moving on
A lot has happened this year. For a long time I didn’t feel like writing, and now that I do, a new start seems appropriate. So I am moving. I’ve deleted most of the posts from this blog (though I may recycle some of them). I hope you’ll join me here.
haydn and al-husary
These days I feel as though I’m studying in every spare moment. My studies are entirely voluntary, nothing to do with my work, so it’s actually a pleasure; I feel most alive when I’m learning.
I have joined the Manama Singers again, who have just started to rehearse The Creation by Haydn (which celebrates the creation of the world as described in the Book of Genesis and Paradise Lost). The Manama Singers hold three or four concerts a year, but after I sang in Mozart’s Requiem last year (my first time singing in a choir), I was either too busy to rehearse for subsequent concerts, or not really drawn to the works being perfomed. I’m super busy at the moment, but I couldn’t resist an oratorio like The Creation, so have duly started to learn it (which for me means listening endlessly to the alto part in order to make it stick).
When I am not listening to Haydn, I am listening to Sheikh Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary. My tajweed classes continue, and of course the better I prepare the more progress I make. I listen to Al-Husary because I find his recitation very clear; I came across it when I was attempting my juz’-a-day project in Ramadan a few years ago. (I must have extolled the virtues of his recitation then as well, as I recently bumped into the teacher of the Qur’an classes I was taking around that time, and he said, “Whenever I hear Sheikh Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary I think of you.”)
Here is a beautiful performance by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Colin Davis, of Stimmt an die Saiten (Awake the harp) from The Creation:
To listen to Sheikh Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary click here.
For more on Al-Husary see this programme (in three parts, in Arabic): 1, 2, 3. You can see footage of him on hajj in (I think) 1958 here.
I have joined the Manama Singers again, who have just started to rehearse The Creation by Haydn (which celebrates the creation of the world as described in the Book of Genesis and Paradise Lost). The Manama Singers hold three or four concerts a year, but after I sang in Mozart’s Requiem last year (my first time singing in a choir), I was either too busy to rehearse for subsequent concerts, or not really drawn to the works being perfomed. I’m super busy at the moment, but I couldn’t resist an oratorio like The Creation, so have duly started to learn it (which for me means listening endlessly to the alto part in order to make it stick).
When I am not listening to Haydn, I am listening to Sheikh Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary. My tajweed classes continue, and of course the better I prepare the more progress I make. I listen to Al-Husary because I find his recitation very clear; I came across it when I was attempting my juz’-a-day project in Ramadan a few years ago. (I must have extolled the virtues of his recitation then as well, as I recently bumped into the teacher of the Qur’an classes I was taking around that time, and he said, “Whenever I hear Sheikh Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary I think of you.”)
Here is a beautiful performance by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Colin Davis, of Stimmt an die Saiten (Awake the harp) from The Creation:
To listen to Sheikh Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary click here.
For more on Al-Husary see this programme (in three parts, in Arabic): 1, 2, 3. You can see footage of him on hajj in (I think) 1958 here.
the corniche
Corniche: noun, a road cut into the edge of a cliff, especially one running along a coast. (Origin: mid 19th century, from French)
Doha, 2008.
My favourite place in Doha is the corniche.
An April night. We went to the corniche to walk – briskly, not to stroll. The weather was warm but stormy, the energy of the sky and sea perhaps transmitted to us.
Waves, induced by the storm, hit the corniche. Spray mingled with occasional raindrops. We walked against the wind, pushing, exhilarated.
At the end we stopped, bought hot tea, stood looking at the lights of the corniche curving round the bay. Then we allowed the wind to push us back the way we had come.
Just before we reached the car, the real rain came.
Doha, 2005.
My favourite place in Beirut is the corniche.
A December night. A late night walk in the rain, chilly this time. Friends with whom both silence and conversation was possible. Roasted chestnuts. A perfect moment.
Beirut, 2009.
Alexandria, 2008.
When I think of the Nile Corniche I remember evening strolls, corn on the cob, paper cones of pumpkin seeds, music blaring from boats as they moved past.
Cairo, 2005.
And Bahrain? The corniches we knew earlier have all but disappeared, swallowed by “land reclamation” and construction, but this process is nothing new. Bahrain’s coastline is different for every generation.
Manama, 2002.
Around the harbour-front, the Corniche looped in a wide sweep past the moored yachts, the fishing dhows, cranes, container trucks and ships' funnels. It was, if one squinted a little and held one's nose, a lovely little golden city on the sea; and as the fairy-lights came up on the minarets, Doha gleamed and twinkled as prettily as if it had quite forgotten where it was and had mistaken the Gulf for the Riviera. The word “Corniche” alone, of course, assisted in the illusion; it tried to nudge one into remembering that other city on a bay, where Regine's, the Casino and the Royal Palace glitter in a tideless mirror of sewage and suntan oil.From Arabia Through The Looking Glass, Jonathan Raban (1979).
The “Corniche”, though, had come to Doha at fourth-hand. Beirut had borrowed it from Monte Carlo long ago. Then Kuwait looked at the Corniche in Beirut, saw that it was good, and transplanted it to the neck of the Gulf. Doha heard about Kuwait's Corniche, and so Doha has one too. Nor did it stop there. Abu Dhabi was not to be outdone in this competition to summon up echoes of Mediterranean glamour, and built a Corniche of its own; but the message had become a little scrambled by the time that it reached Abu Dhabi, where the Corniche is a long, dull promenade which bears the initially bewildering title of the “The Cornish Road”.
Doha, 2008.Photo by Doha Sam (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
My favourite place in Doha is the corniche.
An April night. We went to the corniche to walk – briskly, not to stroll. The weather was warm but stormy, the energy of the sky and sea perhaps transmitted to us.
Waves, induced by the storm, hit the corniche. Spray mingled with occasional raindrops. We walked against the wind, pushing, exhilarated.
At the end we stopped, bought hot tea, stood looking at the lights of the corniche curving round the bay. Then we allowed the wind to push us back the way we had come.
Just before we reached the car, the real rain came.
Down on the Corniche, things suddenly steadied and Doha came into focus again. The deep crescent of the waterfront put a limit on the place and gave it back a purpose and identity.From Arabia Through The Looking Glass, Jonathan Raban (1979).
Doha, 2005.Photo by alternatePhotography (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
So we swayed down the long curving Corniche and back into the lighted area of the city where the blue street-lamps came up one by one to peer into the gharry at us as we talked; and all at once it seemed that past and present had joined again without any divisions in it, and that all my memories and impressions had ordered themselves into one complete pattern whose metaphor was always the shining city of the disinherited — a city now trying softly to spread the sticky prismatic wings of a new-born dragonfly on the night.From Clea, Lawrence Durrell (1960).
My favourite place in Beirut is the corniche.
A December night. A late night walk in the rain, chilly this time. Friends with whom both silence and conversation was possible. Roasted chestnuts. A perfect moment.
