Where is her name in his annals? Is she too tight-locked in a small chest, committed not to parchment but recorded on the heart? Where the real book of life lays engraven?
Perhaps I should have done as you did, my friend, and headed East to seek my fortune. But instead I remained, learning at the feet of my master, a dazzling polymath, an eminent writer. Oh, the life of the court in those days! Vibrant. Startling. al-Gani in plastered robes, urging me to compose harder, faster, the celebration day approached. She touched my hand that day, the soft touch of a child a woman become.
He lifts the pen, contemplates the world beyond his window. His hand trembles. It is a fragile scribe these days.
Once, my friend, you told how the dead know what happens in the world of the living, how they bear witness to the tapping shoes of those who have forsaken them. But I know this already before I am even cold within a grave. Yes, here, right here and now, I hear the shoes that tap.
Oh, but I have served al-Gani so many years! So many qasidas for as many celebrations, so many epigrams woven to cloth or plastered into niches, carved into friezes or adorning manuscripts. All the verses – of admiration and praise for his kingdom and person – all the verses mine! But I have seen the shoes, my friend. Yes, they already tap.
It is enough for the day. Zamrak leaves his chamber, crosses the madrasa, steps from the gallery into the garden and walks to the fountain at its centre. No need to read the words inscribed there. Clear as the pool is the memory of his heart dictating a verse which caught his sorrow, anger, passion.
He holds his hand above the water – like melted silver flowing through pearls, he had written – and his hand quakes to see all the tears he could never shed suspended in its depths.
Once, do you remember? That once we loved? We were both refused. In the end.
The caravan continues on the hajj to Mecca, and atop a stony rise, Khaldun pauses, waits until pilgrim voices are but a distant murmur, their forms scuffed dust rising from a sandy track.
Wherever I turn there is the face of Allah, he thinks. I am the still point at the centre of the circumference, the point about which the universe turns.
His memory traces the lines of Chinese characters he once shared with her:
Life and death are born together
Sound and silence blend as one
Before and after arrive as one
The wind wakes, breathes deep, looks about and shakes herself alert to conjure a small eddy. Catching the sand up in her arms, a dervish blind to all in her path, she twirls her Beloved in a dance between here and there, between before and after.
Here, now, his still point shifts.
Khaldun sits with his apple tea and waterpipe, taps the scroll containing the slim letter so-received, considers the words of Khayyam:
The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy piety and wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.
Taps the scroll a last time. No need to remove the parchment.
For if there is an art to translation, to interpreting that which is not inscribed upon the page but instead, deeper, on the heart – that which is written into the sighs of a pen moving as one with its lover, or the pauses when nib is lifted, put aside for a moment’s reflection or to gaze from a jalousied window into the beyond of a blue-dyed sky, and back to the page to find the sun reflected there, the alchemy of creation itself – Khaldun understood that letter, the other letter. The one never sent, the one never received.
Yes, he can see the lines, translate the words scripted as sighs and laments and memories unmade by a man’s aged and trembling heart.
Once, do you remember? That once we loved? We were both refused. In the end.
Once, he thinks. Yes. This did all happen. Once.
Glossary
al-Andalus: The Arabic name (meaning land of the Vandals, the Goths) for present-day Andalusia, Spain’s southern province.
Alcazar: Fortress or castle.
Albaicin: Medieval Moorish quarter in Granada, beginning on the riverbank below the Sabika hill on which the Alhambra stands, its labyrinthine alleys rising up the hillside opposite.
Alhambra: Present-day Spanish name for the Nasrid palace above the city.
Allah: Arabic name for God.
Almori: A herb and spice paste to flavour dishes.
Astrolabe: Astronomical instrument used for locating and predicting the location of sun, moon, planets and stars for navigation, surveying and time-keeping.
Acquiea Real: Canal coursing the Alhambra medina, from which all water is sourced for its fountains and pools.
Baraka: Blessings.
Barca: Salon in Alhambra used for meals.
Black Death: One of the deadliest pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350.
Caliph: King, sultan – used interchangeably in the text.
Cantigas: Sung verses, in the troubadour tradition.
Concubines: Women of the harem – slaves or voluntary who were not officially married to the sultan.
