A Poet of the Invisible World (22 page)

He then explained that he would take Sharoud to Cairo, where he would be placed into service as a camel attendant in the court of the Sultan. The challenge would be to remain as empty in that teeming city as he was now, on the barren road, beneath the open sky. If he could achieve this, then Allah's dominion over his heart would be secure.

Sharoud had no choice but to follow his master's will. So in less than a fortnight he found himself in the sprawling metropolis along the Nile. To his purified senses, the city was a shock: like riding on the back of a wild stallion or drinking twelve cups of black koshary tea. He found, however, that he enjoyed the simple task of tending the camels. And nothing—from the bustle of the Bayn al-Qasrayn to the frenzied cries that rose up from the
khans
—seemed to threaten the inner quiet he'd attained.

He was therefore unfazed when it was announced one day that the Sultan would be traveling to a foreign court and that, as he would ride no camel but his own—a proud Bactrian the color of skimmed goat's milk that he called the Pearl of Giza—Sharoud would be required to go along. So he prepared the noble beast for the journey and they set out through the gates of the palace and over the dusty roads to an elegant barge that took them downriver to the sea, where they boarded an enormous five-masted vessel that carried them safely across the water. When they reached the far shore, they disembarked. Then they traveled on until they arrived at the foreign palace, where the two potentates sat down to tea and tried to convince one another that each was wiser and wealthier and more filled with an inviolable love for Allah than the other.

The great men conferred for three days, during which time Sharoud was able to explore the grimy city that clung, like a canker, to the palace gates. He found a mosque where he could pray, and spent most of his time either there or in the small windowless room he'd been given to share with the other attendants, who were far too distracted by the city's charms to pay heed to their unsociable companion. On the third morning, however, he decided to venture out to the palace gardens to practice
zikr.
His heart was light and as he settled himself on a marble bench he could feel Allah beckon from the fountains and the stones. Before he could dissolve in remembrance, however, he heard the sound of footsteps, and when he turned he saw a boy about the age of sixteen scurrying down the path. Sharoud would not have given him another thought had he not perceived, in a blinding flash, that it was none other than Nouri Ahmad Mohammad ibn Mahsoud al-Morad. For on that morning when Nouri had crept through the palace at dawn and had imagined he'd seen Sharoud, he hadn't imagined it at all. And though the youth shook the thought from his mind the moment he moved through the palace gates, Sharoud was consumed by the thought of Nouri from that moment on.

In the mosque—on the street—as he moved through the glittering halls of the palace—all he could think of were the ears that lurked beneath the youth's head cloth and the injustice of having been made to leave the order in Tan-Arzhan for bringing them to light. The thorn he'd tried for eight years to remove from his side was still deeply embedded. The poison he'd struggled to purge from his quarrelsome heart still flowed in his veins. And this was no more evident than when the three men with whom he shared the tiny room stumbled in, after an evening of carousing, and he sprang up in his bed and cried:

“For the sake of Allah, shut your polluted mouths and be still!”

A hush fell over the room as the revelers gaped at their seething bedfellow.

“He speaks!”

“It's a miracle!”

“He's actually human!”

Sharoud said nothing. But human was precisely what he did not wish to be. So when they returned to Cairo, he went to the
seyhulislam
of the palace mosque and asked for help.

“My heart is unclean. I need to remove myself from the world.” He paused for a moment. “Again.”

The
seyhulislam
was not a Sufi, yet he knew from the burnished glint in Sharoud's eye what he needed. So he sent him to join the order in the clouds, where Sharoud began his life as Brother Shadow.

It had been five years now since the mountain retreat had become his home. And little by little the clean air and the daily prayer and the simple coexistence with the brothers restored the peace to his heart. He knew, though, that that peace would be tested. So when he returned that evening to find Nouri sitting at the table in the kitchen, he felt neither anger nor surprise. Only the keen understanding that—no matter where he traveled—no matter how deeply he prayed—this boy was a challenge that he could not avoid.