Beirut, 2009.Photo by Samer N. (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Somewhere up here, skirting the edge of the Arab quarter the tram gives a leap and grinds round abruptly. You can for one moment look down through the frieze of shattered buildings into the corner of the harbour reserved for craft of shallow draught. The hazards of the war at sea had swollen their numbers to overflowing. Framed by the coloured domes there lay feluccas and lateen-rig giassas, wine-caiques, schooners, and brigantines of every shape and size, from all over the Levant. An anthology of masts and spars and haunting Aegean eyes; of names and rigs and destinations. They lay there coupled to their reflections with the sunlight on them in a deep water-trance. Then abruptly they were snatched away and the Grande Corniche began to unroll, the magnificent long sea-parade which frames the modern city, the Hellenistic capital of the bankers and cotton-visionaries — all those European bagmen whose enterprise had re-ignited and ratified Alexander’s dream of conquest after the centuries of dust and silence which Amr had imposed upon it.From Clea, Lawrence Durrell (1960).
Alexandria, 2008.Photo by diffendale (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
When I think of the Nile Corniche I remember evening strolls, corn on the cob, paper cones of pumpkin seeds, music blaring from boats as they moved past.
Cairo, 2005.Photo by StartAgain (CC BY-ND 2.0)
And Bahrain? The corniches we knew earlier have all but disappeared, swallowed by “land reclamation” and construction, but this process is nothing new. Bahrain’s coastline is different for every generation.
In those days, before the causeway was built, the sea came close up to the town [Manama], only a narrow footpath separating the houses from the foreshore. Nowadays the town limits change from one year to the next, as the shoreline is built up by dredging and new land for development is formed. […] In Mohurraq it is the same. Houses which once were just above the tide line are now separated from the sea by hundreds of yards of land.From The Gulf: Arabia’s Western Approaches, Molly Izzard (1979).
Manama, 2002.Photo by Fuad Al Ansari (CC BY-NC 2.0)
the legends of khasak
As he walked Ravi went over the events of that day again, the desire, the apathy and fulfilment, the invasive curiosity. Where was he, and what was he in this bewildering swirl of live and dead happenings?…
In the Gulf, hindi (an Indian) is often used to mean "stupid". There is no shortage of Arabic jokes featuring a dim-witted hindi. (I was discussing this with some colleagues recently, and one of them said, "I don’t think that way; I know Indians are clever. Now bangalis (Bangladeshis), they’re stupid.")
…
The majority of Indians in the Gulf are from Kerala.
Kerala comes in first in India according to the Human Development Index. Transparency International ranks it as the least corrupt state in the country. And it has the highest rate of literacy in India.
The main language in Kerala is Malayalam, and it is spoken by around 36 million people.
…
The day warmed, the palm winds were blowing. It was the hour of the teacher. Ravi smiled upon his twenty-two children, and they smiled back, the caliphs and queens, until smiles filled the seedling house. This was the hour of myth, Ravi knew. ‘Let’s tell a story,’ he said to the children. They were overjoyed.
Ravi asked, ‘What kind of story?’
The children began chirping all together, and a ten-year-old in the front row raised her hand to tell him something. Her silver anklets chimed when she moved her feet under the desk, and her wide gaze was hemmed by exuberant lashed darkened with surma.
‘Yes?’ Ravi said.
‘Saar, Saar...’ she said, then grew shy. ‘A story without dying, Saar!’
Ravi laughed, ‘What’s your name, child?’
‘Kunhamina.’
Ravi listened to the ballad of Khasak in her, its heroic periods, its torrential winds and its banyan breezes. There was no death but only silver anklets and her eyes sparkling through the surma. Ravi looked deep into those eyes; the story would have no dying, only the slow and mysterious transit. He began in the style of the ancient fabulist.
‘Once upon a time...’
I’ve never been to Kerala. I don’t speak Malayalam. I don’t remember if I’ve read any translated Malayalam literature before (though I’ve certainly read literature from Kerala written in English).
Recently I decided to read The Legends of Khasak, by O V Vijayan – a book that has been waiting patiently on my bookshelf for years. Its publication in 1969 apparently brought about a sea-change in Malayalam literature, divided it into pre-Khasak and post-Khasak eras, released it from the shackles of tradition and marked the arrival of modernity – "the most influential work in Malayalam in the last 50 years".
Fortunately, I read all of those assessments only after finishing the novel, else I would have approached it with difficult-to-meet expectations (which happened with My Name Is Red).
…
This novel literally revolutionised Malayalam fiction. Its interweaving of myth and reality, its lyrical intensity, its black humour, its freshness of idiom with its mixing of the provincial and the profound and its combinatorial wordplay, its juxtaposition of the erotic and the metaphysical, the crass and the sublime, the real and the surreal, guilt and expiation, physical desire and existential angst, and its innovative narrative strategy with its deft manipulation of time and space together created a new readership with a novel sensibility and transformed the Malayali imagination forever.…
The Legends of Khasak is about a young man, Ravi, who goes to teach in a remote village. The stories of various people in the village are explored; the whole narrative has a mythical quality.
…
The history of Khasak was the great oral legend; that, and a shared indigence held Khasak together.…
Ravi was originally supposed to be an urban revolutionary come to "conscientise" the village, a pilgrim-revolutionary; however Vijayan’s faith in Communist politics was shattered because of the events in Hungary in 1956, and he developed a more mystical-minded protagonist, a spiritual wanderer who would "learn from the stupor of Khasak".
…
Looking back, I thank Providence, because I missed writing the "revolutionary" novel by a hair’s breadth. Had I written it, I would have merely made one more boring entry in Marxism’s futile, repetitive bibliography.…
It’s a slim book, yet it took me a long time to read. At times the imagery is dense, and I also kept referring back to remind myself how people and events were connected to each other. But perhaps it is a book you can’t rush. I was enveloped by the vivid, dream-like atmosphere conjured in it.
When I started, I really didn't know what I was writing about, except that I experienced a great joy in the wild spaces of my native Palakkad and the solitude of the countryside. I was not even particularly conscious of it, but it certainly influenced the language and the very words that I used in Khasak. The sights and sounds were so powerful: the wind whistling through the Palakkad gap in the Western Ghats; the clattering of the black palm trees.…
O V Vijayan started work on the original novel in 1956, and it was finally published in book form in 1969. The English translation, done by Vijayan himself, was published in 1994.
As I read the novel I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was looking at a reflection; something beautiful, maybe profound was there but I could only see light and shape, not detail. Vijayan wrote of the translation:
It has been difficult translating this book. It is full of dense images of nature, old folk customs, evocations of caste differences, the rich play of dialects, all of which are difficult to render into English. So much has been lost, there was no way it could have been salvaged. I have tried to make the narrative depend on its own energy as much as possible, and preserved the pace and rhythm of the original.It has been claimed that the translation differs substantially from the original in its sensibility, and that some readers view it as an independent novel. Vijayan experienced an "epistemological break" in the years between writing the original and doing the translation, moving from a position of scepticism and philosophical doubt to one of certainty, and the translation apparently mirrors that.
…
They say that the Malayalam language has never been the same again. I cannot vouch for that, but certainly the book taught me this – no language, however physically confined, however historically deprived, is left without springheads of regeneration. There is as much narrative potential in Malayalam as in the imperial languages. Khasak has given that assurance to successor generations.
O V Vijayan worked in Delhi for 35 years, then moved to Hyderabad. He found it difficult to live in Kerala because he would get mobbed.
I have some problems of privacy in Kerala. People come up to me constantly – it's sort of a celebrity status that is hard for me to deal with. But it's a humbling experience too. I find all kinds of people come and talk to me – not just the middle class. Even when I travel by train, people come and tell me how much they enjoy my work. It is gratifying that people in all walks of life are reading my books....
