Shams of Tabriz was right. The only filth was the filth inside. I shut my eyes and imagined this other me, pristine and penitent and looking much younger, walking out of the brothel and into a new life. Glowing with youth and confidence, this was what my face would have looked like if only I’d experienced security and love in my life. The vision was so alluring and so very real, despite the blood before my eyes and the throbbing in my ribs, that I couldn’t help smiling.
Kimya
KONYA, JANUARY 1246
Blushing and sweating slightly, I mustered the courage to talk to Shams of Tabriz. I had been meaning to ask him about the deepest reading of the Qur’an, but for weeks I hadn’t had a chance. Though we lived under the same roof, our paths never crossed. But this morning as I was sweeping the courtyard, Shams appeared next to me, alone and in the mood to chat. And this time not only did I manage to talk with him longer, but I also managed to look him in the eye.
“How is it going, dear Kimya?” he asked jovially.
I couldn’t help noticing that Shams looked dazed, as if he had just woken up from sleep, or else another vision. I knew he had been having visions, lately more often than ever, and by now I had learned to read the signs. Each time he had a vision, his face became pale and his eyes dreamy.
“A storm is impending,” Shams murmured, squinting at the sky, where grayish flakes swirled, heralding the first snow of the year.
This seemed the right time to ask him the question I had been holding inside. “Remember when you told me that we all understood the Qur’an in accordance with the depth of our insight?” I said carefully. “Ever since then I have been meaning to ask you about the fourth level.”
Now Shams turned toward me, his gaze raking my face. I liked it when he stared at me so attentively. I thought he was his handsomest at times like this, his lips pursed, his forehead slightly creased.
“The fourth level is unspeakable,” he said. “There is a stage after which language fails us. When you step into the zone of love, you won’t need language.”
“I wish I could step into the zone of love someday,” I blurted, but then instantly felt embarrassed. “I mean, so that I could read the Qur’an with deeper insight.”
An odd little smile etched Shams’s mouth. “If you have it in you, I am sure you will. You’ll dive into the fourth current, and then you’ll be the stream.”
I had forgotten this mixed feeling that only Shams was capable of stirring in me. Next to him I felt both like a child learning life anew and like a woman ready to nurture life inside my womb.
“What do you mean, ‘if you have it in you’?” I asked. “You mean, like destiny?”
“Yes, that’s right.” Shams nodded.
“But what does destiny mean?”
“I cannot tell you what destiny is. All I can tell you is what it isn’t. In fact, there is another rule regarding this question. Destiny doesn’t mean that your life has been strictly predetermined. Therefore, to leave everything to fate and to not actively contribute to the music of the universe is a sign of sheer ignorance.
“The music of the universe is all-pervading and it is composed on forty different levels.
“Your destiny is the level where you will play your tune. You might not change your instrument but how well to play is entirely in your hands.”
I must have given him a befuddled look, for Shams felt the need to explain. He placed his hand on mine, gently squeezing. With dark, deep eyes glinting he said, “Allow me to tell you a story.”
And here is what he told me:
One day a young woman asked a dervish what fate was about. “Come with me,” the dervish said. “Let’s take a look at the world together.” Soon they ran into a procession. A killer was being taken to the plaza to be hanged. The dervish asked, “That man will be executed. But is that because somebody gave him the money with which he bought his murder weapon? Or is it because nobody stopped him while he was committing the crime? Or is it because someone caught him afterward? Where is the cause and effect in this case?”
I interjected, cutting his story short, and said, “That man is going to be hanged because what he did was awful. He is paying for what he did. There is the cause and there, too, the effect. There are good things and bad things, and a difference between the two.”
“Ah, sweet Kimya,” Shams replied, in a small voice as if he suddenly felt tired. “You like distinctions because you think they make life easier. What if things are not that clear all the time?”
“But God wants us to be clear. Otherwise there would be no notions of haram or halal. There would be no hell and heaven. Imagine if you could not scare people with hell or encourage them with heaven. The world would be a whole lot worse.”
Snowflakes skittered in the wind, and Shams leaned forward to pull my shawl tighter. For a passing moment, I stood frozen, inhaling his smell. It was a mixture of sandalwood and soft amber with a faint, crisp tang underneath, like the smell of earth after the rain. I felt a warm glow in the pit of my stomach and a wave of desire between my legs. How embarrassing it was—and yet, oddly, not embarrassing at all.
“In love, boundaries are blurred,” said Shams, staring at me half compassionately, half concernedly.
Was he talking about the Love of God or the love between a woman and a man? Could he be referring to us? Was there such a thing as “us”?
Unaware of my thoughts, Shams continued. “I don’t care about haram or halal. I’d rather extinguish the fire in hell and burn heaven, so that people could start loving God for no other reason than love.”
“You shouldn’t go around saying such things. People are mean. Not everyone would understand,” I said, not realizing that I would have to think more about this warning before its full implications could sink in.
Shams smiled a brave, almost valiant smile. I allowed him to hold me captive, his palm feeling hot and heavy against mine.