*   *   *

FOR NOURI, THE MAIN CHALLENGE
was to prevent Sharoud's reappearance from creating a veil between himself and God. For from the moment Sharoud revealed that he knew who he was, Nouri's peace of mind was completely shattered. Resentment rose up. Insecurity. Fear. He tried to remove them with prayer, but the more that he looked within, the more flaws he observed. Obstinacy. Naïveté. Self-pity. Self-doubt. How could such a tainted vessel draw near to God?

He went to Sheikh al-Khammas to seek advice. But the Sufi master's words only confused him.

“The Sufi Way is the way of self-knowledge. God knows himself. When you know yourself, you will know God.”

For the first time, Nouri began to contemplate making the long and arduous journey to the Holy City. Sharoud seemed to have been deeply affected by his trips and, despite it being one of the basic pillars of the faith to make the pilgrimage at least once, Nouri had never been. He'd observed that Sheikh al-Khammas never spoke about the
hajj
or gave any indication that he should go. When he told him of his wish to make the journey, however, the Sufi master's response was immediate.

“The caravan leaves from Cairo in six weeks. Omar al-Hamid will accompany you until you reach the posting station. Then you'll continue on with the others.”

The following day, Sheikh al-Khammas found a lay brother named Faraz al-Aziz who was willing to provide Nouri with a camel. So Nouri set about to gather his provisions—and his strength—for the journey.

On the morning of his departure, Nouri bid farewell to the other brothers. Then he and Omar al-Hamid started down the mountain path. They continued through the village, across the desert, for days and nights, until they reached the place, just east of the throbbing city, from which the caravan would depart. Nouri was amazed at how many pilgrims there were: thousands of men, women, and children, each determined to place his or her feet on the soil where the Prophet had been spoken to by God. When the last of them had gathered, they headed out in an orderly procession behind the Sultan's
mahmal
, traveling eastward until they reached the oasis of Kuman. From there, they headed south, through the mountains, until they reached the city of Nadiz. They paused in Nadiz for several days to water their camels and rest. Then they continued on through the wretched terrain that stretched between there and Medina, the last stop before they reached the hallowed city of Mecca.

The journey from the posting station to Medina took forty-six days. Some pilgrims died of exposure along the way. Others of thirst. Some forgot the reason they'd made the trip. Others forgot their names. But when they reached Medina, their spirits rallied. They visited the Prophet's tomb and the Prophet's mosque and intoned their collective thanks to Allah. Then they loaded their camels with fresh provisions, rode to a station outside the city—where the men removed their clothes, bathed, and put on their
ihrams
—and set off on the final leg of the dusty journey.

It was a crisp autumn morning when Nouri finally entered the Holy City. He was struck by the power of the place, but whether that power was due to the fact that the Prophet had been born there, the fact that it was where he had received the Holy Book, or the sheer number of bodies that overflowed its narrow streets, he couldn't say. He only knew that he was swept along on a sea of prayer to the center of the Haram, where he joined in the impassioned circling of the great stone cube.

Nouri spent fifteen days in the Holy City. The constant eruptions of sound—the donkeys, the bells, the booming calls to prayer—were overwhelming to his ever-sensitive ears. But he stuffed them with some wax he purchased from a candlemaker and soldiered on. He found lodging at a Sufi hospice not far from the Grand Mosque, which allowed him to go there whenever he liked. He also performed the other rites of the
hajj
: the prayers at the Maqam Ibrahim, the “Running” between the hills of al-Safa and al-Marwa, the “Standing” beneath the Mount of Mercy on the plain of Arafat. At the end of the visit, he joined the Feast of the Sacrifice. Then he removed his
ihram
and headed home.

The journey back was even longer than the journey there. When they reached Nadiz, an illness swept through their weary ranks and the caravan had to remain there for nearly a month before they could travel on. A windstorm impeded their progress to Cairo, and by the time Nouri reached the gates of the mountain lodge he was gaunt and sun-dazed and aching with fatigue. The brothers were eager to hear of his adventures and Nouri did not hold back. But only Sheikh al-Khammas knew the truth, which he conveyed in a single glance.