I know a Malayali author living in Bahrain whose books are read in numbers that an author writing in Arabic can only dream of. Benny Daniel (who writes as Benyamin) recently won the prestigious Kerala Sahitya Akademi award for his latest novel Aadujeevitham (Life as a Goat).
The novel revolves around the true-life story of an Indian man named Mohammed Najeeb who spends several years in the deserts of Saudi Arabia as a goatherd with no contact with another human being. "Najeeb was promised a job in Saudi Arabia by an acquaintance. He was taken to the middle of a desert and left there to look after hundreds of goats. He didn’t meet another human being there, except a man who used to occasionally drop by to deliver food for the goats. He didn’t know how to get out or contact the outside world. His only companions were the animals and his life and character were so influenced by them. He was finally rescued by a friend and was able to return home."Literary events at the Keraleeya Samajam in Bahrain have been known to attract audiences in the thousands.
…
In one of those moments of preposterous coincidence that life throws at us, on the same day that I decided to read a Malayalam novel, I was asked to meet a publisher from Kerala interested in translating Bahraini novels into Malayalam. And the great thing is that the books will be translated directly from Arabic.
…
I am aware of at least one Malayalam novel translated into Arabic, via the English translation. The novel Oru Sankeerthanam Pole (Like A Psalm) by Perumbadavam Sreedharan, based on the life of Dostoevsky, has sold over 100,000 copies in Malayalam. In Arabic it is called (مثل ترنيمة), translated by Mohammed Eid Ibrahim, and was published this year by the Kalima Foundation in Abu Dhabi.
…
Quotes by O V Vijayan, unless otherwise indicated, taken from the author's note or afterword of The Legends of Khasak.
All photos by Rajesh Kakkanatt, reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.
on tajweed
I really should learn to listen when I receive good advice.
For the last year or so (even before my Ramadan project), I have been trying to find a teacher with whom I can study the Qur’an, specifically its vocabulary and structures. I felt there was only so much that I would be able to learn by my own reading. I asked all sorts of people for suggestions, and I tried the obvious routes like Discover Islam and the Islamic Awareness Centre (where in fact I briefly took a class). However, the emphasis at those organisations is very much on educating recent converts to Islam, and the class I took focused on the basics of Islam, using a translation of the Qur’an.
One person I met told me that I should learn to recite the Qur’an first, and then understanding the text would become easier. This seemed back to front to me – how would I be able to read out something whose meaning I didn’t fully grasp? – and I insisted that I needed to learn about Qur’anic language before anything else. When I met him again recently, I asked him if he’d had any ideas about where I could study, and once again he told me that I should first learn to read out the text – and this time he made some phone calls, and found me a teacher.
And to my great surprise, he was absolutely right.
I am now taking classes in tajweed, the correct pronunciation when reciting the Qur’an, and suddenly the text has opened up to me and I am finding it much easier to understand. I don’t quite understand why that is (though of course the word “Qur’an” comes from the root “to recite”); the only analogy I have come up with is the way that Shakespeare makes more sense when read aloud. Not all of the vocabulary is known to me, but I prepare using a translation before the class; the process of reciting essentially makes the distinctive style and structure of Qur’anic language clearer to me.
I think it’s impossible not to be affected by the profound beauty of the language in the Qur’an. By repeating after my teacher and listening to his explanations I am learning about tafkheem and tarqeeq, ghunnah, qalqalah, mudood, and all the other “special effects” that apply to letters and words. I have found some great resources online, such as this [pdf] and this [link to download pdf], as well as Quran Explorer. I am also keen to read The Art of Reciting the Qur'an by Kristina Nelson. (And by the way, this site is amazing, “an annotated linguistic resource which shows the Arabic grammar, syntax and morphology for each word in the Holy Quran”.) But while these resources are a help, they could never replace a teacher, because when learning tajweed you need (well, I need) constant correction.
Doing this has reminded me that I rarely read Arabic (fus'ha) aloud; the sounds are always in my head, and on top of that, I tend to hear each word in my mind separately. (For those that don’t know Arabic, I should explain that in “proper” Arabic, words are connected by vowels which depend on the grammatical status of the word.) So being forced to pay close attention in these lessons to the types of consonants and the i'rab is incredibly useful.
More than that, the process of engaging with Arabic very actively is really energising and enjoyable; while I spend hours a day reading Arabic texts, it’s a relatively passive process. Now my brain is starting to work quite differently, and I have noticed I am reading and listening in a more focused way. (In the past I found the same thing happened when I wrote in Arabic on a regular basis.)
Believe it or not, these lessons are giving me so much stimulation and satisfaction that on the days I have a class in the evening I actually wake up in the morning looking forward to it. Now I only wish I had starting learning tajweed sooner.
Next time someone advises me on a subject I know little about, I’ll be sure to listen.
For the last year or so (even before my Ramadan project), I have been trying to find a teacher with whom I can study the Qur’an, specifically its vocabulary and structures. I felt there was only so much that I would be able to learn by my own reading. I asked all sorts of people for suggestions, and I tried the obvious routes like Discover Islam and the Islamic Awareness Centre (where in fact I briefly took a class). However, the emphasis at those organisations is very much on educating recent converts to Islam, and the class I took focused on the basics of Islam, using a translation of the Qur’an.
One person I met told me that I should learn to recite the Qur’an first, and then understanding the text would become easier. This seemed back to front to me – how would I be able to read out something whose meaning I didn’t fully grasp? – and I insisted that I needed to learn about Qur’anic language before anything else. When I met him again recently, I asked him if he’d had any ideas about where I could study, and once again he told me that I should first learn to read out the text – and this time he made some phone calls, and found me a teacher.
And to my great surprise, he was absolutely right.
I am now taking classes in tajweed, the correct pronunciation when reciting the Qur’an, and suddenly the text has opened up to me and I am finding it much easier to understand. I don’t quite understand why that is (though of course the word “Qur’an” comes from the root “to recite”); the only analogy I have come up with is the way that Shakespeare makes more sense when read aloud. Not all of the vocabulary is known to me, but I prepare using a translation before the class; the process of reciting essentially makes the distinctive style and structure of Qur’anic language clearer to me.
I think it’s impossible not to be affected by the profound beauty of the language in the Qur’an. By repeating after my teacher and listening to his explanations I am learning about tafkheem and tarqeeq, ghunnah, qalqalah, mudood, and all the other “special effects” that apply to letters and words. I have found some great resources online, such as this [pdf] and this [link to download pdf], as well as Quran Explorer. I am also keen to read The Art of Reciting the Qur'an by Kristina Nelson. (And by the way, this site is amazing, “an annotated linguistic resource which shows the Arabic grammar, syntax and morphology for each word in the Holy Quran”.) But while these resources are a help, they could never replace a teacher, because when learning tajweed you need (well, I need) constant correction.
Doing this has reminded me that I rarely read Arabic (fus'ha) aloud; the sounds are always in my head, and on top of that, I tend to hear each word in my mind separately. (For those that don’t know Arabic, I should explain that in “proper” Arabic, words are connected by vowels which depend on the grammatical status of the word.) So being forced to pay close attention in these lessons to the types of consonants and the i'rab is incredibly useful.
More than that, the process of engaging with Arabic very actively is really energising and enjoyable; while I spend hours a day reading Arabic texts, it’s a relatively passive process. Now my brain is starting to work quite differently, and I have noticed I am reading and listening in a more focused way. (In the past I found the same thing happened when I wrote in Arabic on a regular basis.)
