The Fire of Desert Folk/Chapter 4
A TWELFTH CENTURY MIRACLE-WORKER
ONE beautiful sunny morning we sat in a railway carriage saying good-bye to the attractive little son and daughter of our friends in Oran, Monsieur and Madame Gomis. We were starting our westward journey to Morocco, with Tlemsen as our first stopping place. It was to take us six hours and a half by rail, though the distance was just over one hundred miles.
From our car window, once we were on the way, we could see a perfectly tilled plain, covered with grain, vineyards, fruit-orchards, olive-trees and vegetable gardens and extending to the shores of the large Lake of Oran, which is gradually drying up. Over all the plain were dotted the houses of the French, Spanish and Italian colonists, with their flocks of sheep and cattle about them and here and there a native lied. Along the side of the road, where occasional motor-cars flew by, trains of stately camels moved with measured tread and swaying necks, hailing often from far-away oases in the south or even from the Atlas Mountains. The Arabs still continue to use these camel caravans, even close to the railway, because of the cheapness of this method of transportation. It seems a bit of anachronistic folly; yet hundreds of thousands of these ships of the desert are ever ready to course its billowing surface under the pilotage of their Arab captains, who put no monetary value upon time and who, compelled to gain a few francs for the necessities of life, continue to compete against the inconsiderate and unfeeling railroad. It is a cultural, economic struggle, one that this age has introduced throughout all the world between modernism and the vanishing past. With the construction of two or three additional trans-African lines, the stately burden-bearer will be forced out of his place in the social order and will reappear for his last service in the form of beefsteaks and sausages at the local restaurants and in that of babooshes, of saddles and water-skins and of sacks for dates.
The plain is traversed by several rivers, some of them dry for part of the year but indicated by the lines of rhododendrons, laurels and tamarisks that edge them. Soon the railway left the plain and began to climb the foot-hills of a rather mountainous region, where all traces of agriculture quickly disappeared and pastures replaced the fields. Nomad camps, as I have seen them in Asia, dotted the plains and slopes among the herds of sheep and goats. In some places we saw large black tents, striped with blue or white, and in the openings unveiled women in dark-blue dresses of very light material and decked with heavy jewels of copper and silver in really barbaric taste. The sub-prefect from Sidi Bel Abbes, who had received a copy of the telegram which the Ministry in Paris were courteous enough to send out regarding our coming journey and who was traveling in the compartment with us, explained to us that these nomads were Arabs from the Sahara, who come north in search of pasture for their herds and for the ready money they can make through fortune-telling, healing, shoeing some horses and stealing others or even taking part in certain Moslem ritualistic ceremonies.
Sidi Bel Abbes is one of the largest stations along the line, a French town that is growing with an extraordinary rapidity which is induced by the magnificent agricultural development in the whole of the adjacent region watered by the Mekkera River. The picturesque little town is smothered in fruit-orchards and boasts some few fine buildings and the barracks of one regiment of the Foreign Legion, in which many Poles and still more Germans were serving. As far as one could see in all directions the countryside was covered with the farms of colonists, most of whom are Spaniards. A Frenchman told me that the second generation of these settlers become readily naturalized and that the children attending the French schools have a very marked assimilative influence upon their parents, This Bel Abbes region is one of the most fertile and best colonized sections of Algeria and sends great quantities of grain, wine, olives and cattle to both the local and the export markets. Big modern tractors and ploughs and other agricultural machinery are to be seen everywhere throughout this whole landscape, which extends all the way to Tlemsen.
Just previous to reaching Ain Fezza, the last station before Tlemsen, we ran through a number of tunnels and over a beautiful viaduct of light construction that bridges the deep, picturesque ravine of the El-Ourit River and gave us a magnificent view of several cascades that tumbled between the forest-covered rocks of Tlemsen's range. At this little station we came across a whole company of soldiers from the Foreign Legion, who were there repairing the road, the bridges and the concrete drains. Their bodies looked healthy, their faces sunburned and showing no signs of tropical languor, but their eyes were dull and distrustful. In the mixture of languages we heard Russian, German, Greek and Dutch. We asked about Poles but found that there were none in this detachment.
A few minutes later we were in Tlemsen, having come up in our journey of six and a half hours some two thousand five hundred feet. A carriage and an official guide, arranged for by telephone from Oran, awaited us at the station. The guide was a sergeant of the French Army, an Algerian Arab, Mahomet ben M'Hammed ben Mokhtar, a young but very well-educated man.
