XVIII

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