Believe it or not, these lessons are giving me so much stimulation and satisfaction that on the days I have a class in the evening I actually wake up in the morning looking forward to it. Now I only wish I had starting learning tajweed sooner.
Next time someone advises me on a subject I know little about, I’ll be sure to listen.
on prophets
Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while may remember that last Ramadan I decided to try and read a juz' of the Qur'an every day (my posts about it are here, here, and here). In the end I only managed to get part of the way through, because of how time-consuming it was. I knew that I certainly wouldn't have time this year, so I decided on a smaller Ramadan project, to compare the story of Yusuf/Joseph in the Qur'an and the Bible – of course prompted by watching Yusuf Al Siddiq.
I was going to outline the differences in the texts here, but decided that if you're really interested you can just read the two accounts yourselves. (I'll even give you the links, both in English: Genesis 37-50, and Surat Yusuf 12: 4-102.) The variations in the "plot" were fascinating, but I found myself thinking about something more difficult to pin down: the nature and representation of prophets.
…
I learnt a lot from Yusuf Al Siddiq. (Besides how infuriating music endlessly played over dialogue can be.) For example, there was a highly dramatic scene where Zuleikha, Potiphar's wife, schemed to prove her innocence after having attempted to seduce Yusuf; she invited a group of women to the palace, gave them each an orange and a knife, and then requested Yusuf to enter the room. The women were so overwhelmed by his beauty that they couldn't take their eyes off him and cut their hands, making blood drip everywhere. (Apparently the Prophet Muhammad once said that Yusuf possessed half of all beauty given to mankind.) Only later did I discover that this is based on a verse in the Qur'an:
And on more than one occasion I suspected the screenwriters to be taking liberties with history only to find that, while they might have been making connections for their own purposes, there was generally a historical fact on which they were basing their story. For example, they made Yusuf a favoured advisor of Amenhotep IV, who takes the name Akhenaton when he decides to reject polytheism. I discovered that Akhenaton (husband of Nefertiti, father of Tutankhamun) did indeed become a monotheist – but whether he was the king mentioned in the Qur'anic sura is another matter. (In his novel Joseph and His Brothers, based on the Genesis story, Thomas Mann also makes the pharaoh Akhenaton.)
…
In his excellent book Islam, Fazlur Rahman describes the "general doctrine of infallibility, embracing all the Prophets, which is based on the consideration that a human who is a recipient of divine revelation cannot be expected to err grossly, especially in moral matters" (though he points out that the Prophet Muhammad's infallibility is broader than that of other prophets).
Roland E. Miller offers a slightly more nuanced perspective in Muslim Friends:
This helped me understand the way that Yusuf and his father Yacoub (Jacob) are portrayed in Yusuf Al Siddiq (which was of course made in Iran). They are shown as morally exemplary men, who are entirely aware of and embrace their prophethood. Nevertheless, a prophet can clearly have children who have less admirable morals; Yacoub's other sons were hardly great role models. (But that may be getting into the sphere of predestination, which can make a person's head explode.)
It struck me that the same figures regarded as infallible in the Islamic tradition do not seem to be presented that way in the Bible. In the biblical story, Jacob doesn't come across as a particularly moral person; he cheats his brother of his birthright, obtains his father's blessing by fraud, and runs away from his father-in-law. And yet this does not conflict with his standing as chosen by God. The introduction to the Pentateuch in the New Jerusalem Bible says:
I was going to outline the differences in the texts here, but decided that if you're really interested you can just read the two accounts yourselves. (I'll even give you the links, both in English: Genesis 37-50, and Surat Yusuf 12: 4-102.) The variations in the "plot" were fascinating, but I found myself thinking about something more difficult to pin down: the nature and representation of prophets.
…
I learnt a lot from Yusuf Al Siddiq. (Besides how infuriating music endlessly played over dialogue can be.) For example, there was a highly dramatic scene where Zuleikha, Potiphar's wife, schemed to prove her innocence after having attempted to seduce Yusuf; she invited a group of women to the palace, gave them each an orange and a knife, and then requested Yusuf to enter the room. The women were so overwhelmed by his beauty that they couldn't take their eyes off him and cut their hands, making blood drip everywhere. (Apparently the Prophet Muhammad once said that Yusuf possessed half of all beauty given to mankind.) Only later did I discover that this is based on a verse in the Qur'an:
When she heard their malicious talk, she prepared a banquet and sent for them, giving each of them a knife. She said to Joseph, 'Come out and show yourself to them!' and when the women saw him, they were stunned by his beauty, and cut their hands, exclaiming, 'Great God! He cannot be mortal! He must be a precious angel!'(Translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem.)
And on more than one occasion I suspected the screenwriters to be taking liberties with history only to find that, while they might have been making connections for their own purposes, there was generally a historical fact on which they were basing their story. For example, they made Yusuf a favoured advisor of Amenhotep IV, who takes the name Akhenaton when he decides to reject polytheism. I discovered that Akhenaton (husband of Nefertiti, father of Tutankhamun) did indeed become a monotheist – but whether he was the king mentioned in the Qur'anic sura is another matter. (In his novel Joseph and His Brothers, based on the Genesis story, Thomas Mann also makes the pharaoh Akhenaton.)
…
In his excellent book Islam, Fazlur Rahman describes the "general doctrine of infallibility, embracing all the Prophets, which is based on the consideration that a human who is a recipient of divine revelation cannot be expected to err grossly, especially in moral matters" (though he points out that the Prophet Muhammad's infallibility is broader than that of other prophets).
Roland E. Miller offers a slightly more nuanced perspective in Muslim Friends:
A prophet should have a noble character and be pious, faithful, and truthful. In later Islam it has been taught that a prophet is preserved from sinning, at least from serious sins. In the Qur'an itself the prophets are portrayed as fully human beings, with many of the normal problems of ordinary people. There are many examples of prophets praying for forgiveness. [...] The overall Muslim view is that the prophets of God were guarded from serious moral failure that would make them unfit vehicles for God's Word. As to lesser errors there is disagreement. Most Muslims, however, are not willing to accept that prophets are sinful except in the mildest sense.The concept of infallibility – ismah – is even stronger within Shi'i thought. This dates back to a particular theologian, according to the book Roman Catholics and Shi'i Muslims:
Shi'is since the time of Shaykh Mufid have held that the prophets and Imams, after their vocation, were immune to sin.And this is what Al Shaykh Al Mufid wrote:
All apostles of God were inerrant concerning wrong deeds prior to prophethood and after it, and all misdemeanours which the doer may take lightly. And Muhammad is a prophet who did not infringe upon the command of Allah, the Most High, from his birth until his death. He did not sin either on purpose or through forgetfulness.(From Awa'il al-maqalat by Muhammad ibn al-Nu'man al-Mufid, quoted in History of Islamic Philosophy.)
This helped me understand the way that Yusuf and his father Yacoub (Jacob) are portrayed in Yusuf Al Siddiq (which was of course made in Iran). They are shown as morally exemplary men, who are entirely aware of and embrace their prophethood. Nevertheless, a prophet can clearly have children who have less admirable morals; Yacoub's other sons were hardly great role models. (But that may be getting into the sphere of predestination, which can make a person's head explode.)
