In the Name of Allah

"In the Name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful…."

The boy's beautiful voice filled the room with the recitation of Surat Mariam. His mother sat listening with reverence, totally absorbed in the young voice chanting the words of God. How proud she was .that her own son had been blessed with such an angelic voice. How often had he made grown men cry with his impassioned recitation? How many times had he softened hard hearts while praising the beloved Prophet (PBU)?

"O Yahya, hold fast the Book.’ And We gave him wisdom while yet a child…"

She remembered when her father had discovered the gift that God had blessed his grandson with and had made sure to give him proper training with one of the famous Chanters in their town. She recalled how her boy sat in this very same room, day after day reciting and chanting over and over again the many verses of the Holy Quran. How she had fretted and worried about him when his grandfather had taken him from village to village, town to town, so that others would be blessed to hear the purity of his voice in praise and supplication to God.

"And tenderness of heart from Ourself, and purity. And he was pious…"

How proud she had felt when visitors had flocked to their home just to listen to her boy. She recalled the shy smile on her son's face when hearing the words of praise and adoration from his audience and admirers. What a future he had ahead of him as a great chanter.

"And dutiful toward his parents. And he was not haughty and rebellious…"

She closed her eyes as his sweet voice floated through the room, giving her a sense of peace, tranquility and deep love…of acceptance and resignation to the will of the Almighty.

"And peace was on him the day he was born, and the day he died, and peace there will be on him the day he will be raised up to life again."

Suddenly the recitation stopped. She opened her eyes feeling a pang of anxiety as her heart skipped a beat. She stared with apprehension at the silent tape recorder. Her shaking hand slowly and cautiously removed the tape.  Thank God…it didn't seem to be damaged. She placed a soft kiss on it with her lips, then pressed it close to her heart. This is all she had left of her son …a small tape that carried his voice…and her soul. 

"In the name of Alllah…" she whispered as she carefully reinserted the tape and  pressed the "rewind" button. Yes, it was working properly. Then she pressed "Play". She sighed with relief, holding back a tear.  A quiet sadness echoed in the room as once again the soft captivating recitation of the beloved voice flowed gently from the old tape recorder…..

"In the Name of Allah… the Compassionate … the Merciful…."

A Scent of Rose Water

He clung to his mother as they walked towards the Moulid, smelling the soft scent of rose water that floated from her head scarf as the evening wind blew refreshing ripples of cool air against their faces. He was the happiest little boy in the world. At last he was going to theMoulid. How he had pleaded and cried to be taken there. Many in his family, even those younger than him, had gone before. They came back with amazing stories: of parades of chanting men in flowing white robes; of storytellers chanting tales; of puppet shows; of brightly coloured swings; of games they played and little trophies they won; of magicians, toys and delicious sweets. How he longed for that world! But he had never gone. Every year the Moulid came and went to their town but he was left at home, never allowed to go.

“There’s nothing for you to see there” his mother always told him. “You’ll only get lost or hurt my sweetest”.

And when he cried in anger and desperation she told him that he was her special little boy, that she would bring him beautiful gifts, that she would bake him his favorite cookies…she promised him so many things. But he never calmed down until she took him in her arms and hugged him tenderly, holding him until he fell quietly asleep amidst the soft scent of rose water.

But this year he was adamant. He was already ten years old, he wasn’t a baby anymore. He had a right to go just like everybody else! She finally acquiesced after his incessant pleading. They would go…but on one condition…he would stick to her no matter what. He would make sure to always hold her hand and never wander off on his own. She warned him it would be crowded and easy for a little boy like him to be lost.

Yes…yes… yes…he had agreed to every word she said…he was in seventh heaven…at last he would go!

As they approached the Moulid grounds, he shivered with excitement as his body vibrated with the multitude of sounds, voices and music that met his ears. The air was thick with all sorts of smells: incense, tobacco, spices, dust, smoke...an endless aroma of familiar and unfamiliar scents. He was in utter awe and rapture to what his senses were capturing as he clung to his mother, feeling safe in her presence as they both slowly navigated their way deeper and deeper into the crowds, slowly discovering this magic world he had always dreamed of.

He was overwhelmed by the mesmerizing devotional chanting emanating from the many tents that were erected around the Moulid, at times finding his body swaying back and forth to its rhythmic beat; he giggled with delight as he listened intently to every word of the puppet show; he was thrilled by the ride he took on the swings, feeling as if a hand was lifting him up into the heavens; he ate and tasted a multitude of delicious sweets, savoring new and unfamiliar flavours.

Music filled the air, but it is one particular sound that caught his attention …it was the melancholy singing of a rababa…how he loved it. It must be a storyteller chanting his tales. He followed the sound…slowly slipping away from his mother’s side…moving in the direction from where the music came. Before he got too far the rababa stopped. He stood there for a moment, hoping the music would resume, but it never did. He suddenly realized that he was standing all alone…not knowing in which direction to turn. He called out to his mother but she was nowhere near him. For the first time since he came to the Moulid he began feeling a deep sense of fear…people were bumping against him…he fell several times…he was all alone…not knowing where to go or how to reach his mother…was this what she had meant by being lost??? He stood there in horror and began crying…yelling out for her.

“What’s wrong little boy?” he heard a man asking him. “Are you lost?”

“He seems to be blind”, came a woman’s voice. “How could anyone leave a blind child all on his own like that??” she added with indignation.

Just as more people were gathering…just as he was reaching the pit of despair, he felt two strong hands holding him by his armpits, lifting him up in the air and in a fraction of a second he found himself in his mother’s arms.

“Didn’t I tell you not to leave my side” he heard her shouting in a panicked voice. “You scared me to death”, she yelled as she held him tighter.

“Sorry mother”, he sobbed with relief as he began feeling safe again in her comforting arms and the familiar scent he adored.

“Don’t I always tell you to be extra careful," she said in a more tender voice. “You’re special…your eyes can’t see like the rest of us…you can’t wander off on your own like that”.

“Yes mother”, he said in a weak voice as he buried his face in her bosom. He knew she was right…but he had just wanted to listen to the storyteller and the music of the rababa.

Despite this scare, coming to the Moulid was a dream come true. It was a world that had aroused every sense in his body and would forever remain etched in his memory. But fornow, he was happy heading back home…wrapped in the safety of his mother’s embrace…and the soft scent of rose water.

Sleepers...Awake!

It was already past midnight. She was feeling so tired and worn out. She had been working for days on end, from morning till night. Another important report had to be finished and delivered before the end of the year. It was a critical moment in her career. It would open so many doors for her, so many possibilities and opportunities. There was still a lot to do and she knew she had a long night ahead of her. But she was feeling so tired. Fatigue was setting in, seeping deep in every part of her body. Her back was aching, her shoulders feeling numb. She looked into the screen of her computer feeling her eyes heavy from the strain of long hours of work. She would take a few minutes rest then go back to work. She opened the radio and lied down on the sofa. They were playing Bach's Sleepers, Awake! one of her favorite pieces. It was, calm, soothing, uplifting. She closed her eyes as the soft sound of the oboe floated through the air. How long had it been since she had heard it last? She couldn't even remember. When had she last gone to a concert? In fact, when had she had time to do anything truly meaningful? Her days were all the same, a string of duties and monotony…a rush to do everything…and nothing. She thought of him for a moment as the music permeated her mind and soul…filling in the empty spaces…but she quickly brushed the thought aside.

She stood up and opened the balcony, stepping out into the cold winter night. She was amazed as she saw a full moon shining like a sliver ball in the heart of the dark sky. She stared at it with her weary eyes as the music followed her out into the crisp night air. Thoughts of him came back again. She couldn't resist this time and for a moment she sensed that he was there with her…that his arms held her tight as they both looked up at the bright shining jewel decking the midnight sky...was that him whispering in her ears…was it the heat of his body that was keeping her warm…?

Tears rolled down her face as she stood there, in a magical trance. As the last note of Bach's Sleepers, Awake! was played she re-entered the room and shut the balcony. She looked for a moment at her desk and at the pile of work waiting for her.

She calmly shut her computer, turned off the lights and went to sleep.

Forbidden

He couldn’t get his eyes off the gorgeous beauty lying in front of him. He tried turning round and walking away, but he just couldn’t resist the temptation of looking. He knew it was forbidden, that he should brush away the thoughts that were coming to his mind…but the temptation was too strong, he just couldn’t help himself. He looked again, feeling a formidable desire swelling inside of him. No…he must be strong…he wasn’t a child anymore…he’d better leave right now…he knew better than this. If he dared do what he was thinking of doing, and his wife found out, she would really be upset. He turned to go again but hesitated at the door. Why be so hard on himself…why not break the rules once in a while… what was wrong in a little moment of pleasure …even if it was forbidden?? He was human after all for crying out loud! He looked again. No, no, he must act like a responsible adult and control himself. He could end up paying a high price and hurting himself and those he cared for if things went wrong. He’d better leave right now! He took one last look. But he knew he shouldn’t have because all of a sudden his defenses broke down. He felt his heart pounding faster …he was perspiring heavily…an aching desire gripped him mercilessly. Oh he just couldn’t resist this!! To hell with all the rules!!

-

He plunged forward, grabbed the knife and cut two big slices from the chocolate cake. He put them on a plate and began eating like a madman….God it was delicious!! He groaned with pleasure as he savored the juicy cake and felt the chocolate icing slowly melting in his mouth...it was pure ecstasy! He knew his wife would be mad at him. He was overweight, diabetic, with a history of heart problems. Sweets like this delicious beauty were strictly forbidden. But there were times when he couldn’t bear this deprivation. He loved chocolates and sweets, let alone this magnificent cake baked by his wife for their guests.

-

As he finished the last bits of cake on his plate he began feeling guilty that he had weakened and succumbed to his desires. But on second thoughts...what kind of life would it be if we couldn't enjoy some sweet little pleasures every now and then...even if they were forbidden.

The Café

He tried walking at a faster pace, but it wasn’t that easy with his bad leg and walking stick. He remembered when it used to take him just ten minutes to walk to the Café, now it would take him over twenty minutes. But today was a beautiful winter morning, a bit chilly but fresh and clear and he would enjoy the walk. He was excited to see the Café. For several months now it had been closed for renovations. They had been long boring months. The Café was more like a second home to him and had been so for many years. There he met friends, discussed everything from politics to sports, read the papers, sipped his Turkish coffee and watched the hustle and bustle of life in the main square in front of the Café.

It was a simple Café, like many others, but it had its own very special character and charm that had captured his heart and made it one of his most favorite places. He remembered the first time he went there as a young boy with his father. It was his first venture into the adult world and he had been completely fascinated by the place. He loved its beautifully colored tiled floors with intricate floral designs; the mirrors that stretched throughout the upper portion of the walls giving it a more spacious feeling and a sense of infinity; the now faded pictures of its proud owners hanging over the wood paneled counter welcoming all those who walked into their world; its large terrace with its enormous green canopy stretching like an endless green sky overlooking the square. But most of all he was enchanted by its mystical aroma…its almost ethereal scent…a mixture of coffee, cardamom, and tobacco, …of tea, mint, and cologne….of laughter, whispers and sighs.

After his wife died, he had made it a habit to go to the Café everyday. He found solace there among friends and its clientele, as well as the waiters who knew him so well. Even when he was alone he enjoyed its warm atmosphere and the sounds and smells of life that vibrated within its walls. And now, in his twilight years, the Café was a refuge from an ever changing world, a little haven where things still seemed familiar and real.

He was now entering the street where the Café was located and was full of excitement and anticipation as he got nearer. Most of the regular crowd would already be there by now he thought to himself as he tried to quicken his pace, almost feeling the taste of their exquisite Turkish coffee on his lips.

The moment he entered the Café he was struck by the complete change that met his eyes. Gone were the beautifully colored tiles, the mirrors, the faded pictures, the wood paneled counter…even its beloved aroma had disappeared leaving in its stead a dull and artificial scent. The spacious terrace had been enclosed within the Café itself and the outside world was only visible through a barrier of glass and steel. Even the clientele was different…he couldn’t see any familiar faces.