The journey was thrilling.

Inspiring.

Exalting.

And, in the end, it did not change a thing.

“You would never have believed me if I'd told you,” said Sheikh al-Khammas. “You had to learn the truth for yourself: the real Holy City is within.”

Nouri wasn't sorry he'd made the trip. It had stirred his heart and strengthened his will. But he knew that Sheikh al-Khammas was right. So he focused his efforts on finding the Mecca within. He poured himself into the world of nature. He sat in the chapel mosque, trying to merge with a higher world. At times, the sharp line around things would melt and he would unite with a bird or a cloud or a tree. But the moment would always pass, and the feeling of separateness would return.

Perhaps he hadn't suffered enough.

Or paid enough.

Or prayed enough.

“Who are you, Nouri?” Sheikh al-Khammas would say. “You must keep asking yourself. Over and over.”

So the members of the tiny order in the clouds fell to the ground and lowered their heads and extended their arms and tried to observe who they were and who they were not.

I am not this withered body,
thought Sheikh al-Khammas.

I am not this resentment or this disdain,
thought Sharoud.

I am not these yearnings or these fears,
thought Nouri.
Or these ears.

And the days passed. And Nouri's connection with God flickered on and off, like a torch in a storm. And he prayed that he could find the strength to keep it from going out.

 

PART FIVE

 

Nineteen

So time began to change shape at the little Sufi lodge in the mountains. The days came and the days went and Nouri and Sheikh al-Khammas and Sharoud and Abbas al-Kumar and Omar al-Hamid and Yusuf al-Wali tried to empty themselves and love God. And they moved closer to the mark and they drew further away. And they struggled. And they plummeted. And they soared. And the final layer of softness was whittled from Nouri's cheeks. And Sharoud's hair turned from black sprinkled with white to white sprinkled with black. And Abbas al-Kumar grew fatter. And Omar al-Hamid grew thinner. And Yusuf al-Wali grew frailer. And Sheikh al-Khammas's skin became so gauzelike it revealed the fine tracery of the capillaries that feathered beneath it. And two years, and five years, and eight years passed. And Sheikh al-Khammas continued to mold Nouri. To temper him. To confound his logical mind and shatter the constructs within him that kept him from God.

“You must be vigilant,” said the Sufi master. “The house is on fire. And you just sit there, staring at the flames.”

When ten years had passed, Sheikh al-Khammas sent Nouri to an order in a nearby village to teach. Nouri didn't feel he was ready, but Sheikh al-Khammas knew the only way he could progress further on the path was to share his understanding with others. Nouri spent an entire year there, trying to impart what he'd learned from Sheikh al-Khammas. And though he could not say, when the year had passed, if he'd deepened the understanding of any of the brothers he'd taught, there was no doubt in his mind that he'd strengthened his own.

Another year passed. Another two. Another four. Nouri was now thirty-eight—nearly twice the age he'd been when he'd first arrived at the lodge. Yusuf al-Wali had died that spring, reducing the brothers' number from six to five. And while they'd grown used to one another's habits and quirks over the passing years, Sheikh al-Khammas was always aware of the unspoken tension—subtle as the fragrance of a peach blossom—between Nouri and Sharoud. Despite the countless meals they'd shared and the countless times they'd knelt beside one another in
zikr,
they always seemed to avoid each other's gaze. So one day—just as Sheikh Bailiri had found a way to bring Nouri and Vishpar together so many years before—Sheikh al-Khammas devised a plan to dissolve the distance between Nouri and Sharoud.

On that sunlit morning, the Sufi master and Nouri were sitting in the garden, as they had sat, almost daily, for so many years. Nouri—whose beard had grown thick and whose gaze was now firm and sure—was splitting open the large seedpods the carob tree had scattered upon the grass and was launching them, like tiny
feluccas,
onto the surface of the pool. They rarely spoke as they sat together. Nouri had asked all the questions worth asking and Sheikh al-Khammas had imparted what wisdom he could. But today there was a plan to hatch, so the Sufi master broke the silence.