It struck me that the same figures regarded as infallible in the Islamic tradition do not seem to be presented that way in the Bible. In the biblical story, Jacob doesn't come across as a particularly moral person; he cheats his brother of his birthright, obtains his father's blessing by fraud, and runs away from his father-in-law. And yet this does not conflict with his standing as chosen by God. The introduction to the Pentateuch in the New Jerusalem Bible says:
Firmly rooted in the nomadic culture of the ancient Near East, Israel was a primitive people, whose customs and morality may seem barbaric by some modern standards. Secure in the championship of Yahweh, they learnt gradually his nature and his purpose for the people he had chosen as his own.I have been trying in vain to recall specific examples of how biblical prophets have been portrayed in films, to compare with Yusuf Al Siddiq. (Time to watch The Ten Commandments again.) From my reading of the biblical stories I have the impression of men who are a mouthpiece for God when required to be, learning and leading through difficult circumstances, rather than being there as teachers, infallible and ideal, for others to emulate. And according to this Wikipedia entry, in Christian teaching the prophets indeed are not infallible:
Prophets are recognised to still be human and fallible, they may make wrong decisions, have incorrect personal beliefs or opinions, or sin from time to time. Their hearing of revelation does not remove all their humanity or perfect them, nor do they always want to deliver the messages they have heard.I've tried to find out about the Jewish perception of the nature of prophecy, but have come across a range of opinions, including that it is a hereditary faculty. In fact I'm not sure that anything I've quoted above is an absolute position within Christianity or Islam either, there being so many schools of thought within both. I'm really just throwing out my half-formed ideas because I'd like to know more. If anyone can suggest further reading on this topic, please do...
freej al fadhel
Ten minutes before the maghrib adhan. The weight of the heat has lessened, as if a pressure cooker has come to rest.
Sounds are limited: a shutter clattering on its journey down, two hammers beating a rhythm, active for as long as they can be. All else is muted, yet the atmosphere is feverish, thick with the tension that is about to be released.
Indian sweetshops glare fiercely, simultaneously beckoning and repelling. However, action is focused solely around the khabbaz. Cars stop, blocking the lane; drivers grasp the bags of hot bread, impatient now. (Try not to linger on the image of the bakers, scorched next to the huge ovens.)
I walk along this lane every day, my feet busier than my eyes. Today, the lane put its hand on my shoulder, slowed me down, and whispered that I too am part of its life.
Sounds are limited: a shutter clattering on its journey down, two hammers beating a rhythm, active for as long as they can be. All else is muted, yet the atmosphere is feverish, thick with the tension that is about to be released.
Indian sweetshops glare fiercely, simultaneously beckoning and repelling. However, action is focused solely around the khabbaz. Cars stop, blocking the lane; drivers grasp the bags of hot bread, impatient now. (Try not to linger on the image of the bakers, scorched next to the huge ovens.)
I walk along this lane every day, my feet busier than my eyes. Today, the lane put its hand on my shoulder, slowed me down, and whispered that I too am part of its life.
yusuf al-siddiq
Not having a television or internet at home (by choice), what I watch depends on whatever DVDs or downloads my friends choose to give me. I like it as a system because I am introduced to films or series I wouldn't normally consider watching. However, when an Iranian historical serial was handed to me a while back, I doubted I would be watching much of it – especially when I was told, "It gets really good after episode 25." But that serial was Yusuf Al-Siddiq, and I've been pleasantly surprised.
There seems to be little in English about it online, so here's my translation of the Arabic Wikipedia entry (and any Wikipedians reading this, feel free to use it to build up the English entry):
I suppose I should clarify, for those who might not make the connection, that the Prophet Yusuf is of course Joseph, son of Jacob, grandson of Isaac, great-grandson of Abraham – Joseph of the "Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" (though the "coat of many colours" in the Biblical account may be a mistranslation).
While I don't catch everything in Yusuf Al-Siddiq, I can certainly follow what's going on (knowing the basic plot helps, I suppose), and I am actually quite engaged by the story. The acting is good; in fact, the whole production is very well done. I've just finished episode eight, when Joseph is about to be taken to Egypt, so there's a long way to go. But I am confident I will actually get through all 45 episodes.
The entire serial can be found online; just search for “Yusuf Al-Siddiq” on YouTube.
There seems to be little in English about it online, so here's my translation of the Arabic Wikipedia entry (and any Wikipedians reading this, feel free to use it to build up the English entry):
Yusuf Al-Siddiq is an Iranian historical serial which tells the story of the Prophet Yusuf (A.S.), son of Yacoub the son of Ishaq the son of Ibrahim Al-Khalil (A.S.), from the time of his birth until meeting his father Yacoub, the Prophet of God, after a long absence. The serial comprises 45 episodes which took four years to film, from 2004 until 2008. Twenty writers worked on the screenplay, and they referred to the Holy Qur'an, books of commentary, history books, hadith, and also some books from the Sunni school. The work they produced reached approximately 8000 pages. It was broadcast exclusively on Al-Kawthar TV after being dubbed into Arabic, and was also broadcast in its original Farsi in the same way on Iran TV. This dubbed serial was acclaimed by many viewers and was the talk of the moment. A large number of criticisms circulated as well. The serial was broadcast in Ramadan 1430 (2009) on Al-Manar channel.
I suppose I should clarify, for those who might not make the connection, that the Prophet Yusuf is of course Joseph, son of Jacob, grandson of Isaac, great-grandson of Abraham – Joseph of the "Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" (though the "coat of many colours" in the Biblical account may be a mistranslation).
While I don't catch everything in Yusuf Al-Siddiq, I can certainly follow what's going on (knowing the basic plot helps, I suppose), and I am actually quite engaged by the story. The acting is good; in fact, the whole production is very well done. I've just finished episode eight, when Joseph is about to be taken to Egypt, so there's a long way to go. But I am confident I will actually get through all 45 episodes.
The entire serial can be found online; just search for “Yusuf Al-Siddiq” on YouTube.
the chile trilogy
At last, a month after I left, the promised account of my time in Chile.
Part One – The Studies
Well, it turns out I am really bad at Spanish. I tried, I really tried. I studied hard. I did my homework. I asked lots of questions in class. I found the language easy to understand, even when spoken with a Chilean accent. But when I attempted to speak? Towards the end of my week-long course, I went out for lunch with some fellow students, Flavia from Brazil and Federica and Paola from Italy. For the first time I felt I was getting a grip on Spanish, especially the verbs, and I was confidently chatting away to Flavia, who doesn't speak English. Then I noticed Federica smiling. I asked her why, and she said, "It's so cute the way you keep speaking Italian."
So there you have it. I went to Chile to learn Spanish, and I spent the whole week speaking Italian. I don't even speak Italian well, just understand it, but every word I have ever learnt rose to the top of my head when I tried to communicate in Spanish.
Nevertheless I had a great time studying at Escuela Bellavista, which had a very welcoming atmosphere and great teachers. And maybe I didn't manage to speak much Spanish because of my brain short-circuiting, but in class I discovered a lot about Chilean culture and society that I wouldn't have learnt from a book. I also enjoyed staying in the home of a Chilean couple, teachers at the school, along with some other students from various countries. It was a fun week, and definitely worth it.
