Forty Rules of Love(83)

“In all my travels, I have come to know many sheikhs,” Shams said. “While some were sincere men, others were condescending, and they didn’t know anything about Islam. I wouldn’t trade the dust off of the old shoes of a real lover of God for the heads of today’s sheikhs. Even shadow players who display images behind curtains are better than they are, because at least they admit that what they provide is mere illusion.”

“That’s enough! I think we’ve heard enough of your forked tongue,” Sheikh Yassin announced. “Now, get out of my classroom!”

“Don’t worry, I was about to leave,” Shams said roguishly, and then he turned toward us. “What you witnessed here today is an old debate that extends back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon him,” he remarked. “But the debate is not only germane to the history of Islam. It is present in the heart of every Abrahamic religion. This is the conflict between the scholar and the mystic, between the mind and the heart. You take your pick!”

Shams paused briefly to let us feel the full impact of his words. I felt his stare fall upon me, and it was almost like sharing a secret—entrance into an untold, unwritten brotherhood.

Then he added, “In the end, neither your teacher nor I can know more than God allows us to know. We all play our parts. Only one thing matters, though. That the light of the sun isn’t overshadowed by the blindness of the eye of the denier, the one who refuses to see.”

With that, Shams of Tabriz placed his right hand on his heart and bade farewell to us all, including Sheikh Yassin, who stood aside, grim and unresponsive. The dervish walked out and shut the door behind him, leaving us swathed in a silence so profound that we could not talk or fidget for a long while.

It was Irshad who pulled me out of my trance. I noticed he was staring at me with something akin to disapproval. Only then did I realize that my right hand was resting on my heart in salute to a Truth that it had recognized.





Baybars the Warrior





KONYA, MAY 1246

Bloody but unbowed. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard that Shams had found the nerve to confront my uncle in front of his students. Doesn’t this man have any decency? How I wished I had been in the madrassa when he arrived. I would have kicked him out before he even had the chance to open that wicked mouth of his. But I wasn’t there, and it seems that he and my uncle had a long conversation, which the students have been blabbering about ever since. I take their words with a grain of salt, though, since their accounts are inconsistent and give too much credit to that rotten dervish.

I feel very nervous tonight. It is all because of that harlot Desert Rose. I can’t rid my mind of her. She reminds me of jewelry boxes with secret compartments. You think you own her, but unless you have the keys, she remains locked up and unreachable even when you hold her in your arms.

It is her surrendering that troubles me most. I keep asking myself why she didn’t resist my fits. How come she just lay there on the floor under my feet, listless as a dirty old rug? Had she hit me back or screamed for help, I would have stopped hitting her. But she lay motionless, her eyes bulging, her mouth shut, as if determined to take it on the chin, come what may. Did she really not care at all whether I killed her?

I have been trying hard not to go to the brothel again, but today I gave in to the need to see her. On the way there, I kept wondering how she would react upon seeing me. In case she complained about me and things got nasty, I was going to bribe or threaten that fat patron of hers. I had everything worked out in my mind and was ready for every possibility, except for the possibility of her having run away.

“What do you mean, Desert Rose is not here?” I burst out. “Where is she?”

“Forget about that harlot,” the patron said, popping a lokum into her mouth and sucking the syrup off of her finger. Seeing how upset I was, she added in a softer voice, “Why don’t you take a look at the other girls, Baybars?”

“I don’t want your cheap whores, you fat hag. I need to see Desert Rose, and I need to see her now.”

The hermaphrodite raised her dark, pointed eyebrows at this form of address but didn’t dare to argue with me. Her voice dwindled to a whisper, as if ashamed of what she was about to say. “She is gone. Apparently she ran away while everyone was sleeping.”

It was too absurd to be even laughable. “Since when do whores walk out of their brothels?” I asked. “You find her now!”

The patron looked at me as if she were seeing, really seeing me, for the first time. “Who are you to give me orders?” she hissed, as her small, defiant eyes, so unlike those of Desert Rose, blazed back at me.