Convivencia: Spanish word for peaceable relations between cultures.
Dais: Floor-level lectern at which one sits on a cushion to write.
Dhikr: Remembrance of God – a meditative chant used by Sufis.
Dinar: Gold coin dating back to the earliest days of Islam.
Diwan: A collection of poetry.
Djinn: Spirits.
Eunuch: Castrated male slave in the service of the harem.
Fass: Bowl.
Feija: Tribe of the central Anti-Atlas mountains in Morocco.
Ferrane: Public bakery.
Fqih: Spiritual healer, medicine man of the tribe.
Gazelle: Arabic word for deer – hence its use even in a Spanish geographic context.
Generalife: Summer palace and country estate of Nasrids – across the gorge from the Alhambra, it bordered the forests of the royal hunting grounds.
Ghazal: A poetic verse in couplet form.
Hadith: Sayings of the Prophet – narrations arising from his words and deeds.
Haik: Over-wrap or cloak, decorated with protective symbols.
Hajj: Pilgrimage to Mecca.
Hammam: Bath-house – including steam rooms.
Harem: Meaning forbidden or sacred, it refers to the women’s household, restricted to men.
Infidel: One who does not believe in religion – in the context of this text, one who does not share the religion of the other’s Faith.
Jalousie: Window design which includes wooden shutters – in Moorish lands these were patterned with stars or geometric shapes.
Khubz: Arabic flat bread.
Lute: Medieval form of guitar.
Maghreb: Literally the land where the sun sets behind the sea – now centred around present-day Morocco.
Madinat al-Hamra: The red palace, seat of the Nasrid dynasty of the kingdom of Granada.
Madrasa: Islamic educational institution, school.
Medina: Inner-city, old town.
Merinid: Dynastic Berber rulers of the Maghreb (Morocco) from the mid-13th century until the 15th century.
Mezquita: Spanish word for mosque.
Mexuar: Hall which hosts the Council of Justice.
Mirador: Literally scenic look-out in Spanish – in this case referring to the palace rooms/turrets which offered views over the kingdom and gardens.
Mozarab: A non-Muslim who has grown up in a Muslim culture.
Nasrid: Dynastic rulers of the kingdom of Granada from 1232 to 1492, the last Moorish dynasty in Spain.
Patio: Enclosed courtyard within the palace complex, usually with fountain or pool at its centre.
Peoples of the Book: All those who share the monotheistic faith in one God, descended from the Hebrew tradition – therefore, Jews, Christians and Muslims. Described as such in the Holy Qur’an.
Prophet: Muhammad, who transcribed the Hol
y Qur’an in the 7th century.
Pyxide: Small jewellery box, usually with domed lid.
Qasida: A form of poetry from pre-Islamic Arabia, usually more than fifty lines in length, and panegyric in nature – praising a king or his works.
Ragusa: Present-day Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Rawda: Garden, also cemetery – with their cypresses and myrtle groves, a cemetery garden is a popular place for picnics and recitals.
Royal Hayr: Nasrid hunting park in hills above Generalife.
Sabika: Ridge above Granada on which the Alhambra is built.
Scheherazade: The narrator of the Tales of the Arabian Nights (also known as The Thousand and One Nights).
Scimitar: Sword with a curved blade.
Simorgh: Great spirit bird from Attar’s Conference of the Birds.
Stela: Tombstone.
Sufism: Inner, esoteric, mystical branch of Islam – a non-dogmatic tradition of devotion universal in nature.
Sultan: King, caliph – used interchangeably in the text.
Suq: Market or bazaar.
Surah: Chapter of the Holy Qur’an.
Tagine: Moorish dish named after the heavy clay pot in which it is oven-cooked and served – the pot has a conical lid.
Tannur: Cylindrical clay oven used in cooking and baking.
Teteria: Tea salon.
Tiraz: Embroidery, usually with a geometric patterning of motifs or Qur’anic inscriptions involved, replicating the mosaic tilework of Moorish design.
Tuareg: Berber tribesmen of the western Sahara.
Vega: Wide plain of rolling grasslands, meadows.
Velebit: Mountain range separating Croatia’s Dalmatian coast from the interior.
Zambra: Form of dance, usually bare-foot with finger cymbals – now evolved into a flamenco style.