Part Two – The Travels
The fact that we couldn't find our way out of Santiago in our hire car should have rung some alarm bells. The only map we had was a very basic and utterly inadequate one in the Lonely Planet guidebook (a real roadmap was nowhere to be found), and the signs on the roads were easily missed and not particularly helpful. At one point we even resorted to the compass app on Tomomi's iPhone to give us an idea of the direction we should go in. We got on the right road in the end, and headed south to Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz, a small town in the Colchagua Valley, was our base for two nights. Earthquake damage was very visible there, unlike in Santiago. As we arrived on the May Day holiday, we had the chance to experience a local fair: crowds, drums, guitars, reggaeton, choripanes, and churros. The stars were unbelievably bright in the night sky.
On our second day we backtracked north from Santa Cruz, and went to the Reserva Nacional Río de Los Cipreses, a little-visited but magnificent nature reserve that we only had the chance to dip into the north of. (To see more would require much more time, and a four-wheel drive.) A magic moment on the way: we stopped at a river where some huasos were watering their horses, and they came over to chat. They were heading into the mountains to bring their animals back down for the winter months. Tomomi was persuaded to go for a ride – her first time on a horse. As she rode off with one of the huasos, the guy who had stayed behind asked me where she was from. When I told him Japan, he inquired if she spoke Spanish. I said she didn't; this seemed to confuse him, and he asked, "So how can you understand each other?"
On day three we left Santa Cruz and headed west, first dropping into a vineyard (that we decided afterwards was probably owned by arms dealer Carlos Cardoen), then Lolol, devastated by the recent earthquake. Reaching the coast we went to the village of Bucalemu for a fish lunch, then up the coast to Pichilemu. Pichilemu, described as Chile's surf capital, had the sad, deserted feel of a seaside resort in winter, but we were happy to find a place to have proper coffee, rather than the ubiquitous Nescafé. (As the Lonely Planet says, "Decent coffee is like gold dust in Chile.")
And then came the hardest part of the trip. Our plan was to drive up the coast to Valparaíso, to spend a couple of nights there. But, not having a proper map, we only had a rough idea of the route. There were other challenges: really poor signage, wrong turns, a long detour because of a non-existent bridge (destroyed in the earthquake), pitch-black roads, fog, no facilities en route (and three women who'd drunk lots of coffee)... I think it was Tomomi who said it felt like we were in a video game; we would get through a level, to find a greater challenge awaiting at the next. But Scilla, who did all the driving, somehow kept her cool.
Even when we got to Valparaíso the nightmare didn't stop. We finally arrived really late at night, long hours after we had planned to. The map giving directions to the hostel was terrible (and I suspect the street names were wrong). We spent a surreal hour driving around Valparaíso's steep streets in the rain getting attacked by packs of deranged dogs (only later learning that dogs in Valparaíso chase cars for fun), searching for a statue holding a fork (Neptune and his trident). And when we eventually found the hostel, the door was locked and no one answered the bell; we only got in because one of the guys who worked there happened to return from wherever he had been.
Day four was spent resolutely on our feet and not in the car, wandering around Valparaíso. We were joined by another friend, Chris. Valparaíso is not only physically exhausting (it's built on hills running up from the sea) but also visually exhausting; everywhere you look, especially in the upper part of town, there are brightly painted houses, street art, and graffiti. (Check out Tomomi's photos.) "The madhouse museum beauty of its strange corrugated-iron architecture, arranged on a series of tiers linked by winding flights of stairs and funiculars, is heightened by the contrast of diversely coloured houses blending with the leaden blue of the bay."
Our fifth day of travelling took us to Quintay, and Isla Negra. And finally, back to Santiago.
Part Three – The Summit
Many other people have written about the Global Voices Summit – if you're interested, I recommend Ethan Zuckerman's post for a good overview, Lova Rakotomalala's for some philosophical musings, and Leonard Chien's for some fascinating "backstage" talk. All I can add to what others have written is that these days, Global Voices feels less – for want of a better word – American. By that I mean that the last summit in Budapest seemed to have a large number of participants who were either from the US or based in the US or visited the US regularly and were familiar with US organisations and a certain type of US tech-related discussion. All that is perhaps unsurprising, but it did feel a little like a club where people shared a language and were having conversations that outsiders like me couldn't immediately participate in. Now Global Voices (including the Lingua sites) has expanded massively, and this year's summit felt very different, with a huge variety of places and languages represented. Truly global voices at last.
The Epilogue
In transit at São Paulo airport on my back, I was surprised at the check-in desk when the airline employee switched from speaking Portuguese – as she had been to the people in front – to Spanish when she saw me (then English when she saw my passport). It didn't make sense, because if I could pass as Chilean or Argentinean then why not Brazilian? A little later, still at the airport, I bumped into a Brazilian friend from Bahrain (oh yes, the world is small), and as we were chatting I mentioned that the woman had spoken to me in Spanish instead of Portuguese. My friend's explanation was that Brazilian women are really overdressed compared to other Latin American women, and that Spanish-speaking women look more "relaxed". Which seems like a diplomatic way of saying that I'm far too scruffy to pass for a Brazilian woman.
My short time in Chile, and the reading I have done since coming back, have made me quite obsessed with the idea of returning for longer. I had no time to read when I was there, but afterwards I picked up an old book called Image of Chile, by Graeme Parish; it's confusingly written, being a mixture of historical information and recollections of Parish's various trips to Chile in the late 1940s and late 1960s, but not without its charm (if you choose to ignore incredible statements such as "...the Chilean Indian, by temperament amiable in his sloth and slothful, making a life-long study of the many ways in which to be indolent..."). I have just read The Motorcycle Diaries; I've never been a Che groupie, but I was certainly engaged by his thoughts as a young traveller.
My daydreams are currently taking me on a journey (in part the reverse to Guevara's) starting in Lima, Peru, from where I move on to Cusco and Machu Picchu. Crossing the border into Chile I travel from Arica at its northern point through the Atacama Desert and various national parks to Santiago (halfway down the country). I spend a month studying in Santiago (actually learning how to speak some Spanish this time), then move southwards by bus and boat, through the Lakes District, Chiloé, and more national parks, finally reaching Tierra del Fuego. From there I head up through the Argentinean side of Patagonia, and across to Buenos Aires. Actually there are different versions of the daydream, sometimes including studying at the beginning and not in the middle, sometimes including visiting Isla Robinson Crusoe, sometimes Bolivia, Brazil... I can always dream.
Part One – The Studies
Well, it turns out I am really bad at Spanish. I tried, I really tried. I studied hard. I did my homework. I asked lots of questions in class. I found the language easy to understand, even when spoken with a Chilean accent. But when I attempted to speak? Towards the end of my week-long course, I went out for lunch with some fellow students, Flavia from Brazil and Federica and Paola from Italy. For the first time I felt I was getting a grip on Spanish, especially the verbs, and I was confidently chatting away to Flavia, who doesn't speak English. Then I noticed Federica smiling. I asked her why, and she said, "It's so cute the way you keep speaking Italian."
So there you have it. I went to Chile to learn Spanish, and I spent the whole week speaking Italian. I don't even speak Italian well, just understand it, but every word I have ever learnt rose to the top of my head when I tried to communicate in Spanish.
Nevertheless I had a great time studying at Escuela Bellavista, which had a very welcoming atmosphere and great teachers. And maybe I didn't manage to speak much Spanish because of my brain short-circuiting, but in class I discovered a lot about Chilean culture and society that I wouldn't have learnt from a book. I also enjoyed staying in the home of a Chilean couple, teachers at the school, along with some other students from various countries. It was a fun week, and definitely worth it.
