So on the third day of Ramadan I moved to my new quarters. Once there, I felt a new sense of security under the protection of that holy man, Al-Shushtari- may God cure him and grant him what he wishes and desires! Quite by chance, I found the small dagger that I had hidden in my trouser belt when I was hiding in the cellar in the orchards by the Solomon's Spring and once again hid it in my belt in case of unforeseen problems. In this room the hiding place consisted of another cellar, this time smaller than the other one; no one could possibly notice the entrance unless they were shown where it was. Acting on Yasir's instructions, I had to use it twice during Ramadan: that happened when there was a hue and cry by the door of the residence, and it emerged afterward, so Yasir informed me, that the noise was caused by my own students and followers. I also took to going out to the sacred enclosure at night; I did it three times in all, accompanied and protected by Ghaylan.
On the Night of Power, which, as the Qur'an says, is "better than a thousand months," I made my way alone to the Ka`ba shrine. I did the circumambulation in disguise and ran between Safa and Marwa. My prayer was that my Lord, even in this final struggle, would enable me to strive toward the best arrangement possible, my primary state, and then He would still think well of me. My other prayer was that my Lord would afford me a gentle entry to the process of eliminating all trace and memory of my existence, through my love and devotion to Him, the Necessary Existent, the Absolute. There would be no slips of the tongue, no rantings and ravings, and no cursing the fate that is, in fact, God in person, something the Prophet of Islam had specifically forbidden.
On the first day in the month of Shawal I woke up early to find myself bleeding from the nose, something that I took as a symptom of my blood being purified and cleansed. I spent several hours on my back, trying to stop the nosebleed with rags and using some of my potions to staunch the flow. But when I had managed to stop it, I started to shiver. A fever crept its way through my joints, followed by a migraine that was more painful than anything I had ever experienced before.
Just when things reached their peak, Yasir asked to come in. I did my best to welcome him with a big smile so as to conceal from him the state I was in. I asked him whether any of my followers had asked after me.
"One of Abu Numa's messengers whom I recognized came to see me," he answered hesitantly and with obvious reluctance, "and told me that his master was traveling. But, before he left, the governor had instructed him to tell the holy man, Ibn Sabin, that his son, Hamada, had been put in prison in Egypt. Unless Ibn Sabin came to Cairo very soon, his son would be killed. The governordescendant of the Prophet himself-advised Ibn Sabin to show the necessary endurance in the face of such adversity."
So here is yet another terrible blow I am facing!
Hamada, who is just twenty-five years old, is now in the tyrannical clutches of those Mamluks loyal to Baybars.
So the Mamluk sultan now summons me to Cairo. But how can I possibly go there when my entire body is weak and in great pain? Even if I could, there is no way that I could save the poor boy from a dreadful fate.
Your sympathy, 0 Lord, Your sympathy, please!
I asked Yasir to bring me some herbs and liquids that I named, and he did so. Once he had done that, I asked him to stop keeping watch and not to be alarmed if he did not find me at home. Entrusting my papers and epistles to his care, I asked him to tell people that I had decided to move to Basra on my way to India. I instructed him to spend the rest of the gold money in my purses on the needy. When I hugged him, he was in tears. I told him not to knock on my door unless I called him. He left for a moment, then with apologies poked his head around the door and told me that one of the students whom he had stopped coming in to see me yesterday had claimed to be one of my Andalusian devotees, named `Abd al Ali al-Nasir. He went on to tell me that, after he had failed to get to see me, the student had said he would be going to visit the Prophet's mosque in Medina.
Yet one more piece of news assailing me like a thunderbolt!
So my beloved student al-Nasir had been there, just a few feet away on the other side of the door. And yet fate had decided to keep him away from me and prevent me from seeing him and giving him a hug.
0 Lord, Your sympathy, please!
Galen,* Al-Razi, all the physicians of Islam, please help me!
If any of you know how to make me well, please do it with my thanks. If not, then I'll have to leave my health in the hands of fate and wait until the heavens lower a rope and open a gate to the galaxies of heavenly existence.
My potions and medicaments managed to lessen some of the pain I was feeling, but only some. At least it was enough to enable me to get some sleep-undisturbed some of the time, but restless at others. When I became conscious again, I could recall some of the visions I had seen but not others. I can vividly recall one of them: my late wife, Fayha', appeared to me, riding a splendid and richly caparisoned horse. She leaned down with outstretched hands and begged me to mount the horse behind her. But when I tried, my legs would not move. I found myself stuck in a slimy marsh with fetid water. The only way I avoided asphyxiation and drowning was by waking up in a panic.
In another dream Shaykh `Abd al-Kamil from Meknes, my companion in the time I spent in the zawiya on Jabal Musa in Sabta, appeared.
"Do you remember me?" he asked.
"How could I not remember you?" I replied. "Had it not been for the mention of your name, I would not have been able to stay in the Meknesi residence in Mecca for so long!"
"Leave this ephemeral world now," he said, "and come to the eternal existence. This is where you'll find the genuinely pleasant life, boons and comforts the like of which no eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard, and no human heart has ever thought of in the lower world. Did I not tell you that I would enter heaven through its wide gate? So come along. Your own gate may be even wider and larger…"
There was still another vision, but I can only recall a few nasty fragments of it. The young boy, Hamada, is screaming and shouting for me, begging his Creator to help him. A group of sordid Mamluks are toying with him and committing serial acts of sodomy on him.
I was flat on my bed for several days, and my health went from bad to worse. Sometimes I was bleeding from both nose and mouth; it was almost as though the blood intended to drain away completely. When I realized that my medicaments were not having any effect on my worsening condition, I gave up and took a large dose of herbs that I knew from experience would be able to tranquilize me. I hid the rest of the potion in my belt alongside the dagger.
I now decided that my condition might improve somewhat if I took an exploratory stroll around some of the quarters of Mecca at dawn. So I washed and did my ablutions, perfumed myself, and donned my nicest clothes. I stole out to the stables, got on my horse, and let it wander wherever it wished. As it ambled slowly around the city, I realized that we had reached the southern slopes of Mount Abu Qubays,* so I took the opportunity to bid farewell to the house where the Prophet had been born. I then turned in the direction of the Bilal Mosque and prayed as much as I was able, all in preparation for a visit to Medina in spite of the known enmity of its governor and all its juridical authorities. But the path in front of me seemed to have been cut-taunting me with the name of my beloved student `Ali al-Nasir. The very idea seemed to me even more impossible than clearing a virgin forest or fertilizing a rocky mountain, not least because the midday sun was beating down and I was starting to bleed again from my nose and mouth. I decided to retrace my steps. As I was approaching the outskirts of Mecca, the pains in my head and body suddenly became worse than ever before, and I had no alternative but to swallow the rest of my herbal potion. My hope was to be able to endure the agony I was feeling. Staring at the sun high in the sky, I continued on my way, chanting as loudly as I could: