“The people in there are different.”
“They’re cut from the same fabric that you and I are, aren’t they?”
“What’s wrong with you and me?”
“You don’t want to know. ... Look, to physically live a comfortable life here on earth, they deceive the people ... the children of the same God they speak of and pretend to love.” I lower my voice and whisper to the inquisitive man, “Let me tell you a secret. Most of these religious leaders, be it Christians, Jews, Hindu, or Muslims, use their beliefs to serve themselves – they are impostors – charlatans”.
“That’s not true!” he objects strongly.
“Then, you seem to be the great buyer of their merchandise, the key to paradise’s gate.” By saying those blunt and cold words, I hope he’ll go away and leave me be with my own thoughts.
“Are you denying the holiness of our Shaykh – the keeper of this mosque?”
“I question his intelligence, his wisdom. He sees God in heaven; I see God in the eyes of men, and I feel Him in the hearts of men. I worship what I can see,” I insist.
“You seem to be a wise man. Come on in and be amongst us, next to God’s men. There will be no harm if they drink a drop or two from the sea of your wisdom,” he persists.
He waits for my reaction, but I’ve nothing to say. He goes on cajoling me, “Come inside. Let’s talk about time in the past, present and eternity. Let’s listen to the discussions of things that are happening in this world and the things that might happen in the next.”
I can’t get rid of him, so I follow him into an enormous praying section of the mosque that looks like a monument, with a high ceiling and hundreds of white marble columns supporting the arches. There is a circle of thirty religious leaders, men from middle-aged to very old, some with masks of sophistication on their faces pretending to appear intelligent. Some are clad in the finest silk clothes that only people in high positions can afford to wear. All sit on a large Persian carpet busy chattering about something. I wonder if any of them have ever worked one day in their lives.
The man who invited me leads me to sit a short distance away from the others. I soon realize that their talk revolves around the works of great men of the past, which is a favorite topic of men who possess no substance, men with no identities or characters of their own.
A man with a long white beard to his chest who has the floor to himself, proclaims, “Omar Khayyâm was the wisest man in all the fields of knowledge known to man.”
Another man announces, “I have read in the book of Four Articles by Arouzi that in 1109, Arouzi, the renowned historian, who was Omar Khayyâm’s student, visited his teacher Omar in a gathering of wise men in the city of Nayshabour when Omar was in his seventies. Arouzi had heard Omar saying, ‘When I die my grave will be covered with flowers every spring.’ Knowing Omar, Arouzi didn’t consider the statement an exaggeration. In the spring of 1123 Arouzi reached the city of Nayshabour. Omar had passed away several years earlier. Out of respect for his guru, Arouzi had decided to visit Omar’s grave in the city’s cemetery. He had difficulty locating the grave but when he turned to his left, near a wall, he saw a grave covered with blossoms from the branches of a pear tree in a nearby orchard. He remembered Omar’s statement as tears roll down his face.”
“Bless his soul, for he’s certainly in heaven now,” another old man says.
“Bless the founder of the Saljogh dynasty for gathering all those men of science and art in their courts,” the third man praises the Sultan.
“Omar could read a book one time in its entirety in the city of Esfahân, memorize it all, and write the same book, word for word, several months later in the city of Balkh, two-thousand miles away,” another white-bearded man praises the dead Khayyâm, whose corpse, I’m certain, would be turning in his grave if he could hear these hollow expressions of admiration for him, being spoken by men who have nothing to offer to their world themselves.
Handling the crisscross of multiple feelings of boredom, restlessness, and anger caused by listening to the hollow chattering of these men who all speak at the same time is very hard for me. I hear their voices merge together and resonate like a flock of vultures fighting over a carcass. It creates stressful sounds that are troubling to my ears and begin to depress me. I can no longer sit and control the rage that is brewing in me. I rise and shout at them, “For how long will you all sit on saddles with no horses, thinking you are riding hard on the same ground that the great men rode? For how long will you all lean against other people’s canes to keep yourself upright? The words you speak here are the perspectives of others, the men of their time, who saw their worlds from their own positions. You are all men of now. What are your secret words of wisdom, what?”
I finish my accusatory questions. Expressing what is in my mind with a voice that I’m sure carries a heavy load of insult I leave the man who invited me in to endure the bewildered stares of the others. Boldly, I gaze at the audience. Except for the Vazir [Sultan’s grand adviser and chief administrator] they all lower their heads in silence. I see no reason for me to remain there anymore for I sense harm is about to come my way. Sure enough, I’m right in my judgment, for as I rush for the door as fast as my legs can carry me, from the corner of my eye I see that the Vazir is up. He has a dagger in his hand that he swings in the air while angrily shouting, “Go after that man and bring the miserable soul to me!”
Two men dash toward me. I bless the people who have crowded the square so that I can disappear among them without a trace, once I’m hurriedly out of the mosque.
I run through several streets and alleys, to make sure no one is pursuing me. I find my way to the safety of the cârevânsarâ, where I have a room, and turn in for the night.
I’m aware that Shahr-e Ray is a city of culture, with learning centers equal to Baghdâd if not better. The next day, I go to a learning center, sit in its lecture hall and hear several men arguing various interpretations of some hadithes [legendary stories], and fatwâs that are erroneously attributed to the Prophet Mohammad or His close relatives. It seems to me that the weight these people give to those hadithes is so heavy on their shoulders that they get stuck in their arguments, as a jackass with a heavy load on his back does in a deep puddle of mud.
They go on presenting hollow arguments, fighting, scratching the surface of each other’s intellects – all nonsense. I studied many hadithes when I was younger. To me, it doesn’t matter one way or the other whether those words mean this or that, for most of these hadithes are baseless and fabricated by some greedy mullah or some wealth-gathering religious leader. I soon become angry and leave. I think if I go into another mosque, I may hear some words of wisdom. I stroll down the street, find a mosque and enter.
I’m in a large prayer hall that is filled with followers of an old mullah. I’ve heard about his great reputation, that he’s a distinguished religious man, knowledgeable in all Islamic laws, who has his own circle of devout followers. In fact, that’s why I’m here, to benefit from the well of his knowledge.
He is groomed to perfection; he wears a long white beard, a silky black chiffon robe, with its edges embroidered in gold, over a white silk shirt. His head is capped with a black turban, perhaps to show his bloodline reaches to the Prophet Mohammad. His fat cheeks and his double bulging chin make him an unattractive man. He has the look of a fat donkey that has been eating well, and most probably from other people’s plates. A question flashes through my mind, From whose backbreaking hard work does this man maintain such a healthy body?” I reply the answer to myself, From those uninformed, misinformed, or simpleminded people who try to purchase their way to paradise from this mullah, not knowing that this man is as lost in his way to paradise as they