Part Two – The Travels
The fact that we couldn't find our way out of Santiago in our hire car should have rung some alarm bells. The only map we had was a very basic and utterly inadequate one in the Lonely Planet guidebook (a real roadmap was nowhere to be found), and the signs on the roads were easily missed and not particularly helpful. At one point we even resorted to the compass app on Tomomi's iPhone to give us an idea of the direction we should go in. We got on the right road in the end, and headed south to Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz, a small town in the Colchagua Valley, was our base for two nights. Earthquake damage was very visible there, unlike in Santiago. As we arrived on the May Day holiday, we had the chance to experience a local fair: crowds, drums, guitars, reggaeton, choripanes, and churros. The stars were unbelievably bright in the night sky.
On our second day we backtracked north from Santa Cruz, and went to the Reserva Nacional Río de Los Cipreses, a little-visited but magnificent nature reserve that we only had the chance to dip into the north of. (To see more would require much more time, and a four-wheel drive.) A magic moment on the way: we stopped at a river where some huasos were watering their horses, and they came over to chat. They were heading into the mountains to bring their animals back down for the winter months. Tomomi was persuaded to go for a ride – her first time on a horse. As she rode off with one of the huasos, the guy who had stayed behind asked me where she was from. When I told him Japan, he inquired if she spoke Spanish. I said she didn't; this seemed to confuse him, and he asked, "So how can you understand each other?"
On day three we left Santa Cruz and headed west, first dropping into a vineyard (that we decided afterwards was probably owned by arms dealer Carlos Cardoen), then Lolol, devastated by the recent earthquake. Reaching the coast we went to the village of Bucalemu for a fish lunch, then up the coast to Pichilemu. Pichilemu, described as Chile's surf capital, had the sad, deserted feel of a seaside resort in winter, but we were happy to find a place to have proper coffee, rather than the ubiquitous Nescafé. (As the Lonely Planet says, "Decent coffee is like gold dust in Chile.")
And then came the hardest part of the trip. Our plan was to drive up the coast to Valparaíso, to spend a couple of nights there. But, not having a proper map, we only had a rough idea of the route. There were other challenges: really poor signage, wrong turns, a long detour because of a non-existent bridge (destroyed in the earthquake), pitch-black roads, fog, no facilities en route (and three women who'd drunk lots of coffee)... I think it was Tomomi who said it felt like we were in a video game; we would get through a level, to find a greater challenge awaiting at the next. But Scilla, who did all the driving, somehow kept her cool.
Even when we got to Valparaíso the nightmare didn't stop. We finally arrived really late at night, long hours after we had planned to. The map giving directions to the hostel was terrible (and I suspect the street names were wrong). We spent a surreal hour driving around Valparaíso's steep streets in the rain getting attacked by packs of deranged dogs (only later learning that dogs in Valparaíso chase cars for fun), searching for a statue holding a fork (Neptune and his trident). And when we eventually found the hostel, the door was locked and no one answered the bell; we only got in because one of the guys who worked there happened to return from wherever he had been.
Day four was spent resolutely on our feet and not in the car, wandering around Valparaíso. We were joined by another friend, Chris. Valparaíso is not only physically exhausting (it's built on hills running up from the sea) but also visually exhausting; everywhere you look, especially in the upper part of town, there are brightly painted houses, street art, and graffiti. (Check out Tomomi's photos.) "The madhouse museum beauty of its strange corrugated-iron architecture, arranged on a series of tiers linked by winding flights of stairs and funiculars, is heightened by the contrast of diversely coloured houses blending with the leaden blue of the bay."
Our fifth day of travelling took us to Quintay, and Isla Negra. And finally, back to Santiago.
Part Three – The Summit
Many other people have written about the Global Voices Summit – if you're interested, I recommend Ethan Zuckerman's post for a good overview, Lova Rakotomalala's for some philosophical musings, and Leonard Chien's for some fascinating "backstage" talk. All I can add to what others have written is that these days, Global Voices feels less – for want of a better word – American. By that I mean that the last summit in Budapest seemed to have a large number of participants who were either from the US or based in the US or visited the US regularly and were familiar with US organisations and a certain type of US tech-related discussion. All that is perhaps unsurprising, but it did feel a little like a club where people shared a language and were having conversations that outsiders like me couldn't immediately participate in. Now Global Voices (including the Lingua sites) has expanded massively, and this year's summit felt very different, with a huge variety of places and languages represented. Truly global voices at last.
The Epilogue
In transit at São Paulo airport on my back, I was surprised at the check-in desk when the airline employee switched from speaking Portuguese – as she had been to the people in front – to Spanish when she saw me (then English when she saw my passport). It didn't make sense, because if I could pass as Chilean or Argentinean then why not Brazilian? A little later, still at the airport, I bumped into a Brazilian friend from Bahrain (oh yes, the world is small), and as we were chatting I mentioned that the woman had spoken to me in Spanish instead of Portuguese. My friend's explanation was that Brazilian women are really overdressed compared to other Latin American women, and that Spanish-speaking women look more "relaxed". Which seems like a diplomatic way of saying that I'm far too scruffy to pass for a Brazilian woman.
My short time in Chile, and the reading I have done since coming back, have made me quite obsessed with the idea of returning for longer. I had no time to read when I was there, but afterwards I picked up an old book called Image of Chile, by Graeme Parish; it's confusingly written, being a mixture of historical information and recollections of Parish's various trips to Chile in the late 1940s and late 1960s, but not without its charm (if you choose to ignore incredible statements such as "...the Chilean Indian, by temperament amiable in his sloth and slothful, making a life-long study of the many ways in which to be indolent..."). I have just read The Motorcycle Diaries; I've never been a Che groupie, but I was certainly engaged by his thoughts as a young traveller.
My daydreams are currently taking me on a journey (in part the reverse to Guevara's) starting in Lima, Peru, from where I move on to Cusco and Machu Picchu. Crossing the border into Chile I travel from Arica at its northern point through the Atacama Desert and various national parks to Santiago (halfway down the country). I spend a month studying in Santiago (actually learning how to speak some Spanish this time), then move southwards by bus and boat, through the Lakes District, Chiloé, and more national parks, finally reaching Tierra del Fuego. From there I head up through the Argentinean side of Patagonia, and across to Buenos Aires. Actually there are different versions of the daydream, sometimes including studying at the beginning and not in the middle, sometimes including visiting Isla Robinson Crusoe, sometimes Bolivia, Brazil... I can always dream.
of car parks and corpse washers
A few weeks ago I had one of my "adventures". (Do these things only happen to me?) It was a Friday evening, and I had an appointment at the American Mission Hospital. Parking around there is difficult at most times, but on a Friday it's nigh on impossible. I couldn't find parking in the hospital car park at the front or the one at the back (which is shared by the National Evangelical Church), so I ended up in the car park at the end of the little road at the back of the hospital. I wasn't sure what the car park was attached to – it seemed like a mosque – but I didn't have time to find out, as by then I was cutting it fine for my appointment.
After I finished in the hospital I came back to discover that metal bollards or stanchions had been put up in the road I had entered on – and my car was alone in a deserted car park. At that point I realised that the car park did belong to the mosque, and the cemetery next to it. People could still walk through to reach the other side, so I asked a couple of Indian men that were passing if they knew where the mosque caretaker stayed. They didn't, and when I explained what had happened, they told me that in any case I wouldn't have been able to leave from the road I came in on, as it was one-way, but that there was an exit on the other side. I drove over, to find that there was a big locked gate on that exit.
