There was just one blemish that suddenly reared its ugly head to spoil the serenity of my new married life, and I did my best to contain and handle it in as amicable a way as possible. It concerned Sa‘d, Umm al-Banin’s brother, who reverted to his old iniquitous ways. According to the neighbors at his sister’s former house, he turned it into a den of rowdiness and sex.
“I warned you, sir,” Sha‘ban said in a tone of disapproval, “that the rascal would forget all about his promises to reform his behavior. All your words, all your generosity, are no good. Whatever you do, Satan will always breathe his poison into that man’s nostrils. I think the best thing to do is to return the house he’s living in to its owner and seek the help of the doctors in the mental hospital.”
Sha‘ban’s advice seemed sound, and I got Umm al-Banin to agree to it. That done, I decided that it was essential to avoid any kind of compulsion or violence. With that in mind, I planned the entire operation with all the skill I had acquired from the realms of politics and writing. The entire matter was more subtle than the finest flour, harder than combing a virgin forest. To start with, I persuaded Sa‘d that for the time being he should spend some time being treated in the Ibn Tulun Hospital and assured him that he would be well looked after there since I was acquainted with the director and some of the doctors. That done, I proceeded to make the arrangements and handed out whatever bribes and ‘donations’ were needed.
O Lord, it is not right that I should be living a life of such joy and happiness while depriving this wretched young man of my help and generosity. Nor it is right that there should be so many deficiencies in the world and so much rampant egotism. Nor is it right that the fire of life should reach some people as coolness and peace, while the great mass of humanity feels only suffering and searing heat.
Were I a lot younger, I would want to delve deep into the study of the interior world of mankind. I would search for the hidden causes of disturbances and imperfections in the mind, and then devote myself to finding cures and therapies. Unfortunately, however, I have little to offer on the topic.
Six months went by after my marriage to Umm al-Banin. The latter half of that year represented a turning point in my life and my understanding. I came to know my Lord in the beauty of His creation, male and female. More than ever before, I used to yell out, “Life, Our Lord did not create it for nothing.” I rediscovered Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziya’s work, Meadow for Lovers, and delved into it with confidence. My only interest was making the lover happy and placing her between heart and rib.
So I’ll say it: Even though I’m almost sixty years old, love and life are two facets of a single blood. Anyone without love is without life. This too: Love and prayer are like conjoined twins; if you don’t cloister yourself with the one, you miss the other and lose out on God’s favor and welcome.
Ideas like these had definitely occurred to me when I was with my first wife, but their impact and integrity were negatively affected by external distractions and the enticements of rank. Today, however, such thoughts have come to occupy center stage in all their glory.
So many matters and activities that I used previously to ignore or pass by I now find myself paying attention to: food, for example, drink, clothes, walks, and old buildings.
I now know the names of all the food and drink that Umm al-Banin prepares for me. They’re all of excellent quality and, because they’re beneficial and easily digested, they’re much prized by me. When they’re brought to me, all I can do is offer my thanks and admiration, since they clearly represent the best of this earth’s fruits and a harbinger of those others in the Garden of Eden.
I have always been anxious to wear clothes that were fairly plain in both color and design. But when Umm al-Banin chooses them or sews them herself, the quality is measurably higher. What is more, she uses the nicest powders in scenting them.
Then there are the walks and buildings; O my heart, tell us your story, although words would probably fail us. Here too, my wife is primarily responsible because she loves to go out on walks. Needless to say, Sha‘ban gets some of the credit too. I’ve discovered that she knows a number of monuments and buildings in Cairo and Fustat, many of which I had only heard of by name. When I asked her how she came to have seen so many of them, she confessed that, when Hammu al-Hihi, her first husband, had become sick, he had asked that they go on strolls as a way of relieving his depression. She had accompanied him, either trailing his wheelchair or else in boats or on mules. That’s how she had come to visit Roda Island, and even Giza and the pyramids.
One day in the month of Shawwal, I went on a journey of rediscovery, seeing parts of Cairo through my wife’s eyes. Wearing my burnous, I walked at a slow pace while my wife followed close behind wearing her Maghribi jallabiya and veil. No sooner had we left our quarter of al-Mahmudiya than she became the one walking ahead of me as though leading a horse. We went in one gate and out another, just as though she were going in the door of her home in either Fez or Cairo. We made a tour of Cairo, from Bab al-Faraj to Bab al-Mahruq, passing by Bab al-Qantara, Bab al-Futuh, Bab al-Nasr, and Bab al-Barqiya. At every one of these city gates we would look at a promenade, a famous quarter, a shrine, or a mosque. Then we made our way through al-Zahir’s gardens. We were entranced as we took in the tall palms and azarole trees with their wonderful scent and birds chirping away. Myrtle, roses, eglantine, willow, jasmine, and many other gorgeous scented plants — we savored them all. The blooms were all open and radiant, providing light, dew-drops, bees, and butterflies to the delighted passerby; the best of them, said my companion, could only be seen in dreams — how true! Their colors and shapes grew in such rich profusion that the human imagination could only grasp their beauty in terms of a gift to mankind from their primary Giver.
Via the Turjuman and Baha’ al-Din quarters teeming with people, we passed by a number of streets, markets, and stores before finally reaching the Mosque of al-Hakim. We stepped into a supply store, and I insisted on buying a length of cloth that Umm al-Banin chose, and others in the Beggars’ Market and Bayn al-Qasrayn where at her request I bought a pomegranate. At a copyist’s stall I inquired after an Egyptian copy of Ibn Hazm’s The Dove’s Neckring.
Every time my wife and I found ourselves caught in a crowd, she would lean over and say to me, “It’s Gog and Magog!” To tell the truth, there were indeed so many people living and moving so close together that it was a real crush of legs; moving was so difficult, it was like the Day of Gathering itself. At that point, I began to get concerned and pulled my wife toward me; I was worried at the way passersby were looking at her and felt a bit on edge in case something unexpected happened. Fortunately only a few wayward eyes stared in our direction; they must have assumed that the woman at my side was my daughter or something like that.
I sat down on a small bench in front of the main entrance to the Mosque of al-Hakim; after the rigors of our walk I needed a respite. Umm al-Banin sat down in front of me telling me about her visits to the mosque with her late husband, Hammu. They had visited this mosque just as often as the Azhar, the shrine of Sayyida Zaynab, and the tomb of al-Husayn.
“Is it true,” she asked me, “that this mosque was built by a tyrant?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Did he really stop women leaving their houses?”
“That and more. He ruthlessly destroyed people’s lives, inverted the clock, and banned astrology and singing.”
“By God, if I’d been alive during his reign, I’d have shown him how women from Fez do things. . ”