Jabrin Taxi, 3
Islam, My Taxi Rides June 1st, 2007
It is too hot to stay on the roof for long. We turn our backs on the wadi, and climb down into the castle. Abdul goes first, and I wait for him to disappear from view before I pick my way down the stairs. On the next to last step, one of my sandals catches an edge, and I tumble forward. For an awful moment I am pitching toward stone. I grab at the wall with my right hand. A sharp nerve pain erupts from my arm as my elbow crashes against the stairwell.
Shame washes over me; my cheeks burn, my pulse thuds in my ears. How careless. My elbow seems to have slowed me down enough for my feet to regain control. Pain emanates out from the middle of my arm in nauseating pulses. I cradle the joint in my hand. Where are we now, and what do I have to do to get out of this castle? I took little notice of this room when we climbed the stairs, being more transfixed with getting up onto the roof. Now that I am back inside, I realize how poorly I paid attention.
It takes a long moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness within the castle walls. The room is unlit save for low square windows along its floor. They are guarded with thick wooden shutters, which are partially open. Long white rectangles stream from these, expanding across the carpet. The contrast between dark and bright is so stark as to mute the shapes of things. I feel lost. My arm aches.
Gradually, my vision sharpens. The decorator of this room had a passion for jewel tones. Pillows are placed in pairs along ridges between the windows. They are patterned with triangles, trimmed with silver. The floor is covered by vast Persian carpets. There are no chairs or tables; indeed the only pieces of furniture in the room are two wooden trunks. They are shut but not latched. Abdul fingers their hinges. He is silent.
The room conveys a sense of intimacy. It is the kind of place where people in love might whisper to one another, hands entangled. My eyes wander over the walls; two meters above each window there sits a narrow shelf; on the shelves, stone water vessels wait beneath domed lids. My face feels prickly: heat exhaustion is beginning to set in, and with it, irrational anger. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears.
“You have to stop,” I tell myself. “Keep it up and you will ruin your whole day.” I feel helpless, clouded, depressed. I dig my fingernails into the flesh of my thumb. The sharp sensation is enough to shift my attention. I close my eyes and think.
There is a hadith reported by Sulaiman which states that two men got into an argument in front of the Prophet. One of them became so enraged that his face grew red with blood, and his neck bulged. He was in danger of choking. “I know a wording which, if a person says it, will help him get out of his anger,” the Prophet (peace be upon him) said to the man. “A’uzu billahi min ashaitanir rajim.” That is, “I seek refuge with Allah from Shaytan, the outcast.” I repeat the words under my breath.
We are taught in Islam that anger comes from Iblis, the Shaytan. He is to fire as Angels are to light and as Man is to earth: it is the material from which he is created, and from which he creates. He tempts our hearts with rage, where it catches like a hungry spark, ever seeking to explode.
I remember a khutbah about anger which once I heard at MIT. The Imam sought to teach the congregation how to resist it. “If you are angry and you are standing, then you should sit down,” he said. “If you are angry and you are sitting, then you should lie down. If you are angry and you are lying down, then you should perform wudu. Giving into anger robs a person of his wisdom. It corrupts one’s faith.”
I uncurl my fingers, and breathe in slowly. Okay. I lust after the water which might be in the jars on the wall. Please God, I think, let me find a drink.
I wander over to the trunk where Abdul is standing. “Should we go?” I ask him. With this last room under my belt, I feel content in leaving. For a long minute he says nothing. The glow of rage smolders inside of me: I wish that he would acknowledge my speech. I imagine a sea of jinn standing in the space between us. Does he even hear me at all?
Eventually Abdul responds to me. “Insha’Allah, we can go,” he says. He sweeps out of the room in a blur of white. He leads me down the stairs, and out into the entrance hall. The gatekeeper waits for us to approach. His eyes are watery and yellowed, as if coated with film. He wears a white thobe and a white turban; to my naive eyes, he is roughly identical to all the other older men of the interior.
I am ashamed of this, for it reflects inattention on my part. Would I recognize him if I saw him again? I try to take note of his face. He has a long, slender nose. His brow is high, and he is bearded. His skin is the color of weak tea. He holds out a pen to me, and indicates a leather bound book on the desk. “Please leave your comments,” he instructs me in English. He and Abdul leave me alone in the hall, and wander outside for a cigarette.
I sit on the only chair in the entire castle and turn the pen over in my fingers. I leaf through the pages of the comment book carefully. Their edges are brittle; the climate here is too dry to preserve paper. Flecks of ash leave the pages like dust from a butterfly’s wings. Most of the comments are in Arabic, though here and there I find lines of French, Italian, and English. The word “beautiful” appears again and again. I add my two cents: “I enjoyed my visit here very much. The castle is lovely. Thank you.”
Outside, I find the men talking. They sit on the fence posts under the tree. The guard gives me a nod of his head as he jumps down from his perch. He heads back up to his fortress. I settle myself into my seat, and study his progress through the window as Abdul finishes his cigarette. From here, the guard is a small figure, bent at the waist with age.
