! Oh thou who beggest morsels from others’ tables Wilt thou seek thine own kind in another’s shop 1 We who keep the gate of the citadel of Islam Have become unbelievers.

The ancient Saki’s bowl is shattered, The wine-party of the Hijaz is broken up.

The Ka’aba is filled with our idols.

Infidelity knocks at the door of our Islam. Oh trustee of the wisdom of the Quran, Seek once more thy lost unity! Oh if thy Islam be strong, thou art impregnable! We have honour from “There is no god but Allah!” The Takbir was our gift to the world.

We are the protectors of the universe. We are the heirs of Moses and Aaron, The Muslim’s being is one of the signs of God. In the Muslim’s heart is the home of Muhammad, His dwelling place a sanctuary for the Ka’aba itself. We who know not the boundaries of country, We belong to the Hijaz, China and Persia; We are all under the spell of the Cup-Bearer from Mecca, Who burnt clean away the distinctions of lineage. The Muslim’s being is where he manifests his glory. I sowed mine eye in the field of Love And reaped a harvest of vision.

The soil of Medina is sweeter than both worlds. Oh happy the City where dwells the Beloved!

284 Oh that I be granted in Hijaz to die A Muslim, stranger to all else but God.

“Who is the author of this marvellous work? I do not believe I have ever heard of this poet before. He must have lived long ago for today such writing as this is rarely to be found.”

“No, Ahmad Khalil. And that is the marvel. He lived in our times. His name was Allama Muhammad Iqbal. He spent most of his life in Lahore and died only thirty-five years ago!”

“Then he was from India, and that is why I know nothing of him. He was not an Arab. He was born far from the land of the Holy Prophet. He did not speak or write in Arabic yet he loved and understood Islam better than any Arab I know of today. He was able to express in a foreign language far superior to any recent Arab poet what it means to be a Muslim.”

Ahmad Khalil then turned to his other friend. “Inamullah, would you like to go out for a walk?”

“But you are not well enough”, he insisted.

“I feel so much stronger now. I have not been out for such a long time.”

Abdur-Rahman turned to Inamullah. “Yes, let us go out together. The fresh air will do him good.”

Hand in hand they walked through the quiet narrow streets and instead of tiring, Ahmad Khalil felt stronger with every step he took. How well he knew every street and every house. In these very 285 streets the Holy Prophet had walked and in these same houses lived those who had befriended him in exile. This was soon scheduled to be demolished. And Ahmad Khalil looked about him as if he were seeing all he loved for the last time.

The three men walked hand in hand in silence until they wandered into the Jannat ul-Baqi. Here was the resting place of some of the most revered Companions of the Holy Prophet and of the martyrs who had been slain in the earliest battles to establish the supremacy of the Faith. A century before, shocked by the excessive reverence people were displaying at the tombs and fearing that they might come to be objects of worship, the Wahabi reformers had destroyed the tomb-stones so now they lay in ruins and the cemetery looked like a deserted field of rubble, though all the graves were still clearly marked. To Ahmad Khalil this was not a place of gloom or sadness for he had come here to greet the friends he had known all his life. Soon he would join them and be with them forever. And suddenly he thought he saw the Prophet in his last illness, supported by Abu Bakr, his head bound up in a cloth, to relieve the pain from the fever, saluting each grave.

“Peace be upon you, Oh people of the graves! May Allah forgive us and you. You have passed on before us and we are following you!”

XXXI
====

When Ahmad Khalil saw his son’s handwriting on the envelope, that the postman had just delivered 286 he ripped it open with trembling fingers. For a long moment he clasped the letter to his breast as if he feared to look at it. His adopted son, his cousin, his uncle and his two closest friends surrounded him taut with suspense. Unable to endure it any longer, Rashid put a powerful black hand on his cousin’s shoulder, and shook him gently.

“Ahmad Khalil, what does your son write?” Slowly Ahmad Khalil unfolded the letter and began to read it aloud in a halting voice.

