"Colleagues, if those of us taking part in this ceremony in which we are to say farewell to our revered master are few in number, that is because of the instructions in his last will and testament, namely that there should be not the slightest trace of either a cloak or religious beard during the rites of committal to his final resting place.
"It is no secret that the dearly departed-and may the earth welcome his remains into its bosom-was not in agreement with any of the existing religious systems. He was firmly convinced that it was the earth that was our mother, creator, and sustainer, and that for us humans that was all that was needed (and all that in spite of its insignificance in the system of galaxies). In the beginning there had been the great bang from which other celestial systems had emerged, duly ordained for new and remote times and eras.
"That was his firm belief, and in his view it was no less valid and reliable and no more rigid and ingrained that any other cryptic or religious faith system.
"Throughout his rich and fulfilling life he adamantly refused to exchange this belief of his for any promise of salvation involving some other world that was hypothetical or even imaginary or for any wager that was religiously opportunistic or ethically cowardly in the opinion of both himself and our careful sect.
"So let us affirm here that our late lamented master showed exemplary fidelity to his earthly belief, even though it did not provide him with as much as it took from him later in life in the form of the infirmities of old age and painful illness.
"The final words in his will to both us and those who follow our path are that we should take loving care of the rights of the earth and ensure that we stick to them, not polluting its waters and soil from which we all emerged into existence; nor should we chop down forests, which serve as the earth's lungs and symbols of its freshness. We must also make sure to maintain the purest level of air quality, otherwise we will all be poisoned and fade away.
"Everyone has their own private history with the heavens. However our dear departed master preferred to weave his own personal tale with the earth, it being the site of our coming to life, our maturity, and our one final resting place. Now may he return to its fold, safe and sound, and may we follow his lead along the clear path, confident, calm, and devoted to the earth."
It was only a month later, maybe less, that Balqis told me that she had left this sect, not in order to set up a rival one but rather to escape the rigidity and fanciful beliefs of the community. She was eager to discover her path to salvation as a result of her own efforts, by means of experience, study, contemplation, and insight. From the time of my first acquaintance with her, this highly cerebral woman never missed an opportunity to poke fun at the absolute and find fault with it. It was almost as though she regarded it as a quarrelsome neighbor or a thoroughly tedious person, someone who deserved to be ripped apart with her sharp and immaculately polished nails. But as she lived her life from one day to the next in a complete relativism, the absolute would sometimes infiltrate into her world and talk to her, as she readily admitted. "I'm falling," she would shout, asking for help; "I'm drowning. Somebody save me and lift me out!"
Balqis's sense of guilt would evaporate and disappear-God's truth! — behind the palpitations of her wounded being and the sheer eloquence of her deep-seated despair. Whether I accepted or rejected them, her questions and ideas generally had a sensitivity and a depth that required me to rouse myself and pay close attention, a feeling that was blended with a certain degree of amazement and even perplexity. She would often say things that I cannot recall exactly now, but what follows is an approximation:
"By the truth of the Lords of the universe, Ibn Dara, I will tell you that, were it not for your generous heart and clear intellect, I would not be opening my heart to you. I am Balqis, or what is left of her. Even though I am not yet thirty years old, I feel I'm at a low ebb. For me life consists merely of a clutch of fancies and confused dreams; no more. Since my personal crises first emerged, they have neither burst into the open nor have they in any way lessened. This countenance of mine that I turn toward you-and I have no other-wears me out since the processes of traveling and settling down so often have totally worn me out. I have no way of making it look better, even if I were to decide to start using creams and makeup.
"I was just twenty when my mother died. She was utterly distressed by the death of my father at the Battle of al-'Iqab. My elder brother had left the country and not returned; it felt as though the earth had swallowed him up or somehow squeezed him into the vacant third of it. Thereafter I married a drunkard. He used to drink alcohol neat, and never stopped until it killed him. I was left on my own, so I married another man, a stupid miser. He stipulated that there would be no wedding ceremony and no reception afterward, but even so I accepted. He went on to demand that there would no singing, drumming, or celebrations; this time I refused. He went away for a month to think about it and came back to announce that he would agree to marry me, and then I could sing and dance a bit with him playing the tambourine, but there would still be no band and no one else present. I reluctantly agreed because the rogue went on to yell, `If you don't agree, I'll commit suicide.' My wedding night passed the way I wanted, but afterward he started playing tricks on me. `Fula,' he would say in amazement (and that is what he called me), `how puny and weak we are! Time keeps slipping away between our hands like quicksilver, crushing our senses and bodies. Stop the bleeding, Fula, stop the bleeding, or else I'll up and do something bad…'
"One spring day this imbecile put me on his donkey and told me we were going for a ride into the western desert. He had decided to leave me there, the pretext being that I was barren and stubborn as well. He suggested that I start counting pebbles while I waited for him to return riding Buraq,* the mighty horse who could touch the clouds and encircle the sky. With that he left, and I never set eyes on him again.
"What happened to me in the desert is amazing in itself. I was incredibly thirsty, but there was, of course, no water. As I wandered around, the sun was a series of red-hot brass bars burning my back. I kept mouthing some complex words that I can only remember because the camelteer who rescued me told me what they were. `Lord of Lords,' I yelled as loudly as I could, `why did You spread out the earth, and yet You did not roll it up into a ball? Why did You create the universe in six days and not in the flash of an eye? What do You gain, what goal do You have, in torturing me with such bad fortune, such ongoing evil, such continuing barrenness? I have high hopes of dying, and yet what is there between my burial and my resurrection, between my gathering on the last day and my being brought to account? How many lengthy ages and eras must pass while I wait?'
"I gave thanks to those deities who made sure that the Bedouin did not understand what I'd been saying. If he had, he would certainly have passed it on to others and denounced me. I praise them too for preserving at least part of my intellect-at least, that's how I saw it, even though my ordeal had made me terribly thin and bloated.
"So here I am today, doing my best to straighten things out for myself. Sometimes it works to my benefit, at least as far as I can tell; at others, to my disadvantage.
"But how am I supposed to evaluate my situation when this entire country seems to be utterly devoid of any notion of the Lord's spirit? Every part of it seems headed for collapse and destruction. Have I worn you out, Ibn Dara, with all this talk?"
"No, no," I replied, "heaven forbid!"
"If only you knew about the secret of my addiction to making complex statements! My body is an abyss of perdition. It causes me this tinnitus in my ears; it never stops whenever I speak or am spoken to. So please talk to me so that I can stop. You can talk about whatever you want."