Zina: Adultery, crime punishable by stoning.
Citations and References
Central to this text has been the quoting of verses from the pens of masters. In addition to citations from the Holy Qur’an and the Holy Bible, the following publications were used as source material for the poetry, Sufi and Chinese Taoist wisdoms contained herein:
Attar (1120?-1200?):
Attar, F U-D 1984, The Conference of the Birds, Penguin Classics, London.
Avery, K & Alizadeh, A (eds.) 2007, Fifty Poems of Attar, re.press, Melbourne.
Hafiz (1320-1389):
Hafiz 2006, I Heard God Laughing, Penguin, London.
Ibn Arabi (1165-1240):
Ibn Arabi 2001, Contemplation of the Holy Mysteries, Anqa Publishing, Oxford.
Sells, MA 2000, Stations of Desire: Love Elegies from Ibn Arabi and New Poems, Ibis Editions, Jerusalem.
Rabi’a (717-801):
Helminski, CA (ed.) 2003, Women of Sufism: a Hidden Treasure, Shambhala, Boston.
Rumi (1207-1273):
Barks, C (ed.) 2003, Rumi: The Book of Love, Harper One, New York.
Helminski, CA (ed.) 2003, Women of Sufism: a Hidden Treasure, Shambhala, Boston.
Helminski, K (ed.) 2008, The Pocket Rumi. Shambhala, Boston.
Lao Tzu (circa 500BC):
Tzu, L 2008, Tao Te Ching, Tarcher Cornerstone, New York.
Poems by other writers were sourced from the following texts:
Alfonso X 13th C, ‘Song of the Monk’, in Kulp-Hill, K (ed.) 2000, Songs of Holy Mary of Alfonso X, the Wise: a translation of the Cantigas de Santa Maria, Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Tempe, AZ.
Fitzgerald, EJ (ed.) 1996, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Axiom Publishing, Adelaide.
Franzen, C (ed.) 1989, Poems of Arab Andalusia, City Lights Books, San Francisco.
Gorton, TJ (ed.) 2007, Andalus: Moorish Songs of Love and Wine, Eland, London.
Metioui, O 2000, Misticismo: Musica Sufi Andalusi [CD], Pneuma PN200, Madrid.
Núñez, JA (ed.) 2007, The Alhambra and Granada in Focus, Ediciones Edilux, Granada.
Paniagua, E 2000, Poemas de la Alhambra [CD], Pneuma PN203, Madrid.
Paniagua, E 2003, Wallada, Ibn Zaydun: una Historia de Amor y Poesia [CD], Pneuma PN500, Madrid.
Wimmer, T 1995, Sephardic Romances [CD], Naxos LC5537, Vienna.
Meanwhile, many references assisted in my creation of this work of imagination. Although completely imaginative in its conception, storyline, and the voicing of its different characters, the action occurs against a backdrop of historical fact.
For example, while the main protagonists, Laleima and Sébastien, are imagined, they are set into the drama of the Nasrid and Castilian courts of the 14th century, as documented by historical texts.
The following reference materials therefore provided background information on the life and times of historical figures such as Muhammad V, his courtiers Ibn al-Khatib and Ibn Zamrak, as well as the historiographer Ibn Khaldun, together with events recorded about the Nasrid court at that time. This included consulting information about the works of scientists and philosophers they themselves quoted, such as Averroes and Maimonides, as well as the poetry of masters such as Ibn Arabi, Hafiz, Rabi’a and Rumi. Yet, as with many historical documents from the medieval period, embellished detail is lacking – a name here, a date there, an anecdote told, a rumour suggested. This latter refers to the claim that al-Khatib died by the hand of Zamrak in his prison cell in Fez, amongst others.
It is important to note that my research was limited to English language publications in the main – works in Arabic and Spanish are undoubtedly more extensive than the volumes cited herein, nevertheless many of the works I consulted included translations from their own source texts – for example, the verse written by al-Khatib while he awaited trial in Fez.
However, as a work of fiction, my intent was never to replicate historical accuracy, simply to provide context relevant to a fictional story which demanded to be told – my desire, throughout, has been to weave into the weft of history, voices which could give form to the whole. The context provided by the following readings, therefore, was as important to my imagining of the ‘whys’ and ‘wherefores’ of penned laments or court intrigues as for a reader’s comprehension in entering this world.
