The words of a desperate, perverted woman. So how was I supposed to deal with her? What legal or logical yardsticks was I to apply in this case?
"Listen, woman!" I told her, "you're not being serious. Only God alone can determine what is to be your lot. However you had absolutely no right to exert compulsion and pressure on a young, unmarried girl like `Abla. Your behavior has no justification in either law or logic!"
With that she stood up, albeit with some difficulty.
"So," she railed at me, "you want me to justify my behavior, is that it?"
"Yes, I do."
"The only way for me to be cured is for `Abla to come back. Will you bring her back?"
"Listen, woman," I said, "Abla is married to a young man whom she loves and who loves her."
"That's utter nonsense! You're the one who made her think marriage was wonderful, and then married her off. You want to make me better? Fine, then release her from her marriage to your companion and bring her back to me."
"Hafsa, that is utterly out of the question."
"May God have mercy and offer His forgiveness. You insist on doing me ill. Get out of my sight, you agent of the devil in person. Get out, or else I'll kill you and myself as well."
There was nothing more I could do to calm her down, particularly since she started hurling all the furniture and appliances she could lay her hands on at me, wailing and shouting for help as she did so. I rushed to the door and opened it, only to discover Bilal and two servants facing me, with my wife standing right behind them with a worried look on her face. Hamada was standing by her side, shivering and weeping.
"Shut this woman up," I told them all, "but don't hit her."
With that I left the house and wandered around the alleys and squares of the city. Sometimes I paused to consider what on earth I had allowed myself to get involved with, and at others I simply stared at the groups of houses, walls, and human bodies, whether stationary or passing by, each one of which undoubtedly harbored secrets and riddles whose sheer numbers were known to God alone.
I meandered mindlessly along the shore, and only came to myself again when I approached the city itself and noticed how unusually blustery and miserable the spring season was: strong winds; dark, cloudy sky; turbulent, grayish waves, all of them enough to make you feel depressed and resentful. But even though nature itself may have been showing itself in entirely new garb, I had to admit to myself that my soul was feeling crushed by a nasty mix of humors. What made things even worse was that I was probably incapable of finding an effective way of rooting them out and repairing the damage they were doing.
In the dead of night I headed for the mosque, performed my ablutions, then prayed the sunset and evening prayers by myself in a darkened corner of the building; I then proceeded to perform supplementary prayers, one after the other, and muttered some verses from the Qur'an. In so doing, I was concentrating my entire attention on God the Eternal, the One, the only One, who knows all secrets and what is beyond our knowing, in whose hands is all authority and to whom we shall return. When I turned around, I noticed that three of my closest confidants were standing to my right, waiting for me to finish. I invited them to join me, and they did so, offering their greetings. I guessed that they had something to tell me, so I asked them what it was. Al-Sadiq told me that they would have to leave to return to Granada early the next day, offering as a pretext the fact that they had to attend to their families and children. I asked them what they had been doing the day before and today, and they told me about the goods and books they had purchased and the young people of Sabta whom they had met.
`Abd al went on to tell me something that the others seemed reluctant to mention: in the main mosque they had attended a lesson taught by the jurist Idris al-Tadili, and had come to realize that the man knew absolutely nothing and had no particular method to his teaching. He merely prattled away about things he knew nothing about, made slanderous comments about learned scholars-accusing them of heterodoxy and apostasy. In so doing, he was setting himself as the great defender of the precious egg of religion, when he was not even equipped to look after a chicken's egg. They told me that, when they had addressed questions to him, whether on matters of tradition or interpretation, he had been unable to respond, except to rant and rail. He had then called them various rude names and had crowned his angry retort by calling them members of the "Sab`inid" party, something which, as he himself put it, was the very acme of heresy and disbelief. Here was this man, he said, residing in the Sunni Maliki city of Sabta, corrupting its innocent youth and denouncing its most prominent jurists and religious figures, not to mention its governing authorities. They finished by telling me that he had then said some particularly foul things that they preferred not to repeat.
I asked God for forgiveness and sought His protection against the wrongs perpetrated by charlatans and the lies of the envious and vengeful, He being the one responsible for them and the arbiter between myself and them in this ephemeral world and the next. I thought this was a good time to let them know that Ibn Khalas had expressed a desire to meet me.
"My friends," I said, "these nasty extremist jurists keep on making things difficult for me and convincing rulers to throw me out wherever I choose to reside and travel. Now the governor of Sabta is asking me to meet him and have a talk. I'm still doubtful about it."
"No, no, Sir," Al-Sadiq replied in a very serious tone. "Such diffidence on your part is entirely out of place. If the jurists of Sabta are conspiring against you, you definitely need to respond to the governor's invitation. If you find that he is an intelligent man, a faithful believer, and a judicious ruler, then so much the better for you. But if he seems to be the opposite, then you can use your own sagacity and experience to arrange matters as you see fit."
Both `Abd al and 'Adnan made it clear that they agreed with what he was saying, and I did likewise. I stood up to say farewell, and wished them a safe journey and a felicitous return to their families and loved ones. They in turn embraced me and promised to come back when circumstances permitted.
I felt sad that they too were leaving, not to mention Khalid and 'Abla; I was sad too because Hafsa was so sick; and sad because the jurists and their agents were conspiring against me. In alleviating so much sadness my only resort would be you, Fayha', you who have enabled me to show such "beautiful patience" (as Jacob declares in the Qur'an) and to seek sustenance for both soul and mind.
When I reached the door of the house, I was greeted by Bilal with a broad smile on his face of a kind I had never seen before. It was accompanied by gestures that intimated that Hafsa had gone out of control and been transferred to the asylum. As I hugged my wife, she confirmed what I had understood from Bilal and consoled me with the news that she had asked the officials there to take good care of her.
Inside the house rooms and courtyards were considerably less full of visitors, and the general atmosphere was much quieter and more relaxed. While we were eating dinner, Fayha' told me that she was delighted with the two new servants and had good things to say about their manners and general poise. I told her that that was thanks to God's good grace and the help of Rudwan. I alluded as subtlely as I could to Hafsa's odd behavior in the hope of getting her to talk about what she knew and was keeping to herself, but all I succeeded in getting were some censorious comments regarding the woman that comprised far less than what I knew and chose to keep to myself.
I fell into a deep sleep on our marriage bed just as soon as I lay down and wrapped myself in warm blankets. During my slumber I had a series of dreams of which I could only remember the smallest segments when I woke up.