“……… Father, not long ago I was promoted to be an assistant to the Chief Accountant in the Aramco Oil Company with top salary and I have been given special permission to reside in the American quarter of Dhahran. Now it is the month of Ramadan and I am on vacation, I am coming home to tell you such wonderful news, it will change your entire life. I should be arriving almost as soon after this letter reaches you …………… “ Mansur gazed at his nephew stupified. “But-but, I cannot believe it! Ismail has been away without one visit home for all these years. But perhaps it is for the best for he could have no home here now the city authorities have notified us that the demolishment of our quarter will soon take place and have given us only three more days to move out ……… “ “You must not worry”, Ahmad Khalil assured him, trying to conceal the awful fears, anxieties and sadness that plagued him.

“Inamullah and his son, Karim have promised us that we can stay with them until we can find another place to live ……… “

287 Just then he was overcome with a fit of coughing. He clung to Abd ar Raziq and Abd ar Raziq embraced him tightly. “Oh Father! No matter what happens, I am here. I will not leave you again. I am never returning to Cairo. It is full of evil and corruption and the reformers in their zeal have irreparably destroyed the Islamic character of al-Azhar. Since women have been admitted to classes, they walk about al-Azhar with uncovered heads, heavy make-up on their faces, bare arms and skirts above the knees. Gone is all its former international reputation and fame.

“Yes my son, I know. I carefully studied all your letters. After what has happened in Egypt, I am not surprised”.

“But Father, do know that my application to the Islamic University here in Medina has been accepted and I have already been admitted there on scholarship as a student? Classes will begin after this month of Ramadan. Karim takes me there everyday to meet the teachers and students from every country of the world from the West as well as the East-and we go to the library where my friends will read aloud to me. How much better than al-Azhar!”

“How can you be sure it will be better? Suppose Medina University is destined for the same fate”?

“Nothing is sure, Father. Only Allah knows what will become of the university when Shaikh 288 Abdul Aziz bin Baz is dismissed and replaced by another rector inferior to him. But this is all I can do ……… “

Gently Abd ar Raziq helped Ahmad Khalil as he lay down on his mat on the floor and groped for a quilt to cover him. As the sun began to set, they sat in silence, awaiting the blast of the cannon to announce the breaking of the fast.

Ahmad Khalil reached for Abd ar-Raziq’s hand. “This will be the most sacred night of the whole year-the twenty-seventh of Ramadan. Recite the Surah about the night when the Quran was first revealed”.

“But”, he objected, “you yourself know it by heart”.

“It would make me happy to hear you recite because you do it so well”.

And they sat in rapt attention while Abd ar-Raziq chanted in his deep resonant voice:

“……… Lo, We revealed it on the Night of Majesty. Ah who shall convey unto thee (O Muhammad) what the Night of Majesty is!


The Night of Majesty is better than a thousand months. The angels and the Holy Spirit descend therein by permission of their Lord with all decrees. That night is peace until the rising of the dawn ……………………… “ At that moment they were all startled by a knock at the door. Rashid jumped up to open it and there stood Ismail wearing a new smartly
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297 tailored gray flannel business suit with matching tie and carrying in his hand an expensive brown leather suitcase.

“Did you receive my letter?” he gasped breathlessly. “I am sorry I am so late. My plane was delayed for hours and I had to wait still longer for a taxi….”

For several moments of painfully awkward silence, Rashid and Ismail stood staring openmouthed at each other like strangers until Ismail finally asked: “Where is my father?”

“Please come in,” urged Rashid stiffly, and Ismail followed him. All the eyes in the room fell upon Ismail, shocked because he did not have the good manners to remove his shoes indoors. With the help of his friends, Ahmad Khalil painfully rose to his feet, steadying himself with the aid of a cane. Stunned by his father’s appearance, and forgetting all else but the blood-tie, Ismail rushed to him with tears in his eyes. “Father!” he gasped. Ahmad Khalil convulsed in a fit of coughing but as soon as he managed to overcome it, reached out both arms to embrace his son. Ismail shrank away as if from a leper. Seeing the deeply hurt expression on his father’s face, he pleaded anxiously: “Please understand, Father. It is only because tuberculosis is contagious.”

Ismail, now realizing that his father had not the slightest comprehension of what he meant, broke the moment of excruciatingly painful silence. “Where is Mother? I must see her!”

298 Rashid only pointed in her direction and Ismail promptly ran behind the curtain which partitioned the room to find his mother squatting with Maymuna, cooking the evening meal. He was shocked to see how much she had aged in so short a time. Her face was deeply lined and her long black hair now streaked with grey. He embraced her and kissed her but to Asma he was like a stranger and his gesture of affection towards her lacked any real warmth.