He stood there for some moments trying to absorb the change that had so abruptly struck his eyes and senses. A waiter approached him inviting him to take a seat. He didn’t recognize him either nor any of the other waiters.

“What would you wish to order sir,” he asked.

“Can I have a Turkish Coffee?” he replied in a semi-dazed voice.

“I’m sorry sir, but we don’t serve it.”

“How come?” he asked in bewilderment” “You always did.”

“I’m sorry sir, but we’re a different establishment now. We’re an international chain…we serve coffee with over 20 different flavours,” he replied in a proud tone as he handed him the menu.

He took a quick glance at the brightly colored menu. It had dozens of items, many with exotic names. He gasped at the prices…they were way above what his meager pension could afford.

“Eh…I forgot I have an errand to do…I may be back later on…thank you”, he told the waiter in a weak voice as he handed him back the menu.

He awkwardly made his way out of the Café, feeling a growing chill creeping all over his body. For the first time since his wife died he felt tears come to his eyes. As he slowly crossed the street his body began to shake. He didn’t know if it was from the cold or from the deep sense of loss that had so intensely gripped him. He just stood there in the middle of the street, feeling the entire weight of his seventy eight years pressing down on his shoulders…almost crushing his walking stick. In the distance he could see cars speeding in his direction….but all he could do was just stand there…shaking…in front of the Café…

Out of Africa

"I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills..."

With these simple words begins "Out of Africa", the memoirs written by Isak Dinesen, the pen name used by the Danish author Baroness Karen Blixen (1886-1962). The book, published in 1937, recounts the 17 years of her life from 1914 to 1931 that she spent in British East Africa (modern day Kenya) on her coffee plantation and gives a vivid picture of Colonial Africa during the closing decades of the British Empire.

Her life in Kenya begins when she moved there to marry a distant cousin, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke. Together they established a coffee plantation on their farm located in the highlands, six thousand feet in altitude. "The geographical position and the height of the land combined to create a landscape that had not its like in all the world….it was Africa distilled up through six thousand feet, like the strong and refined essence of the continent." However, differences between them and her husband's infidelity led to their separation in 1921 and ultimate divorce in 1925. Maybe for this reason, it is no surprise that he is not mentioned in her 389 page book, except for a passing reference to "my husband" in one of the pages. Karen Blixen, an independent, courageous and capable woman, continued to manage the farm until poor crop yields and falling coffee prices during the Great depression pushed her more into debt and having to sell out in 1931.

One of the most moving things about this book is how the author conveys her strong feelings and love for Africa , its land, animals, nature and most of all, its people. Although she uses language that today may be judged as having racist or colonial undertones, she viewed the Africans with respect and affection, and unlike her colonial and European contemporaries who perceived them as savages or simpletons, she saw them as a people who, although different in culture and traditions, had dignity, nobility and beauty. She was a colonial settler, owning 6000 acres of land, but in certain parts of the book you can sense her awareness that this land truly belonged to the Kikuyu tribespeople who lived and worked on her land and who were termed "squatters" by the colonial establishment. "My squatters…were born on the farm and their fathers before them and they very likely regarded me as a sort of superior squatter on their estates". Near the end of the book, she sadly reflects on the fate of the Kikuyu after her farm is being sold off and they are forced to move elsewhere by the new owners: "It is more than their land that you take away from the people, whose Native land you take. It is their past as well, their roots and their identity. If you take away the things they have been used to see and will be expecting to see, you may as well take their eyes."

