The fetishists, p.2
The Fetishists, page 2
The leader was delighted with his guest and honored him by slaughtering animals. Shaykhs and headmen surrounded him for three days, and the tribe’s young women entertained him with singing and innocent music. On the fourth day, the leader consulted with the headmen of the clans and then—on their behalf—invited the jurist to stay with them to clarify religious matters that seemed obscure to them and to teach their children the Quran. He asked for time to consider the offer. Then he requested permission to return home to Touat to tend to some personal business, on the understanding that he would return in a few months to settle permanently among them. The nobles saw him off, providing him with camels laden with water, supplies, and slaves, but he returned in short order—after traveling only halfway home. To justify his sudden decision to return, he said that worldly matters did not balance out the hardship of a trip and that a man should himself begin by divesting, if he wanted to convince others of the new path.
Since the people of the desert were not abreast of the struggle between the various factions in Islam, they did not understand what he said about his differences with the jurists and continued to call him “the jurist.” First he decided to train a vanguard of students. He taught these children the Quran and made sure that they received his teachings undiluted and unmediated. Then he decided to take the next step and organized his Searchers for Reality into teams to help him execute a plan he had devised to combat the heresies of the pagans and the rites of the Fetishists. He fastened a protective talisman around the neck of each novice and instructed them to throw stones at the diviner Temet. He erected a special tabernacle on the hill overlooking the well and made it a center for Sufi dhikr, Quranic recitation, and reunions with his novices. The sounds of tambourines and singing were frequently heard from the tent as the acolytes chanted Sufi hymns. From this godly hermitage, the jurist devised methods of guidance to the path of deliverance and freedom. After he stopped the diviner from predicting the future and composing Satanic talismans for members of the tribe, the jurist descended on the encampment with his disciples to take the next step in propagating the faith. He had met previously with the nobles and headmen in the tent of the leader, Adda, to ask them to begin to work on themselves if they wanted to gain paradise. They were disconcerted and exchanged nervous glances. Then the Qadiri shaykh said, “The time has come for you to stop raiding the forestlands and the river.”
As their astonishment increased, the leader asked, “What will we do without captives and slaves?”
“Each possessor is himself possessed. And no owner has any right to aspire to the blessing of freedom.”
“But in our raids we don’t just take captives and slaves; we also spread the good news of Islam.”
“No one spreads Islam by hunting down God’s slaves like livestock and turning them into his personal slaves.”
There was a general silence, and the shaykh pressed his offensive further: “There’s more.”
They looked at him disapprovingly, but he continued as if he hadn’t noticed, “You must each free every captive woman and enslaved man.”
They were silent for a long time until the leader spoke again, “What’s done is done. May God forgive us our past deeds.”
“No, everything is recorded on a Preserved Tablet.”
“But most of these prominent men have taken their captured women as concubines and others have made some of them wives according to the Sunnah of God and His Messenger.”
“Captured women are forbidden as concubines, and these wives were raped at sword point.”
A gloomy silence lasted a long time. Then the leader tried again: “Do you want us to divorce them?”
“The best good deed is the promptest.”
“But of all the acts that God sanctions, divorce is the one He hates the most.”
“That’s true, but only when the union has been made with the consent of both parties.”
“If the slaves refuse emancipation and ask to remain in the care of the master—what should we do then? Shall we force them to leave?”
“Absolutely. They must. Everyone prefers to hide in bondage and thus escape freedom. Deliverance is a huge burden, and we must begin with the slave, if we wish to change ourselves and begin our sacred effort.”
“Your teachings are cruel!”
“Unless one is born a second time, he will not taste felicity. All divine teachings are cruel.”
As the wise leader had anticipated, emancipation of the slaves did not prove easy. The male slaves rejected liberation and assembled in the plain, where they were joined by the newly divorced black women, who dragged their mixed-race children behind them. Together they headed for the tabernacle, where they demonstrated, screamed curses, and threw stones. The novices fought them off with sticks, cudgels, and fists.
The conflict left many wounded and one slain. Prominent foes of the Qadiriya movement were delighted, but the shaykh decided to confront the crisis with two precious talismans that have proven successful in every time and place: patience and cunning.
He went out the next day when the protestors were congregating in front of the tabernacle and addressed them: “I understand that nothing is harder than vanquishing the Self. But don’t forget that the reward is proportionate to the sacrifice. The Prophet’s Companions provide an example for us. They accepted death, but the blessing of life was predestined for them. Unless you are born today, you will not be born tomorrow.”
More than one voice interrupted him: “We don’t want to be born tomorrow. Let us be as we are today and leave us alone.”
He, however, continued patiently: “We were born free. . . .”
Many voices interrupted him in unison: “We don’t want freedom. Leave us alone. We want to live in our masters’ custody.”
