"And who exactly are these `absentees'? By that name I imply those who are attracted toward the Sublime, from among whom examples such as Ibn Bajja* from Saragossa and Ibn Tufayl* from Guadix come to mind, models made up of possible identities, representing the truth of time by means of emulation and enrichment.
"So do not heap blame on poets, philosophers, or Sufis if they decide to enclose themselves in ivory towers! Instead hold them to account; indeed, censure them if their isolation fails to produce something that is rare and valuable and if what emerges from their towers is not something to delight the soul and entice the observer.
"My dear friends, as I noted earlier, our era is indeed suffering from an obvious intellectual weakness, by which I mean the absence of any kind of investigation into the real meaning and import of our existence here on earth when confronted with the trials and tribulations of this world and time itself.
"In order to counteract such things, we need to start by observing points of focus and evidence, by gathering our share of Promethean fire, and by revealing our bid as a freshly formed indication of our own presence in history.
"It is a task that is as difficult as it is inevitable, way beyond the reach of intermediaries and totalitarians. What it requires is explorers and innovators.
"Those two groups, explorers and innovators, should be used by you as models; you should strive to imitate them. As you strive forever upward, they should be your contacts and companions. God alone is to be asked for help!"
Yet another of these sessions was held by a crumbling wall at the stables behind the zawiya. I can recall that I gave an address to the assembly that focused specifically on the correct way to behave. I restricted my remarks to my own self, since I didn't want to preach or impose any obligations on anyone. Here is part of what I said:
"My friends, we are living in an era of moral conformity and inflexibility. I cannot tell you all how often people have suggested to me that on all matters I need to conform and adapt and to stay dutifully in line with the dictates of time and place-neither conservatively backward nor ahead of myself and custom. I am constantly being told to wrap up my actions and gestures in a deceitful garb of fawning and flattery, all couched in honeyed and hypocritical discourse.
"However, like every free and intelligent individual, I am an iconoclast when it comes to customs. I have never made up my mind about anything without being keenly aware of the need to speak and witness to the truth. I regard myself as being continuously at war with the rampant triviality of our times, something that is only growing worse. My involvement in it has been and remains forthright and committed. I refuse to countenance the slightest degree of shirking or contempt. The reason is that the only genuine sense of release I feel involves resisting the corpse that stays crouched on top of the chest of the living person and combating those symmetries whose outmoded tyranny I can measure within the framework of ever-ascending and existential essentials of life. Beyond all that, my overriding task and indeed the very essence of my being involves turning my life into an incredible work of art, albeit incomplete-needless to say. Thus, my hope against all hopes is that those few dwindling petty dynasts will not manage to spoil my wedding day by curbing that spirit of defiance and resistance in me that perseveres against all odds. Cruel, dry winds and sands may blow their worst. They claim that they will indeed come, and no doubt they will, in the process obliterating my work of art and converting it to mere chaff…"
I said all this and more with great energy, but then suddenly fell silent, a silence that turned into a veil. Thereafter I addressed my own self, but found it hard to transfer the words to my throat. "You've spent a long time," I told myself, "more than necessary in fact, discovering that, in the long run and in the context of life and action, eternity is merely a conjecture, an original, dynamic, and lofty notion that can silence all the eloquent statements that are played on the strings of doubt and despair. It can postpone the tokens of decline till a time that remains unnamed or that may never come. To the extent possible, it manages to protect the researcher from the assaults of the Angel of Death and the erasures of forgetfulness and separation. In the light of such things and with due reliance on them, all success must aspire to a hope for either eternity or at least a degree of continuity, something that only has genuine validity when it is nourished and supported by an absolute desire for eternity…"
I muttered these unintelligible words to myself with my eyes closed. My close confidants must have carried me to my bed, either sound asleep or else in an extreme state of distraction and rapture. When I awoke next morning, I could still remember the session of the previous evening; not only that, but I could also recall the last comments I had muttered. Obviously I had been in some kind of trance, and the whole thing had simply overwhelmed me. Clearly it had to have had some sort of connection with my missing manuscript.
2
SIX MONTHS HAVE NOW PASSED with no news from my students. Perhaps our last session together made them feel that, since I was now in retreat, their visits were somehow bothering me and I preferred to do without them. Then again, maybe the trials and tribulations of life in our times have kept them away. Even so, I'm sure that my quartet of close confidants will be back, even if the time-lapse is a year or more.
Throughout the days and weeks I've gone back to reading books on Sufism and theology that I had brought with me as part of my baggage, and others in copied form that I got hold of through the good offices of the person in charge of the zawiya and a shaykh named Ismail al-Tadili who was a vigorous proponent of the cloistered life. So, in addition to reading the Risala of al-Qushayri* and the Ihya' `ulum al-din of al-Ghazali, I undertook a concentrated study of Manazil alsa'irin wa-zad al-`arifin by `Abdallah al-Ansari al-Harawi, Dalalat al-ha'irin by `Abdallah Musa ibn Ishaq ibn Maymun [Maimonides], and Fusus al-hikam and selected chapters from al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya by Muhyi al-din ibn Arabi. Truth to tell, the sheer perfume given off by the sublime fascinations of this treasure-trove of brilliant Islamic learning stayed with me even when I had to attend to my own personal needs. I might be asleep or taking a stroll, but I would still be able to smell and relish the scent.
So research took up most of my time, only interrupted by my modest attempts at prayer and other beneficial obligations. My own love of learning was undoubtedly my most cogent driving force, but the thing that gave it an even sharper edge was that, once in a while, snippets of my missing manuscript would come to me in a flash. I used to write them down at once in case I could use them to recall a larger segment of it.
At the end of each week I used to take walks, and that too helped sharpen my mind and enliven my spirits. The one I liked best led me to Jabal Musa ibn Nusayr* to the west. I used to stroll around there, enjoying the gardens and orchards watered by fresh springs and full of sweet basil and fruit trees. There I joined other people picking the luscious fresh fruit. Occasionally I would come across an ascetic who was not actually picking but merely watching in amazement, or still another who simply stared in wonder at the gorgeous flowers and tree blossoms as they opened up. Among the most memorable occasions for me was one when I was able to watch a horse giving birth to a foal. "Praise be to the Living One, praise to the Living One!" I would shout repeatedly. At times I might ask a dervish what was the quickest way to get to a particular place I would name. Such a person would then ask me if I were on the road; if I replied yes, he would advise me to keep going and not worry…