At that moment, the cannon boomed and Asma announced. “It is time for the breaking of the fast. The journey from Dhahran to Medina must be long and hard and you must be very hungry…” Putting an arm affectionately around his shoulder, she spoke as she would speak if he were still a small child:

“Look, Ismail!

We have lamb and rice tonight as a special treat and I prepared it in melted butter just for you exactly as you like it best……”

Asma and Maymuna then lifted the steaming pot off their kerosene stove and placed it before the menfolk who were waiting expectantly. Acutely self-conscious, Ismail joined them but he sat so awkwardly and obviously uncomfortable on the floor that they could not help but stare at him because he was unable to squat as they did.

Ma’sum raised his gnarled wrinkled black hands to bless the food:

291 “All praise is due to Allah Who gives us to eat and to drink and has made us Muslims!”

Ignoring Ismail, they all plunged their hands into the common dish, devouring the chunks of lamb, marrow and buttered rice with keen relish.

But Asma turned anxiously to her son. “Ismail, why don’t you eat? Tonight we eat meat in honour of your homecoming.”

Ismail shook his head. “Never mind, Mother. I am not the least bit hungry.” “Even if you are not hungry,” pleaded Asma, “you must eat something.”

Ismail grew so frantic, he was no longer able to control himself. Instinctively turning to his mother for consolation, he burst out, “Oh Mother, I cannot bear to eat in this disgusting fashion!” The embarrassment was so painful, Ismail’s first impulse was to jump up and run out. He had not imagined it would be like this. He wondered why he would even for the briefest visit, return to a home where he no longer belonged. He looked wildly about the little room, bare save for scattered straw mats on the floor, a few folded quilts and several water jars against the wall.

Seeing that her menfolk were satisfied, Asma picked up the pot and quietly disappeared behind the curtain with Maymuna to eat the leftovers.

292 Ahmad Khalil turned to his son. “You wrote to me that you have been going to school at night and working on your correspondence courses after work. By this time, you must have acquired much knowledge.

You must have studied our literature, learned of all the great poets and be able to recite beautiful poetry. Do you know that it was our Holy Prophet who said, ‘Verily there is wisdom in poetry and the truest words ever uttered by a poet were those of Labid: “Behold: Everything but Allah is void!”‘

Oh my son, do you not remember when Labid said:

Yea, the righteous shall keep the way of the righteous > And to Allah ye must return. > In his Book of Knowledge all is reckoned and before Him revealed all that lies hidden. > And on the Day when avails the sin spotted only prayer for pardon and grace to lead him to mercy. > And the good deeds he wrought to witness before him. > And the pity of He Who is compassion. > Yea, a place in His shade to abide in and a heart steadfast, straight walking and honest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “

“I cannot recall the rest of the poem. You must have learned it in school. Recite it for me . . .”

In a strange way, Ismail stared at his father and in a cool, even voice which seemed absolutely expressionless, replied: “In my classes, we do not study any poetry.”

“Then you must have learned more of the Quran and its commentaries.”

301 “I did not attend night school to learn the Quran either.”

“Then, my son, what did you study?”

“Everything! I learned English, mechanics, chemistry, electronics, accounting, business administration . . .” Ismail took one look at his father’s face. “Don’t you understand what I am talking about?”

“Yes, Ismail. I understand very well. I understand that you do not say your Salat and that you are not fasting this Ramadan!”

Exasperated, Ismail clenched his fists. “The past is dead! Father, when will you ever understand that the past is dead? What use have we for the thoughts and books by men dead for thousands of years? You try to live according to the rigid taboos fit only for primitive people.

We cannot look back to the past to guide us how to solve the problems that face us today. And are you still deluded that even King Faisal can solve them? The age of kings has passed. Socialism is the only solution. This country is ripe for a revolution!” Ismail straightened and he spoke in a voice filled with pride. “You ask me of faith. Islam has been forced on us Saudis from the earliest age—memorization and yet more memorization until we learn only to hate every word! The authorities try to impose religion on us by force when they don’t observe it themselves and then is it any wonder why we rebel? Despite all the propaganda how fast modernization is taking 302 place here, this is still a primitive land, in many ways beyond the belief of those who have never been here before. And a very sleepy country also where even the desire for improvement is lacking. It is time for us to wake up! Yes, Father, I do have faith! I believe that men by their own efforts can raise themselves to higher and higher standards of living! When our people are enslaved by despotic rulers, by obsolete traditions, by poverty, illiteracy and hunger; when little children are dying of disease and starvation, we do not need theologians, poets or philosophers. What we need are dams, factories, big industries and machines of every kind. We need more and more schools and hospitals . . .”

“When did I ever tell you, Ismail, that we should not have these? All knowledge is good but not when it is used in the wrong way. What a blessing these scientists, doctors, teachers and social people would be if they worked to please Allah and really wanted to help us! But they are nothing but hypocrites. They are all our enemies or have been trained by our enemies. They work here among us not to do good but only that we may betray our faith and become like the foreigners. They have no love or compassion for the poor; they only feel ashamed of us.

They are ashamed of all people who do not conform to the new ways.

If they cannot persuade them to do so quickly enough, then they try to attain what they want by force. Their medicines, machines and books are their weapons. If we stay ignorant and lazy, we cannot
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303 but grow weaker and weaker until they enslave us without any resistance and soon we disappear unless Allah save us! If only I had understood this

when I was young! If only I had gone to school, acquired knowledge and tried to study the new sciences when my father gave me the chance! Then I might have achieved mastery over both civilizations. Then I might have known what we could learn even from our bitterest enemies without harm to ourselves and how we could resist their evils. Instead I tried to flee when there is no refuge and no escape not even here in the Holy City of Medina. I told myself that I was only a peasant and not a scholar. My love for the soil is as intense now than it was when I was a boy in the village but the village is no more, the land has been robbed from us and given to others who shamelessly live off our stolen property and there is no place for the simple peasant in the life of today, not even at the bottom. And I never thought to prepare for that. Now it is too late. This was my great mistake.
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I was too immature to understand that in order to fight the enemy, to resist, one must know him.

Oh Ismail! When we rule the world again as we have ruled it before, we would surely capture all their knowledge, wealth, power and much, much more because the provisions

of Allah are infinite…..”
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304 But that old world is dead, Father, defeated, conquered by superior ways and superior peoples. The new ways are the only road to a better life and a bright future! I have Saudi citizenship now. How can you still believe you will ever return to Palestine? The village is no more and the old ways of life have vanished forever.

The only solution is peace with Israel which must come sooner or later. And the future?

I will go to see Europe and America as soon as I have enough money along with the thousands of other Saudis who have already left for Rome, Paris, London and New York, staying at the best hotels — Hilton and Intercontinental — and enjoying pleasures as yet undreamt of here.”

“Islam is not dead; Allah lives forever! He lives forever in the hearts of the believers. The foreign way of life cannot last. It must collapse soon because of its corruption, decay and wickedness. Those who believe must unite and fight the enemy until the evil is destroyed and the rule of Allah is supreme.”

“You don’t understand”, insisted Ismail becoming impatient and annoyed.

“I understand much better than you think. I see the rich men growing greedier and greedier so that the price of bread, flour, lentils, cooking oil and kerosene soars higher in the market everyday. But enough of that. Tell me more about your wife. You mentioned in your letter that she is Christian. Why did you not choose a woman of your own faith?”

It really doesn’t matter, Father, because she is Christian in name only. Our common belief in the absolute freedom of the individual from the
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297 bondage of taboo and dogma makes us of one mind. She is as much of a rebel as I. Her father was an Orthodox priest. Were he alive now, he would never permit our union but her mother is old, weak and illiterate and although she does not approve, she could do nothing to stop us. I could not marry the old type of woman who is so submissive and ignorant of her rights. I would not imprison my wife in the house for a life-time, as you have done, and make her veil herself in black whenever she goes out. The new Saudi woman veils herself here only because of Government decree.

They never wear the veil or the long robes when they go to other countries. I want my wife as my life-companion and not a domestic servant producing another baby each year.