Mahomet took us directly to tire hotel, a low, one-storied building, rather like a Swiss chalet and smelling of cedar and resin. From the terrace and the windows of our room we looked out upon a forest-covered mountain-chain, a white mosque in the distance, tall, dark cypresses and a large, attractive orchard. Stillness and peace prevailed and combined with the scenery to remind us of Switzerland, of which Zofiette and I are very fond. As a matter of fact, Tlemsen and its surrounding country may well be called the Little Switzerland of Algeria, while the real and more imposing Switzerland of this land is Kabylia with its beautiful Jujura Mountains.
After we had rested, changed and had our dinner, it was already night. As we strolled out into the garden, filled with the scent of roses and other fragrant flowers, the sky looked dark and very low, like a soft, black cloth with countless miniature openings, down through each of which gleamed the light-shafts of a star. In the surrounding orchards of pomegranates and olives, locusts rasped their strange night-call; through the garden swift bats traced their hurrying, broken flight; while somewhere from the mountain slopes seeped down the wild, unfriendly jackal's howl, to which the dogs of the surrounding town sent bade their long-drawn challenge. Suddenly, as by the wave of some unseen leader's light baton, the tempo changed, and from the olive-grove hard by there floated out the sounds of a flute, which formed themselves into a sad, monotonous tune, to which a voice was joined in plaintive words, as though complaining about something beyond its master's strength to bear, sobbing and praying God for pity and favor. Once more the motif changed, as a loud note, carrying distant and strong, spread itself o'er the place and drowned all other sounds. It was the voice of the muezzin, from his minaret calling the Faithful to their later evening prayer and appealing to the Omnipotent Lord of Life:
"La Illah Illah Allah u Mahomet Rassul Allah, Allah Akbar! (Praise to the Name of Allah. God is One and God is God!)"
Finally now, we are in the land of Islam, impressive with the worship of today and filled with the tradition and stories of its ancient saints and sages.
In 1141, during an athletic contest in Seville, Choaib ibn Husein el-Andalosi, a youth of fifteen, distinguished himself for his remarkable strength. With one stroke of the sword and with extraordinary dexterity as well as power he severed the heads of horses and bulls from their bodies; he broke horseshoes and snapped chains with equal ease. The king, Ali ibn Yusuf ibn Teshufin of the magnificent Almoravide dynasty, deigned to be astonished and summoned the boy's father to ask his intentions regarding his son's career. Learning that the boy was to be a warrior, the king promised to take him into his own bodyguard.
However, the young Choaib ibn Husein some years later frustrated the hopes of his father by announcing his intention of consecrating himself to a life of study. When the father sought to dissuade his son, the young man began to quote in an inspired voice some of the most difficult passages of the Koran. Immediately won over by the boy's earnestness and knowing well that deep learning brings with it a long-lived glory, the father exclaimed:
"You will be a hafidh!"
After this the young athlete began to study openly the wisdom of Allah with the most erudite Moorish scholars in Seville and Cordova and entered upon a life of physical mortification, filled with deep study and contemplation of the spiritual existence. During the closest communion with his teachers Choaib revealed to them that his innermost soul felt it was foreign to this earth and wished to break its bonds and return to the realm from which it had come.
Then the teachers understood that the young student had been brought into the world a Marabout, that is, a higher, holier, human being specially marked by God, and they consequently addressed him from this time forth as "Wali," the Chosen of Allah. At his final examination by the Masters, the young scholar recited some chapters from the Koran in such a beautiful and impressive voice that "those present heard the flutter of the wings of angels, who had been lured from Heaven."
Having had conferred upon him the title of "thaleb," Choaib crossed over to Africa, studied some time in Fez and then, taking a pilgrim's staff, wandered through the land, until finally he chose Tlemsen for his fixed abode. He took up his life on Mount Terni, towering above the village of El-Eubbad not far from the city, and there passed days and nights in prayer and ascetic practices near the tomb of Sidi Abd Allah ben Ali, a holy and wise man whose memory was shrouded in the greatest honor.
Soon the young eremite gave proof of his miraculous powers when the sultan's palace was robbed and all effort to discover the plunderers of the treasuries proved of no avail, until he was summoned before the despairing ruler and, on being questioned answered without hesitation:
"Two men, Oh Sultan, entered and despoiled your courts. Together they possessed but two legs, as one of them is strong but blind, while the second has shriveled limbs and goes about on the shoulders of his blind companion. They are beggars, asking alms in the name of Sidi Nail. If you will send your soldiers to the end of Beni Zeiyan Street, they will see there a ruined house and will find among the ruins the robbers and their spoil."
From this time forth the fame of Choaib grew and spread so rapidly, that he was constantly sought for and summoned to the most distant parts of Maghreb, where he was accorded unfailing adoration for his gifts of prophecy and clairvoyance. The poor, whom he ever helped most willingly, called him Sidi Abu Median, or simply Bu Medin; but this did not stand in the way of his being considered not only a wali but a kutb, that is, the pole of the axis round which humanity revolves, and a ghawts, or a benefactor and savior.
