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Razzoq-sufi had such power in excess. This man, as a jadid denizen of the city said of him, “was one of those ancient monsters put out for display.” The old woman that shot him from her womb perfectly healthy and swaddled him for the first time was named Hamroh. She had a reputation for jokes and mischief. After swaddling him, she looked at the face of her child, which hadn’t yet been disfigured by manhood, and coddled him with these words: “My dear guest, who has upset you? Who has hurt you? Tell me! Unfurrow your brow! You have come into the bright world! Give thanks! Be happy! Laugh a little! Smile! Grin!”
Razzoq-sufi, who hadn’t laughed then, still has not laughed. There is a big difference between laughing and crying. There is again a great distance between laughing and maintaining quiet gravity. It cannot be said that Razzoq-sufi ever laughed.
He “laughed” in situations where laughter couldn’t be avoided, but his laugh was pained like that of a sick person; it was unpleasant like a cold joke, injurious like false well wishes.
One day Zebi said with a serious face: “Father has never laughed.” As soon as she heard her daughter’s words, Qurvonbibi scolded her. She openly scolded her daughter for speaking the truth, but how many times had Qurvonbibi repeated the same truth to herself in secret? It is easy to speak of someone else’s faults with a sharp tongue, but those who can speak of their own faults with their own tongue are rare, and though Qurvonbibi had a very sharp tongue, she couldn’t count herself among that rare class.
As sharp as her tongue was, Razzoq-sufi was to the same extent a reticent, tight-lipped, boring man who kept to himself. In the outside world, that is the world outside his home, his sole, ever-present task was to answer “yes, yes” to those who were more powerful than he and to shake his head “no, no” to those less powerful. While he was at home, not one word that could be called meaningful, healthy speech which an adult uses around children ever left his lips. He didn’t think it necessary to move his tongue in the presence of womenfolk, and his muteness before his family members was a point of pride. “This tongue,” he told himself, “moves only in remembrance of God. This mouth opens only for God. The mouth and tongue are the dearest and most blessed parts of a believer’s body. Should they really be embarrassed by being used in front of such a low creature as a woman? If they were meant to be used with women, then God on high would have granted dogs speech! No, only the most necessary phrases should be used with women. Those creatures should only be spoken with concerning the most urgent matters and that’s all!”
Every Uzbek man calls his wife—his lawful partner in life—by his daughter or his son’s name. It just won’t do to call his wife by name. If his wife’s name was Maryam and his daughter’s Xadicha, a faithful Muslim wouldn’t bring shame on himself. He would call his wife Xadicha. Most mother-daughter pairs would both answer, “yes, sir!” and the true head of the family would specify: “I mean the elder, the elder!” But he would never say Maryam.
Our Razzoq-sufi, our faithful Muslim didn’t observe this tradition. He always called his lawful partner in life Fitna. “Fitna, bring me my turban!” he would declare. “Fitna, where is your damn daughter?” “Fitna, give me some money!”
Whether she caused havoc in her husband’s life on purpose or it was just her nature, Fitna wasn’t an inaccurate label for Qurvonbibi, who was no stranger to guile and perfidy. Even if she wasn’t all that upset by the fact that her husband didn’t speak a word in front of womenfolk, she suffered from his not speaking to her, and she knew how to use all manners of tricks to coax words from him and even excite his tongue into singing. With one word, she would not just upset her husband: she would enrage him. Just look at how Razzoq-sufi wags his tongue in front of the womenfolk! Oh my!
“They say your elder master is quite upset with you,” Qurvonbibi said to Razzoq-sufi one day.
Razzoq-sufi’s face, normally hard and motionless like a stone, suddenly came to life with various movements and changes.
“What did you say, Fitna? Why was he upset?”
“You flirted with a boy who came to have his braid cut. …”5
That was it! Razzoq-sufi, normally a master of brevity, turned into a preacher.
“Love is of two kinds, Fitna. Don’t speak of what you don’t understand! There is miraculous love, true love.”
Qurvonbibi, not understanding her husband, suddenly became bored.
“Really, is that the case? I didn’t know. I’m the ignoramus,” she said, trying to avoid a long diatribe.
After his wife had turned around and left, Razzoq-sufi quieted down. Suffice it to say, when he became angry, he would talk himself into the grave. And oh, how he would talk!
When Razzoq-sufi was at home, he was usually picking weeds by the creek, locking the door and gates, cutting firewood; or, if not, he would continuously walk inside with his hands behind his back, then outside, then into the courtyard, keeping his mouth sealed shut as if his lips had been stung by bees. In the summer, he normally slept in the afternoon; in the evenings, he lay awake, screaming “idiot!” to himself in a loud voice so that neither his family nor his neighbors could sleep. On those days when his elder master wasn’t present he, according to neighbors, would sit in the cool prayer hall and sleep with great satisfaction. Sometimes the other murids would throw him into the mosque’s pool. When he was at home, he would cool the house, like he did his lodge, lie down, and if he had fallen asleep after the early afternoon prayer, he would just barely wake up in time for dinner, usually to the sound of Qurvonbibi’s screaming. The late afternoon prayer usually fell victim to his naps, for which he heard all kinds of reproaches from his wife. But his tongue wasn’t up to it, and he wouldn’t say a word.
In the winter, he would fall asleep in the evenings. “If I spend the scarce winter daylight sleeping, how will I spend the winter evening that is longer than the Kashgar?6 Sleep is life’s measure!” he told himself.
He shared this philosophy only with worthy and dignified people. His poor family members and womenfolk in general were deprived of this great philosophy, derived from sleep!
If he was in the city, he never spent a night in a place other than his home. At whatever celebration his elder master was, he would come home towards dawn. He rarely went outside the city. Only together with his elder master (only with that one person!) did he go to celebrations, large parties, fruit and melon festivals. While at those events, his bed at home went cold for four to five days. In Qurvonbibi’s words, “he is relaxing,” and in Zebi’s, “he is enjoying himself.” One time, after one celebration dragged out nearly a week, on the sixth day our Razzoq-sufi left for home without asking his master! That left his elder master upset with him for quite some time.
With that in mind, Qurvonbibi pressed him on another occasion.
“Why did you run away from your master after you left together with him? You’ve seen all the respect he is given and received from him an abundance of blessings. Do you have a store in the city that didn’t open on time or a watermill that suddenly stopped?”
Razzoq-sufi was forced to open his blessed mouth and wag his prized tongue in front of the lesser sex.
“Wretched Fitna! Will you let me alone or won’t you already? Ḥubb al-waṭan min al-Īmān, that is, ‘love of home comes