Today women are completely free and equal with men and participate in public life. My wife graduated from the American University of Beirut with honours. She has a Master’s Degree in Economics and I love her more than I have ever loved anyone. She is the most beautiful and wonderful woman in the world and I wish you could meet her. She is already expecting a child and I must make the arrangements for her to go to the

hospital soon…..”
=================

Ahmad Khalil’s eyes hardened. “You married her without my permission, even without my knowledge, so I do not want to see her. I know what those women are like. I will never permit her in my home. And why should you send her to the hospital? She is not sick!”

298 Ismail cast his father a defiant look.

“My children shall not be born under the primitive and unsanitary conditions as I was born. I will give them every medical care.

I shall carefully plan my family so that we will not have more than two or three children and I can provide for them the best food.

They shall be reared in the modern ways.

I will not lose seven out of eight of my children as you did!”

Ahmad Khalil’s voice rose. “It is Allah Who will give them to you and Allah who will take them away! How dare you accuse me of killing my own children!”

“Not deliberately, of course. I only say that you were too ignorant and stubborn to learn better. You simply don’t understand.

My children will belong to a different world. Oh Father, come with me to Dhahran! You will be forced to move out of here anyway. They have given you only three more days to leave. And it is good that the city is going to demolish this place - one of the worst slums I have ever seen! This will force you to face reality and accept the world today as it is instead of as you would wish it to be. This is the real reason I came back all these hundreds of miles to see you again - to persuade you and Mother to come where you can live for the remainder of your days in comfort and security.

Never mind Rashid and his old father. They don’t concern us. They can look after themselves. Oh Father! Come with me to Dhahran and share the vision of the great 307 future that lies ahead!”

This was the last place where Ahmad Khalil would ever choose to go. He would feel too miserable to be able to live with Ismail for a single day, so miserable in fact, that he would prefer to be thrown out on the street than go with him. But how could he tell that to Ismail? Before he could think of a fitting reply, another thought flashed through his mind. “Ismail, why did not Rafiq come home with you?”

Ismail shuddered and cast his eyes down on the floor. “He is too busy at his work”, he lied. “He never has time to watch with me the English films on television”.

“Ismail! You are not telling me the truth!

I have received no word from Rafiq for more than three months and he always wrote to me every week. He never had a father or a mother and I have worried about him ever since he was an infant. As a child, he was always so timid and frightened. His last letter told me how unhappy he was. I begged him to come home and tell me everything and I promised as his uncle that I would try to help him”.

Once more Ismail stared down at the floor but this time made no effort to control himself.

His whole body was trembling. “Didn’t you know? He is dead”.

Ahmad Khalil’s face grew even more pallid 300 than usual and he collapsed against the wall in a fit of coughing. “Dead”? he gasped.

“Why did you not write and tell me before”?

“He slashed his wrists with a razor. I found him lying in a pool of blood.

I called the doctor at once but before he reached the hospital, he died. Father! Why do you look at me that way? You know it was not my fault”!

“Ismail! Look at me and tell me the whole truth”.

“Believe me, Father. I had nothing to do with it! The Company offered us both the most marvelous job - assistant to the chief accountant in a brand-new air-conditioned office plus special permission to reside in the American quarter of Dhahran. But there was only one position. It was either Rafiq or me. I knew he couldn’t hold that job.

He would never be capable enough for that. After all, his father was hopelessly insane. How can I ever forget the disgusting sight of him lying all day on the floor, naked in his filth, not even able to feed himself.

He was the most loathsome creature I ever knew.

Whenever I remember him, I feel nauseated….”

“Ismail! Don’t talk like that about my brother”!

“Rafiq was beginning to act the same way. He was so depressed, nothing could cheer him. For many hours at a time he would weep for no reason so I told the employer about him, about his father, 301 that he could not be capable of holding that job. That’s the truth, isn’t it?”

Ahmad Khalil gripped Ismail by the shoulders and shook him back and forth crying, “You would betray your first-cousin, your own flesh and blood! How could you be so cruel?”

“Please understand, Father, I did only what I had to do!”

“You could have chosen a different kind of work. Ismail, listen to me. You must confess everything you have done. You must make all the amends you can. You must pray day and night and beg the forgiveness of Allah. May He have mercy upon you.”