Ansari, S 1996, ‘The Islamic World in the Era of Western Domination: 1800 to the Present’, in Robinson, F (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.90-121.
Attar, F U-D 1984, The Conference of the Birds, Penguin Classics, London.
Avery, K & Alizadeh, A (eds.) 2007, Fifty Poems of Attar, re.press, Melbourne.
Baker, CF 2007, Qur’an Manuscripts, The British Library, London.
Bartlett, R 1994, The Making of Europe, Penguin, London.
Benjamin, W 2007, Illuminations, Schocken Books, New York.
Bilgin, Y 1997, Le Concert de Nanterre [CD], Media7 LC7861, Paris.
Burckhardt, T 2001, Mystical Astrology According to Ibn ‘Arabi, Fons Vitae, Louisville, KY.
Burton, R 1927, The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi, Elkin Mathews & Marrot, London.
Chaudhuri, KN 1996, ‘The Economy in Muslim Societies’, in Robinson, F (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.124-163.
Crone, P 1996, ‘The Rise of Islam in the World’, in Robinson, F (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.2-31.
de la Cuesta, IF & Lara, F 1993, Canto Gregoriano [CD], EMI Odeon CMB5652172, Madrid.
Delgado, L. 2000, El Hechizo de Babilonia [CD], Nubenegra LC12703, Madrid.
Dennis, L & L 1992, Living in Morocco: Design from Casablanca to Marrakesh, Thames & Hudson, London.
Fitzgerald, EJ (ed.) 1996, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Axiom Publishing, Adelaide.
Fletcher, R 1992, Moorish Spain, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London.
Franzen, C (ed.) 1989, Poems of Arab Andalusia, City Lights Books, San Francisco.
Ghosh, A 1984, In an Antique Land, Granta Books, London.
Goet
he, JW von 1914, West-Eastern Divan, JM Dent & Sons, London.
Gorton, TJ (ed.) 2007, Andalus: Moorish Songs of Love and Wine, Eland, London.
Haddawy, H (ed.) 1990, The Arabian Nights: based on the text of the 14th century manuscript edited by Muhsin Mahdi, W.W. Norton & Co, New York.
Haeri, SF 2004, The Thoughtful Guide to Sufism, O Books, Winchester, UK.
Hafiz 2006, I Heard God Laughing, Penguin, London.
Hambly, GRC (ed.) 1998, Women in the Medieval Islamic World, Macmillan, London.
Harrison, RP 2008, Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Helminski, CA (ed.) 2003, Women of Sufism: a Hidden Treasure, Shambhala, Boston.
Helminski, K (ed.) 2008, The Pocket Rumi, Shambhala, Boston.
Hintzen-Bohlen, B 1999, Andalusien: Kunst & Architektur, Könemann, Köln.
Hofmann, F (ed.) 1998, Andalusische Ansichten, Winfried Jenior, Kassel, DE.
Irving, W 1994, Tales of the Alhambra. Granada, Ediciones Miguel Sanchez, Spain.
Irwin, R 1996, ‘The Emergence of the Islamic World System 1000-1500’, in Robinson, F (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp.32-61.
Irwin, R 2004, The Alhambra, Profile Books, London.
Khair, T, Edwards, J, Leer, M & Ziadeh, H (eds.) 2006, Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing, Signal Books, Oxford.
Korolnik, A & M 2002, The Colour of Henna: Painted Textiles from Southern Morocco, Arnoldsche Verlag, Stuttgart, DE.
Lorca, FG 1986, Diwan des Tamarit – Diván del Tamarit, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main.
Lowney, C 2005, A Vanished World: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Maalouf, A 1984, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, Al Saqi Books, London.
Mackintosh-Smith, T 2002, Travels with a Tangerine: a Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah, Picador, London.
Maurières, A & Ossart, E 2001, Orientalische Gärten – Inspirationen für die Gestaltung, Christian Verlag, Munich.
Menocal, MR 2002, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, Little, Brown & Co, New York.
Metioui, O 2000, Misticismo: Musica Sufi Andalusi [CD], Pneuma PN200, Madrid.