“Perhaps you are right, but don’t you think that gives me all the more reason to speak my mind? Besides, narrow-minded people are deaf anyhow. To their sealed ears, whatever I say is sheer blasphemy.”
“Whereas to me everything you say is only sweet!”
Shams looked at me with a disbelief that verged on astonishment. But I was more shocked than he was. How could I have said such a thing? Had I taken leave of my senses? I must have been possessed by a djinn or something.
“I’m sorry, I’d better go now,” I said as I jumped to my feet.
My cheeks burning with shame, my heart pounding with all the things we had said and left unsaid, I scampered out of the courtyard back into the house. But even as I ran, I knew that a threshold had been crossed. After this moment I could not ignore the truth that I had known all along: I was in love with Shams of Tabriz.
Shams
KONYA, JANUARY 1246
Bad-mouthing one another is second nature to many people. I heard the rumors about me. Ever since I came to Konya, there have been so many of them. It doesn’t surprise me. Although it clearly says in the Qur’an that slandering is one of the gravest sins ever, most people make hardly any effort to avoid it. They always condemn those who drink wine, or are on the lookout for adulterous women to stone, but when it comes to gossiping, which is a far more serious sin in the eyes of God, they take no notice of any wrongdoing.
All of this reminds me of a story.
One day a man came running to a Sufi and said, panting, “Hey, they are carrying trays, look over there!”
The Sufi answered calmly, “What is it to us? Is it any of my business?”
“But they are taking those trays to your house!” the man exclaimed.
“Then is it any of your business?” the Sufi said.
Unfortunately, people always watch the trays of others. Instead of minding their own business, they pass judgment on other people. It never ceases to amaze me the things they fabricate! Their imagination knows no limits when it comes to suspicion and slander.
Apparently there are peop
le in this town who believe that I am the secret commander of the Assassins. Some go so far as to claim that I am the son of the last Ismaili imam of Alamut. They say I am so skilled in black magic and witchcraft that whomever I curse will die on the spot. Some others even make the outrageous accusation that I have put a spell on Rumi. Just to make sure he doesn’t break the spell, I force him to drink snake soup every day at dawn!
When I hear such claptrap, I laugh and walk away. What else is there to do? What harm comes to a dervish from the sourness of others? If the whole world were swallowed by the sea, what would it matter to a duck?
Nevertheless, I can see that the people around me are worried, particularly Sultan Walad. He is such a bright young man I am sure someday soon he will become his father’s best aide. And then there is Kimya, sweet Kimya.… She, too, seems concerned. But the worst thing about the gossip is that Rumi gets his share of vilification. Unlike me, he isn’t used to being bad-mouthed by others. It torments me to see him distressed over the words of ignorant people. Mawlana has immense beauty inside. I, on the other hand, have both beauty and ugliness. It is easier for me to deal with the ugliness of others than it is for him. But how can an erudite scholar who is used to having serious conversations and logical conclusions handle the claptrap of ignorant people?
No wonder the Prophet Muhammad said, “In this world take pity on three kinds of people. The rich man who has lost his fortune, the well-respected man who has lost his respectability, and the wise man who is surrounded by ignorants.”
And yet I can’t help thinking that there could be some good for Rumi in all this. Slander is a hurtful, albeit necessary, element in Rumi’s inner transformation. His whole life he has been admired, respected, and imitated, having a reputation beyond reproach. He doesn’t know how it feels to be misunderstood and criticized by others. Nor has he been pestered by the sort of vulnerability and loneliness that one feels from time to time. His ego has not been bruised, not even slightly damaged, by other people. But he needs that. As hurtful as it is, being slandered is ultimately good for one on the path. It is Rule Number Thirty: The true Sufi is such that even when he is unjustly accused, attacked, and condemned from all sides, he patiently endures, uttering not a single bad word about any of his critics. A Sufi never apportions blame. How can there be opponents or rivals or even “others” when there is no “self” in the first place?
How can there be anyone to blame when there is only One?
Ella
NORTHAMPTON, JUNE 17, 2008
Beloved Ella,
You were kind enough to ask me to tell you more. Frankly, I do not find it easy to write about this period of my life for it brings back unwanted memories. But here it is:
After Margot’s death my life underwent a dramatic change. Losing myself in a circle of addicts, becoming a regular at all-night parties and dance clubs in an Amsterdam I had never known before, I looked for comfort and compassion in all the wrong places. I became a night creature, befriended the wrong people, woke up in strangers’ beds, and lost more than twenty-five pounds in just a few months.
The first time I sniffed heroin, I threw up and got so sick I couldn’t keep my head up the whole day. My body had rejected the drug. It was a sign but I was in no state to see it. Before I knew it, I had replaced sniffing with injections. Marijuana, hashish, acid, cocaine—I tried whatever I could get my hands on. It didn’t take me long to make a mess of myself, mentally and physically. Everything I did, I did to stay high.