I left my car near that gate and started wandering about the compound trying to find the caretaker. There was no one around, and I was starting to feel miserable, so I called a couple of friends to see if they had any suggestions. One said that I should go and knock on the door of a house near the mosque, as they would probably know how to get hold of the caretaker. I did that, and found a woman – I'll call her Um A. – who was very helpful; she didn't know where the caretaker was, but told me to go and ask the sheikh of the mosque as he lived a few houses down from her. I knocked on his door and found his son, who was in his twenties, and explained the situation. He said his father wasn't at home, and that he didn't know where the caretaker was; he didn't seem very interested in helping me, but I asked him to call his father to see if he could get the caretaker's number for me. He disappeared, and came back to say that his father wasn't answering his phone.
It was clear he wasn't going to offer another solution, so I went back down the road where Um A. was waiting, peering out of her doorway, and I reported the conversation to her. She thought for a moment, and then said the woman who washed bodies before burial would know where the caretaker was. So she pulled on her daffa, and then took me up the road to find Um B., the corpse washer. We stopped a couple of times on the way while she greeted people. She mentioned that the lock on the gate was very recent; it seemed to confirm her low opinion of the sheikh, because she complained that these days they just sent sheikhs who were only interested in money, and nothing else. We soon got to Um B.'s house, and we stood at the entrance while Um A. shouted up the story to Um B., out of sight at the top of the stairs. I didn't understand the conversation, as they spoke in Persian, but as we left Um A. explained that Um B. was going to call the caretaker (who lived in the souq and came to the mosque by bike), and that I should go and wait in my car until he came.
I thanked her profusely, and she just brushed it off, telling me that I was her sister. At no point did she ask me where I was from (even though my Arabic is a strange mix of dialects). I also remember feeling grateful at the time that she didn't make me feel uncomfortable for being in the neighbourhood dressed in short sleeves with my head uncovered, but looking back, it's perhaps strange that I thought she might. I went off to my car, but after some time it was clear that the caretaker wasn't coming. I went back to Um A.'s house, not knowing what else to do, and she came out ready to go to speak to Um B. again. At that point a taxi drove up to park outside her house; it was her neighbour, Abu C., and she explained the story to him (again in Persian), and he went ahead to Um B.'s to find out what had happened. We followed, and met him on his way back; he said that the caretaker had said that the bollards on the first entrance were not locked (though I swear I saw a padlock...) and that we could just pull them out ourselves. So both of them came to the car park with me; Abu C. told me to bring my car while he went to pull out the bollards. I kept thanking them, but again Um A. said that I was her dear sister, and that her reward would come from God. I drove out the way I came, very relieved after an hour of stress.
So what did I learn? Well, if I hadn't listened to the Indian men who told me I couldn't go that way, I might have figured out myself that the bollards at the entrance I came in were not locked, and the whole story could have been avoided. I also learnt that I shouldn't park in places when it's not clear whose property it is (although there was no sign warning that the car park closed at night). And I was reminded of how incredibly kind and helpful Bahrainis can be.
I was also reminded of how many worlds, largely self-contained, exist in this tiny country. In the space of a few streets you will find communities of different nationalities and different languages, who probably don't have that much to do with each other. It feels a little like a display where different networks show up according to which button you press; by chance I had pressed a button and made visible a community that I might not have paid much attention to otherwise.
After I finished in the hospital I came back to discover that metal bollards or stanchions had been put up in the road I had entered on – and my car was alone in a deserted car park. At that point I realised that the car park did belong to the mosque, and the cemetery next to it. People could still walk through to reach the other side, so I asked a couple of Indian men that were passing if they knew where the mosque caretaker stayed. They didn't, and when I explained what had happened, they told me that in any case I wouldn't have been able to leave from the road I came in on, as it was one-way, but that there was an exit on the other side. I drove over, to find that there was a big locked gate on that exit.
I left my car near that gate and started wandering about the compound trying to find the caretaker. There was no one around, and I was starting to feel miserable, so I called a couple of friends to see if they had any suggestions. One said that I should go and knock on the door of a house near the mosque, as they would probably know how to get hold of the caretaker. I did that, and found a woman – I'll call her Um A. – who was very helpful; she didn't know where the caretaker was, but told me to go and ask the sheikh of the mosque as he lived a few houses down from her. I knocked on his door and found his son, who was in his twenties, and explained the situation. He said his father wasn't at home, and that he didn't know where the caretaker was; he didn't seem very interested in helping me, but I asked him to call his father to see if he could get the caretaker's number for me. He disappeared, and came back to say that his father wasn't answering his phone.
It was clear he wasn't going to offer another solution, so I went back down the road where Um A. was waiting, peering out of her doorway, and I reported the conversation to her. She thought for a moment, and then said the woman who washed bodies before burial would know where the caretaker was. So she pulled on her daffa, and then took me up the road to find Um B., the corpse washer. We stopped a couple of times on the way while she greeted people. She mentioned that the lock on the gate was very recent; it seemed to confirm her low opinion of the sheikh, because she complained that these days they just sent sheikhs who were only interested in money, and nothing else. We soon got to Um B.'s house, and we stood at the entrance while Um A. shouted up the story to Um B., out of sight at the top of the stairs. I didn't understand the conversation, as they spoke in Persian, but as we left Um A. explained that Um B. was going to call the caretaker (who lived in the souq and came to the mosque by bike), and that I should go and wait in my car until he came.
I thanked her profusely, and she just brushed it off, telling me that I was her sister. At no point did she ask me where I was from (even though my Arabic is a strange mix of dialects). I also remember feeling grateful at the time that she didn't make me feel uncomfortable for being in the neighbourhood dressed in short sleeves with my head uncovered, but looking back, it's perhaps strange that I thought she might. I went off to my car, but after some time it was clear that the caretaker wasn't coming. I went back to Um A.'s house, not knowing what else to do, and she came out ready to go to speak to Um B. again. At that point a taxi drove up to park outside her house; it was her neighbour, Abu C., and she explained the story to him (again in Persian), and he went ahead to Um B.'s to find out what had happened. We followed, and met him on his way back; he said that the caretaker had said that the bollards on the first entrance were not locked (though I swear I saw a padlock...) and that we could just pull them out ourselves. So both of them came to the car park with me; Abu C. told me to bring my car while he went to pull out the bollards. I kept thanking them, but again Um A. said that I was her dear sister, and that her reward would come from God. I drove out the way I came, very relieved after an hour of stress.
So what did I learn? Well, if I hadn't listened to the Indian men who told me I couldn't go that way, I might have figured out myself that the bollards at the entrance I came in were not locked, and the whole story could have been avoided. I also learnt that I shouldn't park in places when it's not clear whose property it is (although there was no sign warning that the car park closed at night). And I was reminded of how incredibly kind and helpful Bahrainis can be.
I was also reminded of how many worlds, largely self-contained, exist in this tiny country. In the space of a few streets you will find communities of different nationalities and different languages, who probably don't have that much to do with each other. It feels a little like a display where different networks show up according to which button you press; by chance I had pressed a button and made visible a community that I might not have paid much attention to otherwise.