“Father, I can’t do that. I can’t allow people to know about this! I can’t afford to risk the loss of my job, my reputation, my new home, my wife, my child-to-be, and wreck all the hopes and dreams for the future. Do you expect me to do as you have done - dig the dirt and weed the garden of a mosque for a pittance? You never knew what it means to earn a decent living. You could not even feed your own children. You just let them starve. I will never forget how night after night I cried with hunger. I could not have been more than four or five years old but I still remember. You could not feed me. You had nothing. I am finished

forever with this starvation….”
===============================

“Ismail, have you no patience to endure what cannot be changed? I gave you everything I had.

302 As your father, what more could I have done? Do you think you are independent - independent from Allah and His law, that you are free to do anything you please and will not be held responsible? Do you think this life is the only life and that you can live without Allah?

Allah is the very breath you breathe. At any moment, He can snatch away the life from your body. To Him you must return and before Him on Judgment Day you must account for all your work.”

Ismail laughed nervously.

“I am not worried about that. I am young. I have a long life ahead of me.”

Ismail looked deep into his father’s dark emaciated face, framed by long heavy black hair and dominated by those piercing eyes glittering with fever.

“Oh Father!” he cried out in desperation. “Are you not terrified of death?”

Ahmad Khalil’s voice was calm but firm. “I am a Muslim. A Muslim fears only evil.

Oh Ismail! Repent and beg the forgiveness of Allah or far worse things than death will happen to you!”

Ismail nervously fingered his neck tie. “Father, really I must be going now. If I do not leave now, I will miss the next bus. They run from Medina

to Jeddah only every two hours….”
=================================

Ahmad Khalil gripped him by the shoulders with surprising strength.

“Let me go, Father! I have to hurry!” He tried to twist away but his father held him firm.

303 “Ismail! Look at me! Look straight into my eyes!”

Ismail turned his head away.

“Listen Ismail, these are not my words. They are the eternal Truth revealed direct from Allah through our Holy Prophet.”

Ismail shuddered as his father’s intense black eyes pierced his very soul.

“Listen, Ismail!

……… Rivalry in worldly increase distracteth you. Until ye come to your graves! Nay but ye shall come to know!

Nay but ye shall come to know! Nay but ye shall know now with sure knowledge. For ye shall behold Hell-Fire! Aye, ye shall behold it with sure vision…………”

“Let me go, Father! I must hurry!” Ismail wrenched himself free, picked up his suit-case and walked out the door without another word. Ahmad Khalil followed him to the entrance and watched him hurry down the street until he disappeared. Never once did he look back.

Ahmad Khalil was racked by another long spell of coughing and he had to lean against the wall for support.

Asma went to him and said: “Come, you must lie down. You are exhausted and you must rest.”

Rashid went to him and leaning heavily upon his wife and his cousin, he walked painfully to his 304 mat and lay down. He shivered with the chills of high fever and with great gentleness, they covered him with a quilt. Rashid sat beside him and felt his forehead burning hot while his mouth was parched and his hands and feet very cold.

Rashid gave him some water to drink and then he lay back on the floor, too weak to move or speak without much effort.

As Asma, Rashid and Abd ar-Raziq receded into unreality, he found himself as a boy once more, working in the fields of Iraq al-Manshiya. Near-by his grandfather was talking quietly to a group of younger men who sought his advice and counsel. His uncle, Yusuf Malik was on hands and knees, absorbed in his work. In front of his house which had been cleaned, repaired and freshly white-washed, little Khalila and Abdul Aziz were playing happily.

He went inside and found his mother in her long black dress and veil, intent at her loom, weaving cloth of the most exquisite design and colours.

When she looked up and smiled tenderly upon him, he saw her beauty more radiant than she had been on her wedding day. Outside, the fields of grain, ripe for the harvest, stretched to the horizon in wave upon wave of shimmering

gold . . . . .
==============

Then suddenly his expression startled everyone present and he cried out: “Oh my sight has gone! Abd ar-Raziq, where are you? I cannot see anything. It is so dark . . . . .”

305 “I am here, Father, right beside you. Is there anything I can do?”

“Recite for me the last two Surahs of the Quran - the cries for refuge and protection. Have you your braille Quran with you?”

“No Father. I left it behind at al-Azhar because it was borrowed and did not belong to me.

But I don’t need it. I know it all by heart. Listen.”

“ . . . . . . Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of Daybreak. From the evil of that which He created. From the evil of the darkness when it is intense. And from the evil of malignant witchcraft. And the evil of the envier when he envieth . . . . . . . . “ “Go on, my son, and recite for me the very last Surah because I am terrified and I seek in Allah refuge and protection against the fears of the unknown, the awful evil in a man’s own heart and

in the hearts of other men . . . . . “
======================================

“Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind; The King of mankind. The God of mankind. From the evil of the Sneaking Whisperer. Who whispereth in the hearts of mankind; Of the Djinn and mankind . . . . . .”

306 SOME ARABIC WORDS (Words whose meaning is readily apparent have not been included here).

Adhan: call to prayer.

Alhamdulillah: “Praise be unto God”!

Allahu Akbar: “God is Greatest”!

Bait ul-Muqaddas: Muslim holy-places in Jerusalem.

Bani Israil: ancient Hebrews.

Bismillah: in the name of God.

Dhow: Arab sailing ship.

Djinn: invisible spirits created from fire frequently mentioned in Quran.

Effendi: landlord.

Fellah (een): Arab peasant-farmer(s).

Hadith: recorded sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.

Hajj: Pilgrimage to Mecca.

Haji: one who has performed the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Hanbali: one of the four orthodox schools of Islamic law.

Haram ash-Sharif: sacred mosque in Mecca.

Hijaz: province of western Arabia, including the cities of Mecca and Medina.

Hijra: migration of a Muslim to another country due to persecution.

307 Ibn Taimiya: (14th century): eminent Islamic scholar.

Imam: leader of the congregational prayer. Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal: (9th century): saintly founder of one of the four orthodox schools of Islamic law.

Imam al-Mahdi: saviour of mankind according to Muslim tradition just before the end of the world.

Insha’allah: “If God wills”.

Isha: night prayer.

Janaza: Muslim funeral service.

Juma Salat: Friday-noon congregational prayer. Kaffiyeh: distinctive Arab head-shawl. Kalimah: the creed of Islam.

Khol: eye-black, similar to mascara. Labid: (early 7th century): classic pre-Islamic Arabian poet.

Maktab: elementary Quranic school. Maliki: one of the four schools of orthodox Islamic law.

Masjid an-Nabi: sacred mosque where the Holy Prophet lies buried in Medina.

Mimbar: pulpit in the mosque.

Nefud: desert in northern Arabia. Negev: desert in southern Palestine. Qadi: judge in a Muslim court of law.

316 Qari: one who recites the Quran artistically. Sahabah: Companions of the Holy Prophet. Salat: the five daily obligatory ritual prayers. Sayyid Qutb: (1906-1966): prominent Egyptian author of many Islamic books. Shaikh: chief of a tribe or a religious leader or scholar.

Shaikh Muhammad Abduh: (1849-1905): the founder of the modernist movement in the Arab world.

Shaikh Rashid Rida: (1865-1936): the most important disciple of Muhammad Abduh. Shaitan: Satan.

Shari’ah: sacred Islamic code of law. Surah: chapter of the Quran.

Takbir: “God is Greatest”!

Tarawih: lengthy prayers performed in the mosque during Ramadan. Tarboush: fez.

Tasbih: Muslim rosary.

Ya-Sin: chapter of Quran customarily recited just before death.

317

318


THE AUTHOR
==========

Zionism is allied with all the other forces of European colonialism and imperialism, working day and night to exterminate us religiously, culturally, politically and physically. May this story, begun during my childhood, help arouse the people of the Arab world and adjacent Muslim lands to unite in Jihad to free the Bait ul-Muqaddas and establish an independent Palestinian state against our common foe and stem the calamity that is engulfing us before it is too late.

1. Misspelled in original text.

1. And feed with food the orphan, the prisoner and the poor man lying in the dust for love of Him, saying: “We feed you for the sake of Allah only; We wish no reward or thanks from you!

1. Sahih Muslim.

0. Qur’an 49: 13.

3. text of the note

1. Cf. Quran 57:20.

88. [Note text missing in original]

0. Modern

0. Qur’an 69:18-34

1. O Mohammad

0. See page 248.

1. Quran, 93: 1-10.

1. Quran, 93: 1-10.

1. Quran, 93: 1-10.

1. The text here is clearly referencing Iqbal’s poetry, specifically from The Secrets of the Self (Asrar-i-Khudi).