In due course Sidi Abu Median made a holy pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina and won the friendship of Sidi Abd el-Kader el-Jilani, the greatest Islamic scholar and saint of his time, who sent him as a missionary to Bagdad to teach the Koran there. Here Bu Medin made the acquaintance and gained the admiration of Buddhist priests coming from India, won them over to the Faith and through them spread a knowledge of the Koran through the Hindustani world. In his turn he profited from his acquaintance with the Buddhist priests by receiving from them initiation into a science, so far unknown in Maghreb but afterwards called there "Mujulo," which was a combination of mystic ecstasy and fana, or the union of human faculties with God's essence, that gives to man supernatural force and magical powers.
From Bagdad Abu Median finally returned to Seville and Cordova, where he became the most famous professor of theology of his time; but he turned away again from Andalusia and crossed once more to Algeria, opening here Koran universities, preaching to the people in the open squares of the cities and in the mosques, and gathering everywhere crowds of followers and disciples. When one came to him seeking advice, the holy man required no verbal explanations, as he saw revealed before him the inner soul of his suppliant with all its pains and doubts.
Once a rich man came to the Marabout with the intention of asking his advice as to whether he should divorce his wife or not. The saint was discoursing with his disciples, as the rich man entered the room, and, without waiting for the visitor to speak, raised his hand and recited, in a commanding voice, the well-known verse from the Koran:
"Guard your wife and remain in the fear of God."
"How do you know the purpose of my coming," the astonished visitor exclaimed, "when no one but myself knew what I wanted to ask?"
"As you entered, I saw on your bournous these words of the Holy Writ, which made everything clear to me."
Another time a young girl came to the Wali and threw herself at his feet.
"You seek to find a young and rich husband?" asked Abu Median; and, without waiting for an answer, continued:
"Listen! When you meet a man whom you would like to marry, give him the opportunity to hear your voice and to see your foot. He will know that, if these twain of your hidden charms are beautiful, the others must be beautiful as well. Go and be happy!"
This clear-visioned Wali, sage and teacher was one day summoned to Tlemsen by Sultan Yakub el-Mansur, who wished his guidance upon the important question of the transfer of his capital to Marrakesh. In response to the sultan's call the aged seer set out at once from a neighboring city but died on his way, by the bank of the river Isser. The grieving ruler gave the holy Marabout a magnificent burial close to the mosque in El-Eubbad near Tlemsen.
My wife and I are just before the beautifully carved cypress door of this kubba where the remains of Sidi Choaib ibn Husein el-Andalosi are resting. We pass inside the small court paved with marble and mount the short flight of steps to an onyx colonnade. The kubba itself, which we now enter, is surmounted by a dome and lighted through small leaded windows of colored glass, that flood the silence with a soft, mysterious light. In the farther corner rests the tabout, or sarcophagus, of cypress black with age, as it has stood here through eight centuries. Beautiful gold and silver embroideries all but cover the Marabout's tomb, near which we are shown a smaller sarcophagus, containing the ashes of Sidi Abd es-Selam. Richly decorated banners, the handiwork of women in harems from Bagdad to Sali, hang upon the walls; offerings rest everywhere, silver lamps, candlesticks, boxes, cups, polished ostrich eggs, even animal bones, which I recognized as coming from crocodile skeletons. To the left of the entrance is a well, with a coaming built up about twenty inches above the ground with blocks of onyx as yellow as wax, some of which are deeply cut by the chains which have raised the buckets ever since the twelfth century. The water is clear and cold as it probably comes down from the heights of the Tlemsen range, and is reputed to have healing properties. Though we could not experiment with its therapeutic qualities on ourselves, as we were in the best of health, we did find it most agreeable to the palate, and I drank such quantities of it that a pious Arab, sitting near by, gazed at me, first with astonishment and then with terror, though I took no harm from the cooling draughts.
From the kubba we turn to visit the mosque, above which reaches upward a minaret whose sides are covered with beautiful mosaics. The mosque has an entrance such as I have nowhere seen in this part of Africa. Through a monumental door, studded with bronze ornaments, one enters a vestibule where the mosaics, brilliant tiles, arabesques, inscriptions and the artistic columns supporting the ceiling give evidence not only of the piety, but of the artistic taste, of the sultan who in 1339 erected this house of worship to Allah. A wide flight of stairs, with eleven marble steps, leads down from the vestibule into the court of ablutions, where the ritual basin rises from the center of an onyx pavement, worn soft and smooth by the feet of thousands of worshipers.