“Your Master is God, and paradise lies at the feet of freedom.”
“We don’t want paradise. Leave us alone. Go away!”
“You say this because you’ve never tasted freedom. Give me a week, and you yourselves will see how revived you feel.”
Everyone was silent for some moments. It seemed this would continue, but one strapping woman, who was waving her weeping child in his face, shouted, “You have orphaned our children, depriving them of their father’s affection.”
Another added: “We want to return to our husbands.”
The shaykh was silent and heard laments and curses. He clearly understood the cruelty of what he had undertaken but decided not to back down, having gone this far. He noticed the diviner among the women and heard a grief-stricken voice say, “We want to return to our lovers. We don’t want to go to your paradise in chains.”
He wiped his face with both hands and muttered in despair: “I take refuge in God. Fear God. There is no power save God’s.”
He was about to lose heart and accept defeat when the wives of the headmen rushed to his aid.
2
The history of the noble women’s suffering began with a raid the leader organized against the forestlands. They frequently dated their misfortune to the sad day when his messenger arrived on a young piebald camel as skinny as a gazelle to fetch a camel laden with water skins for the warriors, who were a day’s ride from the encampment. They had learned from previous experience that when riders were returning from raids against other tribes, the messenger would come to inform them of the riders’ impending arrival to give them a chance to prepare welcoming celebrations for the victorious men. Then they would quickly dye their hands and feet with henna, bathe, scent their bodies with incense and wild flowers, and perfume themselves with the rare fragrance known as tidit, which they borrowed from one another; the bottle, which was brought out of hiding for precisely such occasions, circulated among all of the encampment’s married women. They performed the same rituals that day.
Every woman donned her finest attire: a white refighet blouse with a blue tari tunic over it and then finally a purple taberrakamt wrap. On their henna-dyed fingers gleamed silver rings, and pendants dangled from their ears. Bracelets encircled slender wrists, and on that day each neck was adorned with necklaces of colored beads. They carefully removed any gold jewelry, to avoid the evil this demonic metal might attract. They readied the drums and warmed up their tongues for trills and their throats for songs of sorrowful longing.
The groups set out early and the grand procession moved over the bare hills and along the acacia valleys to the south, where the peaks of the Akakus reached toward the heavens. Their astonishment was enormous when they observed the spoils of the raid, because—with the herds of camels, cows, sheep, and goats—black men and women walked in a long queue, urged forward by giant vassals of the tribe, while other vassals prodded herds of captured livestock. Then the songs of desire died on the noble women’s lips.
The beast known as jealousy awoke, since it was not hard for a woman, who imagines that there is lurking in her husband’s shadow a co-wife who will compete with her for control of her husband, to grasp the danger that these towering Ethiopian women—perceived as fantasy women—might constitute for men, whom the women had learned from experience were weak-willed and to whom even a towering acacia shrub by the light of the full moon seemed a slender maiden from paradise’s harem.
The combatants divided the spoils from the raid among themselves but quarreled for a long time over the female captives. Then the leader intervened and distributed the booty according to his wisdom. He said, “Justice decrees that the judgment will be determined by drawing lots, which is a law no man claims has ever wronged anyone in the desert.” Flamboyant turbans nodded in agreement and hands relaxed their grip on sword handles. The leader continued: “Each female captive will be equivalent to three male slaves. Is there any objection? With God’s blessing then.”
The distribution concluded, and the women’s troubles began.
The third day after their return, the leader summoned an itinerant jurist and married him to a strapping Ethiopian captive. The other men saw that as an open invitation and vied with each other to mate with their women captives—according to the Sunnah of God and His Messenger—within sight and hearing of their wives and children.
Then suffering found its way into the souls of the happy noble women.
3
Once the women heard the jurist’s call for liberation of both souls and slaves, they praised God and prayed that this long-awaited Mahdi, who would return men to their senses and to the straight path, would emerge victorious and free them from the tyranny of their black co-wives.
A number of noble women paid a visit to the tabernacle, where the wife of one of the nobles declared, “I used to think I was free and a noble. I couldn’t have imagined then that a black slave would enslave me!”
Her companion agreed, “We used to think we were ladies. Then we were subjugated and humiliated.”
The Sufi shaykh cried out consolingly, “I ask God’s forgiveness. What are we all if not slaves of the One, the Only?”
A pretty girl, who seemed to be a newlywed, wept and complained, “The thing is, we’re a slave’s slave.”
“God forbid!”
The first woman spoke again, provocatively, “Are you content for a free woman to become a slave woman’s slave?”
“God forbid! Freedom is my religion, but it is very hard for a man to free himself.”
“We will support you and put our belongings at your disposal. Whatever you order, we shall obey. Just provide us relief by forbidding our husbands to marry captive women from the forests. Our noble lineage is threatened with extinction by intermarriage with blacks, Master.”
