"Be that as it may, it is up to you to decide if you will be disheartened by my refusing you at this time. Try me later. When you know that you are at least a fit candidate."
Frigate was silent for a long while. Nur put the flute to his lips and presently a weird wailing, rising and falling, issued. Nur was never without the instrument when off duty. Sometimes he would content himself with short pieces, lyrics, presumably. Other times, he would sit cross-legged on top of the forecastle for hours, the flute silent, his eyes closed. At such time, his request that he not be interrupted was honored. Frigate knew that Nur was putting himself into some sort of trance then. But so far he had not asked him more than one question about it.
Nur had said, "You need not know. As yet."
Nur-ed-din ibn Ali el-Hallaq (Light-of-the-faith, son of Ali the barber) fascinated Frigate. Nur had been born in 1164 a.d. in Cordoba, held by the Moslems since 711 A.D. Moorish Iberia was then near the apotheosis of Saracenic civilization, which Nur had beheld in all its glory. Christian Europe, compared to the brilliant culture of the Moslems, was still in the Dark Ages. Art, science, philosophy, medicine, literature, poetry flourished in the great centers of population of Islam. The Western cities: Iberian Cordoba, Seville, and Granada, and the Eastern cities: Baghdad and Alexandria, had no rivals, except in faraway China.
The wealthy Christians sent their sons to the Iberian universities to get an education unobtainable in London, Paris, and Rome. The sons of the poor went there to beg for bread while they learned. And from these schools the Christians went back to transmit what they had imbibed at the feet of the robed masters.
Moorish Iberia was a strange and splendid country, ruled by men who differed in degree of faith and dogmatism. Some were intolerant and harsh. Others were broadminded, tolerant enough to appoint Christians and Jews as their viziers, inclined to the arts and the sciences, welcoming all foreigners, eager to learn from them, soft on matters of religion.
Nur's father plied his trade in the vast palace outside Cordoba, the near city of Medinat az-Zahra. In Nur's time this had been fabled throughout the world, but in Frigate's there was scarcely a trace left. Nur was born there and teamed his father's craft. He desired to be something else, and, since he was bright, his father used his connections with his wealthy patrons to advance his son. Having demonstrated his aptitude for literature, music, mathematics, alchemy, and theology, Nur went to the best school in Cordoba. There he mingled with the rich and the poor, the important and the insignificant, the Northern Christian and the Nubian black.
It was also there that he met Muyid-ed-din ibn el-Arabi. This young man was to become the greatest love poet of his times, and echoes of his songs would be found in those of the Provencal and German troubadors. The rich and handsome youth, liking the poor and ugly son of a barber, invited him in 1202 to accompany him to a pilgrimage to Mecca. During the journey through North Africa, they met a group of Persian immigrants, Sufis. Nur had encountered this discipline before, but talking to the Persians decided him to be a disciple. However, at the moment, he found no master who would accept his petition for candidacy. Nur continued with el-Arabi to Egypt, where both were accused of heresy by fanatics and narrowly escaped being murdered.
After completing their hajj in Mecca, they journeyed to Palestine, Syria, Persia, and, India. This took four years, at the end of which they returned to their native city, spending a year on the voyage. In Cordoba both were, for a time, the pupils of the Sufi woman, Fatima bint Waliyya. The Sufis regarded men and women as being equal and so scandalized the orthodox. These were sure that if men and women mingled socially, it could only be for sexual purposes.
Fatima sent Nur to Baghdad to study under a famous master there. After some months, his master sent him back to Cordoba to another great teacher. But when the Christians took Cordoba after a savage war, Nur went with his master to Granada.
After several years mere, Nur started on the series of wanderings that earned him his lackab, his nickname, el-Musafir, the Traveler. After Rome, where letters of introduction from el-Arabi and Fatima gave him safe conduct, he journeyed to Greece, to Turkey, Persia again, Afghanistan, India again, Ceylon, Indonesia, China, and Japan.
Settling down in holy Damascus, he earned his living as a musician and, as a tasawwuf or Sufi master, accepted a number of disciples. After seven years, he set out once more. He went up the Volga and across Finland and Sweden, then across the Baltic Sea to the land of the idol worshippers, the savage Prussians. Here, after escaping sacrifice to a wooden statue of a god, he made his way westward through Germany. Northern France and men England and Ireland became part of his itinerary.
At the time Nur was in London, Richard I, surnamed Coeur de Lion, was king. Richard was not in England then, being engaged in the siege of the Castle of Chalus in the Limousin, France. Richard was killed by an arrow from the castle the following month, and his brother John was crowned in May. Nur witnessed the ceremonies in the city. Some time after, he actually succeeded in gaining an audience with King John. He found him to be a charming and witty man, interested in Islam culture and in Sufism. John was especially fascinated by Nur's reports of far-off lands.
"Traveling in those days was at best arduous and dangerous," Frigate said. "Even the so-called civilized countries were no picnic. Religious hatred was prevalent. How could you, a Moslem, alone, without protection or money, travel safely in the Christian lands? Especially when the Crusades were going on then and religious hatred was endemic?"
Nur had shrugged. "Usually I put myself under the protection of the dignitaries of the state religions of those countries. And these got me civil protection. The church leaders were more concerned with heretics in their own faith than in infidels. In their own provinces, anyway.
"At other times, my very poverty was my safeguard. Robbers were not interested in me. When I traveled in rural areas, I would earn my keep and provide amusement by my flute playing and by my skill as a juggler, acrobat, and magician. Also, I am a great linguist, and I could pick up the language or the dialect of a place very quickly. I also told stories and jokes. You see, people everywhere were crazy for novelty, for entertainment. They welcomed me most places, though I did have a number of hostile receptions here and mere. What did they care if I was a Moslem? I was harmless, and I gave them joy.
"Besides, I radiated an assurance of friendliness. That is something that we can do."
Returning to Granada, and finding the atmosphere there changed, not friendly to Sufis, he had gone to Khorasan. After teaching there for several years, he made another trip to Mecca. From southern Arabia he had traveled on a trading ship to the shores of Zanzibar and then to southeast Africa. Returning to Baghdad, he lived there until his death at the age of ninety-four.
The Mongols under Hulagu, Jcngbiz Khan's grandson, stormed into Baghdad, slaughtering and plundering. Within forty days, hundreds of thousands of its citizens were slain. Nur was one of them. He was sitting in his little room playing on the flute when a squat, slant-eyed, blood-drenched soldier burst in. Nur continued his song until the Mongol brought his sword down upon his neck.
"The Mongols devastated the Mideast,"Frigate had said. "Never in history has such desolation been wrought in such a short time. Before the Mongols left, they murdered half the population, and they had destroyed everything from canals to buildings. In my time, six hundred years later, the Mideast still had not recovered."