Isak Dinesen or Karen Blixen was a story teller and maybe for this reason her book is written like a combination of stories about the many people who touched her life and the many events that marked her stay in Africa. She tells of the culture and customs of the Kikuyu who worked on her farm and their big Chief Kinanjui “a crafty old man, with a fine manner, and much real greatness to him.” She talks of the Masai, a proud semi-nomadic cattle-owning nation with a warrior culture, who lived across the river from her farm on a tribal reservation after having been forced to leave their lands to make way for white settlers. She laments their fate: "They were fighters who had been stopped fighting, a dying lion with his claws clipped, a castrated nation". She speaks of the Somali Muslims who worked in Kenya, such as Farah Aden, her close and loyal assistant who helped her on the farm and remained faithfully at her side till the end. She contrasts the differences in perception about death, fate, time, justice and other issues between the African and the European: "A white man who wanted to say a pretty thing to you would write: I can never forget you. The African says: We do not think of you, that you can ever forget us."

She also writes about the Europeans who were near to her heart and who were regular visitors to her farm. They were mostly people who were close friends with the Africans, who were one with nature and who were non-conformists like herself. Foremost of these was Denys Finch Hatton, a hunter and the man she loved for many years. Although she never explicitly mentions in her book the nature of their relationship, her affection and adoration of him show through her words: "“When he came back to the farm, it gave out what was in it – it spoke… When I heard his car coming up the drive, I heard, at the same time, all the things of the farm telling what they really were." She flew with him over Africa in his airplane, in what she described as one of the greatest "and most transporting pleasure of my life on the farm." But it is while flying his plane that he crashed and lost his life in 1931. It is very moving to read her account of his death and burial on a ridge in the Ngong Hills according to his wishes. Just as he had taken in Africa through his eyes and mind and made it part of himself, "now Africa would receive him…and make him one with herself."

The last part of the book is heart wrenching as she describes the failure of the farm and its sale and her state of denial and inability to grasp the fact that she had lost everything and would have to leave the land and way of life she had come to love so dearly. "It was not I who was going away, I did not have it in my power to leave Africa , but it was the country that was slowly and gravely withdrawing from me, like the sea in ebb-tide."

Karen Blixen returned to her family's estate in Denmark at the age of 46. She dedicated her time to writing and was nominated twice for the Nobel prize but never won it. Some of her other works include Seven Gothic Tales, The Angelic Avengers, Babett's Feast, and Shadows on the Grass. Out of Africa was her most widely known work and inspired the Academy Award winning 1985 film of the same name. She died in 1962, never having returned to her beloved Africa again.

"If I know a song of Africa, of the Giraffe, and the African new moon lying on her back, of the ploughs in the fields, and the sweaty faces of the coffee-pickers, does Africa know a song of me?"

Little Moments

She lay beside him on the bed, watching him as he slept. His breathing was soft and gentle as he lay on his back, his right hand on his chest and his head turned towards her. She loved these quiet little moments when they were all alone, when she could simply rest for a while as they lay side by side, and watch him sleeping peacefully. She looked at him with loving eyes. Her hands softly touched his forehead, moved down to his nose, then to his lips. He was gorgeous!

Six months ago she would have never believed she would be so consumed by a love like this…a love she had never known before and never imagined to exist. It's true it had brought her restless nights and days of anxiety …but it was at moments like this one that she could sense the depth of an emotion that sometimes overwhelmed her and brought tears to her eyes.

An afternoon breeze floated softly into the room from the window behind them, gliding gently over the two bodies stretched out on the bed. She caressed his light brown hair, feeling it’s softness on her fingers. “I love you my sweetest”, she whispered as she slowly bent over him and placed a small kiss on his forehead. She smiled as his scent filled her nostrils…a delicate perfume that made her heart flutter with emotion.

She gave a deep sigh as she gazed at him. Would she ever be strong enough to watch him walk away one day…it was bound to happen wasn’t it? She knew that. But she quickly brushed the thought aside…it was silly to think of that now when life offered them plenty of time to share and so many things still to come.

He began to move. He never napped more than an hour. He opened his eyes, rubbing them with both his hands.
“Hi there tiger”, she said giving him a big smile. He glanced back, his face showing the familiar signs she knew all too well. His hands reached out for her…she knew what he wanted…she took him in her arms….

She looked at him tenderly as he suckled at her breast. Her little angel was always hungry when he woke up. He had such an appetite! He paused for a moment, milk on his mouth, looking upwards at his mother. She gazed down into his soft brown eyes…and for a brief little moment…she saw the world.