“I’ve already stated publicly what I think about this.”
“May God grant your faith victory, Master Jurist.”
The secret delegation recited a touching refrain: “God grant victory to your faith, Master Jurist. God deliver us by delivering you from every hostile enemy! Amen.”
Then they raised their hands to recite the Fatiha.
This is what legends report about that clandestine meeting. No one knows whether there were other secret clauses to this pact or whether the rumors circulating in the encampment were merely another exaggeration of the type people often encounter from gossipmongers.
What is certain is that the next day gifts started flowing to the tabernacle: bracelets, earrings, and silver objects. Vassals and novices also brought provisions and foodstuffs: sacks of wheat, barley, sugar cane, millet, and dates. Girls arrived bearing bowls of couscous on their heads. No one knows even today what amulet the noble women used to convince the army of slaves to obey the jurist and accept the fact of emancipation. Everyone agreed it was unlikely the female diviner used any magic, because the hostility between her and the jurist was well known.
The shaykh created a camp for his new followers in the empty land beyond the well. A few days later, the community was surprised to hear him recite the Fatiha and marry fourteen of his young novices to divorced black women. He continued marrying off the black women until most of his disciples gained unusually agreeable wives and there remained only a few haughty Ethiopian women. They volunteered to serve the tabernacle and entreated the shaykh to retain them as maids. Heated rumors spread that they were his concubines. These savage tales aroused the jealousy of their former husbands, who asked the leader’s permission to resort to the sword. This judicious man, however, made them feel ashamed of themselves with one calm sentence: “Anyone who agrees to play a game must accept the game’s outcome.”
There was, even so, no end to surprises, for no sooner had the tribe, especially its men, gotten over this than the leading men received a blow they considered the harshest of all.
4
They had realized from the outset that he was deliberately attacking their pride. Then he summoned them to the tabernacle in its new location at the center of his followers’ camp and bade them sit on the ground at the tent’s entrance. No one dared to protest. Perhaps they felt that any objection would itself lower them another step down the ladder of humiliation, because an insult does not affect you unless you acknowledge it and call people’s attention to it. This was what the lexicon of nobility said. So they did not comment on this slight, and the leader patiently tolerated sitting out in the open by the tabernacle’s pole. Indeed, it did not escape their notice that a smile never left his lips throughout the meeting.
To add insult to injury, the shaykh said, “Don’t imagine that I am treating you shabbily because I am unfamiliar with the etiquette of hospitality. I have deliberately asked you to sit on the ground at the tent’s entrance so you will taste the humiliation that yesterday was the lightest of the burdens your slaves and vassals received from you.”
A reference to a humiliation is a confirmation of the humiliation. This disgrace would haunt them forever. The leader attempted to rescue the situation with his wisdom. “I think that we have suffered no humiliation yet. Sitting in the open air with our vassals and slaves has always been our custom. Eminent Jurist, we are ready to pay any price for you to liberate our spirits and instruct us in the principles of religion.”
The shaykh cried out, “You are so right! Well said! I don’t know why you all don’t follow your wise leader’s advice and imitate his behavior. The first thing an adherent of the religion of truth and deliverance must relinquish is his arrogance and pride. Supremacy belongs to God in heaven; treating others with condescension is a characteristic of accursed Satan. No man who retains an atom of pride or conceit will taste deliverance.”
He fell silent and the headmen exchanged glances. Then, after a short time, he resumed, “We will talk about your flamboyant turbans and peacock-like gowns in the near future, but today I have summoned you for something more important.”
An Ethiopian maid brought him a mug of milk. He took two sips and wiped his lips with the end of his skimpy wrap. Then he said, “You have purified your homes of what is forbidden. Now you must purify your possessions by paying zakat, the alms tax.”
The silence was tense, because nerves were frayed. A Fulani maid came and handed around tea. No one could even take a sip. They planted the cups in the dirt in front of them and stared at the froth with bowed heads.
Finally, the leader summoned his courage and explained, “The truth is that we have never neglected to perform this duty. We do zakat at each religious festival.”
The shaykh replied, as though he had been expecting this response, “Zakat at religious festivals is one thing and paying zakat to purify your wealth is something else. Expending money is the lowest form of generosity for someone who wishes to deliver his spirit from the devil. I believe there is not a single rich man among you who will be stingy with his wealth for God’s sake.”
He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He read from it the details of the astonishing law he was enacting to create a public treasury, to tax income and livestock, and to establish new tariffs, which he had decided to impose on the trade caravans.
5
The fate of the tribe appalled the nobles. It saddened them to see this oppressive law proposed, because it meant that real power would be transferred to the cunning shaykh. They pointed out that implementation of this law would undermine the leader’s authority and powers, but he told the assembly, “Only a madman confronts a torrent.”