To enter the mosque itself we have to pass a carved cedar door of rare beauty. The interior is rich with the most typical forms and ornamentation of the Moorish architecture. The delicate workmanship of the ceiling of the mihrab, or the holy alcove marking the direction of Mecca, fills us with delight. Generally one finds here only the ordinary painted Turkish plaster. We are puzzled by the large, smooth stones which we see tying about all over the carpets on the floor without any sense of design or order, until it is explained to us that these are ritual stones, which are used in the place of water by those who, because of great age or of some infirmity or malady, cannot make the customary ablutions before prayer. Instead they rub their bodies with these stones.
As we left the mosque, accompanied by the warden and his whole family, we met the curate, a young, stout mullah with a pale, thoughtful face, pensive eyes and a raven-black beard, tie made the sign of the salaam and passed on in silence. He was, as we were told by the warden, very learned and was even respected in Fez as a deep theologian and Marabout.
And so in kingly Tlemsen, where at each step we came upon kubbas, mosques, magic trees and other holy places or things, we began our visit by a right and holy deed—a pilgrimage to the tomb of the local patron saint, Sidi Abu Median.
But a few kilometers separate Tlemsen from the unkempt village of El-Eubbad, or Bu Medin. Still the road was long enough to carry us past several kubbas, one of which, our guide told us, is the tomb of the saintly Marabout, El-Tayar, who, when in life, never slept but spent all his time studying the Koran, and who after death received the appellation of "The Flying Saint," as he invariably appeared, when any one called upon his name, and helped the faithful son of Islam.
Near the cemetery, Mohamet ben M'Hammed pointed out to us a large tree, on the branches of which the pious hang modest offerings, consisting of seven small stones tied together on a string, bits of cloth or little tufts of woolen yarn, for the purpose of bringing health to their children. This offering tree reminded me strongly of what I saw in the mountains of Tannu-Ola, Nan-Sharf and Kinghan, where the followers of the Yellow Faith, Lamaism, place their bits of rags and other streamers on the bare branches or tree-trunks sticking out from the obo, or heaps of stones, which these travelers erect as a propitiation and plea to the evil spirits of dangerous regions to allow them to pass in safety.
"O Humanity!" thought I, "your mind, regardless of the form of the skull or the color of the skin, has ever the same characteristics, which compel you to follow the same channels of thought. Perhaps the celebrated Abu Median had some reason to think, with the wise Khel el-Konoun, that the souls of all the human tribe were born at the same time, at the moment of the great creative action of Cosmos, or Allah, and that all were encompassed in their infinite numbers within the person of the first man created, our forefather Adam."
With these thoughts I passed on through the cemetery along a beautiful avenue of dark cypresses to the right and left of which were white Moslem tombs, together with upright and recumbent marble slabs, while at different points among the graves were gathered groups of women, so shrouded in their bournouses that only a single eye gave indication of the face within.
"Today is Thursday, and consequently there are not many women in the cemetery," explained our guide; "but on Friday whole crowds of them come here. They remain among the graves from morning until evening; they eat here, drink their tea and coffee, mourn a little and talk a great deal. Here we have the fountain-source of all the gossip that overspreads western Algeria."
As we were leaving the cemetery, we met a group of women tourists, all dressed and bonneted up to the very last hour of modern fashions and talking as loudly as though each one were giving orders to a squadron of cavalry. Zofiette smiled a bit ironically and repeated the rather frivolous advice of Abu Median to the young girl in quest of a rich husband:
"Let the chosen one hear your voice and see your foot"
"Yes," I exclaimed in fullest sympathy with her mood, "this counsel may have been appropriate for Arab women; but their European cousins often send forth voices which one would prefer not to hear and as frequently allow much to be seen that does not merit display."
"You are not entirely in the right, my dear," protested Zofiette. "See what very pretty feet that nicely formed blonde has!"
I did not want to look, as I felt the whole immensity of anachronism between the silks of the tourists and the venerated kubbas of Abu Median, Lalla Setti, Sidi Merzug and many other Walis. I lost my good humor—and felt hungry. We therefore returned to the hotel for luncheon and, afterward, went out once more into the town.
Our guide took us to the Meshwar, the ancient fortress with its massive walls, which was formerly the dwelling of the Berber potentates, then later that of the Turks. At the time of the Almohade sultans their vice-regents occupied the stronghold; while afterwards, during the dynasty of the Abd el-Wadites, the sultan himself had his residence here. Following this, the Turkish governors used it as their abode. This was the darkest period for Tlemsen, a fact which the poet Benemsaib made to live in his phrase likening the town to a "frog in the mouth of a snake."
At present this abode of rulers is transformed into barracks and commissariat stores for the French troops located in the town. But when one observes the fiery, proud looks of the natives and contemplates the great masonry of the walls and the ancient mosque, one involuntarily lives over in imagination a page in the history of Tlemsen.