Chapter 8
AT A DISTANCE, ON the slopes of the mountain, the white houses of the village were no longer visible, but the flickering of the oil lamps which hung outside them was magical from where Yazid was seated. He knew the lights would not go out till the men and women around him returned home.
The outer courtyard of the house was overflowing with visitors. They were sitting in a large circle on thick carpets which had been placed on the grass. Occasionally, a tiny flame would light the face of al-Zindiq or Miguel, who were seated in the centre of the circle. The coal fires burning in the stoves kept them all warm. There had been over two hundred people present that night when the ‘debate’ had first started.
This family, which for centuries had not thought about anything more demanding than the pleasures of the hunt, the quality of the marinade used by the cooks on the roast lamb being grilled that day, or the new silks which had arrived in Gharnata from China, was tonight confronting history.
Miguel had dominated the evening. At first he had sounded bitter and cynical. The success of the Catholic Church, its practical superiority, he had argued, lay in the fact that it did not even attempt to sweeten the bitter taste of its medicine. It did not bother to deceive; it was not searching for popularity; it did not disguise its shape in order to please its followers. It was disgustingly frank. It shook Man by the shoulders, and shouted in his ear:
‘You were born in excrement and you will live in it, but we might forgive you for being so foul, so vile, so repulsive if you sink to your knees and pray every day for forgiveness. Your pitiful, pathetic existence must be borne with exemplary humility. Life is and will remain a torment. All you can do is to save your soul, and if you do that and keep your discontent well hidden, you might be redeemed. That and that alone will make your life on earth a mite less filthy than it was on the day you were born. Only the damned seek happiness in this world.’
Miguel had paused at this point and studied his audience. They appeared to be in a hypnotic trance and had stared back at him in amazement. In a soft, calm voice, he had taken them on a tour of their past, reminding them not just of the glories of Islam, but also of the defeats, the chaos, the palace despotisms, the internecine wars and the inevitable self-destruction.
‘If our Caliphs and Sultans had wanted things to stay the same, they should have changed the way they governed these lands. Do you think it gave me pleasure to shift religions? Even tonight, I have made some of my own family angry, as you have observed, but I have reached a stage in my life where I can no longer conceal the truth.
‘I love this house and this village. It is because I want them to remain and all of you to prosper that I ask you, once again, to think very seriously. It is already late, but if you do as I say we can still save you. In the end you will convert, but by then the Inquisition will be here and they will question all of you to determine which conversion is true and which is false. Since one of their aims is to confiscate your lands for the Church and the Crown, they will give themselves the benefit of the doubt. I cannot compel you, but those who are coming after me will not be so kind.’
Even though what he had to say was unpopular, it was felt by most of those present that he was nearer the truth than the hotheads who wanted to start a war, for underneath the detached calm which surrounded the seigneurial house, there was a great deal of tension.
Some of those with young children had drifted away after the opening speeches, but Yazid was still wide awake and enjoying every moment. He was sitting near his mother, sharing her large woollen cloak. Next to him was his sister Hind, who had, true to the Berber characteristics she had inherited from her mother’s side, displayed an exuberance which had amazed everyone, except Yazid. She had interrupted her great-uncle several times, laughed sarcastically at his attempted witticisms and muttered the odd obscenity under her breath, but the night air had carried her voice and the village women had applauded. Miguel had responded without anger, secretly admiring Hind’s courage, and publicly proclaiming that he loved her dearly. Her response to this avuncular declaration had been characteristic, but this time she had gone too far and isolated herself.
‘When a serpent says he loves me I wear him as a necklace.’
Ama had cackled loudly, which had surprised Yazid since he knew Ama disapproved strongly of Hind’s behaviour. But Ama had been alone. Even though Miguel was not universally popular, this sort of rudeness did not please the villagers, who felt it was a breach of hospitality to the son of Ibn Farid. The comparison to a snake had upset her great-uncle. His ears had been stung by the venom and he had been unable to prevent the telltale water from filling his eyes.
It was the sight of his uncle in tears that had in turn upset Umar, who had frowned at his wife from the other side of the stove. Zubayda deciphered the signal accurately. She whispered Hind to order, threatening her with marriage to Miguel’s son, simple Juan, unless she disciplined her tongue immediately. The blackmail worked brilliantly. Hind had sidled up to Miguel and apologized in his ear. He had smiled and stroked her head. Peace had returned. Coffee had been served.
Hind was not at all upset, since her own views had been made clear to the assembled company and, in particular, to the stranger who sat in its midst. Ibn Daud, the green-eyed jewel from al-Qahira and the object of her affections, was deep in thought. Ibn Daud had been struck by Hind even before Yazid had blurted out his sister’s secret. Her hot-tempered tongue and sharp, mischievous features had enchanted him, but tonight he was distracted by the debate. He had smiled at Hind’s cheeky assault on her great-uncle, but it was al-Zindiq’s sobering reflections which had become the centre of his preoccupations that evening.
Al-Zindiq had, in polar contrast to Miguel, savaged Christian beliefs and superstitions. He had mocked the old Church for its inability to resist pagan pressures. Why else make Isa a divinity and his mother an object of worship? The Prophet Mohammed, in contrast, had ultimately rejected the same pressures, resisted temptation and disavowed the worship of three female goddesses. That was as far as al-Zindiq was prepared to travel tonight with his co-religionists. He did not defend Islam with the intellectual vigour for which he was renowned, and which had been expected from him on this night. He was too honest a man to contradict those of Miguel’s assertions that he regarded as indisputable. Instead he tried to enthuse his audience by reminding them that a star which waned in one firmament could rise in another. He described the Muslim victories in Istanbul in such graphic detail that a shiver of collective pride shook his audience. As for the decline of al-Andalus, he did not give much credence to some of the more popular explanations.
‘Remember,’ he asked them, ‘the story of the Sultan of Tlemcen and the holy man? The Sultan was attired in his most extravagant clothes when he received Abu Abdallah al-Tunisi. “Is it lawful for me to pray in these fine clothes I am wearing?” he asked his learned visitor. Abu Abdallah laughed and explained his reaction in the following words. “I am laughing, O proud Sultan, at the feebleness of your intellect, your ignorance of yourself and your sorry spiritual state. For me you are like a dog sniffing around in the blood of a carcass and eating filth, but lifting its leg when it urinates lest the liquid soil its body. You ask me about your clothes when the sufferings of men are upon your head.” The Sultan began to weep. He renounced his position and became a follower of the Holy Man.’
Al-Zindiq finished his story amidst cries of ‘Wa Allah’ and the expression of sentiments supporting the thesis that if all the Muslim kings of al-Andalus had behaved in like fashion, the followers of the Prophet would not be in such a sad state at the moment. This was the reaction al-Zindiq expected, and he now confronted them very directly.