And when high I planned spectacular ways to kill myself. I even tried hemlock, in the manner of Socrates, but either its poison didn’t have an effect on me or the dark herb I bought at the back door of a Chinese takeout was some ordinary plant. Perhaps they sold me some kind of green tea and had a laugh at my expense. Many mornings I woke up in unfamiliar places with someone new by my side, but with the same emptiness eating me up inside. Women took care of me. Some were younger than me, others much older. I lived in their houses, slept in their beds, stayed in their summer resorts, ate the food they cooked, wore their husbands’ clothes, shopped with their credit cards, and refused to give them even a speck of the love they demanded and no doubt deserved.
The life I had chosen quickly took its toll. I lost my job, I lost my friends, and finally I lost the apartment Margot and I had spent many happy days in. When it became apparent that I couldn’t bear this lifestyle anymore, I stayed in squat houses where everything was collective. I spent more than fifteen months at one squat house in Rotterdam. There were no doors in the building, neither outside nor inside, not even in the bathroom. We shared everything. Our songs, dreams, pocket money, drugs, food, beds … Everything but the pain.
Years into a life of drugs and debauchery, I hit rock bottom, a shadow of the man I used to be. As I was washing my face one morning, I stared into the mirror. I had never seen anybody so young who was so drained and sad. I went back to bed and cried like a child. The same day I rummaged through the boxes where I kept Margot’s belongings. Her books, clothes, records, hairpins, notes, pictures—one by one, I bade farewell to every keepsake. Then I put them back in boxes and gave them away to the children of the immigrants she cared so deeply about. It was 1977.
With the help of God-sent connections, I found a job at a well-known travel magazine as a photographer. This is how I embarked on a journey to North Africa with a canvas suitcase and a framed picture of Margot, running away from the man I had become.
Then a British anthropologist I met in the Saharan Atlas gave me an idea. He asked me if I had ever considered being the first Western photographer to sneak into the holiest cities of Islam. I didn’t know what he was talking about. He said there was a Saudi law that strictly forbade non-Muslims from entering Mecca and Medina. No Christians or Jews were allowed, unless one found a way to break in to the city and take pictures. If caught, you could go to jail, or even worse. I was all ears. The thrill of trespassing into forbidden territory, achieving what no one else had accomplished before, the surge of adrenaline, not to mention the fame and money that would come at the end … I was attracted to the idea like a bee drawn to a pot of honey.
The anthropologist said I could not do this alone and needed a connection. He suggested checking the Sufi brotherhoods in the area. You never know, they might agree to help, he said.
I didn’t know anything about Sufism, and I couldn’t have cared less. As long as they offered to help, I was happy to meet the Sufis. To me they were just a means to an end. But then, at the time, so was everyone and everything else.
Life is odd, Ella. In the end I never made it to Mecca or Medina. Not then, not later. Not even after I converted to Islam. Destiny took me on a different route altogether, one of unexpected twists and turns, each of which changed me so profoundly and irrevocably that after a while the original destination lost its significance. Though motivated by purely materialistic reasons at the outset, when the journey came to an end, I was a transformed man.
As for the Sufis, who could have known that what I had initially seen as a means to an end would very soon become an end in itself? This part of my life I call my encounter with the letter u in the word “Sufi.”
Love,
Aziz
Desert Rose the Harlot
KONYA, FEBRUARY 1246
Bitter and bleak, the day I left the brothel was the coldest day in forty years. The narrow, serpentine streets glistened with fresh snow, and sharp pendants of ice hung from the roofs of the houses and the minarets of the mosques in dangerous beauty. By midafternoon the chill had become so severe there were frozen cats on the streets with whiskers turned into thin threads of ice, and several ramshackle houses collapsed under the weight of the snow. After the street cats, Konya’s homeless suffered the most. There were half a dozen frozen bodies—all curled up in the fetal position with beatific smiles on their faces, as if expecting to be reborn into a better and warmer life.
Late in the afternoon, when everyone was taking a nap before the
hustle of the evening began, I sneaked out of my room. I took no more than a few simple clothes, leaving behind all the silk garments and accessories I used to wear for special customers. Whatever was earned in the brothel had to stay in the brothel.
Halfway down the stairs, I saw Magnolia standing at the main door, chewing the brown leaves she was addicted to. Older than all the other girls in the brothel, lately she had been complaining about hot flashes. At night I heard her toss and turn in bed. It was no secret that her womanhood was drying up. Younger girls jokingly said they envied Magnolia, since she would not have to worry about having periods, pregnancies, or abortions anymore and could sleep with a man every single day of the month, but we all knew that an aged prostitute had little chance of survival.
As soon as I saw Magnolia standing there, I knew I had only two options: either return to my room and forget about running away or walk through that door and bear the consequences. My heart chose the latter.
“Hey, Magnolia, are you feeling better?” I said, adopting what I hoped was a relaxed and casual tone of voice.
Magnolia’s face brightened but then darkened again as she noticed the bag in my hand. There was no point in lying. She knew that the patron had forbidden me to leave my room, never mind leaving the brothel.
“Are you leaving?” Magnolia gasped as if the question scared her.
I didn’t say anything. Now it was her turn to make a choice. She could either stop me in my tracks and alert everyone to my plan or simply let me go. Magnolia stared at me, her expression grave and embittered.