Abdul stubs his cigarette out against the cracked earth. One last plume of blue-grey smoke trails up from his fingers. I wonder what jinn think of cigarettes. “Where would you like to go now?” he asks. “I would like to find some water,” I tell him. I cannot help but lick my lips at the thought of a drink. They are cracked and salty under my tongue.
Abdul smiles outright. It is the first time on our outing that I seem to have met with his favor. I wonder why. His grin is engaging: with the corners of his mouth turned up, he is much more pleasant to observe. We drive back down the highway for a few kilometers, before we reach a fork. At the fork we veer left. I am almost sure that this is not the direction in which we came. I wonder if it is possible that there is a gas station down this path: it seems so utterly deserted.
The road circles the base of a mountain, drawing ever closer to its foothills as it winds along. Soon, the castle is no longer visible behind us. I try to ignore the dust in my throat. A headache is brewing at the back of my eyeballs. I hope that Abdul understood my request. The word for water is incredibly simple; it has just two letters, “m” and “a”. Ma. Ma. I say it to myself. The word feels right in my lips. God willing, I made myself understood. I try not to think about water, and so return my thoughts to Iblis and the jinn.
The jinn are the first creatures which Allah created to have free will. Jinn are unlike the angels in this regard: angels, according to the Qur’an, do not have free will. They may act solely as messengers for Allah. They choose nothing for themselves. The jinn have existed since long before the coming of man; Muslims believe that they are everywhere around us still. They live in communities on earth, they marry and fight and command their own armies. Some reverence Allah.
Iblis distinguished himself among the jinn for his devotion to Allah. He was the most sincere in his prayers, and the most ardent in his belief. Allah rewarded him for his piety; for a time Iblis lived in the presence of the Creator.
Then, Allah created man. Because Adam was crafted from a bit of earth with water, he seemed a dirty creature to Iblis. “Surely,” thought the Shaytan, “I am superior to him by virtue of my nature: fire is better than dirt. Surely I am worth more in the eyes of my Lord than he is.” Allah bade the angels bow down to Adam. They knelt in their ranks and lowered their heads, falling prostrate at the foot of Man.
Iblis, who lived among them, refused. “I cannot bow down to this creature of dirt,” he said. “I am his superior. I will live longer than he does.” Thus the first sin was committed: Iblis’s pride. Allah thundered. “I will make you the caliph of the fire. You will spend eternity confined to hell; but until the Day of Judgment comes, you may live on Earth.” Shaytan laughed and vowed then to tempt man to evil. “I will be on his right and his left, in front of him and behind him,” the Cursed One promised. “I will be ever whispering to him and tempting him. And you will not find many of Men grateful to you.” Then Allah cast Iblis out of Paradise, placing the Shaytan beyond divine mercy.
I wonder what it means to be placed beyond divine mercy. As our car begins to climb, I am acutely aware of our fragility. I feel like a baby bird in an aluminum nest, which may at any moment fall from its tree.
We cross the foothills, and find ourselves in a wadi at the base of the mountain. The road tumbles through gullies, where wayward children hide under date trees. These are heavy with waxy orange fruit; as we speed by them, explosions of color meet my eyes. Abdul beeps the horn at the children, who peak at us and hide. A cloud of dusts follows us; I hope it does not reach them.
I ask Abdul about his son. “What is your son’s name?” “His name is Rafiq,” Abdul answers. “Does he like school?” I ask. Abdul looks at me; even from behind his sunglasses, I can tell that he is surprised. I wonder if I have transgressed the bounds of privacy. I did not expect primary education to be a touchy subject. “The government runs the schools in Nizwa,” he replies.
“They are not Islamic.” He says this with a finality. I do not quite understand what he means by this, or how I should respond. I nod. “Hmm.” “Do you have a husband?” he asks me. For a moment, I consider pretending that I do not understand. This is not a popular topic with me, though it is with the Omanis. I suppose it serves me right for asking about his family. We zoom past a post office, through a low grove of date trees, and past a row of clay houses. The village disappears behind us; even as I formulate my reply, it is gone.
“I am not married,” I say. Abdul seems sorry for me. “Do you have any children?” he asks. “No,” I tell him, “not yet. Insha’Allah, someday I will.” I wonder if this is true, even as I say it. I look through the windshield at the world ahead. We are driving more or less straight up the mountain now. I crane my neck to look for signs of life up there, but there is nothing. The face of the mountain is brown and grey. If there is anywhere to buy water ahead of us, I am a monkey’s uncle. Suddenly, I am afraid. Where exactly is Abdul taking me, and why?
March 5th, 2010 at 3:46 am
Made some good points, I liked it.
March 24th, 2010 at 8:58 am
I’ve been reading a few posts and i’m adding your blog to my rss reader , thanks !